Warning:  description of dismembered cadavers

 

When Xie Bai received the call from the forensic centre, the little black cat had just been halfway washed, its head covered in thick white foam, its fur all flattened, clinging damply to its skin, looking both ridiculous and pitiful.

"What's up?" Xie Bai asked, holding the phone.

"It's impossible to sleep tonight, Xiao Xie. Get ready and come over quickly. Someone found a large number of body parts in the restroom on the obstetrics and gynecology floor of Kanghe Hospital. It's really strange and we're short-handed. Hurry!" The colleague on the other end spoke rapidly, amidst a noisy environment, surely alarming many people with such alarming news.

Xie Bai simply replied, "On my way," and hung up.

Without even sparing a glance at the cat still covered in bubbles, he threw on his coat and scarf, and quickly strode out the door. After closing the door behind him, you could even hear his faint coughing in the hallway.

The black cat in the sink obviously hadn't anticipated him being so careless, and dumbly pawed at the edge of the sink for a moment, then with a "plop," it despondently slapped itself against the sink wall.

Xie Bai arrived at Kanghe Hospital in the blink of an eye, so fast that when he flashed his credentials, passed through the cordon, and entered the restroom, his colleague Jiang Haoran's eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

"Did you fly over here, little brother?" Jiang Haoran asked.

"Just happened to be dining across the street," Xie Bai replied, slipping on a protective gown and double-layered gloves, while scanning the standing signs on the ground, asking, "Under maintenance? How long has this restroom been unused?"

"Three days. The body parts are inside. Fortunately, the smell isn't too bad, but the visual is unsettling. Are you okay? If you are, let's go in." Jiang Haoran said, trying to pull Xie Bai inside.

Xie Bai, adjusting his mask, pulled his hand away and followed him into the room.

"Feeling a bit uneasy, huh?" Jiang Haoran noticed Xie Bai hesitated for a moment, thinking he was scared by the scene inside, sighed, and said, "To be honest, I felt a bit... The security in the city has always been good, and this kind of scene is the first time I've seen it in six years of work. It's normal to feel weak in the legs. Can you continue?"

Xie Bai shook his head and said, "I'm fine." Then he took a few steps forward, bypassing the bloodstains that were already half-dried on the floor, and walked to the several compartments inside.

The doors to the compartments had all been opened, revealing the grim scene inside—numerous dismembered body parts scattered across four compartments, arms, legs, chest, abdomen... with a cursory glance, there were at least three victims. They were haphazardly piled here, with blurry flesh and blood on the incisions. Each piece of the body also had some small or large blood holes, not many, but they were particularly conspicuous.

Blood flowed from the compartments along the steps, snaking its way across the floor tiles in all directions.

According to the hospital staff, this restroom had been under maintenance for the past three days, with warning signs at the entrance, preventing anyone from entering. Those on the same floor had been using the restroom at the other end of the corridor these past few days. People were coming and going, and no one initially noticed the problem inside.

It wasn't until today, when someone passing by glanced inside, that they subconsciously noticed traces resembling flowing water in the compartment, illuminated by the light from the corridor. They thought there was a problem with the sewer and casually reminded the nurse on duty at the nursing station.

As a result, when the nurse came over and turned on the light to take a look, she was almost scared out of her wits and still looked dazed and choked up until now, resting in the emergency room.

"How on earth could that savage creature have killed so many individuals in there? And for that matter, how is it possible for there to be silence when dismembering a body, when are bones supposedly easy to cut through?" Some of the individuals who were halted at the door had witnessed or heard about the scene before the police arrived, and as they finally regained their composure, they couldn't resist discussing it.

"Moreover, this is a hospital; there's an inpatient ward in this building, and an emergency room below. People are constantly coming and going. How could someone have the audacity to cause trouble here, not fearing they would be apprehended?"

"I suspect the bodies were dismembered elsewhere and then brought here to dispose of."

 

The buzzing outside never stopped. Jiang Haoran and another colleague, Lao Chen (NT: old Chen), shook their heads in dismay as they tightened their gloves and squatted down to carefully examine the situation of the body parts. "Everything else is fine, but the most peculiar thing is the smell of the blood. Despite so much blood flowing out, there's hardly any scent of blood. The grassy and earthy smells from the rain outside are stronger than the blood smell. How could it make passersby think it was a leaky pipe..."

