Chapter 69 A Peculiar Case

Faced with the corpse, Lin Xun merely glanced at it before quickly looking away.

She turned her head to look at Ma Wenwen, who still maintained a blank expression, and asked the police officer beside them, "What are the autopsy results? Has the identity of the deceased been confirmed?"

The young police officer scratched his head, his expression a mix of confusion and a trace of dread. "The autopsy results... are very strange.

"There are not a single mark on their bodies, not even a pinprick can be found, but the blood in their veins... has been almost completely drained!

"The coroner said it looked as if... as if it had been sucked dry by something in an instant. As for the cause of death, the preliminary conclusion is cardiac arrest induced by extreme terror. But as to what frightened them like that, or how their blood was drained... there is simply no explanation."

He swallowed hard and continued, "Their identities have been verified, which makes it even stranger. One is a rather well-known local lawyer, Mr. Zhang; another is a boss named Wang who deals in building materials; and the third is Dr. Li, a surgeon from the Municipal Second Hospital... All of them are prominent figures locally."

Hearing this, Le Dong blurted out, "Them? How could they possibly come to a place like this?" This dilapidated and filthy small hotel in the urban village felt utterly incompatible with their prestigious identities.

To put it bluntly, even if they were looking for a thrill, they would never choose such a place!

Lin Xun obviously shared the same doubt and pursued the question, "Are you sure? Is it possible this isn't the primary crime scene? Were their bodies moved here?"

The young police officer shook his head with certainty. "Surveillance footage shows that the three of them walked into this building one after another five days ago. Although there are no cameras in the hallway, the entrance and exit cameras captured them very clearly. In addition..." He paused, his expression becoming even more bizarre.

"At the very end of the corridor on this floor lives an old scavenger woman, who is practically the only resident neighbor. We went to question her, but that old woman... was very uncooperative. She was raving like a madwoman, muttering incoherently, and nothing useful could be gotten out of her."

Lin Xun nodded, turning to Ma Wenwen, "Mr. Ma, do you see anything here... any discoveries?" Her tone carried a hint of expectation.

Ma Wenwen let out an ungracious snort, his voice hoarse and laced with impatience, "You know very well my eye condition is acting up. What could I possibly discover?"

He waved his hand irritably, "Alright, alright, you heard it too. This place is thoroughly evil. In my current condition, I am utterly out of my depth. You should quickly call that Mr. Chen, tell him I can't handle this, and let's set off immediately to find my master; that's the sensible thing to do!"

Hearing this, Lin Xun's expression instantly became somewhat awkward.

She glanced at the few police officers nearby whose ears were perked up, leaned closer to Ma Wenwen, and lowered her voice with a mixture of entreaty and helplessness:

"Do you think Mr. Chen would believe that? Look around you, so many people are watching, and they all have to write reports.

"The report can't possibly say that you walked in, took a turn, declared it impossible, and just walked away scot-free, can it? There's no way to explain that to Mr. Chen's side either!"

With that, she glanced again at the police officers standing a bit closer, lowering her voice even further, "Even... even if you're faking it, you have to make it look convincing. At least... at least put on an act, look around, and say something? Otherwise, being caught in the middle makes my job very difficult..."

Ma Wenwen pressed his lips together, his face so gloomy water could practically drip from it, clearly showing extreme reluctance.

Seeing him completely impervious to reason, Lin Xun sighed, straightened up, and raised her voice to address the surrounding police officers:

"Here's what we'll do: let's not have too many people crowding the scene so we don't disturb Mr. Ma. You guys take me to meet that old scavenger woman, and I will question her myself."

As she spoke, she gave a meaningful look to Le Dong and Cai Kun. The implication was clear: the two of you stay behind and find a way to make Ma Wenwen at least put on a show and muddle through.

"Mr. Ma, please take a look around here first, and call me anytime if you discover anything." Having said this to Ma Wenwen, without waiting for his reaction, Lin Xun strode away from the bizarrely charged room accompanied by the young police officer.

The door was pulled shut. In the small cubicle reeking of stale urine, only Ma Wenwen, Le Dong, Cai Kun, and the three shriveled corpses beneath the wooden bed silently telling a tale of terror were left behind.

The air seemed to congeal, leaving only the muffled breathing of the three men.

A few seconds later, Cai Kun cast a swift glance at the tightly closed door, confirming there were indeed no extra ears outside the thin wooden panel before leaning closer to Ma Wenwen and asking, "Master Ma, can you... really not sense anything at all?"

He asked very cautiously, his eyes scanning Ma Wenwen's face.

