Chapter 259: Love of Skinning

The way the Management Bureau treated Butterfly Woman was different from how it had treated Xie Wei, whom Wu Chang had previously caught—Butterfly Woman wore special heavy-duty handcuffs on her wrists, an electronic ankle monitor on her leg, and a talisman affixed to her body that sealed her energy.

Just looking at the specifications on her, the crime she committed was no small matter.

Sensing Wu Chang's gaze, Butterfly Woman raised her head and met his eyes, a faint smile appearing on her cold face.

A look of curiosity crossed Wu Chang's face—Butterfly Woman actually remembered him?

If he remembered correctly, when he had seen Butterfly Woman that day, her attention had been entirely on Lu Langfeng.

Wu Chang followed Zhao Yan, the two of them escorting Butterfly Woman down to Sublevel Five.

Throughout the escort, Wu Chang kept observing Butterfly Woman.

Butterfly Woman's mental state was stable, she was very quiet along the way, and Wu Chang could see no black aura of sin on her, no resentment, nor sense any dangerous aura.

The only thing that made her stand out was a powerful emotion she carried.

The first time Wu Chang had seen her, he had been drawn in by that powerful emotion—at the time it had merely been so strong it was almost visible to the naked eye, but after four days apart, it had now taken on a tangible form.

It was a complex, strange emotion, not a pure single one.

Wu Chang couldn't determine what it was, but his spiritual sense told him that emotion should be love.

Love, admittedly, fell right into his blind spot—this was the sort of question he should go ask Fang Hui.

Practice yields true knowledge; if you've never done something, you certainly can't fully grasp its essence.

Wu Chang and Zhao Yan escorted Butterfly Woman into Sublevel Five. The two first took her through registration, and after she was fitted with an electronic wristband that recorded her information, Butterfly Woman was sent into one of the deepest cells of Sublevel Five.

When they came out, Wu Chang surveyed Sublevel Five—after just a few days' absence, the once spacious holding floor was already eighty percent full.

He wrinkled his nose, looking around with disgust.

Perhaps it was an aftereffect of the Sanctus Corporation instance—after seeing the resentment of Farrell and the others, and after completing the Spirit Energy Activation procedure, he could faintly see the sin on people's bodies.

It was a filthy, foul black aura containing all sorts of unpleasant elements; if the sin was too dense, it could even cause synesthesia—seeing them, one could faintly smell an indescribable stench.

Only, much of the sin-aura in Sublevel Five merely looked filthy—when observed, no strange smell came through.

It seemed anyone locked in here could still be saved, hadn't done anything too outrageous; those utterly depraved sorts had probably already been executed on the spot.

When it came to handling extraordinary criminals, the Management Bureau had that authority.

Coming up from Sublevel Five, Zhao Yan pointed at the smoking room and said, "Chat?"

Wu Chang nodded and followed Zhao Yan—he had been wanting to find out what had been happening lately anyway.

The moment the smoking room door opened, the place was a fog of smoke, and the wave of secondhand smoke nearly blew Wu Chang back out.

He turned on the ventilation fan, waited for the haze to thin a little, and could see the three large ashtrays on the smoking room table, densely packed with cigarette butts.

It seemed everyone had really been under a lot of pressure lately—judging by the quantity in front of him, each person must have been going through at least two packs a day.

Zhao Yan lit one, took a drag, and asked, "Where've you been these past few days? The Bureau's been so busy it's killing us, even sending out a lot of the wild extraordinary users we just recruited—at such a critical moment, and you go playing disappearing act."

Wu Chang shrugged and said, "The other day I was playing ball alone and got the feeling that playing ball needs a good court, so I went and burned down four a. m. Los Angeles for the boss."

Wu Chang wasn't here to discuss himself, so he immediately changed the subject and asked:

"What did that woman just now do?"

Zhao Yan asked, "You know her?"

Wu Chang said, "Just met her once—how'd you figure that out?"

Zhao Yan looked at Wu Chang with a half-smile and said, "Since you walked through the door, your eyeballs have been stuck on her, and you're telling me you just met her once?"

