★What if a novel's descriptions match real crime scenes perfectly — would you suspect the author is the killer?

★A masterclass in heart-wrenching suspense, blending profound emotion with ingenious deduction.

★The human mind is the hardest to predict; inner demons are the most terrifying. Faced with unforeseeable psychological disasters, we're all survivors.

Twelve victims. Identical methods. Nearly indistinguishable crime scenes. A year-long spree leaves police clueless.

When a novel titled "The N+1th Victim" goes viral for its eerie parallels to the murders, is it coincidence — or a blueprint for the crimes?

Di An, who once brushed shoulders with the serial killer in the dark, saves the 13th victim (and first survivor) — a neighbor girl — only to push his friend, the novel's author Lang Yan, into mortal danger.

The truth explodes: the handsome lawyer seeking justice is the mastermind; the cold-blooded killer, a brilliant surgeon. Two unconnected perpetrators become bound by bloodshed — one murder by the lawyer unwittingly molds the doctor into a monster.

Xia Fantian

She holds a master's in architecture with three years' study in Germany. Began writing in 2013, publishing multiple novels on online-reading platforms

Chapter 1: The First Survivor
Chapter 2: Nocturnal Creatures
Chapter 3: The Face of Evil
Chapter 4: The Nameless Victims
Chapter 5: A Familiar Figure
Chapter 6: The 67th Photograph
Chapter 7: Self-Inflicted Ruin
Chapter 8: Bluebeard
Chapter 9: The Suspect
Chapter 10: The Fake Journalist
Chapter 11: First Encounter
Chapter 12: Beneath the Kindness
Chapter 13: The Wolf's Den
Chapter 14: Physical Flaw
Chapter 15: The Will
Chapter 16: Two Oddities
Chapter 17: Lies
Chapter 18: The Tang Siblings
Chapter 19: Child Abuse
Chapter 20: Light from Hell
Chapter 21: The Accomplice
Chapter 22: "The N+1th Victim"
Chapter 23: Flight from Justice
Chapter 24: The Cold-Blooded Lawyer & the Twisted Writer
Chapter 25: No Time for Goodbyes
Chapter 26: Little Wolf
Chapter 27: The True Witness
Chapter 28: Serial Killer X
Epilogue

Prologue

They found the girl in a filthy alley, a red belt coiled around her neck. Fat black rats scurried past, their crimson eyes like hellfire.
Her clothes were torn, pale skin exposed to the winter night — yet she seemed numb to cold or pain. Staring vacantly at the slit of dark sky above, she only whimpered when questioned. No other response.
The 13th victim. A survivor. But her suffering surpassed death.

Detective Chi stood two meters away, smoking expressionlessly. His mind dragged back to that same frigid night one year ago — where the seemingly endless nightmare began.
Police lights bathed his sharp profile, illuminating deep wrinkles under his eyes. A year of fruitless pursuit had aged him. In dreams, he'd executed the killer countless times; in reality, he didn't even know their face. Furious, he slammed a fist into the wall.

"I'll scout the perimeter." Chi told his team. Winding through the derelict demolition zone, he reached a bright T-junction — unaware of a man watching from the shadows...