Marvel's whitewashing cop, you want me to save the world?

Chapter 5 Initial Clues to the Culprit

Li En stood at the bathroom door, unconsciously touching her neck with her right hand.

He remembered the reward for that F rating:

[Rookie police officer's driving skills +1, shooting accuracy +1.]

What good is this little bit of power against a killer with superpowers?

not enough.

We must first find out who the other party is.

He walked to the toilet and lifted the porcelain lid of the tank.

The inner wall was smooth, and several blue fragments left after the cleaning tablets dissolved were found at the bottom of the water.

There were no plastic bags, and no sealed boxes.

Put the lid down and squat down.

The cabinet door under the sink was opened, revealing a ring of dust at the junction of the pipe bend and the wall.

A nearly empty bottle of drain cleaner lay horizontally inside; after the liquid dried, a layer of gelatinous substance formed at the bottom of the bottle.

He brought over a stepladder and pushed aside the aluminum ceiling panels in the bathroom.

The beam of the flashlight swept across the gap between the floor slab and the ceiling, revealing cables, insulation cotton, and dusty pieces of plasterboard.

The light spots fell on each corner in turn, stayed there, and then moved away.

There was nothing there.

He climbed down the ladder and stood still, the beam of his flashlight shining on the floor tiles.

That's not right.

Or perhaps, the information is hidden in a place that you might pass by every day and not even glance at.

Kneel on the ground, clench your fist, and tap the floor tiles with your knuckles.

Click, click, click.

The sound is solid, dull, and lacks resonance.

Starting from the bathroom door, tap every other brick once, move horizontally, and then move on to the next row.

The area behind the toilet, under the sink, and in the corner seams of the walls should all be covered.

He tapped every inch of the bathroom floor tiles, then stood up and stretched his wrists.

There was nothing there.

Li En stood in the center of the bathroom, slowly looking around the entire space.

Starting from the entrance, tracing back:

The living room contained only a folding table and a chair; the walls were bare, with no hidden compartments for concealing anything.

The bedroom has one bed and one wardrobe. The wardrobe has been checked and there are no hidden compartments. There is only a thin layer of dust under the bed.

All that's left is this bathroom.

This apartment has only one bedroom, one living room, one kitchen, and one bathroom; it doesn't even have a proper stove.

The space is forty or fifty square meters, and we've searched every possible hiding place.

and many more.

Fifty square meters?

He opened the bathroom door, pressed his back against the hallway wall, and looked from the doorway towards the end of the bedroom.

It looks to be about thirty square meters.

This number doesn't match the area.

He pushed open the door and walked into the public corridor.

Room 301 faces the stairwell, and the window at the end of the corridor is just three steps to the right.

The window was opened, and a cold draft rushed in.

Peeking out, I scanned the exterior wall with my eyes.

The small window in the bathroom overlooks the street, about two meters from the corner of the outer wall.

The window of room 302 next door was further away, the curtains were drawn, and the faint sound of an old lady coughing could be heard from inside.

There are no issues with the vertical direction.

In other words, the problem lies in the horizontal width.

Pull your body back, press your back against the corridor wall, bring your feet together, and take a step.

Each step is approximately 80 centimeters.

IV, V, VI.

I walked to the bathroom door in six steps.

He went back into the room, closed the door, and started measuring the width again from the innermost corner of the bedroom.

Same stride, same rhythm.

Five and a half steps.

The bathroom is on the right side of the corridor, and its width is estimated to be no more than two meters.

Lay these numbers out in your mind:

The total width is six steps, the bedroom depth is five and a half steps, and the bathroom width is less than two meters.

Where did the remaining space go?

More than ten square meters disappeared from this apartment.

The other side of the wall of the bedroom is right next to room 302.

The old lady's cough was still very clear when it came through that wall.

If the darkroom were hidden there, the sound of a cough would first pass through the air layer of the darkroom, and then through the two walls, so the sound reaching the ear would never be so clear.

exclude.

Only one direction remains.

bathroom.

He stepped back into the bathroom, and this time his perspective had completely changed.

I used to think it was just a little narrow, but now I realize that the width is completely unreasonable.

From the edge of the sink to the outside of the toilet, it's so narrow that even turning around is difficult.

He just searched for "above" and "below".

That vanished space is neither above your head nor below your feet.

He reached out to the wall, bent his index finger, and tapped it with his knuckles.

The first tile is solid.

Move it 15 centimeters to the right, and it's solid.

Go further to the right.

The dull, solid echo suddenly became softer.

Two sounds.

Slightly crisp, with a hollow ending sound.

Located at the far end of the room, behind the toilet, at the seam where it meets the wall, is a white glazed wall tile that is indistinguishable from the surrounding tiles.

