Before the the cops arrived in large quantities, Director Zhou and others had to stay away. Then they appeared one after another pretending to have arrived after getting the message so as to avoid any possible risk. Of course, they were trying to hide from those audiences; compared to audiences, the experiencers were somehow hiding in the shadows, which was one of their major advantages.
After Su Bai had explained, Director Zhou and the others no longer insisted that it was a strike-back from audiences. If it was the audiences’ action, they wouldn’t stop after just one person; they were apparently another five-men group, so if they had found the group of experiencers, a massive war would be more likely, instead of sneaking around.
Of course, there were many kinds of scenarios and possibilities.
Thanks to that dead cop girl, Su Bai was still on leave, so he stayed in the hospital. He bought some breakfast in the morning and shared it with Wang Hongsheng.
“Which one of you killed that cop girl?”
Suddenly, Su Bai asked.
Wang Hongsheng was drinking soybean milk; hearing this, he suddenly couldn’t swallow any more soybean milk because it was very impressive when Su Bai had analyzed the killer based on the semen left on the body and the cut on the neck, which was the classic M.O. of Silver serial murders. Thinking of the victim, he couldn’t help but recall that.
Sure, the worst of all was Su Bai’s calm look at that time; it was creepy. Wang Hongsheng was screaming in his mind: “This bastard must be a freaking psychopath”.
However, what Wang Hongsheng didn’t know was that Su Bai already had mental issues before he came into the story worlds or even met the Dreadful Radio.
“I have no idea.” Wang Hongsheng answered.
“Hmm?” Su Bai frowned. What did he mean by that?
“Fat Dong was in charge of catching her. But he wasn’t the one who killed her.” Wang Hongsheng tried to recall the whole thing.
“Could it be you?” Su Bai asked.
“No, that’s for sure.”
“So it’s gonna be Fat Dong or… Director Zhou.”
If Wang Hongsheng was telling the truth that he didn’t kill the girl, then the only possible killer would be either Fat Dong or Director Zhou, since Sun Fei and Nona couldn’t ejaculate semen.
“Is there anything wrong?” Wang Hongsheng was a little confused by Su Bai’s question. Or he was just unwilling to think that possibility.
“No, nothing. By the way, can you check out this afternoon? I’ve got something to do, so I won’t be able to stay with you.” Su Bai said.
“Ha, so you’re here to protect me?”
Su Bai shook his head. “The killer won’t come after you, but I’m worried those audiences might.”
“…………” Wang Hongsheng couldn’t argue with that. Su Bai had noticed that just as he did.
That afternoon, Su Bai helped Wang Hongsheng check out and then escorted him back to the police station. After that, Su Bai started walking around in the police station.
Story backgrounds and the concerning social networks were actually quite complicated, but with a specific aim, all those stuff were just trifles.
Su Bai went to the office of the special investigation team. When he came in, the other cops in the room nodded to him as greetings; he was still a member of this team even though he was now on leave.
He sat on his seat for a while. No one came to assign him any work. Then he walked to the files, looked through, took three files and went out.
With those three files, Su Bai came to the gate of the police station and took a motorcycle taxi. The driver was a man in his early 30s with a stubbly beard. He asked with a strong local accent:
“Where to?”
“The funeral parlor.”
………………
This was the largest funeral parlor in Silver District with most perfect equipments. In this era, most funeral parlors in many places also served as the medical examine department for the local police. In the future, the police would have their own medical examiners, but it required more time.
After seeing his badge, the employee of the funeral parlor led him directly to the mortuary without any further questions. Not far from that, there was a medical examine department.
The medical examiners had finished all the examination and tests before noon and then left, so Su Bai met no one here in the afternoon.
The employee asked Su Bai if he would be scared without a companion. Seeing Su Bai shaking his head, the employee left.
Su Bai stood in the mortuary. The place was freezing cold, but that was not only because of the ice lockers. The mortuary could always make people feel cold, even on such a scorching summer day.
Perhaps that was the best explanation of “feeling cool as long as you keep calm”.
There were complete autopsy reports in the files, but they were merely photos and were of low resolution because of the poor technology of this time. Su Bai needed to confirm something personally from the dead bodies.
Su Bai pulled out the first ice locker; it was the cop girl named Melody, “his” girlfriend.
Now she was wearing nothing except a piece of white cloth over her body. After all, she was a special “lodger” in the mortuary and wouldn’t be sent to cremation for the moment, so she wouldn’t need any clothes; otherwise, the medical examiner would have to take her clothes off again if he needed to run more tests.
The body was put in the ice locker for better preservation, but just as fruits in the refrigerator, it would change after some time. For example, her eyes were now half open, as if she was sneakingly peeping at Su Bai.
Su Bai didn’t chat with the dead girl; that was what Liu Yang would do, but now it was Su Bai in this body.
He just put on a pair of white gloves and started examine the body’s neck.
The wound on her neck was delicate.
Yes, delicate.
So delicate that it was… kind of absurd, as if it was not a murder but a piece of art.
Su Bai himself was a psychopath, so he could notice it quickly, or even feel the killer’s emotion as if he had experienced that himself:
Satisfied, proud, and self-perfecting.
It was an enjoyable killing process; after all, only a murderer with such an attitude could produce such a delicate artwork like that.
Su Bai looked through the files in his hands. There were photos of the victims of Silver serial murders in the past few years; the photos were not very clear, but there were close-up shots of the wounds.
He put the pictures of wounds next to the female body’s neck, then started comparing.
After a while, he nodded while deeply pondering about something.
Then he stretched out his hand and swept over the dead girl’s eyes to make her “rest in peace” with her eyes closed and pushed her back into the ice locker.
Next, Su Bai pulled out the body of Miss Deng, made the same examination and pushed her back as well.
And at last, he pulled out Nona.
Nona was much younger than Su Bai had expected. She appeared to be an ordinary newbie who had just gotten enrolled in the police system. The marks on her body were the freshest because she was here for less then one day.
This was an experiencer— the first dead experiencer.
Nona……
Wang Hongsheng had once said that all the other four guys were in illegal business, which meant these experiencers were tough; at least they were not easily controlled.
Nona was killed by the stairs and her body was hidden behind the door; it was not found until Sun Fei went to use the telephone and found the blood.
The death time marked on the autopsy report wasn’t very accurate because for the time being there was on way to narrow it down to minute.
Fat Dong had said that it could be a payback from the audiences, but Su Bai couldn’t agree with that. Those audiences despised experiencers so deeply that it would be impossible for them to kill experiencers one by one; it would take forever.
Besides, how could they know Nona’s identity and that she would visit Wang Hongsheng in the hospital after midnight?
That made no sense.
If those audiences had such capability and insight, they wouldn’t have to make a splash so as to lure experiencers into the light by themselves.
Su Bai put his hands around Nona’s neck, following the direction and angle of that wound, and then started observing and thinking. Next, he put his hands around his own neck.
His neck was cut by that killer; although his wound had healed due to his unique physique, he still remembered the feeling when the blade had slit his throat.
He put his left hand on his neck and his right hand on Nona’s wound, then slid both hand at the same time. Suddenly, Su Bai’s eyes lit up.
Just as his scenario!!!
However…
…just at this moment…
Nona... on the stretcher of the ice locker…
…slowly opened her eyes!