CH 78

Translated by: Crooked

Edited by: Dust Bunny 

Five people went downstairs to look at the situation. There was a pool of blood in the center with bloodstains spattering outward. The whole courtyard looked like the scene of a massacre. The walls and the ground were all covered in blood.

Si Yu turned to Xiao Nan and asked, “Where’s Lin Hao?”

“Him?” Xiao Nan was startled. “I don’t know. I was too tired yesterday, and I slept until now.”

When he finished speaking, Xiao Nan stuck his head out and looked around the yard. Besides the five of them, there was no sign of Lin Hao. 

The sky was dark, and the wind rose.

Xiao Nan shivered. If someone was missing or disappeared in the supernatural world, then it meant they were already dead. “Is this blood his?”

Si Yu didn’t answer his question. He turned to look at Gu Xizhou. Gu Xizhou was looking thoughtfully at the blood on the ground. He asked Gu Xizhou if he’d found something.

Gu Xizhou pointed at the shape of a bloodstain on the ground and said. “The blood spatter is longer than two meters. If this blood is Lin Hao’s, then he should have been killed by something like a knife to the neck. Only the rupture of a carotid artery could create such an exaggerated amount of blood.”

“Decapitation…” Xiao Nan and Yu Yizhou had astonished expressions. “You seem to understand this awfully well…”

Gu Xizhou agreed casually, but he didn’t mention he was a criminal police officer.

On the way out of the demolition office.

Gu Xizhou squinted at the papers he’d grabbed from the office with Xu San’er’s information. 

Xu San’er’s actual name was Xu Hao, and he was the third child in the family. The Xu family divided before his parents died. Xu Hao received some money from his parents and recklessly squandered it. It wasn’t long before he was penniless. After that, he depended on his parents and lived with them. After they died, he lost their support, but he still messed around like before. One after another, he began to steal from every old neighbor’s home.

After Gu Xizhou finished looking over the information, he very naturally handed it over to Si Yu. “You have a look, too. I didn’t see anything useful.”

“En, let’s find Xu San’er to talk again, ba.”

“We can only do it like this,” said Gu Xizhou. 

Xiao Nan’s complexion didn’t look too well. Because of Lin Hao’s sudden death, he sank into a kind of dread.

In contrast, the newcomer Yu Yizhou patted Xiao Nan’s shoulder as if to comfort him. He said, “In fact, from a certain point of view, entering the mission worlds is a good thing.”

“A good thing?”

Yu Yizhou nodded, speaking with an earnest expression. “Before I came, I was in a hospital sickbed. I was given a terminal diagnosis by the doctor. My being here means that my life reached its limit, but this mission world gave me a second chance. Regardless of whether I can leave alive, I can live a few more days in good health and an able body.” 

Deiirtla!” Wljb Rjc oeglberis lcafggeqafv Te Tlhtbe’r kbgvr. “Tbe jcv P jgf vloofgfca! P’w j remmfrroei yerlcfrrwjc ktb kbc gfmbuclalbc! P’w cba rlmx! Pa’r jii yfmjerf bo j mjg mgjrt ijra wbcat! Ktlr qijmf lr j clutawjgf!”

Te Tlhtbe kjr bynlberis oglutafcfv ys Wljb Rjc’r julajafv rajaf. Lf rlwqis rkjiibkfv tlr rjilnj jcv vlvc’a vjgf ab mbcalcef ab rqfjx.

Gu Xizhou looked at him and said, “If not for this mission world, you would have died an early death in a car accident. Then who would care if you were a successful businessman, or if you won recognition?”

Xiao Nan’s arrogance was all extinguished. As the car accident’s only survivor, if he hadn’t been pulled into the mission world, he would have already died just like the others. 

Xiao Nan sighed. “Right, a million yuan annual salary can’t buy more time.”

Gu Xizhou heard what he said and choked on a mouthful of old blood. He really really wasn’t envious. Gu Xizhou felt stifled when he thought of his own meager salary. Then, he silently looked at Si Yu beside him.

“What are you looking at me for?” asked Si Yu, raising his chin.

“Looking at the local tyrant who’s as pitiful as I am for survival’s sake. It balances my mood.” 

Si Yu ignored his nonsense. “Xiao Nan is right about one thing: Money can’t buy more time. In the face of death, all are equal.”

“Then what if they’re not human?” asked Gu Xizhou, grinning.

Si Yu was silent for a moment after hearing Gu Xizhou and looked at him deeply as if recalling something, but he didn’t answer Gu Xizhou’s question.

At this point, Gu Xizhou realized there was a problem. He sized up Si Yu and asked, “Si Yu, what was your ‘cause of death’?” 

Gu Xizhou’s reason should have been the same as those two criminals’: crushed to death by glass falling from a high altitude. Fang Zhi’s was because of that case. If there hadn’t been a child in the police station, that woman could have directly run Fang Zhi over. Gu Xizhou discovered that he still didn’t know Si Yu’s ‘unexpected death’.

“Not telling you,” said Si Yu. Then he changed the subject. “We’re at Xu Hao’s house.”

Gu Xizhou heard Si Yu’s answer and didn’t continue to question him.

They had walked the whole way, and now it was eight o’clock. Everyone’s doors were closed. They walked to the gate of Xu Hao’s ruined courtyard. One of the rooms had already collapsed. They could even see inside where a table and chair were placed. 

The group knocked on the door for a very long time. After a while, Xu Hao, wearing two worn out sandals, came out. He clicked his tongue and said, “Who is it?”

“Hello,” said Gu Xizhou.

