Chapter 360: Retrieving the Corpse, the Price of Truth

After a long while.

A body, long soaked in cold water, was finally pulled ashore.

It was already bloated from its time in the water, the corpse resembling an inflated slab of pork.

It was like a sponge; if you reached out and gave it a light squeeze, the waterlogged flesh looked like it would ooze liquid.

Xu Huo had someone confirm the identity one more time.

After making sure there were no mistakes.

He took one last look at the fire-ravaged ruins of what was once Zhang Jiayu’s home.

A moment later.

“Let’s pack it in…”

Xu Huo fell silent for a moment, then said:

“Pack it in.”

…

…

The whole case was a fiasco.

Before this, no one in the entire police department would have dared to suggest the killer was a mental construct, existing only in someone’s head!

Perhaps it was a hallucination… or perhaps, it was truly a ghost.

But regardless, their suspect wasn’t a living person, yet the police had pursued the case as if they were.

They had no choice.

One death might be considered an accident.

But with two dead, one missing, and one driven mad…

The heavy toll made it incredibly difficult for the police to believe that the recent events were all triggered by a mere hallucination!

Of course, this didn’t mean the police had come away empty-handed.

First, an undiscovered crime from six years ago had finally come to light. The name of the wronged deceased was cleared, and the true culprits were arrested.

At the same time,

there was the issue of the laughing gas.

“We got a message from the narcotics division.”

“They’re conducting a city-wide sweep. KTVs, private clubs, bars, hotels—all those places are being searched around the clock, in three shifts.”

「3:30 PM.」

Zhang Liang returned to the office for a drink of water, just in time to overhear the conversation.

“What’s going on?”

Zhang Liang walked into the office, cup in hand, the sound of his leather shoes sharp and clear. He looked around quizzically.

“It’s about the laughing gas,”

Li Jianye explained, turning around when he heard the voice.

If that’s still hard to understand, then…

…think of paraquat. It was a very effective herbicide, but it ended up being banned simply because people kept drinking it to commit suicide.

When so many people died from drinking it, were the manufacturers held responsible?

No. And it was the same for nitrous oxide.

“The current situation is that a few of the ringleaders have been caught and can be sentenced. As for the others, the police are pulling all-nighters, combing through existing laws. If there’s no applicable statute, it’s highly likely a new one will be created.”

Sun Jian was relaying information from the Capital City.

So, the future wasn’t the problem; the problem was the here and now.

“It’s cheap to produce. Even if we shut down one operation today, another will pop up in a couple of days. Until the law is updated, it’s a malignant tumor we can’t kill,”

Sun Jian said, offering his assessment.

“We’ll take it one step at a time.”

Li Jianye nodded, tidying the files in his hands.

Thanks to some careful prodding of Shen Fei, combined with the video evidence and the chain of reasoning, this case was more or less closed.

He was compiling the reasoning process and the chain of evidence for the case, which would then be submitted to the prosecutor’s office.

As for the sentencing…

Shen Fei wouldn’t live long in his current state. He’d probably be dead before a verdict could even be reached.

And as for the only real victim in this whole mess, he was the victim of an entirely different case…

Xu Huo rose from his chair and walked over.

“Zhang Jiayu, male…”

His eyes fell on the file in Li Jianye’s hands.

After two days of investigation, they had pulled Zhang Jiayu’s records from his school and other sources, piecing together the story of his life.

“He was an orphan. His mother left his father when he was young, and his father drank himself to death. He was raised by his Grandpa, his only family.”

“When it was time for him to go to school, his Grandpa went door to door, borrowing food and money just to pay for his education.”

“His grades were excellent…”

It was a strange thing; when faced with immense pressure at home, a child tends to go one of two ways—their grades are either terrible, or they’re outstanding.

Xu Huo wasn’t surprised by the man’s academic performance.

He read on.

“His grades were good enough to get into high school, which was a big deal back then. But even though he qualified, he enrolled in a vocational school instead.”

“He studied at the vocational school, got a job in a kitchen after graduating, and then quit after saving up some money. Within two years, he had built one of the most reputable restaurants in Jiangsan City.”

“The day he died was his wedding day.”

“The bride was his… well, to use the term you young people like, she was his childhood sweetheart.”

