The pickup truck was fast. With a splash, spraying countless drops of water, it sank directly to the bottom.
What are they doing? The female hacker, Root, found that her brain simply couldn't process what was happening in front of her. Everything was so bizarre, so defying of logic.
Who was that woman in white? What is her relationship with Isabella Swan? Why did they plunge headfirst into the lake?
It didn't look like suicide no matter how she looked at it. She had question marks written all over her face, kneeling on the ground in a daze, her mind almost shutting down.
On the other side, Bella certainly wasn't committing suicide. As a daughter of the sea, such a small lake couldn't drown her, nor could it drown a pickup truck or a female ghost.
She rushed in like a suicide attempt because she had discovered a spirit deep in the center of the lake.
"Little cutie? Come out! I'm here to play with you!" She adopted the tone of a creepy auntie, searching for that fluctuation of negative energy at the bottom of the lake.
A water ghost, bruised all over with a pale face, poked his head out from the messy waterweeds.
He was very curious. Usually, he went to catch people; how come a living person came looking for him today?
Hatred for the living urged him to pounce quickly, but his heart also signaled extreme danger. He was extremely conflicted.
"Hah! Found you! Just your bad luck to meet me!" Separated by more than ten meters, Bella unleashed a Mind Blast, beating the water ghost's spirit body to the verge of collapse. Then, she forcibly dragged the water ghost's spirit and stuffed it into the pickup truck for Shaw to devour.
The water ghost had killed five or six people after death. His negative energy wasn't strong, but it wasn't weak either, barely enough to restore a bit of Shaw's sanity.
Bella didn't know the female hacker's background, nor did she know that her cheap sister had fought eighty rounds with the opponent. She thought Root was just a car thief.
She secretly cursed a few times about the fickleness of the world and the moral degeneration of modern times.
The pickup didn't return to the town. Instead, it went ashore at the other end of the lake, then followed the highway, flying away from Wisconsin.
Bella had to return to Los Angeles in the shortest possible time, using the residual negative energy in the Murder House to heal Shaw. Everything else could be pushed back.
She drove like a bat out of hell, managing to rush back to Los Angeles just the day before Christmas.
Taking advantage of the Ghost Pickup's quirks, she drove straight into the sealed basement. Appearing so abruptly startled the little female ghost, Violet Harmon, who was staying in the house.
"I'm exhausted!" Bella parked the pickup in the basement. This place had the most negative energy; for ghosts, the recovery effect was the best.
Shaw's expression immediately changed from pain to serenity. Wisps of black-brown energy threads were expelled from her spirit body; those were the energy residues of Dark Alessa. Bella struck repeatedly, shredding and dispersing every last wisp of that residue.
"Take care of Shaw for me these next few days. Notify me if anything happens," she instructed the little female ghost nearby.
"Okay." The little female ghost nodded obediently.
"Oh, right!" Bella was just about to leave when she suddenly remembered something. She hurriedly closed her eyes to communicate with Pyramid Head.
Carefully analyzing Pyramid Head's condition, this guy had effectively been fired by Silent Hill. Now that he was rolling with her, as the boss, she had to solve her subordinate ghost's food problem.
Like a ninja in Naruto using a Summoning Jutsu, she bit her finger and used her own blood to draw a magic circle, summoning Pyramid Head to the real world.
Pyramid Head was on a whole different level from Shaw. Without modern firearms, ten Shaws couldn't beat one Pyramid Head.
However, this Brute had first been heavily injured by Bella, barely recovering a sliver of health, then summoned to fight a war, and finally hit by Dark Alessa's Soul Shock.
"What is this thing?" Violet Harmon looked at the black gas Bella summoned and asked in great confusion.
Bella was also a bit speechless. This guy has been beaten into mere gas! Needless to say, Pyramid Head would also stay in the basement to recover.
"According to my estimate, this guy will take a few days to restore his form. He's a bit big, but don't worry—if you don't provoke him, he won't pay attention to you..."
After giving a thousand instructions, Bella bid farewell to the little female ghost and slipped away alone through the back door.
She hurriedly took a train back to Stanford, retrieved her bag from the dorm, took a shower, changed clothes, disposed of all the bandages on her wounds, and then made a big detour to return to Los Angeles again.
"I'm back!" she shouted as she entered the door.
Charlie was watching TV seriously, and Natasha was staring unblinkingly, as if the TV news was a hundred times better looking than her. Only her stepmother Samantha smiled and greeted her.
Bella looked at Charlie with eyes full of disdain. Look, this is men for you! Once they have a wife, they don't even care about their daughter. How good was Charlie to me before? He's really changed now!
The round trip to Silent Hill had actually only taken a few days, but it felt to her as if she had been disconnected from society for a long time.
Physically and mentally exhausted, her gaze couldn't help but glance at the TV a few times.
She knew the person on TV! At least she had seen photos!
Unruly eyes, a very punchable smile at the corners of his mouth. He was clearly facing the camera, yet he insisted on lifting his chin, his focal point always above the lens.
Isn't this Tony Stark!
Bella could proudly say in any setting: 'I sued him, and I won!'
"We will not be defeated, and the murderer's arrogance cannot defeat the free people! If he dares to come find me, I'll let him taste the power of the Jericho Missile!"
Tony Stark said a bunch of very arrogant things on TV. Bella listened in confusion. Who is he posturing against?
Then the screen cut to a reporter. She put down her shoulder bag, sat on the sofa, and watched slowly. It took ten minutes to figure out the truth.
During the days she left California, a brutal murderer had committed crimes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and multiple cities in California. He called himself the Zodiac Killer.
This murderer not only attracted the pursuit of police in multiple places in California but also alarmed the State Criminal Investigation Division and powerful agencies like the FBI.
Normally, given the US clearance rate—which barely reached 30% even counting wrongful convictions—a murderer really wasn't a big deal. How many people died in various school shootings? How many in crimes of passion or vendettas?
Not to mention anything else, just look at how many corpses were dug out of the house under Bella's feet! Happy America, shootings every day—it really wasn't a joke.
But now, not only were the police tracking him, but federal agents, news media, and even a billionaire like Tony Stark were alarmed. Suddenly, the entire country's attention was fixed on California.
Why? Because this Zodiac Killer was provoking them!
He encoded his threats into ciphered letters and mailed them to newspapers, ordering the papers to run them. If you don't put them on a prominent page, I will kill people!