Animal Detective

It wasn’t unusual to see stray cats in the city.

The young people in the office even secretly fed them.

That’s what he told himself, but as Zou Cong drove, he couldn’t stop thinking about the cat he’d seen perched on his car roof.

He’d only glanced at it a couple of times.

It was solid black, and its two eyes seemed to glow.

Zou Cong couldn’t help but think, ’A black cat... that’s not a good omen, is it?’

Some of the random stuff he’d looked up online last night had said that black cats were a sign of misfortune.

Zou Cong gritted his teeth, his hand instinctively reaching for the wooden box on the passenger seat.

He opened it. Inside was a golden Buddha statue.

It was cool to the touch. As Zou Cong stroked it, his nerves calmed slightly, and he reassured himself that he was just overthinking things.

Besides, he’d even gotten a golden Buddha.

And Jin’an Temple was known to be very effective.

Navigating the congested traffic, Zou Cong finally got home close to ten at night.

As the garage door opened, he made a point to look around.

The shadows of the trees swayed, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Still, to be cautious, Zou Cong checked the villa from top to bottom.

No one was there.

It was exactly as he’d left it. There were even cooked dumplings in the kitchen.

He checked the security system again; no alerts there either.

Only after turning on all the lights and the TV did Zou Cong begin to relax. He then went around the house, looking for a place to put the golden Buddha.

After much consideration, he finally placed it on a decorative cabinet in the second-floor living room.

Directly facing the staircase.

Meanwhile, outside the villa, Shen Xin and the others were already in position.

Guan Wenkang came up with a half-baked idea, pointing out that Zou Cong’s first-floor living room had French doors facing the yard.

"He’s watching TV now, right? So let’s have Sheriff crouch outside the French doors, somewhere he can see him."

"Just imagine: he’s watching TV, feeling all relaxed, when he casually glances up and sees something outside the window."

"It’s just a dark shape, and the glass is reflecting, so he can’t see clearly. He squints, trying to get a better look, and when he finally makes it out... it’s the same cat he saw in the underground garage!"

"Then, right at that moment, Sheriff hits him with a zero-frame startup disappearance."

Guan Wenkang swiped his hand through the air dramatically. "It’ll scare the piss out of him."

Shen Xin leaned his head back to dodge the gesture.

Whether it would scare the piss out of Zou Cong was anyone’s guess, but the guy had certainly startled everyone present.

Hu Mingchuan even asked curiously what "zero-frame startup" meant.

The words "generation gap" were written all over Guan Wenkang’s face as he explained it to him.

Shen Xin thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I don’t think that’s enough."

"Think about it. He saw Sheriff in the garage. That was the setup, planting a psychological suggestion."

"He might have had some unsettling thoughts, but he didn’t dwell on them. He still came home, which means he’s currently in his psychological comfort zone."

"If we startle him now, he’ll immediately connect it to Sheriff and have a strong reaction."

"I don’t think that will be very effective. Let’s try something else."

Shen Xin explained his own idea.

Since Zou Cong brought home a Buddha statue, they might as well wait until he fell asleep and then do something with it—like knocking it to the floor.

To startle him awake.

"That statue gives him a sense of psychological security. If the Buddha falls, it’s another ominous suggestion. Let him keep overthinking, trying to figure out what’s gone wrong."

"He’ll start dwelling on all the bad signs himself, like seeing a solid black cat. Then, at that exact moment, Sheriff appears before him."

"His fears would be confirmed. Wouldn’t that deepen the terror even more?"

Shen Xin felt this approach laid the proper groundwork, fully exploiting Zou Cong’s own tendency to overthink. By providing only vague psychological cues, they could thoroughly trigger his fear.

Just as Guan Wenkang had said, it was all about building atmosphere.

When he finished speaking and looked up, he found everyone in the car staring intently at him.

"Shen Xin, you’re even more ruthless than I am," Guan Wenkang said, sucking in a breath of cool air.

The others all nodded in agreement.

Using psychology like that... Shen Xin was on another level.

Everyone looked toward Qin Chunyi.

Qin Chunyi glanced at the silent Gao Siyu, then nodded.

Inside the villa.

