Chapter 56
If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again
Law and justice
Ye Zun followed the corpse to the second floor.
After he walked up the stairs, the body was gone.
Ye Zun was not in a hurry to go to the fourth floor. He stood there and waited for a while. The conversation downstairs proceeded normally and no one had the intention of coming up.
After confirming this, Ye Zun walked towards the corridor on the second floor.
He didn’t stop, just making his way across. He walked from the stairs on the right side of the house to the left, then lifted his foot to start heading up to the third floor.
There were many rooms on the third floor. The guest room Ye Zun stayed in last night and the host’s private screening room were both on the third floor, and there was also a bar and kitchenette for preparing desserts and drinks.
When he reached the third floor, Ye Zun stopped in front of every door and tried twisting the door handles, pushing them open for a look.
The rooms were all empty. Some rooms appeared to have been unoccupied for some time, and some were multipurpose rooms.
When he went to the host’s private screening room, the door handle failed to twist. The door had been locked.
He leaned in and pasted his ear to the door to listen, but there was no sound.
Ye Zun didn’t linger for long and headed to the fourth floor.
The upper floor was very quiet.
He hadn’t been to the fourth floor of the villa yet, and had only seen the boy talking to him last night, standing in the stairwell from the third floor to the fourth floor.
Ye Zun remembered what he saw in the screening room last night. There seemed to be an empty space that led upwards inside the screening room on the third floor, which might be connected to a certain room on the fourth floor. At that time, the faint chatter between the inspector and the host may have come from above.
He looked towards the small half-attic above the fourth floor. His eyes paused for a moment.
The fourth floor was the children and the host’s little sister’s bedroom.
In addition to the children’s bedroom, there was a piano room, toy room, and a large leisure balcony.
The other side of the balcony was a row of houses, built a slight distance away from the children’s bedroom. There were several rooms after 404, all with good views.
Ye Zun walked to the door of room 404. There were no abnormal happenings around him, no corpse that suddenly disappeared and then appeared again.
He knocked on the door three times, spaced evenly apart.
There was no sound from inside.
Ye Zun didn’t say anything. He paused, then knocked three more times, this time a little louder than the previous attempt.
Still no response.
Ye Zun put his hand on the door handle and tried to twist it.
The door was unlocked and opened from the outside.
The room was very big. Compared to the single room on the third floor where Ye Zun stayed last night, this room had a small living area, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It also appeared to open onto a small private balcony.
Ye Zun walked in and closed the door behind him.
The room had the obvious smell of someone living there. The air smelled of aftershave, tobacco and alcohol.
The furnishings of the room were very neat, just like the style of the whole villa, overly tidy with some slight cleanliness.
There were traces of someone sleeping on the bed, but there were no clothes. The bathroom had no lighting and was very quiet, without the sound of running water.
The glass sliding door to the balcony was open and the cool breeze blew inside.
Ye Zun walked across the room and onto the balcony. From the small balcony outside, he could see the scenery behind the villa.
Something flashed across the windowpane.
Ye Zun turned his head and saw a familiar figure standing in the bedroom. It was the disappearing and reappearing corpse.
The corpse was grey and looked like a dusty old plaster statue. It looked at him.
Facing those lifeless eyes that were like glass beads, alone in the room, a strange tension and uneasiness arose spontaneously.
Before Ye Zun could do anything, he heard the door of the bathroom being violently opened. The sound attracted the corpse, and its gaze shifted away from Ye Zun’s body.
Someone burst out, as if they came out in a hurry, stumbling unsteadily and brushing past the corpse.
The person was wearing a police uniform that Ye Zun was all too familiar with, though it was slightly wrinkled. There were traces of liquid on the heavy fabric, as if water had been splashed on it.
The person in the police uniform bent over, clutching their stomach with their fingers as uncomfortable, and slowly raised their head to look at Ye Zun.
Ye Zun saw that the person in front of him was not the inspector, but the police officer who he could not find since last night.
The young policeman’s eyes were bright, but his whole body was grey. Facing Ye Zun, he opened again and again, then suddenly fell to the ground.
Vivid red blood gushed out from the corner of his mouth and dripped on the police uniform, casting a dark shadow.
Dark, viscous blood spread from his feet.
At the same time, Ye Zun’s neck was suddenly pierced by a sharp weapon. As if a door had closed in front of him, his vision was plunged into darkness.
……
Ye Zun woke up in the dark.
He sat in a heavy chair with his arms carefully tied to the armrests and his feet bound apart to the chair legs.
Just like in the thriller crime movie he saw last night.
Ye Zun didn’t struggle, didn’t react in any way, and looked at the picture presented in his vision.
In the restricted field of vision behind his left side, he could vaguely see another chair with a person tied to it.
A densely coloured police uniform, a face with blood on the corner of the mouth.
It was the young police officer.
The good news was that he was not dead, the bad news was that they were currently both kidnapped.
A sigh sounded behind and above Ye Zun. Someone was standing behind him, as if they had been standing there since before he woke up.
“Who shall we start with?” the voice by his ear said with a smile.
From when the door of the villa was opened last night and when they met for the first time, that gentleman had always been in such a good mood and smiling like this, a kind and educated elite high-skilled immigrant. “Generally, when hunters deal with their prey, they will start with the weak, sick and disabled. So let’s start with this wounded policeman ba.”
Walking away from Ye Zun, he said, “I don’t like the skin of white people very much, even the youngsters feel too rough to the touch. But it also means that it doesn’t matter if it’s broken, so it can be used as practice.”
His tone sounded like he treated people like animals.
There came a faint dying whisper from that side, like a strong resistance.
The host’s voice was the same as when he chatted with the guests, a relaxing and pleasant attitude and tone. “My theoretical knowledge is very solid, close to full marks, but the practical skills may be lacking so please bear with me.”
Ye Zun observed the room. The surrounding decoration style was the same as what he saw in the host’s private screening room last night.
But this area was obviously a place he had never been to.
The host was dressed in casual and slightly rigorous clothes, similar to work clothes. He carefully used tweezers to carry out the pre-treatment on the young policeman’s face. While he spoke to the other man, he didn’t pay attention to whatever happened behind him.
The rope was tied so tightly that not only was it difficult to move the hands and feet, but he also found it hard to turn his head.
The curtain in front of Ye Zun moved slightly, opening a small gap. One eye looked in from the outside through the narrow gap, bumping into Ye Zun’s line of sight.
Ye Zun’s vision on the right side was momentarily blurry and a familiar figure walked over silently. It was the grey corpse.
The corpse stood in front of Ye Zun with the side of its body turned to him. It faced the host and his dying prey.
Then, the corpse looked sideways at Ye Zun.
Heavy and lifeless, eyes like dirty glass beads.
This was the closest the corpse had ever gotten to Ye Zun.
The corpse raised its right hand expressionlessly. It landed on Ye Zun’s head and slid down to his neck with no emotion, slowly applying force.
Gunshots rang out suddenly.
The corpse fluctuated slightly. The bullet passed through the corpse and the distorted air, and flew in front of Ye Zun in an instant.
The host’s hand holding the knife shook for a moment and he cursed. His fingers were grazed by stray bullets and the knife in his hand fell to the ground, bouncing a few times.
“Get down!” A steady and decisive voice ordered.
Ye Zun threw his centre of gravity to the left with all his strength and his entire body, along with the chair he was tied to, crashed to the ground.
This time he could see what was happening on the host’s side.
The host dodged, pulling the immobile young police officer to block himself. Smiling as if he was in no rush, he immediately took out a gun from the numerous tools beside him.
The gun rested on the shoulder of the young policeman, and he aimed, he fired twice at the place where the bullet came from.
Ye Zun’s left hand reached towards a scalpel on the ground. He used his toes to shift himself and the chair across the floor, and then used the chair and the obstacles around the wall to fix the angle of the scalpel, racing against the clock to shred and cut the rope that bound his hands.
During this period, the bullets kept flying back and forth above and around his head. Stray bullets hit the legs of the chair several times.
By the time Ye Zun cut his left hand free from the rope, the host had already fought for his retreat and walked up through the exit on the other side of the room, still holding the wounded policeman hostage.
He didn’t use a hostage to threaten the other party to cease fire, but just used him as a cover, with the same smile he usually had on his face.
“Your marksmanship is not very accurate ah, old man. Looks like you really don’t enjoy our movies very much. What a pity.”
“Let go of the hostage and raise your hands. Surrender immediately!”
“I never thought you would say such meaningless words.” The host had a playful smile on his face and didn’t take it seriously at all, but his hands were dripping with blood. He was clearly injured.
When he quickly retreated to the top of the stairs, he laughed and suddenly shot towards them in a crazed manner.
Bang bang bang, bullets fired indiscriminately, acting as a short-term suppression.
Ye Zun had just enough time to break free from the chair. He rolled backwards, leaning against the wall to avoid the stray bullets.
Gunpowder smoke filled the air, and there was nothing but silence for several minutes.
Realising that the host had already evacuated, the person outside the door finally broke in.
The inspector walked in with a gun. His face under the black windbreaker was as cold as ever, and his entire body was grey.
“Are you okay, Detective?” He pointed his gun in the direction where the host escaped as he asked Ye Zun, looking back and forth between Ye Zun and where his gun was pointing.
Ye Zun stood up with his back against the wall and looked at him with reservations. “What is going on? Where have you been since last night?”
The inspector said, “It’s a long story, and the process is a bit complicated. We don’t have much time, so I’ll jump straight to the conclusion. In the forensic autopsy performed on the corpse dug up by the dog on the mountain, they found that the body is missing its skin. This actually isn’t the first time such a corpse has been discovered, but it is the first one so close to this area. We already had initial suspicions on who it is, so I spent a long time getting close to the owner of this villa, and as you can see, I became his old friend. Including me bringing you here last night to stay over, it is all for the same purpose.”
Ye Zun: “I heard the two of you chatting here last night. To have a shared love for serial killers, it’s a very special case especially for a policeman. Why does he trust you?”
The inspector said calmly, “As a policeman, it’s not difficult to understand if I am interested in crime movies. What he’s interested in is crime, and what I’m interested in is solving crimes. Besides, he may not really trust me.”
Ye Zun understood. “Both me and that police officer were attacked in your room.”
The inspector nodded heavily. “After I left quietly last night, I found the body he buried in the mountain behind the villa. When I came back this morning, I couldn’t find that police officer. I suspected that he discovered something and was making the first move to attack you two first, so I pretended to be hungover and went back to the room to make him let down his defences and went to find my colleagues out in town.”
He came over to support Ye Zun. “In order to prevent more casualties and keep him from involving innocent people, I need your help to find the women and children here and hide them. I have to go after that guy and save our people.”
“Be careful.”
The two walked out of the dim screening room together.
With a gun in his hands, the inspector held a gun and went towards the fourth floor in the direction where the host fled.
Ye Zun came out from the third floor and went downstairs to find the other people.
In the dining room on the first floor, he saw the police officer who accompanied him. The other party was sitting on the dining table with his face lying on the table. There was a pool of blood on the plate.
He was dead.
There was no one else there.
Ye Zun turned back and walked back upstairs, avoiding the blood-stained areas. He kept hearing gunshots from a close distance.
When he got to the second floor, he saw that serious young girl, whose thin body was holding the two children at the same time, quickly running towards where he was. The two children were not held steady, but the situation was urgent and she was only a short distance away. His face was covered with sweat and flushed with heat.
Seeing Ye Zun approaching, her eyes showed alertness and fear. She hesitated for a moment but her feet still kept moving.
“Your big brother did something dangerous, the police are going after him right now. Take the children out of here first, I will help you.”
Ye Zun offered his goodwill.
The girl had a serious face, but at this moment she gasped and said, “He’s not my brother. I will take the children out, please keep looking, there’s another victim here.”
Ye Zun suddenly remembered something. “The young man who came here three days ago…”
“Yes.” The girl didn’t hesitate this time. “He is the one you are looking for. He disappeared after he came here. No one saw him, but I am certain, he said that there will be a detective who will come to find him. He is still in this house. I don’t know if he has been under some horrifying torture, but you need to find him quickly.”
Ye Zun glanced at the obedient children in her arms. “Take the children out first. Leave it to me.”
He already briefly checked the third floor when he went to find the inspector before, and it was obvious nothing was on the fourth floor. Only the mysterious second floor was the most suspicious.
Ye Zun searched all the rooms along the corridor of the second floor. He found the master’s bedroom, the host’s study, a collection room, a storage room, the cellar, and a workshop in the basement.
In the workshop, he found a small morgue.
