Chapter 952: Voluntary Memory Loss
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Before the sentence could end, a light kiss fell onto her lips.
It was a fleeting kiss, the time taken for the red lights to turn green.
The unique tobacco and mint scent and the cooling sensation both lingered on her lips.
At this moment, Qin Mo was still dressed in the police uniform and the curve of his perfect face was illuminated from the soft light.
Her heart raced and her mind blanked out momentarily. When she had finally processed the situation, Qin Mo had moved away. She was faced with his dark brows and beautifully shaped lips with a hint of her scent lingering behind.
The traffic lights had changed.
Qin Mo seemed to smile as he restarted the ignition. Under the faint glow were the youngster’s increasingly reddening ears.
Bo Jiu was determined to keep the flush away. Therefore, she coughed lightly and took her phone out to read the news.
The attention on the case had yet to go down. The comments were split in half, with both views in check.
She paused, averting her attention to the official forum to look at the writing about her and the Almighty.
Indeed, there were plenty of those, it weren’t just theirs, there were stories about Lin Feng and Yun Hu as well.
Bo Jiu clicked into one about her and the Almighty and started reading. When she reached the fourth chapter, Bo Jiu was starting to sense something amiss. Why did this novel portray her as a cold and chic submissive youngster? That was completely inaccurate, she was clearly the dominant one!
The story was written by a member from the club and could be considered a novel about esports. However, every time she wrote about her interactions with the Almighty during a compet.i.tion, it seemed much more like a romance novel.
Since the story about her and the Almighty was already this extreme, she concluded that the ones with Lin Feng and Yun Hu must be even extremer.
Bo Jiu raised a brow. She clicked into another story and was about to start reading when her phone started to ring. It was a call from Lin Feng. Bo Jiu answered the call.
Lin Feng’s voice blast from the speakers, sounding very much like he was escaping from a large army of enemies. “Little Spade, you have to take me in tonight! Let me sleep over at your place!”
“Sleepover at my place?” Bo Jiu raised a brow. “What’s with the sudden request?”
Lin Feng stuttered for a while before his voice sank, the sort that was trying to hide something. “We have known each other for such a long time, I’m a senior and you are my junior, it’s about time for brothers like us to have a heartfelt conversation. You can host a pajamas party or something along those lines, I’ll bring the beer. This can help to reduce your pre-compet.i.tion jitters. You don’t have to thank me, you can tell me anything.”
Bo Jiu s.h.i.+fted her phone to the side. She spoke slowly, but went straight to the gist of it. “If you tell me the truth, I can still consider your offer.”
Lin Feng paused before he stuffed the clothes on hand into his bag. “Yun Hu has gone crazy. He has been reading a novel on his phone the entire time just now, so I a.s.sumed it was something good. But when I took a peak, I realized it was a book about us, me and him. He even claimed he would test everything the novel had mentioned on me, which was what triggered the kick my mom happened to walk in on. She thought I was bullying Yun Hu and in order to prevent me from injuring him before the compet.i.tion ended… Little Spade, you have to take me in!”
With her current position, Bo Jiu didn’t have to turn on the speaker as Qin Mo was seated beside her in the driver’s seat. Even with the distance between them, he could hear his voice from the phone. At the end of the day, he had himself to blame.
Qin Mo didn’t wish for anyone to interrupt his private time with a certain someone. Thus he raised a brow and asked, “Are you sure it isn’t because you are afraid Yun Hu will do something to you?”
Lin Feng hadn’t expected his yaptain to be on the other end, but the moment he heard the question, he exploded in fury. “Me, afraid of him?”
“If you are not afraid, just sleep in your own house.” There wasn’t any change in his voice the entire time.
Bo Jiu sat at the side, shaking her head. With Lin Feng’s current level, he was nowhere near the Almighty.
But a naive person still had his benefits.
“Captain, what did you say? My reception isn’t that great, let’s just settle the matter. Get Little Spade to prepare, I’ll be there in a jiffy!”
With that, he hung up. He clearly had no intentions to bid farewell. It was a fast escape.
Bo Jiu sighed internally. When she tilted her head over, she noticed that the Almighty’s eyes had darkened. A certain someone was going to be down on luck.
