The Real Awakening

The young man remained silent and stooped over on the chair in that dark and humid interrogation room for a long while. Finally, he fearfully lifted his eyes to sneak a glance at the expressionless young officer. After an anxious gulp, he timidly mumbled, “Where’s Officer Y-Ye? I-I want to speak w-with Officer Ye…”

“Officer Ye? Hmph, is it because you think that simple-minded and overly trusting idiot is easier to bully?” Su Mu scoffed from where he sat across the man with arms crossed.

The youth shrank back and hurriedly lowered his gaze without speaking another word.

Su Mu rapped his knuckles against the photos on the table and asked, “Jiang Cheng Fei, you recognise all five of the people circled in red here, don’t you?”

The young man glanced at the photo.

It was a group photo taken in front of a child welfare agency. There was a crowd of children standing in front of the door, all of whom were around five to fifteen years of age. Five of the children had been indicated with red marker. 

The youth only needed one look to know who they were. However, he remained silent and merely nodded.

Su Mu pointed at each of the five people in the photo and stated, “Sun Yuan, Xu Ming, Wang Hai Tao, Li Qing, and Gu Xiao Rou. These five had once lived in the same child welfare agency as you, right?”

The youth wordlessly nodded, though his eyes began to shift.

Su Mu continued, “But six years ago, on a summer evening, you burned them to death, didn’t you?”

The young man choked, and his head shot up abruptly in agitation as he stammered out in defense, “I-I didn’t do it on p-purpose. T-T-They d-deserved it! Who asked them to keep bu-bullying me!”

“Oh? That means you set a fire to burn these five to death that night for the sake of revenge, because you were always bullied by them at the welfare agency?”

“T-That’s right.” The youth grit his teeth, his tone furious at the injustice he felt. “T-They would b-beat me every day, yell at me, s-steal m-my food, p-push me down the stairs, a-and strip my c-clothes and use rope to leave me d-dangling from the top of a tree for a-an entire night. I-If I didn’t kill them, I would d-definitely end up killed i-instead!” 

After indignantly finishing this tirade, the youth obstinately looked at Su Mu without a shred of repentance. He believed that if time could be turned back, he would undoubtedly hold fast to the decision he had originally made.

Su Mu noncommitedly asked, “So when you were fourteen, you were sent to juvenile prison under the suspicion of intentional homicide, yes?”

The young man pursed his lips together before silently nodding.

Su Mu studied him before inquiring, “Then what happened afterwards?”

“A-afterwards?”

“You were shut in juvenile prison, and then what happened after that?”

“After that…”

The youth thought back, then a trace of fear appeared on his face. He brokenly answered, “A-after that…not l-long after being in prison, I-I was brought away by a group of w-whitecoats I didn’t know…They b-brought me to a v-very strange place and l-locked me up…”

“That was a research institution,” Su Mu stated.

“R-research institution?”

Su Mu did not explain and merely continued on with his own agenda. “Then after that, you pretended to be a corpse and escaped from the laboratory alone, is that correct?” 

“E-escaped…”

The youth blankly sat in silence for a beat as he seemed to recall his memories with hesitation. Finally, he shook his head and confidently answered, “N-no. At the time, I-I wasn’t alone…T-there were others too…W-we discussed e-escaping together…”

“Oh? Others? Who were they?”

“T-they were…” The young man bit his lip and after a moment of hesitation, murmured, “They were G-Gu Xiao Rou, Wang Hai Tao, L-Li Qing, X-Xu Ming, a-and Sun Yuan.”

“Gu Xiao Rou, Wang Hai Tao, Li Qing, Xu Ming, Sun Yuan.” Su Mu coldly stared at him and asked in a low tone, “Are you joking with me? Those five had been burned to death by you years prior.”

“I-I’m not j-joking!” The youth emotionally shouted, his face earnest as he explained, “It r-really was them. I-I’m not l-lying!”

“How do you explain the fact that those five are already dead then?”

The young man was dumbstruck for a moment with a blank and helpless expression. Then he fretfully shook his head in distress. “I-I don’t know…I d-don’t know…”

Su Mu sneered, “You don’t know? Or you can’t recall? Or perhaps you aren’t telling the truth at all?”

“N-no! E-everything I-I’ve said is the truth!”

“Truth? Hmph, it’s the truth that dead people escaped with you?”

“I-I don’t know! I don’t know a-anything!”

“Stop playing dumb and answer my question! Were you alone at the time?”

“No! Don’t ask anymore! D-Don’t ask anymore! Ugh…argh…”

The youth’s face was flushed with agitation as he spoke, but he suddenly bent over at the waist midway through his words to writhe in pain on the table, his breath becoming urgent. Su Mu calmly kept still as he watched with his arms crossed.

