Chapter 25: Clues on Du Xiaonan's Body

  Lin Yuan carefully looked at the cabinet against the wall, and without thinking, he knew what it was used for. In each grid, there was a frozen stiff corpse.

  Li Jing stopped in front of the bed at the very back and pointed to the corpse on it, saying: "This is Liu Dage's body, come take a look! However, what I brought you here for today can't be told to anyone!"

  Li Jing is indeed a seasoned detective, for she can remain calm and even smile in the face of so many corpses.

  Su Jiner nodded, Li Jing pulled open the quilt covering the corpse, letting them take a closer look.

  The body had completely stiffened, and Grandpa Liu's smile was frozen on his face.

  Su Jin'er turned her head and didn't want to look anymore: "Are the bodies of the other three people here too?"

  "Right!" Li Jing covered the white cloth and looked at the other dead bodies, saying: "When we found Xu Mengguang's body, he was already dead, and all the blood in his body had been drained."

  "Even if it's all drained out, throwing it down from upstairs would still spill some blood! But there isn't a single drop of blood at the scene."

  "How can a frozen corpse possibly bleed?!"

  "Have you been frozen?"

  The murderer was so ruthless, killing someone and then freezing them, only to throw them off the building afterwards.

  "By the way, one of the family members involved in the car accident earlier is from your school, named Wu Nannan. Do you know her?"

  "What?!" Su Jinyer and Lin Yuan exclaimed in surprise, their voices loud enough to wake up the corpses on the bed.

  "Is Wu Nannan dead too?" Lin Yuan almost fainted.

  "How did the car accident happen?" Su Jiner said nervously, now that people around her were dying one by one, and it was unknown who would be the next to go!

  "We didn't see any signs of braking at the scene, which means that no one braked at the time. Generally speaking, it's impossible to not have any brake marks at all. When people encounter danger suddenly, they will subconsciously protect themselves, even if braking is too late, there will still be some brake marks, but there were none at the scene!" She shook her head helplessly: "Aren't you going to take a look at the other three bodies?"

  Su Jiner shook her head, now her mind was completely confused, she didn't understand the autopsy herself, and even if she looked at it, she couldn't see anything. She walked straight out of the morgue, now she was like being locked in a completely dark room, unable to distinguish directions.

  It's already the fifth one, Xu Mengguang, Li Ran, Zhang Junsheng, Liu Ye and Wu Nannan. Are their deaths connected? What is the killer's motive? Or is the killer just a psychopath who kills randomly without any pattern?

  But as long as it's done by humans, there must be clues left behind. But what are the clues? Where should I start looking? Why am I completely clueless?!

  She sat on the long bench in the park and closed her eyes painfully.

  "Jin'er, don't think about it anymore, don't force yourself, you're too tired."

  "Xiao Yuan, I really want to know what memories I lost that day. It must be very important. I feel like if I can just remember, all the mysteries will be solved." She opened her eyes and saw the psychiatric hospital across from them: "Let's go see Du Xiaonan! Maybe she can tell us something."

  Du Xiaonan sat quietly on the bed, staring blankly out of the window with no expression on her face. When she heard footsteps coming from behind her, she said, "Let me go, I don't want to stay here."

  "Xiao Nan, it's us!" Lin Yuan said with a trembling voice when he saw Du Xiao Nan's thin body.

  Upon hearing her voice, Du Xiaonan suddenly turned around, her face pale with heavy dark circles under her eyes and no color on her lips.

  "Jin'er, Xiao Yuan, please tell them to let me out! I'm really not sick, I'm perfectly normal, really!" Du Xiaonan's tears flowed down her cheeks, and apart from looking a bit pale, there was no way to tell she was mentally ill.

  They stared at her in surprise, as Du Xiaonan didn't know them at all a while ago, but looking at her now, maybe she really was okay.

  "Can we talk to her alone?" Su Jiner said to the nurse standing beside him.

  The nurse thought for a moment and said, "The patient's emotions are very unstable, so don't stimulate her."

  Su Jin'er nodded at her and then she closed the door and left.

  "Xiao Nan, do you recognize us?" Lin Yuan asked excitedly as he saw the nurse go out.

  Du Xiaonan nodded with tears in her eyes: "I woke up on the third day after I came here."

  "So, do you still remember where you and Li Yi-qian went together and what happened?" Su Jin-er asked somewhat urgently, she had not expected Du Xiao-nan to wake up already.

  "Yes, I remember it all. The things that happened that day, I will never forget for the rest of my life. It was really terrifying. Qianqian somehow got a message saying her sister had been in a mental hospital before she died, so she wanted to come here to investigate about her sister, but we were knocked unconscious by someone before we even arrived."

  "Are you sure both of you were knocked unconscious?"

