"There's actually precedent for moving things up — it's not impossible." Captain Yan picked up the notes Li Zheng had prepared earlier. "On the way here, I logged into the internal police database and looked into the case file. There are indeed a lot of suspicious details in the case you mentioned."
"There's a lot tied up in this case — it could be hiding a large child-trafficking ring, which is why I'm in a hurry."
"Precisely because this case may involve other things, we need to be more careful." Captain Yan studied the materials Li Zheng had compiled, his fingers unconsciously tapping the desk. "The case file records match what you've described fairly closely, but there's one thing that bothers me — when the suspect was dumped at the police station entrance, he was already completely unconscious. The doctor said he'd suffered extreme psychological trauma..."
Chen Ge already knew where Captain Yan was headed with this. His voice turned cold: "Could be because he killed children. The immense mental pressure every day finally broke his mind."
"So when you caught him, he was already half-mad." Captain Yan added that line to the end of the statement.
"No matter who asks, that's what I'll say, because it's the truth." Chen Ge reacted quickly, immediately understanding what Captain Yan meant.
Captain Yan gave a slight nod, put Chen Ge's statement away, and handed it to Li Zheng. "Bring this along. I need to make a few more calls."
He took out his phone, stepped out of the office, and started dialing.
"Experience counts for a lot." Chen Ge watched Captain Yan's retreating figure and suddenly thought of something.
When talking to other police officers — Li Sanbao, Li Zheng, and the rest — they would frequently cite orders from the city or directives from above whenever they encountered something uncertain. But Captain Yan had never once said anything like that.
Three minutes later, Captain Yan pushed open the office door. "Li Zheng, go get the car. You and I are taking Chen Ge over there."
"Right."
Things went more smoothly than Chen Ge had expected. By eight-thirty that evening, Captain Yan and Li Zheng had brought him to the Dongcheng Detention Center.
After presenting their credentials, they were led by a staff member to a solitary cell.
"Ma Fu is being held in isolation. From the looks of it, he knows he can't escape the death penalty — he's completely snapped, half-mad, half-idiotic." The detention center officer knew exactly why Ma Fu had been locked up; such scum deserved no sympathy whatsoever. "Be careful during the interrogation. People facing death can be unpredictable."
The group stood outside the cell talking when Ma Fu seemed to hear them. Footsteps sounded from inside, followed by frantic pounding on the door.
"Save me! Let me out! They're back! There are ghosts! There are ghosts in here!"
It was a middle-aged man's voice, incoherent, and unbearably loud.
"You get used to it. When he was first brought in, the lunatic wouldn't even cover himself with a blanket, wouldn't wear clothes — slept naked against the wall every night." Even the guard winced at the mention of Ma Fu.
"He wouldn't cover himself with a blanket? Wouldn't wear clothes?" This was the first Li Zheng had heard of such a thing, and he instinctively glanced at Chen Ge.
Chen Ge shook his head slightly without speaking. In truth, he knew perfectly well why Ma Fu had become like this.
That night, after Chen Ge and the phone ghost had tracked Ma Fu down, the phone ghost had used its power on him, dredging up the scene he feared most in the deepest recesses of his heart.
At the stroke of midnight, Ma Fu was lying in bed, deep in sleep, when he felt something moving inside his blanket. Groggily, he peered beneath it and found a deathly grey child staring back at him.
He jolted awake and threw the covers off, only to discover the bedside surrounded by children — every last one of them kids he had trafficked or passed through his hands.