“Eh, it’s the people from the demolition office! You’ve come to my house so early, is there something wrong?” Xu Hao recognized Gu Xizhou and the others at a glance as the people from the demolition and relocation office. He opened the door to look at them.

“We wanted to look for you to ask you about some things and trouble you…” 

Xu Hao’s shifty eyes wandered around, and he said, “Ask me something, ah? You can, but I still haven’t had breakfast. There are a lot of things I don’t remember clearly.”

As he spoke, Xu Hao’s stomach began to growl as if in response to him. “See? I haven’t eaten for several days, and this brain also doesn’t work too well.”

Si Yu directly took out his wallet and handed several big hundred yuan bills to Xu Hao. “What about now?”

“I feel much better! Speak, ba, what do you want to ask me?” Xu Hao chuckled. 

“Do you know about Old Lady He’s disappearance?” asked Si Yu.

“Old Lady He… I know. What’s going on?”

“Did you see her on the day she went missing?”

“Why are you looking for her? Didn’t she wander off?” 

“Just tell me if you saw her.”

Xu Hao firmly shook his head and said resolutely, “I didn’t see her!”

“Think carefully.”

“I really didn’t see her! That day I went to my big brother’s house to have a meal! Oh, right, why did you think to ask me?” 

They mentioned how Wang Chunjiao told them yesterday that Xu Hao would occasionally steal things from the vegetable stalls and the butcher shop at noon. Xu Hao explained awkwardly, “That’s all in the past. I don’t steal things now. You demolition office workers also can’t interfere with theft, right?”

The group of people glanced at each other. This person was clearly lying through his teeth. Just yesterday they saw this fellow stealing things.

Gu Xizhou said, “We’re not concerned with this. We’re solely interested in demolition and relocation.”

Xu Hao let out an obvious sigh. He took the money in his hand and directly left his house. 

“If you have money, go out confidently. If you don’t, sleep in a doghouse at home, hehe.” Xiao Nan looked at Xu Hao in disdain. There were also many people like this in reality. Xiao Nan clearly held this type of person in contempt.

“Let’s go the same way as him, ba.” Gu Xizhou looked at Xu Hao’s house, then looked back at the others.

Xiao Nan’s gaze also fell on Xu Hao’s open doors. This Xu Hao had only four bare walls for a home. All the money he possessed was what Si Yu just gave to him, so he simply didn’t care, and he didn’t intend to lock the door at all.

The group followed behind him. It was already nine o’clock. Gu Xizhou saw that the butcher’s doors were already open in the distance. 

“Ya——”

Xu Hao stopped in front of the butcher shop’s doors and suddenly fell to the ground. Then, Gu Xizhou and the others smelled something foul, urine.

“Fuck, it’s this guy. Are you sick?” The butcher impatiently raised his pig-slaughtering knife at Xu Hao. Raising an eyebrow, he said coldly, “Haven’t you ever seen someone killing pigs? Get lost for Laozi.”

Xu Hao’s legs weakened. He was clearly afraid of the butcher. He shook his head in terror, explaining, “I-I’ll get lost right now.” 

Faced with Xu Hao’s subtle reaction, Gu Xizhou and Si Yu glanced at each other, and they saw they both had the same thought.

There was a headless pig in front of the butcher’s shop and a plastic sheet on the ground where the butcher cut the pork into pieces before hanging them on the hook. He put the pig’s head on the chopping board while the trotters went into a tray. As he chopped, the bones were directly kicked away. Clearly, the man was very familiar with the body of a pig. With skill, he quickly cut up the whole pig and neatly hung it on an iron hook.

The butcher glared at the soft-footed Xu Hao on the ground. “Still not getting lost for Laozi?”

Xu Hao nodded with a startled expression and stood up hastily, trembling from head to toe. He fearfully shrank his head back. 

At this time, Gu Xizhou and the others realized that Xu Hao might have seen something just now. They followed Xu Hao while consulting in whispers.

Yu Yizhou asked curiously, “What did he see just now when he was walking ahead? … What made him so scared like this?”

Gu Xizhou spread his hands. “How should I know?”

Gu Xizhou and the others didn’t go ask. As soon as they left the butcher’s shop, Xu Hao looked at them with a pale face and said mysteriously, “You all saw it, ba? You saw, ba?” 

Xiao Nan: “What?”

“He killed someone, ah! He killed someone!” Xu Hao’s voice shook. “Can he kill me? Kill us?”

“Us?” Yu Yizhou repeated after Xu Hao, looking doubtful. But they hadn’t seen anyone just now, ah.

Xu Hao leaned against the wall. His forehead was covered in cold sweat, and his back was cold. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see? He just cut up that person’s meat and hung it up on the hook in front of our faces!” 

Now Gu Xizhou and the others all understood that they had seen something completely different from Xu Hao just now. Fang Zhi imagined going to the butcher’s shop and seeing Lin Hao’s body hung on a meat hook, and he suddenly began to quiver all over.

At the same time, they also realized the gravity of the situation.

“What did you see? Who was that person?”

Xu Hao stood up and spoke haltingly. “It-it seemed like your demolition office’s person… Di-didn’t you… recognize him?” 

According to Xu Hao’s description, what the butcher cut up in front of them just now wasn’t a dead pig, but rather Lin Hao’s dead body.

The atmosphere grew sluggish, and no one dared to breathe too loudly.

Si Yu said, “But what we saw wasn’t a person, but a dead pig.”

“A dead pig? N-no! It was a person, a person!” Xu Hao grew agitated, and he suddenly began to cry in fear. “It was really a person. I saw it, that head… That head, he looked at me…” 

Crooked: the chapters are getting…. longer….

Also Dust Bunny is going to start co-tling some of these!