Qin Mo turned the steering wheel. “I’ll visit your place too.”
Bo Jiu had wanted to reject his offer. “It’s alright, I can deal with it.”
But the Almighty replied instantly, “Lin Feng likes putting his shoulders over others. Do you want him to find out you were the girl kissing me at that dance?”
Bo Jiu took a moment to imagine Lin Feng’s expression if he found out and agreed instantly.
However, she was the one being kissed back then, but from the way he put it, it seemed as though it was a mutually initiated kiss…
At this moment, Qin Mo’s phone rang.
It was a call from Director Huang. The crime squad could not locate the suspect in the video even if the image of him was provided through the video because he didn’t exist in any of the international records.
There was something more important. “The Maiden’s Sacrifice wasn’t limited to our country. We received a secret doc.u.ment from a neighboring country today. There are cases of victims being involved in the Maiden’s Sacrifice as well. Many people started to be enticed into committing suicide, which is similar to the case from this morning. There is a specific website for these people to gather. The next step is an invitation to view the recordings. The videos affect one’s principles and destroys the victim’s psychological barrier, which is how a large scale suicide happens. It seems as though they had been brainwashed, which is extremely scary. The j.a.panese have not linked it to the internet, but even if this one site is destroyed, there will still be another one replacing it. We have to find the main source or the problem will persist. One of the comments stated, ‘With such pathetic lives, you should all just die. Other than the Almighty, there isn’t anyone else that is clean. If you wish to be saved by the Almighty, you have to follow the Almighty’s wishes.’”
“Almighty?” Qin Mo asked. “Who is that?”
Director Huang sighed. “They believe that Z is their Almighty.”
Bo Jiu remained indifferent when she heard his remark because even until this day, Bo Jiu hadn’t forgotten the Almighty’s suspicion. He would be able to pick up even the smallest change in her expressions.
As expected, Qin Mo stopped the car at the side of the road. He took a good look at the youngster before pressing onto the bluetooth earphones. “Do the j.a.panese have any syndicates in mind?”
“None.” Director Huang seemed worried because of the methods used by the perpetrator, which seemed very similar to a case from before. However, tarot cards were used back then in high school to decide the victim they were going to murder.
Back then, they had also used the internet to alter people’s mindsets and plant ideas into their minds. Students were enticed into committing suicide, which resulted into chaos within the high school. All the students seemed to have been carved out by the perpetrator, making them extremely dangerous.
It hadn’t been as serious as it was right now, but it had also been the work of a hacker, similar to the case three years ago…
Back then, more than half of the students in that high school had been brainwashed while the minority had been forced to the edge.
The students hadn’t been the only ones affected by the ma.s.s hallucination. Some had said that frequent encounters with a demon would turn one into them.
There wasn’t any country which would allow that incident to repeat itself as many of their countrymen had been controlled.
They had had to find a solution at that time.
However, it had been located by the borders, which had been heavy with unrest and chaos, making it impossible for ordinary soldiers to deal with it.
The war and unrest hadn’t been the only problems,they had also faced another issue. The perpetrator had been a psychologist. Hence, the task had been given to Qin Mo.
It was a mission no one wished to relive.
In that mission, some of the special forces troops had witnessed the victims being taken away as hostage, gradually turning into their kind.
Those numbed, but yet enthusiastic faces had made them look possessed.
In reality, those who hadn’t found it wrong to s.n.a.t.c.h other people’s items were the easiest to brainwash and turn into demons.
Within the country, some believed in Buddhism, some believed in Taoism, and some believed in Karma.
These religions were all telling their believers that the bad would be punished, for them to differentiate the good and bad, and not to do evil.
Why was that so? Because there were far too many people who couldn’t tell the difference between good and bad.
Some would even force their dark and evil thoughts onto someone else.
A person without proper values was the most horrifying as someone without values had another trait. They were usually ignorant. They would easily believe the flattery others lied about.
If a psychologist had preyed on such a person, they would make for an easy target.
In the end, all the hostages had been saved, but that had been at the expense of Qin Mo’s memories.