"Xiao Xie, are you still not feeling well? Want to go get some water?" Lao Chen, who looked like he was older than Xie Bai, cared about the young man's psychological state. Seeing Xie Bai frowning and still not moving, he thought he was feeling really uncomfortable and wanted to let him step outside for some fresh air.

But in reality, the reason Xie Bai was frowning was because he noticed that all these body parts had demon marks on them.

Demon marks were the identity marks of demons throughout history, and they were also symbols of status.

Newly formed demons have little ability and their demon marks were more obvious, not easy to hide, especially in the eyes of people like Xie Bai, they were bright and conspicuous, visible from afar, impossible to ignore.

But as their abilities grew, the demon marks gradually faded, not dim and lifeless, but blend more naturally with the skin, extremely close to the natural skin color. They became easier to conceal, and for some very powerful demons, when disguising themselves as humans, even Xie Bai might not notice their demon marks with just a moment's distraction.

After scanning back and forth, Xie Bai noticed that there were three different types of demon marks on these scattered body parts.

This meant that these visually gruesome body parts did not come from ordinary humans, but from three demons, and they were three powerful demons. Because these demon marks were faintly visible in the already stiff and gray decaying skin.

Xie Bai tightened his double-layered gloves and squatted down, picking up the nearest two body parts and carefully examining the edges of the incisions.

"These incisions..." Jiang Haoran and Lao Chen were obviously doing the same thing. They had already examined most of the body parts, and their faces were a little green.

"They're not from a knife, nor from a saw," Lao Chen hesitated for a while, swallowed his saliva, looked up at Jiang Haoran and Xie Bai with an indescribable expression, and said, "Why do I feel like it's something like a spiked rake."

 

As he spoke, he gestured with his hands bent: "It's like this, there are several parallel claw-shaped wounds with each strike. After thinking about it, I can only think of a spiked rake."

Jiang Haoran adjusted his mask and muttered, "But a spiked rake wouldn't cut so cleanly."

"Yeah, when you rake, there would be tissue adhesion in the middle, not like this," Lao Chen said.

The two remained silent for a while and didn't immediately come up with any more fitting conclusions for the scene. Finally, they shook their heads and said, "It's really damn bizarre. Let's collect what needs to be collected first, then send it back to the center for a detailed analysis of the wounds."

Xie Bai, who was standing nearby, simply responded with a few "uhm-huh"s and didn't offer any particularly insightful opinions. Everything he did seemed like that of a newcomer who had just participated in a real case.

But in reality, after looking at the two body parts, he already had an idea in his mind—

Lao Chen's analysis just now was actually half correct. Those incisions were indeed parallel claw-shaped wounds, one after another, with the texture running vertically downward and the force inward. Normally, it was very easy for people to associate them with a spiked rake-like weapon, because ordinary people wouldn't think that bones and flesh could be torn apart by hand alone.

Xie Bai stood up, thinking that after the body parts were transported back to the forensic center, he would distract the others and quickly examine and dispose of these several tragically brutalized demon corpses. Just then, a familiar voice came from outside the restroom door: "You just got a call, right? Oh right, just like what was said on the phone, this case has been transferred to our side. It's hard work, hard work. Are there forensic doctors inside examining the bodies? Let's go in and discuss the situation."

Whose voice was that if not Li Dong's?

"Yeah, a few of our forensic center staff rushed over overnight. They're still busy inside. I'll go call them out and discuss the situation with you." Someone responded like this to Li Dong's inquiry, and from the sound of it, they were about to come in through the door.

"Mm." Someone responded nonchalantly, neither too light nor too heavy.

Even if only a single syllable was drowned out in a pile of voices and was extremely indistinct, Xie Bai could still accurately distinguish it—it was Yin Wushu.

Having not met someone face-to-face in over a hundred years, and suddenly having to meet twice in one night, wasn't this change a bit too sudden?

 

Translator : DarNan