Chapter 251 159: Arrest! Big Fish

Xu Huo then walked out of the main hall and went to the side bedroom next door.

This was the old monk's bedroom. Inside were hanging scrolls of calligraphy and paintings, along with some strange portraits. The portraits depicted green-faced, fanged Buddhas, and this... this was a...

Thangka. An ordinary Thangka.

"It's him, no doubt about it. Have you found the production site yet?"

Xu Huo turned his head and looked at the bed to the side.

An old monk lay on the bed.

He was emaciated, his face a mass of wrinkles, resembling a withered twig.

He lay there, completely still, waiting for Xu Huo and the others to process him.

"It's been too short a time. We've conducted a grid search of Rong Garden, but we're not done yet."

"The location is still unknown."

"The only thing we can confirm is that the five murderers have been to Rong Garden more than once, though we don't know the specifics of their dealings."

"Our initial theory is that the Taoist temple is the final node in the production chain."

"We're currently investigating the supply chain and trying to determine who's really in charge of this monastery."

The head of the special police task force began exchanging information.

Thangkas are very difficult to paint.

The five murderers couldn't have done it alone; moreover, they lack the artistic skill.

Therefore, there must be others within the monastery acting as accomplices!

But Xu Huo wasn't concerned with them. He had only two objectives.

One, the location. And two, the real killer!

"Three hours. Just give us another three hours!"

The head of the special police task force wore an extremely serious expression.

"This is a joint investigation between the Special Fifth Bureau, National Security, and the local police. We have high-level clearance and abundant resources."

"Wait another three hours, and we'll be able to dig up everything on them!"

The supply chain was built on people.

To profit from 'antiques' like Human Skin Thangkas, you would need even more people.

First, there's the forgery at the monastery. Then there's the aging process—the low-level production side of things.

Then, there's the mastermind, who needs to contact museums, find appraisers, forge documents, and orchestrate the whole scheme.

These people... they're all leads!

If we can find just one of them, we can haul them all in like fish in a net!

For now, we've identified the monastery. By following the trail up, we can definitely root them all out!

"Good. Be sure to notify me then."

Xu Huo nodded.

'This part of the investigation doesn't require intelligence, just resources. It has little to do with me.'

As for the matter at hand...

He needed to find the production site!

"There's a cellar in the Taoist temple, but we found nothing unusual there."

"Our grid search of Rong Garden didn't turn up a second hideout, nor did we find anything else related to the case."

"To save time, we're preparing to start interrogating the monks."

Having gotten up to speed on the situation, Li Jianye leaned in and whispered to Xu Huo.

There were many monks. The ones in the main hall were just a fraction; the rest were being questioned.

If they could find just one who was involved in the case, they could save a huge amount of time on the search!

"No leads in Rong Garden or inside the Taoist temple?" Xu Huo paused, looking at Li Jianye.

"None."

"What about the mountain?"

Xu Huo shifted his gaze to his surroundings.

The snow in the Capital City had stopped. Outside, the sky was clear and vast, the air only slightly thin.

Outside the Taoist temple was a mountain. It wasn't huge, but it was a mountain all the same, and a person felt incredibly small before it.

"There's a high probability it's on the mountain. We've already dispatched a search party."

"But the search is proving difficult. We estimate it will take at least twenty-four hours."

Li Jianye replied.

They had started searching the mountain right away.

But it couldn't be helped. Searching for something specific or even using police dogs to find a person on a mountain was no simple task.

'Twenty-four hours...'

Xu Huo paused. He sniffed the air, trying to get a sense of things.

A moment later, he opened his eyes. He could sense the direction where the incredibly faint scent had vanished, his gaze fixed on the snow-covered mountain in the distance.

"Midway up the mountainside, in the four o'clock direction."

Xu Huo said.

A flash of surprise crossed Zhang Liang's face, but he still took out his walkie-talkie and relayed the order.

Before long, a black speck, smaller than a grain of sand from Xu Huo's perspective, began to move slowly toward the destination.

Roughly forty minutes later...

"We found it!"

An excited voice crackled over the walkie-talkie, echoing in everyone's ears.

'They actually found it!'

Zhang Liang froze, the corner of his eye twitching. He stared at Xu Huo, unable for the life of him to figure out how the man had done it.

Without offering an explanation or even a second glance, Xu Huo strode off toward the location.

"Let's go."

In truth, there was one key difference between him and a police dog.

The dogs couldn't speak, and they weren't intelligent enough.

For a police dog, when a scent trail went cold, it was truly gone. The dog would just search in circles around the last known point.

But for him, he could use the direction in which the scent disappeared, combined with the environmental requirements of the target's destination, to deduce the location.

If a police dog could report that information to the police, they could naturally reach the same conclusion.

But... a police dog can't talk.

The police could only guess based on the dog's reactions.

But they weren't the dogs, after all. They couldn't perceive the scent themselves and thus couldn't make a truly precise judgment.

But Xu Huo could.

Fifteen minutes later, he arrived at the snow-covered mountainside.

"There's a cave here. The entrance is small; two people at most could fit through."

"It was camouflaged and concealed, and the snowfall hid it even further, making it indistinguishable from the surrounding rock face."

The Police Officer reported, his face filled with deep regret.

"Our team searched this area earlier but didn't bring a dog, so they missed it. As soon as the K-9 unit got close, they locked onto the residual scent!"