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墨書 Inktalez
Chapter 44: Human Skin Puppet (Part Six)
I deliberately avoided looking at the corpse in the room, fearing that what I didn't want to happen would become a reality. Behind the sofa, I discovered a torn piece of underwear, a lace-trimmed sheer garment. Seeing the underwear, I picked it up with tweezers and placed it into a plastic bag. I glanced at Qin Jian; we were the only two left in the room, as Ling Juan and Sun Section Chief had already stepped out, leaving us to handle this tricky case.
Gousi lay sprawled on the floor in a horrifying manner, his eyes wide open, with slight blood seeping from the corners. There were traces of blood beneath his nose, and his mouth was agape. Aside from his intact clothing, the other four corpses—Ma Ge and Zhu Jie—were all partially undressed, as if they had been playing a dangerous game that suddenly turned fatal.
Upon closer inspection, neither the stockings nor the underwear belonged to Zhu Jie. In this room, aside from her, there were only men—oh right, there was also Gou San.
Both Gousi and Gou San were dead, along with Ma Ge and Zhu Jie. One of them I initially thought was someone else; however, upon seeing his face, I realized it wasn't.
"I think there must have been a woman here," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"With the stockings and underwear present, what do you think happened to this woman?"
"But aside from these five corpses, there are no women here. Who knows when these items were left behind? If there are no suspicious objects on them, then we’re in trouble." Qin Jian bent down to examine Gousi's body closely. I turned my head away; my feelings were mixed, and my nose inexplicably felt sour.
Although I knew that people who came to places like this weren't good individuals, I still felt that Gousi couldn't have been that bad. He must have had some special reason for being here to end up as cannon fodder.
The corpses in the room had already undergone thorough examination by forensic experts. Aside from the missing stockings and underwear, it seemed there was nothing else. I reminded Qin Jian about the surveillance footage.
"Sun Section Chief just mentioned that there was a power outage at that time; the surveillance footage is useless."
I handed the plastic bag to Qin Jian as he walked to the door and passed it to Ling Juan outside. I heard her voice filled with surprise asking where it came from. Qin Jian found it inside; she couldn't possibly know since they had conducted a thorough search when they entered. They had scanned every inch of the room multiple times with infrared search equipment.
In other words, nothing should have been overlooked.
Yet the reality was cruel; I had indeed found a pair of black sheer stockings and this torn underwear.
It was obvious even to an idiot that these items belonged to a woman.
Regardless, the stockings and the torn underwear were tangible evidence. Qin Jian was with Ling Juan to investigate the owner of these items, while I remained alone in the Five Corpses' room, moving towards the window. The double-hung window was open, and below it was a steep cliff, with a turbulent Branching Stream flowing beneath.
Peering down at the cliff, a bizarre thought suddenly crossed my mind: if something had happened inside, would someone jump down from here or be pushed? If so, would that person be a woman or a man?
Actually, I thought of another person—Chen Pi, whom I had only met once.
I remembered warning Gousi when I saw Chen Pi that this person would bring him disaster. Damn—my mouth always seems to predict bad things rather than good ones. Gousi, don’t blame me; if you could give me a hint, it would help. At least I could assist you in finding the murderer.
Thinking of Gousi led me to another person— Gousi's girlfriend. Damn, I was almost becoming a real detective. While Qin Jian hadn’t thought of this, I had.
My mind was a mess with thoughts swirling around. Reluctantly, I leaned over to examine the deceased again, scrutinizing Gousi ’s head, face, hands, and feet carefully. It was pointless since people from the station had already conducted a thorough examination. Although I didn’t know how they could have missed anything, I truly intended to stop looking.
Just as I lifted my head to stand up, a very fine strand of hair moved slightly due to my motion.
The strand was beneath Gousi ’s eyelashes and closely matched his skin tone—a light yellowish color. I gently picked it up with tweezers and couldn’t help but be surprised; this strand was also High-Quality Hair. There had been similar hair in the last incident—what did this mean?
Qin Jian and Ling Juan entered and informed me that the underwear and stockings had no claimants. I presented the High-Quality Hair to them; Qin Jian, especially Ling Juan, widened her eyes in disbelief and exclaimed, “What is this? I really didn’t see it!”
Qin Jian said, “Inflatable…” He seemed to reconsider since Ling Juan was a girl and swallowed most of his words back. We exchanged a knowing glance as he carefully stored away this hard-to-come-by High-Quality Hair and continued discussing the black stockings.
I wondered if the unclaimed items meant that someone was missing—that is, the owner of the evidence wasn’t here at all. Instead of pointing out that someone might have jumped out of this back window of the private room, I shifted my question to Ling Juan about why she hadn’t left.
The girl replied cheerfully that Sun Section Chief had asked her to stay and then gave me a shy smile that stirred something in my heart; truly, her smile resembled rice perfectly.
“Very good, very good.” Afraid of losing composure if I wasn’t careful, I quickly turned my head to look elsewhere. Qin Jian glanced at me and then at Ling Juan without caring whether I agreed or not and directly said: “Juanzi, you should communicate more with Qi in the future; he has great talent in this area and possesses abilities that ordinary people don’t…”
Ling Juan readily agreed with an enthusiastic “Oh, okay.”
I felt displeased but had no choice. Next, I told Qin Jian that we needed to split up; I had to find Yu and Chen Pi while he should check downstream along the Branching Stream or inquire locally if anyone had seen anything unusual happen.
Qin Jian shot me a glare, and with Ling Juan present, I had to swallow back my insults, letting out a frustrated sigh instead. He hinted, "Lao Qi, this seems quite troublesome for you. Shouldn't we just... do it this way?"
I wasn't an idiot; I understood what Qin Jian meant. After he went out with Ling Juan, leaving me alone, I tried to sense the situation. It was strange that I couldn't pick up anything. The only explanation for that was if the people in this room were terrified or perhaps engaged in something that left them scared out of their wits. But I couldn't just jump to conclusions; there was always a chance that things weren't as they seemed, and I didn't want to make a fool of myself.
After pondering for a while, I realized Qin Jian was waiting for my response. Weighing my options, I decided not to complicate matters further. I needed to find someone and ask about the situation. As I stood up to leave, Ling Juan cautiously followed me. When I turned around and saw her, I paused and asked, "Why are you following me? Go check on Lao Qin and see what he's doing."
"Brother Qi, I... I think it's better if I stick with you," Ling Juan said, her face beaming with a forced smile.
I wasn't one to turn away someone who was smiling at me, so I asked, "Why?"
"Because you know a lot of things, and what you know is exactly what I want to learn."
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