At 1 a.m., the city's neon lights had long since dimmed, and most people were lost in their dreams. The only thing moving through the empty streets was the "Midnight Bus Route 201," slowly winding through the silence like a solitary snake, its winding path cutting through the stillness.
There were only seven passengers left on the bus. The driver, Wang Dawei, yawned and glanced at the rearview mirror, intending to finish the route and head to the depot to rest. However, he didn't notice that the man in the last row of seats had his head tilted to one side, his eyes wide open, his mouth twitching slightly, as if frozen in the final second of death.
At 1:43 a.m., the bus reached its final stop. When the driver got up to inspect the bus, he realized that one passenger remained completely still. He approached and tapped the man on the shoulder, only to find that the man slumped sideways in his seat, his neck bruised and his eyes vacant.
At the same time, the other passengers began to show signs of distress: shortness of breath, blurred vision, and excruciating headaches."Something's wrong!" Wang Dawei trembled as he dialed the emergency number.
Ten minutes later, police and emergency responders arrived on the scene. The police sealed off the entire bus, and two of the passengers were confirmed dead, while three others were in a comatose state.
"The air is abnormal," the paramedics quickly observed, donning gas masks.The city police department set up a special task force that night, with Lu Chenzhou as the lead investigator, accompanied by Su Wanqing.
Su Wanqing entered the bus to conduct a preliminary inspection. She opened a portable air composition analyzer, and as the instrument emitted a series of beeps, her brows furrowed tighter."There's a volatile organic fluorine compound residue inside the bus," she murmured. "When inhaled, it rapidly disrupts the nervous system, causing unconsciousness or even death. This was deliberately released.""Where did the poison come from?" Lu Chenzhou asked, standing at the bus door.
Su Wanqing moved to the back of the bus, her fingers brushing over the air conditioning vents. "This ventilation system has been tampered with. The toxin was likely released through the air conditioning system at some point, and the victims were poisoned without realizing it."
"Surveillance footage?" Lu Chenzhou turned to the technical team."We have footage, but since it's a night route, the camera angles are limited, and we're retrieving the full footage now," the tech team responded.
A segment of footage caught their attention: at 1:15 a.m., a man dressed in a large coat and wearing a baseball cap, appeared from the rear seats. He took out a black plastic box, inserted it into the bus's electrical control panel at the back, and stayed for about three minutes before returning to his seat.
"Focus on this man," Lu Chenzhou immediately ordered.
The police cross-referenced the card-swipe records with passenger information and quickly identified the man: Han Zhiming, 35 years old, a former assistant in a chemical laboratory. Three years ago, he was given probation for stealing chemical reagents. Recently unemployed and with mental health issues.
Further investigation revealed that Han Zhiming had been active on several extreme online forums. In an anonymous blog post, the police found the following entry:"This society has never given me a chance to breathe, so why should I show it mercy? I'll make them taste suffocation, just like I've been experiencing every single day for the last ten years."
"He has a strong desire for revenge," Su Wanqing muttered.
"This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision, it's been planned for a long time," Lu Chenzhou clenched his fists. "And he knows how to modify the air system, meaning his technical background is solid."
That night, the police quickly pinpointed a location where Han Zhiming might be hiding—a former warehouse in the suburbs where he had once rented. The operation team moved out immediately.
At 4 a.m., the police broke down the door, and Han Zhiming was found hiding in the corner of the warehouse, attempting to detonate a device he had been carrying. In a critical moment, Lu Chenzhou reacted quickly, kicking the device away while other team members subdued him successfully.
Back at the police station, Han Zhiming finally broke down when confronted with the overwhelming evidence of surveillance footage and witness testimony.
"You don't understand!" he cried. "I've been trying for ten years, only to get fired and kicked out. I can't even afford a place to live! I'm a waste, a piece of trash in this society... but why do they get to live so easily? The people on that bus were just random choices... They were paying the debt for society!"
Su Wanqing stood behind the glass, quietly listening, her expression complicated.
"He's not crazy," she murmured. "He's too clear-headed, that's what makes him so terrifying."
After the case was closed, the passengers who had fallen into a coma woke up in the hospital. One of them, an emergency room nurse, returned to work as soon as she regained consciousness to continue caring for the other victims.
"This is also society," Su Wanqing said to Lu Chenzhou on the way back to the station. "You can choose to destroy it, or you can choose to fix it."
Lu Chenzhou looked at her and nodded slightly."And we, we are the force that fixes it."