Place your palm on it, and slowly slide your fingertips along the grout lines of the tiles.

At the innermost seam, the fingernail dug into the gap.

It doesn't have the texture of cement filled with grout.

It's empty.

He withdrew his hand, spread his fingers, pushed against the left side of the wall, and then pushed to the right.

The tile surface slowly sank, and with a slight sliding sound, a passage less than a meter wide appeared on the wall.

The movement of the wall panel is hidden behind the original tile grout lines, and the space inside is revealed when it is pushed open.

At the same time, lights came on overhead.

Cool white light streamed down from the light strips at the top of the corridor, illuminating the interior.

Li En went inside.

The dark room was about ten square meters in size and long and narrow, like a compressed corridor.

On the right-hand side, against the exterior wall, is a huge map-themed visual wall that stretches from the entrance all the way to the end of the room.

He slowed his pace and started looking from the far left.

Arkansas.

Five photos were pinned below the map.

At the top is a family photo, with the parents and two daughters standing in front of a white fence, smiling without any reservations.

Below are four separate photos taken in different years, ranging from ropes on trees in the courtyard to belts on the beams of the bedroom.

His gaze shifted to the right.

Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, traversing most of the United States, all the way to New York State on the far right.

Each state I visited yielded an additional set of photos.

Each group should include at least five victims, along with corresponding newspaper clippings.

All the cause of death entries listed the same word: suicide.

The women in the photos have varying degrees of signs of assault, as do the men.

The wound was circled in red on the photo, with a summary of the autopsy report next to it.

What's most appalling is that all of these are family units.

One household, five households, twelve households.

A dark red line connects these states, eventually ending in Manhattan, New York City.

The predecessor spent a considerable amount of time painstakingly piecing together the death trajectory that spanned multiple states from piles of newspapers and police files.

After looking at the entire wall, Li En remained silent for a moment, then reached out and began to memorize the order of the suffering of those families, starting from Arkansas on the far left.

Then he walked to the small wooden table at the end, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

A stack of documents lay on the table, the covers of which were made of kraft paper and the edges were worn and frayed.

He opened it.

All of them are investigation reports about the deaths of family members.

His parents and sister were killed while he was traveling alone in Maine.

Five days before his suicide: His mother called to ask if his trip with his friends went well.

He was standing under the Portland lighthouse when the sea breeze was strong, and his mother's voice on the other end of the phone was broken and intermittent by the wind.

Three days before the suicide: My sister called and said she wanted a blue, hand-woven headband from Maine.

The day before the suicide: The father called and talked about the new barbecue grill he had bought in the backyard. He said that when he came back, they could have a family barbecue. He had marinated the steak and chicken wings.

The first day back: The bodies of three family members lay on the concrete ground beneath an old apartment building in Manhattan.

When the police arrived, his body was already stiff, and his skin was covered with marks left by torture.

The marks from the binding of his wrists and ankles, to the cuts and burns on his body, were evenly distributed.

The cause of death was a fall from a height.

The police concluded that the mother and daughter jumped from the building due to domestic violence by the father, and then committed suicide out of guilt.

Close the folder and put it back on the desktop, then open the drawer.

It was filled with even more files:

A copy of the autopsy report, a photocopy of the police investigation record, a comparison table of several similar cases from different states, and a handwritten analysis of the suspect's behavioral patterns.

He flipped through the pages, extracting the key information and listing it in his mind.

After reading everything, I leaned back in my chair.

My gaze fell on the profile drawn based on criminal psychology at the end of the thought wall.

The drawing is hasty and the lines are crude.

With sharp teeth and a curved horn on its head, it is the very image of a demon.

We can't blame the predecessor.

After losing all his family members, he spent several years investigating the case. Every time he discovered a new victim family, his mental state would break down.

When more and more evidence accumulates, but the suspect's outline remains elusive, a breakdown is almost inevitable.

Drawing a demon to name the unseen killer is the only thing left to do.

but……

In the world of superheroes, it seems that demons really do exist.

Things like hell and demons are not fictional.

If the opponent is at that level, how should he deal with it?

Li En considered this thought for a moment, then withdrew it two seconds later.

The devil wants souls.

Evil spirits don't operate so cleanly.

All the deaths depicted on this wall are examples of manipulating human suicide, done with precision, meticulousness, and a strong element of personal amusement.

They are not gods or demons, but humans.

A person who has the ability to manipulate the will of others.

He pulled a piece of white paper from the corner of the table and picked up a pen.

