"Soul Reaper Murder Case"

  The long-awaited sunshine pours through the curtains and onto the bed sheets and floor of the bedroom, brightening up the morning with a refreshing atmosphere.

  The nightmare of one night finally passed, I got out of bed, washed and went out for a run and practiced boxing.

  As a detective specializing in paranormal cases, my job is to steal spirits and hypnotize dream thieves. I can steal memory fragments from the deceased's last few minutes of life to find the truth before and after death. Alternatively, after hypnosis, I can enter the suspect's subconscious mind and dreams to find motives and evidence.

  This innate ability was born with me, and it brought me a lot of trouble and shadow when I was young, because I could always see some supernatural beings, such as bloody men in mirrors and elevator monsters. Later on, if my father hadn't sent me to the hidden world sect 'Yihe Men' to learn how to control my mind, I might have gone crazy long ago.

  After growing up, I was admitted to the police academy and came into contact with criminal investigation cases and forensic psychology. At graduation, I was selected to join the provincial public security bureau's major crimes unit due to my special abilities, with an office location in Jiangzhou City, the provincial capital. However, my tasks took me running all over the province, from city to county, wherever there were bizarre unsolved cases or major crimes, you would see my shadow.

  "We seem to have met somewhere before, do you remember?"

  The phone rang, I stopped in my tracks, opened the mobile phone, and found that it was Peng Kang, the director of the Provincial Hall's Directly Subordinate Serious Case Group.

  "Hey, Peng Chu!"

  "Chu Yu, in an hour, rush to the southern foot of Manghuashan mountain range outside the western suburbs, where there is a deserted villa, and a super large murder case has occurred!"

  I hung up the phone and shook my head in dismay. It had only been a week since I last carried out a mission, and now there was another major case. How could things be so unsettled?

  A brief holiday came to an end, changed into police uniform, put on equipment, rushed to the murder scene.

  Outside the window, the fields are lush and green. The summer scenery in Jiangnan is always beautiful. The trees along the highway rush backward quickly.

  More than an hour later, I drove to the location told by Director Peng and found that it was a desolate wilderness. The scenery was not bad, with rolling hills and beautiful mountains. On the south-facing mountain slope, there was a large villa in European style, but it looked like it had been abandoned for seven or eight years.

  More than a dozen police cars are parked at the foot of the mountain, and there are also armed police trucks. It appears they are conducting a search operation in the mountains.

  When I arrived outside the villa, I found that the police cordon was very tight and the scope was very large, covering the entire villa. It seems that the scope of the murder scene is quite wide.

  The criminal police and forensic doctors of the Municipal Public Security Bureau's Criminal Investigation Detachment are carefully investigating the scene, collecting strong evidence, taking photos, recording, collecting bloodstain samples and fingerprints.

  The Provincial Public Security Department has the power over each municipal police bureau, generally coordinating cross-city and cross-provincial crimes, major cases, such as large-scale drug crackdowns, customs smuggling, and serious homicide cases. When a municipal bureau's authority and capability are insufficient, it often requires the mobilization of provincial bureau forces. The Major Crimes Unit is a permanent criminal investigation department under the Provincial Public Security Department, while municipal bureaus do not have such units. It has equal status with special institutions like the Provincial Safety Bureau.

  Some detectives from the municipal bureau saw me coming, looking a bit unnatural. Every time there's a major case, it's hard for them to crack in several months, but in our serious crime unit, it's much easier. Moreover, whenever they encounter a bizarre case with no leads, they will write reports and apply for assistance, transferring members of our team to coordinate and assist in cracking the case.

  I showed my evidence and walked into the villa through the police line guarded by armed police.

  "Director Peng, I'm reporting for duty!"

  Peng Kangzheng and Liu Tao, the deputy director of the Municipal Bureau, discussed the complexity of the case and how to allocate work to carry out the filing investigation, avoid duplication of work, waste of manpower and time.

  He turned around and glanced at me, nodded slightly, his face somewhat serious, because the pressure of this case was great, and there were many victims.

  "Su Yao, you report the situation here to Chu Yu, then about how to find evidence, you can act alone, if you need other team members' information and cooperation, you can also make a request. The head of your serious crime unit's criminal investigation team, Wang Yufei, has also arrived and is leading people to search behind the villa."

  "Yes, Director!" Su Yeo responded after that, holding a file folder in her hand, came to my side, looked at me with a profound meaning, her eyes shining like water, a kind of gentleness seemed to penetrate into the bottom of one's heart.

  "When did the murder take place?" I asked.

  "It was probably late last night and early this morning, the forensic doctor just confirmed the time of death, no more than thirty-six hours." Su Yaoke replied.

  "What's the identity of the deceased? Who reported the case?" I asked with a frown.

