When Ma En was twenty years old, he graduated from a provincial key university and found a job as a civil servant. At this time, he still hadn't given up on his ideas and interests; he was still searching online and in reality for those non-human bizarre rumors, and then verifying them during holidays.
Even so, he still hadn't found what he was looking for. Almost everything he could prove turned out to be fabricated, while those he couldn't prove left him unable to confirm if such things truly existed. His actions and thoughts encountered various contradictory problems in his real-world search, sometimes even making him feel discouraged and frustrated. But, after waking up from sleep, he remained tirelessly devoted to this matter.
He could only claim to others that he loved to travel, unable to speak his actual thoughts to them. He had some friends, but couldn't confide in them either, because his friends were all normal people. He had visited mental hospitals, wanting to excavate something unusual from the mouths of those proven to be mentally ill, but ultimately, there was still nothing.
He read many books on philosophy, theology, mysticism, psychology, mathematics, physics, history, and local chronicles, but among those piles of books, whether new or old, there was still not a single clue that could connect the thoughts in his mind, which were almost equivalent to delusions.
On this day, he once again came up empty-handed after burying himself in a pile of books. He had spent a month, every evening, investigating a rumor that had suddenly started circulating in the city where he worked.
This was a rumor that sounded extremely dangerous, though, of course, it wasn't much different from most urban legends. But he still made all the preparations he could. When pursuing such matters, he often assumed an extremely severe situation he could envision. Just in case, he was even prepared to face something he couldn't match, even to the point of losing his life.
However, usually, the situation turned out to be even more monotonous and boring than he imagined; one could say, there was no gain at all.
Many urban rumors were exaggerations of human actions; the most ferocious were nothing more than a group of murderers and executioners. To find "non-human" factors in these incidents was simply wishful thinking.
This time's rumor, theoretically speaking, was probably much the same. Even though he was psychologically prepared beforehand, after personally witnessing the criminal being taken away by the police, he still felt greatly disappointed. He was the one who called the police. He watched from afar how that human criminal became hysterical, ultimately struggling powerlessly. What he smelled was full of the scent of humanity.
But, just concerning the content of the rumor itself, even if proof of a human crime appeared, he still needed to further verify the exaggerations within the content that seemed like "grasping at shadows" – only when it was completely certain that there wasn't the slightest non-human involvement would he stop tracking this rumor.
The aspect of this rumor that caught his attention was that the criminal's actions had some ritualistic tendencies – whether he was pretending, had mental problems, or genuinely wanted to perform some ritual, the content of that ritual had already been partially revealed. This was an extremely vicious serial killer who had murdered six youths, six virgins, and six infants in total. This was a number that had some significance from many aspects. The day he was caught was precisely the day he attempted to kill the last person, and he himself admitted this while in a state of hysteria.
The ritualistic behaviors performed by most serial killers were merely to satisfy the missing parts of their own human nature; this was a process of self-compensation. Almost every ritual only held meaning for the perpetrator themselves – this was Ma En's view. However, he certainly wouldn't deny the present possibility just because it had always been like this in the past.
Maybe, just maybe... this incident would bring a breakthrough. He continued with this thought in mind. He reviewed all the secretly taken photos, analyzed the multiple versions of the rumor's content word by word, incorporating the criminal's identity, psychological profile, physical and mental state that he had confirmed, and then, based on his own set of theories, experiences, and intuition, eliminated all factors that did not meet the requirements.
In the end, all that remained was a symbol, pattern, or some other mark that looked peculiar, but the peculiar part, compared to other religious ritual symbols, resembled graffiti more. Describing it, it was an imprint composed of dots, curves, and crescent-shaped blocks. It couldn't be said to particularly resemble the transformed and distorted image of any existing object's outline. The most special aspect was that there wasn't a single straight line within it, nor did it have curved structures similar to any currently known ancient scripts. To confirm this point, he consulted many written materials.
From a normal perspective, it was highly likely that this was truly just graffiti symbolizing the criminal's own psychology under mental derangement, possessing no non-human elements. However, Ma En still tried to search among existing symbolic objects to see if there was any structure similar to it.