Wu Chang said irritably, "I was examining a criminal."

Zhao Yan snorted and didn't press the point further, saying:

"I don't care if you two have some private connection, or if your tastes are just weird and you like pierced sigil mages, but I'm telling you, draw a clear line between yourself and that woman—don't get mixed up with her."

Wu Chang frowned and asked, "Is what she did very serious?"

Zhao Yan nodded. "Large-scale serial killings, egregious circumstances, brutal methods, over fifteen victims. Caught in the act, she confessed to the case without hesitation."

Wu Chang asked, puzzled, "Is there a case file? Let me see."

Zhao Yan had been the one to interrogate Butterfly Woman, so he immediately transmitted the case-related materials to Wu Chang. "Look it over yourself, don't spread it."

Wu Chang opened the file, and the first thing he saw was Butterfly Woman's life history.

Butterfly Woman looked wild on the outside, but her name was actually quite gentle—Yu Siyi, 21 years old, a junior in college, a year younger than Wu Chang.

Though young in age, what she'd done was no small matter.

According to her own confession, combined with the victims' remains discovered afterward, she had killed a total of 15 people—twelve men and three women.

The method was singular: at night she would go to a nightclub, pick up anyone who hit on her and bring them home, then once home she'd restrain the victim, hang them in the basement, drain their blood, and skin them.

When Yu Siyi was arrested, she was in the middle of working on a victim. According to the Management Bureau members present at the scene, the victim—who had been skinned all over and was being bled out—was still conscious and had not yet died; it was on the way to the hospital that they passed away.

Wu Chang stared at the case file and asked, puzzled, "For a vicious case of this scale, the Director and the others only locked her up on Level Five?"

Zhao Yan lowered his voice and said quietly, "Her family has some background. They feel a direct execution would damage the family's reputation, so it's better to let her go explore the Abyss Game—if she dies in an instance, that counts as a contribution to the country."

Wu Chang clicked his tongue and shook his head.

If it were merely a curiosity-killing case, Yu Siyi's case was just a small scene to Wu Chang—he'd seen far more bizarre things in instances.

But this wasn't an instance, it was reality; the perpetrator, though she didn't look like a good person, was a flesh-and-blood 21-year-old girl.

That made the case feel utterly surreal.

What he couldn't figure out even more was—Yu Siyi's method of killing was so brutal, and the victims remained conscious until they bled out, so why had Yu Siyi left not a trace of resentment on her?

Wu Chang looked up at Zhao Yan and said, "I want to go look at the crime scene."

Zhao Yan asked, puzzled, "You think there's something wrong with the case?"

Wu Chang nodded. "I told you before that I'd met Yu Siyi once, and that wasn't a lie. To be precise, that day I had just caught a wild extraordinary user, also locked up on Sublevel Five, named Xie Wei."

"I was eating at a commercial street at the time, and on my way home I happened to see Yu Siyi. From her I sensed an aura similar to Xie Wei's. I only kept an eye on her then, planning to follow up and investigate later. I didn't expect that before I could act, she'd already committed a crime—and a worse one than Xie Wei's."

Zhao Yan fell into thought, recalling, "I remember you mentioning that Xie Wei—he's still in a coma, hasn't woken up. Back then you guys guessed the source of his ability was problematic, that he might be under the control of some organization or person. You think she is too?"

Wu Chang replied, "I'm not sure, but it's very possible."

Zhao Yan crushed out his cigarette and said, "Then let's go."

In the car, Wu Chang continued flipping through Yu Siyi's personal file.

Yu Siyi's file was extremely detailed—partly because she had committed too many offenses, each step meticulously recorded and easy to trace; partly because Yu Siyi herself had dictated it out of revenge.

Yu Siyi came from a wealthy family; her father, Yu Mingxuan, was a real estate tycoon, reasonably prominent in Wanghai City, though far behind figures like Tang Renquan, he still qualified as a gatekeeper of Wanghai's top-tier companies, barely enough to know the Bureau existed.

