Chapter 37 Qing Shui Town 09

  Qingshui Town is not a place where homicides often occur, although the police station has a morgue, it's usually empty. The seventh case of dismembered body found on the outskirts of Qingshui Town finally gave the unused morgue a chance to be utilized.

  The mortuary in Qing Shui Town Police Station is not large, but there is only one corpse inside, which makes the originally small mortuary seem a bit empty at first glance.

  Gu Wenkai walked up to the body, lifted the white cloth covering it, then stepped aside, gesturing for Gu Yin to look at the body.

  Gu Yin's calm and unruffled gaze fell on the bloodied and mutilated corpse, his face as dark as water. Gu Wenkai stood beside him, waiting for Gu Yin to say something, but Gu Yin remained silent, looking at the body for a while before turning around and walking towards the morgue door.

  Is this all you've seen? Then just leave like this?!

  Gu Wenkai stared blankly at Gu Yin's back, until Shao Guan, who had followed Gu Yin in, also walked out with him. He suddenly came to his senses, hastily covered the body again, and chased after them.

  Hand over the mortuary key to the police officer on duty, Gu Wenkai took three steps and two steps back to catch up with Gu Yin.

  "Wait! Big brother!" Gu Wenkai blocked Gu Yin's path, "That... don't you have anything to say? About that corpse?"

  "What do I need to say? Should I make a comment of no less than 800 words on that broken corpse?" Gu Yin said calmly.

  Gu Wenkai's mouth twitched, and he suddenly lost the desire to talk to Gu Yin. He especially wanted to turn around and leave, whoever wants to deal with this guy can go ahead!

  Gu Wenkai also knew that he couldn't let the case drag on because of his personal feelings. The unsolved murder case in H City had been going on for too long, and now it was already the end of the year. If they didn't solve the case soon, not only would they have to answer to their superiors, but also to the victims' families. Most importantly, if things continued like this, perhaps the next moment would bring another victim.

  "That deceased was attacked by an evil spirit at the same time as the curse... I don't understand why the murderer would do such a thing?" Gu Wenkai made a sincere and inquiring expression.

  "The only purpose of summoning evil spirits is to destroy the curse left on the corpse." Gu Yin glanced at Gu Wenkai, but didn't continue to mock him and directly answered his question. Then, Gu Yin's gaze passed over Gu Wenkai, no one knew where he focused on in front. Gu Wenkai only heard him sneer coldly, "As for the curse that person wants to hide... it's just a ghost-raising technique."

  Gu Yin's first half sentence, Gu Wenkai understood, the second half of the sentence is not very understandable. Nourishing ghost technique shouldn't be a curse cast on ghosts? But in Gu Yin's words, this nourishing ghost technique obviously refers to the curse cast on the victim. However - how can it be possible for the nourishing ghost technique to be cast on living people?

  However, Gu Yin did not explain the meaning of this to Gu Wenkai and left with Shao Guanzhang from the Qing Shui Town police station. Gu Wenkai could only take this question to find his second brother Gu Wencheng.

  Gu Wenqing quietly avoided him as soon as he heard that Gu Yin was coming. He had some things about the corpse case that he couldn't figure out, but with Gu Wenkai there, who would definitely see Gu Yin, he had just barely finished analyzing the parts he couldn't understand with Gu Wenkai, so he was happy not to have to go and bother Gu Yin.

  In the early hours of a deep winter, the outside temperature was very low. Gu Wenqing and Zhou Jun did not go to the end of the second-floor corridor where they had previously agreed to meet with Gu Wenkai in private, but instead went into the data room nearby. When Gu Wenkai arrived, the two were flipping through newspapers in the data room.

  "What did Big Brother say?" Seeing Gu Wenkai enter, Gu Wencheng put down the newspaper and went straight to the point.

  "He said the evil spirit devoured that person to destroy the curse's mark left on the corpse after it was triggered..." Gu Wenkai said, closing the door of the data room. "As for the victim's curse - he said it was a ghost-nourishing technique."

  "Ghost Nourishing Technique?" Gu Wenqing was taken aback, and then fell into deep thought.

  "Ghost-raising magic?" Zhou Jun stroked his chin whiskers and looked at Gu Wenkai.

  "Not bad, it's a ghost-raising spell." Gu Wenkai said, "However, the ghost-raising technique is only effective on ghosts and has no effect on living people. I completely don't understand why Big Brother thought that curse was a ghost-raising technique."

  "I think... Big Brother is probably not wrong." Gu Wen said slowly, "The Ghost Cultivation Technique is indeed generally a curse used on ghosts, but in the distant past, it was also used on humans. It's just that using it on humans is more cruel, and the technique involves torturing living people to create fierce ghosts, which are then controlled for one's own use."

  Gu Wenqing pushed his frameless glasses up the bridge of his nose, and his gaze swept across Gu Wenkai and Zhou Jun's faces as they simultaneously thought of something. "This way, everything makes sense. Why was the victim's corpse gnawed by evil spirits? Why did the victim's soul disappear? And... why was the expression on the victim's face so twisted and painful? All these phenomena are because someone used the Nourishing Ghost Technique on the victim. In other words, someone is using living people to refine vengeful spirits."

