This whole ordeal really exhausted us. Huang Xiaotao said Liao Leader had already applied for an arrest warrant and was taking people to apprehend Yu Jun.
Anyway, since we were free, we went back to the hotel to rest for a while. A little after 5 p.m., Liao Leader called to say Yu Jun had been arrested and taken into custody. We rushed to the police station and saw Yu Jun in the interrogation room. His previous arrogance was completely gone. As soon as he saw me, he cried out anxiously, "Officer, you're here at just the right time. Please let me go back quickly. I have an emergency at home!"
"What emergency?" I asked.
"My wife is sick. I need to go back and take care of her..."
I sneered, "It's not your wife you want to take care of, it's a cat, right?"
I told him Bai Yidao had already been arrested and the Wealth Ferry Spirit Cat was now in our hands. Yu Jun instantly looked crestfallen and pleaded, "Give it to me, I beg you."
"Why should I?"
Yu Jun lowered his head and mumbled an explanation, "That thing is very hard to serve. I have to use my own essence and blood to feed it every day at noon, otherwise it will retaliate against me."
I glanced at the bandages on his hands, it was just as I had guessed.
I said, "Unless you confess to the murders, don't even think about it!"
"Please, please, sir, show some mercy." He reached out to try to grab my hand but was scolded by the guard, "Behave yourself!"
"So you're admitting the curse is real?" I looked at him with a faint smile.
Yu Jun's face turned ashen, and he stopped talking.
I went on, "As long as you admit it, I'll have Liao Leader grant you bail so you can go back and feed your cat."
"You're a policeman, yet you're threatening me like this!" Yu Jun yelled angrily.
I didn't tell him my true identity. I just calmly said, "Yu Jun, if the curse doesn't exist, why should we believe you'll be cursed to death? This is not a threat, it's simple logic."
Yu Jun clenched his teeth and glared at me fiercely.
I gave him some time to think. When we left the interrogation room, Yu Jun was laughing hysterically inside, "You will all die, you will all die when midnight comes!"
His threat made the police very worried. They sent someone to ask me if keeping the Wealth Ferry Spirit Cat at the police station would be unsafe.
I didn't think this thing could randomly kill people, but the police were very afraid. So I came up with a compromise to lock the cat in a car parked deep in the parking lot before they felt relieved.
We spent the rest of the day waiting at the police station and even had dinner there. It was actually a silent psychological battle with Yu Jun.
Either confess and live, or resist and die! It was almost 11 o'clock, and we were all incredibly bored, with our phone batteries nearly dead.
Wang Dali said, "This guy probably won't confess. He killed seven people, he'll definitely get the death penalty..."
I replied, "Not necessarily. Everyone fears death. Living one more day is good. He will surely give in."
Just then, a policeman rushed over and cried, "Bad news, something happened to Yu Jun!"
"What happened?" I asked.
"Hard to describe in one word, come take a look!"
We went to the detention room and saw Yu Jun clutching the bars, smashing his head against them over and over until he bled, mumbling to himself, "I am the Great Immortal Spirit Cat. I am the Great Immortal Spirit Cat. How dare you lock me up. When midnight comes, I will make you all die!"
The police were scared stiff. Liao Leader worriedly said, "He's probably possessed. There are too many people at the police station. I think we should move him first."
The others also agreed.
If not for what happened to Wang Dali that afternoon, Yu Jun's behavior could have really frightened me. But I could tell at a glance that he was acting. Being possessed by the spirit cat was not like this at all.
I sneered, "Keep pretending, Yu Jun. Midnight is almost here. Just wait patiently for death!"
Yu Jun shook his head and persisted, "Insolent mortal, how dare you speak to the Great Immortal Spirit Cat like this! I will have you die, I will have you die!" He pressed his face against the bars, the blood from his forehead flowing down his nose, looking extremely sinister.
"In a few more minutes I will display my divine powers and make you kill each other!"
As soon as he said this, the mood in the room changed. Everyone looked at each other nervously, afraid they would soon die by their colleague's gun.
I leaned in closer and sneered, "Stop acting. I've seen what it looks like to be possessed by the spirit cat. You're not the least bit convincing."
This remark shattered Yu Jun's psychological defenses. His lips trembled and his eyes grew chaotic.
I went on, "I know what you're thinking. You want to scare us into doing what you want. Keep pretending if you want, let's see who can outlast the other!"
I called Huang Xiaotao aside and whispered some instructions. Then I told the others, "You guys go out first. I'll deal with him!"
Liao Leader was a little worried but finally the police left under my insistence.
Huang Xiaotao looked at her watch and said, "Oh no, Song Yang, there are only 10 minutes until midnight."
Yu Jun glanced at the clock on the wall and let out a cold laugh, seeming to regain confidence. He resumed his pathetic act, shaking his head and foaming at the mouth. "The Great Immortal Spirit Cat will display his power now! Those who obey me shall live, those who defy me shall die!"
I pulled up a chair, crossed my legs, and sat down coldly in front of Yu Jun. "Then let's wait 10 minutes and see who dies, us or you!"
Wang Dali whispered, "Song Yang, what if what he says is true?"
"Impossible!" I said confidently.
Wang Dali was scared to death. I told him to go out and hide for a while if he was worried, but Wang Dali insisted, "How can I do that? What kind of unprincipled person would I be?"
Time trickled away second by second. Huang Xiaotao suddenly exclaimed in surprise, "Hey, Wang Dali is gone!"
I looked around the room. Wang Dali had hidden under a table at some point, hugging his head and shivering in fear. Huang Xiaotao and I scolded him contemptuously, "Coward!"
There were only 2 minutes left until midnight.
Yu Jun finally couldn't hold on any longer. His voice returned to normal. "I confess, I confess, I killed both families!"
"How did you kill them?" I asked.
"I wrote down their birth dates and eight characters, burned them to ashes, mixed it with my blood and fed it to the spirit cat. Then I gave the cat to the person I wanted to kill. The cat would release a kind of biomagnetic field that drove them insane." After speaking, Yu Jun viciously bit into his middle finger. He bit so hard it seemed he had bitten off a whole piece of flesh. It looked so painful even I felt it.
Then he held out his bleeding finger eagerly, "Hurry, feed my blood to it. This cunning cat will make trouble if it doesn't get fed at midnight!"
I asked slowly, "Then what?"
"The sculpture is just its prison, sealed with my blood. I have to drip my essence and blood into the small hole on it every midnight to reinforce the seal, otherwise it will break free and take revenge on me! I rented the room opposite the Huangs' just so I could feed it on time. This evil cat is always trying to break my control." Yu Jun shouted anxiously.
I was shocked. No wonder Wang Dali, possessed that afternoon, had desperately tried to smash the sculpture. So this spirit cat was enslaved.
I asked, "Did you sneak into the victims' homes every day to feed it blood?"
Yu Jun replied, "I don't need to touch it. As long as I'm within 20 meters and drip the blood into the red candle, letting it smell the blood, that's fine too."
"Where did you get this cat?" I asked.
"A wandering Taoist sold it to me. Officer, no more questions. Hurry up and take my blood to feed it, I'm begging you!" He kept ramming his head against the bars, as if kowtowing to me. This pitiful appearance was completely different from his arrogance that morning.
I took out my phone from my pocket and held it up to him. "Look at the time now."
Seeing the time on the phone, Yu Jun's face alternated between white and green, as if he had been slapped.
I just instructed Huang Xiaotao to move the clock on the wall ahead by half an hour while the police are away. So now it's only eleven thirty.
But I've already recorded everything Yu Jun said on my phone. That's enough evidence for the courtroom to make him pay for murder!