The Real Awakening - Chapter 5: Zhu Sha

13, 17, 26, 31, 49, 2, E, S, P…

“What exactly do these numbers and letters mean?”

It was afternoon in S-City. Ye Xiao was currently in District T’s police station, sitting on the sofa of the Special Crimes Investigation Unit’s breakroom. He was eating instant noodles while blankly staring at the white paper on the glass coffee table in front of him.

This paper had been handed to them by Kang Wen, the younger sister of the previous investigator on duty: Kang Lei, while they had been at the mental hospital. She had stated that it might help them with their current case.

However, he had been studying the piece of paper for a long time now and had yet to grasp any secret.

“That serial killer in Nanshan Prison calls himself No. 13. If the 13 on here refers to him, then do each of the numbers following it refer to people as well? No. 13, No. 17, No. 26, No. 31, No. 49, No. 2…so six people total?”

Ye Xiao muttered this to himself as he chewed on his noodles.

The hot and spicy aroma of the ramen wafted upwards, pervading through the entire room.

Su Mu was silent as he reclined against the window and serenely drank his black coffee. He did not express any opinion and simply watched the people and cars passing through the street outside the window. There was no knowing what he was thinking.

Su Mu was the type that buried his thoughts deep inside, making them extremely difficult to make sense of. But Ye Xiao couldn’t be bothered to try, since he had long since grown accustomed to being treated like air by this person that remained unruffled in any situation.

Ye Xiao had to admit that this point alone indicated there was some benefit to being insensitive.

As he took a few slurps of his noodles, Ye Xiao continued to ponder and murmured, “But what do those three English letters mean? E, S, P…E? E.T? E.T. phone home?”

While he was babbling nonsense that was neither here nor there, an indistinct voice suddenly sounded out from nowhere. He wasn’t sure if it was speaking in English or chanting some type of curse, but there was a long string of jabber.

Startled, Ye Xiao jumped up from the sofa and glanced left and right to scan his surroundings. Finally, he spun around and stuck his head out to peek behind the sofa. He couldn’t help but cry out, “M-mould woman? What the hell, when did you get here? Why didn’t I see you come in?”

After he asked this, the seemingly unidentifiable object curled up behind the sofa slowly lifted its head. A pale female face was visible underneath her long, thick, black hair.

Mei Mei grinned and innocently replied, “I’ve been here from the start.”

“From the start? Lies! I didn’t see anyone opening that door!”

“Heh, hehe, I was already here before you guys entered. You just didn’t notice.”

Mei Mei’s lip curved upwards as she chuckled creepily.

Ye Xiao shot her an exasperated glare before rebutting, “No shit, who would’ve known that there was someone crouching behind a sofa? What are you doing hiding there when you have nothing better to do? Are you trying to frighten someone to death?”

Mei Mei languidly stood, then calmly smoothed out her long hair as she gave a dark smirk. “I take a 30 minute rest here every afternoon. It was you guys that interrupted my nap.”

Ye Xiao frowned. He glanced over at Su Mu, who was still coolly taking unhurried sips of his coffee by the window, then helplessly said, “Alright, alright, I guess all of you are just freaks that can’t think like normal people.”

Mei Mei smiled with pursed lips, which gave it a slight eerie feeling.

“Based on what I heard just now, it seems like you really want to know the meaning of ESP?”

Ye Xiao blinked. He cast her a suspicious look as he asked, “Oh? Don’t tell me that you know it?”

Mei Mei chuckled and quietly recited in English, “Extra Supernatural Phenomena.”

Taken aback, Ye Xiao repeated back, “Ex…Ex-what? What did you say?”

“Extra supernatural phenomena.”

There was a faint grin on her face as she said, “Simply put, any phenomena that cannot be explained by science.”

At this, Ye Xiao’s face immediately darkened as he inwardly cursed: Crap! Here she goes again!

As expected, Mei Mei ignored Ye Xiao’s change in expression and continued on.

