Chapter 23: Identifying the Body

The car quickly arrived at the police station. It was late at night, and most people had left for the day; only those assigned to this case remained, begrudgingly working overtime. Lin Quan was waiting at the entrance. When he saw Sui Yi, he put out his cigarette and walked over, speaking bluntly, “I’ll take you to the morgue now.”

“Alright,” Sui Yi replied.

For the first time, Zhang Xiao thought his captain was truly imposing, and it was also clear to him why this man remained single—he simply didn’t know how to show tenderness toward women!

The morgue was icy cold. Sui Yi wore only a thin T-shirt, and the chill seemed to envelop her from all directions, suffocating her. Zhang Xiao shivered, about to stomp his feet, when the old man on duty gave him a sharp tug. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s right… How did you know?”

“Just look at that clueless expression on your face.”

“…Hey, why are you insulting me?”

The old man shot a look at Sui Yi ahead and chuckled dryly, “If you stomp your feet in a morgue, you’ll wake the spirits. The dead might rise! Only rookies do that… But clearly, that young lady is braver than you.”

Damn it!

Zhang Xiao rolled his eyes, itching to argue with the old man.

Meanwhile, Lin Quan had already lifted the white sheet from a corpse and quickly glanced over at Sui Yi.

She was already standing right beside the body, very close, quietly examining the corpse’s pale, bruised skin, crisscrossed with fierce lacerations and burns. At the center of the forehead was a bullet hole, about the size of a thumb. The torn flesh revealed a stark contrast of red and white.

It had only been two days since death, so the body was still fairly well-preserved.

Sui Yi did not find it frightening at all. In contrast, Zhang Xiao, who had earlier tried to comfort her, now leaned weakly against the wall.

“So? Did anything come to mind?” Lin Quan asked, more out of habit than hope. As Sui Yi had said, their department’s plan was to lure the perpetrator out; Sui Yi was merely bait.

It was hardly fair or proper, but to their superiors, Sui Yi was no model citizen. This was her chance to “earn merit through service.”

“Where was he found?” Sui Yi replied with her own question instead of answering.

Lin Quan frowned—he disliked being put in this position—but answered anyway, “About a kilometer downstream from your house. The killer dragged him into the river before finishing him off.”

“The bullet’s missing,” Sui Yi stated—not as a question, but as a certainty. This made Lin Quan tense. He frowned deeper, his tone turning harsh. “Why do you say that?”

“If you’d found the bullet, you’d be able to trace the gun, at least get some lead. Judging by your faces, you found nothing.”

At that moment, both Lin Quan and Zhang Xiao felt their dignity bruised. Was this girl mocking them? Yet her expression remained as calm and cool as ever.

“They tortured him for information. It seems they were searching for something. No wonder the police came to me.”

Sui Yi felt a pang of worry. Could the thing they were looking for be the fragment she had? But that tiny, worthless scrap—was it worth killing for?

She glanced at Lin Quan, whose expression was grave. If the killer wasn’t after the fragment, then there must be something the police were hiding from her.

She hoped it was the latter.

“I hope you’ll be honest with me, Captain Lin. That’s the only way I can recall more details.”

Lin Quan was growing visibly impatient, his expression cloudy. “Sui Yi, don’t forget… I’m the police here.”

Sui Yi pulled the sheet back over the corpse’s face. As she did, her fingers briefly touched the bullet hole in its forehead. In that instant, a cold sensation seeped into her fingertips.

In her mind, magnetic induction conjured a hazy image. She spoke quietly, “I might refuse to cooperate.”

She manipulated more lines of magnetic induction, and the image sharpened: first a bullet, then a gun.

Did her ability really extend this far? Could it record traces of past existence? It seemed particularly sensitive to relics—perhaps the principle was the same.

“Your grandmother’s side…”

“She’s my grandmother, not yours. Isn’t that so?”

Lin Quan realized then that Sui Yi didn’t trust the police—just as the police didn’t trust her; she was only a pawn to them.

How ironic.

At that moment, Sui Yi looked pale and frail, as if her strength was ebbing away.

Lin Quan frowned, watching as Sui Yi walked out the door. Zhang Xiao took the opportunity to follow, clinging to the wall.

He couldn’t wait to get out of that place.

Inside the morgue, the old man glanced at Lin Quan and suddenly grinned. “Lin Quan… Do you believe your luck is about to change?”

Lin Quan started at the old man’s sly smile. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… that young lady is no ordinary person. The aura and fate around her are hard to grasp. I’ve seen a lot of people—my gut is never wrong.”

Honestly, Lin Quan found it absurd—a morgue attendant claiming to read fortunes?

You spend all day looking at the dead, don’t you!

Too many corpses, perhaps.

Lin Quan’s brow twitched, and he shot the old man a glare before leaving the morgue.

After he had gone, the old man chuckled, sat down on a nearby chair, crossed his legs, and leisurely began making a phone call.

“Hey, it’s me…”

He seemed utterly unconcerned that he was in a morgue.

Outside, Sui Yi leaned against a pillar, breathing deeply to calm her aching and exhausted body. The magnetic energy she’d gained from absorbing the black jade bead was already depleted; evidently, simulating the gun’s image was still quite taxing.

She could only catch the vaguest impression.

After a while, she asked for the time. Zhang Xiao told her it was already nine o’clock.

“Nine o’clock. I have class tomorrow… Could you take me somewhere?”

“Huh? Back to the suburbs?”

“No…”

Lin Quan happened to come out just then, and hearing that Sui Yi wanted to leave, his expression darkened. He looked at her, brows forming a sharp angle, and said coldly, “I’ll be honest—but you’d better hope what you tell us is useful to the police.”

Sui Yi glanced at him, still leaning against the pillar.

Drawing a deep breath, Lin Quan ignored Zhang Xiao’s presence and spoke in a low tone: “That group Black Skin belonged to was a gang of grave robbers who’ve repeatedly committed crimes around Yancheng in Jiangxi Province. You probably know that better than I do. A while back, they went on a rampage in the ancient county of Yancheng, pulling off several major jobs. Some members even died. The situation grew so serious that the local police opened a case and spent two months investigating, but leads were scarce. One by one, members of the gang began to die—each death stranger than the last.”

“Stranger how?” Sui Yi seized on the word.

“Some were shot, but their bodies also bore wounds from odd weapons. Others were poisoned inexplicably. But that’s not all. The weirdest part is that the treasures the gang stole over the years, which were stashed in various places, began disappearing one after another as their keepers died. The last cache was guarded by Black Skin, and it held the final relic from the last tomb…”

Lin Quan paused, exhaling. “If the pattern held, he was bound to be killed and the relic stolen. But he was smarter than the rest—managed to sneak over here and even got tangled up with your boss. Now he’s dead, and the relic is gone. If the killer is satisfied, the item is already in hand. If not… then who has it?”

As Lin Quan spoke, his eyes—sharp as a hawk’s—fixed on Sui Yi, trying to glean some clue from her face.

But he saw nothing at all.