This was the fifth case related to the “zombie drug”, which Serious Crime Division One handled after they took over the case in its entirety.
Bai Muchuan made Tang Yuanchu stop the car outside the street and walked over to the crime scene.
Xiang Wan exited the car as well.
The winds outside felt piercing cold.
Xiang Wan adjusted her muffler as she walked with them. She furrowed her eyebrows as she inspected the place before her.
If she had not set foot on this place personally, Xiang Wan would have never known that there would be such slums in the prosperous and well-developed Capital.
The dilapidated houses there seemed like the legacies of the 1980s and 1990s. There were even older buildings before liberation. Basically, they were single-story houses as well as those informal squatters unguided by urban planning. Even if there are two-or-three-story buildings, after being exposed to the wind and rain, their outer walls revealed the bricks that belonged to the last century. In this overly crowded, narrow street where piles of garbage and old things line along both sides of the path, it was a sharp contrast against the rows of high-rise buildings they saw during their journey here.
There was a foul smell in the air.
In this small street, the rays of the sun could hardly reach them.
There were very few people living there. As they walked into the street, they were very uncomfortable at what they saw.
“I can’t imagine…”
“And here I thought the Capital is filled with millionaires. As long as anyone could own a house here, they are definitely wealthy folks…”
“It also depends on whether the developer could afford the land,” said Bai Muchuan.
The few of them walked to an old single-story housing.
The police had cordoned off the area.
Bai Muchuan walked into the cordoned area by lifting the barricade tape.
He was right; this was a piece of land that developers couldn’t afford to tear down. The wealthy ones in that area had already moved to another area to stay and asked for exorbitant prices if anyone wanted to buy the land. The remaining people were mostly poverty-ridden citizens—the elderly, the disabled, and the ill. They were the ones who looked forward to receiving offers from the developers or government on redevelopment works in the area…
Xiang Wan went inside the cordoned area as well, and she adjusted her coat.
The weather was freezing.
Somehow, it felt colder suddenly.
“Captain Bai.”
Ding Yifan had arrived earlier than them. When he saw Bai Muchuan, he hurried over to them.
“How’s the situation?”
“It’s like this…”
Ding Yifan gave an account to them as they walked.
Bai Muchuan followed him and entered the house.
Since he was very tall, in this low single-story house, he would be unable to enter if he straightened his back.
The room seemed rather dark with only a dim yellow light.
Hence, Ding Yifan was using a flashlight with high wattage.
The light from the flashlight was very strong. When Ding Yifan showed them what was on the floor, Xiang Wan saw a long, ragged trail of blood that ran towards a room…
“This is the first scene.”
Ding Yifan talked about the situation again.
Bai Muchuan nodded. “Where’s Cheng Zheng?”
Ding Yifan pointed at the room where the trail of bloodstains end. “Captain Cheng is inside there!”
Bai Muchuan took the shoe covers and gloves that Tang Yuanchu gave without saying a word. After he wore them, he walked into the room slowly.
The door was short and narrow, as well as old and worn out.
He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before arching himself to enter the room.
The light inside was dimmer than in the living room. Cheng Zheng and Mei Xin were crouching on the floor. He was talking seriously as Mei Xin noted down what he said diligently. There were two police officers guarding a pair of mother and son who suffered a bad fright—they were the suspect, Wang Xinggui and her son.
Xiang Wan also took the shoe covers from Tang Yuanchu, but she stood outside the room instead.
This was because the room was already rather small. It was already cramped before they went inside the room.
They dragged the dead man that was lying on his back with his mouth agape and eyes protruding while the body was stiff and straight as though he was frozen. The dead man was around 50 to 60 years old. There were two rows of clear and bloody teeth marks on his neck, as though a demon had bitten him. The bloodstains from the wound had dried up, giving off a hair-raising feeling.
Bai Muchuan walked to Cheng Zheng. “Any findings?”
Cheng Zheng glanced at Mei Xin instead.
Mei Xin got up in tacit understanding and passed her notebook to Bai Muchuan.
“Captain Bai, let’s talk outside.”
The perpetrator was inside the room. It was not convenient to talk in there.
Bai Muchuan nodded and left the room with Mei Xin.
“Our initial findings showed that the only similar point is the row of teeth marks,” said Mei Xin in a low tone, “the cause of death for the deceased differs from all the previous cases—”
Xiang Wan did not follow them when they both went to talk.
She carried her laptop haversack and just stood at her spot, watching the mother and the son who was sitting on the bed while they were trembling in fear.
Coincidentally, some light from Ding Yifan’s flashlight shone on the woman.
Her face was ghastly pale, and she looked terribly horrified.
The angle of the flashlight that landed on her face had made her face seem ashen which frightened Xiang Wan for a moment.
