Chapter 232 - 155: I Know! Baihan Clubhouse

This was bad news. The good news was...

When you kill a lot of people, you pick up a kind of "informational scent," an indescribable odor that clings to you.

You could call it the reek of blood, or just a foul stench. Some might even call it a "killing intent" or an "aura of malice."

"Find those kids."

Xu Huo took a deep breath and continued,

"They might know something."

Zhang Liang looked at Zhao Gang. "You handle it."

Zhao Gang sighed, bundled up his clothes, then opened the car door and stepped out into the wind and snow.

The snow had lightened up considerably tonight.

It was finer than a drizzle, but the temperature was so low that it felt like tiny pebbles hitting your face.

Finding a few homeless people wasn’t hard.

By this time, the Capital City had already processed the homeless according to regulations.

But the number of homeless people wasn’t fixed; more would slowly appear over time.

Even if you processed one batch, it wouldn’t be long before a second one showed up.

"Any theories?"

Li Jianye asked idly from the back seat.

"Theories?"

"A few. The killer probably works somewhere with a poor environment."

"And that environment is what’s caused him to pick up a very stuffy, foul odor. Even after two days, you can still smell it."

Xu Huo said casually.

He had theories, but they weren’t very useful yet. The current information was too scattered, lacking a key piece to tie it all together.

"And Lin Miao, at some point, took a side job for money."

"Something happened after that, which led the killer to target her younger sister, Lin Miao."

Zhang Liang said thoughtfully.

"Why?"

"Why kill Lin Miao?"

"Who knows? We haven’t even identified the killer yet..."

Xu Huo shook his head.

Human skin doesn’t have many uses. From a normal person’s perspective, it’s just a piece of flesh, useful for skin grafts at most.

But in the eyes of a madman...

...the uses for human skin are endless.

"Have you checked all the nearby hospitals?"

Xu Huo suddenly asked.

"We checked them all, just like you said. Nothing."

Zhang Liang sighed.

"The Capital City’s management of hospitals and doctors is very strict, completely different from the hospitals in remote villages."

"There’s no such thing as missing drugs going unrecorded. Every single vial has to be accounted for in person."

"Right now, personnel from the Special Fifth Bureau have investigated all hospitals within a twenty-kilometer radius of the victim’s location and found no leads."

Why check the hospitals?

Two reasons.

First, the precision and skill of the killer’s skinning technique.

The medical profession is a perfect fit.

Doctors can be life-saving angels, but they can also be demons who dissect the human body with precision.

Second, anesthetics!

The moment Xu Huo saw the words "skinned alive" in the medical examiner’s report, he immediately realized something.

Why?

Because the skin was too perfect. The skinning started from the center of the back, yet there was no sign of the skin being torn at the starting point.

When someone is skinned alive, it’s done either while they are conscious or unconscious.

It’s impossible to achieve this result if the victim is conscious. Even if the victim, Lin Miao, had been cooperating, it couldn’t be done.

The human body has muscle reflexes, a biological consciousness.

It’s like the patellar reflex. When a knife cuts you, it’s bound to hurt. The moment there’s pain, you’ll twitch involuntarily. And once you twitch, it’s impossible for the skinning process to be flawless.

Consciousness can’t suppress it. As long as the victim is lucid, this is impossible.

A painter can create a stunning masterpiece on a canvas.

But they can’t do it on the back of a trotting horse.

So, that only leaves the option of the victim being unconscious.

"The prerequisite is physical unconsciousness, not mental. Otherwise, the ’patellar reflex’ would still be present."

"But, the drugs required for physical unconsciousness..."

Xu Huo fell into deep thought.

’He must have used drugs!’

’It’s a 100% certainty. Otherwise, there’d be no difference between mental unconsciousness and being fully awake.’

’You have to understand, biological consciousness takes precedence over subjective consciousness. Being unconscious or awake doesn’t affect the reflex when a little hammer hits your knee.’

’It has to be an anesthetic!’

’An anesthetic that acts on the muscles, on the body itself!’

"Those drugs are strictly controlled."

"You should know the level of control for some of these drugs. If any go missing, it will definitely be discovered."

Zhang Liang explained again.

"Unless he used the anesthetics through legitimate channels. But that’s... impossible."

Li Jianye and Xu Huo fell silent.

Most people have no concept of how tightly anesthetics are controlled.

Some might think, ’Anesthetics? They’re on the same level as a scalpel. How strict could the controls be?’

Very high.

Frighteningly high.

Let’s not even talk about how many heinous crimes could be committed if this stuff got out.

Just one of their more shocking properties is enough to understand.

Some anesthetics can be...

Addictive.

That’s right, addictive!

Once you mention addiction, you don’t need to say much more for people to understand the gravity of the problem.

For example, a very common drug like painkillers is addictive.

Not many in the Eastern Country, but the Western Bald Eagle has a significant portion of its population addicted to popping painkillers. In my past life, back in ’15 alone, the official number reached two million people!

But in the Eastern Country, if you were to buy a large quantity of painkillers all at once...

...you’d likely trigger a personal visit from the authorities for a "chat," and maybe a complimentary physical exam while they’re at it.

This is no joke.

In the Eastern Country, the management of addictive substances...

...is, no joke, the strictest in the entire world.

"So, there’s no way the perpetrator could have gotten the drugs from official channels."

Zhang Liang paused, then added,

"Unless... he’s a chemical engineer himself."