A Hunter Made from Shadows

5

“Withdraw the police force? He’s insane!”

Lorenzo slammed his fist onto the console, his roar nearly lifting the roof of the vehicle.

“This is a trap! A blatant trap! Ashley, you can’t listen to that actor!”

Chaos swept through the cramped command vehicle once more. Every officer’s face showed shock and confusion.

Pulling back now meant handing the hostages’ lives directly to the murderer.

Ashley’s lips had lost all color. Her body trembled slightly. The demand had pushed far beyond what she could psychologically bear.

At that moment, Michael’s voice came through her private channel, still calm, still steady.

He kept the same low, hoarse, theatrical tone, as if he were continuing a private dialogue with his opponent across a stage.

“A good script has rising tension, not mindless pressure.” His voice was slow and composed, gently easing the killer’s heightened emotions.

“You want a clean stage. Fine.”

“But you should at least tell me what happens in Act Two.”

Lorenzo shook with rage when he heard this. He couldn’t understand why Michael was still saying such insane things at a moment like this.

Michael ignored everything around him.

His entire focus was locked onto the murderer.

He noticed the faint trace of an old Beicheng accent in the killer’s voice, deliberately mixed with theatrical diction. His words were precise and ornate, heavy with performance. When threatening, his breathing was short and sharp. When he felt understood, it became deep and satisfied.

These fragments rapidly reorganized in Michael’s mind.

A clearer psychological profile began to form.

This man wasn’t merely imitating.

He believed in it.

Michael could even sense that with every breath, the killer was savoring the pleasure of control, of playing the police like pieces in his palm.

This was his way of worshipping his “idol.”

And that idol was Michael himself… or rather, the Clown Michael once portrayed.

The realization was absurd, and yet it gave Michael a chilling sense of dominance.

He could feel the killer’s rhythm.

The murderer’s sick laughter echoed through the communicator again, clearly delighted by Michael’s “cooperation.”

This time, instead of issuing a threat, he presented his riddle with arrogant flair.

“The white swan is crying because she’s lost in a forest of steel.”

His voice rose, mysterious and ritualistic, like a priest delivering prophecy.

“Only by finding the heart of the forest can she be reborn.”

“I’ll give you one hour…. Find where the ‘heart’ is.”

His low, cruel laugh followed.

“If you fail, I’ll take her heart with my own hands.”

Then the line went dead, replaced by a hollow static tone.

“Forest of steel? What the hell is that?”

Lorenzo reacted first. He rushed to the map, his fingers circling frantically.

“The steel market? An abandoned factory district? Or some building named after a forest?!”

The command vehicle instantly erupted into frantic activity.

Technicians pulled up city maps, scanning for every location containing the words “steel” or “forest.”

Field officers received orders and rushed to investigate the most likely sites.

One hour.

The countdown had begun.

Ashley forced herself to stay calm. She picked up the radio, her voice slightly strained with urgency.

“Michael, what do you think? ‘Forest of steel’, where do you think it is most likely?”

Everyone waited for Michael to deliver another near-prophetic answer.

But this time… Michael was silent.

He remained seated in the car as cold rain battered the windows.

He didn’t look at the map. He didn’t join the discussions.

He simply wore his gold-rimmed glasses quietly, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the glass.

While speaking to the murderer, another layer of his mind had already awakened.

Perfect Layout.

It was the ability he gained while portraying the genius con artist in A Thousand Faces.

Those gold glasses acted like a switch, turning his mind into a supercomputer.

Streams of information overlapped and reorganized in his vision.

The moment the killer cut the call.

The demand to withdraw the police.

The one-hour deadline. And the seemingly meaningless riddle.

Inside Michael’s mind, a three-dimensional map of the area around Valentine Lane formed automatically.

Red lines marked the killer’s possible escape routes.

But he quickly ruled out every one of those routes.

Ninety-nine percent of them would inevitably pass through some form of hidden surveillance.

With the level of counter-surveillance the killer had already shown, he would never choose something so careless.

Then there was the demand to clear the scene.

Not to escape.

Michael’s pupils tightened slightly.

Not to escape,  but to meet him.

To draw him, Michael, to a specific place.

That place was the answer to the riddle.

Taking a hostage. Calling the police. Giving him one hour.

It was all a carefully designed invitation.

A bloody stage play created solely for him.

The murderer had never planned to run.

He wanted to complete his final performance in this city, right under the police’s nose.

And Michael was the only audience he had chosen.

Ashley’s anxious voice came through the communicator.

“Michael? Did you hear me? We need your judgment!”

Michael slowly removed his gold-rimmed glasses. A frightening clarity flashed in his eyes.

He didn’t answer her question.

Instead, he started the car.

The engine’s roar cut sharply through the open air.

“Stop all meaningless searches.” His voice echoed back into the command vehicle, calm, firm, unquestionable.

“He isn’t anywhere you’re looking.”

Michael ended the group channel and dialed Ashley’s private line instead.

He drove to the edge of the parking structure, looking down at the rain-soaked, neon-lit city.

The call connected. He spoke immediately, fast and precise, every word carrying weight.

“The killer isn’t anyone from the cast or crew of The Joker’s Monologue.”

Ashley froze on the other end.

“He’s an extreme film obsessive, a lunatic who knows that movie better than any of us.”

“His imitation has long gone beyond imitation.”

Michael’s gaze locked onto the tallest skyscraper in the city center, its LED façade glowing in shifting colors, the commercial heart of the city.

“‘The heart of the forest of steel’ doesn’t refer to a physical location. It’s a psychological concept.”

“There was a setting in the first draft of The Joker’s Monologue that was later discarded.”

Ashley’s mind went blank. She could barely keep up.

Michael didn’t give her time to process and continued.

“In that abandoned version, the Joker believed the modern city was a frozen forest of concrete and steel, and that the source devouring human nature was the ‘heart of desire’ hidden at the center of that forest.”

“To solve this puzzle, I need a completely new character.”

For the first time, a trace of gravity entered his voice.

“A character who can truly empathize with that madman.”

Michael looked at his reflection in the car window.

On his face, the calm was slowly fading, replaced by the faint, dangerous hunger of a predator.