Chapter 236 - 156: Drastic Escalation! Special Fifth Bureau Overwhelmed! Lock Down the City

Not one corpse, nor two, but...

A full six of them!

They were suspended, their skin completely flayed. Hanging like sides of air-dried meat in the subterranean space, their muscles had withered...

As for the basement...

"The basement is well-outfitted, divided into two distinct areas."

"One for storing the bodies, and one for skinning them."

「The 26th. 2:30 PM.」

Xu Huo stood in the second area of the basement, listening as an exhausted Zhang Liang relayed the information from beside him.

This was the second section of the basement: the skinning area.

It was clean, but the stench of blood was overpowering.

Nearby stood a medical bed, surrounded by various strange contraptions used to restrain and immobilize a person.

Additionally...

Shelves for preparing drugs lined both sides.

"He must have over-reported the dosages, siphoning off the excess to mix anesthetics here."

"Once the anesthetic was injected, a team would work together to flay the person alive."

Zhang Liang said slowly, his eyes taking in the scene.

Can veterinary drugs be used on humans?

Yes. There are three common uses for such drugs.

First, aphrodisiacs—the kind used to make livestock go into heat for breeding. If it works on animals, it naturally works on humans.

Second, tranquilizers, like the anesthetics found here.

Third, certain performance enhancers—steroids and other drugs used on cattle and horses, injected to build muscle.

"So after they removed the skin, they’d wash it here and then dry it?"

Xu Huo paused, his gaze falling on a nearby faucet, clearly meant for washing *something*.

"And..."

"What’s this?"

Xu Huo’s nose twitched. He had rummaged through a corner of the shelves and found a pile of strange items.

He held a tray containing various colored, granular substances.

Blue and red were the most prominent.

’A closer look revealed a small bag of each color in stock. Judging by their condition, they weren’t for personal use here. Were they shipped out, transferred to the real killer?’

’Based on the smell, the killer valued this stuff. It seemed to be treated with as much care as the human skin.’

’So this stuff...’

"Lapis Lazuli, Cinnabar, azurite... mineral-based substances?"

Zhang Liang crushed a few fragments, sniffed them, and a look of surprise crossed his face.

"It’s crushed minerals."

"And some kind of plant extract... is this saffron?"

Zhang Liang frowned, looking at the small bag.

None of this stuff was particularly rare.

Cinnabar and Lapis Lazuli... you could probably buy them at any traditional Chinese medicine shop.

Same with saffron. It was just a matter of money; you certainly didn’t need to break the law to get it.

But...

Then again, knives are commonplace, but they can still be deadly weapons.

No matter how common these items were, the killer had a reason for collecting them.

They had to be inextricably linked to the case!

"Bag it up. Take it upstairs."

Xu Huo pondered for a moment but couldn’t make any sense of it.

’There were too many uses for these minerals.’

’Things like Alchemy. Ancient alchemy used Cinnabar and all sorts of other things, mixed together to create a Poison Pill.’

"And then there was talisman painting."

’In all those old zombie movies, Cinnabar was always the most essential ingredient.’

There were also several dried human skins at the scene, so Zhang Liang had his men take those upstairs as well.

CREAK~

As the door swung open, Xu Huo stood in the entryway, slowly steadying his breath.

The ventilation below was poor, and with six dead bodies... the smell was beyond words.

Even with the blizzard raging outside, the sub-zero wind felt blessedly fresh as Xu Huo breathed it in.

"What’s the status on the bodies?"

Xu Huo asked, turning to Li Jianye, who was already waiting.

"We’ve laid out all the bodies."

"The bodies are all missing parts. That son of a bitch didn’t just take the skin; he took other things, too."

Li Jianye clicked his tongue.

Six black body bags were laid out neatly before him.

ZZZIIIP!

He reached down and unzipped one of the bags, revealing a flayed, bloody corpse.

Its eyes, lidless and staring, had dilated pupils that gazed lifelessly at Xu Huo.

"Her right hand and her Skull Cap are gone."

Li Jianye supported the back of the victim’s head and tilted it up.

A deep cavity was immediately visible.

It was as if the corpse was missing half its head... No, it *was* missing half its head.

The killer had gouged out the Skull Cap after flaying her.

"And the forearm, from the elbow down to the hand."

"All the bodies are missing bones, to varying degrees."

Li Jianye sighed.

The brutality of this case was unprecedented.

To pry open someone’s head and take their Skull Cap...

And not just one.

Six of them!

And that wasn’t all...

"We have no way of estimating how many victims there were before these."

"I hope the police are psychologically prepared for what’s to come."

Li Jianye said to the head of the police task force. The man’s face twisted into a grim smile.

Unbelievably audacious.

No, "audacious" didn’t even begin to cover it.

This was a death wish.

Once this case broke, even if it were only a single body, the police would have thrown everything they had at it, pursuing the killer relentlessly until they were caught.

"The Butcher, the Factory Manager... any leads on those three?"

Xu Huo crouched, his eyes on the corpse as he asked quietly.

Xu Huo had seen Lin Miao’s photo; she was a very pretty girl.

It was clear that her sister, Lin Miao, had been devoted to raising her. Only four years her senior, most of the money she earned as a prostitute went to support the girl’s life.

Whatever other girls had, she had too. If there was something she lacked, Lin Miao would find a way to provide it.

Once the girl was old enough to stay home alone, Lin Miao even stopped taking her to the club.