Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
"Can you check if all the windows in the house are closed?" I pointed at the Property Manager.
At that moment, the Property Manager's face turned pale. I called him three times before he finally stepped into the house. After a while, he had checked every room.
"The windows in the house are all closed and locked, Officer. Besides, this is the ninth floor. Unless the Murderer is a child, how could anyone escape through the window?" he said.
"Could it be that we really encountered a ghost?" The Property Manager looked around nervously, as if there was something else in this room besides the three of us and one dead body.
His behavior made me uneasy. Even though I knew there were no ghosts in this world, sometimes people just love to scare themselves.
I quickly said, "Stop looking around. Even if there were ghosts, they wouldn't come out in broad daylight. Step aside."
The Property Manager nodded.
I glanced at the corpse and then at Zhao Mingkun, saying, "Let's continue examining the body; we haven't finished yet."
From the torso of the corpse, there was nothing more to discern. At this moment, I was more focused on the face. The corpse's hands were covering its face completely, making it impossible for Zhao Mingkun and me to see its facial features.
I looked at Zhao Mingkun and said, "Let's each take one hand."
Zhao Mingkun nodded, and together we moved one of Liu Ruijie's hands, pulling it back. Contrary to my expectations of a stiff corpse, it was surprisingly soft. With just a gentle tug, I managed to pull Liu Ruijie's hand away and lay it beside his body.
But when I turned back to look again, I nearly jumped out of my skin. No, to be precise, what I felt wasn't fear but a combination of shock and disgust; this was definitely one of the most repulsive corpses I had ever seen.
As Zhao Mingkun and I pulled the hands away from the dead man's face, we saw something white writhing in his eye sockets. This was what we commonly referred to as maggots. It took me quite some time before I could look directly at the corpse again.
Although this thing looks incredibly disgusting, maggots have many different uses in various fields.
For example, maggots are rich in protein and can be consumed or used in medicine.
In medicine, maggot therapy can be used to remove necrotic tissue from the human body. One of the main characteristics of flies is that they only lay eggs on damaged, decaying skin. A key feature of maggots is that they only consume rotten flesh and do not eat fresh meat. This is because maggots are saprophytic organisms; they cannot digest organic matter, and the organic material in rotten flesh has already been decomposed, so maggots can only feed on decayed meat.
During World War II, soldiers on the battlefield often used this method to clean away dead tissue to prevent infection and death.
Additionally, soldiers frequently used leeches to draw out bruised blood from their skin for treatment, demonstrating that everything in the world has its purpose.
For us, maggots can tell us the time of death of a deceased person. Unfortunately, if I had consulted Guan Zengbin more carefully back then, I would have been able to determine how long Liu Ruijie had been dead.
Zhao Mingkun shrank back slightly, clearly trying to suppress her disgust.
Zhao Mingkun spoke up, "I've dealt with corpses for many years. Although I don't know his cause of death, I have a rough idea of when he died."
"When was that?" I asked. "Before Hu Pei or after Hu Pei?"
Zhao Mingkun furrowed her brow and replied quickly, "He probably died before Hu Pei. In spring, a corpse will show signs of rigor mortis within thirty minutes to two hours after death. Within nine to twelve hours, the body will become completely stiff. At that point, only physical means can break down rigor mortis."
Listening to Zhao Mingkun's explanation, I felt a momentary daze as if the person squatting next to me was not Zhao Mingkun but Guan Zengbin. The image of Guan Zengbin surfaced in my mind; I had to admit that I missed her.
It seems that humans are such contradictory creatures; when I was with Guan Zengbin, I often thought of Zhao Mingkun. Yet now that I was with Zhao Mingkun, I found myself thinking of Guan Zengbin again.
Zhao Mingkun clearly did not notice my distraction and continued, "After thirty hours, the body will begin to soften. And twelve hours after death, livor mortis will form a parchment-like discoloration on the skin; just look at his face."
I looked over and indeed saw that the skin on his face was layered, much like the pages of a book. It seemed that with just a casual pull, one could easily tear off a piece of human skin.
Zhao Mingkun continued, "Look at his neck; there are obvious green spots. These spots should only appear twenty-four hours after death in this season."
After a pause, Zhao Mingkun added, "The breeding of maggots will cause the decomposition to accelerate. Based on all this, the time of death is likely over twenty-four hours ago."
"So," I snapped my fingers, "this is almost around the same time as Hu Pei's death? One person committing crimes in two places at once?"
