AD | Chapter 6

Lu Qingfeng was holding a lollipop. He gently placed the candy into Lin Shuyao’s hand.

“You are…” Lin Shuyao felt a warmth stir in his heart.

“Your candy. Hold it tight.” Lu Qingfeng smiled slightly, then waved his hand with a flourish and turned to walk toward the family member.

Before he could speak, the family member looked up at him and said, “Officer, didn’t I already tell you that we refuse to let the police dissect the body?! My daughter died so tragically. If she doesn’t even have a complete corpse after death, isn’t that too unfair to her?”

Lu Qingfeng was about to speak, but Lin Shuyao stepped forward first. “Uncle, if your daughter knew that her family was willing to let her murderer go free just to keep her body intact, wouldn’t she feel chilled to the bone? You don’t even know who killed her, yet you want to settle this matter hastily. Do you think that if she truly has a spirit in heaven, she would be happy with your actions?”

“I can understand that as parents, you want to leave her with a final shred of dignity. But don’t you want to know who killed your daughter? Don’t you want to bring the murderer to justice?”

Hearing these words, the man’s previously stable emotions suddenly collapsed. Tears flowed down his face along with his shouting. “Of course I f***ing want to know! From the moment I found out my daughter was harmed, I f***ing wanted to know. I wish I could find him and kill him myself!”

“My daughter was only in her twenties. How young was she? At such a young age, we, the white-haired elders, are sending off our black-haired child. Her mother… her mother is still lying in the hospital. How could we not want to know? Young man, you say you can understand our grief. You can understand? You can understand my ass!”

“I can’t understand?” Lin Shuyao’s voice trembled slightly. “How can I not understand?! Before this, my sister was also brutally murdered…”

The middle-aged man’s expression seemed to change slightly.

Lin Shuyao continued, “I know I cannot fully empathize, but as a people’s police officer, what I can do is speak for the dead, find the murderer, and let the law punish them. At the very least, we cannot let your daughter die without clarity.”

The man seemed to make a decision. He lowered his defenses, and his swollen eyes seemed to gain a glimmer of light. After a moment, he finally said with determination, “Sigh! It’s not because… Forget it. We agree. Go ahead and examine her…”

Hearing this, Lu Qingfeng and Lin Shuyao quickly exchanged a glance. Lu Qingfeng stood up, pulled the man to the side, and prepared to take his statement.

Instantly, only Lin Shuyao remained at the scene, along with the body covered by the white cloth beside him.

As soon as the white cloth was pulled back, the appearance shocked him. Unlike the previous two deceased persons, this deceased person did not have an incision on her abdomen that had been cut and stitched. Instead, her belly was prominently bulging, and her face was highly decomposed, covered with wriggling maggots.

If the deaths of the first two victims, resembling marionettes as they had analyzed in the car, could be classified as a serial killing, then the method of death of the third victim was completely different from the first two. Why was this?

Could it be that this case was not committed by the same perpetrator? Was there another killer responsible for the third victim’s death?

However, there was one thing he could now determine. The reason the family refused the autopsy was probably not to preserve the daughter’s body, but for some other reason.

Thinking this, Lin Shuyao covered the body with the white cloth again. He then called for someone to come over and prepare to transport the body back to the autopsy room for further examination.

After doing this, he walked back to Lu Qingfeng’s side. Lu Qingfeng was currently questioning the man. As Lin Shuyao approached, he heard the man say that he lived near Taining Mountain. This surprised him.

Lu Qingfeng was about to continue asking when he felt a shadow appear beside him. He turned and saw Lin Shuyao standing next to him. He was startled and asked, “Doctor Lin? Why did you come over here?”

“I’ve looked at the body enough. The remaining doubts need to be resolved through autopsy in the dissection room,” Lin Shuyao said, glancing at the man giving his statement.

Lu Qingfeng nodded and turned to continue asking the man, “So, you just said that shortly after the police arrived, you received the news, and then you and your wife rushed here.”

The man nodded. Hearing this, Lu Qingfeng found it strange. Just as he was about to continue asking, Lin Shuyao suddenly spoke up. “But at that time, we hadn’t even confirmed the identity of the deceased. We hadn’t even compared the DNA. How did you know that the body with the highly decomposed face was definitely your daughter? It could have been someone else.”