There were bodies stored in the freezer, and there seemed to be four or five corpses.
Another one was placed outside on the operating table, covered with a white cloth. It had not been pushed in yet.
Ye Zun saw the walking corpse again. This time the corpse stopped in front of the operating table, looking at the person under the white cloth.
Ye Zun walked over and lifted the white cloth. His pupils dilated slightly.
A person laid under the white cloth, not yet dead.
The young man’s hands and feet were tied to the four corners of the operating table. His mouth was gagged by something to prevent him from making a sound. His distracted eyes looked at the ceiling above his head, and although his face was as pale as a vampire seen in movies, he was obviously still alive.
Ye Zun walked over, immediately untied him, and supported him to stand.
“Hello, are you conscious?”
That person was extremely weak, but he could still answer, “Yes.”
“What is your name?”
“Moros.”
The man, like Ye Zun and the villa’s host, had an oriental appearance, but his facial features were much deeper than Ye Zun’s, and his skin was paler and fairer, obviously of mixed race.
Ye Zun took out the entrustment letter he kept in his pocket and showed it to him. “Did you leave this?”
The young man glanced at the handwriting. He was so weak that he could barely sit on his own and even had difficulty nodding his head. His voice was very low and faint. “It was me. Are you Detective-xiansheng?”
“En.” Ye Zun took out a few chocolate balls wrapped in tin foil and handed them to him.
The man had apparently not eaten for a long time, which was the source of his excessively weak body.
“Why does Detective-xiansheng have this on him?”
Seeing that he didn’t even have the strength to raise his hand, Ye Zun took the initiative to help him peel the foil off and fed it to him, saying calmly, “I don’t eat regularly and have low blood sugar.”
This was just a made-up excuse. The main reason may be that Ye Zun doesn’t eat any food from unknown origins or from strange and suspicious places. For example, while in this house, he almost didn’t eat any substantial food from last night to this morning.
There was something odd about feeding chocolate to a young man, especially this one who was too pale but very handsome.
If the host wanted to skin him, Ye Zun would not be surprised, but would still feel it was a pity.
Compared with a peeled dead thing, the living appearance of this person was obviously a more perfect artwork.
“We have to hurry and get out of here, can you walk?”
The young man nodded.
But Ye Zun still reached out to support him and the two of them walked upstairs at a slow pace.
Ye Zun was very worried that the host would come back suddenly. It would be dangerous for them to stay in this kind of place.
The gun fight in the villa was still going on, the sounds popping up from somewhere from time to time.
When they walked out of the house, Ye Zun saw a group of policemen surrounding the door, many of them armed with live ammunition.
The group were clearly not just from the small local police station, but also from outside.
But the manpower of the police was stretched to their capacity compared to the size of the villa.
“Quick, over here.”
Someone immediately waved their hand.
Ye Zun supported Moros and walked towards the young girl from before.
Both of the girl’s hands held onto a child. The two children stood next to her at waist-height, looking at their home with innocent eyes.
Seeing the young man brought out by Ye Zun, the girl with the serious and slightly gloomy face let out a sigh of relief.
Ye Zun glanced at Moros, who was sitting in the back of a car, wrapped in a blanket and handed hot cocoa, then looked at the girl again.
“Can you tell me? What happened here?”
“That man is not my big brother,” the girl said, “After my father passed away, Gege took over the family’s small factory. Several business decisions were successful and we quickly became rich. Then, Gege met Saozi*, and the two of them got engaged not long after. They fell in love with this place and made it their joint home after marriage. Everything was perfect until then.”
[T/N: sister in law, saosao is used later with the same meaning]
She became lost in her memories, her voice was calm and a little numb. “The nightmare started after they moved here, no, maybe it was from their honeymoon. I’m not sure. But when I noticed his abnormality, Gege was no longer Gege.”
Ye Zun didn’t understand, so he looked at her calmly. “Do you mean that your brother completely changed into another person, or that someone else has taken your brother’s identity?”
The girl frowned. “Both. As siblings, we weren’t all that close in the first place. After Gege got married, he had Saozi, so we spoke even less to each other. When Saosao had the twins, I came to live with them and to take care of the children. Then I realised that in less than two years, Gege has changed a lot. He is always secretive and interested in so many scary movies. At first I thought he was watching that kind of movie, and I was a little disgusted, but later I found out that it was something more disgusting and scary. He is different from Gege in many ways. Sometimes, even though he is smiling, the eyes that look at me make me shiver. He is always pretending. Slowly, I realised that this person may be a stranger.”
“Is it just a feeling? Is there any evidence?”
The girl said with certainty, “He is not Gege, just someone pretending to be. After noticing more and more abnormalities in him, I remembered that during the honeymoon period, there was this time when Gege was very happy after drinking, and he suddenly said something. He said, it turns out that there really are people who look so much alike. You’d also be shocked if you saw them, do you think you could recognize them?”
“Have you met that person before?”
The girl shook her head. “I was not interested in their lives at that time, I just asked, did he find a bodyguard to be his substitute? Gege said, you could put it that way. At least one thing is certain, Gege has someone by his side who looks very similar to him.”
Ye Zun was thoughtful.
The girl continued, “After suspecting that the person replaced Gege’s identity, I began to pay attention to that person’s daily life. I found that he is always kind and generous, helping people for charity everywhere. Although Gege is a person of good conduct, it’s not to the degree where he will take the initiative to do this kind of thing. Not only that, I found that he will bring people back home, all in the middle of the night, and, I have never seen these people leave.”
Ye Zun: “I found several bodies in the room where I found Moros.”
The girl was silent for a few seconds, not surprised, but still stung.
“The two of you, are you going to say this in front of the children?” Moros, who had rested for a while and regained some energy, raised his head up to Ye Zun warmly. His eyes were pure and despondent like a deer’s.
Ye Zun looked at the children whose eyes were wide in ignorance and said, “I’m sorry.”
Moros stood up and patted the girl’s head.
Kneeling down to be at eye-level with them, he said softly, “I am Jiujiu*. From now on, Jiujiu will also take care of you. Don’t worry.”
[T/N: uncle: mother’s brother]
Ye Zun remembered that in the letter they found, his client said he was going to seek shelter with his big sister.
The villa’s hostess was his sister.
The young girl took the children to a safer place near the back of the crowd, at the very least not allowing them to look directly at the scene of their father being arrested.
Moros asked a police officer worriedly, “Where is my sister, where is the mistress of this house?”
The police officer was overwhelmed, but she tried her best to reassure him. “The situation is not very good. Sir, you have to be mentally prepared. The suspect is holding his wife hostage and is in confrontation with my colleagues. We are doing everything we can.”
Not long after she finished speaking, several gunshots rang out in the villa.
Everyone looked towards the front door, waiting for the outcome.
A few minutes later, the police ambushing the door made some gestures and a group of people went up to surround the entrance.
Two people came out from the villa’s front door. The inspector supported a woman who was in a trance and crying bitterly. The woman kept turning her head, struggling to go back in.
Behind them, stretchers rushed inside.
Ye Zun followed Moros towards them.
“Jiejie, everything is fine now.” Moros stepped forward to comfort the woman. His tone was gentle but a little rusty.
The hostess just cried bitterly, looking behind from where she came and calling out a name, as if her heart was broken.
After a while, the stretcher was carried out. Even though it was covered with a white cloth, the blood pouring out was still easily seen.
The hostess stepped forward in agitation, stepping on the white cloth with one foot and tearing it off.
Ye Zun saw the empty eyes of the host lying under the white cloth. The expression on his pale face was the pain before death.
The inspector stood there composedly, with a solemn expression, and explained to Ye Zun, “He killed those two young kids, my two police officers! And, he took his wife hostage and never stopped shooting. The situation was serious, we had to do it.”
The young girl suddenly rushed out of the crowd, running over to them, and asked in distress, “Is he dead? Is he dead, did you ask clearly, where is my Gege? Did they kill my Gege too?”
They?
Ye Zun glanced at the inspector, then looked at the girl again. “Did he have other accomplices?”
Tears overflowed from the girl’s face and she cried with the hostess.
The inspector said, “He shared his interests with many people. The source of these videos, the selection of victims, the disposal of corpses, a series of things, maybe there are other accomplices besides him. We will continue to investigate.”
But this case of the serial skinnings and corpse dumping had temporarily come to an end, ending with the murderer’s execution.
Ye Zun said, “Why did he resist arrest? The law here is very favourable for a person like him, and he will not get the death sentence if he is caught. He is very rich; even if he stays in prison for the rest of his life, he will live a better life than many people.”
The inspector replied, “Who knows what goes on in a madman’s head. Maybe to him, freedom is more important than death.”
Ye Zun nodded with a rational expression. “Fortunately, he resisted arrest. Inspector, don’t you think so?”
The inspector just looked at him.
“Otherwise, after killing so many people and still being able to live such a good life, it would be unfair to the dead.”
The inspector said flatly, “I am a police officer, I respect the law. I catch the criminals, the trials are out of my hands.”
“But you are not responsible for upholding justice.”
“When a criminal is caught and locked up, that is justice.”
“Many people died, while they experienced being skinned alive. The inspector has seen more of those movies than I have. So many people were tortured and killed, if the murderer is still alive, it is not justice.”
“The murderer is dead,” the inspector said, “You and I both saw it.”
He took off his hat, bowed to the villa’s hostess who was still in a trance, then left with the body of the young policeman carried out on a stretcher.
Ye Zun raised his eyes. The villa was still shrouded in forestry, and at the boundary of the fourth floor, the walking corpse was standing there, looking at something unknown to anybody.
……
The inspector’s case had come to an end, but Ye Zun’s had not yet.
A part of the villa was sealed off by the police as the scene of the crime, but a small area was left for their daily lives.
The hostess was crying persistently, sometimes saying things that were only comprehensible to her, which were generally things like how the host was so good, her disbelief at why he did such a thing, and the despair at how things had developed to this point.
The young girl was stronger than her. After crying for a while, she still had to take care of two children. With the silence she grew as a habit, she went to prepare food by herself.
Even if the adults had no appetite, the children were growing and cannot go hungry.
The two children sat obediently on the sofa, not knowing that they no longer had a father. The two played games, although it was unclear what game they were playing.
The girl lifted up the building block, smashed and disassembled another building block with a wide range of movements, and then looked at her brother innocently. “My work is done, it’s your turn, Gege.”
The boy went to deal with the building blocks she messed up, tidying them up in an orderly fashion.
Moros stayed beside them with a slightly concerned expression on his face.
Ye Zun walked to his side. “Can we talk?”
Moros looked up at him, his pale eyes clear and defenceless. Although he was an adult, his demeanour was purer than that of his niece and nephew.
“Of course, Detective-xiansheng.”
Ye Zun stepped to the side first.
Moros comforted the children with a few words, then went to take out a bottle of wine and two transparent crystal glasses from the wine cabinet before coming to Ye Zun’s side.
They could see what everyone was doing where they were sitting, but kept a distance to control the loudness of their voices so that they wouldn’t be overheard.
Seeing Ye Zun looking at the wine in his hand, the young man smiled, watching him with his deer-like eyes. Those eyes were very good-looking, and when he smiled, he looked like he loved whatever his eyes were on. When he frowned, there was a clear and shallow sadness.
Probably because it was Ye Zun who saved him, the eyes that looked at Ye Zun were trusting and intimate, and with some unconscious attachment. “When you are tense, a little bit will help you relax.”
Ye Zun didn’t stop him, so Moros poured two glasses and pushed one towards him.
Moros slowly swallowed a glassful and let out a sigh, as if he had finally fully escaped from that deadly and dangerous situation.
Ye Zun also picked up the glass of wine, sipping it slowly.
There was a slight resistance when he took the first sip, but near the end he started wanting to drink every last drop.
The feeling of drinking such a beverage really did make people relax involuntarily.
He vaguely felt that his alcohol tolerance wasn’t that good, so he told himself that he could only have one drink.
But when Moros poured him a second glass, he didn’t do anything to stop him and just held the glass, not taking another sip.
Molos obviously had a good tolerance for alcohol and he drank three glasses in a short time. The only tell was that his pale face was slightly rosy, but he still looked very normal.
Ye Zun tried to get to the point. “Where did you hear about me?”
Moros looked at him with a restrained smile, with a gentle and somewhat frail appearance. “From the book.”
Ye Zun: “……”
As if embarrassed, the pure eyes were a little reserved and soft. “The clients in detective novels all talk like this, I imitated the style and wrote that letter. When I arrived in town, I called a friend and asked him to help me find a reliable detective to go to that place. Anyone was fine, but they can’t be too expensive, since I don’t have a lot of money. It really is so great that you could come.”
