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墨書 Inktalez
Old Shao suddenly laughed because he finally understood why Zhai Qiang was so afraid. Drug lords sometimes use corpses to hide drugs and avoid detection, and it seemed that Zhai Qiang regarded these people as drug lords. Drug lords and thugs are indeed two entirely different natures; the former can kill without hesitation for profit, while the latter usually weighs their own lives carefully.
When Old Shao was younger, he had encountered major drug lords—those were people who could kill without blinking. The Zhai Qiang in front of him was merely a collector for Usury, so he naturally couldn't be compared to those individuals. However, Old Shao also understood that what Zhai Qiang saw was definitely not a drug lord.
On that fateful night three days ago, he had seen someone stuffing something into a corpse. A simple deduction revealed what Zhai Qiang had witnessed; he must have seen the murderer who was robbing the corpse.
Old Shao slowly said, "Carefully, what did you see?"
Under the gun's muzzle, Zhai Qiang didn't grasp Old Shao's intent. After hesitating for a moment, he began to recount what had happened three days prior.
That afternoon, Zhai Qiang received an order from his "leader." A scoundrel living in Huang Family Shed owed Usury one hundred thousand, which had now accumulated to over two hundred thousand with interest. This person was known as Rolling Meat and had been divorced for many years, living by the principle that if he ate well, his family wouldn’t starve.
Previously at the casino, this man squandered money like water, losing ten thousand at a time. Usury thought he could pay it back and lent him around one hundred thousand. However, it turned out that this man had long become a shell of his former self and clearly had no intention of repaying. The boss sent people several times to collect the debt; despite being beaten black and blue, he remained unyielding.
With no other options left, the higher-ups instructed Zhai Qiang to collect the debt and promised him that if he brought back just one hundred thousand, he would receive that amount. If he managed to retrieve two hundred thousand, the remaining one hundred thousand would be his. Faced with such an incentive, Zhai Qiang naturally felt tempted. He called two of his brothers and headed straight to Rolling Meat's home.
They knocked on his door and without saying a word, stripped him naked and locked him in the bathroom for a beating. The three of them beat him for nearly an hour; his nosebleed had almost stained the entire bathroom floor red. Zhai Qiang removed the showerhead and shoved the hose into Rolling Meat's nostrils, nearly drowning him.
Finally unable to endure any longer, Rolling Meat told Zhai Qiang that around ten o'clock that night, he had hidden a stash of jewelry near the crematorium.
At this point, Zhai Qiang learned that this person was nicknamed Li Erdan and worked at the crematorium. Five years ago, Li Erdan developed a gambling addiction and would go out to gamble every day. In the beginning, others let him win a few thousand dollars to hook him on gambling; however, after that initial success, Li Erdan never won again.
To recoup his losses, Li Erdan kept betting larger amounts and found himself unable to escape from the mire. As a result, he borrowed from Usury and ended up in a state where he was neither human nor ghost.
Li Erdan worked at the crematorium and regularly came into contact with many corpses. Most of the bodies they transported were unclaimed. The money and jewelry found on these corpses became his possessions. Over five years, Li Erdan had dealt with hundreds or even thousands of such bodies.
Most corpses usually have ten or twenty bucks stuffed in their pockets, which naturally made Li Erdan quite pleased. Some bodies, however, had various pieces of Jewelry—earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and even gold teeth. Over the past five years, Li Erdan had collected quite a bit of valuable Jewelry from the dead, selling it for at least seventy to eighty thousand.
To convince a few skeptics, Li Erdan even pulled out clothes, a phone, and other items he had taken from the corpses to show them.
Li Erdan had made an agreement with Zhai Qiang to meet that night on Qingchun Road, next to the crematorium, to retrieve the Jewelry. Seeing Li Erdan kneeling on the ground, Zhai Qiang felt he wasn’t lying and took Li Erdan’s ID as collateral.
Then, Zhai Qiang took out an ID card.
Old Shao received it and saw that it was indeed Li Erdan’s ID. It seemed that Zhai Qiang was telling the truth.
So why hadn’t Li Erdan taken any transportation that required an ID? Was it because he was highly aware of counter-surveillance, or was it because his ID was held by Zhai Qiang? Old Shao looked at the ID card before putting it into his pocket.
Meanwhile, Zhai Qiang continued recounting the events of that night.
With his ID left as collateral and seeing that there was nothing valuable in Li Erdan’s home, Zhai Qiang agreed to meet at eight o’clock that evening on the back road of the crematorium. He didn’t suspect anything and readily accepted Li Erdan’s proposal.
Around eight-thirty that night, Zhai Qiang arrived by taxi near the crematorium. The driver refused to take him down that road because it was said to be haunted at night. At over thirty years old, having experienced many things in life, including partying at graveyards and being a master of the Hearse, how could he fear any ghostly creatures?