Even with the TV on and the volume turned up, Zou Cong still felt a chill run down his spine.

He kept turning his head to look behind him.

But there was never anything there.

It wasn’t until almost midnight that Zou Cong finally got up to go to sleep.

As he entered the master bedroom, he even made a point to bow to the Buddha statue.

After washing up and deadbolting the bedroom door from the inside, Zou Cong finally lay down in bed.

But he couldn’t fall asleep, straining to hear any sound from the surrounding darkness.

There was nothing.

The curtains weren’t moving. No one was under the bed.

His paranoia acting up, Zou Cong lay in bed for over half an hour before getting up, turning on the light, and checking every corner of the bedroom again.

Everything was normal.

’Looks like the Buddha I brought home is working after all.’

’Besides, it’s already past midnight. If something was going to happen, it would’ve happened by now.’

With that thought, Zou Cong lay back down and groggily drifted off to sleep.

What you think about by day, you dream of by night.

Sure enough, Zou Cong started dreaming.

He dreamed he was walking through a dark underground garage.

He was searching everywhere for his car.

But he couldn’t remember where he’d parked. He just couldn’t find it, no matter how hard he looked, and he was starting to panic.

As he was searching, he suddenly saw a cat.

It was solid black, staring at him with its two eyes.

Zou Cong jumped in fright and turned to run. But the garage was huge, and he kept feeling like something was passing behind him.

He ran faster and faster, but his legs wouldn’t move properly, as if something was weighing him down, robbing him of his strength.

Just then, a loud CRASH echoed out.

Zou Cong’s eyes shot open. He was instantly awake, his vision swimming and his whole body numb.

Still reeling from the shock, Zou Cong realized he was awake.

And he had really heard something hit the floor.

Zou Cong sat up quickly and scrambled to turn on the light.

The bedroom was completely normal.

Zou Cong took a few ragged breaths. He was absolutely certain he’d heard a noise—a loud one, seemingly from just outside his room.

After a moment’s hesitation, Zou Cong threw off the summer blanket and got out of bed.

He also snatched up the fruit knife he had placed on his nightstand before going to bed.

The door was still locked.

Outside, it was dead silent. Not a sound.

Gritting his teeth, Zou Cong unlocked the door and quickly flipped on the light switch.

Light flooded the second-floor living room. Everything was still normal.

’No, wait.’

Zou Cong’s pupils dilated abruptly.

On the floor, near the decorative cabinet against the wall, his golden Buddha statue lay toppled over.

In an instant, every hair on Zou Cong’s body stood on end.

The Buddha had been placed inside the cabinet, and it was heavy. There was no way it could have fallen on its own.

Unless someone had knocked it over.

"Who’s there?!"

Zou Cong shouted.

Only his own voice echoed through the empty villa.

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. He suddenly noticed that the cascading lights on the staircase were on.

’Something went downstairs!’

Zou Cong’s legs went weak, his mind a complete blank. He wanted to retreat to his bedroom, but a suffocating fear made him feel that the bedroom wasn’t safe either.

’Get out!’

Zou Cong had to leave.

Gripping the knife in one hand and the handrail in the other, he slowly made his way downstairs.

The floor below was dark.

Dead silent. Not a sound.

He instinctively reached for the light switch on the wall to the right of the staircase.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed two points of light floating abruptly in the darkness at the end of the hallway to his right.

They looked like... a pair of eyes.

’The cat!’

Zou Cong’s pupils widened to their limit. He felt as if his heart was about to stop. Only one thought remained in his mind.

’I knew there was something wrong with that cat.’

’A black cat is a bad omen!’

THUD. Zou Cong’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor, screaming, "Yuan Jie, don’t come for me! It wasn’t me who forced you to kill yourself!"

"It was... It was Director Chen! He was the one who wanted to do it! If you’re going to haunt someone, go haunt him! Not me!"

"I know you died a horrible death, but it really wasn’t my fault! I didn’t want it to happen!"

He screamed nonstop, on the verge of a complete breakdown.

And naturally, every single word he said was transmitted to Shen Xin and the others.

Shen Xin turned his head again to look at the rest of the team.

’Wait, who the hell is this Director Chen?’