Minutes after uploading the chapter, notifications began pouring in on Leon like a flood.
"#NationalSecurity. Goodjsb@ donated $26" "Salute to them."
"Leon, are you mentally ill? @joik donated $50" "More or less, yes."
"Are you a mafioso? Are these your actions or just imagination? @lina.vb donated $153" "I'm tired of this."
Donations kept arriving, and Leon kept replying, but he was irritated by the repeated questions about his identity, his connection to the mafia, and whether he himself was James, the protagonist of the novel.
Leon opened the PayPal account linked to the platform and found $2,050 accumulated from paid chapters and generous donations. A wave of joy washed over him, making him forget the annoyance of the questions. He immediately transferred the money to his bank account.
Deciding to capitalize on the momentum, Leon published another chapter.
[Chapter 158 uploaded]
...
In Australia, in the capital Canberra, Investigator Helen was sitting in her room reading the novel. She adored this kind of dark, police-style fiction. Suddenly, the blood froze in her veins.
"This… this is an autobiography!" she said, jumping up from her bed in shock.
As an experienced investigator, she knew perfectly well that this level of precision in narration and description could not come from mere literary imagination. At that moment, she received a notification that a new chapter had been uploaded. She opened it and began reading with intense focus, only to be struck by an even greater shock.
"This… it's her… the same details!"
Helen rushed out of her room, got dressed, and headed straight to the Federal Investigations Center, breathless from the horror of what she had discovered.
...
Back in his room, Leon was still replying to comments, watching his novel surpass 200,000 reads in record time.
"Writer, which country are you from? @jinkjoian donated $59" "Germany… Australian by origin."
"What? Australian like James exactly? @jinkjoian donated $56" "What's the problem?"
"Leon, are you gay? @fiana donated $155" "No."
"I love you… I desire you more than I should… I want you as my husband… @lissa.wil donated $53." "This… is a bit embarrassing."
Tired of the strange comments and feeling hungry, Leon headed out to the same restaurant he had visited that morning to have dinner. The clock showed eight in the evening. He took a taxi and scrolled through his phone.
"We're here, sir," the driver said, glancing through the mirror.
A shiver ran through the driver's body as he studied Leon's features and the deep black tattoo wrapped around his neck and left arm.
"Paying by card?" Leon asked coldly.
"Yes," the driver replied, handing him the device with a trembling hand.
Leon paid and got out. He entered the restaurant and found it completely empty. He noticed the same waitress from the morning approaching him with a wide smile.
"Welcome, sir. What would you like?"
"The same as this morning," Leon replied, sitting calmly at the table.
The food arrived, and he began eating. The waitress pulled up a chair and sat across from him, clearly captivated by the beauty of his eyes and his tattoo.
"I'm Emma. And you?" she asked.
He was surprised by her boldness. He was not used to interacting with people. Even at university, he used to hide under a cap that concealed his features.
"I'm… Leon Williams," he said, continuing to eat.
"Why didn't you call me last night?" she asked, puzzled.
"I didn't have time," he replied.
"Work, then? What do you do?"
"I'm… a writer," he said calmly.
"Oh, a writer? What's the name of your book?" She pulled out her phone curiously. His appearance did not suggest a writer at all. He looked more like a mafia boss from a movie.
Leon answered coolly, "The point is not that I'm a killer… but the people I kill."
Emma raised her head, shock covering her face. Her fingers froze above her phone screen as if she had touched an electric current. She was an avid follower of that novel, devouring its chapters every night and silently watching the heated debates in the comments about whether Leon was the real James or just a dark, brilliant imagination.
Deep down, she was certain the platform would have deleted the book if it were a confession of a crime. But finding the man behind the pen standing right in front of her, with his presence, tattoos, and blue eyes, made the words stick in her throat.
Leon broke the silence. "What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Emma recovered with an awkward smile and said, trying to catch her breath, "Oh… no, nothing. I'm just one of your loyal readers. I never imagined that the writer driving the internet crazy would be sitting in front of me right now, eating in our modest restaurant."
Leon replied modestly, "It's an honor to have you as a reader."
Unable to contain her excitement any longer, Emma said with a pleading look and a gentle smile, "Would it be possible to take a photo with you?"
Leon was stunned by the request and felt a slight tension he had never experienced before. He had spent recent years as a ghost no one noticed, passing among people as if he did not exist. This was the first time someone treated him like a star. He hesitated for a second, long enough for Emma to think he might refuse, then nodded with some embarrassment. "Uh… yes, go ahead. It's fine."
Happiness flooded Emma's heart. She admired his strange psychological style and the way his narration made you live inside the scene as if watching a full cinematic film. She took a selfie with him. The contrast was striking between the brightness of her face and the rigid, mysterious calm of Leon's features.
