"Get in there and stay put."
Chen Ge climbed into the police car with his chicken and cat tucked under his arms. From the officer's tone, he could tell this time things might actually be serious.
"Thank goodness, you're okay." There was already someone sitting in the back seat. His face was tense, and his voice sounded oddly familiar.
"Liu Dao? What are you doing here too? Did you call the police?" Chen Ge settled into the police car with a strange sense of familiarity, as though he were coming home. Far from nervous, he was actually starting to feel sleepy. "Also, why was my stream shut down? What was the peak viewer count tonight? My follower count jumped by another hundred and fifty thousand."
"You're still thinking about your stream?" Liu Dao grabbed Chen Ge's arm. "Bro, didn't you say the people in that asylum were all stunt actors from your haunted house? I even confidently assured the police on your behalf! You're throwing me right into the fire!"
"There really are employees from my haunted house inside the asylum — you just didn't see them." Chen Ge felt perfectly justified. For this stream, he had brought the Pen Spirit, Little Little, and the white cat along.
"I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying—" Liu Dao's face twisted bitterly. "Forget it. I should have thought it through more carefully. In reality, a lot of viewers got tricked by you too."
"What are you talking about? I don't follow." Chen Ge reached out to pat the white cat's head, only to receive several vicious glares for his trouble.
Liu Dao spread his hands helplessly. "Under normal circumstances, when someone walks into a mental hospital in the dead of night, sees victims locked in iron cages, and watches a killer approaching with an axe — wouldn't the natural reaction be fear?"
"Sure, fear is a perfectly normal psychological response."
"But the problem is, you were chasing that killer around with a giant hammer, leaping up and down the halls for over twenty minutes! Anyone watching would think it was a rehearsed skit!" Liu Dao's composure was cracking. "I've been in the live-streaming business for three or four years, and I swear I never believed anyone would dare chase a real killer like that! Weren't you afraid? Is there iron in your head?"
"It wasn't that dramatic. I was acting in defense of others," Chen Ge repeated earnestly. "Honestly, I have a very strong sense of justice. When I saw those victims suffering so much, my anger overpowered my fear, and that's why I chased the killer."
His voice was loud enough that the two officers in the front seat could hear every word.
"It doesn't matter now. My fault for being sheltered — I should have called the police earlier." Liu Dao pressed his fingers against his temples. "People started reporting the stream the moment you went live. I assumed it was Qin Guang's people causing trouble, so I didn't pay attention."
"Later, when your viewer count climbed past four hundred thousand, some people in the chat started calling for the police again. I had my people suppress it."
"Then your viewership broke six hundred thousand, shattering the platform's record for a new streamer. That's when I started getting a really bad feeling. You were shouting at thin air and swinging your blade like crazy. I thought you were just putting on a show, and greed got the better of me, so I kept pushing Sister Li and the others to keep streaming."
"It wasn't until you entered one of the wards and the stream suddenly went dark that I realized something had actually gone wrong. I called the police right away."
A trace of relief crept into his voice. "Anyway, whatever — the important thing is no one got hurt."
Liu Dao let out a long sigh, fished a small bottle of pills from his jacket, opened it, and swallowed two.
"What's that?"
"Quick-acting heart pills. Please stop talking to me. It's my first time in a police car, and I'd like to sit here alone for a bit."
At the city branch bureau, Chen Ge and Liu Dao were each placed in separate interrogation rooms.
The police began questioning them about the specific sequence of events and every detail of the case.
Chen Ge stuck firmly to his story: he had stumbled upon the suspect's plot by accident, and to protect the victims, he had been forced to fight back.
The entire incident had been live-streamed, so the fallout was inevitable.
What put the police in a difficult position was that all the evidence confirmed Chen Ge was indeed a victim — but this "victim" had chased the killer through the building swinging a hammer. The whole scene was simply suffocating.