He went to three locations and changed cars several times. In the early morning, Damon Vale arrived at the dormitory area of his school. The dormitory area for his major was in the old building. The concierge was an auntie who had just divorced. She still stayed there at night but barely guarded the door anymore, didn't even lock it, and went to bed as soon as she finished dinner. Students coming and going simply pushed the door open by themselves.
Moreover, there were no cameras here. Ever since the first murder, Damon had developed an instinctive rejection of cameras. He hated anything that could record his whereabouts.
After walking into the dormitory building, he went straight into the public restroom. The innermost stall door was clamped shut by Damon with wires. He climbed over it, then changed into the clothes placed in the basin before climbing back out. Damon tossed his old clothes and shoes into the basin, went to the faucet, showered, and walked out dripping wet.
A towel covered the basin, hiding the clothes and sneakers inside. He now wore a sweatshirt on top and shorts on the bottom. His strong muscles were exposed, his hair was wet, and he carried a faint smell of exhaustion.
Pushing open the dorm room door, Damon walked in and sat down on Bed No. 1. He deliberately sprinkled a little water on the face of a fair-skinned boy sleeping there. The boy blinked awake and stared for a long moment before recognizing him
"Damon… did you take a shower?"
"Yeah. Couldn't sleep. Too hot, so I washed off."
That response planted the impression he wanted. Then Damon walked to his own berth—No. 4. The dorm held four students. Odd-numbered beds were lower bunks; even numbers were upper bunks.
On his bed, Damon had hung a curtain—dark brown and opaque.
Lying down, he wasn't thinking about the murder scene from today. Instead, his mind was stuck on that terror broadcast. Compared to that, his own murder felt overshadowed.
Even based on instinct, Damon felt… uninterested. Even while making alibis. Although Alex Chu kept telling him his alibis seemed too artificial, as long as he didn't make mistakes early on and the police only suspected him, everything would be fine. But Damon still subconsciously carried out the full process.
He lay there unable to sleep.
After killing someone, he usually felt mentally excited for a bit, then exhausted, and sleep came hard.
But this time—he couldn't sleep at all.
Half an hour later, Damon sat up. There was a small desk on the bunk. He unfolded it and opened his laptop. After entering the startup screen, he accessed his hidden folder. It was a file labeled "X." Inside were seven folders, each containing information about one of his murders.
Seven targets in total.
The first six were pickpockets or fugitives. Killing them was simple—find a suitable place, timing, and alibi.
Police documentaries on TV always showed solved cases, giving viewers the comforting illusion that criminals can't escape justice.
But Damon knew the truth: countless cases had no leads at all. And as long as a murderer grasped the basics of anti-investigation, capture became extremely difficult. Furthermore, he murdered without motive and without personal ties to the victims, so the police couldn't trace him through social connections. He appeared untouchable.
After all, not every police officer in real life was Sherlock Holmes.
The seventh woman he killed was different. She wasn't a fugitive or a pickpocket. His addiction had grown stronger, pushing him to select a more difficult target for the first time.
Damon clicked the seventh folder: the female white-collar worker.
Her name was Sarah Lin, 28 years old, working as a secretary at a company.
Below was the information he had collected about her. She had been involved in illegal fundraising schemes—financial scams where she pretended to represent a wealthy Hong Kong or Taiwanese investment group, tricking people into investing everything they had. Many lost their life savings; some lost their families.
Somehow Sarah had escaped punishment while others she worked with went to prison. She was still a suspect, though—one case involved the family nanny of Alex Chu. The nanny had invested all her savings, driven by greed as she saw fake daily profits rising. She even persuaded her son and daughter-in-law to mortgage their house and invest.
When the scheme collapsed, the nanny couldn't take it. She overdosed on sleeping pills at Alex Chu's house.
This was one of the reasons Alex helped Damon choose the target—but unlike Damon, Alex wasn't obsessed with killing. He simply craved the thrill.
As Damon scrolled further, his pupils shrank.
There was a photo of protestors holding banners in front of a government building.
An old couple held a banner reading: "Heartless Developers Stole Our Life Savings—We Beg for Justice!"
They were the same elderly couple Damon had seen in that abandoned building, burning Sarah alive with a flaming banner.
No wonder they seemed familiar.
He had skimmed the later details in her file before, focusing only on immediate information. But now he realized Sarah had also been involved in shady property development projects.
Terror Broadcast had declared that good and evil would ultimately be repaid.
Damon felt a chill spread across his back.
What exactly was this Terror Broadcast?
A supernatural event?
Buzz—
His phone vibrated.
It was a call from Alex Chu.
"Yeah, I'm here," Damon answered.
There was a moment of silence on Alex's side, as though he was arranging his thoughts. Then:
"Damon… did you carry out the plan today?"
Damon's heart skipped.
Had something gone wrong? Had he been exposed?
Alex came from a family of police officers and was himself a cop. Every time he helped Damon plan a murder, he felt a twisted excitement—and that thrill only grew stronger each time.
"Did something happen?" Damon asked cautiously, pressing the record button on his phone.
"Damon, answer me—did you do it or not?" Alex nearly shouted.
"Is she dead?" Damon asked.
"Yeah, dead," Alex exhaled. "Heart attack. No wounds on the body. The nightclub owner called the police. The forensic report says accidental death. They ruled out homicide entirely."
Damon's fingers tightened around the knife beside his bed, feeling its cold metal. His emotions surged violently.
He had stabbed Sarah in the chest and twisted the blade.
How could that be a heart attack?
"Did you scare her to death before you acted?" Alex asked, laughing. "Man… this is the perfect alibi. You just pulled off a flawless crime."