Chapter 232: Traitors To Humanity Deserve To Die (2/2)
Dali smiled sheepishly. ”You asked me to look for clues so I watched a bunch of videos online and accidentally came across this on one of the websites. Since the woman’s accent sounded like she was from Nanjiang City, I thought it might be related to the murder.”
”She insulted the old farmer in the middle of the street so the murderer designed a tongue-pulling mechanism for her,” surmised Xiaotao. “The old man was right after all. The murderer is punishing the wicked. What sort of misdeed could the Bronze Toaster torture be related to?”
”That’s hard to say,” I pondered. “Back then, the Bronze Toaster was invented by King Zhou of Shang to torture innocent people for his amusement. It doesn’t refer to a specific charge at all.”
Xiaotao patted Wang Dali on the shoulder and praised, ”Not bad, you saved us a lot of effort. We’ll go back to the station and investigate the first victim!”
Upon leaving the prison, we headed straight back to the city. Xiaotao ordered Wang Yuanchao to go home. The man hardly had any sleep over the past two days and investigating the video didn’t require all four of us.
Soon, we arrived at the first victim’s neighborhood. After a round of questioning, we discovered that the neighbors didn’t have a good impression of the man so his death hadn’t agonized anyone either. However, the charges against him–a bad temper, not paying attention to hygiene, and littering–made him far from being a villain.
A neighbor's little girl added, ”That uncle smoked everywhere he went. Once, he even smoked on a bus and everyone had to remind him to extinguish it. How annoying!”
Smoking was related to fire and so was his cause of death, suggesting that this might be his crime.
”Isn’t it a little childish to kill someone over such a trivial matter?” sighed Xiaotao.
”That’s not the point,” I said. “Rather, I’m concerned with how the murderer obtained his information. Did he live nearby, or was he on the bus?”
”You’re right!” Xiaotao beamed. “Let’s check with the little girl!”
Right then, Dali who had been quietly searching on the internet spoke up. ”I found a video of him!” he shouted.
This video was taken on a bus and featured a middle-aged man holding a cigarette between his fingers as he puffed out mouthfuls of smoke. Then, a pregnant woman politely reminded him to put out his cigarette but was ignored. One after another, the people around him began lecturing him for his lack of consideration for the public but even then, he refused to budge. This middle-aged man was undoubtedly the first victim.
It seemed that the murderer often watched these short clips on Kuaishou and obtained information from them. As a streamer himself, it wasn’t so surprising for the murderer to frequently watch these videos. I couldn’t fight the feeling of frustration that washed over me. Every clue we had led to a dead end. It was already a week since the first murder had occurred, yet we were at a complete standstill.
”Song Yang, you’ve been working since late last night,” said Xiaotao. “You and Dali should go back. I'll inform you the minute we make any progress.”
”Alright then, Don’t tire yourself out.”
I loathed showing any negative emotions before Xiaotao. I knew she regarded me as her pillar of support. If I voiced my discouragement, she would have even less confidence in solving the case. But as soon as I got on the bus with Dali, I could no longer hold back a heavy sigh. Watching me shake my head despondently, Dali said, ”Dude, this isn’t like you at all. How can you be so defeated just because of a case?”
”I’ll give you an example,” I started. “Imagine playing a game of League of Legends where the opposing team gets a dozen kills in under 10 minutes from the start of the game. The other party has all upgraded but your team is still stuck at level one. Would you be happy?”
”If that’s the case, I’d rather surrender,” grunted Dali.
”But there isn’t an option to surrender in reality,” I lamented with a bitter smile. “I’m more depressed than ever!”
There was no denying the fact that this particular case made me feel more lost than I had been when I was hunted by Professor Li. At the time, I at least had a definite goal but now I didn’t even know where to start.
”Stop worrying about the case,” comforted Dali. “Go back and have a good rest. And we’ll go for barbecued skewers in the evening to release some tension.”
I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The overthinking and worrying had exhausted my body so I slept like a baby until the sky turned dark. Then, I followed Dali for barbecued skewers as planned. But to my utter surprise, this meal ended up exposing the most unexpected person!
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