Her mother, Sun Jing, came from a prestigious family with three generations of government service, and she herself currently held a key position in a government agency.

Although Yu Mingxuan hadn't started from nothing, he had poured immense effort into expanding his company early on, handling many matters personally, and was rarely in Wanghai City.

Sun Jing was equally obsessed with her career—she was home only to sleep, leaving before dawn and often returning late at night; though they shared the same house, she might not see her child once in a whole day. As an atypical left-behind child, Yu Siyi never lacked material comforts—she could have anything she wanted—but for a child, economic status matters, but isn't the most important.

Adults and children differ: adults feel happiness with money, willing to become beasts of burden for it, abandon dignity, even risk sudden death from overwork.

But for children, as long as they aren't struggling for food and shelter, parental affection matters more.

Her wealth made Yu Siyi quickly become the leader among children at school, highly known both on and off campus.

But those drawn to her rich-girl persona were mostly no good; long-term association with them, combined with adolescent rebellion, led Yu Siyi to pierce her first earring in seventh grade.

She expected her mother to rage, even scold her—but to her surprise, Sun Jing never noticed the earring until the semester ended.

Fueled by rebelliousness, she grew more extreme: a second earring, a lip piercing, then a small five-pointed star tattooed on her hand.

This time, Sun Jing finally noticed—and reacted with fury, just as Yu Siyi had expected.

Sun Jing not only slapped her for the first time, but took an extended leave, personally took her to have the tattoo removed, confiscated all her jewelry, dispatched people to scatter her so-called friends, monitored her studies, and forced her to reform.

The regimen lasted half a month; once Sun Jing sensed her child was improving, she returned to work.

But after this experience, Yu Siyi discovered the password to gaining attention—she began deliberately moving in the opposite direction of her parents' expectations, to attract their gaze and regain their focus.

!

One success, two successes, repeated victories bred path dependency—each act grew more extreme, until it became uncontrollable.

In eighth grade, she deliberately submitted a blank exam paper, disrupted the testing environment, was expelled from the classroom, and received a school-wide reprimand—but the attention she anticipated never came again.

On the night of the reprimand, Yu Mingxuan flew back overnight from out of town and had a long talk with Yu Siyi.

He told her everyone must pay the price for their actions; as a father, all he could guarantee was that she would never lack food or shelter, but who she became was entirely her own choice.

The logic was sound, but Yu Siyi, whose rebellion had become path dependency, could no longer hear reason—she continued as before.

Unaware that Yu Mingxuan and Sun Jing had already given up on her completely—they had created alternate accounts.

The next year, Yu Siyi's younger sister was born; from then on, no matter what she did, she received no attention whatsoever.

Even when she tattooed a vivid, eye-catching butterfly on her chest, her mother, mid-call, merely frowned and shook her head, then moved to another room to continue her call.

Later still, Yu Siyi completely lost all restraint, becoming the person she is now.

Wu Chang sensed from her an intense emotion called love, likely stemming from her childhood deprivation of care.

Yet judging from her personal history in the file, her core nature wasn't evil—even when deliberately provoking trouble to attract her parents' attention, she only harmed herself, with no record of injuring classmates or others.

Even in her later phase of total self-indulgence, she kept her actions within certain bounds; police records show she never even had a record of fighting or brawling—she shouldn't have suddenly turned into a perverted killer.

Zhao Yan quickly drove to Yu Siyi's residence—a standalone villa in Donghu District.

Yu Mingxuan had promised Yu Siyi that if she got into university, she could move out; since freshman year, Yu Siyi had lived alone in this house.

Wu Chang and Zhao Yan descended into the garage, where a heavy stench of blood lingered.

In cases involving transcendent beings, crime scenes are typically preserved for 72 hours, so the garage's layout remained untouched.

Transparent plastic sheeting covered the garage floor and walls to prevent blood residue; two hooks and a steel pipe hung from the ceiling, where the victim had been secured.

The garage contained various tools: a full set of skinning knives in different sizes, professional blood extractors, drugs to maintain consciousness, instruments for dissecting flesh and organs, waterproof body bags, and more.

