Translated by Crooked
Edited by Dust Bunny
After exiting the mission world, although he was muddled for a moment, Gu Xizhou was in a good mood because he safely made it out alive.
After a few days of leisure over the long National Day holiday, the police station was nearly deserted. After National Day, Gu Xizhou came back and resumed his search for events that were related to the mission worlds.
Finally, with the help of Ma Qi’s friend, they found a sanatorium in Hainan that was reported by a patient’s family four years ago for mistreating the elderly. In the end, the whole sanatorium was shut down and fined.
Looking at the information in his hands, Gu Xizhou rubbed his head. The missions really do relate to reality, but he still didn’t understand what Fu Yiran meant. Since he was a knife, who was he supposed to kill?
Ma Qi sat down beside him and took a pile of old information to peruse. Gu Xizhou raised an eyebrow and said, “Why are you looking at those? They’re old files from the archive.”
Ma Qi nodded and said, “They’re all cold cases. Let’s look them over. What if we come across them in a mission world?”
“That’s a long shot.” Gu Xizhou shook his head. Although the mission worlds were tangentially related to real deadly cases, there were almost 70,000 criminal murder cases in the nation every year, and that wasn’t even accounting for missing persons cases. The mission world had such a wide reach, it would be almost impossible to encounter them.
Gu Xizhou put down the papers he was holding and looked at the time, intending to take a relaxed lunch break at home, but suddenly, Fang Zhi burst into his office.
“Gu Ge, something happened!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“Three dead bodies were found in the river! They were all filled with cement!”
Ma Qi raised an eyebrow and commented, “Cement? It must’ve been to sink the bodies…”
“Let’s go!” With a grim expression, Gu Xizhou took Fang Zhi away. Ma Qi followed them over for some reason.
“I’ll come take a look with you,” he said. “Sinking corpses with cement is a trademark of drug cartels. I have experience.”
Gu Xizhou naturally didn’t refuse him. Besides, Ma Qi was still his superior. They got in Gu Xizhou’s car and rushed to the river. While they were in the car, Gu Xizhou took out his phone to inform Si Yu.
Si Yu was waiting for him to eat lunch together with the table already set when he heard his phone buzz. When he saw that Gu Xizhou had texted him, he showed a peculiar expression.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Fang Zhi hastily came over and explained the situation to him. “The swelling of the bodies indicates they’ve been in the water for 7 or 8 days. Ningqing has been blistering hot these days, and large areas of the corpses are rotten. Xiang Ge is inspecting them now.”
Gu Xizhou ‘en’ed and walked over to squat by the bodies. Xiang Yuan was in the middle of examining them. Gu Xizhou asked, “How is it?”
Xiang Yuan was silent, then he uncovered one of the bodies, showing a huge wound on the abdomen. “The cement was poured in here, but I chipped off a bit to take a look…”
Gu Xizhou saw Xiang Yuan’s foul expression and asked, “What did you find?”
Xiang Yuan gulped, and his expression paled. “There are no internal organs. These three bodies have no organs!”
Gu Xizhou shook. “No, no organs?”
Ma Qi heard Xiang Yuan’s appraisal and raised an eyebrow. He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Drug dealers wouldn’t be bored enough to scoop out someone’s organs.”
“It’s not drug dealers, it’s organ traffickers… The victims’ organs were removed so they could be sold,” Gu Xizhou said confidently, standing up.
Xiang Yuan nodded. “That’s what I thought, too. Just now when I inspected the bodies, apart from the large hole in their abdomen, there were also surgical scars. They’re not old; they should be very recent.
Ma Qi was silent for a while before he spoke again. “Several days ago the neighboring city had a similar matter, but those bodies were directly thrown by the roadside. They were also missing organs.”
“I remember that. The case hasn’t been solved yet.” Xiang Yuan immediately took out his phone to call his friend from the other city to get the information.
They didn’t find anything after searching the riverbank for clues. The officers left the crime scene after leaving one person behind to keep watch over the area.
After returning to the police department, Xiang Yuan received the information from the other city.
After careful comparison, Xiang Yuan’s professional opinion was: “It should be the same group.”
“Are you sure?”
Xiang Yuan nodded. “Look at this photo of the surgery sutures. Each doctor has their own technique, so not all sewn wounds will look the same. Only we can recognize the differences.”
Gu Xizhou sighed. While sometimes selling organs was voluntary, it was only natural that it could happen involuntarily, too. Some might even be kidnapped…
Truthfully, selling organs was even more profitable than selling people. One kidney could sell for 300,000 yuan. Even though it was a gory business, some people were willing to do it, and sick patients who needed organs were willing to pay lots of money for them.
In the past, many young people sold off one of their kidneys to be able to afford luxury goods. They thought that since they had two, it didn’t matter if they sold one, but in reality, it’s very difficult for someone lacking a kidney to live like a normal person. Their bodies weren’t as good as before. They couldn’t exercise as much, and they even needed to lie in bed for a long time.
Gu Xizhou wasn’t sure whether these three victims were volunteers or whether they were swindled, but now the problem was how to find this group and their doctor.