  "It was a case reported by an employee of Jiang Hong's planning company. The victims were basically colleagues from the same company, divided into two departments. We have just confirmed with the company's legal representative over the phone that it was a manager who organized this outing to enhance team cohesion and solidarity among employees in the project management and planning departments. They reportedly held an outdoor confrontation and social gathering activity, but suddenly a heavy rain fell at dusk, and the company's bus broke down, so they had to spend the night in this villa at the foot of the mountain, planning to return to the city the next day. Who would have thought that a murder case occurred that very night!"

  I frowned and asked again: "How many people have arrived? How many victims are there?"

  "In total, twenty-six people came. One manager, two department heads, twenty regular employees, and three friends brought by the workers. Except for four missing and six seriously injured, everyone else is dead." Su Yaoke's tone was low and melancholic, with a hint of sighs and indignation.

  "How many victims are there? Is there anyone conscious who can recall what happened that night?" I asked in astonishment.

  "It's over, it has become a cold case that requires us to find the evidence ourselves to solve the mystery!" Su Yau sighed softly.

  "Take me to see the scene first, look at how these people died, I want to take a picture of this place!"

  Su Yao knew the steps I took to investigate a case, so she led me to start examining the layout of the villa, the position of the deceased, and the murder weapon.

  The first floor is the hall, except for some damaged furniture, there's nothing valuable left, household appliances and so on, were looted by brave villagers soon after the case was exposed and taken back home.

  The second floor has five rooms, the corridor is dimly lit, the walls are damp, and there are moss and rattan hanging from the top, as well as spider webs, with a faint musty smell floating around. The red solid wood floor creaks softly when walked upon, and inside the corridor, there are also two corpses.

  After seeing some corpses, I felt a chill run down my spine. It's rare to see someone with such a terrified expression - their mouth was wide open, their pupils were dilated, and their eyeballs bulged out as if they might burst out of their sockets at any moment. They died with their eyes open, so I reckon they must have seen something extremely terrifying before they passed away.

  Su Yao only took a glance, then hastily turned her head away, covering her mouth as if she was about to vomit. Her face had become distorted and twisted beyond recognition. What terrifying scene could she have witnessed in her lifetime that would scare her so badly? Just thinking about it made one's scalp tingle with fear.

  "Some of the victims died under very special circumstances, just like... being scared to death!" I found it strange.

  Su Yao covered her mouth and nose, nodded with a lingering fear in her heart: "Yes, just now Captain Wang, as well as Zhu Xuliang and Gao Peng police officers also said so, it's very similar to a paranormal case of being frightened to death. Now, our bizarre case department is under tremendous pressure!"

  "Have officers Liu Jiongzhuang and Meng Zhaohui arrived?"

  "On the way!"

  "They both, one is proficient in Qimen Dunjia technique, the other follows Mao Shan sect and understands some Yin Yang techniques. If there really are yin energy and evil spirits here, they can make a judgment." I said.

  "By the way, you mentioned earlier that after the rain, the company's bus suddenly broke down. Has the cause of the malfunction been found?"

  "The people from the city bureau are investigating and haven't given us any news yet." Su Yao said.

  I examined some more corpses killed by the butchers, some with their skulls smashed open and brains splattered all over the ground, blood and gore everywhere; some had steel rods inserted into their chests, nailed to the ground, cruel and ruthless; some had their necks hacked at with sickles, blood flowing profusely, heads almost severed from their bodies.

  After investigation by criminal detectives, there were no fingerprints on the murder weapon, and no footprints of the perpetrator were found at the scene. Only the victim's shoe prints were left behind, making the case even more mysterious.

  More and more evidence pointed to the paranormal event, making the police officers who were executing their tasks in the villa feel goosebumps all over their bodies, feeling increasingly eerie and terrified.

  "Brother Yu, are there really ghosts and spirits in this world?" Su Yao whispered to me as she followed closely behind, her voice laced with anxiety.

  I looked at her slightly tense expression, shook my head and said: "There is no accurate answer to this. I think the kind of ghosts and spirits described in folklore do not exist, but people really have a main spirit, which is an energy body, just like electricity, invisible to the naked eye, yet truly existing."

  "When a person dies, it's like a lamp going out, consciousness and memory all disappear, only the main energy wave of consciousness remains, like an electric arc, existing around the brain of the corpse for about seven days before being absorbed by invisible dark energy and returning to its origin. Some may enter other spaces, such as the seventh space, and be reborn in another form. I've been dealing with corpses for years, using this lingering electric arc to project fragments of memories from the last few minutes before death, which we call the 'original code', to perform soul-stealing."

  "Is that really true? If there are no ghosts, then how can there be so many strange and terrifying events in the world that have scared so many people to death?"

  "Fear comes from the unknown terror!" I sighed softly. In fact, there are many things in this world that no one can explain clearly.

  Next, I observed the layout of the villa, the details of each floor, and examined the physical condition and brain death status of each deceased person. Among them, two male victims met my basic conditions for channeling, one died on the second floor and the other outside a window.