A while passed before the young man’s breathing gradually evened out. He then slowly lifted his head to reveal a cold expression that was entirely different from before. With an eerie smile, he said, “Indeed, that idiot wasn’t lying. At the time, we truly did escape with him.”

Su Mu raised a brow, seemingly not at all fazed by the youth’s personality switch as he coolly inquired, “Who are you?”

The youth had not expected for Su Mu to behave so calmly. Disappointed, he frowned and mocked, “The brilliant and amazing Great Detective Su Mu should try and guess.”

Su Mu’s glare hardened as he warned in a low voice, “Don’t play hide-and-seek with me. I have no interest in wasting time with you guys.”

The young man doubtfully peered at Su Mu and probingly asked, “You know everything?”

Su Mu snorted. “You do not have the qualifications to be asking questions. All you need to do is answer me. Who. Are. You?”

The youth was a bit infuriated by this, but he had no choice but to suppress his anger as he huffed, “I’m Sun Yuan.”

“Sun Yuan?” Su Mu swept his eyes over one of the circled boys in the photo. “Were you the one that made Officer He Zhi Dong blind himself in the eye?”

Sun Yuan rolled his eyes and replied with extreme unwillingness. “No.”

Su Mu asked again, “Were you the one that spoke about Officer Luo You Wei’s fiancee having an affair?”

Sun Yuan hid his face and replied, “Also no.”

“Was Officer Kang Lei’s insanity related to you?”

“That’s definitely not me.”

“Then who was the one who met with Ye Xiao privately that day?”

Sun Yuan frowned and did not respond.

“Answer me.”

“…It was Xu Ming.”

The youth gloomily stated this before shooting an unhappy glance at Su Mu. “Oi, have you finished asking? It’s not like I’m the one that did everything, so what are you holding onto me for!”

Su Mu indifferently looked at him and stated, “Fine, call Xu Ming out now.”

The youth’s face lit up in delight as he carefreely said, “Finally, time to change.”

His eyes closed and his head dropped. When the youth opened his eyes once more, he let out a strange chuckle and asked in an eerie voice, “What, you were looking for me, Officer Su?”

“You’re Xu Ming?”

“That’s right, I’m Xu Ming.” The young man listlessly tilted his head and glanced left and right. With feigned surprise, he asked, “Heh, why is it only you today? Where is my beloved Officer Ye?”

Su Mu locked eyes with him. “You were the one that met with Ye Xiao that day?”

“Yes, that was me.” The youth snickered again and fluttered his lashes as he mocked, “What, feeling jealous?”

Su Mu crossed his arms, his expression blank as he flatly questioned, “What did you talk about?”

The youth suddenly burst out in laughter. As he leaned forward, he lowered his voice to emphatically reply, “Not telling you. That is our lit-tle-se-cret.”

The corners of his lips curled upwards to form a smug grin on his face.

With a cold stare, Su Mu evenly stated, “I am not Ye Xiao; I do not have his patience. If you want to test my limits, go ahead.”

The young man peered at Su Mu’s frosty expression and couldn’t help but break out into loud laughter. Amidst his unbridled amusement, he abruptly jumped onto the table with a thud

and stayed crouched on top with a sinister air around him. “Are you threatening me, Officer Su? Oooo, I’m so scared!”

His expression then fell and instantly transformed into malice as he hissed, “As expected, my adorable and kind Officer Ye is more amusing than you are. How is he? Doing well?”

Su Mu remained unperturbed, his gaze as still as water. It appeared that no matter how the other person provoked him, his emotions would remain unstirred. This ultimately made the youth feel a tiny sense of loss, though it did not completely suppress his impetuous desire to show off.

He casually took a seat on the table with his legs crossed and took a deep breath before shrugging his shoulders and letting out a trill of laughter. “Pfft-hahahaha. Why, do you really want to know what we talked about that day?”

Stony-faced, Su Mu did not respond.

The youth mysteriously chuckled under his breath and arched a brow with fake cheeriness. “Oh, it wasn’t actually anything at all. It’s just that I might have triggered him to unwillingly face some of his memories. What, don’t tell me he never told you about his unbearable past? Ha-haha, hahaha, it’s so funny that even a police officer would have such a sullied past. Stealing, killing, and basically anything illegal—he had done them all. Yet now he’s acting like a proper police officer to interrogate criminals, what a ridiculous joke! And that person you call Officer Kang, did you want to know why he lost his mind?”

The only response he received was a silent, cool stare.

The youth’s bony, matchstick-like shoulders shook as he cracked up uncontrollably. As he chuckled, he shook his head and mocked, “That’s because the officer named Kang did something shameful and was afraid of being haunted by a wronged ghost.”

“You’re referring to the incident from two years ago?” Su Mu asked.