“For example, in 1985, there was a passenger plane discovered in a forest marsh in New Guinea. This passenger plane had supposedly gone missing from the radar in the middle of its flight from the Philippines to Minqinnao Island. There had been no alerts or SOS signals, and it had just vanished without a trace until it had been found nearly half a century later.

“The most unfathomable part was that when it was found, the plane was just as new as it had been the year of its disappearance. When the inspectors entered the cabin, they were shocked to discover it was empty. There were unexpectedly no passenger remains, nor any kind of horrifyingly bloody scenes. Everything was intact and natural, to the point where there was even a boiling hot cup of coffee on a table that kept its original flavour. The sandwiches were similarly fresh, and both the plane’s fuel tank and batteries were nearly full. Yet they found a newspaper inside that unmistakably confirmed the date: 1937, the third Sunday of January.

“To this day, this mysterious extra supernatural phenomena hasn’t been explained. No one has a clue where all the passengers on that plane went, and how it stayed so new. It is all an enigma.”

Mei Mei paused to take a deep breath before adding, “Another example is—”

“Stop! Stop stop stop!” Ye Xiao hurriedly shouted out to cut off her words and hastily said, “Don’t give any more examples, mould woman. What exactly are you trying to say by telling me these things?”

“I’m just telling you what ESP is.” Mei Mei gave him a strange smile.

“Ok ok, you’ve given sufficient explanation. Please don’t say anymore.”

Ye Xiao waved his hands, unsure whether to laugh or to cry. He was afraid that if he didn’t stop her, Mei Mei would continue going on and on; it wouldn’t be surprising if she talked for three days nonstop. Of course, only the heavens knew if her stories were real or fake, true or false.

With a helpless sigh, Ye Xiao went back to picking up his cup noodles and shoveling the food into his mouth. He raised his head to glance at Su Mu and commented, “Oi, Dead Fish Eyes, stop being so stuffy all the time. Why don’t you say something too?”

Su Mu turned to face him expressionlessly. “What do you want me to say?”

“Eh, talk about your thoughts. Do you have any views about the letters and numbers on this paper?”

“No,” Su Mu swiftly responded.

Ye Xiao pursed his lips, but could not do anything about the other. Hence, he merely lowered his head to eat his noodles. But after taking two bites, he heard Su Mu indifferently add, “But yesterday, I looked up the three victims from the serial killing case.”

“Oh? You’ve finally begun to gain interest in this serial killing case?”

Ye Xiao chuckled and asked, “How was it? Did you discover anything?”

Su Mu hummed to himself for a while before slowly stating, “For the case involving F-University’s psychology professor, Cao Guo Xuan and his family, it can be said that the perpetrator’s murder target should have originally been Cao Guo Xuan alone. It was just that his wife and daughter were misfortunate enough to come home during the act and they were both killed in a moment of desperation to silence witnesses. This ultimately resulted in the family of three being tragically murdered.

“Then there was Jiang Zhong Ming, the researcher from the biological research lab on Yunling Street in the northern part of the city. On the day of the crime, it just happened to be his lab shift, and the researchers’ shift schedules were posted on the bulletin board at the lab entrance. Moreover, the day before Jiang Zhong Ming was killed, he had reported to the police that an unknown man had been stalking him for multiple days. But since he hadn’t been able to provide any evidence at the time, the report was not regarded as important. No one thought he would be murdered the following day.

“As for the third case, the victim was a male functionary from the government: Du Zi Feng. The night of the incident, he had been sleeping alone in his home when the perpetrator broke open his door and killed him with a knife, then dismembered the dead body into four parts: the head, arms, legs, and torso were discarded in garbage bins at four different districts in the city.”

Su Mu said all this in a single breath, then paused before saying, “According to the previous investigation reports, the perpetrator was an abnormal homicidal maniac with very severe mental issues and enjoyed committing crimes as he indiscriminately killed people. But—”

“But you don’t think that’s the case, do you?”