Although the documents left by the predecessor are incomplete, the basic framework is clear:

All the victims came from families. Each family had lived a normal life for a period of time before the suicides, and then suddenly one day, it was as if the same hand had flipped a switch, leading the whole family to their deaths at the same time.

The man struck first.

The husband killed his wife and children, then committed suicide.

This is a narrative template that the police have repeatedly used in multiple case closure reports.

When you look at cases from more than a dozen states together, the template falls apart.

The first people the controllers invaded were the men in the house.

She made her husband watch her harm his wife and children, and finally ended her own life.

Throughout the entire process, the probability of the victim remaining conscious is extremely high.

Li En closed his eyes, letting the descriptions in the autopsy reports reassemble in his mind.

Slowly, a blurry human figure emerged from the fragments.

The man was tall and thin, so tall that he would be more than half a head taller than the people around him when he stood in a crowd. That height alone was enough to create a sense of physical oppression.

These people are natural predators.

The city is his hunting ground, and the people moving through the streets are merely his prey.

Li En stopped writing at this point.

He heard another muffled thud from a distance outside the window.

It wasn't the sound of gunfire; it sounded more like a trash can being kicked over.

He waited a few seconds, listened carefully, and confirmed that there was no further response.

He lowered his head again, picked up the pen, and quickly sketched on the paper.

The lines are much cleaner than those in a profile portrait; there are no sharp teeth or curved angles.

He paused when he got to the facial contours.

Then there are the eyes.

That space was left blank.

He put down his pen and examined the results on the paper.

The figure is tall and slender with moderately broad shoulders and relatively long limbs. When standing, the center of gravity leans slightly backward.

A dark-colored high-necked top, with the neckline partially covering the neck; the design is simple and there are no brand logos.

The area where the eyes should be is now blank.

But he knew what kind of look should fill that space.

From a top-down perspective, the object being observed is merely indifferent and nonchalant, capable of taking any life at any moment.

The eyes of the plunderers.

There is no possibility of confusing such people with the blue-collar workers, vendors, and homeless people crammed onto Eighth Avenue to make a living.

Li En stood up.

These profiles alone are not enough to pinpoint a specific identity.

At least, he now has the characteristics of the target that he should pay attention to.

In Hell's Kitchen, there are never many people who swagger around and act arrogantly.

Most villains choose to hide in the shadows.

This one won't.

Now, go and rest.

He neatly stacked the desktop files and documents in the drawer and put them back in their original places before turning and walking out of the dark room.

Push the movable wall panel up, and the tile joints will close again, restoring the wall to its original state before you walked in, leaving no trace.

I went back to the bedroom and closed the window.

The curtains were drawn, blocking out the streetlights.

He took the Glock out of its holster, checked the safety, made sure the magazine was full, and placed it under his pillow.

Lie on your back with the back of your head sinking into the pillow.

No sunlight can get in.

The room was quiet.

He closed his eyes, his breathing gradually slowed, and he drifted off to sleep.

boom! boom! boom!

Three sharp gunshots rang out.

Li En instantly pulled a pistol from under his pillow and quickly scanned his surroundings.

The room remained dark, and the gunshots were coming from the street below.

He avoided the angle of the shot from the window, walked to the window, reached out and pulled up a corner to look down.

There were homeless people warming themselves by fires on the street, vehicles passing by from time to time, and a drunk man urinating on a street corner.

It seemed that no one reacted to the gunshot.

He observed from the window for a few more minutes, but no police cars have arrived yet.

It seems no one has reported it.

He drew the curtains, intending to fall back asleep, but after waking up, he found it difficult to go back to sleep.

After thinking about it, I simply went to the kitchen sink, filled a glass with water, and drank it.

Just as he swallowed the water, there were two knocks at the door.

dong dong.

A knock sounded on the door, followed by an elderly voice.

"Li En, you're still awake, aren't you?"

Li En held a Glock pistol against the door with his left hand and turned the doorknob with his right.

A wrinkled face with blond hair came into view.

He blurted out instantly, "Mrs. Hudson."

This is Mrs. Hudson, the landlady; she manages all the rooms on this floor.

Mrs. Hudson was quite old, well into her sixties, but she was in very good health.

With a friendly smile, he said, "Li En, there are only three days left until rent is due."

The thought of the small change in Li En's wallet instantly came to mind.

The rent here is paid weekly, 200 a week. The little money I have in my pocket is barely enough to cover food.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Hudson, I will pay on time."

"No, I'm not here to collect your rent," Mrs. Hudson said gently, shaking her head and smiling as she continued:

"If you have any financial difficulties, you can come to me."

After saying that, Mrs. Hudson walked toward the room at the end of the corridor.

Li En silently closed the door.

What does the landlady mean by this?

……