Chapter 118 - 110: Shocking Information! Who Is This Person!?

What was inside the box?

A corpse.

Pieces of a corpse!

The killer had chopped Cheng Yu and the two others into countless small pieces—knees, calves, and other body parts, all jumbled together.

Dozens of body parts were piled together, making it impossible to tell which piece belonged to which victim at a glance!

"Dammit, this son of a bitch is cautious. He used a suitcase but didn’t dump the bodies far away..."

Qian Hua’s face was dark and grim.

Xu Huo didn’t speak. He crouched down, carefully examining the wounds on the body parts.

The parallel cuts on the wounds were clearly visible, exposing layers of fat, muscle, skin, and even bone.

The stench of blood and decay was so overwhelming, you’d be lucky if all you did was vomit.

A few Police Officers nearby hadn’t even gotten close; a mere whiff had sent them retching into a trash can.

Xu Huo was unaffected.

He crouched down, activated [Joy Eye], and watched in silence.

But just as he was about to start thinking...

A voice startled everyone.

"KSHHHHK-"

"Hello, hello! Xu Huo, Captain Qian, do you copy? Over!"

The harsh static from the walkie-talkie snapped Xu Huo out of his thoughts. He looked down at the device on his chest.

’This is... Li Jianye’s voice.’

His tone was filled with anxiety.

"I’m here. Go ahead," Xu Huo said, holding the walkie-talkie to his lips.

"We just got a new report! A second crime scene has been discovered!"

Li Jianye’s voice was frantic, practically burning with urgency.

"Someone in the suburbs found..."

"Four human heads!"

’A second crime scene?’

Xu Huo froze. He and Qian Hua exchanged a look, both their eyes filled with shock.

’The killer...’

’Is still killing?’

’Seven people!?’

"Where’s the crime scene!?"

"To the west! Southwest of the first crime scene, in the Liu Family’s Fruit Garden!"

Hearing this, Xu Huo stopped thinking, scrambled to his feet, and rushed to the police car.

The police car shot through the streets like a white blur.

Finally...

They arrived at the second crime scene: the Liu Family’s Fruit Garden.

Xu Huo got out of the car.

He stood by the road, seeing the trembling orchard owner and the police tape that had been put up.

And...

He saw the four human heads.

Four heads, which, unlike the previous victims, had no other minor injuries.

The four heads were hung from an apple tree, their faces fixed in stiff, bizarre smiles, staring right at Xu Huo.

Xu Huo fell silent.

’The killer...’

’Is still killing.’

’He’s still killing!’

...

...

"Based on the four heads from the second scene, our decision to center the investigation around Cheng Yu was correct."

"The files on the four victims show none of them attended the private school."

"Instead, they went to the public school Cheng Yu attended a year and a half ago. All four were adults."

"In other words, Cheng Yu is the link that connects the people from two different areas—the first crime scene and the second."

The 28th, 5:00 PM.

Li Jianye stood in the office, reading from the new case files he’d brought.

The office was dead silent.

’Seven people dead...’

’Seven people dead in just two days!’

’And from two different schools...’

"I have two pieces of news, one good and one bad."

After finishing the basic information, Li Jianye picked up another file and said gravely:

"First, the bad news."

"Just like with the private school, we couldn’t find anything significant in their files. However, we haven’t interrogated the Dean of Students yet, so we don’t know if this lead is a dead end."

"If the situations at both schools are identical... then our entire investigative direction, from the very beginning, has been completely wrong."

That was the first piece of news.

As soon as he said it, a heavy weight seemed to settle in everyone’s chest, like a stone.

’If this is true...’

’All our work has been for nothing!’

All the work done while those four victims were dying would have been completely useless!

However...

"The good news is, because we had already planted people in the school, a brief investigation led the police to a person of interest who fits the case."

"This person dropped out of school one week before the deceased, Cheng Yu, transferred."

Li Jianye’s sudden announcement left everyone in the room stunned.

The next second...

"Let’s go!"

Without hesitation, Xu Huo shot up from his chair like a spring.

"Find him!"

...

...

If someone is pushed to the brink by bullying, how will their family react?

Usually, they don’t do much.

Most cases just get dropped and forgotten.

An ordinary person might file a lawsuit, take the perpetrators to court...

Someone once did just that.

His name was Zhao Kang.

He was the accomplice of the killer Sun Jiang in the Modern Jesus case.

He personally planned every detail of the case and helped dispose of the body.

That was Zhao Kang’s answer.

"But there are also a few extremists."

"Revenge. A frenzied, blatant, undisguised revenge bent on taking lives!"

"Murder, torture, dismemberment, taking everyone down with them..."

Xu Huo’s voice echoed softly up the stairwell as he walked.

"That is their answer."

"Like the bombing case, the massacre by Song Si and the others... a slaughter that turned the world into Hell..."

As he spoke, he stopped in front of a door.

The hearts of the officers with him were heavy.

According to the investigation, someone had dropped out a week before the victim, Cheng Yu, transferred schools.

A student from the class next door, an inconspicuous person.

The victims from the second crime scene, on the other hand, were from various other classes.

’Seven people dead now, all from one school...’

"If that person was really being bullied..."

Xu Huo took a deep breath, picked the lock, and placed his hand on the doorknob.

"The killer is very likely a family member!"

Hearing this, everyone fixed their eyes on the door, ready to spring into action the moment it opened.

Just as adrenaline flooded their systems...

"CREAK~"

The door opened.

A musty, decaying smell hit them, and they instinctively coughed.

Inside the room was...

A heavy layer of dust.

The TV, the floor, the sofa, the balcony, the fan...

Everything was covered in dust.

Dim sunlight filtered through the window into the living room. The place felt forgotten by time, frozen at a certain moment, utterly silent.

’This house... no one’s lived here for at least half a year.’

"Where... where are they!?"

Qian Hua was horrified, his pupils contracting.

"Who are you?"

Suddenly, a voice came from behind them. They all turned to see a girl, a grocery basket in her arms, having just opened her door. She froze, staring at the police officers outside.

It was the neighbor.

"The people who live here?"

Li Jianye couldn’t help but ask, "Do you know where the parents are?"

"The parents?"

The woman looked confused, then astonished.

"They’re all dead. What parents are you talking about?"

’All dead?’

Those three words struck them like a thunderclap, their minds going blank.

"D-Dead?"

"Yeah, they died a while ago."

"About... half a year now?"

This family was their prime suspect—the family of the student who had supposedly been bullied by Cheng Yu and dropped out.

’If this family was the source of all the cases...’

’If our investigation really wasn’t wrong...’

’If our line of inquiry was correct, but the entire family was already dead...’

’Then...’

Xu Huo and Li Jianye looked at each other, seeing the same shock mirrored in the other’s eyes.

"The killer who is out there murdering people right now..."

"Who is it!?"

The killer who decapitated his victims and hung their heads on the apple tree...

Who is it?

As the question hung in the air, the scene fell into a dead silence.