A reservoir.

"Stop."

I told Captain Stone to pull over.

We got out of the car.

The night wind was cold, cutting into our faces like knives.

I looked around.

In the distance, there was a pitch-black silhouette.

"A pump station," I said.

I walked toward that direction.

Captain Stone and the two colleagues who followed us stayed close behind.

We drew near.

An abandoned, old pump station.

The wall plaster was peeling off, and the window glass was all shattered.

And beside the pump station.

A massive willow tree swayed its branches in the night wind.

Everything was exactly as I had seen in my vision.

This was the place.

Snow was right there, under this icy water.

I felt a wave of nausea.

That eerie chill seemed to rise from the depths of the water, wrapping itself around my entire body.

The reinforcements from the municipal bureau arrived quickly.

Over a dozen police cars parked silently by the reservoir.

Powerful searchlights were turned on, illuminating the water as if it were daylight.

The divers donned their equipment and plunged into the water with a splash.

The water surface returned to calm.

Only ripples spread slowly under the lights.

Time became infinitely long at this moment.

Every second was a torment.

We waited on the shore.

No one spoke.

Only the sound of the wind and the low-frequency humming of the equipment could be heard.

Half an hour later.

The diver's voice came over the radio.

"Report! At fifteen meters underwater, an object resembling a human figure has been found!"

"It is entangled in fishing nets and heavy objects, fixed to the bottom of the water."

Everyone's heart jumped into their throats.

"Haul it up!" Captain Stone ordered.

A massive winch began to work.

The thick steel cable slowly tightened.

Beneath the water, a black object was slowly being dragged up.

It drew closer and closer to the surface.

The moment that object was dragged out of the water.

Everyone gasped.

It was a person wrapped in heavy fishing nets.

Tied within the nets were several heavy stones.

The coroner and forensic investigators immediately rushed forward.

They cut open the fishing net.

A female corpse was presented before us.

She had been submerged in the water for too long.

Her body was highly bloated and pale.

Unrecognizable.

But that face.

That face twisted by fear and asphyxiation.

Those wide-open eyes that died with regrets.

They were exactly the same as what I had seen in my hallucination.

It was her.

Snow.

I couldn't hold it back any longer, turned to the side, and began to dry heave violently.

The icy lake water.

The desperate wronged soul.

And those two stones, carrying endless resentment.

Everything matched up.

Chapter 8

The news that the body had been found was like a bombshell.

It completely shattered the psychological defenses of the two suspects.

We returned to the municipal bureau overnight.

This time, the interrogation room was changed.

Sean and Fiona were detained separately.

Captain Stone and I went to Sean’s interrogation room first.

He hadn't slept all night.

His hair was a mess, and his eyes were bloodshot.

The man who once seemed like a cultured scoundrel now looked like a stray dog.

Captain Stone threw several crime scene photos in front of him.

They were the photos of Snow’s body being salvaged.

It was a gruesome sight.

Sean only took one look before collapsing.

He buried his head in his hands, emitting a howl like a wild beast.

"Ah—! Don't show me! Don't show me!"

"Know fear now?" Captain Stone’s voice was as cold as ice. "When you sank her to the bottom of the reservoir, why didn't you think of today?"

"It wasn't me! It wasn't primarily me!"

Sean raised his head, his face streaming with tears and snot.

"It was Fiona! It was that vicious woman!"

He confessed everything.

He and Fiona had been involved with each other for a long time.

They both coveted the assets under Snow’s name.

Snow discovered their affair, proposed a divorce, and demanded back everything that belonged to her.

So, they decided to kill her.

"That day, I was the one who asked her to meet at the reservoir."

Sean’s voice trembled.

"I told her we should talk one last time. She came."

"And then?"

"Then Fiona showed up too. We... we got into an argument. Fiona... she took a stone and smashed Snow's head from behind."

"Snow collapsed on the spot, bleeding heavily."

"I was scared stupid at the time. Fiona, however, was very calm. She said, 'In for a penny, in for a pound'."

"She made me help her... sink Snow."

"The fishing nets, the stones—they were all prepared by her. She said this was the safest way, that she would never be discovered."

Sean’s confession shifted all the major responsibility onto Fiona.

He painted himself as a weak accomplice instigated by a woman.

Was it credible?

I didn't believe a word of it.

Next, we went to Fiona’s interrogation room.

She also knew the news that the body had been found.

But her reaction was completely different from Sean’s.

She didn't cry or scream.

She just sat there, expressionless.

Her eyes were as hollow as a black hole.

"Sean has confessed everything," Stone said. "He said you were the mastermind, and you were the one who did it."

When Fiona heard this, a strange smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"He said that?"

"Yes."

"Hehe... hehehehe..."

She began to laugh, her laughter growing louder and shriller.

Like the cry of a night owl.

"That pathetic coward! That spineless man!"

She slammed her hand on the table, glaring at us.

"That's right! I killed her!"

She admitted it.

Admitted it clean and simple.

"I never liked that sister of mine anyway!"

Her eyes were filled with jealousy and resentment.

"Why? We’re sisters, why was she prettier than me since childhood, smarter than me, and why did everyone love her?"

"Why was she able to marry into a good family, do nothing, and have endless money?"

"And what about me? I had to struggle bitterly abroad, looking at others' faces to get by!"

"That home, that money—it should have been mine!"

Her mentality had become completely twisted.

"Sean, that useless waste, I’d grown bored of him a long time ago. If not for the fact that he could help me get money, I would have kicked him to the curb long ago."

"I planned everything. And I was the one who personally smashed her to death."

She spoke of these things in a tone as calm as if she were discussing a trivial matter.

Captain Stone and I felt a chill run down our spines.

This was a devil through and through.

"I have one more question," I asked her.

"What about those two stones?"

"You killed someone, disposed of the body, so why would you carry those two murder weapons on you?"

"And go to such lengths to create a hidden lining, wanting to take them abroad?"

This question seemed to touch upon her deepest secret.

For the first time, Fiona’s face showed an expression of terror.

She looked at me, her lips moving, but not a single word came out.

Chapter 9

Fiona’s silence plunged the interrogation room into dead stillness.

The fear in her eyes wasn't feigned.

It was a dread of something beyond words.

Captain Stone and I exchanged a look.

We knew the strangest part of this case lay in those two stones.

Murder, body disposal, for money, for love.

These followed a certain logic.

But taking murder weapons stained with the victim's DNA abroad?

That defied all common sense.

Unless those two stones held a significance for her far greater than just being "murder weapons."

"What are you afraid of?" I stared into her eyes.

"Afraid that your sister's ghost will come looking for you?"

I was just testing the waters.

Unexpectedly, Fiona’s body shuddered violently.

Her face turned whiter than paper.

"How... how do you know?"

The words escaped her before she could stop them.

Both Captain Stone and I were startled.

We had guessed right.

This woman, manic, cold-blooded, and ruthless, actually believed in ghosts and gods.

"When your sister died, her resentment must have been immense," I continued, lowering my voice into a devilish lure.

"She died with her eyes wide open, sunken at the bottom of the icy water. Do you dream of her every night?"

"Dream of that bloated, rotten face asking you, 'Why?'"

"Stop it! Stop it!"

Fiona covered her ears, shaking her head frantically.

Her psychological defenses were being dismantled step by step.

"You brought those two stones along—you were guided by some 'master,' weren't you?" Captain Stone added, landing the final blow.

"Told that these two stones were 'soul-suppressing stones' pinning down her corpse? That as long as you took them abroad and threw them into the ocean, she would never be reincarnated, and she could never find you again?"