Chapter 228: What I Truly Want

As he spoke, tears welled up in the killer’s eyes. But they weren’t tears of grief—he cried because, strangely enough, he was happy.

These twelve bowls were rough and plain, and even the zodiac animals painted on them looked sloppy. Yet because of these bowls, eight people had already died. None of them had known why they were killed when it happened.

A thought struck me—a crucial one. Why did the killer post those three stories online? If his goal was just to tell the other personalities inside him, he could have written them on paper. I’d seen clearly in this short time that the personalities inside this killer could talk to each other anyway.

So wasn’t this just overkill?

And all of this was set up by that uncle personality, but—why? He was smart enough to know that anyone who found those stories would take this case seriously. Why draw attention to himself? If we hadn’t gotten involved, the killer probably would have made off with all these bowls already.

A chill crept over me. I had a bad feeling there was more to this case than we realized. Questions crowded my mind. I wanted desperately to find that uncle personality again. I turned and glanced at the killer, who had already picked up the paper and pen he’d set aside earlier. Quietly, he started drawing.

He was about one-seventy tall, maybe twenty years old, but the way he moved was just like a little girl. He pouted, kneeling on the floor, sketchpad propped on the desk, humming to himself as he started to draw. He looked perfectly content. Watching him, the urge to call out for the uncle personality faded from my heart.

All I could hear was the soft scratch of pencil on paper. The rest of the world had fallen completely silent.

I stood up and watched the killer draw from behind. He was talented—I could see that if he wanted to, he could paint something much better than the images on the bowls. But he didn’t care about making his drawings beautiful. He was painstaking and deliberate, matching every line on the bowl.

When he finished one, he didn’t get up—he just scooted across the ground to the next.

He was focused, as if, once he completed all twelve drawings, his mother would magically return for him.

But both I and all the other personalities in his mind knew that was impossible. For fifteen years, he’d clung to a dream that could never come true. At least, he was stuck at the beginning, never moving on. But the others, they’d been forced to keep him company, trapped by this hopeless mission for all those years.

Now, finally, it was coming to an end.

All I had on me was that sanitation worker’s uniform from earlier, nothing else. Not even that tiny cell phone—I had no idea where it went. Time ticked by, second by second. I glanced at the killer’s watch. It was six o’clock, and he was halfway done.

I was starting to worry. At this rate, he’d finish by seven. But if the drawings were done at seven, it would take more time for the other personalities to show up, and even more for me to notify Gu Chen and the others. We’d need time to find this place too. That meant he’d need to finish all twelve by six-thirty at the latest.

But I knew he’d never be able to finish at this speed.

A vision flashed through my mind: deep underground, pitch black, Guan Zengbin was tied to a bed all alone. There was no sound at all—well, maybe the faint scrabbling of rats or bugs somewhere in the dark. The camera had stopped snapping pictures, the flash never firing again. No matter how loud she screamed, no one could hear.

It was almost like being buried alive—isolated, helpless. The chill of early morning crept in, and Guan Zengbin didn’t have a stitch of clothing. The cold gnawed at every inch of her skin until she was covered in goosebumps.

The bed she lay on slowly pressed inward, as some machine ran automatically. Guan Zengbin was caught in the middle, like a chopstick about to snap in half. No one could stand something like that.

She was so afraid of the dark—she must have been on the verge of breaking.

Just thinking about it filled me with a painful emotion I could barely describe. In my whole life, I’d only ever felt this way for two people: Guan Zengbin, and Zhao Mingkun. The two of them were mortal enemies.

I had no idea what this feeling was called, but I knew, if it meant I could trade my life for her safety, I would.

All I could do now was hope that Gu Chen had found this place ahead of me. Wu Xiufen, after all, had built the community center to hide the real secret—a hidden underground space made of red brick and cement. That meant this place had to be somewhere under Xingdong Village. Even if they had to dig three meters down, they had to find Guan Zengbin.

It was still quiet, until a faint horn sounded in the distance, brushing past my ear. I glanced at the killer. He kept drawing, as if he hadn’t heard a thing. But I recognized it. I’d heard that sound every morning and every night.

I just didn’t know if that car was passing by or if someone was already searching the area. We were still underground—the signal was blocked. But Team Leader Li would definitely investigate the last signal location. It was probably him searching out there right now.

It was half past six. The killer was still working carefully, every stroke on his last drawings nearly identical to the originals. He had all the time in the world—but I was quickly running out.

Only one bowl left. Six forty.

My anxiety surged, but the killer was already fully absorbed. If I interrupted now, he might snap and try to kill me. If that happened, Yama could appear, and then neither Guan Zengbin nor I would make it out alive.

But if I stayed silent, he’d finish by seven. By then, Guan Zengbin might already be stabbed by her own knife. Even if she lasted twenty more minutes, the medical care in Xingdong Village wouldn’t be enough. If she was seriously hurt, she’d be in real danger.

I was down to two choices: try to get the main personality to tell me where Guan Zengbin was, or wait for the uncle personality to return after the drawings were finished.

If I picked the first, there were two possible outcomes: the little girl could give me the answer—or Yama could show up and kill me.

If I chose the second option, it was also a gamble. The killer could finish, give me the address, and Guan Zengbin would be safe. Or he’d finish, give me the address, and she would already be dead.

Four possible outcomes—every single one utterly uncertain. No matter what I chose, Guan Zengbin’s fate was a coin flip. It was a tough decision. But I’d never been the type to leave my fate up to luck. I wanted the truth from the little girl’s mouth, and I wanted to tell Gu Chen before seven.

“Little sister,” I finally spoke.

I wasn’t sure if my voice scared the little girl who was finishing the last bowl, but her hand suddenly trembled. She snatched up the bowl and smashed it straight onto the floor. It was the rooster bowl—the one with the tracker. Now it shattered into a pile of jagged bits on the ground.

For a moment, time seemed to freeze. I’d imagined four outcomes, but never this one. I never expected the bowl would actually break like this.

Instinctively, I blurted out, “I… I didn’t mean to scare you.”

But as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew something was off. Going back over what just happened, it hit me: this wasn’t really my fault. When I spoke, the killer didn’t accidentally hit the bowl—he reached out and grabbed it, then smashed it deliberately.

If it really was my voice that startled the little sister, maybe she’d accidentally nudge the bowl, but she’d never grab it and hurl it to the ground. That meant the killer did it on purpose.

But why? Every personality was working together to help the main one—so why break the bowl at such a crucial moment? Who was really in control when it happened? For a moment, I couldn’t make sense of it at all.

Stunned, I stared at the killer’s back. He knelt there in total silence. The tracker still blinked faintly, barely lit, but visible.

The crisp sound of the bowl shattering seemed to echo in my ears.

“Wuu… wuu…” The killer started to sob—a child’s whimper, faint and broken. In this place, it sounded more like the weeping of a ghost—a thin, floating sound drifting through the air, sometimes far, sometimes close enough to feel someone was breathing right at your ear.

But then, the sobbing twisted into a manic laugh. My heart clenched—Yama was here. But the voice wasn’t his. I froze, then realized after a moment. It was the voice of the uncle.

But why was the uncle laughing like that?

It was a strange, long-suppressed laugh, like a kid who’d finally gotten the toy he’d wanted for years.

Suddenly, my heart skipped a beat. I understood, in an instant, what had happened.

“What I truly want…”