Ye Xiao finished his last mouthful of noodles and licked his lips to savour the taste before grinning, “You think that these serial killings were organised, premeditated, with an objective. The reason is because of Jiang Zhong Ming’s case; if the perpetrator had been randomly committing murder for entertainment, there he wouldn’t have needed to scout out his victim’s whereabouts first. So in summary, Cao Guo Xuan, Jiang Zhong Ming, and Du Zi Feng’s deaths were not by chance, but inevitable. How about it, Detective Su, is my analysis correct?”

Su Mu gave him a deadpan look without responding.

Ye Xiao threw him a wink and teased, “See, I’m a tapeworm in your stomach.”

Su Mu’s face darkened as he shot the other a glare, then wordlessly lowered his head to take a sip of coffee.

Ye Xiao stood and tossed the empty ramen cup into the trash can before pouring himself a cup of water.

Mei Mei had at some point curled up behind the sofa again to rest.

After a while, Ye Xiao seemed to sense that there was something off. He spun back around to face Su Mu and asked, “Did you…already find the connection between Cao Guo Xuan,Jiang Zhong Ming, and Du Zi Feng?”

Su Mu kept his head down to sip his coffee while evenly replying, “All three of them were at the same research institute six years ago.”

“Research institute?” Ye Xiao frowned. “Why didn’t you say such an important clue earlier?”

Su Mu flashed him a fake smile. “Didn’t you say you were a tapeworm in my stomach?”

“I…”

Speechless, he could only reply with a glare.

Thus, for the next few days, they began to investigate the research institute. Without checking, they wouldn’t have discovered that this research institute with an unknown name had shut down several years ago. The few researchers that had been there had either left the country or disappeared. The only three still alive in society had been Cao Guo Xuan, Jiang Zhong Ming, and Du Zi Feng, all of whom were now killed. Unfortunately, it was likely there was no one else around that knew what this institute had been researching at the time.

Finally, after much difficulty, they managed to find out from an old, close friend of Jiang Zhong Ming that this abandoned research institute might have been outside the northern district in a remote area called “Zhu Sha”. But it was unknown what type of place this “Zhu Sha” was.

In spite of everything, Ye Xiao and Su Mu decided to personally make a visit. They had a feeling…a feeling that this mysterious research institute they did not know the name of might become the key behind their investigation of No. 13’s motive for murder.

 

It was extremely hot the day they headed out for Zhu Sha – likely the hottest day since the start of spring. The temperature rose to 29℃, with the burning sun high above their heads to roast the earth like a ball of fire.

Everyone said S-City only had two seasons: winter and summer. This was because the spring and autumn seasons were so short that they passed with the blink of an eye.

Su Mu and Ye Xiao braved the blazing heat as they ran back and forth dozens of times throughout the area, inquiring the convenience store owners, apparel store managers, fruit peddlers, restaurant waiters, and even quite a few residents on the streets that seemed to have been in the area for a while. However, not a single person knew of this research institute in the vicinity.

Still, such a result was more or less within their expectations.

At precisely noon, Ye Xiao seriously could not endure the scorching sunlight anymore and dragged Su Mu over to hide inside a ramen shop by the road and grab lunch at the same time. Instead of Japanese ramen, it was Lanzhou ramen this time.

Though, the moment he stepped inside the shop, he immediately regretted it.

This small shop did not have air conditioning, just a tattered, old-fashioned fan placed inside. It clattered as it shook its “head”, its power and temperature far from what Ye Xiao wanted. While Ye Xiao wanted to leave, Su Mu had already taken a seat and looked as though he wouldn’t walk again even if it meant being beaten to death. The ramen shop owner also warmly welcomed them and provided a menu with a wide smile.

With lack of a better option, Ye Xiao could only sit down across from Su Mu.

The two each ordereda bowl of beef noodles and a glass of ice soda before the boss turned away with a beaming grin.