As the saying goes, ghosts fear the Evil Person, and Zhai Qiang was just such an Evil Person.
He didn’t see Li Erdan at the intersection and didn’t think he had run away; instead, he assumed that perhaps Li Erdan hadn’t spotted him and had gone ahead to dig up some Jewelry. With his eyes wide open, Zhai Qiang scanned his surroundings, but the darkened Qingchun Road obscured everything from view.
The autumn wind blew fiercely through the night; late autumn had already brought a chill.
Wrapping his clothes tighter around him, Zhai Qiang cursed under his breath, “Damn it, what a load of crap.”
Zhai Qiang walked along Qingchun Road.
Qingchun Road was not long, but the fields on both sides were deep, leading to unknown places. After walking for more than ten minutes, Zhai Qiang found himself in the middle of Qingchun Road, unable to see either end. He felt a bit uneasy and was just about to call out Li Erdan's name when he noticed a figure squatting in the field, seemingly engaged in some activity.
Instinctively, Zhai Qiang assumed this person was Li Erdan. He thought to himself that it seemed Li Erdan had indeed come to dig for jewelry. Zhai Qiang approached quietly, wanting to see if Li Erdan was hiding any jewelry so he could catch him off guard.
The figure did not notice Zhai Qiang and remained facing away from the highway. In the moonlight, Zhai Qiang saw that this person was wearing a light blue tracksuit, blending into the dark surroundings almost completely. He also noticed a black canvas bag beside this person, which appeared to be used for storing jewelry.
However, as Zhai Qiang took a few more steps forward, he sensed that something was off.
He saw the person pulling out white cube-shaped objects from the backpack and stuffing them into the ground while also taking some items from the ground to put into the bag. In the dim light, he could make out that the objects being pulled out were irregularly shaped and seemed heavy, but he couldn't tell what they were.
One thing was certain: Zhai Qiang knew what he was seeing was definitely not jewelry, and this person was certainly not Li Erdan.
Although Zhai Qiang was in his thirties and had been in many fights, building up his muscles in the process, he had never been afraid of anyone in one-on-one situations. This was where his courage came from. Faced with this bizarre scene, his first instinct was not to run away but to investigate what was happening.
Unaware of the truth of the situation, Zhai Qiang chose not to alert the person. He hid behind a tree and slowly moved closer. After an unknown number of steps, he circled around to get a side view of the figure. Under the moonlight, he finally saw what was really happening.
What lay on the ground was not a pit but a corpse; this man was squatting in front of a female corpse, his hands busily rummaging through her abdomen, pulling out her entrails one by one. At that moment, even Zhai Qiang, who had faced many battles, felt his legs go weak and struggled to stand.
Though he was a professional fighter capable of breaking bones, he knew he could never bring himself to kill someone; those were two entirely different concepts. But here was someone extracting entrails from a female corpse—something he could never do in his life.
His mind raced with thoughts of drug traffickers who used corpses to smuggle drugs—those were ruthless killers who wouldn’t hesitate to take lives. If he were discovered, his fate would likely be just like that corpse’s. Realizing this, Zhai Qiang forgot all about Li Erdan and any thoughts of jewelry; he turned and ran.
However, his footsteps startled the person beside the corpse. Zhai Qiang heard sounds behind him—the figure was now running too. In his life, Zhai Qiang had never run as fast as he did at that moment; he lost all sense of direction and just ran through the fields without knowing how long he had been running until he reached a brightly lit main road where he finally stopped.
Looking back, Zhai Qiang saw that no one was pursuing him. At that moment, he finally felt relieved and took a taxi home. Three days passed, and Zhai Qiang thought this incident had come to an end.
He hadn't clearly seen the man's face; he only knew he had short hair, stood about 1.7 meters tall, and had a slim build.
Zhai Qiang said to the group, "You guys, I really don’t know what happened. Please don’t kill me to silence me. I have money; there’s money here too. I’ll give it all to you, please!"
Old Shao shook his head and holstered the gun back into Yuan Jun's waistband. He spoke slowly, "You didn’t see the man, but you must have seen the woman, right? Do you know what that corpse looked like?"
Seeing Old Shao put away the gun, Zhai Qiang finally relaxed a bit. He nodded and said, "I saw it clearly, I saw it clearly."
"Guan Deng, show him Zhu Liang's photo," Shao the Elder instructed.
Guan Deng pulled up a photo of Zhu Liang on his phone to show Zhai Qiang.
"Is this the woman?" Old Shao asked.
Zhai Qiang nodded vigorously, "Yes, that's her! That's her!"
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