Pursuing the Culprit
Vroom!
The electric bike sped along the highway. Wen Yiqian sat on the back seat, heavy rain pelting his body, soaking through his thin clothes and biting at his skin.
“Officer, do you think I’ll get on TV when we catch the criminal?”
The one driving the electric bike was a lean young man, his face full of excitement.
Helping the police catch a criminal: this was the kind of scene you only saw on TV. Now that he had encountered it, how could he not be thrilled?
“Not only will you get on TV, but I guarantee you’ll receive an Outstanding Citizen Award!”
Wen Yiqian cupped his hands over his eyes to shield them from the rain, squinting as he stared intently ahead.
He kept up the act, but his gaze never left the taxi in the distance for even a moment.
In the situation just now, he’d had no choice but to persuade a passerby on an electric bike to follow first.
If he had called the police, by the time they located the taxi, the old woman and the little girl would have long since turned into two cold corpses.
If he wasn’t mistaken, that taxi driver was a deranged serial killer he had written into his book.
Although Wen Yiqian never wrote outlines, he was extremely skilled at the most basic technique of “leaving plot threads hanging.”
That guy was one of the plot threads he had left in his book, only briefly mentioned earlier to pique readers’ curiosity.
As for when he would resolve this thread, it entirely depended on when Wen Yiqian remembered there was such a character.
He had never imagined that leaving a plot thread unresolved could have such terrifying consequences.
It was all karma.
Wen Yiqian racked his brain, trying to recall information about that guy.
Tian Buyi, male, around forty years old.
As a child, he was thin, weak, cowardly, and often bullied.
Over time, his mind gradually twisted, coming to see the strong preying on the weak as the natural order of things.
He preferred to hunt the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled while posing as a taxi driver.
To date, he had committed three crimes and remained at large.
When committing crimes, he loved wearing a red mask. As a child, he had sustained a burn scar on his neck, which he covered with a tattoo. He often had a cartoon smiley face sticker on the back of his right hand.
This character had barely a page of backstory in the book: a pure psychopath, nothing more.
Yet it was precisely this kind of person that frightened Wen Yiqian the most.
Because he knew very well that if he lost track of them, the chance of the killer showing mercy and letting them go was zero.
“Go faster!” Wen Yiqian urged anxiously.
He knew very well that once the psychopath drove to a remote, deserted place, it would be dangerous.
Committing a crime in the city center carried a high risk of exposure, so he wouldn’t make his move until he was somewhere safer.
As long as they could intercept the car within a safe area, there was a good chance of rescuing the passengers unharmed.
“This is already the fastest, Officer!” the lean young man replied helplessly.
Wen Yiqian wiped the rainwater from his face. There was no other option now. He could only hope for a stroke of luck.
If they hit a few red lights, they could easily catch up.
If it was all green lights and smooth sailing, then they’d be in big trouble.
Luck, for once, seemed to be on his side, as he soon saw the taxi stopped in the distance.
A red light had arrived.
“It’s stopped, it’s stopped!”
The lean young man, his expression agitated, gripped the throttle tightly and sped toward the car at full speed.
Just then, something unexpected happened.
With only a few dozen meters left to the taxi, perhaps due to his overwhelming excitement, the lean young man’s hand trembled, causing the electric bike to wobble and tip over.
Wen Yiqian fell to the ground, thankfully walking away with only a few scrapes.
Though the pain was sharp and stinging, he had no time to dwell on it. Scrambling to his feet, he rushed toward the taxi as fast as he could.
However, when he was just a few meters away from the taxi, his expression froze and his pace slowed.
The license plate number was different from before.
Earlier, when Wen Yiqian had sensed something off about the taxi driver, he had memorized the license plate number.
Such an important detail: he was certain he hadn’t misremembered.
The license plate number of the taxi before him was completely different from the one in his memory.
Approaching the car, Wen Yiqian met the taxi driver’s gaze, which looked at him as if he were insane. His heart sank, and his face turned deathly pale.
It was nighttime, and with the heavy rain pouring down, his eyes weren’t radar. How could he have kept the taxi in sight the whole time?
In truth, he had lost it long ago.
For the first time, Wen Yiqian hated rainy days with every fiber of his being.
“How is it? Officer, did you find it?” The lean young man limped over, cautiously asking as he took in Wen Yiqian’s despondent expression.
Wen Yiqian bit his lower lip hard, saying nothing.
If that grandmother and granddaughter died at the hands of that psychopath, he would never be able to forgive himself.
He slapped his cheeks forcefully, trying to snap himself back to clarity.
The more critical the moment, the calmer he needed to be. It was far from time to give up.
Details about Tian Buyi kept flashing through his mind.
“Lend me your phone.”
Wen Yiqian hurriedly led the lean young man under the eaves of a nearby building to take shelter from the rain.
“Officer, did your phone break when you fell just now?” The lean young man pulled his phone from his pocket, wearing an apologetic expression. “Sorry, I was too excited earlier, which caused the crash.”
Wen Yiqian took the phone without further explanation, glancing at the other’s limping left leg. “Is your leg okay?”
“It got bumped during the crash, but it should be fine,” the lean young man replied with a carefree smile.
Wen Yiqian patted his shoulder apologetically. If not for him, the young man wouldn’t have been dragged into this mess.
But he knew all too well that there was no time to waste.
At his signal, the lean young man opened a map app on his phone, pulling up a map of Ditan City.
“That guy isn’t a high-intelligence criminal, and he doesn’t have firearms: only weapons like daggers. His methods are crude, but he makes up for it with extreme caution.”
“He couldn’t have driven straight out of the city with the grandmother and granddaughter. If he had, they might have sensed something was wrong halfway.”
“So he must have first found a place to subdue them: maybe using an excuse like a stomachache or needing to use the restroom, and driven to a relatively secluded spot.”
“That place couldn’t be too far, or it would still arouse the passengers’ suspicion.”
“And it had to be free of surveillance cameras, ensuring no one would witness the crime.”
“So where could that place be?”
Wen Yiqian kept scrolling through the nearby map.
“Officer, what are you looking for?” The lean young man looked puzzled. “I live nearby. I know this area very well.”
“Is there anywhere around here without surveillance cameras, and basically no one around at this time?” Wen Yiqian’s eyes lit up as he asked urgently.
(End of Chapter)