Netherworld Investigator

As we spoke, steam kept rising from the stove, until at one point, Shopkeeper Tang stood up and said, "I’m sorry, but it seems that the buns are ready."

"Go ahead." I waved my hand.

While Shopkeeper Tang went to work on his buns, Xiaotao whispered to me, "Was he lying?"

"No," I answered. "Every word he said was the truth."

Shopkeeper Tang placed a dozen buns on a big plate, then sliced some cucumber, cooked a dish of peanuts and prepared a pot of rice wine. He then served them all neatly on the table and asked us, "Would both of you like to join me? I’ll get you two pairs of chopsticks right away."

"No, no, no! We’re good!" We both quickly stopped him.

"Then do you mind if I eat while answering your questions?"

"Please go ahead."

Shopkeeper Tang then proceeded to bite into a bun with relish. He savored the taste in his mouth and took a sip of wine.

"Do you like buns that much, Mr. Tang?" I couldn’t help but ask.

"Yes, I do!" he replied. "My family was very poor when I was a child. The best thing I ever ate back then were the big juicy meat buns in the market. Because of that, I fell in love with the taste of meat buns ever since. Nothing compares to them!"

The man spoke with considerable pride. Then he continued, "Every day, before I sell the buns I make, I have to taste them myself first. I have to make sure if the dough rose high enough, or if the filling was flavorful enough."

After that, he took another big bite of the bun in his hands. I couldn’t keep myself from grimacing as I looked on. After all, these came out of the same pot that the human flesh buns did just yesterday.

"Haven’t you thought of the fact that you must’ve eaten a lot of human flesh buns?" I asked.

Upon hearing this, Shopkeeper Tang stopped chewing and spit out everything.

"Officer! Here I was trying so hard not to think about that! Why did you have to ruin my appetite?"

In truth, I was testing him to see his reaction. It seemed normal.

I felt there was nothing left to ask him, so we excused ourselves. As we were about to leave, Shopkeeper Tang asked us if this case would affect his business.

"No," I reassured him. "You can rest assured that every detail of this case will be kept confidential."

"Then I am relieved. Oh, why don’t you bring back some buns with you and share them with your colleagues?" he offered us enthusiastically.

"No! No, thank you!" We anxiously refused.

When we were outside, Xiaotao looked at her watch and said, "It’s already one o’clock. Let’s find something to eat."

We went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered some side dishes to go with rice. When all the dishes arrived, I noticed that we had unconsciously ordered exclusively vegetarian dishes. The sight of Shopkeeper Tang tucking into those buns probably turned us off from eating meat because it reminded us of the buns we had there yesterday.

"You know, there’s one thing about what Shopkeeper Tang said that’s been bugging me," Xiaotao pointed out during the meal.

"What is it?" I put down my chopsticks.

"Ma Jinhuo is supposed to be obsessed with eating human flesh, and he went to great lengths trying to obtain it. He didn’t eat it himself, but opted to give it to Shopkeeper Tang to turn it into bun filling. Isn’t that a bit weird?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I thought of that

"By the way, you mentioned that when a human being eats human flesh, they’d go crazy. Is that true?"

"Yeah. Have you heard of how the mad cow disease broke out in Britain?"

Xiaotao shook her head.

"At that time, in order to reduce the cost of raising beef cattle, they processed some leftovers from the slaughtered cattle like the bones and hoofs and fed them to the cattle. As a result, the cows that were fed those things developed mad cow disease."

"How do you know so much, Song Yang? Your nose must be buried in books all the time. No wonder you’ve got no girlfriend!"

"Aww, come on!" I groaned. "Why did you have to twist it that way?"

Xiaotao smiled and whispered, "Want me to introduce you to a girl?"

"H-Huh?" I was eating seaweed when I heard this. My face reddened immediately and my mouth opened wide, making the stringy seaweed hang out the corner of my mouth. I must’ve looked like a clown.

