Wang Qi

Wang Qi is the murderer behind the missing-person notices around Ping An Apartments. He presents himself as a weary man searching for his girlfriend while using the story to hide his own crimes.

Biography

Exposure at Ping An Apartments

Wang Qi approaches Chen Ge with a missing-person notice and an obsessive account of his vanished girlfriend, drawing him toward Ping An Apartments. His gravelly exhaustion and apparent grief conceal that he killed the woman and other residents, while phone messages and inconsistencies gradually reveal that the supposed search is staged. Once Chen identifies the apartment crime scene and rejects Wang Qi's version of events, the murderer turns violent and tries to escape with help from the mirror monster. He is wounded during the confrontation and ultimately captured, allowing the killings to become the first major case Chen helps the police resolve. (Chapters 14–25)

Appearance and personality

Wang Qi appears weary and torpid, speaking in a gravelly voice that supports his performance of prolonged grief. Underneath that presentation he is calculating, obsessive, deceptive, and capable of sudden violence. He adjusts his story to manipulate sympathy but loses control when physical evidence makes the lie impossible to maintain. (Chapters 14–25)

Skills and supernatural abilities

Wang Qi has no innate supernatural power. He is practiced at deception, stalking, murder, and constructing a plausible victim persona. His temporary cooperation with the mirror monster gives him an unnatural ally, but he neither creates nor controls the entity reliably. (Chapters 14–25)

Relationships

• His murdered girlfriend: The victim whose disappearance he exploits as cover, turning a missing-person appeal into a tool for concealing her death. (Chapters 14–25)
• Chen Ge: The investigator Wang Qi tries to manipulate and later attack after Chen reconstructs the crime. (Chapters 14–25)
• The mirror monster: A temporary supernatural accomplice whose presence escalates Wang Qi's confrontation without becoming his personal ability. (Chapters 20–25)

Items

• Wang Qi's Missing Person Notice: The notice used to support his false search and draw attention away from his guilt. (Chapters 14–25)
• Mobile phone messages: Communications whose details help Chen expose contradictions in Wang Qi's story. (Chapters 14–25)