Ye Zun: “……”
So it’s not just that the detective didn’t know the client, but the client didn’t know the detective either. Very good.
Ye Zun drank another glass of wine and went to pick up the bottle and fill the glass to the brim again. However, he didn’t drink it after it was topped up and just played with the glass.
“The body in the box, what clues do you have?”
Moros went through his memories, “I am an art student, and the box contains my paintings and some painting utensils, paints and such. There are other things, but overall it weighs about 35 kilograms. I came to this city by train and when I got off, I realised for the first time that the box seemed to be too heavy. But, I didn’t think too much about it at that time. When I was going to take a taxi, I was refused by the driver, and that was when I started to feel that something was wrong with the box.”
Ye Zun paused. “You said in the letter that you had some urgent matters and had to go home. What was it?”
Moros was taken aback for a moment, blinking his doe-like eyes. “It was a family member, they heard something and was worried about my sister and had me come to check on her.”
“When you were tied up in the basement, did your sister know?”
Moros shook his head. “I didn’t see my sister. When I arrived, only my brother-in-law was at home. He opened the door for me very warmly and cordially. After chatting for a while and finding out that I was an art student, he strongly invited me to view his films. Said it was to help him consult on how to decorate the environment. Then…up to when I was attacked, I never saw my sister. She didn’t know I was here.”
But if he remembered correctly, after Ye Zun reminded the hostess of her husband’s abnormality last night, she said that she would chat with her psychologist sister at home. However, the result of the conversation was not satisfactory.
Did she not hear from her sister back then that Moros had come to visit her?
Hearing Ye Zun’s words, Moros smiled warmly. “My little sister is afraid that our older sister’s character will not be able to hide secrets. Keeping my visit in mind, she probably said that on purpose to keep her from doing anything rash ba. My big sister’s character is always like this. No matter what others say, as long as it makes sense, she will believe it and listen obediently.”
Ye Zun nodded.
Even though her husband was a terrible serial killer and even held her hostage at one point, the hostess was still saddened by his death. Her tears never stopped flowing, and even now she was still in a trance.
Moros glanced at his big sister. “Although that man was scary, he was very good to my sister. Although she is naive, she is definitely not stupid. Living together all this time but not finding any abnormalities, it can only be because that man hid his cruel nature from her very well.”
That’s right ah, even their five or six-year-old children knew that Baba’s movies ate people. They had obviously seen people go in but never come out again.
That being said, the person the youngest son saw going in but not coming out was Moros, right?
“When I was locked in the screening room, Laura-xiaojie* came to see me secretly, but she didn’t dare to do anything, because she was afraid of that man, and because the man and the inspector were good friends, she didn’t even dare to ask for help or report to the police, she just fed me and gave me water to drink. Thanks to her, I was able to live to meet Detective-xiansheng.”
[T/N: miss/young lady]
Ye Zun nodded. “Rest well tonight. Tomorrow, I will set off for the train you took, investigate the passengers that were also there that night, find the person who switched your suitcase and find out the truth about the body in the box.”
Before Ye Zun made this statement, the corpse in the box appeared again on the chair opposite them.
When Ye Zun made his plan clear, the corpse didn’t make any movements. It just sat there.
After a simple dinner, the two women slept with the children. Moros and Ye Zun each had a room to themselves, both on the third floor.
Ye Zun didn’t sleep well. He was always fully conscious in his dream, as if he hadn’t fallen asleep.
In his dream, there was a foggy river and cobblestones. A figure in a black windbreaker loomed in the distance. No matter how long he walked, he was unable to reach to the figure, and couldn’t see the other person’s face clearly.
But he inexplicably felt anxious and afraid, an unrelenting feeling that the other person was coming towards him, constantly getting closer. Maybe they will appear in front of him in an instant.
He woke up suddenly. It was around four o’clock in the middle of the night.
Ye Zun felt thirsty, so he walked out of the room and went to the small kitchenette on the third floor to find himself some water.
The light in the kitchenette was on and a person’s back was turned to him as they opened the door of the refrigerator, as if contemplating what to drink.
Hearing Ye Zun’s footsteps, Moros turned his head back to look, then smiled. “Detective-xiansheng, do you want something to drink? I’ll get it for you.”
“Anything is fine.”
Moros brought two cans of soda.
A sweet beverage with an alcoholic taste.
“Do you like drinking alcohol?”
“Yes, I’ve always wanted to try it since I was a teenager, but I held back. If you suppress things for so long, you end up liking it for a period of time.”
Ye Zun nodded without saying anything.
“Tomorrow, will you leave?”
“En.”
Moros said, “My sister and Laura-xiaojie, they plan to sell the house after the case is closed and go to live with our younger sister together. This way, it’s easier to relieve the psychological shadows brought on by this incident, and it’ll be easier to take care of the two children.”
“Oh.”
“Tomorrow, after I’ve dealt with my matters and settled them down, I will come to find you.”
Ye Zun nodded. “With you by my side, the investigation will be much smoother. This is very good, I will keep in touch with the inspector, so if we somehow are unable to contact each other when our location changes, we can keep in touch through him.”
“Okay ah.”
Ye Zun stood up and left the room.
Moros walked with him to his bedroom. Their rooms were right next door to each other.
Moros nodded to him with a reserved smile. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Ye Zun closed the door and walked in.
Moros also entered his room.
In the dark kitchenette they had left, the body in the box sat there, motionless, looking in a certain direction.
In the never-ending night.
The sound of suppressed sobbing floated over.
A voice that was almost nonexistent said, “One more needs to die, there are too many loopholes, don’t you think so?”
In the dreams of Ye Zun’s deep sleep, a delirious voice responded.
“That’s right ah, there are too many loopholes, I’m afraid there can’t be just one death.”
A voice from a distance, “Who should be killed?”
The crazy talk in the dream, “Anyone.”
The faintly discernible voice confirmed, “Then, this person ba.”
The crazed voice in the dream. “They are going to die anyway.”
……
Ye Zun woke up very early the next day. In a place where murders have occurred, especially in places where psychopathic serial killers had skinned their victims, it was impossible for normal people to sleep well.
He didn’t wait for the others to wake up. He also said his goodbye last night, and in order to prevent everyone from growing uneasy, he left a note explaining that he woke up early to catch the train. Then, he left this chilly villa.
Before he left, Ye Zun contacted the inspector of the police station.
Because of the murderer’s execution, the number of victims subjected to the serial skinning and dumping of corpses in that place was incalculable. Even with so many people, they couldn’t find the remains, and there was not even strong enough evidence to prove that the man was solely responsible.
Everyone was overwhelmed, and although Ye Zun’s client was found, and it was confirmed that the case of the body in the box was indeed real, the body recovery team had still not recovered the corpse so far.
“We can’t provide any help at the moment.”
Ye Zun expressed his understanding, “It’s already very good, at least my client has been rescued. I will follow up on the rest by myself for now.”
The inspector said, “I will contact the nearby police station and ask them to assist you in the investigation. “
“Thank you very much.”
Ye Zun bid them farewell and went to the local train station, then waited for the train that Moros had taken.
He got on the train and chatted with the train attendant he had talked to beforehand.
“Our train tickets are bought and admitted on the spot. It is impossible to determine the identity of the passengers, and the location of the passengers and the station where they get on and off the train can only be found according to the specific ticket they bought.”
“Thank you.”
There weren’t many people on the train at any time, as this place wasn’t some big city.
Ye Zun sat in Moros’ original seat, from here all the way to the station where Moros got on the train.
Then he bought a return ticket and got on the train strictly according to the time when Moros got on originally, wearing the same clothes as Moros wore back then, carrying a big dusty box of about the same weight.
And again, rode the train from the first station to the last station.
Including the delay, the trip took about twelve hours.
There were fewer and fewer people in the carriage and the box stayed where it was.
“Such a big box, it should be very difficult for it to fall over. Why didn’t he notice?”
During the two trips back and forth, the box stayed there with no complications.
Ye Zun stood up, trying to figure out the problem from the murderer’s point of view. If he killed a person, put the body in a big suitcase, and swapped it with another suitcase…
“Wait, how could I know in advance that someone on this train just happens to have the same big suitcase as me?”
“If I find a similar box on the road by chance and just swap it on a whim, what will I, who used a big suitcase to store the corpse in the beginning, do with the body in the box?”
“Am I not afraid of people finding out that I am carrying a corpse in such a big box on a long-distance train?”
“How did I do it? Someone on the train noticed Moros’ big suitcase, but didn’t notice my own?”
If Moros’s judgement was wrong, that meant the murderer was eyeing his suitcase from the very beginning, from when he packed his suitcase, and would have completely swapped the suitcase before he set off…
After all the unreasonable guesses were ruled out, the only reasonable guess left was the most probable truth.
The murderer is an acquaintance close to Moros.
The author has something to say:
Your innocence and soft Abyss with pure eyes like a deer is online, please pay attention and examine
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
Law and justice
Ye Zun followed the corpse to the second floor.
After he walked up the stairs, the body was gone.
Ye Zun was not in a hurry to go to the fourth floor. He stood there and waited for a while. The conversation downstairs proceeded normally and no one had the intention of coming up.
After confirming this, Ye Zun walked towards the corridor on the second floor.
He didn’t stop, just making his way across. He walked from the stairs on the right side of the house to the left, then lifted his foot to start heading up to the third floor.
There were many rooms on the third floor. The guest room Ye Zun stayed in last night and the host’s private screening room were both on the third floor, and there was also a bar and kitchenette for preparing desserts and drinks.
When he reached the third floor, Ye Zun stopped in front of every door and tried twisting the door handles, pushing them open for a look.
The rooms were all empty. Some rooms appeared to have been unoccupied for some time, and some were multipurpose rooms.
When he went to the host’s private screening room, the door handle failed to twist. The door had been locked.
He leaned in and pasted his ear to the door to listen, but there was no sound.
Ye Zun didn’t linger for long and headed to the fourth floor.
The upper floor was very quiet.
He hadn’t been to the fourth floor of the villa yet, and had only seen the boy talking to him last night, standing in the stairwell from the third floor to the fourth floor.
Ye Zun remembered what he saw in the screening room last night. There seemed to be an empty space that led upwards inside the screening room on the third floor, which might be connected to a certain room on the fourth floor. At that time, the faint chatter between the inspector and the host may have come from above.
He looked towards the small half-attic above the fourth floor. His eyes paused for a moment.
The fourth floor was the children and the host’s little sister’s bedroom.
In addition to the children’s bedroom, there was a piano room, toy room, and a large leisure balcony.
The other side of the balcony was a row of houses, built a slight distance away from the children’s bedroom. There were several rooms after 404, all with good views.
Ye Zun walked to the door of room 404. There were no abnormal happenings around him, no corpse that suddenly disappeared and then appeared again.
He knocked on the door three times, spaced evenly apart.
There was no sound from inside.
Ye Zun didn’t say anything. He paused, then knocked three more times, this time a little louder than the previous attempt.
Still no response.
Ye Zun put his hand on the door handle and tried to twist it.
The door was unlocked and opened from the outside.
The room was very big. Compared to the single room on the third floor where Ye Zun stayed last night, this room had a small living area, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It also appeared to open onto a small private balcony.
Ye Zun walked in and closed the door behind him.
The room had the obvious smell of someone living there. The air smelled of aftershave, tobacco and alcohol.
The furnishings of the room were very neat, just like the style of the whole villa, overly tidy with some slight cleanliness.
There were traces of someone sleeping on the bed, but there were no clothes. The bathroom had no lighting and was very quiet, without the sound of running water.
The glass sliding door to the balcony was open and the cool breeze blew inside.
Ye Zun walked across the room and onto the balcony. From the small balcony outside, he could see the scenery behind the villa.
Something flashed across the windowpane.
Ye Zun turned his head and saw a familiar figure standing in the bedroom. It was the disappearing and reappearing corpse.
The corpse was grey and looked like a dusty old plaster statue. It looked at him.
Facing those lifeless eyes that were like glass beads, alone in the room, a strange tension and uneasiness arose spontaneously.
Before Ye Zun could do anything, he heard the door of the bathroom being violently opened. The sound attracted the corpse, and its gaze shifted away from Ye Zun’s body.
Someone burst out, as if they came out in a hurry, stumbling unsteadily and brushing past the corpse.
The person was wearing a police uniform that Ye Zun was all too familiar with, though it was slightly wrinkled. There were traces of liquid on the heavy fabric, as if water had been splashed on it.
