Imperial Treasure

Chapter 452 - 309: The Second Murderer

The police and the few forensic scientists and examiners present were all as pale as death.

My god, this is too terrifying!

"I think you’ll need to send a few more people up to check the rooftops of the other victims’ houses for their skeletal remains,"

The woman finally spoke, her voice neither light nor heavy, "I’ve looked at several houses, and the bloodstains have all been licked clean, but there are also lick marks on the walls. There are only two possibilities: one, the victim’s blood was sprayed onto the wall when they were killed; two, the bodies were dragged up to the roof beams, staining the walls. If it’s the first case, he would need to use another method to move the bodies, but there are no other traces at the scene and most doors and windows are tightly closed, resembling a locked-room scenario. I think he must have hidden in advance on top of the victims’ roofs, waited for the victims to come back and close the doors and windows, and then made his move in the quiet of the night...then dragged the bodies up to the roof beams. From killing to hiding the bodies, until the victims were discovered missing, he might have been on the rooftops the whole time."

Thus, it would be a locked-room murder.

"But if it’s like that, the bodies would start to smell..."

The woman gave a glance, saying nothing, while Ying Panman’s expression turned strange, she then took a sharp intake of cold breath.

Could it be...

Ultimately, it was too unthinkable and too horrifying. Ying Panman dared not say it directly, so she gestured for Tao Xinyuan to take some people next door to Mao Ju’s house, while she stayed here, having some policemen point their guns at the person on the ground, asking Mao Gang.

"Do you recognize this person?"

Her observation was too sharp; she had already noticed Mao Gang’s unusual response. In fact, the expressions of the other villagers were also very strange at this moment.

They recognized this person!

"Yes, he...he is Mao Dafeng, the first person who went missing," Mao Gang still couldn’t believe it, no, it was more accurate to say he didn’t want to believe that this ghostly figure was the same guy who used to laugh and joke around.

Many people here had almost watched him grow up!

"Mao Dafeng! Damn it! I knew it was him!"

"This demon, he’s killed so many people!"

"Beat him to death!"

Some villagers standing on the road picked up stones from the ground and started throwing them at him!

This caused Ying Panman and the other police officers to speak out, trying to calm the villagers. However, Mao Dafeng, pinned to The Gate, needed immediate medical attention or it would become problematic.

The stance of the police and that of the villagers were different. Their duty was to arrest and judge, and they couldn’t act on impulse, no matter how wicked and ferocious the evil person was. They must undergo interrogation and be justly sentenced by the law before anything else; until then, they would not allow him to die in any form.

And obviously, the villagers were expressing their outrage as fellow victims and relatives.

At this moment, they were in opposition.

But fortunately, most people from Mao Bamboo Village were simple and straightforward. After being talked down by Ying Panman and the others, they stopped what they were doing and looked on as Ying Panman pulled out handcuffs, preparing to cuff Mao Dafeng...

Mao Dafeng was undoubtedly seriously injured. Ying Panman bent down, about to handcuff Mao Dafeng’s hands.

Suddenly!

Not good!

Mao Dafeng, like a feigning-death tiger, suddenly pulled the wooden stick from his thigh and lunged forward, aiming a vicious stab at Ying Panman’s chest!

The ferociousness was shocking, leaving the police officers with no time to react...

At that instant, a scene suddenly flashed through Ying Panman’s mind; it was when she had graduated from the police academy, standing on the drill ground, watching the five-starred red flag being raised...

"I, Ying Panman, hereby vow that for the safety of the people and for justice and fairness, I am willing to devote everything I have, including my life."

Life.

Was her life about to end? The blood-red of the five-starred red flag seemed to stain everything in front of her...

Bang~

A striking noise, and Ying Panman felt only a fleeting shadow before Mao Dafeng was sprawled on the ground, his unharmed right leg clearly broken and twisted in an unnatural position as he lay there, looking up at Sui Yi with eyes full of hatred and fear, his expression wild and frantic, like a mad demon.

"He’s gone insane! He’s not even screaming in pain!"

"Feels like Mao Dafeng is possessed..."

The villagers were exclaiming, while Ying Panman frowned on her side. Gone mad? Lost human sense? If so, this was troublesome.

Sui Yi, however, stood before him, looking down and said, "Your accomplice must have told you that night, he said that I held Xiao Dao and Old Lady Mao San in unusual regard and advised you not to harm them... You listened and finally gave up... not likely having lost your senses, huh?"

"But you, pretending to be mad to avoid criminal law, are smarter than I expected."

The expression of Mao Dafeng, who had been acting like a wild beast, suddenly changed.

Clearly, he wasn’t insane.

Ying Panman cursed to herself and immediately stepped forward to handcuff Mao Dafeng’s hands, suppressed him on the ground, and then called for someone to treat his injuries and send him to the hospital quickly...

"No need to call, he won’t die..." The indifferent woman leaning against the wall spoke, stepping forward and pointing to Mao Dafeng’s thigh.

"Didn’t you notice his leg isn’t bleeding?"

Indeed!

Ying Panman took a look and frowned, no blood? How could that be possible!

Could this person... really not be human?

Just then... down in the village, several very loud gunshots suddenly rang out!

"It’s the boss’s gunfire!"