  Gu Wenkai's face turned ugly, Gu Wencheng meant that in addition to confirming again that the murderer was a person walking on the boundary of yin and yang...

  "You mean...the culprit will make a big move?"

  Gu Wen nodded and said, "This is almost certain. Torturing living people to refine fierce ghosts. This is quite a loss of 'yin' virtue. He killed so many people, he wouldn't want to raise a group of fierce ghosts as pets, would he?"

  The three people in the data room fell silent for a moment, and the situation behind the case was far more severe than they had previously guessed. However, the general direction of how to solve it has not changed, first catch the murderer. And to catch the murderer, you must first determine where the murderer is and who he is.

  Zhou Jun lit a cigarette for himself and then said: "I think...my previous inference about the killer's location may have been slightly wrong in my thinking."

  "What does it mean? The inference of the murderer in Qing Shui Town is wrong?" Gu Wenkai asked.

  "No, that's not what I meant. The inference that the murderer is in Qing Shui Town is probably correct now. Before, I only had 60% confidence, but now I have 80%."

  Zhou Jun limped to the wardrobe, opened the glass door, took out a map of H City from inside, spread it on the table, and then used a pen to mark the locations of the seven cases. "At first, I thought this was just a provocation by the murderer, using the crime scenes to surround Qing Shui Town, hinting at his involvement in the serial murder case. But now that you've mentioned the 'feeding ghost' technique... the crime scenes would be scattered around the outskirts of Qing Shui Town, with only the last one appearing on the edge of town. That's completely because the murderer wants to avoid committing crimes in Qing Shui Town, as he needs to prepare for his next big move. So, even if it's temporary, he wouldn't want a large number of police officers approaching."

  "Why didn't he arrange the crime scene irregularly instead of surrounding Qing Shui Town like this?" Gu Wenkai asked.

  "The fact that the murders are all around Qing Shui Town is probably an unintentional result of the killer's actions. As for why this situation occurred...". Zhou Jun paused, then continued, "The killer was probably unable to go far away from Qing Shui Town due to some reason, such as physical limitations, so he chose to target people in places closer to Qing Shui Town. Since the crimes were committed in multiple locations outside of Qing Shui Town, it means that...the killer is a stranger to those seven victims. Moreover, for the killer to cast a spell, they must have used some method to come into contact with those victims."

  Gu Wenkai nodded, so they now had a specific condition that could roughly determine the killer.

  The murderer is in Qing Shui Town.

  The perpetrator was a stranger who had recently come into contact with the victim.

  Three, the murderer had a reason for not being able to leave Qing Shui Town.

  The murderer may make a big move soon.

  Zhou Jun ran to tell Chen Ming about these newly formed speculations. Gu Wenkai was just about to follow along, but was stopped by Gu Wencheng.

  "Wenkai, be careful yourself." Gu Wenqing's usually gentle face showed a rare sternness. "This is Qing Shui Town, where your brother had an accident seventeen years ago. And your brother is also investigating this matter, it may be related to the person who wanted to take his life seventeen years ago... that person is not easy to deal with... if you encounter any situation that doesn't feel right, you must immediately retreat."

  Gu Wenkai did not turn around, remained silent for a while, then replied in a low voice: "I know."

  ……

  Qin Fei got up early in the morning and greeted the family he was staying with, then went to Zhou Tian Tong's home.

  The big gate of Zhou Tian's house was open, and Qin Fei walked in directly, passing through the hall and entering the small living room, where he saw Zhang Zhixin. Zhang Zhixin sat alone in the living room, frowning tightly, seemingly lost in thought. Qin Fei called out to him twice before he suddenly came back to life, his face stiffly smiling at Qin Fei.

  "Are you up?" Zhang Zhixin smiled slightly, "Old Zhou is cooking porridge! In a while I'll stir-fry two dishes and we can have dinner."

  "What's going on?" Qin Fei asked in a low voice without looking at Zhang Zhixin.

  "Nothing..." Zhang Zhixin shook his head and muttered, "I must have thought too much, there's really nothing going on..."

  Zhang Zhixin didn't want to say anything, and Qin Fei couldn't do anything about it either.

  The three of them had breakfast together. Zhou Tian Tong was going to harvest vegetables, Zhang Zhi Xin said he wanted to go with Qin Fei to the town for an investigation, so the three of them left the house together.

  Going to the town to conduct an investigation was proposed by Zhang Zhixin, but he didn't seem to be in the mood for it. As soon as they left Zhou Tian's house, Zhang Zhixin kept looking back, with a worried look on his face.

  "Third Uncle, what's wrong with you?" Qin Fei asked helplessly.

  "Nothing." Zhang Zhi Xin waved his hand, but as soon as he finished speaking, he stopped. After a moment of silence, he said to Qin Fei, "I have something to attend to and need to go back for a bit. You can just wander around by yourself and see if there's anything off about this town. If you find anything off, don't try to handle it alone, call me, got it?"

  After finishing speaking, Zhang Zhixin didn't give Qin Fei a chance to object or follow him back to Zhou Tian Tong's house. He turned around and ran towards Zhou Tian Tong's house.