Chapter 736: The Birth Of An Urban Legend
Translator: Azza
Editor: Conspiracing
Chen Shi rushed outside and saw a scene that went against common sense.
A headless, naked "person" wearing only red underwear was running rampant on the sidewalk. Passers-by screamed and fled. The vehicles on the road braked one after another. The drivers behind them were caught off guard and collided with the cars in front. The crashing sounds were endless.
The headless man swayed as if it was drunk. If you observed carefully, you would find that its right hand was hanging down. Its left leg stepped forward and dragged its right leg along. It had no sense of direction at all and the path of travel was extremely erratic.
A woman was so frightened that she fell on her bottom. Yellow liquid came out from under her skirt. When the headless man approached her, the woman crawled backwards on her hands and feet, screaming.
An empty zone formed around it. People were shocked and took out their mobile phones.
The police stood at the door of the Public Security Bureau, completely stunned and dumbfounded. Peng Sijue ordered, "Don't stand there stupidly! Hurry up and get the body back."
"That... Is that considered a corpse?" someone stammered.
"Whatever it is, get it back quickly!"
The police rushed over. A young policeman actually took out his gun, pointed it at the headless man and shouted, "Don't move!"
"Don't shout. It's useless. It can't hear you." Chen Shi said.
Chen Shi stretched out his hand to grab the headless man’s arm. When the palm of his hand touched the icy and slippery skin of the headless man’s arm, the headless man suddenly panicked, shook off Chen Shi’s palm forcefully, and rushed towards the road, dragging its right leg. It staggered on the drop from the sidewalk to the road, and then propped itself off the ground with its left hand. When its palm touched the slightly hot concrete pavement, it seemed a little confused and paused for a few seconds.
The police took this opportunity to surround it. When someone touched it, it was like a frightened animal, punching recklessly before knocking aside the police in front trying to block it with its arm. Its strength was amazing. Then it rushed across the road and ran into a street light, bounced back, and fell onto the ground.
It was like a fish out of water, lying on the ground and struggling. The last bit of its vitality seemed to have dried up. Its left hand was drawing something on the ground.
The police immediately surrounded it, but no one dared to touch it. Several police officers even had guns in their hands.
A policeman asked, "It... Is it the one from the autopsy room?"
After drawing for a long time, the headless man finally stopped moving. Chen Shi turned it over and felt for its heartbeat. The heart had stopped, but the chest was actually warm. This proved that the heart was still beating a few seconds ago.
Looking around at the mobile phones held by the surrounding citizens, Chen Shi knew that this matter was no longer controllable, and that a new, urban legend had been born at that moment.
Peng Sijue asked someone to fetch a body bag. They put the headless man into it and lifted it away. This ordinary action was described thus in a forum a few weeks later. "Several expressionless, well-trained staff members dressed in white lab coats from some mysterious department rushed to the scene, and packed the headless man into a black waterproof cloth bag with a zipper that had an unidentifiable number on it. The police at the scene didn’t show any signs of obstructing this. Obviously, they had been given orders in advance from their commanders at the top."
Lin Qiupu had hurried back when he received the news. At the time, almost all the policemen of the second team were crowded in the autopsy room, looking at the recovered body. It had been confirmed that it was Zhang Xiao's body.
"How many people had witnessed it?" Lin Qiupu asked.
"At least a few hundred..." Chen Shi took out his phone and flipped through Weibo. "There’s a commotion on Weibo. This news is unstoppable."
Lin Qiupu held his forehead helplessly. "How could such a thing happen? Who was on duty in the hall? No one stopped a ‘corpse’ from going out? Did it go out by itself?"
"We checked the surveillance and it had gone out on its own." Old Zhang said, "The police officer on duty said that an old lady had thought this place was a local police station and came in to settle the formalities for change of registered residence. He took the old lady away and gave her directions. He saw the body running out when he was standing outside the door, but it was already too late."
"Could the resurrection of the corpse have something to do with this old lady?" Xu Xiaodong asked in horror.
Everyone looked at him at once, and then ignored his speculation. Peng Sijue said, "I will do an autopsy on it later to find out the reason for this 'resurrection'."
"The biggest trouble caused by this incident is that the murderer may already know, and he will think Zhang Xiao isn’t dead yet." Chen Shi said.
"So what if Zhang Xiao didn't die? Would he come to kill him again?" Lin Qiupu said.
"Of course not, but in the eyes of the murderer, the 'resurrected' Zhang Xiao may provide some clues which will expose his identity, and he may take some radical measures. For a murderer, the most terrifying thing is nothing more than the resurrection of the dead, let alone having the resurrection happen in front of the police."
"But this time, when he 'resurrected', he offered nothing."
"No, he provided it!" Chen Shi raised his phone. "This is a video of him writing and drawing on the ground before he died. Let's see what he wrote."
Everyone went to the meeting room and projected the video on the white screen. After watching the video several times, everyone was confused and completely unclear about what was being drawn.
Old Zhang said, "He rebelled so fiercely before, so why did he write and draw before he died, leaving us clues?"
Chen Shi said, "I’m guessing that after he 'woke up', he thought he was still at the murder scene and in front of the murderer, so the first thing he did was to escape. He couldn't see or hear anything, so when I touched him, he thought it was the murderer wanting to catch him and resisted with all his strength. However, when his hand touched the road, he was taken aback. He probably realized that he was no longer at the scene of the murder, and that there were other people standing around him, so he thought to leave a clue."
"Old Chen, isn’t there something wrong with your wording?" Lin Dongxue pointed to her head. "He doesn't even have a head. How can he 'think' and 'realize'?"
This question really puzzled Chen Shi, and he couldn't give a reasonable explanation either. He could only wait for Peng Sijue to obtain the answer.
"Hey, guys, what he wrote weren’t words!" Lin Qiupu played the video again. "Look at him drawing circles on the ground. There are no characters with a radical like what he’s drawing!"
So everyone took out a piece of paper, watched the video, and recreated the strokes of the deceased. Finally, they integrated everyone’s observation results and found that the deceased had drawn three people.
"What clue is this?!" a policeman complained. "Why didn't he write? He must know the name of the murderer."
"Three people. There were indeed three people at the scene. This clue is meaningless." Lin Qiupu said.
"The deceased was also the third to be killed. Does it mean that?" Lin Dongxue guessed.
"Could the sex worker be an accomplice?" Xu Xiaodong said.
Chen Shi was silent. The clue itself was too vague, but the three numbers reminded him of one thing. Just as he was about to say it, there was a commotion outside. They could hear someone shouting, "You can't go in!"
Lin Qiupu got up and took a look before closing the door immediately. His face was pale. "Oh no, the reporters have come!"
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