The person in the police uniform bent over, clutching their stomach with their fingers as uncomfortable, and slowly raised their head to look at Ye Zun.
Ye Zun saw that the person in front of him was not the inspector, but the police officer who he could not find since last night.
The young policeman’s eyes were bright, but his whole body was grey. Facing Ye Zun, he opened again and again, then suddenly fell to the ground.
Vivid red blood gushed out from the corner of his mouth and dripped on the police uniform, casting a dark shadow.
Dark, viscous blood spread from his feet.
At the same time, Ye Zun’s neck was suddenly pierced by a sharp weapon. As if a door had closed in front of him, his vision was plunged into darkness.
……
Ye Zun woke up in the dark.
He sat in a heavy chair with his arms carefully tied to the armrests and his feet bound apart to the chair legs.
Just like in the thriller crime movie he saw last night.
Ye Zun didn’t struggle, didn’t react in any way, and looked at the picture presented in his vision.
In the restricted field of vision behind his left side, he could vaguely see another chair with a person tied to it.
A densely coloured police uniform, a face with blood on the corner of the mouth.
It was the young police officer.
The good news was that he was not dead, the bad news was that they were currently both kidnapped.
A sigh sounded behind and above Ye Zun. Someone was standing behind him, as if they had been standing there since before he woke up.
“Who shall we start with?” the voice by his ear said with a smile.
From when the door of the villa was opened last night and when they met for the first time, that gentleman had always been in such a good mood and smiling like this, a kind and educated elite high-skilled immigrant. “Generally, when hunters deal with their prey, they will start with the weak, sick and disabled. So let’s start with this wounded policeman ba.”
Walking away from Ye Zun, he said, “I don’t like the skin of white people very much, even the youngsters feel too rough to the touch. But it also means that it doesn’t matter if it’s broken, so it can be used as practice.”
His tone sounded like he treated people like animals.
There came a faint dying whisper from that side, like a strong resistance.
The host’s voice was the same as when he chatted with the guests, a relaxing and pleasant attitude and tone. “My theoretical knowledge is very solid, close to full marks, but the practical skills may be lacking so please bear with me.”
Ye Zun observed the room. The surrounding decoration style was the same as what he saw in the host’s private screening room last night.
But this area was obviously a place he had never been to.
The host was dressed in casual and slightly rigorous clothes, similar to work clothes. He carefully used tweezers to carry out the pre-treatment on the young policeman’s face. While he spoke to the other man, he didn’t pay attention to whatever happened behind him.
The rope was tied so tightly that not only was it difficult to move the hands and feet, but he also found it hard to turn his head.
The curtain in front of Ye Zun moved slightly, opening a small gap. One eye looked in from the outside through the narrow gap, bumping into Ye Zun’s line of sight.
Ye Zun’s vision on the right side was momentarily blurry and a familiar figure walked over silently. It was the grey corpse.
The corpse stood in front of Ye Zun with the side of its body turned to him. It faced the host and his dying prey.
Then, the corpse looked sideways at Ye Zun.
Heavy and lifeless, eyes like dirty glass beads.
This was the closest the corpse had ever gotten to Ye Zun.
The corpse raised its right hand expressionlessly. It landed on Ye Zun’s head and slid down to his neck with no emotion, slowly applying force.
Gunshots rang out suddenly.
The corpse fluctuated slightly. The bullet passed through the corpse and the distorted air, and flew in front of Ye Zun in an instant.
The host’s hand holding the knife shook for a moment and he cursed. His fingers were grazed by stray bullets and the knife in his hand fell to the ground, bouncing a few times.
“Get down!” A steady and decisive voice ordered.
Ye Zun threw his centre of gravity to the left with all his strength and his entire body, along with the chair he was tied to, crashed to the ground.
This time he could see what was happening on the host’s side.
The host dodged, pulling the immobile young police officer to block himself. Smiling as if he was in no rush, he immediately took out a gun from the numerous tools beside him.
The gun rested on the shoulder of the young policeman, and he aimed, he fired twice at the place where the bullet came from.
Ye Zun’s left hand reached towards a scalpel on the ground. He used his toes to shift himself and the chair across the floor, and then used the chair and the obstacles around the wall to fix the angle of the scalpel, racing against the clock to shred and cut the rope that bound his hands.
During this period, the bullets kept flying back and forth above and around his head. Stray bullets hit the legs of the chair several times.
By the time Ye Zun cut his left hand free from the rope, the host had already fought for his retreat and walked up through the exit on the other side of the room, still holding the wounded policeman hostage.
He didn’t use a hostage to threaten the other party to cease fire, but just used him as a cover, with the same smile he usually had on his face.
“Your marksmanship is not very accurate ah, old man. Looks like you really don’t enjoy our movies very much. What a pity.”
“Let go of the hostage and raise your hands. Surrender immediately!”
“I never thought you would say such meaningless words.” The host had a playful smile on his face and didn’t take it seriously at all, but his hands were dripping with blood. He was clearly injured.
When he quickly retreated to the top of the stairs, he laughed and suddenly shot towards them in a crazed manner.
Bang bang bang, bullets fired indiscriminately, acting as a short-term suppression.
Ye Zun had just enough time to break free from the chair. He rolled backwards, leaning against the wall to avoid the stray bullets.
Gunpowder smoke filled the air, and there was nothing but silence for several minutes.
Realising that the host had already evacuated, the person outside the door finally broke in.
The inspector walked in with a gun. His face under the black windbreaker was as cold as ever, and his entire body was grey.
“Are you okay, Detective?” He pointed his gun in the direction where the host escaped as he asked Ye Zun, looking back and forth between Ye Zun and where his gun was pointing.
Ye Zun stood up with his back against the wall and looked at him with reservations. “What is going on? Where have you been since last night?”
The inspector said, “It’s a long story, and the process is a bit complicated. We don’t have much time, so I’ll jump straight to the conclusion. In the forensic autopsy performed on the corpse dug up by the dog on the mountain, they found that the body is missing its skin. This actually isn’t the first time such a corpse has been discovered, but it is the first one so close to this area. We already had initial suspicions on who it is, so I spent a long time getting close to the owner of this villa, and as you can see, I became his old friend. Including me bringing you here last night to stay over, it is all for the same purpose.”
Ye Zun: “I heard the two of you chatting here last night. To have a shared love for serial killers, it’s a very special case especially for a policeman. Why does he trust you?”
The inspector said calmly, “As a policeman, it’s not difficult to understand if I am interested in crime movies. What he’s interested in is crime, and what I’m interested in is solving crimes. Besides, he may not really trust me.”
Ye Zun understood. “Both me and that police officer were attacked in your room.”
The inspector nodded heavily. “After I left quietly last night, I found the body he buried in the mountain behind the villa. When I came back this morning, I couldn’t find that police officer. I suspected that he discovered something and was making the first move to attack you two first, so I pretended to be hungover and went back to the room to make him let down his defences and went to find my colleagues out in town.”
He came over to support Ye Zun. “In order to prevent more casualties and keep him from involving innocent people, I need your help to find the women and children here and hide them. I have to go after that guy and save our people.”
“Be careful.”
The two walked out of the dim screening room together.
With a gun in his hands, the inspector held a gun and went towards the fourth floor in the direction where the host fled.
Ye Zun came out from the third floor and went downstairs to find the other people.
In the dining room on the first floor, he saw the police officer who accompanied him. The other party was sitting on the dining table with his face lying on the table. There was a pool of blood on the plate.
He was dead.
There was no one else there.
Ye Zun turned back and walked back upstairs, avoiding the blood-stained areas. He kept hearing gunshots from a close distance.
When he got to the second floor, he saw that serious young girl, whose thin body was holding the two children at the same time, quickly running towards where he was. The two children were not held steady, but the situation was urgent and she was only a short distance away. His face was covered with sweat and flushed with heat.
Seeing Ye Zun approaching, her eyes showed alertness and fear. She hesitated for a moment but her feet still kept moving.
“Your big brother did something dangerous, the police are going after him right now. Take the children out of here first, I will help you.”
Ye Zun offered his goodwill.
The girl had a serious face, but at this moment she gasped and said, “He’s not my brother. I will take the children out, please keep looking, there’s another victim here.”
Ye Zun suddenly remembered something. “The young man who came here three days ago…”
“Yes.” The girl didn’t hesitate this time. “He is the one you are looking for. He disappeared after he came here. No one saw him, but I am certain, he said that there will be a detective who will come to find him. He is still in this house. I don’t know if he has been under some horrifying torture, but you need to find him quickly.”
Ye Zun glanced at the obedient children in her arms. “Take the children out first. Leave it to me.”
He already briefly checked the third floor when he went to find the inspector before, and it was obvious nothing was on the fourth floor. Only the mysterious second floor was the most suspicious.
Ye Zun searched all the rooms along the corridor of the second floor. He found the master’s bedroom, the host’s study, a collection room, a storage room, the cellar, and a workshop in the basement.
In the workshop, he found a small morgue.
There were bodies stored in the freezer, and there seemed to be four or five corpses.
Another one was placed outside on the operating table, covered with a white cloth. It had not been pushed in yet.
Ye Zun saw the walking corpse again. This time the corpse stopped in front of the operating table, looking at the person under the white cloth.
Ye Zun walked over and lifted the white cloth. His pupils dilated slightly.
A person laid under the white cloth, not yet dead.
The young man’s hands and feet were tied to the four corners of the operating table. His mouth was gagged by something to prevent him from making a sound. His distracted eyes looked at the ceiling above his head, and although his face was as pale as a vampire seen in movies, he was obviously still alive.
Ye Zun walked over, immediately untied him, and supported him to stand.
“Hello, are you conscious?”
That person was extremely weak, but he could still answer, “Yes.”
“What is your name?”
“Moros.”
The man, like Ye Zun and the villa’s host, had an oriental appearance, but his facial features were much deeper than Ye Zun’s, and his skin was paler and fairer, obviously of mixed race.
Ye Zun took out the entrustment letter he kept in his pocket and showed it to him. “Did you leave this?”
The young man glanced at the handwriting. He was so weak that he could barely sit on his own and even had difficulty nodding his head. His voice was very low and faint. “It was me. Are you Detective-xiansheng?”
“En.” Ye Zun took out a few chocolate balls wrapped in tin foil and handed them to him.
The man had apparently not eaten for a long time, which was the source of his excessively weak body.
“Why does Detective-xiansheng have this on him?”
Seeing that he didn’t even have the strength to raise his hand, Ye Zun took the initiative to help him peel the foil off and fed it to him, saying calmly, “I don’t eat regularly and have low blood sugar.”
This was just a made-up excuse. The main reason may be that Ye Zun doesn’t eat any food from unknown origins or from strange and suspicious places. For example, while in this house, he almost didn’t eat any substantial food from last night to this morning.
There was something odd about feeding chocolate to a young man, especially this one who was too pale but very handsome.
If the host wanted to skin him, Ye Zun would not be surprised, but would still feel it was a pity.
Compared with a peeled dead thing, the living appearance of this person was obviously a more perfect artwork.
“We have to hurry and get out of here, can you walk?”
The young man nodded.
But Ye Zun still reached out to support him and the two of them walked upstairs at a slow pace.
Ye Zun was very worried that the host would come back suddenly. It would be dangerous for them to stay in this kind of place.
The gun fight in the villa was still going on, the sounds popping up from somewhere from time to time.
When they walked out of the house, Ye Zun saw a group of policemen surrounding the door, many of them armed with live ammunition.
The group were clearly not just from the small local police station, but also from outside.
But the manpower of the police was stretched to their capacity compared to the size of the villa.
“Quick, over here.”
Someone immediately waved their hand.
Ye Zun supported Moros and walked towards the young girl from before.
Both of the girl’s hands held onto a child. The two children stood next to her at waist-height, looking at their home with innocent eyes.
Seeing the young man brought out by Ye Zun, the girl with the serious and slightly gloomy face let out a sigh of relief.
Ye Zun glanced at Moros, who was sitting in the back of a car, wrapped in a blanket and handed hot cocoa, then looked at the girl again.
“Can you tell me? What happened here?”
“That man is not my big brother,” the girl said, “After my father passed away, Gege took over the family’s small factory. Several business decisions were successful and we quickly became rich. Then, Gege met Saozi*, and the two of them got engaged not long after. They fell in love with this place and made it their joint home after marriage. Everything was perfect until then.”
[T/N: sister in law, saosao is used later with the same meaning]
She became lost in her memories, her voice was calm and a little numb. “The nightmare started after they moved here, no, maybe it was from their honeymoon. I’m not sure. But when I noticed his abnormality, Gege was no longer Gege.”
