Chapter 83: Bloodthirsty Butcher (2/2)

She clenched her fist in disgust and declared, “That scum must be captured as soon as possible! He deserves to be put to death by a thousand knives! We cannot let another person fall victim to this animal!”

I agreed with her wholeheartedly, but I couldn’t help but be pessimistic. The victim had gone missing twenty days ago. There might have already been a second or third victim.

“We’ll do our best,” I comforted Xiaotao. “Even if we don’t sleep for the next two days, we must catch him no matter what!”

“You’re right!” nodded Xiaotao.

Now that the autopsy was over, I took out some joss paper and burned it in the name of the victim as usual. I also chanted the Reincarnation Mantra, then covered her body with a white sheet.

We were leaving the morgue when we bumped into Xiaozhou, who informed us that the test results were ready.

“You were right, Song Yang,” he excitedly exclaimed. “The victim did inhale nitrous oxide!”

“What about the composition of the rope?” I asked.

“It’s polypropylene mixed with cotton textiles,” Xiaozhou quickly replied.

“Thank you!” I nodded. It was just as I expected.

“Looks like we should focus on these two clues right now—the rope and the laughing gas,” said Xiaotao. “We should widen our scope and increase the number of officers mobilized for the search. We must solve this case as soon as possible.”

“How come I don’t see Wang Yuanchao at all lately?” I asked her.

“He happened to be on duty near the abattoir that afternoon,” explained Xiaotao. “So I told him to track down Ma Jinhuo. That’s why he didn’t come to the meeting.”

“Did you place some officers on stakeout near the bun shop?”

“I wouldn’t forget such an important task!” replied Xiaotao. “I’ve placed four officers to be on the lookout there.”

It was then that I realized it was already bright outside. I had been examining the body for two hours. Xiaotao said we should go out and grab some food before we were swamped with work again, so we ended up at a nearby western-style restaurant. We had a simple pizza there.

“You didn’t get a good sleep last night,” said Xiaotao. “You should go back to your dorm and rest. I’ll call you if there’s any progress.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I still have some investigating to do,” replied Xiaotao with a forced smile.

“I’ll go with you, then,” I suggested. “I won’t be able to sleep even if I go back to my dorm anyway.”

Xiaotao laughed. “Okay!”

We went back to the police station. Xiaotao made a few phone calls, one of which was to Wang Yuanchao. After she hung up, she told me, “Wang Yuanchao found out that Ma Jinhuo resigned from his job at the abattoir three months ago. The abattoir said the pork that was sent afterwards had nothing to do with them. In fact, the staff there said that Ma Jinhuo often exhibited a peculiar demeanor.”

Everything was just as I expected. But this also meant that we had hit another dead end.

After that, two police officers handed Xiaotao a thick file which according to them contained a list of missing persons in Nanjiang City for the past three months. The information on the missing persons was also included in the file.

“Oh my god!” Xiaotao exclaimed. “How could so many people go missing in the past three months? Has Nanjiang City been visited by UFOs?”

“Not all of them are missing,” one of the police officers explained. “Some of them just lost contact with their relatives who reported. After all, Nanjiang City has a large population with people coming in and going out of the city every day. Many of these people are also running away from their debt collectors.”

“Okay, thanks a lot,” I said. “I’ll look through them slowly.”

After they left, Xiaotao smiled at the file on the table and joked, “Song Yang, it’s time to use those eyes of yours to help me!”

I picked it up and flipped through it. It was indeed a very long list of people, and if we were to ask the police officers to investigate each and every one of them, we would definitely lose a lot of valuable time. An idea suddenly popped up in my head. It was an odd idea, but I had a feeling it would work, and it would surely save a lot of manpower and time. After all, with each passing second, the chances of the murderer attacking the next victim increased, so we had to act swiftly.

“Let’s put ourselves in the murderer’s shoes!” I proposed.

“How?”

“Well, first of all, let’s look at things from his point of view.” I pointed at the list of missing persons. “Among these people, who looks like they would taste the best?”

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