Chapter 61: The Ghost-Fears-It Appears Anew, Two Lives Lost!

There was actually half a bloody fingerprint on the iron door handle!

Lu Tao and the others watched as Qin川 stepped out of the vehicle and walked straight toward a self-built house.

"Chuanzi, what is it?"

Qin Chuan raised his right hand. "Stay back. Something's wrong."

Subconsciously drawing the service pistol at his waist, the others grew tense immediately.

Why draw a gun all of a sudden?

Actually, although Qin Chuan was the deputy captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, that was in Zhulin County.

Outside the jurisdiction of Zhulin County and inside Xing'an City, he had no law enforcement authority.

Drawing his gun naturally violated regulations.

Yet given the urgent circumstances, Qin Chuan could not care about such things anymore.

He picked up a small stone from the ground and tossed it over the courtyard wall.

Hearing no dog barking, Qin Chuan tried pushing the iron door open.

It was unlocked. *Creeak...*

However, what met Qin Chuan's eyes was a corpse lying right in the courtyard.

Lu Tao and the traffic police officers who followed him inside widened their eyes in horror.

"Qin Chuan, what is going on here?"

"The hit-and-run driver."

Qin Chuan pointed at the car keys at the corpse's waist. "Stabbed in the neck, severed carotid artery, died of massive blood loss."

"Who killed him?"

Qin Chuan sniffed. That familiar scent was growing increasingly distinct.

Yet, masked by the heavy stench of blood, Qin Chuan struggled to recall exactly who it belonged to.

"Old Lu, call the Criminal Investigation Detachment. I'm going to take a look inside the house."

The interior layout was very simple. What caught Qin Chuan's attention was a person tied to a chair.

The victim was already dead, fingernails completely pulled out, scattered teeth on the floor, and a dagger plunged straight into the chest.

Blood was still slowly seeping out.

The time of death was no more than ten minutes!

Lu Tao, having entered behind him and discovering yet another corpse, found his breathing turning shallow and rapid.

"Old Lu, wait here. The person just died; I'm going out for a moment!"

The killer had just left. If Qin Chuan gave chase right now, there was a high probability of catching up.

Furthermore, the corpse tied to the chair bore numerous wounds inflicted by the killer.

The combat techniques, combined with the scent that felt oddly familiar to Qin Chuan, reminded him of a certain person.

Someone he had met once before at the Xinhai Coal Mine.

That infamous phantom, the Ghost Defier!

Back then, however, Qin Chuan had just acquired his system, his lottery draws were few, and his combat prowess was far from as formidable as it was now.

Consequently, he had let the adversary escape.

This time, no matter what, he had to capture this person!

Leaving Lu Tao to contact the Criminal Investigation Detachment, Qin Chuan dashed out along the alleyway.

Judging by the timeline of the crimes, the Ghost Defier had killed the hit-and-run driver first, and then tortured and murdered the man inside the house.

After viewing the footage of the hit-and-run scene, Qin Chuan had suspected that Dou Sihai was the one who hired someone to strike his mother.

Now, finding traces of the Ghost Defier confirmed that this hypothesis was correct.

After all, the Ghost Defier had originally come to the Xinhai Coal Mine simply to negotiate business.

It now appeared that eliminating the driver was intended to silence a witness.

As for the man in the house, he had suffered brutal torture before being killed.

The Ghost Defier was an assassin who had climbed out of piles of corpses, always aiming for a swift, fatal strike.

Therefore, torturing the man inside was most likely to extract certain information or obtain something from him.

Of course, these were merely Qin Chuan's conjectures.

Whatever the truth was, once the Ghost Defier was caught, everything would become clear.

*Screech!*

Qin Chuan, running at full tilt, suddenly slammed on the brakes.

The alley where the getaway vehicle had been found was a dead end.

Yet this alley was quite long from the main road, stretching more than a thousand meters.

Because the path was narrow, when Qin Chuan and the others drove in, it had taken them nearly ten minutes.