Ye Xiao gloomily gnawed on his chopsticks as he swept a glance around the vacant shop and quietly asked, “Hey, don’t you think it’s super hot in here?”

Su Mu remained indifferent, only wordlessly staring at the boss’s back walking away.

With a sigh, Ye Xiao could only drop the subject.

Two steaming bowls of beef noodles and two glasses of ice soda were soon placed on the table.

Ye Xiao first downed half the soda in a single gulp, then picked up some noodles with his chopsticks. He purposely held them in front of the fan to cool them down, then carefully placed it inside his mouth. After a few chews, his eyes lit up in surprise.

“Wow, how unexpected. This place’s ramen is actually quite tasty!”

As he spoke, he stuffed a thin slice of beef into his mouth.

“Mmm, the beef is delicious too, flavourful and tender without being greasy/”

With this accidental but nice surprise, Ye Xiao stopped grumbling about the heat inside the store. As his sweat poured down like rain, he ate with relish. He grabbed a bottle of curry powder and sprinkled a tiny bit into the noodles before taking a taste. “Huh, it’s even tastier with curry powder. Do you want to try some too?”

He reached over, but right as he was about to pour some curry powder into Su Mu’s bowl, he was caught off guard by Su Mu sharply blocking the bottle with a slap of his hand.

“Eat it yourself, I don’t need it.”

As Su Mu frostily spoke, he pushed away the hand that Ye Xiao was holding the seasoning with.

Ye Xiao’s hand remained frozen in midair as he stared in Su Mu in astonishment.

It was not because Su Mu had rejected him, but because…because Su Mu’s hand was seriously cold, and felt exactly like an ice cube. It seemed to lack any trace of warmth.

How could that be? Even if he was sick, his body temperature couldn’t possibly drop to freezing point.

This…definitely isn’t a normal person’s body temperature…

Having worked as a criminal investigator these past few years and frequently dealt with various types of corpses, his experience told him that perhaps only a dead body could remain as frigid as ice even after being under the sun for several hours.

Ye Xiao was frightened by his own sudden train of thought and hurriedly shook his head to banish the idea.

“Oi, what are you doing?”

Su Mu stared at Ye Xiao’s hand that was still suspended in the air, the curry powder now falling down like snow.

With an awkward smile, Ye Xiao replied, “No-nothing.” As he spoke, he quickly placed the curry powder away and lowered his head to take a few frantic glups of noodles. But as he ate, he couldn’t help but lift his gaze to sneak a peek at Su Mu once more.

He noticed that there was not a drop of sweat on Su Mu’s face. That’s really bizarre. We walked under the blazing sun for so long, and now we’re sitting in a ramen shop that doesn’t have air conditioning while eating boiling noodles yet…yet he doesn’t have a single drop of sweat? Don’t tell me this guy doesn’t have pores on his face?

Ye Xiao raised his head in disbelief to stare straight at Su Mu.

Su Mu was currently looking down to eat his own food.

After a long moment of silence, he suddenly asked without looking up, “Have you stared enough?”

“Er…”

Su Mu continued, “You’ve been watching me since earlier. What, is there a flower on my face? Or are you actually interested in men?”

Su Mu’s tone was apathetic, his words neither slow nor fast. But Ye Xiao choked and spat out a mouthful of soda.

“Cough cough…cough cough cough…Please…you…”

He did not finish coughing out his words before the ramen shop boss brought over a side dish with a bright smile and cordially said in an amiable tone, “This is the shop’s complementary pickled cucumber dish today. I hope the two of you enjoy it.”

Ye Xiao looked at the plate of green cucumber and finally managed to stop coughing. Then he grabbed a few napkins to wipe his mouth before shouting after the retreating store owner.

“Boss, please wait a moment.”

The owner turned and asked, “Does this customer have any other requests?”

Ye Xiao waved and replied, “No, I just wanted to ask you about something. Would now be a convenient time for you?”

