Chapter 23: Corpse X Blood Cave

  I listened to Du Huangniu's murmurs, and I felt that the old generation's outdated ideas were too serious. The times are changing, society is progressing, and development is inevitable in the tide of history. No one can stop the wheels of history from moving forward. Old things are good, but accepting new things doesn't mean harming old things. The disappearance of old things and the emergence of new ones is the law of development. I wanted to tell Du Huangniu these truths, but in the end, I swallowed my words.

  "The best activity on a stormy day is sleeping. I'm going back to the house to take a nap, you guys do whatever you want. There's no need to prepare lunch for me either."

  After Du Huang Niu left, I said to Kui Ruo Lan and Chen Qiu Yang: "Since it's such a big storm, let's go back and rest too."

  Back in the room, I found that the room was constantly leaking water, with water flowing in from the ceiling, walls and floor. I had thought of using a plate to catch the rainwater or using a rag to block the gaps in the wall, but when I saw that there were too many holes for me to count, I gave up.

  I lay in bed, covered with a quilt, planning to go through my thoughts again. At this time, the mobile phone vibrated, I took it out and looked at it, and it was actually a call from Director Ruan Defeng of the Gastroenterology Department of Zhongyiyuan Hospital.

  Nothing's wrong, why did he call me?

  I answered the phone.

  "Hey, great detective, have you arrived at Liu Long Village yet?"

  "Yes, but unfortunately, after coming for 2 days, we haven't made any progress at all."

  "I didn't call you over to ask about Du Jie, but I checked the map and found that your Liu Long Village is very close to the Xian Ren Mountain Range."

  As soon as I heard this, what immediately came to mind was yesterday when that post-00 little golden retriever asked me if this was the Xianren mountain range.

  "I said, 'Yes, it shouldn't be far. I saw a mountain range with many trees behind the village yesterday, which should be the Xianren Mountain Range. What's wrong? Why did you suddenly ask about this. Do you want to come over and travel?"

  "No, I just heard from one of my directors this morning that his nephew sent a distress message last night and then disappeared. It's said that his nephew went on an adventure to the Xianren Mountain Range with several friends. His nephew is named Huang Duoduo, I'll send you a text message in a while."

  "I indeed met a few post-00 kids yesterday who seemed to be heading to the Xianren Mountain range. What a coincidence, could they be your colleague's nephews? However, it's no use calling me now, not that I don't want to help, but we're trapped in the house and can't get out. The rain here is a once-in-a-century event."

  "I just thought that since you're also nearby, I'd say hello. My colleague has already called the police. If you encounter or find anything, please contact me."

  "Okay."

  The message has been sent, and the missing person is actually Huang Duoduo, Dr. Ruan Defeng's nephew, who is that rude little golden retriever. I don't have a good impression of this impolite post-00 kid. However, since he also went missing around here, if needed, I will definitely help find him.

  I used my mobile phone to search for Xianrenmai on Baidu, but strangely, although I could find relevant content about Xianrenmai, the mountain range mentioned on those web pages was not the one near Liulong Village. It's as if this Xianrenmai had been deleted from Baidu.

  "These past two days have been really strange." I muttered to myself, the torrential rain outside still pouring down in a terrifying manner. The entire world had become very unstable, and for the first time, I felt a sense of helplessness. Just then, I suddenly caught a whiff of a faint scent. It's hard to describe with words what this scent was from, but it seemed to be a mix of something like burnt musk, peppermint leaves, and a hint of camphor oil, all blended together in a vague and elusive way.

  My nose is extremely sensitive, and I immediately smelled that the fragrance came from a crack in the wall. Outside was a torrential rain, and the sky outside was as dark as night. I crouched down and through this small gap, I saw a grayish-white eye outside the gap.

  These dull gray and white eyes were stiff, eerie, the eyelids seemed to be supported by something up and down, staring wide, but the gaze was dead ash, without any spirit.

