Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Piled-up Corpses
How many bodies?
Li Jianye’s mind went blank. Muscle memory took over, and he asked the old man to lead them to the cold storage.
The old man obliged, chuckling sinisterly as he led the way.
This area was vast and sparsely populated, with land being cheap. As a result, the cold storage facility was massive, consisting of four large, warehouse-like buildings. Each warehouse was divided into more than ten different refrigeration zones.
The old man walked on, leading the group to the entrance of a cold storage room marked with an "A7" logo.
RUMBLE~!
The sound of the roller shutter being pulled open was followed by the inner door swinging open...
A refrigerated truck appeared before them.
The old man paid them no mind, walking inside on his own. He skillfully unlatched the container’s rear doors, and in the next second...
A chill seeped into their very bones!
At the same time.
Several bodies came into view!
Men, women, old, and young...
Piled on top of each other after a bumpy ride, they looked like a tangled mass of pale maggots. Through the gaps, vacant eyes and expressionless faces of all kinds stared out at the people outside.
The bodies were like sculptures, or even more like pork on a chopping block—silent and still.
THUD~
Behind them, the lips of several police interns instantly turned white. Their legs went soft, and they nearly collapsed.
Li Jianye stood at the entrance, his eyes fixed on the scene inside the container. His jaw dropped, and his mind went completely blank with a deafening ROAR.
"Heh heh, there are still a few in here I haven’t picked out yet."
The old man struggled to climb into the container, chuckling as he looked at the bodies. After a moment’s thought, he turned back to the group and spoke.
"Which one do you folks want?"
The sound pulled Li Jianye back to his senses. His lips moved for a moment, but no words came out, as if time had frozen.
At that moment, he had only one thought.
’Jiangsan City... is finished!’
...
...
After taking the old man into custody, Li Jianye, nearly out of his wits, relayed the news to the municipal bureau.
And in that very moment.
Li Jianye witnessed the municipal bureau move faster than he had ever seen in his life.
Countless police cars flooded the cold storage facility!
Innumerable police officers swarmed the fishing village like a dense tide.
The overlapping sounds of investigative questioning blended into a chaotic uproar.
Li Jianye didn’t know what the bureau chief was thinking. He didn’t know if the chief’s voice had shaken or his tone had trembled when giving the order.
He only knew that he was not in a good state of mind.
CLICK... CLICK...
September 5th, 2:00 PM. Li Jianye pulled out his flint lighter, his hand trembling slightly. He tried to light his cigarette but just couldn’t manage it.
Not until a steady flame was offered from the side, finally lighting his cigarette.
HSSS~
Li Jianye took a deep drag. The cigarette tip glowed, turning to white ash. Nicotine flooded his lungs, steadying his thoughts and emotions considerably.
Even his body seemed to stabilize.
"It’s over..."
His voice still trembled slightly as he uttered a number.
The total count from the container and the initial crime scene was enough to render anyone speechless...
Looking at the terrified owner who had been summoned by the police, and the swarm of officers dense as ants before him, Li Jianye’s gaze grew unfocused.
"To be honest, in my entire life..."
"...the total number of bodies from all the homicide cases I’ve ever worked probably adds up to this one."
In a single city district, the number of murder cases requiring criminal investigation isn’t actually that high over the course of a year. In a place with average public safety, it’s usually around a dozen or so.
Those cases would be divided among three or four major detachments, or handled by the municipal bureau. In a year, Li Jianye would at most get four or five of them.
Hearing this, Xu Huo, who stood nearby, paused. He subconsciously glanced at his own panel.
[Achievement Unlocked: Blood-Handed Butcher, Lawless Madman...]
He mulled it over for a moment before chiming in:
"Same here, more or less."
"Heh."
Li Jianye let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
The body count was astronomical. Unsurprisingly, this case was now the kind that had to be solved no matter the resources invested.
The municipal bureau had erupted in chaos!
The report went up to the provincial level, and within minutes, the province erupted as well.
A major homicide case usually involves a single-digit number of victims. In this case, that number would barely count as a rounding error...
As expected.
The Capital City would hear about it.
The police in the Capital City would also be in an uproar. They would undoubtedly send people over in short order, and those people would stand by, silently watching you work...
Honestly, when Li Jianye thought of this, the hand that had just steadied started trembling again.
Until a hand patted his shoulder.
"Let’s investigate. Before the people from the Capital City arrive, before the teams from the province are transferred over, we find out as much as we can."
Xu Huo patted his shoulder again and then headed into the cold storage unit.
Li Jianye fell silent. Then, with a newfound resolve, he finished his cigarette in one long drag, stubbed it out in the distance, put the butt in his pocket, and strode forward.
’If the sky falls, let the tall ones hold it up!’
He took a long stride forward.
"How’s the interrogation of Liu Jie going?" Li Jianye asked as he walked, observing the environment inside.
The bodies from the container had been carried out and laid on the ground, which was covered with sheets.
As for Liu Jie... that was the name of the old man, the security guard for the cold storage facility.
"According to his statement, he saw the refrigerated truck not far from the side of the road. At the time, the truck was empty, and nearby were two bodies of people who had just recently died. A background check revealed the two were the driver and the transport guard. They died from killing each other during infighting, the reason for which is unknown."
"Liu Jie is mentally unstable. He didn’t call the police. He searched the bodies, took the keys, and when he saw the scene inside the container, he wasn’t scared at all. In fact, he got excited."
"He stole the cold storage facility’s key, made a copy, turned on the truck’s refrigeration, and then hid it inside..."
Beside them, Zhao Shui’s expression was grim. He had never imagined someone could be so outrageously twisted.
He even had a ’sharing spirit.’ Feeling bad about stealing two salted fish from Wang Hu, he ’experienced’ them himself first, then washed them and gave them to Wang Hu...
Li Jianye ignored these details, quickly seizing on the keywords.
"So you’re saying... Liu Jie essentially has nothing to do with this case?"
"And the only two people connected to the case who knew anything are dead!?"
Zhao Shui paused, then nodded.
Xu Huo frowned, looking to the side at two blood-soaked bodies.
These were the two suspected perpetrators. One of them had his belt unbuckled and his pants hanging low, a knife wound in his back.
He was most likely killed while getting out of the truck to relieve himself. The other had been stabbed in the abdomen. The knife had fingerprints from both of them on it, and both bodies wore grotesque expressions.
’Infighting?’
’Why would they fight?’
Mutual destruction from infighting is usually prompted by one of four things.
Threats, an explosion of accumulated emotions, unequal division of profits, or silencing.
’Which one was it?’
After pondering for a moment without an answer, Xu Huo set the question aside for now and turned his head to look at the bodies on the ground.
’Strange. So many bodies...’
’Where in the world did they come from!?’
’And the Jiangsan City police had no information whatsoever!’
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