  Du Xiaonan thought for a moment and said: "I was knocked unconscious first, as for Qianqian I don't know. Actually when we came, Qianqian didn't agree with me coming together, she said there might be danger, but I thought two people would be safer than one person. All the way she didn't speak, always frowning tightly and seemed very nervous."

  "What's next?" Lin Yuan asked anxiously.

  "What happened next?" Du Xiaonan's face showed a terrified expression, her eyes staring straight out the window: "Later on, Qianqian suddenly told us to get off at the middle of the road. She said she remembered something else, so I followed her off the bus. I remember it was a small forest, and when we walked in, for some reason the sky suddenly turned very dark and windy. The wind was strange, not very strong, but it made our vision very blurry. Then I saw something that I will never forget for the rest of my life."

  Su Jiner and Lin Yuan both had sweaty palms due to tension, perhaps Du Xiaonan's story could provide an important clue.

  I vaguely saw many figures appearing in the forest ahead, with white and black intertwined, twisted together. I thought it was my own eyes playing tricks on me, so I rubbed them, but when I opened my eyes again, I saw a face covered in fresh blood, that face almost stuck to mine. The strong smell of blood assaulted my nose, making me want to vomit, but my body couldn't move at all. I could see that face grinning at me with an eerie smile, its twisted features gathered together in an ugly mess, and even white insects crawling around its eyes, nose, and mouth. My body was completely unresponsive, unable to take a single step.

  At that time I was thinking that I would rather die than suffer such torture."

  "What about Li Yi-qian? Where is she?" Just thinking of the scene at that time, Su Jin-er also trembled with fear.

  "I couldn't see her at all, and my eyeballs couldn't even move. Later, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, and then I fainted. When I woke up again, I found myself tied up and unable to move, lying on the cold ground. It was a completely sealed room with only a small window near the top, which let in no light, just like being blind. However, I could sense that there was someone else in the room. I was very scared and felt like I was dead. So, I tried calling out for Qianqian's name, but nobody answered me for a long time. Yet, I could clearly hear another person's breathing sound."

  Lin Yuan wanted to say something, but was stopped by Su Jin'er.

  Then I caught a whiff of something strange and pungent, and passed out again.

  After listening to Du Xiaonan's "story", they took a deep breath, and the sweat-drenched girls looked like they had just finished running a marathon, while Du Xiaonan seemed to have returned to that day, her teeth chattering and her body trembling nonstop.

  "Jin'er, I beg of you, please tell the doctor to let me out! This place is not fit for humans, it's enough to drive someone mad even if they're not already."

  Su Jiner also thought she could go out, but now the school is in chaos, maybe staying here is safer than being at school. Thinking of this, Su Jiner comforted her saying: "I know this isn't a place for people to stay, but you can't go out right now, perhaps it's safer for you here."

  "Why?" Hearing Su Jiner's words, Du Xiaonan almost went crazy, she asked in a low voice.

  Su Jiner told her everything that had happened in school recently, and why Du Xiaonan was in the mental hospital. Although she didn't want to increase her fear, if she hadn't told Du Xiaonan, she definitely wouldn't have stayed here quietly.

  After hearing Su Jiner's words, Du Xiaonan unconsciously touched her own neck. She would have wanted to strangle herself to death if it weren't for Su Jiner and the others arriving in time; otherwise, she would now be lying in a cold morgue.

  "Jin'er, why have so many terrifying things happened? Is it really Xiao Qing who did them? Could Qianqian already be dead?" Du Xiaonan tightly grasped Su Jin'er and Lin Yuan's hands.

  "I don't know, I haven't got a clue."

  They didn't have any more leads than the police did, thinking that finding Du Xiaonan would bring a turning point to the case, but things only became more mysterious and confusing.

  "Xiao Nan, for now, you can only stay here. I know that being with a group of mentally ill people can drive someone crazy, but perhaps it's safer for you here. I need to find back the memories I lost." Su Jin'er said weakly, thinking that if she had persisted in not studying medicine, she would be living an ordinary university life like others.

  But inside, she was still a little excited. She had always liked Holmes, admiring his wisdom and meticulousness. She even hoped to become a female detective like him. Now that the opportunity had arrived, she was afraid, completely at a loss. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and said: "Xiaonan, you stay here for now! Don't let anyone think you've recovered, keep pretending to be crazy, or else you'll be in danger."

  "Alright, be careful!"

  "Hmm!"

  As she walked out of the mental hospital, Su Jin'er let out a long sigh of relief. She glanced back at the large gate behind her, where the atmosphere was so oppressive that it made people want to kill themselves. Any normal person wouldn't be willing to stay inside, would they?

  "Jin'er, where are we going now?"

  Su Jiner glanced at her watch, it was already 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and she hadn't had lunch yet. She looked around at the nearby restaurants and said: "Let's go eat first! We can analyze our situation while we eat."