Ye Zun didn’t understand, so he looked at her calmly. “Do you mean that your brother completely changed into another person, or that someone else has taken your brother’s identity?”
The girl frowned. “Both. As siblings, we weren’t all that close in the first place. After Gege got married, he had Saozi, so we spoke even less to each other. When Saosao had the twins, I came to live with them and to take care of the children. Then I realised that in less than two years, Gege has changed a lot. He is always secretive and interested in so many scary movies. At first I thought he was watching that kind of movie, and I was a little disgusted, but later I found out that it was something more disgusting and scary. He is different from Gege in many ways. Sometimes, even though he is smiling, the eyes that look at me make me shiver. He is always pretending. Slowly, I realised that this person may be a stranger.”
“Is it just a feeling? Is there any evidence?”
The girl said with certainty, “He is not Gege, just someone pretending to be. After noticing more and more abnormalities in him, I remembered that during the honeymoon period, there was this time when Gege was very happy after drinking, and he suddenly said something. He said, it turns out that there really are people who look so much alike. You’d also be shocked if you saw them, do you think you could recognize them?”
“Have you met that person before?”
The girl shook her head. “I was not interested in their lives at that time, I just asked, did he find a bodyguard to be his substitute? Gege said, you could put it that way. At least one thing is certain, Gege has someone by his side who looks very similar to him.”
Ye Zun was thoughtful.
The girl continued, “After suspecting that the person replaced Gege’s identity, I began to pay attention to that person’s daily life. I found that he is always kind and generous, helping people for charity everywhere. Although Gege is a person of good conduct, it’s not to the degree where he will take the initiative to do this kind of thing. Not only that, I found that he will bring people back home, all in the middle of the night, and, I have never seen these people leave.”
Ye Zun: “I found several bodies in the room where I found Moros.”
The girl was silent for a few seconds, not surprised, but still stung.
“The two of you, are you going to say this in front of the children?” Moros, who had rested for a while and regained some energy, raised his head up to Ye Zun warmly. His eyes were pure and despondent like a deer’s.
Ye Zun looked at the children whose eyes were wide in ignorance and said, “I’m sorry.”
Moros stood up and patted the girl’s head.
Kneeling down to be at eye-level with them, he said softly, “I am Jiujiu*. From now on, Jiujiu will also take care of you. Don’t worry.”
[T/N: uncle: mother’s brother]
Ye Zun remembered that in the letter they found, his client said he was going to seek shelter with his big sister.
The villa’s hostess was his sister.
The young girl took the children to a safer place near the back of the crowd, at the very least not allowing them to look directly at the scene of their father being arrested.
Moros asked a police officer worriedly, “Where is my sister, where is the mistress of this house?”
The police officer was overwhelmed, but she tried her best to reassure him. “The situation is not very good. Sir, you have to be mentally prepared. The suspect is holding his wife hostage and is in confrontation with my colleagues. We are doing everything we can.”
Not long after she finished speaking, several gunshots rang out in the villa.
Everyone looked towards the front door, waiting for the outcome.
A few minutes later, the police ambushing the door made some gestures and a group of people went up to surround the entrance.
Two people came out from the villa’s front door. The inspector supported a woman who was in a trance and crying bitterly. The woman kept turning her head, struggling to go back in.
Behind them, stretchers rushed inside.
Ye Zun followed Moros towards them.
“Jiejie, everything is fine now.” Moros stepped forward to comfort the woman. His tone was gentle but a little rusty.
The hostess just cried bitterly, looking behind from where she came and calling out a name, as if her heart was broken.
After a while, the stretcher was carried out. Even though it was covered with a white cloth, the blood pouring out was still easily seen.
The hostess stepped forward in agitation, stepping on the white cloth with one foot and tearing it off.
Ye Zun saw the empty eyes of the host lying under the white cloth. The expression on his pale face was the pain before death.
The inspector stood there composedly, with a solemn expression, and explained to Ye Zun, “He killed those two young kids, my two police officers! And, he took his wife hostage and never stopped shooting. The situation was serious, we had to do it.”
The young girl suddenly rushed out of the crowd, running over to them, and asked in distress, “Is he dead? Is he dead, did you ask clearly, where is my Gege? Did they kill my Gege too?”
They?
Ye Zun glanced at the inspector, then looked at the girl again. “Did he have other accomplices?”
Tears overflowed from the girl’s face and she cried with the hostess.
The inspector said, “He shared his interests with many people. The source of these videos, the selection of victims, the disposal of corpses, a series of things, maybe there are other accomplices besides him. We will continue to investigate.”
But this case of the serial skinnings and corpse dumping had temporarily come to an end, ending with the murderer’s execution.
Ye Zun said, “Why did he resist arrest? The law here is very favourable for a person like him, and he will not get the death sentence if he is caught. He is very rich; even if he stays in prison for the rest of his life, he will live a better life than many people.”
The inspector replied, “Who knows what goes on in a madman’s head. Maybe to him, freedom is more important than death.”
Ye Zun nodded with a rational expression. “Fortunately, he resisted arrest. Inspector, don’t you think so?”
The inspector just looked at him.
“Otherwise, after killing so many people and still being able to live such a good life, it would be unfair to the dead.”
The inspector said flatly, “I am a police officer, I respect the law. I catch the criminals, the trials are out of my hands.”
“But you are not responsible for upholding justice.”
“When a criminal is caught and locked up, that is justice.”
“Many people died, while they experienced being skinned alive. The inspector has seen more of those movies than I have. So many people were tortured and killed, if the murderer is still alive, it is not justice.”
“The murderer is dead,” the inspector said, “You and I both saw it.”
He took off his hat, bowed to the villa’s hostess who was still in a trance, then left with the body of the young policeman carried out on a stretcher.
Ye Zun raised his eyes. The villa was still shrouded in forestry, and at the boundary of the fourth floor, the walking corpse was standing there, looking at something unknown to anybody.
……
The inspector’s case had come to an end, but Ye Zun’s had not yet.
A part of the villa was sealed off by the police as the scene of the crime, but a small area was left for their daily lives.
The hostess was crying persistently, sometimes saying things that were only comprehensible to her, which were generally things like how the host was so good, her disbelief at why he did such a thing, and the despair at how things had developed to this point.
The young girl was stronger than her. After crying for a while, she still had to take care of two children. With the silence she grew as a habit, she went to prepare food by herself.
Even if the adults had no appetite, the children were growing and cannot go hungry.
The two children sat obediently on the sofa, not knowing that they no longer had a father. The two played games, although it was unclear what game they were playing.
The girl lifted up the building block, smashed and disassembled another building block with a wide range of movements, and then looked at her brother innocently. “My work is done, it’s your turn, Gege.”
The boy went to deal with the building blocks she messed up, tidying them up in an orderly fashion.
Moros stayed beside them with a slightly concerned expression on his face.
Ye Zun walked to his side. “Can we talk?”
Moros looked up at him, his pale eyes clear and defenceless. Although he was an adult, his demeanour was purer than that of his niece and nephew.
“Of course, Detective-xiansheng.”
Ye Zun stepped to the side first.
Moros comforted the children with a few words, then went to take out a bottle of wine and two transparent crystal glasses from the wine cabinet before coming to Ye Zun’s side.
They could see what everyone was doing where they were sitting, but kept a distance to control the loudness of their voices so that they wouldn’t be overheard.
Seeing Ye Zun looking at the wine in his hand, the young man smiled, watching him with his deer-like eyes. Those eyes were very good-looking, and when he smiled, he looked like he loved whatever his eyes were on. When he frowned, there was a clear and shallow sadness.
Probably because it was Ye Zun who saved him, the eyes that looked at Ye Zun were trusting and intimate, and with some unconscious attachment. “When you are tense, a little bit will help you relax.”
Ye Zun didn’t stop him, so Moros poured two glasses and pushed one towards him.
Moros slowly swallowed a glassful and let out a sigh, as if he had finally fully escaped from that deadly and dangerous situation.
Ye Zun also picked up the glass of wine, sipping it slowly.
There was a slight resistance when he took the first sip, but near the end he started wanting to drink every last drop.
The feeling of drinking such a beverage really did make people relax involuntarily.
He vaguely felt that his alcohol tolerance wasn’t that good, so he told himself that he could only have one drink.
But when Moros poured him a second glass, he didn’t do anything to stop him and just held the glass, not taking another sip.
Molos obviously had a good tolerance for alcohol and he drank three glasses in a short time. The only tell was that his pale face was slightly rosy, but he still looked very normal.
Ye Zun tried to get to the point. “Where did you hear about me?”
Moros looked at him with a restrained smile, with a gentle and somewhat frail appearance. “From the book.”
Ye Zun: “……”
As if embarrassed, the pure eyes were a little reserved and soft. “The clients in detective novels all talk like this, I imitated the style and wrote that letter. When I arrived in town, I called a friend and asked him to help me find a reliable detective to go to that place. Anyone was fine, but they can’t be too expensive, since I don’t have a lot of money. It really is so great that you could come.”
Ye Zun: “……”
So it’s not just that the detective didn’t know the client, but the client didn’t know the detective either. Very good.
Ye Zun drank another glass of wine and went to pick up the bottle and fill the glass to the brim again. However, he didn’t drink it after it was topped up and just played with the glass.
“The body in the box, what clues do you have?”
Moros went through his memories, “I am an art student, and the box contains my paintings and some painting utensils, paints and such. There are other things, but overall it weighs about 35 kilograms. I came to this city by train and when I got off, I realised for the first time that the box seemed to be too heavy. But, I didn’t think too much about it at that time. When I was going to take a taxi, I was refused by the driver, and that was when I started to feel that something was wrong with the box.”
Ye Zun paused. “You said in the letter that you had some urgent matters and had to go home. What was it?”
Moros was taken aback for a moment, blinking his doe-like eyes. “It was a family member, they heard something and was worried about my sister and had me come to check on her.”
“When you were tied up in the basement, did your sister know?”
Moros shook his head. “I didn’t see my sister. When I arrived, only my brother-in-law was at home. He opened the door for me very warmly and cordially. After chatting for a while and finding out that I was an art student, he strongly invited me to view his films. Said it was to help him consult on how to decorate the environment. Then…up to when I was attacked, I never saw my sister. She didn’t know I was here.”
But if he remembered correctly, after Ye Zun reminded the hostess of her husband’s abnormality last night, she said that she would chat with her psychologist sister at home. However, the result of the conversation was not satisfactory.
Did she not hear from her sister back then that Moros had come to visit her?
Hearing Ye Zun’s words, Moros smiled warmly. “My little sister is afraid that our older sister’s character will not be able to hide secrets. Keeping my visit in mind, she probably said that on purpose to keep her from doing anything rash ba. My big sister’s character is always like this. No matter what others say, as long as it makes sense, she will believe it and listen obediently.”
Ye Zun nodded.
Even though her husband was a terrible serial killer and even held her hostage at one point, the hostess was still saddened by his death. Her tears never stopped flowing, and even now she was still in a trance.
Moros glanced at his big sister. “Although that man was scary, he was very good to my sister. Although she is naive, she is definitely not stupid. Living together all this time but not finding any abnormalities, it can only be because that man hid his cruel nature from her very well.”
That’s right ah, even their five or six-year-old children knew that Baba’s movies ate people. They had obviously seen people go in but never come out again.
That being said, the person the youngest son saw going in but not coming out was Moros, right?
“When I was locked in the screening room, Laura-xiaojie* came to see me secretly, but she didn’t dare to do anything, because she was afraid of that man, and because the man and the inspector were good friends, she didn’t even dare to ask for help or report to the police, she just fed me and gave me water to drink. Thanks to her, I was able to live to meet Detective-xiansheng.”
[T/N: miss/young lady]
Ye Zun nodded. “Rest well tonight. Tomorrow, I will set off for the train you took, investigate the passengers that were also there that night, find the person who switched your suitcase and find out the truth about the body in the box.”
Before Ye Zun made this statement, the corpse in the box appeared again on the chair opposite them.
When Ye Zun made his plan clear, the corpse didn’t make any movements. It just sat there.
After a simple dinner, the two women slept with the children. Moros and Ye Zun each had a room to themselves, both on the third floor.
Ye Zun didn’t sleep well. He was always fully conscious in his dream, as if he hadn’t fallen asleep.
In his dream, there was a foggy river and cobblestones. A figure in a black windbreaker loomed in the distance. No matter how long he walked, he was unable to reach to the figure, and couldn’t see the other person’s face clearly.
