18: Chapter 18 He was lying, but more truthful than anyone else.

The ashtray was full.

Thirteen cigarette butts were piled up in the aluminum disc, with greyish-white ash spilling over onto the documents on the desk.

Section Chief Han Zheng held the fourteenth one in his hand; the ash hung two centimeters long, but he didn't flick it, his eyes fixed on the three reports before him.

Chinese Academy of Sciences — " Non-Blue Star known element. "

Academy of Military Sciences — " Non-known form of damage. "

Echo Center — " Source homologous with historical abnormal signals. "

Three reports, three teams, three disciplines.

The wording varied, but the conclusions were the same.

The ash broke off, landing on the two red characters for "Top Secret," covering half of them.

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't bother to wipe it off.

He stood up from his chair and walked to the window.

The curtains were only half-drawn, and the morning light cut through the gap, a line of white light landing right on the edge of the ashtray.

The skyline of Chengdong Industrial Zone was dyed grey-blue by the rising sun.

There were already early-shift cars on the road, their taillights blinking in a line.

Ordinary people were rushing to work.

Section Chief Han Zheng's hands rested on the window frame.

Seventy-two files, ten years; sixty-nine were eventually confirmed as natural phenomena or man-made fabrications.

The remaining three were left unresolved and classified as "Under Observation."

It wasn't that they couldn't be explained; it was that an explanation hadn't been found yet.

But this one tonight — the seventy-third.

He flipped those three reports over, not wanting to look at the words in the conclusion column anymore.

It was useless even if he didn't look.

Those words were already nailed into his brain.

"Non-Blue Star product."

Section Chief Han Zheng stubbed out the fourteenth cigarette on the pile of butts.

He stood for two minutes, then picked up his jacket and walked out.

The sanatorium was in the north of the city.

It was a small three-story building with white tiled exterior walls and two rows of plane trees planted in the courtyard.

The guard post at the entrance had been replaced by personnel in military uniforms.

Section Chief Han Zheng showed his ID and went straight upstairs.

The interrogation room was a temporary conversion, likely a duty room originally.

It was three meters square, with a folding table, two plastic chairs, and a voice recorder and a glass of water on the table.

The fluorescent tube light was blindingly white, and insects were circling inside the lampshade.

The first to come in was Xiao Sun.

His right arm was wrapped in thick bandages, with faint traces of yellow povidone-iodine visible beneath the white gauze.

The young man in his early twenties was still trembling as he sat down, but the moment he opened his mouth, his voice was surprisingly firm.

"He came down from the ceiling; there wasn't a sound when he landed. Black clothes, half a mask. And then he —"

Xiao Sun's eyes lit up. It wasn't excitement, but something heavier.

"He is a deity; I don't care if you believe me or not, but he saved all our lives."

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't respond.

He wrote a line in his notebook and turned the page.

Old Liu was wheeled in.

The person in the wheelchair had an external steel fixation frame on his left leg; his lower leg was swollen, and the skin was a bruised purple.

The fifty-eight-year-old worker's voice was hoarse, as if he were speaking with sand in his throat.

"Young man, I've lived for fifty-eight years, and I've never believed in ghosts or gods."

Old Liu stared into Section Chief Han Zheng's eyes, enunciating every word.

"But what that person did last night is not something a human could do. You officials can investigate however you like, but that person is a good person."

Zhang Tiezhu was helped in.

Three of his ribs were broken, his chest wrapped in layer after layer of bandages; he had to gasp for air twice between every sentence.

"His fire only burned that thing; it didn't hurt a hair on our heads."

In the gaps between his words, one could hear the faint sound of his lungs leaking air, but his eyes were chillingly clear.

"If you want to investigate him, first check if you yourselves can do this."

Twenty-three people.

Section Chief Han Zheng finished listening to everyone's statements in three hours.

Twenty-three testimonies, twenty-three ways of expression.

Some were impatient, some calm, some still crying.

The wording was rough, the logic scattered, and the sequence of events occasionally didn't match up.

But the image was exactly the same.

The testimony was the same as yesterday.

Section Chief Han Zheng closed his notebook.

Chen Xiaohui's room was at the very end of the second floor.

She was leaning against the headboard, protecting her belly with her hands, her eyes red and swollen but already dry.

Her hair was a bit messy, with loose strands sticking to her cheeks.

Section Chief Han Zheng pulled a chair to the bedside, softening his voice a notch.

"Ms. Chen, could you tell me again about what you saw last night?"

It was still the same content — cracks, black fog, monsters, that person descending from the sky.

Her speaking speed was slow, her voice soft, but her account was clear.

At the end, she paused.