Yet, the Ghost Defier had committed the murders just ten minutes ago... exactly when the victim had just stopped breathing.

If the culprit had fled the scene through this alley, Qin Chuan should have crossed paths with him halfway.

However, when Qin Chuan entered, he hadn't encountered a single soul.

"Damn it!"

Qin Chuan whirled around and sprinted back at full speed.

After committing the murders, the culprit had never left the scene at all. He had been far too hasty.

He had fallen right into the classic tactic of hiding in plain sight!

"Lu Tao! You better not be dead!"

However, when Qin Chuan raced back to the self-built house, he saw a blood-drenched hand extending outward from the threshold.

Though he couldn't see the face, Qin Chuan recognized the watch on the wrist.

"Lu Tao!"

Charging through the main gate, the scene before Qin Chuan made his eyes split with rage.

The two traffic police officers lay motionless on the ground, pools of blood spreading beneath them.

Lu Tao lay flat on his back, a sharp dagger plunged deep into his lower abdomen.

A figure on top of the courtyard wall turned his head, locking eyes directly with Qin Chuan.

"Dragon Country cop, we meet again!"

The Ghost Defier!

"Fuck your mother!"

By then, the culprit had already leaped down, escaping to the other side of the wall.

Yet at this moment, Qin Chuan could not abandon Lu Tao to pursue him.

In a flash of lightning, Qin Chuan activated his "Hundred-Mile Tracking" skill, re-attaching the tracker onto the fleeing target.

Previously, to secure evidence against Sun Tao, Qin Chuan had recalled the tracking ability that had originally been placed on the Ghost Defier.

Otherwise, as long as the target entered within a hundred-kilometer radius of Qin Chuan, he would have been discovered long ago.

And the blind spot of hiding in plain sight would never have occurred.

Qin Chuan silently cursed his own lack of experience.

It had resulted in Lu Tao's critical injuries, and the other two traffic officers...

Qin Chuan was proficient in criminal scene investigation; a single glance told him the two officers were beyond saving.

Their chests showed no signs of rising and falling, and large pools of blood pooled beneath them.

They were... gone.

Damn it all!

Ghost Defier, this time, if I, Qin Chuan, don't tear you limb from limb, I don't deserve to wear this police uniform!

*Whoosh!*

In his mind, a three-dimensional map flashed, showing the Ghost Defier sprinting away rapidly.

*Wail, wail!*

Simultaneously, police sirens wailed outside the front gate as the Xing'an City Criminal Investigation Detachment finally arrived.

Leading the team was Detachment Captain Qian Guobin.

"Qin Chuan? Why are you here?"

Seeing Qian Guobin, Qin Chuan was overjoyed. "Captain Qian! Call an ambulance quickly!"

"The killer has fled. I'm going after him!"

With that, handing Lu Tao over to Qian Guobin, Qin Chuan took a running start, vaulted over the courtyard wall, and gave chase.

Among the arriving officers, a middle-aged man saw the traffic policeman lying on the ground, rushed over, and lifted him up to check.

The carotid artery was severed, and there was no pulse or heartbeat left.

"Huzi! Huzi!"

"Captain Qian, my younger brother is dead!"

Hearing this, Qian Guobin immediately transferred Lu Tao to the hands of a nearby officer.

Zheng Hu?!

Dead?

This traffic officer had previously worked in criminal investigation, but after sustaining injuries during an operation, he had transferred to traffic duty.

His older brother was Qian Guobin's right-hand man and the captain of the First Squad of the Xing'an City Criminal Investigation Detachment.

...

Elsewhere, following the tracking data in his mind, Qin Chuan pursued the Ghost Defier relentlessly.

At this moment, Qin Chuan's heart was like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

This was the first time he had ever witnessed colleagues sacrifice their lives right before his eyes.

Self-blame, fury, and remorse intertwined tightly within his chest.

If only—if only he had been a fraction more thorough, the two men would not have died.