Thriller Night Talk

Chapter 122: Wang Baotai and His People

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor-Agneya, Proofreader-Ghostie

Friday, August 6th, 12:47 pm.

Bei Quan, Qingzhu, and A’Liu took a small special plane from the military airport. When they landed at an unknown small airport in the northwest two hours later, there was a six-seater SUV with a special licence plate that was waiting for them.

The driver was the local police officer in charge of investigating the case. After a brief introduction, he distributed a copy of the case information to each of the three people in the back seat.

Taking advantage of the travel time, Bei Quan quickly flipped through the case file of the dead.

The skinned young man named Wang Baotai was born in 199x, if he hadn’t died, he would have turned 24 this year.

Wang Baotai was born to a family with four brothers and sisters in a small village called Maoyang in the northwest. He was the youngest son.

Like most young people in the village, after completing the nine-year mandatory education, they either went to the county to study in a vocational high school or a technical secondary school or simply drift south with their friends and work in coastal cities.

Wang Baotai chose the latter.

He left home at the age of seventeen and drifted south to Jiangnan, a halt-way across in China. He worked in a paint factory, a toy factory, an electrical distribution factory, and a hardware accessories factory for a period of time. In the last two years, he was employed in an instrument assembly factory and doing a good job; this year, he was promoted to a workshop leader in terms of seniority.

Just about ten days ago, Wang Baotai’s old father went out to visit his friends when he accidentally fell and never got up again.

After falling down, the old man fell into an unconscious state with a perpetual high fever, shivers, and cramping. He was rushed to the county hospital by his family. Even the doctor couldn’t do anything. He was sent to an ICU the day after being hospitalized. Two or three days later, the doctor announced that the old man was critically ill, saying that they were afraid his condition might get worse.

According to the village custom, the old man must die in his own home, or he will become a homeless ghost.

Because of this, the family had distressingly informed their son and daughter who left home in order to give them the opportunity to come back and see the old man for the last time. At the same time, they asked the hospital to unplug the oxygen tube and told them they would take the old man who was nearly at the end of his life home.

Wang Baotai received a phone call from home and heard that his own father was dying of illness, so he hurriedly took leave from the factory and rushed back home overnight.

When he reached this point, Bei Quan stopped the quick reading, closed his eyes, and quickly replayed the case in his mind.

Because of time constraints, Wang Baotai had to spend a few extra hundred dollars to buy a plane ticket.

However, his hometown Maoyang was located in a remote place even in the northwest. There was no direct flight between the two places at all, so Wang Baotai could only have taken the plane to the nearby provincial capital, and then from there, take a long-distance bus to the county. Finally, he would have had to spend 100 yuan in the county to find a motorcycle or something similar, so that he could finally reach his village.

It would have taken at least a day and a night to travel to the main destination.

The police found Wang Baotai’s ticket purchase record and boarding information in the airline, and specially adjusted the airport monitoring to confirm his identity.

The flight landed safely, without any trouble on the way.

Then, the long-distance bus from the provincial capital to the county town also found Wang Baotai’s driving record, and the police also determined from the built-in monitoring of the bus that it was the deceased who was on the bus.

Just after the bus arrived in the county, the clues were cut off. The police visited many times, but so far, they had not found any reliable witnesses.

“So Wang Baotai disappeared on his way home from the county?”

While Qingzhu and A’Liu were still in the process of reading the information, Bei Quan had already turned it over and firmly engraved all the information in his mind like a photocopy.

“It looks like the place where the body was found does not align with his route home?”

A police officer sitting in the passenger seat replied.

“Yes, the ravine where the body was found was more than forty kilometres away from the village of Maoyang and is not on the necessary route from the county to the village. Moreover, the ravine is obviously not the original scene of the crime– whoever committed the crime must have dumped the body there, without a doubt.”

Bei Quan nodded.

There were several photos of the scene attached to the information.

The ravine where the corpse was dumped was located in a secret, remote, and desolate place. If it hadn’t been for the recent two-day rainstorm in the local area, which caused a mudslide and blocked the mountain highway, and led the road repair team to find the corpse when passing by, Wang Baotai’s corpse would not have been found for a very long time.

At that time, the remains may have long been reduced to? bones which would have made it very difficult to find who they belonged to. Identifying the person who the corpse belonged to with a layer of skin missing had already been a lot of trouble.

At this point, another police officer driving the car said.

“Wang Baotai’s body has been sent to the County Public Security Bureau to let the forensic pathologist conduct the autopsy.”

The police officer paused and then asked.

“Do the three of you want to see the scene first? Or do you want to see Wang Baotai’s body first?”

Hearing this question, Bei Quan raised his head, just in time to meet Qingzhu’s gaze, so he smiled at him and indicated that the other party should decide.

Qingzhu thought for a moment and replied.

“Then let’s go see the corpse first.”

“No problem.”

The criminal police officer driving the car agreed, got off the national highway, and drove towards the county.

At 3:40 p.m., the car pulled up in front of the County Public Security Bureau.

Two police officers led them to the morgue, where Bei Quan, Qingzhu, and A’Liu finally saw Wang Baotai’s body.

It was midsummer, and a skinned body was found after being dried in the ravine for two days. It had begun to decay. Both its appearance and smell were quite disgusting.