As he spoke, he pulled out his ID and flashed it.

The owner started upon seeing the police badge, then cautiously scrutinised Ye Xiao before shifting over to Su Mu, who was silently eating noodles. Finally he put on a sophisticated smile as he said, “Oh, I had no idea the two of you were police officers. I apologise for any disrespect. May I ask what your request is?”

Ye Xiao stowed his ID away as he asked, “Oh, it’s nothing major, don’t worry. I just wanted to ask if you knew of any research institute nearby?”

“Research institute?”

The owner’s expression suddenly changed as a trace of astonishment flitted through his eyes. However, he quickly changed into a sardonic smile. “Ahaha, Mr. Officer, you must’ve seen how remote and desolate this place is. It’s so far from the city without even anything close to a hotel. How could there be a research institute?”

Ye Xiao frowned and replied, “I don’t think a hotel has any exact relation to a research institute?”

“Oh, I was just giving an analogy.”

The owner in his forties maintained a suspicious grin on his fierce-looking face as he replied after a moment’s thought, “Also, I’ll be completely transparent, but I only moved here in the past year or so. I don’t know much about anything from before then. You should go and ask the old residents here, like…oh, right, the lady boss of the grocery store next door. She’s already lived here for decades; she might know something. You two can try questioning her.”

At this moment, another customer just happened to push open the door and enter the shop, so the owner hurriedly took advantage of this opportunity to escape and warmly welcome the customer with a menu.

Ye Xiao watched the owner’s chubby back before commenting in a low voice, “Looks like we’ve finally found the right person.”

Su Mu raised a brow without a word.

Ye Xiao smirked as though he was hiding a top-secret truth.

Just now, he had not mentioned that this research institute was from six years ago. But in order to emphasise his uninvolvement, the owner had taken the initiative to express that he did not know of anything from the past. This proved that the ramen shop owner at least knew that the research institute had already closed down.

“But…” Ye Xiao suspiciously glanced over at Su Mu and quietly asked, “Did you decide to hang around here and refuse to leave because you already knew there was something wrong with the boss here?”

Su Mu raised his head to silently point his gaze at the old fan near them.

Ye Xiao followed the line of sight. The mechanical bearing behind the tattered fan was very bright, which was a bit out-of-place compared to the old and dirty parts of the fan. It seemed like it had been removed from a different machine to replace the original mechanical bearing mounted.

As the fan rattled and rotated back and forth, the mechanical bearing became more visible.

Ye Xiao started when he noticed a blurry line of words along the side of the bearing. The words were engraved, and had already eroded quite a bit. But upon closer inspection, one could clearly see that the words said:

ESP Research Centre

ESP? 

Aren’t those the letters written on the paper Kang Wen gave us?

This was no small matter. Ye Xiao’s jaw dropped open in shock as he stared at Su Mu in astonishment.

We traveled far and wide for our search, only to end up finding a discovery so easily!

But they knew that under the current situation, the owner would definitely refuse to honestly confess the truth. They would have to take a gamble.

Without batting an eyelid, Ye Xiao and Su Mu finished eating their ramen and paid the bill, but did not immediately leave. Instead, they secretly hid in a small alley across the ramen shop and stood in the darkness to observe and wait. When it finally hit half past four, they saw the ramen shop owner walk out in changed clothes.

It was nearly dinnertime, yet the owner was ignoring the business and locking up the shop to leave alone.

Where exactly is he heading?

If their conjecture wasn’t wrong, he was likely planning to go to the research institute they were searching for.

The reason was simple – he had a guilty conscience.

He had to go check if the two police officers had already found the research institute or not.

The ramen shop owner walked in a hurry, his pace swift as his short and chubby body formed a long and skinny shadow under the dazzling gold setting sun. He advanced without stopping once, glancing left and right every once in a while as though deathly afraid someone would sense his movements.

