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墨書 Inktalez
They arrived at a shelf and pushed it aside with force. Then, they crouched down and pried up a large tile. As they moved, I finally saw a long ladder appear before me.
They were the first to grab the ladder and climb down, and I followed closely behind. Behind us were Old Xia and Li Danan. Uncle Li and Sun Kangning's Father remained on the ground, watching over the still unconscious Gu Chen and Captain Zhou.
They turned on the light, illuminating the entire Underground Warehouse.
I slowly surveyed this Underground Warehouse, which was not particularly large, estimated to be only half the area of the surface above. Various large boxes were piled against the walls. In the center of the warehouse lay a pool of blood that had already congealed. Following the trail of blood, a corpse came into view.
Since it was winter, the body emitted almost no odor. In this cold Underground Warehouse, even though Russell Mei had been dead for four hours, she still appeared lifelike, as if she had not died at all.
She was naked, leaning against a box.
This was a severely mutilated corpse; both of her arms were missing. I slowly bent down to examine the stumps where her arms had been. Although I wasn't a forensic expert, my time spent with Guan Zengbin allowed me to recognize some basic details.
One arm had a relatively smooth wound with slightly layered patterns at the stump; this must have been the arm that Li Danan sawed off piece by piece. The other arm showed jagged flesh and broken bone, clearly bitten off by a German Shepherd.
The left leg of this corpse was also missing, with a circular laceration at the thigh's base. The flesh was turned outward, revealing the stark white bones underneath. Looking at the cross-section, there were signs of a fracture bending to the left side. Old Xia must have broken this leg off directly.
The right leg, however, had been shaved clean of flesh with a razor. The white bone was exposed before me, with bits of meat still clinging to it, indicating that this was not merely a skeleton.
The area around the right breast of the female corpse had also been severed.
Continuing to look up from the body, I noticed that her skull had not yet been disposed of; it still rested upon her body. There was a deep ligature mark around her neck, parallel to it. From the direction of force applied, it appeared to have been pulled backward. One could imagine someone using a rope to loop around Russell Mei's neck and then yanking it back with force.
I gently pressed on it and discovered that beneath this long mark lay a thinner line resembling one made by wire. This narrower groove was hidden behind a wider one; without careful inspection, it would be difficult to notice.
The two ligature marks—one wide and one narrow—showed slight bleeding points beneath the narrower mark. This clearly indicated that different ropes caused these two marks.
Russell Mei's eyes were open; her expression twisted as if frozen in that moment of death. Guan Zengbin had once told me that this phenomenon is called cadaveric spasm; at death, her muscles tightened completely, leaving behind her final visage.
Looking at this mutilated body, at those eyes still glaring in anger and her fearful, contorted expression made me tremble uncontrollably with an overwhelming rage. If I had a gun in my hand, I would have shot those bastards dead without hesitation.
I could see how desperate Russell Mei must have felt in her final moments. I could perceive just how cruel these people's methods were. But what kind of purpose could drive those who wouldn't dare harm even a chicken to extend their knives toward a living person?
I increasingly felt that within everyone resides an evil demon; under certain circumstances, this inner demon can be fully unleashed. Even someone as shy and honest as Li Danan could commit such acts. Even someone who creates a gentle world for their child could ruthlessly kill without mercy.
Russell Mei might be a greedy person, but she didn't deserve such punishment.
I suppressed the anger boiling inside me and continued to examine the corpse. The lower body of the female victim bore signs of tearing, clearly indicating that she had been violated.
Er leaned against the wall, gazing at the body as he murmured, "Often, if a person takes one wrong step, every subsequent step will also be wrong. The more one tries to cover up the truth, the more it reveals itself. In fact, at the beginning, I never intended to kill her."
My heart was filled with rage, yet my mind remained surprisingly calm; this was an even more intense form of anger.
"Killing someone doesn't have to be this cruel," I said to Er, enunciating each word carefully. "This is dismemberment, not just murder. To cover up the truth, you tortured an innocent person? How did the marks on Russell Mei's neck come about?"