He wanted to find proof: that most of this criminal's actions stemmed from his own humanity, but the trigger came from something non-human.
In terms of results, naturally, he found nothing.
Afterwards, using some items he had stolen from the gruesome scene, he pretended to have some connection with the criminal and visited the murderer in prison. At this time, the murderer was physically and mentally exhausted, trapped in a state of mental trance. Ma En could be certain this was not the murderer's pretense, but that his vital spirit had indeed been completely drained after being caught, as if receiving retribution.
Even the slightest noise would make him feel terrified – of course, solely in terms of humanity, the crimes he committed could not be washed away by this bit of retribution.
Ma En had no sympathy for him; he was simply trying to squeeze every bit of information the criminal knew out of him. The process wasn't worth mentioning; calming his spirit took some effort, inducing him took some more effort, and then he learned a small detail from his mouth: before he decided to commit this crime, he went to a bookstore, saw the content of a book, and only then made up his mind to carry out such cruel acts.
And this small detail had, of course, already been dug up by the police. However, the police probably didn't care; they wouldn't even write it into the records. Perhaps for the criminal, this was a very definite trigger, but from more perspectives, a person who commits a crime must not have been impulsive if they accumulated numerous criminal factors in the past; attributing the cause to the inducement of a book's content is definitely wrong. On the other hand, a person capable of committing such terrible crimes, a person whose behavior carries ritualistic elements, would certainly not be acting entirely on impulse.
Even if impulsive criminals kill, they often only kill one or two people. If they kill many people, it must be done quickly, all at once. But this criminal, perhaps the cause was impulsive, but he consciously, rationally, intelligently, and methodically killed eighteen people successively within a month. During this process, he himself even became an urban legend.
He was not impulsive, nor did he commit the crime solely because of the content of a book – this was the most scientific conclusion. However, Ma En still developed some interest in this clue that the police disregarded. He asked for the bookstore's location and the general appearance of the book. As for the book title, the criminal couldn't remember it anymore – he even later became unsure whether he had truly seen such a book, or if it was just a problem with his own psychology and memory.
Another rest day, it was raining, the sky was gray and gloomy, Ma En held a rather old-fashioned large black umbrella, carried a black briefcase, and took a bus to the street near the bookstore's address. This area was not the city center, nor a bustling district. An urban village, already fifty years old, was nearby. The surrounding buildings all had exposed red bricks, parts of the cement pavement revealed gravel, pitted and uneven, occasionally causing one to unexpectedly step into a puddle only to find it somewhat deep.
Ma En's leather shoes and trousers were soaked by the dirty water, leaving dark brown marks. The road conditions here were terrible, but Ma En didn't feel disappointed, because he had been to even more uncomfortable places in pursuit of non-human rumors.
He tightened his dark suit jacket and moved towards the target location. People were scarce along the way, as if the heavy rain had washed away all traces of them. Rainwater continuously dripped from the eaves, and the sound of splashing was everywhere. Due to his unfamiliarity with the place, he even had to detour onto some diverging roads. Before entering, he didn't even know there were dead ends here, and had to turn back to find another path.
There were many low houses here, the paths were intricate and complex, many of the old streetlights had long lost their lampshades, some didn't even have bulbs, and occasionally one could see broken electrical wires left unrepaired – truly a residential area with harsh living conditions. After walking some distance, his shoes were completely soaked, the cold crept up his socks and pant legs, the feeling was truly indescribable.
But what could be done? The bookstore address given by the criminal was so ambiguous, one only realized how remote it was upon actually going there. If not for some special reason, Ma En really couldn't imagine who would walk into such a place just to go to a bookstore – conversely, he couldn't help but develop some interest in what this bookstore looked like. Of course, the result might also greatly disappoint him.
By the time he saw the bookstore's sign, he had already been wandering in this area for half an hour. However, the number of passersby he encountered along the way was also negligible. And his attire was quite conspicuous in the eyes of these people, which was perfectly evident from their obvious or subtle glances. To the people living in this area, he was a complete stranger, making them feel constrained, suspicious, and subconsciously wary.