Chapter 155: Necrophilia (1/2)

Xiaotao and Dali screamed in horror and were about to bolt. The man stumbled and fell on me. I supported him with both of my hands. His body was wrapped up in white shrouds and his hands were stretched forward stiffly like a zombie. It seemed that it was another case of post-mortem spasm.

“What is there to be scared of about dead bodies?” I laughed.

“You’re the weirdo, dude!” Dali shouted. “What kind of question is that? What could be scarier than a freaking walking corpse?”

I looked around and found another corpse in the room. I pushed the walking corpse to the side and walked into the room. There were three large iron furnaces in the crematorium. One of them was still burning, while the other two were locked. Glowing red light radiated from the mouth of the furnace, illuminating the whole room even though no light was turned on. There was a faint scent of roasted meat in the air. A human corpse would need to be burned for a long time to turn it into ashes. Someone would need to monitor the temperature of the furnace at all times for safety reasons and also to allow the corpse to burn fully.

There was a table on the other side of the room with unfinished food and a drink on it. There was also a washbasin next to the table with combs, towels, vaseline oil and a kettle.

There was a rolled-up straw mat on the ground in front of the table, and a man was lying on it on his back. The right half of his face was covered in blood which flowed down to his neck and even on his padded jacket. His eyes were both bulging out from the sockets.

A blood-stained ashtray lay beside him, and the cigarette butts in it were scattered everywhere.

Judging from his outfit, he was probably the staff responsible for monitoring the furnace. He was about 40 to 50 years old. He was wearing a padded jacket, but his lower body was completely nude. His penis was erect and it was glistening under the dim light from the furnace.

At first glance, it was obvious that the man had just died not long ago. The blood on his head hadn’t yet completely dried up. Xiaotao checked his jugular vein with her fingers and said, “I’ll call to inform the station.”

“How would you explain our presence here?” I asked.

“I’ll just be honest,” Xiaotao answered. “We came here to investigate a murder, after all. Still, we must be careful not to let any outsiders know that we’re here.”

I nodded. Xiaotao called the police station and asked for some officers to be dispatched here immediately.

“I’ve seen enough tonight,” Dali whined. “Can’t we go home now, dude?”

I glared at him and started to perform Organ Echolocation on the victim. It seemed that his internal organs were directly injured, but there was a hematoma in the stomach, which had ruptured. This might have been caused by the blow to the head and the subsequent fall. When someone got hit severely hit on the head in the movies, they would immediately faint and black out. But in reality, if you got hit on the head seriously enough, your body would twitch violently and your saliva would stream out of your mouth. It would be a horrifying sight indeed, nothing like the tame version usually shown on TV at all.

Likewise, the drool in the corners of the victim’s mouth and the bulging eyes would’ve been caused by the blow to the head.

I sprinkled some seaweed powder on the victim and found a clear palm print on his neck. This got me excited. For the first time that night, I was able to acquire a clear fingerprint. I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it immediately.

Then I realized something. I compared the palm print with the fingerprint fragment from earlier and told Xiaotao, “They’re identical!”

“What? But how?”

I got on my knees and smelled the ground like a dog. There was a very faint feminine scent on the straw mat.

“Wait here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute!”

I rushed out and returned to the main funeral home. There was an empty bed next to Cao Da, not the one we used earlier but on the other side of the victim. The white sheet on that bed was quite messy, as if a body used to be there but was removed recently.

This was a crucial detail that I’d overlooked!

I sniffed at the bed carefully, and it smelled of rot and some cleaning chemicals used to clean the corpse. But apart from that, I detected a very faint feminine fragrance too.

Cao Da and the staff in the crematorium were killed by the same person!

The murderer had been lying beside the victim all along! That was the true meaning of the words ‘not a single living person’ found in the room with Cao Da!