Chapter 175 135: Human Flesh Fertilizer

Can you get addicted?

Yes. If your first bite makes you sick to your stomach, you probably won't eat any more.

But, if you take that first bite and think it tastes incredible...

Then you begin your descent into the abyss.

The taste lingers in your mind, a constant temptation. You see a beautiful girl, and your mind is filled with nothing but carnal lust and a ravenous appetite.

A monster? A demon?

That's not an insult. It's a description.

Fortunately, however...

When Xu Huo arrived at the second reported location, he breathed a little easier.

This was a guesthouse with a small garden of fruits and vegetables on its roof. Xu Huo now stood on that rooftop.

"Dismemberment. It's another dismemberment!"

"The person who reported it was the guesthouse owner. He'd cleared a small plot of land on the roof to grow some vegetables. But today, while harvesting, he found a lump of meat tangled in the roots of a plant. At first, he thought it was a dead rat or something."

"But when he dug at it with his hands, he unearthed an eyeball. It was staring right at him. He called the police a few minutes later. The officers who arrived on the scene conducted a brief analysis and determined this to be the second crime scene in the corpse-cooking case."

"The good news, however, is that he didn't cook the body this time."

Qian Hua stood at the second crime scene, explaining to the others with a helpless look.

The guesthouse roof had several large greenhouses where fresh fruits and vegetables were grown.

The tender vegetable leaves were a vibrant green, the soil was rich and fertile, and trellises had been set up for climbing plants. It looked quite idyllic, but there was one difference...

A severed hand was buried in the soil.

No.

It wasn't just a severed hand.

There were chunks of flesh, ribs, a pelvis—or rather, pieces of various pelvises!

Everything was scattered, dispersed throughout the rich, black earth. Black soil clung to the cut surfaces, and earthworms writhed over the chunks of flesh...

"The killer dismembered the body and then buried the pieces in the soil..."

Xu Huo murmured, his brow furrowed as he watched the police officers methodically searching the area.

A person, chopped to pieces.

Countless fragments, like cuts of pork, had become organic fertilizer, buried in the soil. Vegetable roots pierced the flesh, continuously drawing nutrients...

Above, fresh green vegetables.

Below, rotting chunks of human flesh.

'What was he trying to do?!'

Xu Huo stared at the small vegetable plot before him, lost in thought for a long time.

He only snapped out of it when the last of the body parts had been excavated.

It was 1:10 in the afternoon.

At some point, the police had laid out the pile of fleshy pieces on the ground and had begun to assemble them.

First an eye, then a few ribs, followed by a thigh, a skull...

Gradually,

a gory, human-shaped outline of bones took shape before them, scraps of meat still clinging to them, not yet picked clean.

The eyeball, like a glob of thick phlegm, was stuck in its socket.

A large pile of shredded flesh lay nearby, its origins on the body impossible to determine at a glance.

Beyond that...

...there was another human form.

"Two people."

"The second person is missing teeth, eyes, and the bones from their hands and feet. The amount of flesh we've recovered isn't enough to assemble two complete bodies."

Qian Hua reported.

The first scene only had hand and foot bones, while the second scene yielded more...

"The rest of the first victim's remains?"

Li Jianye ventured, after a moment's pause.

Xu Huo nodded. He looked at Qian Hua. "Get someone on a DNA analysis report."

Qian Hua nodded and went to make the arrangements.

"What's the identity of the other victim?"

Xu Huo asked again.

"A guest at the guesthouse. They'd been living here for about six months. Name's Zhang Family."

"What's their ID number?"

"Don't have one."

"You don't have one?"

Xu Huo stopped what he was doing. He looked up at Qian Hua, momentarily stunned.

Qian Hua said with a dark expression:

"The owner of this guesthouse has no process for registering guest IDs, and he hasn't installed any security cameras."

"From our interviews, the victim had a bad temper and an unpleasant personality. Several of the long-term tenants disliked them. Name's Zhang Family. They made a living running a street stall that sold fruit."

'No ID registration... no cameras...'

'These days, when it came to guesthouses... if you asked, they'd swear everyone was registered. When trouble hit, suddenly there were no records.'

It wasn't just Xu Huo; even Li Jianye's expression was grim.

After a moment of silence,

Xu Huo refocused his thoughts, his gaze sharp as it swept over the various body parts.

"The cut marks on the body are very precise..."

"This wasn't a violent butchering. It's more like a precise dissection."

The police had initially assumed the killer dismembered the body by hacking it apart with something like a meat cleaver.

But now, the bones, which showed no signs of brute force, proved otherwise...

The perpetrator was like a seasoned butcher!

'In that case, they wouldn't have needed any large tools for the dismemberment. A simple fruit knife could have done the job...'

"Did any of the victim's property go missing?"

As if suddenly remembering something, Xu Huo turned and asked Qian Hua, who had arrived on the scene before him.

"Gone."

Qian Hua shook his head. "Their ID, any cash, and anything else of value—all gone."

"How did he get in and make his way to the roof?"

"There are marks on the window. Looks like they scaled the outer wall, climbed all the way to the third floor, and forced a window open. The lock on the rooftop door was also pried."

'Forcing windows, prying locks...'

'A thief?!'

At the first crime scene, based on the missing money and the signs of a picked lock, Xu Huo had made one assessment.

The perpetrator was a thief!

"Is this really the work of a thief?"

Li Jianye couldn't help but blurt out, staring in shock at the precise cuts.

A common thief...

...with this kind of skill?

It's unheard of!

And you're saying this was a thief?!

But Xu Huo wasn't focused on that. On the contrary, his brow was deeply furrowed as he pondered something else entirely...