Escape from Hunger Island

Chapter 10: Gunshot

The deep of the night is a time that easily instills fear, yet it is also the moment when people are most likely to let their guard down. After all, rising with the sun and resting at sunset has always been the natural rhythm of all living things—especially at midnight. People, already utterly exhausted, had returned to their rooms to rest, while the more timid among them fought off drowsiness to chat with their companions. But even they were yawning constantly, due to the murder that had occurred in the evening and the unusually violent storm that night. This kept their nerves on edge, causing their energy to deplete much faster than usual. Yet even in this state, the sudden gunshot undoubtedly served as a shot in the arm, jolting everyone awake in an instant! “Hey, hey, did you hear that? That sound—how could something like that happen in the middle of the night? I hope I didn’t just imagine it.” “I heard it too. Was that… a gunshot? But how could there be a gunshot on a perfectly normal ship? What on earth is going on?” “Could something terrible be happening again at a time like this? Hey, what’s going on? What’s happening over there?” Some passengers immediately opened their cabin doors and, seeing people rushing down the dimly lit hallway, asked what was going on. “Everyone, stay in your rooms and don’t come out. It’s coming from the engine control room—go check it out!” Uniformed police officers and security guards from Flying Bear Entertainment shouted at the curious passengers, ordering them to return to their rooms and stay put. They, meanwhile, hurried toward the source of the gunshots—the power control room. Wu Xiongbi’s death was already a major headache for them, and they were bound to face immense pressure—after all, Wu Xiongbi was no ordinary figure. He was the big boss of Feixiong Entertainment, a renowned billionaire with a wide circle of friends, on intimate terms with many high-ranking officials and dignitaries. Now, with the circumstances of Wu Xiongbi’s death still unclear, gunshots had rang out once again aboard the Chang’an—this did not bode well at all! “Damn it, of all times, on a stormy night like this. There it is—right over there! Don’t move! Hands up! Huh? Is that you?” As Zhao Molli, a rookie officer who had recently graduated from the police academy, was the first to rush into the power control room, she drew her pistol with a swift, decisive motion. She immediately locked her aim on the head of the man inside the power control room—she’d scored a perfect score in marksmanship during her time at the police academy. She was absolutely confident she could shoot him in the leg the moment he tried to flee, rendering him unable to move. But even with the advantage on her side, she quickly made out the face of the person inside the power control room. He was a young man who looked like a college student, wearing a black shirt and with hair that almost covered his eyes, giving him a slightly disheveled appearance. As it happened, she had seen this college student earlier that evening, since he had also been present at the crime scene. “Your operations are always so sluggish. No wonder the crime rate remains so high—it’s not without reason.” The young man took off his gloves, looked up, and gave Zhao Molli an expressionless glance—even though the muzzle of a black gun was pointed directly at him. “Moli, wait for me! Phew, I finally sensed it—have you caught the suspect yet? Huh? Is that the guy I saw this evening?” Du Xue, who had graduated at the same time as Zhao Molli, stumbled over, barely managing to steady himself, panting heavily. Instead of reaching for his holster right away, he looked in surprise at the young man standing before them—a face he recognized. “You rascal! Why do you keep showing up at the crime scene time and time again? No matter how you look at it, this is highly suspicious!” Zhao Molli still showed no sign of lowering her gun. If Wu Xiongbi’s death that evening could have been explained away as a complete coincidence, But now, this guy—who seemed to be named Lu Xu—had once again calmly appeared at the crime scene. Something was definitely amiss. This made it hard for her not to suspect the young man’s motives and whether he was truly connected to these two cases in some way. “The answer is simple. When the power went out, we should have realized it was a sudden, manual, forced power cut from within. To pull off something like this, someone would have had to manually cut the power in the electrical control room. The purpose of the power cut was to create chaos and throw people off the trail.” “The time we could gain between the power outage and restoration was no more than a mere thirty seconds, because the backup power would kick in after thirty seconds. But in reality, it wouldn’t even take thirty seconds, since staff would inevitably come to investigate once they noticed the outage.” “Following this line of reasoning, the actual time we can buy is only half that—roughly fifteen seconds. Here, two scenarios arise: an accomplice or a two-person operation. Based on this, we can make further inferences.” “At the time of Wu Xiongbi’s death, there was only one killer—this can be confirmed by the surveillance footage. Although we have yet to identify a specific suspect, the pool of suspects has been narrowed down to approximately sixty-seven people.” “Upon vetting these sixty-seven individuals, we’ll find that they do not meet the conditions for a joint crime. In other words, unless the two cases were committed by different perpetrators, we can conclude that cutting the power and staging the cover-up were the spontaneous actions of a single individual.” “Taking the power control room as the central point, we considered locations that could be reached within fifteen seconds. Combining this with the approximately seven-second interval between the power cut and the gunshot, we determined that the killer’s target was undoubtedly the power control room.” “Of course, the location of the crime scene was actually evident the moment the gunshot rang out. However, as law enforcement professionals, we should have immediately suspected that something was amiss in the power control room the moment the power went out—this is essentially a conditioned reflex.” “I simply arrived here less than a minute before you did and completed the initial autopsy on your behalf. This man is already dead. As for his identity… he is Song Sen, captain of the Chang’an. By the way, Song Sen is Wu Xiongbi’s brother-in-law.” Lu Xu explained expressionlessly. Behind him, a middle-aged man in a work uniform—potbellied and sporting a full beard—lay sprawled in a pool of blood. “Wow… that’s impressive. You sound so professional—more detailed than even the instructors at the police academy. Hey, did you graduate from the police academy too?” Du Xue stared at Lu Xu in utter disbelief, unable to recover for a long moment; he never would have imagined Lu Xu to be so meticulous. “Shut up. He was at the crime scene and hasn’t been cleared of suspicion yet. And even if he isn’t the killer, he arrived at the scene before us—who knows if he had some ulterior motive, like covering up crucial evidence? Besides, don’t you know a little too much about Feixiong Entertainment?” Zhao Molli had graduated at the top of her class from the police academy, yet here she was, being lectured by a guy roughly her own age. On top of that, he looked like a college student—perhaps even younger than she was—which made her instinctively feel a bit resistant. Furthermore, there was indeed something suspicious about the situation—Lu Xu actually knew the victim’s identity inside and out. Even if police officers were to investigate this deeply, it would take quite a bit of effort, wouldn’t it?