But he inexplicably felt anxious and afraid, an unrelenting feeling that the other person was coming towards him, constantly getting closer. Maybe they will appear in front of him in an instant.
He woke up suddenly. It was around four o’clock in the middle of the night.
Ye Zun felt thirsty, so he walked out of the room and went to the small kitchenette on the third floor to find himself some water.
The light in the kitchenette was on and a person’s back was turned to him as they opened the door of the refrigerator, as if contemplating what to drink.
Hearing Ye Zun’s footsteps, Moros turned his head back to look, then smiled. “Detective-xiansheng, do you want something to drink? I’ll get it for you.”
“Anything is fine.”
Moros brought two cans of soda.
A sweet beverage with an alcoholic taste.
“Do you like drinking alcohol?”
“Yes, I’ve always wanted to try it since I was a teenager, but I held back. If you suppress things for so long, you end up liking it for a period of time.”
Ye Zun nodded without saying anything.
“Tomorrow, will you leave?”
“En.”
Moros said, “My sister and Laura-xiaojie, they plan to sell the house after the case is closed and go to live with our younger sister together. This way, it’s easier to relieve the psychological shadows brought on by this incident, and it’ll be easier to take care of the two children.”
“Oh.”
“Tomorrow, after I’ve dealt with my matters and settled them down, I will come to find you.”
Ye Zun nodded. “With you by my side, the investigation will be much smoother. This is very good, I will keep in touch with the inspector, so if we somehow are unable to contact each other when our location changes, we can keep in touch through him.”
“Okay ah.”
Ye Zun stood up and left the room.
Moros walked with him to his bedroom. Their rooms were right next door to each other.
Moros nodded to him with a reserved smile. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Ye Zun closed the door and walked in.
Moros also entered his room.
In the dark kitchenette they had left, the body in the box sat there, motionless, looking in a certain direction.
In the never-ending night.
The sound of suppressed sobbing floated over.
A voice that was almost nonexistent said, “One more needs to die, there are too many loopholes, don’t you think so?”
In the dreams of Ye Zun’s deep sleep, a delirious voice responded.
“That’s right ah, there are too many loopholes, I’m afraid there can’t be just one death.”
A voice from a distance, “Who should be killed?”
The crazy talk in the dream, “Anyone.”
The faintly discernible voice confirmed, “Then, this person ba.”
The crazed voice in the dream. “They are going to die anyway.”
……
Ye Zun woke up very early the next day. In a place where murders have occurred, especially in places where psychopathic serial killers had skinned their victims, it was impossible for normal people to sleep well.
He didn’t wait for the others to wake up. He also said his goodbye last night, and in order to prevent everyone from growing uneasy, he left a note explaining that he woke up early to catch the train. Then, he left this chilly villa.
Before he left, Ye Zun contacted the inspector of the police station.
Because of the murderer’s execution, the number of victims subjected to the serial skinning and dumping of corpses in that place was incalculable. Even with so many people, they couldn’t find the remains, and there was not even strong enough evidence to prove that the man was solely responsible.
Everyone was overwhelmed, and although Ye Zun’s client was found, and it was confirmed that the case of the body in the box was indeed real, the body recovery team had still not recovered the corpse so far.
“We can’t provide any help at the moment.”
Ye Zun expressed his understanding, “It’s already very good, at least my client has been rescued. I will follow up on the rest by myself for now.”
The inspector said, “I will contact the nearby police station and ask them to assist you in the investigation. “
“Thank you very much.”
Ye Zun bid them farewell and went to the local train station, then waited for the train that Moros had taken.
He got on the train and chatted with the train attendant he had talked to beforehand.
“Our train tickets are bought and admitted on the spot. It is impossible to determine the identity of the passengers, and the location of the passengers and the station where they get on and off the train can only be found according to the specific ticket they bought.”
“Thank you.”
There weren’t many people on the train at any time, as this place wasn’t some big city.
Ye Zun sat in Moros’ original seat, from here all the way to the station where Moros got on the train.
Then he bought a return ticket and got on the train strictly according to the time when Moros got on originally, wearing the same clothes as Moros wore back then, carrying a big dusty box of about the same weight.
And again, rode the train from the first station to the last station.
Including the delay, the trip took about twelve hours.
There were fewer and fewer people in the carriage and the box stayed where it was.
“Such a big box, it should be very difficult for it to fall over. Why didn’t he notice?”
During the two trips back and forth, the box stayed there with no complications.
Ye Zun stood up, trying to figure out the problem from the murderer’s point of view. If he killed a person, put the body in a big suitcase, and swapped it with another suitcase…
“Wait, how could I know in advance that someone on this train just happens to have the same big suitcase as me?”
“If I find a similar box on the road by chance and just swap it on a whim, what will I, who used a big suitcase to store the corpse in the beginning, do with the body in the box?”
“Am I not afraid of people finding out that I am carrying a corpse in such a big box on a long-distance train?”
“How did I do it? Someone on the train noticed Moros’ big suitcase, but didn’t notice my own?”
If Moros’s judgement was wrong, that meant the murderer was eyeing his suitcase from the very beginning, from when he packed his suitcase, and would have completely swapped the suitcase before he set off…
After all the unreasonable guesses were ruled out, the only reasonable guess left was the most probable truth.
The murderer is an acquaintance close to Moros.
The author has something to say:
Your innocence and soft Abyss with pure eyes like a deer is online, please pay attention and examine
Law and justiceYe Zun followed the corpse to the second floor.After he walked up the stairs, the body was gone.Ye Zun was not in a hurry to go to the fourth floor. He stood there and waited for a while. The conversation downstairs proceeded normally and no one had the intention of coming up.After confirming this, Ye Zun walked towards the corridor on the second floor.He didn't stop, just making his way across. He walked from the stairs on the right side of the house to the left, then lifted his foot to start heading up to the third floor.There were many rooms on the third floor. The guest room Ye Zun stayed in last night and the host's private screening room were both on the third floor, and there was also a bar and kitchenette for preparing desserts and drinks.When he reached the third floor, Ye Zun stopped in front of every door and tried twisting the door handles, pushing them open for a look.The rooms were all empty. Some rooms appeared to have been unoccupied for some time, and some were multipurpose rooms.When he went to the host's private screening room, the door handle failed to twist. The door had been locked.He leaned in and pasted his ear to the door to listen, but there was no sound.Ye Zun didn't linger for long and headed to the fourth floor.The upper floor was very quiet.He hadn't been to the fourth floor of the villa yet, and had only seen the boy talking to him last night, standing in the stairwell from the third floor to the fourth floor.Ye Zun remembered what he saw in the screening room last night. There seemed to be an empty space that led upwards inside the screening room on the third floor, which might be connected to a certain room on the fourth floor. At that time, the faint chatter between the inspector and the host may have come from above.He looked towards the small half-attic above the fourth floor. His eyes paused for a moment.The fourth floor was the children and the host's little sister's bedroom.In addition to the children's bedroom, there was a piano room, toy room, and a large leisure balcony.The other side of the balcony was a row of houses, built a slight distance away from the children's bedroom. There were several rooms after 404, all with good views.Ye Zun walked to the door of room 404. There were no abnormal happenings around him, no corpse that suddenly disappeared and then appeared again.He knocked on the door three times, spaced evenly apart.There was no sound from inside.Ye Zun didn't say anything. He paused, then knocked three more times, this time a little louder than the previous attempt.Still no response.Ye Zun put his hand on the door handle and tried to twist it.The door was unlocked and opened from the outside.The room was very big. Compared to the single room on the third floor where Ye Zun stayed last night, this room had a small living area, a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It also appeared to open onto a small private balcony.Ye Zun walked in and closed the door behind him.The room had the obvious smell of someone living there. The air smelled of aftershave, tobacco and alcohol.The furnishings of the room were very neat, just like the style of the whole villa, overly tidy with some slight cleanliness.There were traces of someone sleeping on the bed, but there were no clothes. The bathroom had no lighting and was very quiet, without the sound of running water.The glass sliding door to the balcony was open and the cool breeze blew inside.Ye Zun walked across the room and onto the balcony. From the small balcony outside, he could see the scenery behind the villa.Something flashed across the windowpane.Ye Zun turned his head and saw a familiar figure standing in the bedroom. It was the disappearing and reappearing corpse.The corpse was grey and looked like a dusty old plaster statue. It looked at him.Facing those lifeless eyes that were like glass beads, alone in the room, a strange tension and uneasiness arose spontaneously.Before Ye Zun could do anything, he heard the door of the bathroom being violently opened. The sound attracted the corpse, and its gaze shifted away from Ye Zun's body.Someone burst out, as if they came out in a hurry, stumbling unsteadily and brushing past the corpse.The person was wearing a police uniform that Ye Zun was all too familiar with, though it was slightly wrinkled. There were traces of liquid on the heavy fabric, as if water had been splashed on it.The person in the police uniform bent over, clutching their stomach with their fingers as uncomfortable, and slowly raised their head to look at Ye Zun.Ye Zun saw that the person in front of him was not the inspector, but the police officer who he could not find since last night.The young policeman's eyes were bright, but his whole body was grey. Facing Ye Zun, he opened again and again, then suddenly fell to the ground.Vivid red blood gushed out from the corner of his mouth and dripped on the police uniform, casting a dark shadow.Dark, viscous blood spread from his feet.At the same time, Ye Zun's neck was suddenly pierced by a sharp weapon. As if a door had closed in front of him, his vision was plunged into darkness.Ye Zun woke up in the dark.He sat in a heavy chair with his arms carefully tied to the armrests and his feet bound apart to the chair legs.Just like in the thriller crime movie he saw last night.Ye Zun didn't struggle, didn't react in any way, and looked at the picture presented in his vision.In the restricted field of vision behind his left side, he could vaguely see another chair with a person tied to it.A densely coloured police uniform, a face with blood on the corner of the mouth.It was the young police officer.The good news was that he was not dead, the bad news was that they were currently both kidnapped.A sigh sounded behind and above Ye Zun. Someone was standing behind him, as if they had been standing there since before he woke up.Who shall we start with? the voice by his ear said with a smile.From when the door of the villa was opened last night and when they met for the first time, that gentleman had always been in such a good mood and smiling like this, a kind and educated elite high-skilled immigrant. Generally, when hunters deal with their prey, they will start with the weak, sick and disabled. So let's start with this wounded policemanba.Walking away from Ye Zun, he said, I don't like the skin of white people very much, even the youngsters feel too rough to the touch. But it also means that it doesn't matter if it's broken, so it can be used as practice.His tone sounded like he treated people like animals.There came a faint dying whisper from that side, like a strong resistance.The host's voice was the same as when he chatted with the guests, a relaxing and pleasant attitude and tone. My theoretical knowledge is very solid, close to full marks, but the practical skills may be lacking so please bear with me.Ye Zun observed the room. The surrounding decoration style was the same as what he saw in the host's private screening room last night.But this area was obviously a place he had never been to.The host was dressed in casual and slightly rigorous clothes, similar to work clothes. He carefully used tweezers to carry out the pre-treatment on the young policeman's face. While he spoke to the other man, he didn't pay attention to whatever happened behind him.The rope was tied so tightly that not only was it difficult to move the hands and feet, but he also found it hard to turn his head.The curtain in front of Ye Zun moved slightly, opening a small gap. One eye looked in from the outside through the narrow gap, bumping into Ye Zun's line of sight.Ye Zun's vision on the right side was momentarily blurry and a familiar figure walked over silently. It was the grey corpse.The corpse stood in front of Ye Zun with the side of its body turned to him. It faced the host and his dying prey.Then, the corpse looked sideways at Ye Zun.Heavy and lifeless, eyes like dirty glass beads.This was the closest the corpse had ever gotten to Ye Zun.The corpse raised its right hand expressionlessly. It landed on Ye Zun's head and slid down to his neck with no emotion, slowly applying force.Gunshots rang out suddenly.The corpse fluctuated slightly. The bullet passed through the corpse and the distorted air, and flew in front of Ye Zun in an instant.The host's hand holding the knife shook for a moment and he cursed. His fingers were grazed by stray bullets and the knife in his hand fell to the ground, bouncing a few times.Get down! A steady and decisive voice ordered.Ye Zun threw his centre of gravity to the left with all his strength and his entire body, along with the chair he was tied to, crashed to the ground.This time he could see what was happening on the host's side.The host dodged, pulling the immobile young police officer to block himself. Smiling as if he was in no rush, he immediately took out a gun from the numerous tools beside him.The gun rested on the shoulder of the young policeman, and he aimed, he fired twice at the place where the bullet came from.Ye Zun's left hand reached towards a scalpel on the ground. He used his toes to shift himself and the chair across the floor, and then used the chair and the obstacles around the wall to fix the angle of the scalpel, racing against the clock to shred and cut the rope that bound his hands.During this period, the bullets kept