"You told me you like girls with long hair, didn’t you? I just met a girl who fits the bill. Want me to introduce her to you?"

"Th-that’s... that’s no longer necessary."

"Huh? You mean you’ve got someone on your mind already?" she inched her face close to mine and stared into my eyes.

I lowered my face and muttered, "Yummy! What a delicious seaweed soup!"

"You idiot!" Xiaotao smiled and hit me playfully.

Just after eating, I received a call from Dali.

"Where have you been, dude?"

"I’m investigating a case."

"Do you need help from me?"

"You can come if you want to." I then told Dali the address of the restaurant.

"Okay, I’ll get out of bed now. I’ll see you there, okay?"

If I was still eating, I would’ve choked on my food. The bastard had just woken up!

When I hung up the phone, I found that Xiaotao had been on the phone too. She told me in a somber tone, "They’ve found the second body..."

"Should we go back to the police station now?" I asked.

"No," she replied decisively. "We’ll go straight to the crime scene."

My equipment was all still at the police station, though. I asked Xiaotao where the crime scene was, then called Dali and asked him to fetch my backpack at the police station and then follow us to the next address.

"Shit, dude. It’s gonna be hectic! But it’s what I signed up for as your assistant, I guess. Can you tell Xiaotao-jiejie to drive slowly, please? I think I’ll need an hour to catch up with you guys."

Despite Dali’s request, Xiaotao and I rushed to the crime scene as fast as we could. The second body was found under an old bridge. Because the water level had dropped in the fal, a large mud field was exposed. Anyone who walked there would leave a distinct set of footprints.

The body was stuffed into a black plastic bag, half of which was exposed above the surface of the water. There was a hole in the plastic bag that revealed a male human head that showed signs of advanced decomposition. The officer who found the body said that it might have drifted here from somewhere else.

Xiaotao looked at the sets of footprints. They were probably all left by the police, but she couldn’t help but ask, "Did you take photos of this spot? Were there any footprints left behind by the criminal?"

"We’ve taken photographs, captain, but there were no footprints. The residents nearby say the water is still here. When fall arrived, the water level went down too."

I put on rubber gloves and picked up the bag from the water. The body was not heavy at all. I tore the bag open to reveal the corpse inside. At that moment, I could hear everyone there draw in a sharp breath.

The body had decayed to a point where it was almost unrecognizable as a human corpse. Like the previous victim, the muscle and fat tissues in the abdomen, chest and the limbs were cut off in large chunks, leaving only the underlying bones and internal organs. The intestines had spilled outside of the bag, and there were maggots and locusts crawling all over it. I noticed that water had seeped into the bag, so the knot at the opening of the bag was probably not very tight. Because of that, the little flesh that was on the corpse was swollen and deathly white, and it was covered with a layer of greenish wax.

But it seemed that he wasn’t killed by Lingchi like the first dead body because there was none of that creepy smile on this victim’s face. There was a deep knife wound on the victim’s throat where the veins and the trachea underneath the skin were cleanly cut.

A few police officers ran out to vomit the second the corpse was revealed. Xiaotao’s face turned pale. Even I found it almost unendurable. This might have been the most decayed body that I had ever worked on so far.

However, I had to keep my composure in front of these police officers, so I gritted my teeth and went on with it.

After doing a routine examination on the corpse, I summarized, "The victim is between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. He is a male, physically thin, and has no signs of any illness or disabilities. The time of death is about forty days ago. The direct cause of death is the severed trachea, which caused asphyxiation..."

I pressed the victim’s chest, then blood spilled out of the cut throat. There was also a white foam with a disgusting smell. The moment that came out, I heard a number of people saying ‘eww.’

I smashed the locusts that climbed onto my hand and pointed out, "There’s a lot of blood in the lungs."

"Is it the first missing person—that man who was an employee at the supermarket?" asked Xiaotao.

I turned the victim’s face over and examined it. Although the skull was considerably decayed, some of his facial features were still recognizable.

"Yes, it’s him!"