Just looking at these items, one might think they'd entered an underground organ trafficking workshop.

Everything was here—but one thing was missing: resentment.

Zhao Yan asked, "Any findings?"

Wu Chang shook his head. "Not yet. Need further observation."

Zhao Yan pulled out a cigarette, intending to light it, but seeing the scene around him, he put it back.

Wu Chang frowned. "When did you get such a heavy smoking habit?"

Zhao Yan sighed. "If you'd seen this kind of case a few more times, your habit would be worse too. No leads is fine. Do you know why I told you not to get involved with that woman? She's already not human—and anyone near her becomes abnormal too."

Wu Chang: "How abnormal?"

Zhao Yan said, "Her cognition has detached from humanity. When I questioned her about the case, she revealed everything without concealment, answering in excruciating detail, her face filled with joy."

"She felt no remorse, didn't believe she'd done anything wrong. It wasn't confession—it was boasting."

Wu Chang asked curiously, "Boasting about what?"

"That someone loves her," Zhao Yan's voice grew muffled.

"When I asked her motive, she said loving someone means giving them everything—yourself. When I heard that, my skin crawled."

Wu Chang glanced at Zhao Yan in surprise. "That's not that extreme. That phrase isn't so outrageous."

Zhao Yan gave a bitter smile. "Because right before questioning her, I'd just read a document. On the night they arrested Yu Siyi, the victim hadn't yet died—he was still conscious."

"On the ambulance, the victim kept mumbling something. Due to pain, he'd already bitten his tongue to shreds, so the paramedics couldn't make out his words—only recorded the audio for analysis back at the station."

"Just before questioning her, the voice analysis results came in: the victim was saying, 'Let me go—I want to give her everything I have.'"

Wu Chang's expression turned thoughtful—even the most cowardly man, the most desperate lickspittle, wouldn't go this far.

From the victims' words, it was clear they'd all been influenced by transcendent abilities—these abilities controlled their minds, making them believe they "loved" Yu Siyi, and that love meant total sacrifice, even life itself.

Perhaps that's why, at the moment of death, they were filled with love, devoid of resentment or fixation—hence why Wu Chang saw no resentment around Yu Siyi or the crime scene.

But one question remained: was "sacrifice" just a slogan—or did Yu Siyi actually demand something from her victims?

From current evidence, the victims' bodies and peeled skin were all preserved intact inside the house—suggesting Yu Siyi killed them merely to prove they loved her.

But was that truly the case?

A flash of insight struck Wu Chang—he stared at the special glass jars preserving the blood on the floor, then reopened the file and reread its contents.

Skin, bones, flesh, internal organs—all perfectly intact, but the blood was gone!

He looked at Zhao Yan and asked, "Where did she put the victim's blood?"

Zhao Yan frowned and thought for a moment. "The blood… let me think."

"When she described the process, she said she flushed the blood down the drain. We detected blood components in the drain, so we didn't get suspicious."

Wu Chang asked, "When you interrogated her, was there a member on site with lie-detection ability?"

Zhao Yan shook his head. "There's only one person in the bureau with anything like that, and he's swamped right now—how could he possibly handle something like this? Forget a lie-detector person, even lie-detector machines wouldn't be enough. For a case with such clear clues and evidence, we didn't bother with those things."

Wu Chang said at once, "Maybe Yu Siyi wasn't telling the truth. Go back, find her, and interrogate her again—this time make sure there's a lie-detector person beside you. If there isn't, go find Xiang Jianxing. His status is high; the bureau people won't pile tedious tasks on him, they'll only have him deal with strong enemies. Unless something unexpected happens, he should be free."

Zhao Yan asked, "You're not coming back with me? I'm not close with Xiang Jianxing—I'm afraid I can't get him to come."

Wu Chang: "Not right now. There's still one place I need to go."

Zhao Yan: "What place is so important?"

Wu Chang said, "The Emotion Art Museum. Regarding Yu Siyi's matter, that boss might know something."

(End of this chapter)