“He chose to get married here because her family lived here, and he also wanted to repay the kindness his old neighbors had shown him.”

“Unfortunately, that very night, Wang Wei and his accomplices broke into their home, leading to the tragedy.”

Li Jianye slowly finished explaining the whole story to the others in the room.

He paused, then added a correction.

“No, that’s not right. It wasn’t one tragedy. It was two.”

Does it seem confusing that he would choose a vocational school when his grades were good enough for high school?

Not really.

Considering the timeline, this was over a decade ago. Back then, graduating from a vocational school came with a guaranteed job placement from the government.

Unlike the academic rat race of today, a vocational school diploma was a hot commodity. Some people didn’t even consider university and aimed specifically for vocational training.

“So, we’ve filled in his life story and all that.”

“It’s a shame we don’t know the full details of how he died.”

Li Jianye glanced at the desk, where the murder weapon—a blood-stained butcher’s knife—lay inside a sealed evidence bag.

The medical examiner had run another report.

The tissue and blood found in the burial mound belonged to the same person.

Zhang Jiayu… was well and truly dead.

“The only thing we can be sure of,”

“is that after the murder, Wang Wei staged the scene to look like a fire to cover his escape, and he made off with a large sum of money.”

“We’re certain about that much. We can’t know any more specifics.”

After the explanation was complete,

the room fell silent.

A man who died six years ago.

Six years later, he had killed three of his own murderers and driven the fourth insane.

It was hard to believe a case like this could even exist.

“Newly married, childhood sweetheart, a success at a young age…”

Zhang Liang remarked, clicking his tongue in amazement.

Those were some of the best moments life had to offer.

His childhood sweetheart was his first love and his first wife. He was a famous millionaire business owner while still young.

And this was millions back in the 90s…

What a pity.

With the eruption of a raging fire,

everything was sealed away behind that door, the one with the ” wedding character pasted on it.

Only Wang Wei and his three cronies knew the truth.

But now three were dead, and one was a madman…

The police could rack their brains forever and never find out what happened.

It wasn’t a matter of willingness; it was a matter of impossibility!

It was like trying to prove that 1+1=3. If you could do it, you’d upend the foundations of science, a feat of immense value to humanity and even the entire universe.

So why don’t you go and prove it?

Because it’s utterly impossible.

It was the same for the police.

Not a single person in the room was saying they didn’t want to investigate or that they were sick of it.

They wanted to, but impossible was impossible.

Even if they packed the entire ruin with people, assigning each person to search a single square centimeter, they still wouldn’t find anything.

After the fire, six years had been more than enough time to destroy every last clue.

“So, that’s where the case stands for now.”

“If there are no objections, I’m going to submit the file.”

Li Jianye suddenly broke the silence.

Submitting the file to the prosecutor’s office was the next step, followed by the court proceedings.

“Wait.”

Suddenly, Xu Huo spoke up, stopping him.

“What is it?”

Li Jianye asked, confused.

“Don’t submit the file on the arson case from six years ago just yet.”

Xu Huo took a deep breath, paused for a moment, and said:

“I’m going to try and find another way.”

Li Jianye paused, then nodded without a word of dissuasion.

“Alright.”

He left the one file behind, placing it in an office drawer before leaving with the file for the current case.

After a while, the workday came to an end.

One by one, the people in the station trickled out and went home.

Xu Huo left as well.

He went home, spent some time comforting his family, then washed up and got ready for bed.

…

…

「January 9th, 10:30 PM.」

Xu Huo took a deep breath as he lay in bed, slowly closing his eyes.

‘Everyone else has hit a dead end. In the physical world, there’s no evidence left to uncover the truth of what happened six years ago.’

‘But I am not everyone else.’

‘I might just be able to do it!’

In the hazy state between waking and sleep, a clear voice echoed through the room.

“Enter the dream.”

As the words were spoken,

Xu Huo’s consciousness began to sink, as if being pulled into an abyss.

In his mind’s eye,

a front door, scorched by fire and still bearing the ” wedding character,

slowly swung open before him, revealing the scene inside…

…

…

PS: It’s the end of the month, anyone have any monthly recommendation tickets? QAQ

My ranking has been dropping like a stone these past couple of days. Any tickets to help keep me in the top 100? QAQ