Chapter 1510

Meigui: Gods can help you be freed; if you believe, you will always be chosen by freedom. The god who oversees death is always watching this utterly rotten world.

Jin Chen rushed into the meeting room in a flurry, his head about to explode.

"What's going on! So many people committed suicide early this morning?!"

"Wei Yan hammered the keyboard until sparks seemed to fly, and everyone in the meeting room felt overwhelmed."

It's Rose! She posted this at 5 a. m. this morning, and immediately many accounts collectively responded by posting pictures of suicide and severe self‑harm… My mom got goosebumps looking at it.

Duan Xiao Bai quickly explained the situation to Jin Chen, and without mercy threw the whole collection of saved and analyzed pictures right in Jin Chen's face.

Jin Chen sucked in a breath of cold air.

Yi Tian, weak and exhausted, leaned against the meeting room door and said, 'Just this morning… we received three serious suicide cases all related to the post. Although we were tailing the list as Jin Team instructed, we didn't expect a mass suicide.'

Yi Tian finished and let out a long sigh, 'According to Xiao Wei'er's analysis, ignoring self‑harm, fifteen accounts committed suicide this morning: four succeeded, five were stopped in time by our people when they were preparing the suicide ritual, and six were discovered by family and rushed to hospital.'

Ke Xiu, who followed him over, was even more weak and exhausted, as if all his energy had been spent dealing with the families.

Those who succeeded in suicide… were extremely cruel to themselves, and after asking the families, the suicide tools were the things they loved most in life.

Whether it was mass suicide or mutual‑aid suicide, it seemed everyone was strictly obeying the site's invisible iron law. Ling Gun Gun even screamed in Jin Chen's mind, vowing to find the despicable administrator behind it!

Wei Yan drawled, 'The remaining accounts under surveillance aren't responding to Rose's call, but they still show as all online… Jin Team, they're all in this city—could the behind‑the‑scenes administrator also be here?'

The victims' geographic locations are also strange; the site can gather people from all cities, but X City is definitely not the one with the most depressed people in the country,

Jin Chen skimmed through all the case information at his fastest reading speed in life, when he heard Duan Xiao Bai ask doubtfully, 'These people might have joined the site seeking happiness and a utopia where they can confide, but I just can't figure out…'

Duan Xiao Bai looked at Jin Chen and Wu Lin at the same time, 'Could it be that everyone believes the so‑called deity Rose spoke of? Among this group there isn't a single materialist.'

That line of thought was tricky; Jin Chen paused his flipping through the documents and went back to look at Rose's post on the webpage.

A few seconds later, a low voice sounded in the meeting room.

'Pascal's Wager.'

Wu Lin's faint doubt in his eyes was cleared up; he immediately looked at Jin Chen, understanding in his heart.

Duan Xiao Bai gasped, raised his hand to signal, 'What is Pascal's Wager?'

Jin Chen spoke calmly, saying a bunch of things: 'If God exists and you believe in him, you will be saved. If God exists and you do not believe in him, you will be cursed. If God does not exist, belief brings no harm.'

Duan Xiao Bai then looked toward Wu Lin.

Wu Lin: 'Better to believe it exists than to believe it does not.'

Duan Xiao Bai suddenly understood!

Coincidentally, this group of desperate people gathered on the site urgently needed redemption… or some other kind of liberation; as long as they believed a deity existed, they could die without burden, escaping this rotten world, so their faith had no consequences.

Jin Chen: 'In that light, Rose's status in these people's minds is no less than that of the administrator.'

Unlike Jin Chen, who focused on investigating the survivors, Wu Lin paid special attention to the four who succeeded in suicide, even personally looking into their information—because each deceased had a skull‑shaped butterfly placed on their chest.

And the manner of death was also quite thought‑provoking.

Those who slit their wrists had a thorn shoved alive into the wrist blood vessels; the rope used by those who hanged themselves was tested and found to have been soaked beforehand in formalin mixed with rose juice…… Each person's death was full of aesthetic feeling, at least more thoroughly prepared than the death rituals of Zhou Ming and Cui Jue.

Wu Lin, as a would‑be offender who hasn't succeeded yet, couldn't even find a flaw in this ritual; it's more like a…… sacrificial ceremony compared to ordinary suicide.

'A sacrificial ceremony?' Jin Chen heard his murmur, 'Why do you feel that way?'

'Have you read any books on death black magic or the like, Jin Team?' Wu Lin asked him with interest, turning his gaze.

'…… I don't have that fetish.' Though I could perform a bit of magic for you right here.

Jin Chen shrugged, signaling him to elaborate; Duan Xiao Bai and the others also perked up their ears, hoping to glean some case‑breaking information from it.

'A deity representing darkness… can also be called a demon; they usually dwell in hell, and to return to the human world they need believers' summoning.'

Wu Lin closed the documents in his hands, his gaze distant and fixed on the floor, speaking while organizing his thoughts.

'A demon's followers usually regard him as an almighty god, and every summoning of a demon requires sacrifice and an offering; the process is roughly: proclaim the demon's greatness to attract followers, then select a few 'sheep' from the new believers to test whether the demon is willing to come to the human world; once the demon's willingness is confirmed, the sacrificial ceremony begins.'

'Fanatical believers think that summoning a demon will grant them confidant status, so the sacrificial ceremony is usually carried out collectively by fanatics. After the demon descends to the human realm and fulfills the believers' wishes, the remaining believers must then reseal the offerings and beg the demon to return to hell.'

Wu Lin spoke about this with great fluency; Jin Chen guessed that reading such books is also a shared hobby among the perverts.

Jin Chen pulled over his cold fingers, rubbed them a few times, and said thoughtfully, 'If we compare the website to the sacrificial ceremony you just described… then the deaths of Zhou Ming and Cui Jue are the 'sheep' used to test the demon's willingness, and this mass suicide is the sacrificial ceremony.'

'Then isn't the next step the demon's return to the human world? Who is the demon—could it be the administrator?'

After all, the website administrator is very likely the Ghost Butterfly, so we must be especially careful.

Duan Xiao Bai quickly caught up with their line of thought: 'That sudden sacrificial ceremony… couldn't it be because we stopped the original third suicide, Song Meng? If so, that would mean……'

Yu Jue jumped up in shock: 'Rose went to find the Nightmare! Only then could she confirm the Nightmare wasn't dead!'

But who could, under their very noses and under the heavy scrutiny of the criminal police, enter Song Meng's clinic or home?

This is exactly like the photo they were randomly snapped of that day.

'Usually, a believer's representative doesn't need to personally pick the 'sheep.'' Wu Lin's gaze shifted again to the finger Jin Chen was holding, his eyes less numb and cold than before.

'Not all believers act collectively; often they are scattered in various places, becoming the demon's eyes and ears.'

'But they usually share a common dwelling—the believers' chapel.'

His voice was cold and soft, yet it somehow made the comrades in the meeting room break out in a cold sweat even in the late morning.

The procedure of the sacrificial ceremony overlaps with the website's activities; it really doesn't seem like a coincidence.

Especially after re‑examining the transcript of yesterday's interrogation of Song Meng and looking it over once again.

Meanwhile, Jin Chen, who was focusing on the survivors, found someone who caught his attention.

Coincidentally, the only girl in this mass‑suicide ritual happened to be seeing a doctor at the hospital where Gu Huan works, and the attending physician is Gu Huan.

'Come on, let's go to Liuhua Hospital.' Jin Chen hauled the still‑pondering Wu Lin up.