Fortunately, Zhu Sha was a desolate area in the first place, its long-term residents making up a mere eighth of the city’s population. Moreover, he selected unfamiliar paths so that he barely saw anyone along the way.

To achieve their objective, Su Mu and Ye Xiao maintained a large distance, at least fifty metres away.

They were not acquainted with this place nor did they know which roads connected to where. They could only passively follow behind, hiding all the way. Like this, they journeyed for over an hour until they finally entered a dense, green bamboo forest. This bamboo forest was massive and full of life as it was spring at the moment. The thick and sturdy green bamboo stood firmly upright, piercing the blue dome of heaven. The lush bamboo leaves concealed the skies in a sea of verdant green.

Sha sha…A breeze blew past, causing the leaves to brush against each other and let out rustling noises.

The two of them did not know that this was the actual origin of this place’s name: Zhu Sha.

The bamboo forest’s aesthetic was quite nice; it was a pity that at this precise moment, Ye Xiao and Su Mu were in no mood to appreciate the beautiful scenery. The ramen shop owner quickened his pace as he wove around and around the small spaces between the bamboo, and they nearly lost him multiple times. Yet they did not dare to approach too closely either, terrified of being discovered. Like this, they turned a few more corners before the ramen shop owner shifted slightly and vanished without a trace.

In a blink of the eye, they had lost sight of him.

Ye Xiao frantically scanned their surroundings and circled around several times, but did not find any trace of that owner’s short and chubby body.

“Damn it, we let him escape. Now what?”

At his wits’ end, Ye Xiao desperately looked towards Su Mu.

Su Mu halted in his tracks and suddenly uttered in a low voice, “Shit, we’ve fallen for their trap.”

He grabbed the front of Ye Xiao’s jacket and gave a forceful shove to the right.

Without any guard, Ye Xiao lost his centre of gravity and crashed down hard onto his back. Before he could furiously clamber up and curse at Su Mu, he heard a whooshas something flew past very closely to his face and then drilled into the dirt.

He whipped his head around and immediately sucked in a cold breath.

Oh my god! Th-that’s a sharp bamboo knife!

“Fuck! What the hell is going on! Throwing knives to kill people?”

Ye Xiao cried out in disbelief, but before he could stand back up and stabilise himself, a large crowd appeared out of nowhere inside the bamboo forest. There were males and females, elderly and youths. From what he could see, there were at least thirty people present. Judging by their clothing, they appeared to be Zhu Sha villages.

The villagers gradually spread out to surround the two outsiders, Ye Xiao and Su Mu, with the men and front and women in the back. Each person held a “weapon”; there were some spatulas, some shovels, some wooden sticks, and even some kitchen knives. Each one of them was posed as though about to face a great enemy.

“Heavens, what kind of trick is this?”

Ye Xiao stared in utter confusion, but he soon recognised quite a few of the people amidst the crowd that they had interacted with previous, such as the fruit peddler, the owner of the dumpling shop, the apparel store manager, the snack bar’s waiter, and even the girl working at the bakery.

These were all people that had made inquiries with today, and the ramen shop owner was shockingly there as well. He stood in the very front row, warily glaring at Ye Xiao with a trace of what might have been smugness in his gaze. It was like he was mocking their ridiculous tailing act just now.

“Return my daughter to me!”

At this moment, a mid-aged woman in her forties let out an indignant shout.

Before Ye Xiao could figure out what she meant, he heard the other villagers begin to yell out one after another:

“That’s right, return my son to me!”

“Return my nephew to me!”

“Return my older brother to me!”

“Hand over our children!”

The crowd of villagers grew more agitated, their shouts getting louder wave after wave while brandishing the “weapons” in their hands. They slowly closed in aggressively on the two police officers as though Ye Xiao and Su Mu had done some kind of atrocious act.

Ye Xiao helplessly waved his arms with a perplexed expression. “Hey, every-everyone calm down a bit. What son and daughter and nephew and brother? I don’t understand what any of you are saying.”

