7. Interrogation

The seven days that followed were a descent into a purgatory Fang Zhe had never known existed. He moved through his duties at the bureau like an automaton, signing warrants, attending briefings, nodding at the appropriate moments. But his mind was elsewhere—in the cavernous halls of the Huahai Museum, on the scaffold in the Eastern Complex, in the garden where Xu Wei had waved at him like an old friend. The invitation card sat in his breast pocket, a talisman that both anchored him and pulled him deeper into the abyss.

Zhao had noticed the change. The junior officer watched his superior with increasing concern, noting the hollows under Fang's eyes, the tremor in his hands when he lit a cigarette, the way he stared at photographs of the crime scenes as if they were love letters. On the third morning, Zhao cornered him in the corridor.

"Sir, you need to see a doctor. You're not well."

Fang waved him off with a dismissive gesture. "I'm fine. I'm following a lead. You need to trust me."

"Trust you? You've been disappearing at night. You haven't filed a single progress report in four days. The provincial director is asking questions—he wants to know why the 'Artistic Murder' case is still unsolved when the killer is practically taunting us." Zhao's voice was strained, a mixture of loyalty and desperation. "If you know something, you need to share it. I can help."

Fang looked at his partner—young, earnest, still believing in the system that Fang had once served with devotion. He felt a pang of something that might have been guilt, but it was too faint to act upon.

"I'm meeting with a confidential informant tonight," Fang said, the lie sliding out with practiced ease. "Someone close to Lin Yuan. If it pans out, we'll have the whole network. But I need to go alone—he's skittish. If he sees a badge, he'll bolt."

Zhao's expression flickered between doubt and acquiescence. Finally, he nodded. "I'll hold the fort. But if you're not back by dawn, I'm calling the director."

Fang clapped him on the shoulder, a gesture that felt hollow even to himself. "Understood."

That evening, he drove not to a meeting with an informant, but to the riverside warehouse where Lin Yuan's studio still stood. The steel door was unlocked, and the interior was a chaos of half-finished canvases and scattered brushes. But Lin was there, sitting cross-legged on the raised platform beneath his vast covered canvas. He was meditating, his eyes closed, his hands resting on his knees.

"Detective," Lin said without opening his eyes. "I was wondering when you'd come."

"I need to know what you're planning," Fang said, his voice flat. "The gala. The final act. Xu Wei says it's a painting, not a murder. But I don't trust him. And I don't fully trust you."

Lin opened his eyes and smiled—a serene, almost beatific expression. "Trust is a luxury for those who still believe in certainty. You and I, Detective, have moved beyond certainty. We are in the realm of faith."

"I don't have faith. I have questions."

"Then ask."

Fang paced the length of the studio, his footsteps echoing on the concrete floor. "You gave Xu Wei the blueprint. The seven vices, the seven locations. You knew he would kill. You could have stopped him, but you chose not to. Why?"

Lin rose gracefully and walked to a small table where a pot of green tea was steeping. He poured two cups and handed one to Fang. "Because I wanted to see if his conviction was real. If he had the courage to follow through. He did—but his courage was corrupted by ego. He killed not to purify, but to be seen. That is the difference between a prophet and a performer."

"And you? Are you a prophet or a performer?"

Lin sipped his tea, his eyes contemplating the amber liquid. "I am an artist. And artists do not kill—they transform. The gala is my transformation. I will unveil a work that will make Xu Wei's murders look like footnotes. The final canvas will not be painted with blood, but with truth. And truth, Detective, is the only weapon that can truly wound the powerful."

Fang set down his cup untouched. "And where do I fit in this transformation?"

Lin stepped closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "You are the witness. The chosen observer. In every great work, there is a figure who stands outside the narrative, who sees both the canvas and the frame. You are that figure. Without you, the act has no audience. Without you, it is mere vandalism."

Fang felt the words coil around him like a spell. He wanted to resist, to assert his autonomy, but the logic was seductive. He had already become a participant, a critic, a connoisseur of atrocity. To claim otherwise now would be hypocrisy.

"One more thing," Lin added, turning back to his covered canvas. "Xu Wei is not the only one watching you. There is another player in this game—someone who has been following your movements, your investigations, your private moments. She approached me three days ago, offering her services. I refused."

Fang's blood ran cold. "Who?"

