CH 46

Gu Xizhou had just arranged for Fang Zhi to do the legwork of informing the family members who had reported missing persons in the past week, when suddenly Xiang Yuan said, “Old Gu, shall we have dinner together this evening?”

“Nah,” Gu Xizhou waved his hand a few times, “let’s investigate this case first.” 

Next to him, Xiang Yuan took a sip of his jujube and goji berry tea and gave Gu Xizhou a funny look, “That’s odd, you used to practically live in the police station, but now you go home the moment you get off work every day.”

“Old Gu, you aren’t keeping a clandestine lover in your house, are you?”

“I’m not!” Gu Xizhou argued, “I’ve got a dog son at home. What if he starves to death if I don’t go back?”

Xiang Yuan nodded, “Alright, I’ll go through the corpse fragments again and see if there are any other clues.” 

“Sure.”

With that, Gu Xizhou went back to his office. Seeing that all his police subordinates were still in the station, he was too embarrassed to leave early. Instead, he simply closed the office door and lay down on his desk to take a nap.

After sleeping for a while, he was suddenly woken up by his phone ringing and took a look at the caller ID.

Si Yu?

Gu Xizhou picked up the phone, teasing, “What? We’ve only been apart for a short while and you’re calling. Did you miss me that much?”

Si Yu, “……”

Hearing no sound from the other end, Gu Xizhou figured he was vexed, “Okay, so what’s the matter?”

“Look at the forum,” Si Yu said blandly. 

Eyebrow raised, Gu Xizhou started up his computer, keyed the forum web address he’d saved in his phone into the search bar, and pressed enter——

Several posts appeared on the forum, one of which was right at the top——The Suspected Appearance of a World of Certain Death.

Gu Xizhou took a look at it. Probably due to restrictions by the rules not to disclose the details of the world, the original poster was extremely vague, only mentioning that numbers were involved, that it was his 46th time entering the mission worlds and that his companions in the mission world had all experienced more mission worlds than him. 

OP: Since I first entered the mission worlds, I’ve lived 23 years…… But I’ve never seen a world like this. 

When Gu Xizhou saw that it was something to do with numbers, the first thing he thought of was the note that Fu Yiran had given him——‘6’ means life, ‘1’ means death, good luck.

“Does the note Fu Yiran gave me have something to do with this world?” Gu Xizhou slapped his desk. “But the original poster said that he was entering the mission worlds for the 46th time. Although I’ve been through 4 mission worlds, only 2 of them really count as my own. I’m still a long way off from 46.”

Si Yu made an affirmative noise and said, “I just saw it and thought it might be relevant. …… Oh, right, I forgot to ask you in the morning, but how much did your life-time increase by this time?”

Looking at the hovering countdown, Gu Xizhou furrowed his brows slightly and said, “Um…… seven days.” 

“Only seven days?” Si Yu was stunned for a moment and asked.

Gu Xizhou said helplessly, “Right? All else notwithstanding, I went through the mission with you, an 18-mission-world veteran, but ended up only getting a 7-day increase in my life-time. I don’t even know what to say.”

“What about you?” Gu Xizhou asked.

“The time increase I got isn’t even one-ninth of the reward for my previous mission world,” Si Yu didn’t look pleased, “I get the feeling that with you…… even the world rewards have lessened.” 

Gu Xizhou, “……”

Why did he suddenly feel guilty……

Vegfis la kjrc’a atja tlr mtfjalcu tjv yffc vlrmbnfgfv?

Sc…… Pa wera’nf yffc vlrmbnfgfv ys atf wlrrlbc kbgiv. 

“I think they must’ve got stingy,” Gu Xizhou bitched under his breath, “I’ve only got seven days too!”

Vl Te ifa bea bcf olcji gfrlucfv rlut jcv jaaglyeafv la ab yjv iemx, “Mbgufa la, atf wlrrlbc kbgiv gfkjgvr kfgf cfnfg rajcvjgvlrfv jcskjs.”

“Tfr, sfr, fzjmais,” Xe Wlhtbe rjlv lwwfvljafis.

Gu Xizhou hung up the phone and let out a long breath. If Si Yu knew that their time had been deducted as a result of his cheating, he would surely stop taking them along. 