Hearing this, the man suddenly became anxious. He rubbed his hands continuously, seemingly trying to hide something. After a long pause, he hesitantly said, “Officer, this… this matter should have been reported to the police. But before we could report it, we received the news of our daughter’s death.”

Seeing that the two remained silent, the man seemed to find an outlet and began talking incessantly. “About a month ago, my wife and I were about to go out for a walk. As soon as we opened the door, we were stunned because we received a threat letter attached with a dead rat. My wife and I were scared silly. Our daughter was also at home. Hearing our screams, she came out.”

“Among the three of us, she reacted the most. Her face turned pale with fear. We said we wanted to call the police because the thing was too terrifying. Even her mother said we hadn’t committed any heinous crimes, nor had we offended anyone. Why would we receive such a thing?”

Speaking to this point, the man sighed and continued, “Later, we all picked up the phone to call the police, but my daughter said it might just be a prank by some neighbors. There was no need to mobilize police forces. If we called the police, we might even get criticized by them. We thought about it and decided to drop the idea.”

“What about your daughter’s pregnancy?” Lu Qingfeng asked.

“About another month later, my wife and I noticed that my daughter was acting strangely. She barely ate a few bites of food each day and would rush to the bathroom to vomit violently. At first, her mother and I thought she had stomach problems, so we advised her to see a doctor. But she refused to go no matter what. We couldn’t do anything, so we stopped advising her and let her be.”

Hearing this, both of them were shocked. Then, Lu Qingfeng asked, “What happened after that? Didn’t you ask her carefully?”

“Of course we asked. How could we not ask about such a big matter? But after asking just a few sentences, we started arguing. She said we were interfering with her life and that if we couldn’t afford to raise a child, we shouldn’t have given birth to one.”

The man sighed. “Officer, tell me, my daughter got pregnant by someone for no good reason. As parents, how could we not be anxious? I just said a few words to her in the heat of the moment, and she ran away!”

“Did you look for her when you realized she was gone?” Lu Qingfeng asked again upon hearing this.

“We waited at home for about a week. Later, her mother couldn’t wait any longer, so she went with me to look for her at her good friend’s house. We thought she would just stay there for one night like before and then obediently return home with us. But when we arrived, her friend said she hadn’t gone there. Because of this, her mother and I had a huge argument. Tell me, an unmarried girl getting pregnant is so shameful! So we…” The man stopped here and looked at the two people taking his statement.

At this point, both of them understood. Lu Qingfeng and Lin Shuyao exchanged a glance. This time, Lu Qingfeng finally understood the hint Lin Shuyao had given him earlier.

He had been wondering why Lin Shuyao had paused specifically when mentioning the doubts about the body and then glanced at the man in front of him. What doubts did this man, as a family member, have? But now he understood.

This man, as a family member, had countless loopholes in his story about searching for his daughter. Earlier, he had an emotional breakdown, showing how much he cared about his daughter. But in the subsequent questioning, he said they didn’t rush to report her missing after she disappeared. They even waited several days before going to ask her friend. This was too far-fetched.

What kind of parents, after their daughter runs away from home, not only fail to look for her immediately but instead wait leisurely at home? This is baffling.

Thinking this, Lu Qingfeng was certain that the family member in front of him was hiding something. However, pushing too hard might yield no results. It was better to look for other clues.

Thinking of this, Lu Qingfeng said, “Thank you for your cooperation. We will expedite our investigation.”

After the man left, Lin Shuyao asked Lu Qingfeng directly, “What do you think, Captain Lu?”

“When we arrived, he cried bitterly over his daughter’s death and refused the autopsy. After we finally persuaded him, we asked, and it turned out he only started looking for his daughter a week after she ran away. Is this someone who truly cares for their child?”

Lin Shuyao nodded in agreement but then asked, “With his testimony full of loopholes, why did you let him go?”

Lu Qingfeng sighed helplessly. “What else could we do? Keep detaining him? He was just cooperating with our statement-taking. Besides, we don’t have any substantial evidence. Sigh, let’s look for other evidence…”