No one knew the cause behind the memory loss. Thus the higher-ups had been worried his subconscious was still under a hallucination.
Regardless of their suspicion, it all ended as a regret because Qin Mo’s memory loss had been voluntary. The case would always exist in his mind, but he would not be able to remember what he had lost.
Director Huang wasn’t the only one who found the progression of the case familiar, Qin Mo felt it as well. When the familiarity came gus.h.i.+ng at him, it reignited the throbbing headache he felt. Qin Mo frowned. He reached out and pressed down on his temples, his entire face pale.
Images of the past flashed past his mind, but he couldn’t seem to grab hold on any of them.
However, one of the images turned into a dark-colored river. He seemed to try catching something from the river, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t seem to catch anything.
Qin Mo’s eyes lightened and his pupils constricted as beads of cold sweat started to stream down his forehead.
Bo Jiu was seated beside him. The first time she called out to him, he didn’t react at all. He seemed to be deep inside a nightmare.
“Brother Mo, Brother Mo…” Bo Jiu called five times.
Before Qin Mo managed to drag himself out from that scene, Director Huang heard the commotion. He asked anxiously, “Did something happen? Do you need me to go over?”
“There isn’t a need.” Qin Mo finally managed to regain his composure.
Director Huang wasn’t in the car and hadn’t been aware of what happened. “You scared me, I thought something bad had happened!”
“It’s nothing.” Qin Mo’s fingers slide down his face, his voice weaker than before. “Are there anymore information?”
Director Huang glanced down at the confidential report in his hand. “This hacker infiltration should have started in Asia before spreading over to the other continents. It seems pretty serious over at Tokyo. There have already been instances of large scale suicides, which cannot be controlled in his entirety. The actions by you and Young Master Fu today has put a stop to their progression in our country, throwing off their plans to brainwash others with this suicide. Even though the case isn’t uncontrollable, if we don’t find the mastermind, the site will never be destroyed. Even if we eliminate the current one, there will always be another one appearing tomorrow. The j.a.panase have offered to provide technical help if we manage to find the culprit that appeared in the video.”
“There isn’t a need, we don’t need the technical aid.” Qin Mo turned the steering wheel. “We are heading back now.”
We? Without a doubt, he was definitely with Young Master Fu.
Indeed he was, but the ma.s.sive headache from Qin Mo was still bothering Bo Jiu, her brows knotted even till this moment. What exactly did he think of to have caused such a ma.s.sive pain?
Bo Jiu wasn’t dumb, her gut was telling her it was linked to his voluntary memory loss.
But the Almighty had a special background, Hos.h.i.+no couldn’t find anything. How exactly did the Almighty turn into such a state?
One thing was certain though, the Almighty had dealt with a case three years ago and because of that case, the Almighty didn’t just miss out on the National League, he had ended recuperating at home a very extended period. Was it all linked to the case from before? That was Bo Jiu’s only guess.
Once they had reached the crime squad, they sensed the tense atmosphere.
This time, solving the case wasn’t just a slap at Smith’s face, it had also given Qin Mo the authority to enter the crime squad at his own will.
Bo Jiu noticed that Director Huang wasn’t talking to someone from the crime squad, but speaking to a representative from the j.a.panese. She could guess from their accent.
Director Huang caught sight of them as well. He brought the two representatives over and turned to Qin Mo. “The two of them are from Interpol from Tokyo. We have searched everywhere where the tall and slender man could have appeared in Jiang City, but without a proper identification, it will be hard to find him. Do you have any suggestions?”
Qin Mo didn’t answer immediately, instead, he turned towards the youngster. “Can you find him through the internet? The tall and slender man from the video.”
“I can try…” Bo Jiu glanced up. “Before I continue, I found those clips from the store by the road. Based on the route he is likely to travel, we can have a rough idea which surveillance cameras he would appear in. We can check if there are traces of him in any of it.”
“I’ll do the calculations.” Qin Mo asked, “Where would he stop?”
Bo Jiu replied, “Alright.”
As an Interpol officer, he understood their conversation even though he wasn’t a local. But could they really solve the case?The youngster in the group looked very young…