He absolutely must not know!

At the door to the body storage room stood an elderly pair and a middle-aged couple. They were in low spirits, extremely worried that they would recognise their missing relatives.

At that moment, the two men who had just gone in to claim the body came out with relaxed looks on their faces. It seemed that the body inside didn’t belong to one of their relatives.

The final four people who had reported missing persons all let out relieved sighs after taking a look at the clothes. 

However, Fang Zhi at the side felt his heart sinking. If it was not a missing person, the source of the nameless corpse could not be confirmed, and it would be very difficult to make progress in the case.

After sending these people away, Fang Zhi knocked on Gu Xizhou’s door. As he went in, he took out an inspection report he had just received and handed it to Gu Xizhou.

“Gu Ge, all those who reported missing persons in the past week have taken a look, and it’s not any of their relatives. This is the inspection report that the forensic examiner asked me to bring to you.”

“The deceased is about 34 years old, sex male, and the cause of death is undetermined for the time being as not all the corpse fragments have been found. The search perimeter has been extended in a bid to find all the dumped corpse fragments. The blood samples have been sent for tests to check the possibility of drug poisoning.” 

“The ticket is still in the process of restoration.”

“Alright,” Gu Xizhou said blandly. “It’s been a long day, go home and rest soon.”

Fang Zhi nodded. He had done all his work today. He looked up to check the time and saw that it was already past 8 o’clock, indeed time to go home and have a good sleep.

Sitting on his chair, Gu Xizhou flipped through the papers that Fang Zhi had brought him, carefully perusing them for some time. 

Returning home, Gu Xizhou pushed the door open and saw his dog son falling from mid-air, his tail wagging furiously.

“Woof woof woof!”

The ‘ghost’ who had been playing with the dog caught the falling dog and saw the person who had opened the door: ……

“Oh ho, some ghosts keep saying they don’t want to have a dog,” Gu Xizhou said, then added, “Turns out the ghost has a very honest body despite what comes out of his mouth.” 

Gu Ji Ji, “……”

Gu Xizhou closed the door and bitched a bit in the living room, “Ji Ji, don’t randomly throw things out in the future. Don’t you think it’d be such a nuisance for the neighbours to see a pair of slippers at our door?”

Gu Xizhou picked up the slippers left at the door and put them on, “Ji Ji, how about you cook me a meal?”

“Pa!” 

Gu Xizhou got a smack on the back from the ‘ghost’. Gu Ji Ji frostily snatched the papers from his hand, sat down on the sofa and began to read.

This slap was probably to tell Gu Xizhou——don’t even think about it.

Seeing him like this, Gu Xizhou took out his phone and ordered takeout before sitting down and briefing him on the situation of the on-site investigation that day.

Gu Ji Ji: The murderer killed intentionally. It would be difficult to identify the deceased from missing persons. 

Gu Xizhou, “Why is that?”

Gu Ji Ji: The murderer cleaned out everything that could serve as a proof of identity from the clothes. It was a premeditated murder, planned in advance. Moreover, you said the dumping site for the corpse is very remote and the body was buried in the soil. If not for the dog, the chance of finding it is practically zero.

Gu Ji Ji: The dumping site for the corpse is very remote, and even the locals seldom go up the mountain. At the same time, all the bags prepared by the murderer are the same, indicating that they were prepared in advance. In fact, I suspect that he…… drove in from out-of-town just to dump the body.

“You can infer that much from just this?” Gu Xizhou asked. 

Gu Ji Ji wrote in pencil: Noob demonic cultivator, this is the basic quality of criminal police.

Gu Xizhou, “……”

Honestly, sometimes he really wants to beat ghosts up.

Gu Xizhou thought about it but resisted. After all, with the restriction by the rules, he could not see Gu Ji Ji and might end up beaten up by the ‘ghost’ instead. 

“So our only hope is the bloodstained parking ticket?”

Gu Ji Ji: That’s right.

Another day passed, and just as Gu Ji Ji said, the source of the corpse remained unconfirmed.

“Somebody died and no missing person was reported……” Gu Xizhou could feel a headache coming on. Could it really be a case of off-site corpse dumping? 

Gu Xizhou had just been puzzling through it for a short while when he heard somebody knocking on the door. It was Xiang Yuan.