The woman covered her face out of reflex when the flashlight shone on her face. “Detective… I don’t know… I don’t know anything. It’s true, please believe me…”
The woman’s voice sounded muffled as she mumbled. She was so shaken that she need not the police to make sure she stayed in her place at all.
She was the perpetrator of this case.
The one who called the police was her son.
According to Ding Yifan, the crime scene traces showed that the deceased and the perpetrator were having an argument in the living room. When the woman bit her husband, she wanted to drag her husband into the bedroom and hide his corpse under the bed. However, her son saw that and called the police. Her son had a high fever when he was younger, and after he recovered from the fever, he seemed to have become somewhat retarded. The neighbors said that the son was a reticent person and hardly left his house. His level of intelligence was similar to a seven or eight-year-old kid. Nonetheless, he could take care of himself. When he discovered his mom’s abnormality, he took his own initiative and dialed 110…
The flashlight revealed the woman’s quivering lips and her son’s dazed face. At first glance, they looked like lost spirits…
“Detective, I plead of you… We, we are not bad people. We’re really not bad people… Especially my son… he’s just a simpleton… just a simpleton…”
The woman was still pleading.
Ding Yifan didn’t respond to her pleads but instructed the two police officers instead. “Guard them well.”
The flashlight shone at her face for a moment to make sure she behaved herself.
Xiang Wan’s eyes closed a moment; she felt that her eyesight went slightly blurred and had difficulty in breathing.
Moreover, she could not bear to look at the woman’s appearance.
The woman was too skinny like a pile of bones wrapped up in some old tree bark. She seemed to be around 50 to 60 years old, and her whole face only showed one thing—poverty.
It was conceivable that with all these years of suffering, she should not be someone who would behave impulsively.
Would a woman who shudders at the sight of a policeman…
… kill her husband?
Was it really because of that drug?
Xiang Wan turned her head slowly away. She found it difficult to look at the woman.
There were too many unfortunate people in this world that others did not know what to do with. The woman’s desperate, horrified expression and the voice that came out of her throat was like a chilly feeling that crept into her bones slowly. She couldn’t stay there anymore.
Xiang Wan walked to the living room.
Click!
Click!
A police officer was taking pictures for record purposes for the case.
Everyone was busy doing their job.
Only Xiang Wan was the idle one without having to do anything.
She looked at the house, illuminated by dim lights.
This was the fifth case related to the “zombie drug”, which Serious Crime Division One handled after they took over the case in its entirety.
Bai Muchuan made Tang Yuanchu stop the car outside the street and walked over to the crime scene.
Xiang Wan exited the car as well.
The winds outside felt piercing cold.
Xiang Wan adjusted her muffler as she walked with them. She furrowed her eyebrows as she inspected the place before her.
If she had not set foot on this place personally, Xiang Wan would have never known that there would be such slums in the prosperous and well-developed Capital.
The dilapidated houses there seemed like the legacies of the 1980s and 1990s. There were even older buildings before liberation. Basically, they were single-story houses as well as those informal squatters unguided by urban planning. Even if there are two-or-three-story buildings, after being exposed to the wind and rain, their outer walls revealed the bricks that belonged to the last century. In this overly crowded, narrow street where piles of garbage and old things line along both sides of the path, it was a sharp contrast against the rows of high-rise buildings they saw during their journey here.
There was a foul smell in the air.
In this small street, the rays of the sun could hardly reach them.
There were very few people living there. As they walked into the street, they were very uncomfortable at what they saw.
“I can’t imagine…”
“And here I thought the Capital is filled with millionaires. As long as anyone could own a house here, they are definitely wealthy folks…”
“It also depends on whether the developer could afford the land,” said Bai Muchuan.
The few of them walked to an old single-story housing.
The police had cordoned off the area.
Bai Muchuan walked into the cordoned area by lifting the barricade tape.
He was right; this was a piece of land that developers couldn’t afford to tear down. The wealthy ones in that area had already moved to another area to stay and asked for exorbitant prices if anyone wanted to buy the land. The remaining people were mostly poverty-ridden citizens—the elderly, the disabled, and the ill. They were the ones who looked forward to receiving offers from the developers or government on redevelopment works in the area…
Xiang Wan went inside the cordoned area as well, and she adjusted her coat.
The weather was freezing.
Somehow, it felt colder suddenly.
“Captain Bai.”
Ding Yifan had arrived earlier than them. When he saw Bai Muchuan, he hurried over to them.
“How’s the situation?”
“It’s like this…”
Ding Yifan gave an account to them as they walked.
Bai Muchuan followed him and entered the house.
Since he was very tall, in this low single-story house, he would be unable to enter if he straightened his back.
The room seemed rather dark with only a dim yellow light.
