Chapter Nine - The Seventh One Still Lives

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On the surveillance footage, the slender figure lingered beneath the towering stone pillars of the museum for over ten minutes, like a lost butterfly, before finally vanishing into the bottomless darkness near the side door.

Shen Mo’s heart sank. Without hesitation, he grabbed his coat and dashed out of the monitoring room, the wail of sirens fading far behind him.

The air in the museum's storage room was cold and stagnant, redolent with the scent of aged wood and preservatives.

As he pushed open the heavy lead door, Su Wanying stood with her back to him, her gaunt shoulders trembling violently, as if they might collapse at any moment.

Her stiffened fingers pointed toward a solitary glass display case ahead, inside which rested a Qing dynasty branding iron. The blackened iron gleamed faintly under the spotlight, casting a cold, eerie glow.

“Captain Shen…” Her voice was fragile and quivering, laced with tears. “You have to see this.”

Shen Mo hurried forward, his gaze immediately drawn to the scene within the case.

The thick bulletproof glass lining the display was covered with fine droplets, as if steamed by heat just moments ago.

On the pristine metal base beneath, a wet footprint stood out starkly.

It was the imprint of a woman’s flat shoe, the size and pattern matching perfectly the pair Zhao Wan often wore in his memory.

“Pull the security logs,” Shen Mo’s voice was chillingly calm. “Who last swiped access at this display area?”

The security supervisor nearby was sweating profusely as he scrolled through the tablet. “There’s no record… Captain Shen, in the past three hours, there’s been no card swipe in Storage Area B. Miss Su came in with me through the main passage in Area A; she never approached this section.”

Su Wanying finally turned around, her face pale as death, lips trembling as she uttered words that sent shivers down everyone’s spines: “She… she never actually came in… but Captain Shen, that footprint… it’s still warm.”

Shen Mo’s pupils constricted sharply.

An intruder who shouldn’t exist had left behind a warm footprint.

He had no time to process the strangeness. Pulling out his phone, his fingers flew across the screen to retrieve Zhao Wan’s phone location.

The red dot blinked on the city map, then stabilized downstream along the old city river, pinpointing an abandoned pumping station.

Twenty minutes later, beams of flashlights pierced the darkness of the pumping station.

The rusty iron door screeched as it opened, releasing a heavy stench of mildew and brackish water.

Shen Mo and his team stormed the central control room, immediately spotting a beige trench coat draped over the corroded control panel, and a shattered phone screen lying nearby.

Both belonged to Zhao Wan.

As officers moved forward to collect evidence, Shen Mo raised his hand to halt them.

His gaze fixed intently on the concrete wall opposite.

On the wall, a thin layer of moisture had formed crooked, water-streaked characters, as if someone had traced fingers over a foggy glass.

Under the flashlight’s beam, the droplets slowly rolled, refracting a cold light.

“It’s your turn now.”

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At that moment, Shen Mo’s phone vibrated violently.

It was Old Zhang from forensics, the background noise heavy and grave.

“Shen Mo, an unidentified female corpse was just pulled from the reeds on the city outskirts. The situation is… strange. The lungs are filled with water, and the fingernail beds contain typical river algae. Preliminary conclusion: drowning. But these signs are identical to last month’s Lin Wanqing case.”

Shen Mo’s heart skipped a beat. “Victim’s identity?”

A pause on the other end, as if confirming something unbelievable.

“Photos just came through… Shen Mo, brace yourself. The victim… is Zhao Wan.”

The morgue’s harsh white lights were blinding.

Shen Mo peeled back the white sheet himself. That familiar face—once radiant with countless smiles directed at him—now lifeless, lips tinted a strange bluish-purple from oxygen deprivation.

It was undeniably Zhao Wan.

Old Zhang handed over the preliminary autopsy report, brow furrowed.

“Cause of death is drowning; pulmonary edema was the main factor. But two points are highly unusual. First, the blood sample shows extremely high concentrations of adrenaline and noradrenaline, indicating unimaginable terror before death. Second,” he hesitated, voice filled with puzzlement, “the hyoid bone is intact, no signs of neck compression, and no defensive wounds. This doesn’t fit passive drowning. It suggests she willingly entered the water.”

Shen Mo said nothing. Donning gloves, he gently lifted the corpse’s icy right hand.

He stroked the smooth palm, his gaze piercing beneath the skin like X-rays.

Suddenly, his movement froze.

Under the harsh light, beneath the once-smooth skin, something was slowly shifting.

Faint, circular patterns began to emerge in the subdermal tissue, like ink diffusing on rice paper or seeds breaking through soil.

The pattern grew clearer, forming an entirely new, unfamiliar fingerprint.

A thunderbolt struck his mind—this regenerating fingerprint belonged to the previous victim, Zhou Zhenguo!

A horrifying thought cleaved through his thoughts.

This was not Zhao Wan.

Or rather, not entirely.

This was the entity he had dubbed “Echo,” using Zhao Wan’s body to flawlessly recreate Zhou Wenhai’s death ritual once again.

Terror, drowning, fingerprint regeneration… every detail was replicated to perfection.

“Seal off the pumping station immediately! No one is to enter!” he barked into the phone, then stormed out of the morgue.

Back in the damp, cold control room, Shen Mo’s eyes sharpened like blades.

He bypassed the evidence bags on the floor and headed straight to an inconspicuous, antiquated device in the corner—the humidity controller.

Opening its rusted cover, the settings chilled him to the bone: 98.7%.

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The timer was set to activate two hours before Zhao Wan’s disappearance.

On the paper log next to the device, the user’s name was scrawled as “Zhao Wan,” but Shen Mo instantly recognized the handwriting as forged.

He did not pause, prying open the controller’s circuit board.

Among the dense wiring, he found an extra cable, expertly connected to an external power source.

Following the wire, he discovered an abandoned conduit in the corner. Its underground path led straight to a legendary dry well in Qiwu Lane.

Shen Mo stood slowly, surveying the carefully arranged “stage” with a cold voice like ice.

“It’s mimicking us… setting the scene using our methods.”

Late at night, the city fell into slumber.

Suddenly, Shen Mo’s doorbell rang without warning.

He peered through the peephole, his entire body freezing.

There stood Zhao Wan.

Her clothes were soaked through, ebony hair plastered against her pallid face, droplets falling onto the carpet, forming a dark stain.

Her gaze was vacant, unfocused, as if just awakened from a long nightmare.

Shen Mo yanked the door open abruptly, pulling her inside.

Zhao Wan’s body was as cold as ice freshly removed from a freezer.

She looked at him, lips trembling before a faint, hollow voice escaped, as if her soul had been drained:

“I… woke up at the pumping station… I saw another me… she stood by the water, smiling and said… you deserve to die.”

Shen Mo wrapped her tightly in a blanket, settling her in a room guaranteed safe.

He poured a cup of hot water, but his eyes couldn’t help but fixate on the nape of her neck.

Along the hairline, a faint, nearly imperceptible red mark lingered.

Feigning a reason to brush her hair, he discreetly fetched a portable microscopic scanner.

Under the lens, the red mark enlarged—this was no ordinary scratch or ligature mark. Instead, it bore an eerie pattern of water erosion, its edges smooth and profound, as if an invisible, high-pressure waterline had been scouring it day after day, year after year.

Shen Mo slowly closed the scanner, the last trace of warmth vanishing from his eyes.

He stepped outside where Su Wanying waited anxiously.

Looking at her, his voice dropped into a whisper, as if afraid to disturb the “survivor” slowly regaining warmth inside.

“The seventh name isn’t dead yet…” he murmured, every word dripping with bone-chilling dread, “but it’s already begun… living for us.”