flying back and forth above and around his head. Stray bullets hit the legs of the chair several times.By the time Ye Zun cut his left hand free from the rope, the host had already fought for his retreat and walked up through the exit on the other side of the room, still holding the wounded policeman hostage.He didn't use a hostage to threaten the other party to cease fire, but just used him as a cover, with the same smile he usually had on his face.Your marksmanship is not very accurateah, old man. Looks like you really don't enjoy our movies very much. What a pity.Let go of the hostage and raise your hands. Surrender immediately!I never thought you would say such meaningless words. The host had a playful smile on his face and didn't take it seriously at all, but his hands were dripping with blood. He was clearly injured.When he quickly retreated to the top of the stairs, he laughed and suddenly shot towards them in a crazed manner.Bang bang bang,bullets fired indiscriminately, acting as a short-term suppression.Ye Zun had just enough time to break free from the chair. He rolled backwards, leaning against the wall to avoid the stray bullets.Gunpowder smoke filled the air, and there was nothing but silence for several minutes.Realising that the host had already evacuated, the person outside the door finally broke in.The inspector walked in with a gun. His face under the black windbreaker was as cold as ever, and his entire body was grey.Are you okay, Detective? He pointed his gun in the direction where the host escaped as he asked Ye Zun, looking back and forth between Ye Zun and where his gun was pointing.Ye Zun stood up with his back against the wall and looked at him with reservations. What is going on? Where have you been since last night?The inspector said, It's a long story, and the process is a bit complicated. We don't have much time, so I'll jump straight to the conclusion. In the forensic autopsy performed on the corpse dug up by the dog on the mountain, they found that the body is missing its skin. This actually isn't the first time such a corpse has been discovered, but it is the first one so close to this area. We already had initial suspicions on who it is, so I spent a long time getting close to the owner of this villa, and as you can see, I became his old friend. Including me bringing you here last night to stay over, it is all for the same purpose.Ye Zun: I heard the two of you chatting here last night. To have a shared love for serial killers, it's a very special case especially for a policeman. Why does he trust you?The inspector said calmly, As a policeman, it's not difficult to understand if I am interested in crime movies. What he's interested in is crime, and what I'm interested in is solving crimes. Besides, he may not really trust me.Ye Zun understood. Both me and that police officer were attacked in your room.The inspector nodded heavily. After I left quietly last night, I found the body he buried in the mountain behind the villa. When I came back this morning, I couldn't find that police officer. I suspected that he discovered something and was making the first move to attack you two first, so I pretended to be hungover and went back to the room to make him let down his defences and went to find my colleagues out in town.He came over to support Ye Zun. In order to prevent more casualties and keep him from involving innocent people, I need your help to find the women and children here and hide them. I have to go after that guy and save our people.Be careful.The two walked out of the dim screening room together.With a gun in his hands, the inspector held a gun and went towards the fourth floor in the direction where the host fled.Ye Zun came out from the third floor and went downstairs to find the other people.In the dining room on the first floor, he saw the police officer who accompanied him. The other party was sitting on the dining table with his face lying on the table. There was a pool of blood on the plate.He was dead.There was no one else there.Ye Zun turned back and walked back upstairs, avoiding the blood-stained areas. He kept hearing gunshots from a close distance.When he got to the second floor, he saw that serious young girl, whose thin body was holding the two children at the same time, quickly running towards where he was. The two children were not held steady, but the situation was urgent and she was only a short distance away. His face was covered with sweat and flushed with heat.Seeing Ye Zun approaching, her eyes showed alertness and fear. She hesitated for a moment but her feet still kept moving.Your big brother did something dangerous, the police are going after him right now. Take the children out of here first, I will help you.Ye Zun offered his goodwill.The girl had a serious face, but at this moment she gasped and said, He's not my brother. I will take the children out, please keep looking, there's another victim here.Ye Zun suddenly remembered something. The young man who came here three days agoYes. The girl didn't hesitate this time. He is the one you are looking for. He disappeared after he came here. No one saw him, but I am certain, he said that there will be a detective who will come to find him. He is still in this house. I don't know if he has been under some horrifying torture, but you need to find him quickly.Ye Zun glanced at the obedient children in her arms. Take the children out first. Leave it to me.He already briefly checked the third floor when he went to find the inspector before, and it was obvious nothing was on the fourth floor. Only the mysterious second floor was the most suspicious.Ye Zun searched all the rooms along the corridor of the second floor. He found the master's bedroom, the host's study, a collection room, a storage room, the cellar, and a workshop in the basement.In the workshop, he found a small morgue.There were bodies stored in the freezer, and there seemed to be four or five corpses.Another one was placed outside on the operating table, covered with a white cloth. It had not been pushed in yet.Ye Zun saw the walking corpse again. This time the corpse stopped in front of the operating table, looking at the person under the white cloth.Ye Zun walked over and lifted the white cloth. His pupils dilated slightly.A person laid under the white cloth, not yet dead.The young man's hands and feet were tied to the four corners of the operating table. His mouth was gagged by something to prevent him from making a sound. His distracted eyes looked at the ceiling above his head, and although his face was as pale as a vampire seen in movies, he was obviously still alive.Ye Zun walked over, immediately untied him, and supported him to stand.Hello, are you conscious?That person was extremely weak, but he could still answer, Yes.What is your name?Moros.The man, like Ye Zun and the villa's host, had an oriental appearance, but his facial features were much deeper than Ye Zun's, and his skin was paler and fairer, obviously of mixed race.Ye Zun took out the entrustment letter he kept in his pocket and showed it to him. Did you leave this?The young man glanced at the handwriting. He was so weak that he could barely sit on his own and even had difficulty nodding his head. His voice was very low and faint. It was me. Are you Detective-xiansheng?En. Ye Zun took out a few chocolate balls wrapped in tin foil and handed them to him.The man had apparently not eaten for a long time, which was the source of his excessively weak body.Why does Detective-xiansheng have this on him?Seeing that he didn't even have the strength to raise his hand, Ye Zun took the initiative to help him peel the foil off and fed it to him, saying calmly, I don't eat regularly and have low blood sugar.This was just a made-up excuse. The main reason may be that Ye Zun doesn't eat any food from unknown origins or from strange and suspicious places. For example, while in this house, he almost didn't eat any substantial food from last night to this morning.There was something odd about feeding chocolate to a young man, especially this one who was too pale but very handsome.If the host wanted to skin him, Ye Zun would not be surprised, but would still feel it was a pity.Compared with a peeled dead thing, the living appearance of this person was obviously a more perfect artwork.We have to hurry and get out of here, can you walk?The young man nodded.But Ye Zun still reached out to support him and the two of them walked upstairs at a slow pace.Ye Zun was very worried that the host would come back suddenly. It would be dangerous for them to stay in this kind of place.The gun fight in the villa was still going on, the sounds popping up from somewhere from time to time.When they walked out of the house, Ye Zun saw a group of policemen surrounding the door, many of them armed with live ammunition.The group were clearly not just from the small local police station, but also from outside.But the manpower of the police was stretched to their capacity compared to the size of the villa.Quick, over here.Someone immediately waved their hand.Ye Zun supported Moros and walked towards the young girl from before.Both of the girl's hands held onto a child. The two children stood next to her at waist-height, looking at their home with innocent eyes.Seeing the young man brought out by Ye Zun, the girl with the serious and slightly gloomy face let out a sigh of relief.Ye Zun glanced at Moros, who was sitting in the back of a car, wrapped in a blanket and handed hot cocoa, then looked at the girl again.Can you tell me? What happened here?That man is not my big brother, the girl said, After my father passed away, Gege took over the family's small factory. Several business decisions were successful and we quickly became rich. Then, Gege met Saozi*, and the two of them got engaged not long after. They fell in love with this place and made it their joint home after marriage. Everything was perfect until then.T/N: sister in law, saosao is used later with the same meaningShe became lost in her memories, her voice was calm and a little numb. The nightmare started after they moved here, no, maybe it was from their honeymoon. I'm not sure. But when I noticed his abnormality, Gege was no longer Gege.Ye Zun didn't understand, so he looked at her calmly. Do you mean that your brother completely changed into another person, or that someone else has taken your brother's identity?The girl frowned. Both. As siblings, we weren't all that close in the first place. After Gege got married, he had Saozi, so we spoke even less to each other. When Saosao had the twins, I came to live with them and to take care of the children. Then I realised that in less than two years, Gege has changed a lot. He is always secretive and interested in so many scary movies. At first I thought he was watching that kind of movie, and I was a little disgusted, but later I found out that it was something more disgusting and scary. He is different from Gege in many ways. Sometimes, even though he is smiling, the eyes that look at me make me shiver. He is always pretending. Slowly, I realised that this person may be a stranger.Is it just a feeling? Is there any evidence?The girl said with certainty, He is not Gege, just someone pretending to be. After noticing more and more abnormalities in him, I remembered that during the honeymoon period, there was this time when Gege was very happy after drinking, and he suddenly said something. He said, it turns out that there really are people who look so much alike. You'd also be shocked if you saw them, do you think you could recognize them?Have you met that person before?The girl shook her head. I was not interested in their lives at that time, I just asked, did he find a bodyguard to be his substitute? Gege said, you could put it that way. At least one thing is certain, Gege has someone by his side who looks very similar to him.Ye Zun was thoughtful.The girl continued, After suspecting that the person replaced Gege's identity, I began to pay attention to that person's daily life. I found that he is always kind and generous, helping people for charity everywhere. Although Gege is a person of good conduct, it's not to the degree where he will take the initiative to do this kind of thing. Not only that, I found that he will bring people back home, all in the middle of the night, and, I have never seen these people leave.Ye Zun: I found several bodies in the room where I found Moros.The girl was silent for a few seconds, not surprised, but still stung.The two of you, are you going to say this in front of the children? Moros, who had rested for a while and regained some energy, raised his head up to Ye Zun warmly. His eyes were pure and despondent like a deer's.Ye Zun looked at the children whose eyes were wide in ignorance and said, I'm sorry.Moros stood up and patted the girl's head.Kneeling down to be at eye-level with them, he said softly, I am Jiujiu*. From now on, Jiujiu will also take care of you. Don't worry.T/N: uncle: mother's brotherYe Zun remembered that in the letter they found, his client said he was going to seek shelter with his big sister.The villa's hostess was his sister.The young girl took the children to a safer place near the back of the crowd, at the very least not allowing them to look directly at the scene of their father being arrested.Moros asked a police officer worriedly, Where is my sister, where is the mistress of this house?The police officer was overwhelmed, but she tried her best to reassure him. The situation is not very good. Sir, you have to be mentally prepared. The suspect is holding his wife hostage and is in confrontation with my colleagues. We are doing everything we can.Not long after she finished speaking, several gunshots rang out in the villa.Everyone looked towards the front door, waiting for the outcome.A few minutes later, the police ambushing the door made some gestures and a group of people went up to surround the entrance.Two people came out from the villa's front door. The inspector supported a woman who was in a trance and crying bitterly. The woman kept turning her head, struggling to go back in.Behind them, stretchers rushed inside.Ye Zun followed Moros towards them.Jiejie, everything is fine now. Moros stepped forward to comfort the woman. His tone was gentle but a little rusty.The hostess just cried bitterly, looking behind from where she came and calling out a name, as if her heart was broken.After a while, the stretcher was carried out. Even though it was covered with a white cloth, the blood pouring out was still easily seen.The hostess stepped forward in agitation, stepping on the white cloth with one foot and tearing it off.Ye Zun saw the empty eyes of the host lying under the white cloth. The expression on his pale face was the pain before death.The inspector stood there composedly, with a solemn expression, and explained to Ye Zun, He killed those two young kids, my two police officers! And, he took his wife hostage and never stopped shooting. The situation was serious, we had to do it.The young girl suddenly rushed out of the crowd, running over to them, and asked in distress, Is he dead? Is he dead, did you ask clearly, where is my Gege? Did they kill my Gege too?They?Ye Zun glanced at the inspector, then looked at the girl again. Did he have other accomplices?Tears overflowed from the girl's face and she cried with the hostess.The inspector said, He shared his interests with many people. The source of these videos, the selection of victims, the disposal of corpses, a series of things, maybe there are other accomplices besides him. We will continue to investigate.But this case of the serial skinnings and corpse dumping had temporarily come to an end, ending with the murderer's execution.Ye Zun said, Why