"A woman named Su Ling." Lin's voice was calm, but his eyes flickered with something that might have been wariness. "She claims to want to stop the gala. She says she has evidence that Xu Wei has planted explosives in the museum—a final act of destruction that will kill everyone in attendance, including you and me. I do not know if she is telling the truth, or if she is part of Xu Wei's plan. But I thought you should know."

Fang's mind raced. Su Ling—the former assistant who had led him to Lin in the first place. She had seemed genuine, desperate even. But she had also known exactly where to find him, exactly what to say to draw him in. Was she a double agent? A pawn of Xu Wei? Or a genuine whistleblower trying to prevent a massacre?

"Where is she now?" Fang demanded.

"She left me a number. Said to call if I changed my mind." Lin handed him a scrap of paper with a mobile number scrawled in pencil. "I give it to you, Detective. Do with it what you will. But if I were you, I would be careful. In this game, trust is the most dangerous currency of all."

Fang pocketed the number and left the studio without another word. He drove back to the bureau, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles went white. Su Ling had been the one who told him about Lin's plans, who had led him to the mill, who had warned him about the final act. If she was lying, then everything he had done in the past week had been orchestrated—not by Lin, not by Xu Wei, but by a third party whose motives were entirely opaque.

He pulled into the bureau lot and sat in the car for a long time, staring at the scrap of paper. Then, on impulse, he dialed the number.

It rang twice, then a breathless voice answered. "Detective Fang. Thank you for calling."

"Su Ling. I need to know who you really are."

A pause. Then, softly: "I am someone who has been watching this tragedy unfold for years. I was Lin Yuan's assistant, yes. But I was also Xu Wei's lover. I know both of them—their strengths, their weaknesses, their obsessions. And I know that the gala is not what Lin claims. It is not a transformation. It is a sacrifice."

Fang's grip on the phone tightened. "A sacrifice—explain."

"Xu Wei has become disillusioned with Lin. He feels that Lin has been using him, manipulating him into committing murders while Lin stays clean. He has decided to turn the gala into a final, spectacular act of revenge—not just against the system, but against Lin himself. He has hidden explosives in the museum's foundations. He plans to detonate them during the unveiling, killing everyone in the hall. He told me that the final stroke will be a fireball—the most beautiful canvas of all."

Fang closed his eyes, the weight of the revelation pressing down on him. "When? What time?"

"Midnight. During the toast. Lin will be on stage, giving his speech. Xu Wei will trigger the explosives from a remote location. He has no intention of dying with the rest. He wants to be the sole survivor—the artist who witnessed his own masterpiece from a safe distance."

"And you? Why are you telling me this?"

Another pause, longer this time. "Because I loved him once. And I still love him enough to want him stopped. But I cannot stop him alone. I need your help, Detective. I need you to arrest him before the gala. Not after. Before."

Fang thought of the invitation in his pocket, the role Lin had assigned him, the dance he had been drawn into. He thought of the four corpses, the five strokes, the city that had grown numb to death. He thought of Mei, his daughter, the man he used to be.

"I'll meet you," he said finally. "Tomorrow night. The same mill where we first met. Midnight. Come alone."

"I will," she said, and the line went dead.

Fang sat in the silence of the car, the phone still pressed to his ear. The pieces were shifting again—Lin as the manipulator, Xu Wei as the zealot, Su Ling as the lover-turned-betrayer. And himself, the detective who had become a critic, now being asked to become a savior.

He did not know if Su Ling was telling the truth. He did not know if Lin was sincere or simply more calculating than he appeared. He did not know if Xu Wei was a genius or a madman or both.

But he knew one thing with absolute certainty: the gala was not a celebration. It was a trap. And he was walking into it with his eyes wide open.

He stepped out of the car and walked toward the bureau's entrance, the night air cool against his face. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed—the eternal lament of a city that had forgotten how to heal. Fang ignored it. He had his own lament to carry.

Tomorrow night, he would meet Su Ling at the mill. Tomorrow night, he would decide whose side he was truly on.

And the day after that, the gala would begin.

He climbed the stairs to his office and locked the door behind him. He laid out the photographs of the seven vices, the invitation card, the journal, the note from Xu Wei. They formed a constellation around him, a map of his descent.

He sat down, his head in his hands, and waited for dawn.

Somewhere in the darkness, the final canvas was being prepared. And Fang Zhe, detective turned critic turned would-be savior, was no longer certain that he wanted to save anyone at all.