Chapter 338: Weird! Weird! Weird

‘Ghost Knocks on the Door…’

Xu Huo recalled the name the system had given this case, then fell silent.

The name itself was eerie.

“Alright, I’ll go take a look. You all carry on.”

With that, Xu Huo lifted the flap blocking the cold wind and stepped out of the shelter.

He walked out onto the building’s front steps.

The police officers on guard were about to question him, but they looked up and recognized Xu Huo’s familiar face. They said nothing and let him pass.

The moment he stepped into the building, Xu Huo paused, sniffing the air.

‘Love Nose!’

The next second, a chaotic jumble of scents was drawn into his nostrils and pulled deep into his lungs.

The scents were a complex mix, coming from men and women, old and young. Each one revealed a specific physical and psychological state.

‘The bitter scent of an overworked wage slave…’

‘The sweet scent of a child on holiday…’

‘A faint, spicy scent…’

After identifying several different scents, Xu Huo finally opened his eyes and continued walking.

Unfortunately, there were no suspicious scents, but that was to be expected.

Xu Huo decided to head directly to the crime scene.

However, he didn’t take the elevator. He took the stairs, just in case he might miss a clue.

He found no clues all the way up to the fifth floor, standing before the door to Apartment 502, the unit Zhang Min was renting.

Outside Apartment 502, police officers were crouching on the ground, meticulously searching for something and picking up stray hairs with tweezers.

Inside the apartment, however, were a few familiar faces.

“Hm? Group Leader Xu?”

Sun Jian’s massive, tower-like frame twisted around. He paused when he saw Xu Huo, and then his eyes lit up.

“Are you in charge of this case?”

“Not officially. I had some free time and thought I’d take a look, maybe make a little on the side.”

Xu Huo said casually.

Zhang Liang and Zhao Gang glanced back at him and nodded in acknowledgment before turning away again, their faces etched with deep, serious thought.

“What’s the status on the case?”

Xu Huo asked, his eyes scanning the people in the living room before landing on Zhang Liang.

“It’s bizarre. Utterly bizarre. Even for the Special Fifth Bureau, cases like this are rare!”

Zhao Gang said, shaking his head and clicking his tongue in amazement.

“The Capital City police have never heard of anything like it,” Sun Jian added in a low voice, shaking his head.

“What’s the story?”

Xu Huo asked, raising an eyebrow.

The three men paused, thinking for a moment to find the best place to start.

“Come to the bedroom first. Look at the deceased.”

Xu Huo nodded and walked into the bedroom.

The bedroom was spartan, with nothing out of place. An air conditioner lay dismantled on the floor.

CLICK!

Sun Jian got to work. With his two hands, he took apart the air conditioner’s casing as easily as if it were building blocks, revealing the emaciated corpse inside.

“The victim’s name is Wang Wei. He was twenty-six years old, five feet eight inches tall, and weighed… sixty-three pounds.”

“The inside of the air conditioner was hollowed out, and the casing was specially modified to accommodate him.”

“And according to the police’s estimate, he was inside the air conditioner for at least seven days. Today would be the eighth…”

Zhang Liang paused, his expression turning grave.

“He hid inside that air conditioner eight days ago!”

“And in all that time, he never came out. He didn’t eat. He didn’t drink. He…”

“Starved himself to death.”

Hearing this, Xu Huo furrowed his brow.

The inside of the air conditioner had been hollowed out. With a few modifications to support the weight, a sixty-three-pound bag of bones could certainly be stuffed inside.

But…

To intentionally starve himself to death!?

Honestly, that process would be painful and agonizing, especially without any water.

The body’s self-preservation instincts would destroy a person’s willpower, relentlessly urging them to eat and drink.

Usually, people who die from hunger strikes just stop eating. After all, with no food comes no energy. Without energy, the survival instinct can scream all it wants, but the body is powerless to obey.

“Were there any signs of a third party at the scene?”

Xu Huo thought for a moment, then turned to Zhang Liang.

Zhang Liang said nothing, simply handing Xu Huo a small spray bottle.

Xu Huo paused, took a step back, and then began spraying the contents of the bottle over the air conditioner, the bedroom floor, and even the doorknob and windows.

Nothing appeared.

“No traces of blood. The deceased made no calls for help of any kind. There are no signs of a struggle. Our preliminary conclusion is that no third party was involved.”

Zhang Liang shook his head.

What Xu Huo had sprayed was a Luminol reagent.

It can reveal any trace of blood, even if it’s been there for three or four years. One spray is all it takes to make it visible.

Of course, if someone had already tried to clean it in a specific way, a different method would be needed to get a reaction.

But nothing about the scene suggested it had been cleaned or tampered with.

“So, this person…”

“Committed suicide.”

“Suicide?”

Xu Huo’s brow furrowed.

“That’s right. It’s a suicide, but it’s also not a suicide. We suspect the killer used some method to coerce him, leading to his death.”

Zhang Liang nodded, then signaled for a few officers to lift the deceased out of the casing.

CRACK!!!

The air conditioner’s casing was fully removed.

The figure inside, a skeleton draped in a thin layer of skin, was now fully visible.

Wang Wei’s appearance was horrifying. Based on the information at the scene, they could piece together some details about his life and the time of his death.

“He died three days ago. The weather was cold, and because Zhang Min moved in on the second day after his death, the smell hadn’t started to develop. No one knew—not her, not the landlord, not the neighbors.”

“He wasn’t discovered until last night.”

“Before the body was found, the residents of Building A had been speculating that he was still in the apartment, just hiding somewhere he couldn’t be found.”

“And as it turns out, they were right. The reason the residents were able to guess that…”

As he spoke, Zhang Liang paused and pulled out a journal.