"Comrade Han, if that thing had taken two more steps, I and the child in my belly would have been gone."

She didn't continue.

Her fingers tightened, digging into the fabric over her abdomen.

Section Chief Han Zheng's gaze landed on that hand, lingering for half a second.

"Alright. Get some rest."

He stood up, the chair legs scraping against the floor tiles with a short sound.

The last one to be interrogated separately was Wang Hao.

The extra chairs had been removed from the room.

One table, one lamp, two people.

Section Chief Han Zheng sat down.

He didn't open his notebook or press the voice recorder, instead resting his clasped hands on the table.

"Why did you go to the factory last night?"

"To pick up my wife from work."

"You accepted a rideshare order on your way to the factory."

Wang Hao's right index finger curled slightly.

The movement was tiny.

Section Chief Han Zheng saw it.

"It was just a regular order on the way."

"Who was that passenger?"

"A young person into cosplay, said they were coming to the industrial zone to take wasteland-style photos."

"In the middle of the night, alone, coming to an abandoned industrial zone to take photos?"

"Isn't that how young people are nowadays?"

Section Chief Han Zheng stared into Wang Hao's eyes.

Wang Hao met his gaze.

His pupils contracted by a fraction of a millimeter.

But his gaze didn't retreat, didn't wander; there was none of the avoidance reaction common to liars.

This person wasn't a professional.

The slight movement of his fingers betrayed him; anyone who had received anti-interrogation training wouldn't make such a low-level mistake.

But he had something more troublesome than professionalism.

Gratitude.

Section Chief Han Zheng changed his angle of approach.

"When you drove into the factory area, where was that passenger?"

"I let him get out and leave. That place was too dangerous; I couldn't charge in with someone else."

"What about after you crashed in? What did you see?"

"The airbag hit my face; I passed out for a while. When I woke up, the fire was out, and I didn't see anything."

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't speak.

Silence.

The glass of water on the table remained perfectly still, the surface reflecting the sunlight and their two faces.

Fifteen seconds.

Section Chief Han Zheng went over Wang Hao's breathing frequency, blink interval, finger position, and shoulder tension one by one.

Lying.

He was undoubtedly lying.

But when this man lied, he was steadier than ninety percent of the suspects Section Chief Han Zheng had interrogated.

It wasn't because of technique.

It was because he felt he should lie.

With only three fingernails left on his ten fingers, he had risked his life to crash through a steel-beam wall, using bent rebar to shield his pregnant wife.

A person like this, once they've made up their mind, cannot be swayed.

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't continue to press.

"Alright. That's it for today."

In the corridor.

Section Chief Han Zheng leaned against the wall, holding an unlit cigarette in his hand.

Wang Hao's statement had no logical loopholes.

Accepted a rideshare on the way, passenger taking photos, got out because of danger.

All three clues formed a reasonable, closed loop.

But a young person in a black trench coat, in the middle of the night, calling a car from the wasteland in the western suburbs, destination Chengdong Industrial Zone, arriving nearby three minutes before the exotic beast appeared, then "getting out and leaving."

When coincidences pile up to this density, they are no longer coincidences.

Section Chief Han Zheng took out his phone.

His subordinate's message had already come through.

Rideshare platform order record — Departure: A village road in the western suburbs. Destination: Chengdong Industrial Zone. Passenger phone number: One-time virtual number, untraceable.

Western suburbs.

Section Chief Han Zheng stared at those four characters.

He had been to that area.

It was so desolate that there wasn't even a cell tower; mobile signal was always just one bar.

All around were abandoned farmhouses and ridges overgrown with weeds half a person tall.

What kind of person would call a car from that kind of place in the middle of the night?

He tucked the cigarette back into his pocket and beckoned to his subordinate at the end of the corridor.

"Two things."

"First, tell the workers they can go back this afternoon. Those with serious injuries will remain in the hospital; they don't need to worry about the expenses."

"Second — when Wang Hao leaves, I'm going with him."

The subordinate was stunned for a moment.

"Go home with him?"

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't explain.

The sanatorium gate.

The sunlight fell; the autumn light was thin, casting no warmth on his face.

Section Chief Han Zheng stood on the steps, looking down at the energy detector at his waist.

Standby mode. The reading was zero.

The green indicator light blinked quietly, once per second.

He got into the car and started the engine.

The rearview mirror reflected the window on the second floor of the sanatorium.

The curtain moved, and a figure behind the curtain was watching him.

Wang Hao.

Section Chief Han Zheng withdrew his gaze and shifted gears.

The device at his waist swayed gently.

It didn't beep.

It still hadn't beeped.