The youth tilted his head, then chortled, “Oh, you knew? Hehehehehehe. Two years ago, the respected and loved Officer Kang accepted a bribe from a smuggling conglomerate, which was accidentally discovered by his partner. His partner urged him to surrender himself, but he didn’t listen. As a result, his partner raised an accusation against him.

“It was at this time when they were carrying out a mission together. Kang took this chance to kill his own partner, and then falsely claimed they had died in the line of duty. Since that day, Kang had been stuck in a permanent state of guilt from his evil acts. In the past two years, he had been living under the shadow of this matter, unable to properly eat or sleep. During the interrogation that day, I simply made some minor mentions, and he got all keyed up by himself. His paranoia grew stronger, always suspecting that his partner’s spirit lingered and refused to move on. Hahaha you should’ve seen him at the time; he was muttering crazily to himself just like a madman. There wasn’t a single trace of the dignity a police officer should have. It was seriously hilarious, hahaha…”

The youth shook his head as he bent over at the waist from laughter.

Su Mu’s face was stony as he wordlessly remained in his seat without advancing the discussion. Finally, once the youth had completely finished laughing, Su Mu slowly opened his mouth.

“In other words, the ESP ability you possess is psychometry?”

The man froze and stared at Su Mu in shock.

Su Mu continued, “That day when Chen Yao pointed a gun at you, Ye Xiao dashed forward to protect you and touched your shoulder. It was precisely at that moment, that instant of contact between your bodies, that allowed you to peer into his past. As for Kang Lei, I assume you must’ve also touched his body at some point and learned of the truth regarding him killing his own partner. Is what I said correct?”

The youth was dumbstruck for a beat, but he immediately began to chuckle darkly. “That’s right, I can indeed see into others’ pasts through bodily contact.”

With this, he leaned towards Su Mu’s face and said in a low voice, “In reality, every single person is hiding some kind of unknown dark side deep in their hearts, no matter how bright and beautiful they are on the outside. It doesn’t matter if they’re a police officer or a criminal, those are just appearances seen by the naked eye. Everyone is actually the same. This place here—”

The young man pointed his chin at Su Mu’s chest and mockingly declared, “This place here is full of ugliness, of filthiness. It’s just that most people are experts at only showing the most perfect side of them to conceal their shameful, dirty and shady deeds. Hehe, if you don’t believe me, Great Detective Su, do you dare let me touch you? Do you dare to let me peer into your past?”

He pointed a challenging look at Su Mu.

The latter remained blank-faced from beginning to end, facing the youth’s forceful gaze head-on with no intentions of backing off.

The two silently remained in a deadlock for a few seconds, before the corners of Su Mu’s lips curved upwards and he coldly snorted.

“Oh? Are you that interested in my past?”

With a sinister grin, Su Mu suddenly shot onto his feet and grabbed the youth by the neck. With a powerful swing, he slammed the youth’s head heavily into the table. The next second, an icy object was being firmly pressed against the youth’s temple.

It was the chilling barrel of a gun.

The youth was frightened by the sudden unexpected action and was afraid to make any reckless moves. He could only slowly shift his eyes over and furiously shout, “Oi, don’t mess around! Remember, you’re a police officer!”

“Hmph, a police officer?”

Su Mu looked down at the man and flatly commented, “So what if I’m a police officer? Didn’t you say that no matter whether one is a police officer or a criminal, those are just appearances and everyone is the same on the inside? The reason I didn’t refute those words is because I agree with your standpoint.” 

He smirked darkly – there was a sinister and eerie hint behind his terrifying smile.

Using the gun to raise the youth’s chin, he narrowed his eyes slightly and lowered his voice to ask, “Didn’t you want to badly know of my past? How about it, what can you see now?”

The youth blanked out for a while, before jumping up and fleeing from Su Mu’s grip like a badly startled rabbit, stumbling and fumbling along the way. With a bang, he crashed down from the table before crawling on the ground to back away, further and further. 

“Y–y-you aren’t human! You aren’t human!”

His expression had morphed into terror, completely sweeping away his previous threatening manner. His body trembled as his eyes locked onto Su Mu like he had just seen something extremely horrifying.

“Oh? I’m not human? Then what am I?”

Su Mu frowned as he gripped his gun and began to walk over.

“No! Don’t come over here! Don’t come over here!”

The young man’s legs had gone weak from fright and he was unable to stand. All he could do was weakly scoot backwards on his butt. As he continued to retreat backwards, his head suddenly dropped, and he lost consciousness.

A few seconds later, he gradually woke up and blurrily scanned the surroundings. When he spotted the gun in Su Mu’s hands, he sucked in a sharp breath and immediately stiffened as he stammered, “Y-y-you…W-what are you trying to do…”

With furrowed brows, Su Mu stared down at the slow-witted youth and impatiently clicked his tongue as he muttered, “Tch, that guy fled again.”