did he resist arrest? The law here is very favourable for a person like him, and he will not get the death sentence if he is caught. He is very rich; even if he stays in prison for the rest of his life, he will live a better life than many people.The inspector replied, Who knows what goes on in a madman's head. Maybe to him, freedom is more important than death.Ye Zun nodded with a rational expression. Fortunately, he resisted arrest. Inspector, don't you think so?The inspector just looked at him.Otherwise, after killing so many people and still being able to live such a good life, it would be unfair to the dead.The inspector said flatly, I am a police officer, I respect the law. I catch the criminals, the trials are out of my hands.But you are not responsible for upholding justice.When a criminal is caught and locked up, that is justice.Many people died, while they experienced being skinned alive. The inspector has seen more of those movies than I have. So many people were tortured and killed, if the murderer is still alive, it is not justice.The murderer is dead, the inspector said, You and I both saw it.He took off his hat, bowed to the villa's hostess who was still in a trance, then left with the body of the young policeman carried out on a stretcher.Ye Zun raised his eyes. The villa was still shrouded in forestry, and at the boundary of the fourth floor, the walking corpse was standing there, looking at something unknown to anybody.The inspector's case had come to an end, but Ye Zun's had not yet.A part of the villa was sealed off by the police as the scene of the crime, but a small area was left for their daily lives.The hostess was crying persistently, sometimes saying things that were only comprehensible to her, which were generally things like how the host was so good, her disbelief at why he did such a thing, and the despair at how things had developed to this point.The young girl was stronger than her. After crying for a while, she still had to take care of two children. With the silence she grew as a habit, she went to prepare food by herself.Even if the adults had no appetite, the children were growing and cannot go hungry.The two children sat obediently on the sofa, not knowing that they no longer had a father. The two played games, although it was unclear what game they were playing.The girl lifted up the building block, smashed and disassembled another building block with a wide range of movements, and then looked at her brother innocently. My work is done, it's your turn, Gege.The boy went to deal with the building blocks she messed up, tidying them up in an orderly fashion.Moros stayed beside them with a slightly concerned expression on his face.Ye Zun walked to his side. Can we talk?Moros looked up at him, his pale eyes clear and defenceless. Although he was an adult, his demeanour was purer than that of his niece and nephew.Of course, Detective-xiansheng.Ye Zun stepped to the side first.Moros comforted the children with a few words, then went to take out a bottle of wine and two transparent crystal glasses from the wine cabinet before coming to Ye Zun's side.They could see what everyone was doing where they were sitting, but kept a distance to control the loudness of their voices so that they wouldn't be overheard.Seeing Ye Zun looking at the wine in his hand, the young man smiled, watching him with his deer-like eyes. Those eyes were very good-looking, and when he smiled, he looked like he loved whatever his eyes were on. When he frowned, there was a clear and shallow sadness.Probably because it was Ye Zun who saved him, the eyes that looked at Ye Zun were trusting and intimate, and with some unconscious attachment. When you are tense, a little bit will help you relax.Ye Zun didn't stop him, so Moros poured two glasses and pushed one towards him.Moros slowly swallowed a glassful and let out a sigh, as if he had finally fully escaped from that deadly and dangerous situation.Ye Zun also picked up the glass of wine, sipping it slowly.There was a slight resistance when he took the first sip, but near the end he started wanting to drink every last drop.The feeling of drinking such a beverage really did make people relax involuntarily.He vaguely felt that his alcohol tolerance wasn't that good, so he told himself that he could only have one drink.But when Moros poured him a second glass, he didn't do anything to stop him and just held the glass, not taking another sip.Molos obviously had a good tolerance for alcohol and he drank three glasses in a short time. The only tell was that his pale face was slightly rosy, but he still looked very normal.Ye Zun tried to get to the point. Where did you hear about me?Moros looked at him with a restrained smile, with a gentle and somewhat frail appearance. From the book.Ye Zun: As if embarrassed, the pure eyes were a little reserved and soft. The clients in detective novels all talk like this, I imitated the style and wrote that letter. When I arrived in town, I called a friend and asked him to help me find a reliable detective to go to that place. Anyone was fine, but they can't be too expensive, since I don't have a lot of money. It really is so great that you could come.Ye Zun: So it's not just that the detective didn't know the client, but the client didn't know the detective either. Very good.Ye Zun drank another glass of wine and went to pick up the bottle and fill the glass to the brim again. However, he didn't drink it after it was topped up and just played with the glass.The body in the box, what clues do you have?Moros went through his memories, I am an art student, and the box contains my paintings and some painting utensils, paints and such. There are other things, but overall it weighs about 35 kilograms. I came to this city by train and when I got off, I realised for the first time that the box seemed to be too heavy. But, I didn't think too much about it at that time. When I was going to take a taxi, I was refused by the driver, and that was when I started to feel that something was wrong with the box.Ye Zun paused. You said in the letter that you had some urgent matters and had to go home. What was it?Moros was taken aback for a moment, blinking his doe-like eyes. It was a family member, they heard something and was worried about my sister and had me come to check on her.When you were tied up in the basement, did your sister know?Moros shook his head. I didn't see my sister. When I arrived, only my brother-in-law was at home. He opened the door for me very warmly and cordially. After chatting for a while and finding out that I was an art student, he strongly invited me to view his films. Said it was to help him consult on how to decorate the environment. Thenup to when I was attacked, I never saw my sister. She didn't know I was here.But if he remembered correctly, after Ye Zun reminded the hostess of her husband's abnormality last night, she said that she would chat with her psychologist sister at home. However, the result of the conversation was not satisfactory.Did she not hear from her sister back then that Moros had come to visit her?Hearing Ye Zun's words, Moros smiled warmly. My little sister is afraid that our older sister's character will not be able to hide secrets. Keeping my visit in mind, she probably said that on purpose to keep her from doing anything rashba. My big sister's character is always like this. No matter what others say, as long as it makes sense, she will believe it and listen obediently.Ye Zun nodded.Even though her husband was a terrible serial killer and even held her hostage at one point, the hostess was still saddened by his death. Her tears never stopped flowing, and even now she was still in a trance.Moros glanced at his big sister. Although that man was scary, he was very good to my sister. Although she is naive, she is definitely not stupid. Living together all this time but not finding any abnormalities, it can only be because that man hid his cruel nature from her very well.That's rightah, even their five or six-year-old children knew that Baba's movies ate people. They had obviously seen people go in but never come out again.That being said, the person the youngest son saw going in but not coming out was Moros, right?When I was locked in the screening room, Laura-xiaojie* came to see me secretly, but she didn't dare to do anything, because she was afraid of that man, and because the man and the inspector were good friends, she didn't even dare to ask for help or report to the police, she just fed me and gave me water to drink. Thanks to her, I was able to live to meet Detective-xiansheng.T/N: miss/young ladyYe Zun nodded. Rest well tonight. Tomorrow, I will set off for the train you took, investigate the passengers that were also there that night, find the person who switched your suitcase and find out the truth about the body in the box.Before Ye Zun made this statement, the corpse in the box appeared again on the chair opposite them.When Ye Zun made his plan clear, the corpse didn't make any movements. It just sat there.After a simple dinner, the two women slept with the children. Moros and Ye Zun each had a room to themselves, both on the third floor.Ye Zun didn't sleep well. He was always fully conscious in his dream, as if he hadn't fallen asleep.In his dream, there was a foggy river and cobblestones. A figure in a black windbreaker loomed in the distance. No matter how long he walked, he was unable to reach to the figure, and couldn't see the other person's face clearly.But he inexplicably felt anxious and afraid, an unrelenting feeling that the other person was coming towards him, constantly getting closer. Maybe they will appear in front of him in an instant.He woke up suddenly. It was around four o'clock in the middle of the night.Ye Zun felt thirsty, so he walked out of the room and went to the small kitchenette on the third floor to find himself some water.The light in the kitchenette was on and a person's back was turned to him as they opened the door of the refrigerator, as if contemplating what to drink.Hearing Ye Zun's footsteps, Moros turned his head back to look, then smiled. Detective-xiansheng, do you want something to drink? I'll get it for you.Anything is fine.Moros brought two cans of soda.A sweet beverage with an alcoholic taste.Do you like drinking alcohol?Yes, I've always wanted to try it since I was a teenager, but I held back. If you suppress things for so long, you end up liking it for a period of time.Ye Zun nodded without saying anything.Tomorrow, will you leave?En.Moros said, My sister and Laura-xiaojie, they plan to sell the house after the case is closed and go to live with our younger sister together. This way, it's easier to relieve the psychological shadows brought on by this incident, and it'll be easier to take care of the two children.Oh.Tomorrow, after I've dealt with my matters and settled them down, I will come to find you.Ye Zun nodded. With you by my side, the investigation will be much smoother. This is very good, I will keep in touch with the inspector, so if we somehow are unable to contact each other when our location changes, we can keep in touch through him.Okayah.Ye Zun stood up and left the room.Moros walked with him to his bedroom. Their rooms were right next door to each other.Moros nodded to him with a reserved smile. Good night.Good night. Ye Zun closed the door and walked in.Moros also entered his room.In the dark kitchenette they had left, the body in the box sat there, motionless, looking in a certain direction.In the never-ending night.The sound of suppressed sobbing floated over.A voice that was almost nonexistent said, One more needs to die, there are too many loopholes, don't you think so?In the dreams of Ye Zun's deep sleep, a delirious voice responded.That's rightah, there are too many loopholes, I'm afraid there can't be just one death.A voice from a distance, Who should be killed?The crazy talk in the dream, Anyone.The faintly discernible voice confirmed, Then, this personba.The crazed voice in the dream. They are going to die anyway.Ye Zun woke up very early the next day. In a place where murders have occurred, especially in places where psychopathic serial killers had skinned their victims, it was impossible for normal people to sleep well.He didn't wait for the others to wake up. He also said his goodbye last night, and in order to prevent everyone from growing uneasy, he left a note explaining that he woke up early to catch the train. Then, he left this chilly villa.Before he left, Ye Zun contacted the inspector of the police station.Because of the murderer's execution, the number of victims subjected to the serial skinning and dumping of corpses in that place was incalculable. Even with so many people, they couldn't find the remains, and there was not even strong enough evidence to prove that the man was solely responsible.Everyone was overwhelmed, and although Ye Zun's client was found, and it was confirmed that the case of the body in the box was indeed real, the body recovery team had still not recovered the corpse so far.We can't provide any help at the moment.Ye Zun expressed his understanding, It's already very good, at least my client has been rescued. I will follow up on the rest by myself for now.The inspector said, I will contact the nearby police station and ask them to assist you in the investigation. Thank you very much.Ye Zun bid them farewell and went to the local train station, then waited for the train that Moros had taken.He got on the train and chatted with the train attendant he had talked to beforehand.Our train tickets are bought and admitted on the spot. It is impossible to determine the identity of the passengers, and the location of the passengers and the station where they get on and off the train can only be found according to the specific ticket they bought.Thank you.There weren't many people on the train at any time, as this place wasn't some big city.Ye Zun sat in Moros' original seat, from here all the way to the station where Moros got on the train.Then he bought a return ticket and got on the train strictly according to the time when Moros got on originally, wearing the same clothes as Moros wore back then, carrying a big dusty box of about the same weight.And again, rode the train from the first station to the last station.Including the delay, the trip took about twelve hours.There were fewer and fewer people in the carriage and the box stayed where it was.Such a big box, it should be very difficult for it to fall over. Why didn't he notice?During the two trips back and forth, the box stayed there with no complications.Ye Zun stood up, trying to figure out the problem from the murderer's point of view. If he killed a person, put the body in a big suitcase, and swapped it with another suitcaseWait, how could I know in advance that someone on this train just happens to have the same big suitcase as me?If I find a similar box on the road by chance and just swap it on a whim, what will I, who used a big suitcase to store the corpse in the beginning, do with the body in the box?Am I not afraid of people finding out that I am carrying a corpse in such a big box on a long-distance train?How did I do it? Someone on the train noticed Moros' big suitcase, but didn't notice my own?If Moros's judgement was wrong, that meant the murderer was eyeing his suitcase from the very beginning, from when he packed his suitcase, and would have completely swapped the suitcase before he set offAfter all the unreasonable guesses were ruled out, the only reasonable guess left was the most probable truth.The murderer is an acquaintance close to Moros.The author has something to say:Your innocence and soft Abyss with pure eyes like a deer is online, please pay attention and examine