Looking at this kind of thing made him feel sick. After removing the cement, the three bodies were empty inside. The cement had already solidified, so it stuck to them, and a lot of skin and flesh was removed by Xiang Yuan as he slowly removed it all with a hammer. There wasn’t a single organ left inside.
Those bastards were too ruthless.
Because the autopsy would still take a long time, Xiang Yuan told Gu Xizhou, “It’s already past two o’clock. Go eat first, and bring something back for me.”
Gu Xizhou thought that made sense. He couldn’t do the autopsy, so standing around here was just wasting time. Ma Qi hadn’t left yet, so Gu Xizhou took him and Fang Zhi out to eat.
While they were eating, Ma Qi suddenly opened his mouth and said, “I’m afraid that these criminals came over to Ningqing from the next city.
“These bastards are really brave. They actually have this much courage! Three bodies all at once!”
Gu Xizhou nodded. He also thought it was unpleasant. Fang Zhi on the other side kept silent. After they finished eating, Gu Xizhou wrapped up two fried rice dishes and went back: one for Xiang Yuan, and one for Xiang Yuan’s little apprentice, Li Yan.
While Xiang Yuan wolfed down his meal, he pointed at the report and said, “Look at it yourself.”
Gu Xizhou looked over the report. The corpses’ time of death exceeded half a month. If it weren’t for a depressed man who killed himself in the river a few days ago, these three bodies would have never been fished up by a boatman.
The file was very clear, and Xiang Yuan also compared the surgical scars.
“The sutures were definitely made by the same individual. I asked a few friends, and they agreed,” said Xiang Yuan, taking out another file and handing it to Fang Zhi. “Just now I consulted my old teacher, who gave me this. It’s a decades old case. Take a look, I hope it’s helpful.”
Fang Zhi immediately opened the file Xiang Yuan gave him. Even a case from twenty years ago could be dug up.
“The autopsy photos show that this should be the same individual,” said Xiang Yuan. “This criminal group has existed for at least twenty years.”
“Twenty, twenty years?” Fang Zhi’s face paled. How many people had died at their hands over the course of twenty years? One hundred wasn’t enough, he was afraid it was at least a thousand!
This was a homicide case in the city twenty years ago, but the victim’s body wasn’t hollowed out. The victim happened to see the group dumping a body and reported it to the police with a description of the murderer, so they retaliated by brutally murdering the victim in their home, and the murderer they described was also found dead on the scene.
The group broke off every connection the police could use to find them. They even killed the murderer whose appearance had been compromised and threw him in the home of their victim.
Fang Zhi shivered. These people were simply cold-blooded. They actually killed their own people just to avoid exposure.
It must be said that this is the simplest method. In the past, if there was a description of appearance, it was difficult to find someone but not impossible. Nowadays, it goes without saying that so long as there’s a description, facial recognition software can find the perpetrator.
Fang Zhi gulped. This was only a portion of the information. He flipped a page and found that not only were those two people killed, but there was also a missing police officer.
After the victim reported the body dumping to the police, two officers were dispatched to protect the witness. There was a large bloodstain left behind on the staircase, and the two officers disappeared without a trace.
Fang Zhi was silent. There was no need to think about it; those two were certainly dead.
Too savage! These people really don’t respect the sanctity of life!
Fang Zhi turned the page again, and the name of one of the missing police officers fell into his line of sight. A black and white photo was printed beneath it, showing a square jaw with a neat face and average looks.
Fang Zhi opened the second page, and his whole body went rigid. The man in this photograph looked very handsome, and he was very eye-catching in his uniform.
And the main thing was… he looked almost exactly like a certain someone. He frowned and stared at the photograph for half a day.
Gu Xizhou saw Fang Zhi like this and said strangely, “What’s with your expression? Let me see.”
Fang Zhi’s hands shook as he handed it over to Gu Xizhou. When Gu Xizhou looked at it, Fang Zhi suddenly slapped his head and said, “I thought I’d seen this senior’s name before! He looks just like Si Ge!”
Xiang Yuan’s mouth quirked and he said, “I had the same reaction when I saw the photo. That officer really does look like President Si. If it weren’t for the age difference, I’d have doubts about life.”
When Gu Xizhou saw the case, he still looked calm. This case… he understood it very well. There shouldn’t be anyone who knows more about it than him, but he didn’t expect it to be related to this current case.
When he turned to the final page, Gu Xizhou saw the photograph and lightly swept a finger over the young man’s face.
“This face… is… very similar to Si Yu?” Gu Xizhou asked uncertainly, pointing at the photo.
Fang Zhi and Xiang Yuan both nodded and spoke in unison: “Yes!”
Does the case have something to do with Gu-ge’s previous life?
Ahhhh the mystery is too deep!!!
Omg so both of them were police men before!!! That’s also why Si Yu was is so good at “accidentally” helping solve cases!
That’s also how they know each other! (Or how SY knows GXZ, GXZ doesn’t seem to remember him yet)
Okay? Does that mean SY looks different in GXZ’s eyes?
Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘)
Ahhhh! The case is very familiar to him. Could it be that one the police officers who handled the was him? Or maybe the dumped body was his? (even though that’s very unlikely)
*the case