Zhao Mingkun shook his head and said to me, "I'm not your girlfriend; I'm not a forensic expert. The margin of error here could be three to four hours at most. If that's the case, it would be enough time for the murderer to kill again at another location. However, if it was a ghost doing the killing, then that wouldn't hold true."
I nodded and continued to examine the corpse.
I said, "I don't know if you noticed earlier, but when we pulled the corpse's hand away from its face, its index and middle fingers were in the eye sockets while its thumb was propped against the cheekbone below. Don't you find this method familiar?"
Zhao Mingkun looked at the corpse and said, "Hu Xiaoxue. He did the same thing as Hu Xiaoxue; he gouged out his own eyeballs. However, he had only pushed his hand into his eyes without actually removing his eyeballs before he died."
I suppressed my nausea and lifted the deceased's head to look at the back of his skull. There were slight indentations, but they weren't very pronounced. The subcutaneous tissue showed minor bleeding, but it wasn't a fatal injury. Preliminary conclusions suggested that Liu Ruijie must have fallen directly to the ground when he retreated, causing his skull to make intimate contact with the floor tiles, leading to Liu Ruijie's unconsciousness.
In that state of unconsciousness, Liu Ruijie's hands had already pierced into his own eye sockets, resulting in his death.
But what means could the murderer have used to make the victim gouge out his own eyeballs? It was truly bizarre. Moreover, how did the murderer manage to escape from a locked room?
Could it really be Lu Zhiqiu's ghost committing murder?
But if the original murder case was solely carried out by Liu Ruijie and Hu Pei, then why would a ghost still kill Hu Xiaoxue and drive Jiang Xiaochun insane? Had Lu Zhiqiu's ghost wandered for seven years only to forget who had killed him? Did ghosts also suffer from memory errors?
I'm afraid the murderer has escaped in a way we can't even imagine right now.
This case could never have been the work of a ghost.
Zhao Mingkun rummaged through the deceased's clothes and pulled out an ID card and a smartphone. The ID confirmed that the deceased was indeed Liu Ruijie. The smartphone had no lock screen password; it was a smartphone belonging to Liu Ruijie. However, the murderer took Hu Pei's phone but left Liu Ruijie's behind. Why was that?
I turned to ask, "Do you know who the homeowner is? Is it a rented place or one they bought?"
The Property Manager shook his head and said, "I'll have to call and check. Please wait a moment."
At that moment, only Zhao Mingkun and I were left in the room.
I glanced at Zhao Mingkun, who looked back at me. She spoke first, "It seems the murderer didn't take anything from Liu Ruijie this time. Moreover, Liu Ruijie doesn't seem to be as superstitious as Hu Pei. Still, he must have been scared enough by what he saw to soil himself."
"Back then," Zhao Mingkun said seriously, "Lu Zhiqiu had his eyes gouged out, but Hu Pei wasn't harmed in that way. Could there be some difference between them?"
Looking at Zhao Mingkun's serious expression made me want to laugh, so I asked, "Zhao Mingkun, you're starting to look a bit like a police officer now. How does it feel to play detective? It must be quite interesting."
Zhao Mingkun smiled and nodded.
But then her expression fell again.
After a moment, she said, "But I can only pretend to be a police officer once in my life; there's no way I could become a real one. Still, being a fake cop is not too bad; at least I've tasted what it's like. If my parents weren't criminals and I hadn't been adopted by Shi Huacheng, maybe I would have had a chance to become a police officer too. Just like your girlfriend?"
Hearing Zhao Mingkun's words filled me with melancholy. My parents might have been police officers, but look where I ended up now.
Zhao Mingkun asked me, "Why do you want to be a police officer?"
This question had been posed to me by many people before. Guan Zengbin had asked, Captain Shao had asked, Mary had asked, and Gu Chen had also inquired. I had even asked myself this question. Yet, despite being asked so many times, I still couldn't find an answer.
What was it that made me want to become a police officer?
We both fell silent.
Zhao Mingkun spoke up, "This might be our only chance to collaborate on Investigate the Case. I have a feeling that something big is going to happen soon."
"Wu Meng." Suddenly, Zhao Mingkun hugged me.
Her gloves, having touched a corpse, were held away from my back as she embraced me, careful not to let them make contact.
"Thank you," Zhao Mingkun said lightly. "This might be one of the few happy days in my thirty years of life."
I had never imagined that I would be held tightly by someone in such a situation. Next to a decaying body teeming with maggots, in a room filled with waves of foul odor. Embraced in an awkward and uncomfortable way by a female fugitive.
For a brief moment, I even thought that this was enough for my life. Time could stop right there; I could just stay like this.
Comment 0 Comment Count