  I quietly pressed a button on my phone - since last night when I saw that row of deep red teeth appearing outside the gap in my room, I had secretly made a plan with Chen Qiuyang: as long as I pressed his phone, he would immediately rush out of the house to see what was sneaking a peek at me.

  When I was "dancing" with the eyes outside the gap, Chen Qiuyang had already made a swift move and flew out to circle around to the back of the house. He dialed my cell phone:

  "Autumn sun, did that thing leave?" I asked this because if Chen Autumn Sun rushed out, the first thing he should have done was to catch the thing that was peeking at me, not immediately call me. But inside the house, I could still see the eye outside the gap, which proved that the thing had not been scared away by Chen Autumn Sun.

  Chen Qiuyang said: "Director, I don't know what to say. Why don't you come out too? If you come out, you'll see what it is."

  I brought all my doubts with me and went outside with Rouran.

  Among the weeds, a person was standing, or rather, his body was leaning against the wall of the house, with his head stuck in the gap. The person had already died, and his body had stiffened. His blond hair, wet from the rain, was neatly plastered to his forehead, like a comb. He was that 00-poster we met yesterday, that rude 00-poster, the nephew of Huang Doudou's classmate who went missing during an adventure in Xianrenmai and whose disappearance Dr. Ruan had just called me about.

  Huang Doudou suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the flowing water on the ground had already washed away his footprints. He ran to the wall outside my room in a desperate posture, wanting to see if there was anyone inside, wanting to ask for help. However, life had been exhausted before he could even cry out for help.

  Chen Qiuyang stood beside Huang Duoduo and said, "His body had a blood hole dug out, and it seemed that his internal organs were hollowed out quite a bit."

  I can see that the bloodstains on his clothes have not been washed clean by this heavy rain, and some of the blood has deeply penetrated into the fibers of the clothing. The rainwater has also not completely flushed away. On Huang Dudu's undershirt T-shirt, above the navel, there is a bullet hole. The bullet hole accumulated a lot of rainwater, and the rainwater flowing down from above flowed into the bullet hole in his belly, filling it up before flowing out again, carrying with it a faintly bloody water.

  My stomach is churning again, and my temples feel like they're being pricked by silver needles in a rhythmic pattern. This scene is different from the video of Yang Hong's death earlier; that was just a video, although it was real, but because it was played on a screen, the sense of reality was slightly weakened.

  The scene in front of me is vividly present before my eyes. Huang Duoduo looks like a ripe pumpkin I saw when I was young, and farmers would dig a hole in the side of the pumpkin to reach inside and scoop out the seeds. Through that hole, you could see the fibrous pulp inside, tangled together in all directions. When I watched the farmer digging out the hole back then, I always thought the tangled pulp looked like human internal organs; but now when I really saw the internal organs inside the blood-filled cavity, I couldn't help but think of the pumpkin hole.

  I bent down and really couldn't hold it in anymore, I started vomiting.

  5 minutes later, I called Nguyen Dat and mustered up the courage to say: "Huang Dudu has been found."

  "Really? That's great, I'll tell my classmates right away."

  "Wait, Huang Dudu... he... he's dead. Sorry."

  "What exactly happened?"

  "I don't know, there was a big rainstorm here, I found him leaning against the outside of my residence, his belly had been dug out, a hole had been dug in it, I don't know how it happened. I've already reported to the police, everything is waiting for the police to handle. Dr. Ruan, sorry..."

  "You don't have to apologize to me, this has nothing to do with you. For now, I can only tell the truth to my classmates, that's all."

  The torrential rain was still pouring down like a landslide, and everything outside was soaked. Huang Dudu held up a huge wooden board with his hands to block the heavy rain. However, I knew it was futile, such a massive rain would surely wash away all traces completely.

  Aoi Ruo Lan leaned against the wall, her chestnut-colored curly hair completely wet from the rain, hanging down in disarray. Her expression was blurry and unclear in the rain, as if shrouded in a layer of mist. She said: "Although I really dislike this little golden retriever, and every time I see him again, I want to hit him once more. But now, watching a fresh life disappear right before my eyes like this, it's really hard to bear."