“Hmph, don’t understand?”

The ramen shop owner sneered in reply, “Stop acting. Don’t tell me you guys aren’t together with the researchers from that year?”

“Together? What?” Ye Xiao stared at the man in confusion.

“Acting dumb is useless. Hurry up and return our children to us! Otherwise, don’t blame us for not holding back!”

One man furiously hooted, “That’s right! Give our children back!”

“Hand over the children!”

“Hand them over!”

The villages waved their weapons indignantly from feelings of injustice, and a few of them lost themselves in anger and threw bricks, scaring Ye Xiao to quickly dart away and hide behind Su Mu. Su Mu gave him a glare and then dragged him back out.

Thus, Ye Xiao could only steel his nerves in front of the “flying bricks” and take a step forward. Amidst the angry shouts, he raised his hands as though in surrender and patiently placated. “Could everyone please settle down for a moment? We really have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you—ugh…”

Who would have expected that before he could finish speaking, a boy struck his forehead with a slingshot.

Ye Xiao blew up, glaring at the boy as he roared out, “Fuck, just watch, I’ll report you for attacking the police!”

Seeing Ye Xiao’s demonic appearance, the boy’s lips flattened from fear and then he began to bawl loudly.

Now things were worse: the crying joined the mess of arguing and curses, everything blending into a chaotic mess. It was so terrifying that the resting birds in the bamboo forest were startled into the air and flew away.

With a headache building from the uproar, Ye Xiao could no longer restrain his shout of emotion.

“All of you, shut up!”

The earth-shaking roar was like a clap of thunder that made everyone go quiet for a moment, but they kept their indignant expressions with fuming glares pointed at the police.

Taking in a deep breath, Ye Xiao raised his head to earnestly look at the villages and slowly stated, “I hope that everyone can listen to me finish before getting emotional. The reason we came to Zhu Sha today was to investigate this research institute, so if you are willing, please tell us everything you know.”

The suspicion on the villagers’ faces did not fade.

One woman asked doubtfully, “You guys really have no connection with the research institute?”

“Yes, we have no connection, I swear.”

“Then how did you know this place had a research institute?”

“That’s because…”

Ye Xiao glanced over at Su Mu, who was standing with his arms crossed. After a moment of consideration, Ye Xiao decided to tell the truth.

“Have you heard of the serial killings that occurred in S-City a while back? That case is under our jurisdiction at the moment. According to our current investigation, the victims of the case had all previously worked at the research institute in Zhu Sha. We could not find anything about what the research was about or where its exact location was, so we decided to specially come out to Zhui Sha today for a more in-depth search. Is this explanation satisfactory enough for you?”

The villagers glanced at each other, seemingly weighing whether or not to believe this young officer’s words.

After a long period of silence, Ye Xiao added, “I’ve already said everything I was supposed to. What about you?”

The crowd stared each other down before finally, someone commented, “Uncle Zhong, you should be the one to talk about this matter.”

The person called “Uncle Zhong” was precisely the fat ramen shop owner.

He let out a deep sigh and replied, “Alright, I’ll talk. The situation was like this: six years ago, a group of people with unknown identities abruptly arrived in Zhu Sha and built a mysterious research institute. No one knew what it was for, nor did we ever see the people leave the institute. But the year after it completed construction, children from the village began to go missing. Their ages varied between ten to eighteen, and included both boys and girls. In total, over twenty kids went missing one after another.

“Our village is only so big; even if the children got lost while having fun, we should’ve been able to find them after mobilising the entire village’s residents for a search. But in the end, not a single one of those missing children ever returned, their whereabouts unknown. All of us believed that the research institute had kidnapped them. We’d gone to the research institute to demand them back, but were blocked off; we’d also reported to the police, but had no proof that the research institute had taken the children, and ultimately the matter was left unsettled. Many parents went mad from worry, but there was nothing we could do.”