"Give me your Instagram," she said, holding out her phone.
Leon wrote his handle. Emma quickly posted the photo with the caption: "The first reader to get a photo with the writer Leon Williams, author of 'The point is not that I'm a killer…'" She tagged his account and posted it immediately.
Leon felt a strange mix of pride and anxiety at this sudden exposure. He paid the bill, said a few brief words of farewell to Emma, and stepped out into the cold night.
He stopped in front of a glass storefront and looked at his reflection. His coat was old and worn, unbefitting a writer whose contract money had begun to flow into his pockets.
"Hm… I should buy some clothes," he muttered as he walked away, heading toward an upscale store.
Leon pushed open the heavy glass door and entered. A saleswoman greeted him politely. He responded with a cold nod and began browsing. He had nearly $3,000 in his pocket, an amount he had not touched in years. He had paid the internet bills yesterday, and rent was still far off, so he decided to indulge a little.
After searching, he chose a luxurious black suit and shiny leather shoes. Standing in front of the mirror, he looked like a federal agent on an official mission, but the deep black tattoo wrapping around his neck and arm shattered that image, turning him into a high-class mafia boss instead. He also bought jeans, loose clothing in purple and white, and a comfortable tracksuit. The shopping cost $1,500. He paid and left to take a taxi.
Back home, he carefully placed his new clothes in the closet, then collapsed onto his bed, trying to sleep early. His eyelids refused to close. He gave in and took out his phone to scroll through Instagram. He was stunned to find his account had surpassed 7,000 followers in just a few hours. Emma's photo and tag had triggered an explosion he never expected. Ignoring the flood of messages and notifications, he finally fell into a deep sleep at two in the morning.
...
On the other side of the world, inside the Federal Investigations Center in Australia.
"I swear to you, it's the same details… the same events with unbelievable precision," Helen said in a trembling voice as she looked at the federal agents sitting in stunned silence after her urgent summons.
She continued, trying to steady her shaking hands. "I gathered information about the writer. His name is Leon, twenty-four years old, Australian by origin. He currently lives in Munich, Germany. He lost his parents and sister in a single accident three years ago."
The agents listened intently. She went on, "A week ago, a woman named Kalissa was killed by gunfire."
One of the agents, Louis, stood up angrily, pushed aside his sunglasses, and said, "Helen, did you call us here because your police can't solve an ordinary gang hit? Do you realize what it means to summon federal agents for this?"
Helen took a breath and said sharply, "Listen to me until the end, Louis."
Louis sighed in irritation and nodded for her to continue. She said, "A week ago, Kalissa's body was found in a strange position. She wasn't just lying there. She was kneeling, as if begging in her final moments. The first bullet lodged in her neck was fired from extremely close range, close enough to leave a precise burn ring around the wound. But the real horror wasn't the killing itself. After that, the killer fired twelve more bullets, not randomly, but forming a perfect circle around the heart, as if he were drawing with bullets on her body."
Helen wiped cold sweat from her forehead and continued. "The ear wasn't shattered by chance. The bullet that pierced the ear cartilage was meant to remove the earring, which we never found, just as the gold necklace described in the novel, said to contain seven red ruby stones, was removed. Do you know what's strangest? The crime scene was terrifyingly clean. We didn't find a single shell casing. The killer collected all the casings before leaving. Not a single fingerprint, not even a strand of hair. The place was sanitized with the smell of ozone, the same smell Leon mentioned in chapter 147 when he described how James cleaned the scene to make everyone believe he was a ghost."
She lowered her voice. "And the craziest part: we found an old coin from 1920 in the victim's mouth. In the novel, James mentions that this coin is the price of the soul's passage to the other world. We never released this detail to the media. We kept it secret to identify the real killer if he confessed. And now I find this secret published in a novel read by hundreds of thousands."
Helen pulled out a file containing printed chapters of the novel and handed it to Louis. He began reading, and sweat soon poured down his forehead. His expression shifted from mockery to terrifying shock.
"Louis, what is it? Give me the papers," said Ryan, the other agent, taking the file from him. After reading a few chapters, his face went completely pale. The shock was not just the similarity of the case. There was something far more frightening.
Helen tried to connect the dots. "Kalissa was the writer's fiancée in real life. In the novel, he made her his wife and killed her."
Louis interrupted in a hoarse voice, "Helen… are you sure this is just a fictional writer?"
She answered calmly, "Yes… that's how it seems."
Louis shook his head in terror. "No. That's impossible. This method of killing, the precise description of tearing the body apart, James's style in the novel… this isn't an ordinary crime. This is the modus operandi of major cartels."
The moment he uttered the word cartel, Helen's face drained of color, and she stepped back in shock.
...