No. 11 St. Earls Street, Toden Road, 21st Floor.
The motion-sensor lights in the corridor had long fallen into disrepair, emitting a dim, flickering, ghastly white glow that added a touch of oppression to the surrounding air.
A dull sound of wind came from the ventilation ducts, mixed with the stale scent accumulated over years in the apartment building.
Having found the man named Jedi, Qi Zhimu did not choose to observe quietly this time.
Without a word, he went up and cast a Hypnosis spell.
After some time, he had thoroughly doxxed Jedi, uncovering everything about him from top to bottom and even his ancestry.
On the surface, this guy was a highly capable private investigator, but in private, he was somewhat unethical, with a messy personal life and ambiguous relationships with two married young women.
The two-way affairs had lasted for two years without being detected by the husbands.
Should he say that as expected of a detective, his counter-surveillance skills were maxed out?
However, Jedi hadn't visited those two women lately.
He had been very tired recently; despite being a large man, he seemed completely drained of energy. To use a supernatural metaphor, it was as if his yang energy had been sucked dry.
But logically, even if he were drained by women, his condition should have improved significantly after over ten days of abstinence.
After syncing the information with Herta, Qi Zhimu didn't stay at Jedi's residence but went to find the two women he was keeping.
By the time Herta and the others arrived at Jedi's place, Qi Zhimu had just returned.
"Where did you go just now?" Herta asked in her mind.
"Kidnapped two NPCs and left them lying in Jedi's car parked in the underground garage."
"You suspect they're related clues?"
"Just taking precautions, though I didn't get any valuable information out of them." Qi Zhimu crossed his arms and walked openly beside Herta.
Anyway, only Herta could see him.
Superintendent Brooks stopped in front of the door to Room 05 and was about to ring the doorbell.
—Click.
The sound of a lock turning suddenly rang out, and the security door was pulled open from the inside.
A tall man wearing loose loungewear and holding a black trash bag appeared behind the door.
Noticing a group of people standing outside the door, Jedi was clearly stunned for a moment.
His gaze swept over the crowd, and he quickly recognized Brooks standing at the front.
As a private investigator who had spent years navigating this city, he had naturally dealt with many superintendents from the Kewen Police Station and even had private information trades with them.
"Officer Brooks?"
Doubt flashed in Jedi's eyes as his gaze circled the tense-looking people behind, who appeared to be plainclothes officers.
"What wind blew you all here today? Could it be that there's a tricky case you need my help with?"
Brooks was momentarily speechless, not knowing how to start.
He couldn't exactly tell him that the Grim Reaper had marked him to be harvested within a specific time and that they were here to save him, could he?
Let alone Jedi, even he himself would have found it hard to believe before Xi Manning.
The scene of that full-time writer's bizarre and tragic death remained vivid in his mind, the thick scent of blood still lingering at the tip of his nose.
This made his expression at this moment appear extremely complex and stiff.
Seeing Brooks's hesitant look, Jedi naturally assumed the police station was in significant trouble and wanted to hire him privately to investigate some shady clues.
"Sigh... I'm afraid not this time."
Jedi leaned half his body against the doorframe, his tone carrying a deep sense of exhaustion.
"I've been in poor shape lately and really don't have the energy for new work. Your police station is full of talent; please find someone better qualified."
It wasn't until Jedi spoke those words that the preoccupied Brooks and the others finally focused their attention on his face.
At a glance, they were immediately filled with shock.
Jedi was tall and large with a broad frame, typically an energetic powerhouse of a man.
But at this moment, his face was so pale it lacked a trace of color, his eye sockets were sunken, and two heavy dark circles hung beneath his eyes.
His stance seemed casual, but in reality, he was relying entirely on the doorframe to support his body weight. He appeared sickly and haggard, completely devoid of spirit.
Jedi rubbed his temples and continued.
"Besides, this formation of yours is too exaggerated. Seven of you, including plainclothes, blocking my door. What on earth happened that's so earth-shattering..."
Before he could finish, Jedi's voice stopped abruptly.
His gaze bypassed Brooks and landed on the petite figure at the back of the crowd.
A girl who looked to be only in her teens, dressed in exquisite and sophisticated clothing, her expression holding a calmness that didn't match her appearance.
She stood in sharp contrast to the tense-faced people around her.
"And this is..."
Jedi narrowed his bloodshot eyes, clearly very puzzled by Herta's presence.
Herta stepped forward and introduced herself in a flat tone.
"I'm a private investigator from out of town on vacation, Herta. We're colleagues, in a sense. Nice to meet you; please look after me."
On any other day, an old hand like Jedi might have had the interest to tease a young colleague from out of town or test her depth.
Now, he didn't have the slightest mood for it.
The only thought in his mind was to quickly toss out the foul-smelling trash in his hand and then crawl back to bed to continue his slumber.
"Nice to meet you."
Jedi responded perfunctorily.
"I'm really in no state to host everyone today. I need to throw out the trash and go back to rest."
How could the group let him just close the door like that?
With less than half an hour left until the window of his death, letting the target out of their sight would be no different from declaring the mission a failure.
Immediately, a man with a buzz cut grabbed the trash bag from his hand to run the errand for him.
"Mr. Jedi, I'm afraid you can't rest just yet. The Kewen Police Station is currently investigating an extremely heinous serial murder case."
Without waiting for Brooks or Green to come up with a suitable excuse, Herta spoke first, throwing out a very heavy bait.
"The killer is extremely cunning and has already murdered over a dozen people in succession."
Jedi frowned, clearly uninterested and about to shoo them away, but Herta shifted her tone.
"According to our thorough investigation, all the victims shared several very obvious and identical commonalities before they died."
"For a period before their deaths, they would all fall into a state of extreme exhaustion."
"No matter how much they rested or slept, it couldn't be relieved—exactly like how you look right now."
Jedi's arm trembled, and his drowsy eyes became a bit more alert.
Taking in his reaction, Herta continued to recount the details she had learned from Qi Zhimu in a calm voice.
"Accompanying this fatigue are intense backaches, persistent mental grogginess, and a lack of strength in the limbs."
"Not only that, but victims also experience complications such as memory loss and slowed reaction times."
"As time passes, the symptoms worsen until the killer comes to their door and brutally murders them while they are unable to resist."
A layer of cold sweat involuntarily broke out on Jedi's back.
Every word Herta described struck his nerves with absolute precision.
His body's reactions over the past few days matched perfectly!