Chapter 157: Not for the Faint of Hear (1/2)

The police officers soon arrived and dealt with the murder scene accordingly. By then it was already one o’clock in the morning and the three of us were exhausted. We decided to rest for a while in a police car. Xiaotao ordered one of her officers to prepare three bowls of instant noodles for us. We were starving at the time, so when the three piping hot bowls of noodles arrived, we gobbled them up and finished them within minutes.

“How considerate of the officers to even bring their own hot water!” Dali remarked.

“They didn’t,” replied Xiaotao. “It’s from the victim’s kettle.”

“Shit!” cursed Dali, almost throwing the bowl away.

Once she was done eating, Xiaotao got out of the car and ordered a few officers to contact the person in charge of the funeral home. The others were ordered to track down a black Volkswagen Santana with a broken rear windshield.

An idea flashed in my head and I told her, “I’ve heard that people with unusual ‘hobbies’ like necrophilia generally would have forums or chat groups on the internet where they discuss their activities. If we can find this network, these people should be within easy reach.”

“But it’s half past one right now,” replied Xiaotao. “Who’s going to help us look for that?”

“Well,” I smiled. “I think it’s time to call Lao Yao again.”

I gave Lao Yao a call, and unsurprisingly, he was still up at the time. I briefly explained the situation that we were in. Lao Yao sounded excited at the prospect of investigating necrophilia forums, but him being the greedy pig that he was, there was no way that we could end the conversation without discussing his rewards.

Xiaotao motioned with her fingers telling me to hand my phone over to her. Then she said, “Hey, Lao Yao! It’s me!”

“Oh, is that you, Xiaotao-jiejie?” answered Lao Yao excitedly. The pitch of his voice increased at least two notes the moment he recognized Xiaotao’s voice. “The hand cream from New Zealand was so luxurious! I loved it so much! What am I going to get this time?”

“I’m sorry, Lao Yao,” Xiaotao replied. “I can’t afford to give you expensive things every time. Have you had supper yet?”

“Oh,” said Lao Yao, “now that you mention it, I’ve been playing League of Legends all night and I haven’t had a bite of food since lunch! I’m starving now!”

“Okay, then I’ll order a full barbecue meal from a famous restaurant for you right away.”

Lao Yao was so thrilled that he didn’t know what to say. Xiaotao hung up the phone and picked the cheapest barbecue restaurant near our college to order from. She ordered plenty of eggplants, roasted leeks, and potatoes, all of which cost no more than fifty yuan.

It was very clever on Xiaotao’s part to reward Lao Yao with objects instead of money, because you could always lie about the true value of objects while at the same time making yourself look generous. Lao Yao might have been known for his cunningness and shrewdness within our circle, but he was no match for Xiaotao.

My mind went back to the female corpse in the current case. Indeed, she must be extremely beautiful as she was an insatiable temptation to the victim and his friend. Something would definitely happen to the man who stole the female corpse soon, so we couldn’t rest now. We must race against time to find him.

We returned to the police station. Xiaotao asked an officer to buy a large box of Red Bull to keep us awake as we gathered in a conference room waiting for new information. This case excited me so much that I didn’t need any energy drink to keep going. Dali, on the other hand, gulped down three cans of Red Bull and still struggled to keep his eyes open.

At two o’clock in the morning, Lao Yao called Xiaotao through a messenger app. She connected her phone to a laptop and increased the volume so everyone could hear Lao Yao.

“These guys sure are a piece of work!” exclaimed Lao Yao while chewing some food, probably the barbecue that Xiaotao ordered for him. “Take a look at these photos I found from their forum! I must warn you though—they’re not for the faint of heart! I almost lost my appetite when I saw them.”

“Get to the point!” urged Xiaotao.

Lao Yao shared his screen from his computer to the laptop in the conference room. Xiaotao asked someone to turn on the projector so everyone could see what Lao Yao was doing. He was in a forum called NecroLove and his username was NecroDevil.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Lao Yao interjected. “I’m not one of them. It’s difficult for non-members to get into their forum, so I had to steal one of their identities.”

A QQ profile appeared on the screen, to which Lao Yao explained, “This is the 48-year-old crematorium staff you found dead. He claimed here in his profile that he works in ‘the industry’ and that he’s been the provider of ‘goods’ for a long time. He also stated very clearly here that any interested parties can chat privately with him.”

Lao Yao scrolled through his old chat history and found some pictures of corpses. Some of the officer’s faces turned sickly green when they saw the pictures of those corpses in various questionable positions. I had learned from some psychology textbooks that necrophilia was a form of mental illness. There were many causes that triggered it. Affected people would have a strong desire to engage in a sexual intercourse with corpses and some would have no interest whatsoever, whether sexually or emotionally, in living people.