Chapter 244: Bomb Countdown (1/2)
The three of us rushed over to the suspect’s flat which was located on the first floor of the residential quarters. Upon entering the room, a foul odor assaulted my nose. It was a poorly furnished two-bedroom flat of two completely different styles. It turned out that the two were housemates sharing the same flat.
The simple design of the flat was ruined by the piled up cigarette butts in the ashtray and unthrown rubbish. However, the unfinished whiskey on the table, expensive take-out lunch boxes in the garbage and the snacks and drinks stuffed in the refrigerator all revealed a message–the people living here were originally very poor but had suddenly become very rich!
The balcony was completely enclosed with several knives used to slaughter pigs, while chopping boards and sharpening blocks were scattered all over the floor. The Strongest Mantis Shrimp was indeed a butcher who quit his job after he became a streamer, casually throwing his tools around his home.
There was a wet market nearby. Xiaotao sent officers over to inquire about our suspect so it was only a matter of time before we confirmed his identity.
When we entered one of the bedrooms, we were greeted with a neat, spotless scene. There was a computer inside, shelves displays with car models and radios assembled by the owner himself and a disassembled remote control car on the table.
A complex contraption lay on top of the TV console. When I touched it with my finger, a small ball came rolling out from the starting point, triggering various mechanisms continuously along the way and finally falling into a box. It was very interesting.
Dali jumped onto the bed with an alarmed cry and covered his head with a pillow. ”Song Yang, don't touch it! What if you trigger toxic gas or some kind of bomb?”
”Don’t you know anything?” I mocked. “This is called a Rube Goldberg machine. It's a kind of educational toy.”
”Well don't touch it,” cried Dali. “What if you leave fingerprints?”
”You’re one to talk!” Xiaotao admonished with displeasure written all over her face. “Get off the bed, you idiot!”
Needless to say, this bedroom belonged to Storm Punisher. There was enough evidence to be collected here to keep the technical team’s hands full for some time. The small room could hardly fit the lot of us so we headed to the other room to have a look.
The Strongest Mantis Shrimp’s room was a chaotic mess, distinctive of the owner’s careless and unrestrained lifestyle. The bed was heaped with dirty clothes, ground littered with cigarette butts, and both sides of the headboard covered with dried phlegm stains. The suspect probably laid in bed and spat phlegm on the walls.
Beside the bed were bottles brimming with a suspicious yellow liquid as if he had performed some mysterious ceremony, though the more realistic explanation was that our suspect was too lazy to brave the cold at night, using these beverage bottles to relieve himself instead...
There was a computer by the window, and a dusty keyboard next to discarded skewer sticks. In the trash can were a few dubious wads of tissue paper and two dirty posters on the walls, probably the two people he most admired as an explosives fanatic–Nobel, the man who invented dynamites and the character Deidara from Naruto.
”What a pig!” Bingxin snorted in disgust. “How can a person live like this? There should be a law to arrest such slobs and educate them.”
”This room is revolting!” echoed Xiaotao. “I don't want to stay here a second longer than I have to. Even if the suspect was standing in front of me right now, I would have to put on a pair of gloves before arresting him!”
I couldn't help thinking, how did two people with completely opposite personalities become housemates? Did they start living together because they were both streamers or did they stumble upon each other’s online identities after living together?
At this moment, there came a chewing sound from behind me. I turned around to see a nonchalant Dali grazing on a creampuff Bingxin had given him earlier.
”Go somewhere else if you want to eat!” I yelled.
”Put it away!” shouted Xiaotao.
Our irritated shouts frightened Dali so the creampuff slipped from his hands and rolled under the bed. He immediately dropped down to the ground to pick it up, but a while later, I noticed he still had his head down, buttocks pointed in the air. I couldn’t resist the impulse to kick him and aimed my foot at his buttocks. ”What are you doing? Practicing yoga?” I teased.
”Shh, don't talk!” Dali hastily cautioned. “There’s something under the bed!”
Upon hearing this, we dropped to our knees and looked under the bed, only to see an object connected to many wires. There was a square box wrapped in a black plastic bag and a display modified from a digital watch, the values on the screen continuously changing.