"Do you really think I was just fooling Lin Xun earlier? I genuinely can't feel a thing."

Seeing Ma Wenwen's reaction didn't look like a fake, Cai Kun immediately thought of his own car. He hadn't believed it back then either, and had stubbornly dragged Ma Wenwen to "take a look" just to set his mind slightly at ease.

Yet facing these three bizarre corpses right now, Ma Wenwen still couldn't sense anything, which cracked the facade of safety he had forced himself to maintain.

"This is getting really tricky now," Le Dong chimed in, rubbing his hands together with anxiety seeping through his voice. "There are cops everywhere outside, not to mention that Mr. Chen... If we just walk away like this without giving any kind of explanation, I doubt we'll be able to extricate ourselves."

Hearing this, Ma Wenwen's chest heaved violently several times, clearly provoked to a fury by this inescapable predicament.

He took a sharp breath, gave an irritated wave of his hand, and sneered, "Don't they want some action? Fine! I'll give them action!"

Before Le Dong and Cai Kun could fully comprehend the meaning of his words, they saw Ma Wenwen swiftly reach into his cloth satchel, fumble around for a moment, and when he pulled his hand back out, two fingers were already firmly pinching a familiar piece of yellow talisman paper.

Le Dong and Cai Kun exchanged glances, vaguely guessing his intention, and stepped aside, retreating half a step.

After taking out the talisman paper, Ma Wenwen deliberately magnified his voice and chanted an indistinct incantation.

And at the exact moment the final syllable fell—

"Whoosh!"

The talisman paper pinched between his fingers burst into a cluster of flames without any warning. Immediately afterward, Ma Wenwen flicked his wrist, and the burning talisman paper left his hand, abruptly soaring into the air within the cramped room!

The trajectory of the talisman paper in the air was completely erratic; at times it darted toward the low, soot-blackened ceiling, and at other times it spun rapidly along the walls. The flickering flames cast dancing, ghostly shadows across the faces of the three men in the room.

Le Dong and Cai Kun instinctively held their breath, their eyes locked firmly on the talisman paper.

This was a scene they had witnessed not long ago in the villa, back when Ma Wenwen had employed this "Yang Fire Talisman" technique to search for Old Master Hu.

According to Ma Wenwen's explanation at the time, wherever the talisman paper ultimately pointed, that was where an evil spirit resided. And given how it was darting about randomly now, the outcome could only be one of two things:

Either this place was completely empty, or... the "thing" entrenched here was powerful enough to make this talisman paper utterly malfunction!

Yet having survived the nightmare at the villa, Le Dong would never believe that this place was truly empty.

"Dongzi..."

Cai Kun's soft call came from beside his ear. Le Dong looked back and saw that Cai Kun had clearly also recalled the incident at the villa. One of his hands had instinctively pulled Ma Wenwen and Le Dong slightly backward, while the other hand gripped the cold doorknob behind him tightly. His body leaned back slightly, a posture entirely ready to drag them through the door and flee at a moment's notice.

Le Dong signaled him to relax and shifted his gaze back to the air.

There, the talisman paper seemed to have exhausted its strength. After spinning around a few times, the firelight suddenly extinguished, and countless charred fragments of paper drifted down silently, scattering across the dirty floor without a sound.

The room was once again swallowed by dimness. Ma Wenwen turned his head sideways, as if listening with extreme concentration to some lingering "echo" remaining in the air.

A few seconds later, he spoke in a dry, strained voice, "...It fell down?"

"Right," Le Dong swallowed with difficulty. "It... it spun around a few times, then... it shattered and dropped to the floor." He stared at those few inconspicuous piles of black ash on the ground, his palms sweating.

Hearing Le Dong's reply, Ma Wenwen's already unsightly face became even more gloomy and ashen.

His hand reached into the cloth satchel again, as if gripping something tightly. He muttered to himself, sounding more like he was interrogating this bizarre room: "Even if the harmful evil spirit isn't here... but the three of them died here not long ago... Where are their souls? Newly dead souls are as weak as a newly lit lamp. There's no reason the Yang Fire Talisman couldn't sense them... and yet it shattered..."

His voice paused, then abruptly rose in pitch, carrying a chilling note of uncertain terror. "...Could it be... that they were devoured?!"

This speculation plunged Le Dong and Cai Kun into even greater dread.

"..."

And at the very instant when this dead silence and tense fear were stretched to their absolute limit—

"Ah—!"

A piercing scream from Lin Xun suddenly erupted from outside the door...