At this point, a woman interrupted with sobs, “I just want to know where my child is.”

Another person said, “Yeah, where are the kids? We demand to see at least their bodies if they’re dead!”

Ye Xiao asked them, “Actually, I wanted to ask as well: why did you think the research institute took the children? Was it just a guess?”

“I personally heard the sound of a child crying from within the research institute before! It was definitely them!”

The ramen shop owner firmly declared without any hesitation.

“You heard it?” Ye Xiao was surprised.

The ramen shop owner sighed and confessed, “At this point, I won’t hide it; I’m afraid I’m the only person that’s been inside the research institute before. Because I was once the chef there.”

“You mean, the research institute’s chef?” Ye Xiao was taken aback.

“Yes, that’s right.” The ramen shop owner nodded and added, “But although I stayed inside for a while, I am just as clueless as you guys about the place. The area in which I could freely move about was extremely restricted; every time I was brought out to purchase ingredients, my eyes were covered. My impression of the place was very cold, with towering walls all around. Rather than a research institute, it felt more like a prison.”

“You were responsible for cooking every day?” Ye Xiao asked.

“Yes, I was responsible for cooking sixty portions of food daily.”

“Sixty portions? That many?” Ye Xiao asked him in astonishment, “Then do you remember who you’ve seen before? Have you seen these three people?”

He pulled out photos of Cao Guo Xuan, Jiang Zhong Ming, and Du Zi Feng.

The ramen shop owner shook his head with a bitter smile and helplessly stated, “Every one of them wore the exact same getup: a white coat, white gloves, a white hat, and a white facial mask; basically the only part visible was their eyes. There’s no way I could distinguish them…but…there’s one person who was obviously a woman under her all-white clothes, and a young woman at that..”

“Oh? Do you know what that woman’s name was?”

The ramen shop owner squinted as he searched through his memories for a while before finally mumbling in an uncertain tone, “I might have vaguely heard others call her…Dr. Situ…”

“Situ?”

“Yeah, because it’s a double-character surname and she’s a woman, I had a deeper impression of her. There was also a man that seemed quite close with her and called her Fei Fei.”

“Fei Fei? Situ Fei Fi?”

Ye Xiao furrowed his brows and glanced back at Su Mu.

Su Mu remained indifferent without expressing any thoughts. After a long silence, he asked, “Then what happened afterwards?”

“Afterwards…” The ramen shop owner paused before continuing, “Afterwards, the research institute shut down for some reason. The researchers left, and the entire institute was razed down to the ground in a single night.”

“Razed down to the ground?”

“Yes, the building was completely taken apart. It was done extremely quickly, just like when it had been built. In the end, nothing was left behind except for a few spare parts from some equipment.”

“Then what about the children? Didn’t you say there were sounds of children inside before?”

The ramen shop owner shook his head. “I don’t know. After the institute was torn down, we practically dug up a metre of all the ground underneath the ruins of the site, but no, there was nothing – neither people nor corpses.”

“Could those people have brought the children with them too?”

The ramen shop owner let out a long breath and pulled out something from his pocket to give to ye Xiao. Ye Xiao saw that it was a piece of paper–no, more accurately, it was a list of names. The list had a neat column of names, and each name had a number from one to fifty.

There were fifty people total.

“This list of names was something I stole while braving extreme dangers on my last day at the research institute. I suspect that the fifty people there are the children I heard, but…”

He dejectedly shook his head, “But judging from the names there, none of them are the children we lost…”

Ye Xiao studied the list and said, “I promise you that I’ll definitely help look into the missing children’s whereabouts. But could you temporarily let me hold this list of names for safekeeping?”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

The villages agreed after discussing with each other.

At this moment, Su Mu suddenly received an emergency call.

After the conversation, Ye Xiao shot him an inquiring look.

Su Mu stated in a low voice, “It was from Nanshan Prison. No. 13 bit off the ear of the prison guard delivering his food.”