When the white cloth lifted to reveal the deteriorating, swollen, and skinless corpse, the two police officers who had seen it more than once also reflexively frowned and looked away from the corpse, showing a rather uncomfortable look.

But Bei Quan, Qingzhu, and A’Liu were calm, and they didn’t even move their eyebrows.

“Forensic doctors did not find any obvious traumatic injuries on Wang Baotai’s body.”

A police officer turned over the autopsy report and said to the three.

“And the skin peeling was done professionally, leaving almost no trace of a knife wound on the body.”

He flipped back two more pages.

“The usual toxicology tests were also all negative ……”

The police officer paused and concluded.

“The cause of Wang Baotai’s death is not yet clear.”

Bei Quan and Qingzhu exchanged a glance with each other.

No fatal injuries, no poisoning, no abnormalities in the autopsy– a young man in good health just died for no apparent reason ……

Qingzhu’s eyes were solemn as he lowered his voice and said, “Disregarding everything else, just this one aspect alone is the same as Xu Lei.”

At that time, Xu Lei’s body was found in time, so he could still see a black spot on her temple, while Wang Baotai didn’t even have skin, so it was impossible to know whether he had any bruises.

In fact, no matter how the murderer killed the person, the original plan should be quite perfect.

He peeled off the human skin and then carried it to the wilderness to dump the corpse. As long as the location was secret enough, no one would have noticed it for at least a year and a half. By then, the body would have been a rotten mess, and it is likely that there would be, at most, only a skeleton left.

In this way, even if the body was found, the police would not know that the person was missing skin, and would only have dealt with the case as an ordinary unknown corpse case, following the general reconnaissance process, without alerting the “Special Seven Field Service” people.

Unfortunately, schemes don’t always go as planned; the murderer was quite unlucky. Having committed the crime just in time for the rainstorm to wash the mountain path, the smell of the rotting corpse had attracted the attention of the road construction team, which made his painstaking plan come to naught.

“May I?”

Bei Quan raised his hand towards the two police officers.

The police officers: “???”

Then they were shocked to see Bei Quan, without gloves, reaching out a hand without a change in expression and touch the skinless rotting corpse’s head.

The police officers: “!!!”

——What did this man do before!? Why is his psychological quality too tough!?

The two young men both looked horrified and cursed in their hearts.

At this time Bei Quan had already carefully peeled back the skin over the skull and revealed the detached skull underneath. After a careful examination, he shook his head at Qingzhu.

The two police officers did not know what he meant, but Qingzhu understood.

Bei Quan was telling him that there were no traces of iron nails on Wang Baotai’s skull. In other words, this person’s soul was probably not taken away by the murderer like Xu Lei.

“All right.”

Bei Quan covered the body, went to the corner to wash his hands, and smiled again at the two police officers.

“Now, please, both of you take us to the scene where the body was found.”

————————-

Friday, August 6, 5:30 p.m.

Wei Fuyuan and Jiang Nan’an were at Cai Mingjian and Su Lan’s home, looking at the current situation of the living room through the handrail of the corridor on the second floor.

The Taoist priest invited by the owner of the house was said to be the abbot of a famous Taoist of the temple on Yue Ling Mountain, and his reputation had always been good. If there was a funeral or wedding event in the nearby villages and towns, they were willing to spend more money to take care of it, and would generally ask this Taoist priest to help.

The Taoist priest, however, was usually very lonely and reluctant to leave the mountain easily.

This time, he was only willing to come to Cai Mingjian and Su Lan’s house because it was a favour requested by the village chief, and because of the generous reward of 300,000 yuan for a ritual.

Today, when the Taoist priest came to the house, he first circled around their house with a compass, pointing out many problematic areas with improper Feng Shui[, and then calculated Cai Mingjian and Su Lan’s eight characters. He drew the conclusion that the marriage between these two had fallen prey to an astrological mismatch, and that it had gotten to the point where, this year, the mistress of the house found her Health Palace in conflict with Mars, and so she’s been very weak of constitution and consistently unlucky. As such, it’s been quite easy for creatures of Yin energy to affect her.

So the Taoist master called a group of young and strong boys before proceeding to completely upturn the house inside and out, move everything and change anything possible so that the entire appearance of the house changed. Afterwards, he pasted a slip of yellow talisman on the courtyard wall, on the lintel, the beam, and a window. Finally, he opened the altar and began a religious ceremony in the completely changed main hall, that was, the living room.

“Hmph, such little skills, yet still making such a pretence to be mysterious and powerful!”

Jiang Nan’an crossed his arms and looked at the Taoist waving around a peach wood sword in front of the sacrificial altar and walking the BaGua Steps and refuted rather rudely, “That little Yang energy of his? It’s not even comparable to the group of big guys next to him.”

Wei Fuyuan lifted his foot and kicked him, signalling for the chattering Comrade Jiang to keep his voice down, and not to let the Taoist master hear.

For two people who have opened their yin and yang eyes, the magic power of Taoists and Monks could be distinguished by the color of the Qi halo emitted by their bodies.

The Taoist priest was over 40 years old. If he was diligent in cultivation, he should more or less have cultivated a true Yang.

But it was obvious that the other party was not a devout and hardworking person. He was full of empty posturing which actually lacked power and was weak. The spells he wrote were no different from ordinary graffiti. Naturally, they couldn’t expect him and his actions to have any successful effect in exorcising evil spirits.