Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was a brand-new day and the investigations continued step by step.
At 9:15 in the morning, Gao from Forensics arrived in Wu Qing with his group of professionals. Apart from him, the leaders and related staff of the Fu Lai Provincial Department also came.
As soon as the leaders came, the leaders of Wu Qing County were all dispatched to welcome them warmly. The scene was naturally great, and the standards were extravagant.
Of course, Zhao Yu was the most outstanding one in terms of level and popularity.
Zhao Yu had long been accustomed to such displays of face and forced entertainment, immediately joking and mingling around with ease.
After excessive self-praise, the leaders all agreed that they would fully support Zhao Yu’s detective work, and whenever Zhao Yu required anything, they would all agree unconditionally.
Initially, the local leaders had made reservations at the best restaurant in Wu Qing County and had invited Zhao Yu to attend. However, prioritizing his work, Zhao Yu had turned them down.
Seeing how Zhao Yu was working so seriously, the provincial leaders dared not act rashly and settled for bento boxes [1] for lunch.
Of course, Zhao Yu was not doing this just for show. He was doing this because it was the most critical time to solve the case, and he figured it was best not to leave the scene of the crime.
He had personally invited Gao from Forensics and all the others to the location of the Seven Stars Hanging Coffins and had told them all of the previously discovered details, no matter how important they might have been.
After the experts finished listening, all of them began to frown. None of them had seen such a strange phenomenon.
After they went over to the cliff and saw the corpses in the hanging coffins, it was even more unimaginable.
Finally, after several hours of careful research and discussion, the expert team finally suggested that all the corpses should be removed and sent to the local criminal police team for anatomical tests.
It turned out that the bodies inside the hanging coffins had already begun to show signs of rotting.
Gao Facai said that because the hanging coffins were frequently opened and the bodies were touched, a large amount of air had entered, and the oxidation of the bodies was inevitable.
Therefore, it was not necessary to leave the bodies in the hanging coffins anymore. It was better to use the time at hand to perform an autopsy, find out the identities of the deceased and their causes of death, and strive to solve the case as soon as possible.
Zhao Yu, of course, agreed with what Gao Facai suggested. He immediately deployed the necessary manpower and resumed working to remove the bodies.
Among the team of experts, some of them had already begun to collect samples and search for clues from the Seven Star Hanging Coffins.
At 5:00pm, before the sky turned dark, all the corpses had been transferred. Both Gao Facai and Zhang Peipei had returned to the Interpol Brigade in Wu Qing County, where they performed professional and detailed dissections.
At that moment, people that Zhao Yu had assigned with tasks also returned.
The first were Wu Xiumin and Cui Lizhu. They returned with detailed information about Geng Yaai, but details about Geng Yaai’s disappearance and possible car accident had yet to be found.
It turned out that Geng Yaai’s family lived in a mountainous area. Her family was poor, and she had been raised by a single parent. Because of this, her mother had asked her to do farm work at home. But Geng Yaai did not want to drop out of school, so she argued with her mother and left home late at night.
Wu Xiumin said that the highways near Geng Yaai’s house were all blind spots for the CCTV, and there was no way for her to be seen.
If Geng Yaai had indeed had an accident that night, they could only conduct on-site visits and use video surveillance from nearby road sections to figure it out.
As such, they still needed a bit more time to figure out the sequence of events from that night.
Secondly, there was also news from Ran Tao. He had taken the technical team members earlier that day and used a drone to search the entire cliffside, but the results were frustrating. They were unable to find any climbing marks.
“This was interesting…” Zhao Yu thought.
Zhao Yu considered their findings. If the criminals had neither come from the top or the bottom, wouldn’t that mean… that they were really able to fly?
Squinting his eyes at the steep cliff, Zhao Yu wondered about the most important issue at hand. That was how the criminal managed to put the bodies in the hanging coffins.
Judging by the current situation, at least one thing was for sure. The murderer would have been unable to proceed boldly in the day and had chosen a quiet night to carry out his deed.
However, if he had climbed the cliff at night, no matter what method he had used, it would definitely have been more dangerous and difficult than it would be in the day.
Even with the necessary scaffolding, lifts, and other professional equipment, they had not dared to work at night. So, how did the criminals do it? Did he not turn on any lights out of fear of being discovered?
After that, Miao Ying called Zhao Yu to inform him that the five people whose birthdays matched the eight characters had all been investigated.
The results were also disappointing. All five people were not suspicious and were indigenous mountain people. Other than the usual festivities, they would go to the temple and light incense. They were not related to any of the mysterious incidents.
Just in case, Miao Ying not only investigated the actual people but their close relatives as well before she cleared them of suspicion.
It was clear that in order to figure out who the person represented by the eight characters was, just as Zhao Yu had said, they would need to expand the scope of investigation further.
In this case, all three directions they had taken to investigate the case had been a dead-end, and no progress had been made.
The bad luck did not stop there.
Very soon after, Zhao Yu became even more depressed by what happened. Zeng Ke told him that the DNA of the female corpses had been compared with the DNA of the missing people over at the provincial office, but none of them had matched!
Zhao Yu couldn’t believe it. Other than Geng Yaai, they were unable to confirm the identities of the remaining girls, which was a little bit ridiculous.
How could this be possible?
Unless… these six girls were sold by their parents?
Other than that, what else could be the reason?
“Uhm…” Zeng Ke said on the phone. “Leader, I just checked with the forensics department and they said that judging from the physical clues, the deceased were all Chinese girls. It is unlikely they were being smuggled in from Southeast Asia!”
“I know…” Zhao Yu said. “Zeng Ke, if they are not missing people or foreigners, what other possibilities are there?”
“If they are not missing people, then…” Zeng Ke thought about this seriously before saying with uncertainty, “Is there a possibility that they are children of the murderer’s own family?
“Hmm, wait a minute…” Zeng Ke quickly checked their information. “Nope, their DNA data is straightforward. They are all unrelated to each other!”
“Oh…” Zhao Yu said.
Zhao Yu began to think quickly, and several speculations appeared in a flash. Traffickers, organ harvesting, bands of thieves like Tao Xiang and Cheng Lingfei? Or… an evil organization?
“Wait a minute…” Zhao Yu thought.
Suddenly, Zhao Yu thought of an idea.
It turned out that he suddenly remembered something. The strange cause of death of those girls, and the information he had studied last night.
Wrist slitting, car accidents, and heart attacks…
“Oh…” he thought.
As soon as he thought of this, his hair stood on end and he had goosebumps. He shivered in a cold sweat.
“Uhm, leader, what’s the matter…?” Zeng Ke asked after hearing the abnormality in Zhao Yu’s voice.
“Zeng Ke!” Zhao Yu shouted. “Have you heard of folks marrying in the afterlife and performing posthumous marriages? Do you think those female corpses in the hanging coffins… are just dead people?!”
[1]: A bento box is a traditionally packed meal