Sui Yi’s eyebrows raised, looking down the mountain. Zhang Wei had been in pursuit for quite a while; could there have been an accident?

Ying Panman’s walkie-talkie suddenly sounded, and as soon as she connected,

"Tell Miss Sui, Zhang Wei is critically injured!"

Shen Que’s bold and rugged voice echoed forth.

——————

If we lengthen the time a bit...

Zhang Wei pursued the dark figure speeding towards the base of the mountain. However, the other was cunning, not following a straight path but darting back and forth between the bamboo groves and mountain paths. The speed was swift, and he was very familiar with the area. Even if Zhang Wei himself was quick and had practiced some martial arts and Inner Strength taught by Sui Yi and Eastern, he still let the distance grow larger and larger.

Finally!

The person had disappeared!

Zhang Wei paused mid-step and swiftly began to decipher the escape direction from some clues before him, but before he could figure it out, he heard two piercing screams coming from ahead!

"Not good!"

Zhang Wei’s face changed, he quickly pursued, and directly in a courtyard, he saw two people lying on the ground, one of whom could still move, propping himself up on the ground with one hand while clutching his stomach with the other, moaning in agony.

Blood seeped out from beneath him..

"How are you?"

Being a military man, even though Zhang Wei was cold-hearted, he still had a conscience. Ignoring the chase, he immediately went forward, intending to lift the person.

Just as he reached to lift the other’s arm, Zhang Wei saw the person’s raised face, his expression changed suddenly, and it was already too late to retreat.

Boom!

A palm strike forcefully pressed against his abdomen.

A weird greenish mist compressed~~

Zhang Wei’s body was thrown back two or three meters, while the young man on the ground quickly rose and fiercely attacked...

Bang!

A bullet whistled through the air!

The young man dodged and glared vehemently at Shen Que, who was ten-odd meters above, then turned and fled.

Shen Que ran forward swiftly.

He just saw Zhang Wei leaning against the courtyard wall and spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"Contact your people, find my employer, you go chase him..."

Three commands. Shen Que’s eyes flashed and he immediately turned and sprinted after the young man, while pulling out a walkie-talkie to contact Ying Panman.

————————

Miss Sui, who had disappeared with shocking speed to the amazement of Ying Panman and others, found Zhang Wei in less than a minute. By the time she arrived, Zhang Wei was already sitting on the ground, his skin bluish-green, barely breathing.

Approaching, she checked his pulse and heart rate. Miss Sui frowned.

"Poison."

And it wasn’t the first time she had seen this poison.

She remembered someone.

"Suppress your heart, seal your dantian," Miss Sui murmured softly, then combined Magnetic Sensation with Inner Strength to channel into Zhang Wei’s body~~

By the time Ying Panman and the others arrived, the bluish-green on Zhang Wei’s skin had faded considerably, and he was sitting cross-legged slowly using his internal breath to drive out the poison.

The person on the ground, however, had been directly stabbed in the heart by a finger, beyond the help of immortals.

Mao Gang looked like he was about to faint.

Another death!

What happened next doesn’t need detailing, as Miss Sui and Zhang Wei were not ordinary people and naturally couldn’t be judged by ordinary standards. However, Ying Panman noticed that these villagers seemed to be indifferent to such abnormalities.

Well, no wonder Miss Sui held such a high status in Mao Bamboo Village.

The body on the ground was fresh, the person had not been dead for long. While Mao Gang and the others wailed, many villagers from Mao Ju’s house also grew weak at the knees.

Because the police had just retrieved two corpses from the roof of that house.

Later, more bodies were found in other victims’ houses..

Bodies? They were completely clean bones, without a trace of blood.

So clean it was as if... they had been licked clean.

Naturally, some people fainted. Many of the town’s police turned deathly pale and staggered to the side to vomit.

Perhaps the only ones who remained composed were the forensic experts and lab technicians...

Later, Shen Que returned, looking grim.

Obviously, the pursuit had failed.

However, upon checking the number of people in the village and matching it with Shen Que’s description of the young man,

Mao Yun, another young man from the village, shared a similar status to Mao Dafeng, except the latter was unruly and lazy, uneducated, while the former was the only college student in the village, celebrated as a source of pride. He had returned to the village with Mao Dafeng for the holidays, staying for a month...

——————

Sunset fell, the policemen drove away from Mao Bamboo Mountain, taking with them the corpses, as well as Mao Dafeng.

The villagers of Mao Bamboo Village watched silently, watched, and watched...

Since Zhang Wei was injured, Miss Sui naturally couldn’t stay in Mao Bamboo Village, and with the police gone, Mao Dafeng seemed to still have an accomplice. The second murderer Mao Yun escaped, carrying their hatred and leaving behind their confusion.

Mao Yun, such a well-behaved child, how could he be the second murderer?

Late at night.

In a pitch-black house nestled under the shadow of the bamboo, with the chilly wind rustling, a dark figure merged with the night and entered the courtyard. He looked around the yard before silently pushing open The Gate..

Inside, a person was seated, flicking a lighter which crisply sparked to life, igniting a candle.

Mao Yun saw the person he feared the most and turned to sprint into the courtyard, attempting to escape!

Bang!

——————(To be continued. If you like this series, please support the author by voting for it on Qidian.com. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users can read on m.qidian.com.)