Chapter 978: Yang Qi and Tang Jia, the Fourth Paid Assassination

He said, “Heh, I have good news for you. You won’t need to make that suggestion to me anymore.

“Soon, you’ll have several new colleagues.”

The Long-haired Beauty’s eyes lit up. “Several? That’s wonderful.

“I wonder, will these new colleagues be men or women?”

Iron Axe said, “They’re all women, beautiful just like you.”

The Long-haired Beauty was quite excited. With more people to share the shifts, she wouldn’t have to stay up all night every day.

Iron Axe asked if she had anything else to discuss.

She said she didn’t.

Iron Axe waved her away.

After the Long-haired Beauty left,

Iron Axe rubbed his bleary eyes and pulled a medicine bottle from the drawer of the desk in front of him. After taking a pill, he closed his eyes and sat in his chair with his hands pressed together, as if preparing to sleep.

A little after two in the morning that day, Jiang Ran woke up in his bedroom.

When he awoke, he found himself covered in injuries.

However, things were completely different from before.

Although he felt pain all over this time, when he looked in the floor-length mirror, he saw that he had already been to the hospital and had his wounds bandaged.

White gauze covered him everywhere, making him look like a mummy.

At least he wouldn’t have to go to the hospital himself.

This time, his memories only lasted until the tall black man dragged him off to play football. He couldn’t remember anything after that.

“Hiss…”

He checked the time. It was the middle of the night. Then he looked outside.

It was pitch black.

Sleepiness washed over him, and Jiang Ran fell onto the bed and went straight to sleep.

The result of the fourth day’s paid assassination in the live stream had already been announced.

The target was a resident named Ling Feng, who had appeared on camera frequently lately.

His temperament was much like Manager Wu Wen’s.

The bounty for this paid assassination was over a million.

When the result was announced, Ling Feng was asleep at home.

After waking up a little after five in the morning, he lay in bed and looked at the message on his phone.

He sank into thought. “Yang Qi…”

The message included Yang Qi’s photo and apartment number.

Ling Feng had been willing to kill Brother Cao and his gang on Manager Wu Meiling’s orders for ten thousand per person. Of course he would take this job with its million-yuan bounty.

So, a little after six, he went out and headed to the first floor. The management office was empty.

He found the spare key and went straight up to Yang Qi’s apartment.

Yang Qi’s home was very clean, and the air didn’t smell unpleasant.

Ling Feng figured Yang Qi was probably in the bedroom. Young people usually liked to sleep in, but the bed was neatly made, with the sheets and blanket smoothed flat and the quilt folded into a neat square.

He searched the apartment, but Yang Qi wasn’t there.

Ling Feng left Yang Qi’s home for the time being.

Yang Qi had woken up a little after five that morning.

After getting up and washing, he went to the apartment gym for a workout. When he returned, he showered, ate breakfast, and headed to work.

He spent the whole morning delivering packages.

At noon, he rode the three-wheeled delivery cart to the Nancheng City Police Station.

He had come because the Nancheng City police had contacted him.

Tang Jia had specifically asked to see him.

The police knew Yang Qi because they knew he was the one who had reported Tang Jia.

But they had never told Tang Jia that anyone had reported him, or who the informant was.

That was why the police found it very strange that Tang Jia wanted to see Yang Qi.

At last, the two met in an interrogation room at the police station, with two officers accompanying them.

Now, Yang Qi and Tang Jia sat facing each other. The childhood friends who had grown up together in the orphanage had ultimately ended up on different paths in life.

“You were the one who reported me to the police, weren’t you?”

Tang Jia spoke first. He leaned back against the chair, looking completely relaxed.

But the handcuffs on his wrists were a constant reminder to him and those around him that his freedom was only an illusion.

Yang Qi asked, “How did you know?”

He didn’t deny it.

He was willing to own what he had done.

Tang Jia said, “You thought you’d slipped into my home without a trace and covered your tracks perfectly. But I’d already found out before I even went home.”

Yang Qi asked, “How did you find out?”

Tang Jia said, “Don’t forget who taught you to install pinhole cameras.”

Yang Qi’s pupils contracted slightly. In an instant, he understood.

Tang Jia had definitely installed cameras in his own home. That meant Yang Qi’s supposedly flawless break-in, when he searched Tang Jia’s home, read his diary, and installed pinhole cameras, had all been exposed right under Tang Jia’s nose!

“Then why did you…”

His expression grew extremely complicated. He couldn’t understand why, if Tang Jia had known all along, he had still done those things in front of the cameras.

And why had he left behind the diary, the crucial piece of evidence?

Tang Jia turned his head and looked at the wall of the interrogation room beside him.

The blue wall calmed his emotions and settled his mind.

“The pressure became too much. I know what I did was outrageous and wrong.

“But I couldn’t control myself anymore.

“I could feel that if you hadn’t reported me this time and I’d continued hiding, it wouldn’t have been long before I raped and killed someone again. So I needed you to report me. I gave you the evidence.

“And you didn’t disappoint me. Even though we grew up together and were close friends, you were still able to put justice before family and report me.”

The two officers beside them had investigated Tang Jia’s life. Naturally, they knew about his time in the orphanage and his childhood friend, the informant, Yang Qi.

Hearing him say this now, both officers lowered their heads in thought.

If they had been in Yang Qi’s shoes, and learned that the friend they had grown up with was the culprit behind Nancheng City’s serial rape-murder case, would they have been able to put justice before friendship and report him?

“Yang Qi, I figure I’m not going to make it out of this alive.”

Tang Jia lowered his head. His expression was sorrowful and self-mocking.

“These past few days, I’ve kept thinking about one question.

“My girlfriend dumped me for a rich man. That sort of thing happens all over the world.

“So many people have gone through it.

“Why can they get past it and go on living their lives?

“Why did I end up doing something like this?”

There were surveillance cameras in the interrogation room.

The chief of the Nancheng City Police Station was watching the scene.

He saw that Tang Jia had actually come to regret what he had done, and was quick to draw inferences. He found it rather unusual.

After all, in the days that followed, besides Professor Jiang and Zhou Wu, there were also various other professionals in the field of criminology.

Among them was a professor like the foreign professor Professor Jiang had mentioned, someone who studied the brains of deranged criminals and serial killers.

They took brain scans of Tang Jia, and the images were later sent to professional organizations overseas.

They also confirmed that Tang Jia’s brain was indeed very similar, even identical, to those of deranged criminals and serial killers.

In other words,

Tang Jia’s ability to commit serial rapes and murders fit the conditions Professor Jiang had described.

First, an unhappy childhood. He was an orphan who grew up in an orphanage, without parents, in a poor environment.

Orphans often had psychological problems.

Second, he had suffered the intense shock of being betrayed by his girlfriend.

Of course, most people with those two factors still wouldn’t go as far as Tang Jia did.

Third, Tang Jia’s brain structure and makeup were those of a deranged criminal, a serial killer.

So, the first two factors, combined with the third, had made Tang Jia what he was now.