Hence, Ding Yifan was using a flashlight with high wattage.
The light from the flashlight was very strong. When Ding Yifan showed them what was on the floor, Xiang Wan saw a long, ragged trail of blood that ran towards a room…
“This is the first scene.”
Ding Yifan talked about the situation again.
Bai Muchuan nodded. “Where’s Cheng Zheng?”
Ding Yifan pointed at the room where the trail of bloodstains end. “Captain Cheng is inside there!”
Bai Muchuan took the shoe covers and gloves that Tang Yuanchu gave without saying a word. After he wore them, he walked into the room slowly.
The door was short and narrow, as well as old and worn out.
He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment before arching himself to enter the room.
The light inside was dimmer than in the living room. Cheng Zheng and Mei Xin were crouching on the floor. He was talking seriously as Mei Xin noted down what he said diligently. There were two police officers guarding a pair of mother and son who suffered a bad fright—they were the suspect, Wang Xinggui and her son.
Xiang Wan also took the shoe covers from Tang Yuanchu, but she stood outside the room instead.
This was because the room was already rather small. It was already cramped before they went inside the room.
They dragged the dead man that was lying on his back with his mouth agape and eyes protruding while the body was stiff and straight as though he was frozen. The dead man was around 50 to 60 years old. There were two rows of clear and bloody teeth marks on his neck, as though a demon had bitten him. The bloodstains from the wound had dried up, giving off a hair-raising feeling.
Bai Muchuan walked to Cheng Zheng. “Any findings?”
Cheng Zheng glanced at Mei Xin instead.
Mei Xin got up in tacit understanding and passed her notebook to Bai Muchuan.
“Captain Bai, let’s talk outside.”
The perpetrator was inside the room. It was not convenient to talk in there.
Bai Muchuan nodded and left the room with Mei Xin.
“Our initial findings showed that the only similar point is the row of teeth marks,” said Mei Xin in a low tone, “the cause of death for the deceased differs from all the previous cases—”
Xiang Wan did not follow them when they both went to talk.
She carried her laptop haversack and just stood at her spot, watching the mother and the son who was sitting on the bed while they were trembling in fear.
Coincidentally, some light from Ding Yifan’s flashlight shone on the woman.
Her face was ghastly pale, and she looked terribly horrified.
The angle of the flashlight that landed on her face had made her face seem ashen which frightened Xiang Wan for a moment.
The woman covered her face out of reflex when the flashlight shone on her face. “Detective… I don’t know… I don’t know anything. It’s true, please believe me…”
The woman’s voice sounded muffled as she mumbled. She was so shaken that she need not the police to make sure she stayed in her place at all.
She was the perpetrator of this case.
The one who called the police was her son.
According to Ding Yifan, the crime scene traces showed that the deceased and the perpetrator were having an argument in the living room. When the woman bit her husband, she wanted to drag her husband into the bedroom and hide his corpse under the bed. However, her son saw that and called the police. Her son had a high fever when he was younger, and after he recovered from the fever, he seemed to have become somewhat retarded. The neighbors said that the son was a reticent person and hardly left his house. His level of intelligence was similar to a seven or eight-year-old kid. Nonetheless, he could take care of himself. When he discovered his mom’s abnormality, he took his own initiative and dialed 110…
The flashlight revealed the woman’s quivering lips and her son’s dazed face. At first glance, they looked like lost spirits…
“Detective, I plead of you… We, we are not bad people. We’re really not bad people… Especially my son… he’s just a simpleton… just a simpleton…”
The woman was still pleading.
Ding Yifan didn’t respond to her pleads but instructed the two police officers instead. “Guard them well.”
The flashlight shone at her face for a moment to make sure she behaved herself.
Xiang Wan’s eyes closed a moment; she felt that her eyesight went slightly blurred and had difficulty in breathing.
Moreover, she could not bear to look at the woman’s appearance.
The woman was too skinny like a pile of bones wrapped up in some old tree bark. She seemed to be around 50 to 60 years old, and her whole face only showed one thing—poverty.
It was conceivable that with all these years of suffering, she should not be someone who would behave impulsively.
Would a woman who shudders at the sight of a policeman…
… kill her husband?
Was it really because of that drug?
Xiang Wan turned her head slowly away. She found it difficult to look at the woman.
There were too many unfortunate people in this world that others did not know what to do with. The woman’s desperate, horrified expression and the voice that came out of her throat was like a chilly feeling that crept into her bones slowly. She couldn’t stay there anymore.
Xiang Wan walked to the living room.
Click!
Click!
A police officer was taking pictures for record purposes for the case.
Everyone was busy doing their job.
Only Xiang Wan was the idle one without having to do anything.
She looked at the house, illuminated by dim lights.