Er replied slowly, "I strangled her; that was definitely the most terrifying moment of my life."
Looking at the corpse, Er continued, "At that time, when I was assaulting her, I stripped her of her clothes. By the time we returned here, she was already frozen stiff. Although she was still breathing, it was very weak. We had discussed our plan and without thinking much further, we acted immediately."
As he spoke, pain etched across the faces of the three men present, as if they were recalling something they wished to forget for a lifetime.
Er's body trembled slightly as he spoke: "I will never forget that day at two forty in the afternoon; it is a day and time I will remember for the rest of my life."
Seemingly trying to calm himself down, Er lit a cigarette: "At that moment, Old Xia and I were in the middle of dismembering her when suddenly Russell Mei sat up. Can you imagine that scene? When a corpse you thought was dead suddenly sits up."
"Russell Mei sat up suddenly and we were all startled," Er described the scene vividly. "At that moment, Old Xia and I were halfway through; we had already removed part of her legs and arms. She let out a scream and kept struggling."
"I was so scared! I was terrified." Er took a deep drag from his cigarette before continuing. "Although there’s hardly anyone around East of the Village, and it had snowed heavily with not a single car on National Highway, I was still afraid; I feared her screams would attract others."
Er kept smoking as he gestured towards Li Danan, indicating that he should continue with the story.
Li Danan nodded and looked at me. "When Old Xia got startled and applied too much force, he accidentally broke Russell Mei's right leg. Perhaps due to the pain, Russell Mei screamed even louder. At that moment, Old Xia held her down while we quickly restrained her legs and arms."
Then Li Danan glanced at Er before continuing: "Then Er got a bit scared and casually grabbed a rope from a box in the warehouse. No, it was one of those packing straps from outside the box."
I nodded; looking at the wider mark on Russell Mei's neck matched the kind left by such flat packing straps. However, the thinner mark that appeared sharper could not have been caused by this type of strap. So where did that mark come from?
Li Danan continued: "Er took that rope and put it around Russell Mei's head. While we held her down, he tightened it around her neck. This went on for about three minutes; Russell Mei's face turned red from suffocation as she gradually stopped struggling."
At that moment, he had finished a cigarette and patted Li Danan on the shoulder. "I never expected her to still be alive. Honestly, I didn't want it to end this way. I know she must have gone through immense pain before she died, and she must have hated us for it. But I didn't want to torment her; I was just too scared."
These people were definitely still lying. Why were they silent about the narrower strangulation mark? Another suspicion nagged at me, reminding me that this case was far from simple.
Noticing my furrowed brow, he continued, "This time, Russell Mei is really dead. She won't come back again, but my fear hasn't diminished at all. I know that with Russell Mei missing, the police will definitely find their way to Tou Gou Zi Village."
"Yes," I replied seriously.
He added, "Li Luo told me not to dispose of all the body parts at once; that would be too passive. He said we should throw away one arm and one leg at a time so that the police would be misled by us. The more confused they are, the safer we will be."
"Is that so?" I shook my head. "Do you think it's safe now?"
He shook his head in response. "We did consider burying her somewhere no one would find her."
"Exactly." I locked eyes with him and asked, "Why didn't you do that? If you buried her in the mountains, the police might not find her for months. Yet you not only didn't do that but also reported it yourself. Can you tell me why?"
He sighed and said, "The most dangerous place is often the safest place; that's my belief. Because we are just ordinary folks, the police would never suspect that such a twisted case could be committed by villagers. They would think it was some roaming Perverted Killer."
"But you were still seen through," he seemed quite helpless. "Once Russell Mei's head was thrown out, I just needed to guide things a bit and see someone running from the National Highway. Unfortunately, we were just one step short. When we realized you were getting close to the truth, Li Danan was already willing to sacrifice himself for us."
Li Danan glanced at him and said, "I don't have many friends left, and I won't live much longer anyway. If I can do something for my friends before I die, I'm willing to do it. But Officer Wu Meng won't give us that chance."
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