Xiang Yuan walked in, a piece of paper in one hand that he handed to Gu Xizhou and a thermos in the other, “The ticket was printed by a thermal printer. I checked it after restoration, this ticket is from an underground car park over at Xining.”

“Oh…… it really is.” Gu Xizhou pulled the photocopied material over. At the very top was a picture of the ticket. That jinxing mouth Gu Ji Ji had got it right. For two whole days, he had called everybody who had reported missing persons in the past 10 days to come for corpse identification, and not a single one of them was it!

“The deceased got lucky,” Gu Xizhou said. 

If not for the ticket, the case would really be stagnated, with nowhere to proceed.

Gu Xizhou had a call made to the car park at Xining and received confirmation that the ticket was from a black Mercedes with license plate number xxx. Considering the high value of the clothes worn by the deceased, it could be concluded that he might be the owner of the vehicle.

“Get the traffic police to check for the car owner.”

Fang Zhi ran over and said to Gu Xizhou breathlessly, “The car owner is a female.” 

“The car owner: Feng Tian, female, 31 years old, divorced……”

“She’s not married?” Gu Xizhou asked, “What about her ex-husband?”

Fang Zhi frowned, “Her ex-husband has been dead for 7 years.”

“Seven years?” Gu Xizhou raised an eyebrow. “How did he die?” 

“It was a car accident, the car ignited. She received nearly one million in compensation, and in the 7 years since her ex-husband died she’s opened a total of 5 stores in various major shopping malls. She didn’t remarry in these 7 years though.”

“Can you reach her?”

Fang Zhi nodded, “I’ve got her registered number. Shall I call now?”

Gu Xizhou shook his head, “I think the situation is a little complicated. Contact the police in Xining first and get her residence. We’ll go there directly.” 

“Alright,” Fang Zhi paused, “I’m going with Gu Ge this time too?”

“Yes, if you go with me you can see your sister on the way,” Gu Xizhou shrugged, “Pack up, we’re driving there in the afternoon.”

“Yessir!”

As he said, Gu Xizhou took Fang Zhi along, driving at lightning speed for nearly three hours before they got to the police station in Xining. The first person they saw there was Song Qian, whom they’d met in the peddler case the last time. 

“And so we meet again.” The two shook hands and Song Qian said blandly, “Get in the car first, I’ll take you guys over. She lives in a villa in this area.”

Gu Xizhou nodded, “That works.”

It was already 3 in the afternoon when the car stopped in front of the villa. Gu Xizhou had eaten some bread and milk in the car, and the few of them knocked on the door.

The lady who answered the door was a little shocked to see the police there. She leaned against the door and asked carefully, “Hello…… how might I help you?” 

Mature, beautiful, sexy, good-looking and hot, even Gu Xizhou was surprised that such a beautiful woman had remained single for 7 years for her late ex-husband.

“Hello, would you be the owner of a car with the license plate number xxx Feng Tian?”

The lady nodded, “Yes.”

“We’d like to ask you about some things, could we speak inside?” Song Qian stepped forward and said, flashing his police ID. 

Feng Tian stepped back to let Song Qian, Gu Xizhou and company through the door.

The five of them went in and looked around.

There were lots of children’s toys, a toy horse and a crib.

“There’s nobody else at home. Please, have a seat,” Feng Tian said softly as she took a few glasses of water out of the refrigerator and set them on the table. 

Hearing this, Gu Xizhou was slightly stunned. He grabbed a plush toy next to him and asked casually, “Does this toy belong to your child? I recall that your record states that you’re widowed though.”

Feng Tian was stunned for a moment and shook her head. She said bitterly, “No, it’s not my child’s…… I never remarried since my ex-husband passed.”

“Pardon me if I ask then, but what are these toys all over your house for?” Gu Xizhou asked.

Feng Tian answered, “Just to look at…… Could be useful in the future……” 

Gu Xizhou nodded. He had carefully examined the plush toy just now, some parts of the fur had been tugged off, not too long ago, quite recently actually. The lady did not seem like the type to pull plush toys for fun, and there were even saliva marks on the toy.

She was lying.

Glacestorm: So what does she want to hide? Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out!