Chapter 12, The Third Victim
Wang Wenqi’s gaze was solemn. He didn’t put down his handgun but instead surveyed the situation in the room.
Before entering, he and Liu Haoyu clearly saw something escape inside.
But the problem was that this room was a locker room, airtight and without windows, only rows of compartments.
Could it be that the other party was hiding in these compartments?
Realizing this, Wang Wenqi gave a tactical gesture.
Thus, the two began to approach the compartments in a fan shape.
The first one… nothing.
The second one… nothing either…
With each opened compartment, Wang Wenqi’s heart leaped into his throat, and seeing that there was nothing inside, his heart immediately dropped again. This cycle repeated an unknown number of times.
The two quickly opened the last compartment.
At this moment, they no longer held much hope, but they were still very cautious.
Liu Haoyu’s fire axe was pressed against the compartment door, and he slowly pushed it open.
Still empty… perhaps?
Inside, there was only a moldy uniform hanging on a hook.
However, dark red viscous fluid was dripping from the hem.
It was clear that the thing had been in this compartment, but where did it go now?
Liu Haoyu and Wang Wenqi scanned the last compartment repeatedly with their flashlights.
Suddenly, something seemed to reflect the light that Wang Wenqi shone out.
Like… shining on a mirror?
A mirror?
Just as Wang Wenqi was stunned, from Qin Liu’s perspective, a black figure suddenly appeared in the corner of the compartment. This figure… looked like a flat paper cutout.
Liu Haoyu also felt that aura, and without a word, he flung the fire axe in his hand.
“Bang!”
A sound like shattering glass rang out. Seeing this, Wang Wenqi immediately aimed his handgun at the corner.
As the mirror shattered, a bleeding corpse appeared before the three of them.
The corpse was curled up in a fetal position in the corner, its hands still in the motion of scratching its chest.
The uniform on its chest was completely torn open, revealing a chest cavity like a blooming snow lotus.
It was no exaggeration to say that his death was more gruesome than the corpse hanging outside. The ribs on his chest were all turned outwards, with skin and flesh clinging to them, looking extremely disgusting.
However, like the previous victims, a strange symbol resembling an eye appeared on the corpse’s chest.
As the three of them examined the corpse, Liu Haoyu clearly saw that the eye-like symbol suddenly… moved?
It was as if it came alive, blinking its moist-looking eyes, like a palm-sized mirror reflecting their reflections…
The moment he saw the reflection, an inexplicable chill shot straight to Liu Haoyu’s mind.
“Fall back!”
Liu Haoyu shouted and, almost instinctively, dropped to the ground.
But it was too late. The two in the mirror suddenly raised their hands in unison, and Liu Haoyu and Wang Wenqi instantly felt a ripping pain in their chests.
In this situation, Wang Wenqi also realized something was wrong, and he immediately pulled the trigger at the corpse.
“Bang!”
The bullet hit the corpse’s chest, and the sound of shattering glass echoed again.
The pain in their chests disappeared, but before Wang Wenqi could breathe a sigh of relief, he realized that his shadow seemed a little off?
Was it starting to move on its own?
As Wang Wenqi was thinking, he suddenly felt as if his heart was being grasped by something, and he let out a muffled grunt.
At this moment, he also clearly saw that his shadow was constantly scratching its own chest…
“Exorcism Talisman!”
Qin Liu was closer to Wang Wenqi. She took out an exorcism talisman and directly stuck it onto his chest.
After this, the shadow on the ground completely stopped moving.
Wang Wenqi’s body went limp, and he knelt on the ground. He touched his chest and felt a wet sensation. He looked closely.
It was blood…
“Are you okay?”
Liu Haoyu pulled Wang Wenqi up from the ground. The police officer shook his head, still shaken.
“I’m fine, still alive.”
He looked down at his chest. Although there were more than a dozen scratches, the symbol on the victim’s chest did not appear, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.
However, compared to this, the corpse in the locker room was more noteworthy.
It was around this time that Wang Wenqi’s phone rang.
He picked up his phone and found that it was Ke Wen calling.
“Captain Ke, what’s wrong?”
“Captain Wang,” the tone on the other end of the phone sounded a little heavy: “Zhou Zhiqian is missing.”
“Missing?”
Hearing this, Wang Wenqi was also stunned.
“Yes, according to the store manager, Zhou Zhiqian disappeared after going home last night and didn’t come to work today…”
“Hello?” Seeing that Wang Wenqi remained silent, Ke Wen thought his phone had no signal, so he continued, “Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” Wang Wenqi finally came to his senses and said to Ke Wen, “If my guess is correct… he’s probably dead. Send me his photo, and I’ll compare it.”
Ke Wen was also stunned for a moment, but after coming to his senses, he nodded and said.
“Okay.”
Before he finished speaking, a file was sent to Wang Wenqi. However, due to what had just happened, he didn’t dare to look directly at the corpse in the compartment. He could only glance at it out of the corner of his eye and compare it with the file on his phone.
After a closer look, Wang Wenqi finally reached a conclusion.
“Brother Liu, it seems we were a step too late…”
“The corpse in front of us is the person you mentioned, Zhou Zhiqian.”
“However, he is dead now.”
Wang Wenqi’s expression was a little grim. After all, even though they had guarded the abandoned factory all night, another person had died here.
At the same time, Liu Haoyu stared silently at Zhou Zhiqian’s corpse.
He walked into the compartment, squatted down, and examined it carefully.
“He doesn’t look like he just died,” Liu Haoyu’s tone was very calm. “He must have been dead for at least twelve hours.”
Twelve hours, meaning this person had already died before they received the warning from the Black Book.
But Wang Wenqi frowned slightly after hearing this.
“That’s not right.”
“According to Captain Ke, the victim lost contact when he got off work last night.”
“From then until now, at most 7 hours have passed. How could he have been dead for twelve hours?”
“If he died more than twelve hours ago, then who was Zhou Zhiqian working at the Zhou’s Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic last night?”
The more he spoke, the more terrifying Wang Wenqi found it. Suddenly, he remembered a past experience that Liu Haoyu was also present for. The victim in that incident was also someone who had been dead for a long time, but at that time, the victim was still driving.
Does this mean that Zhou Zhiqian was similar to that situation, that he had already died when he was at work and came here without anyone noticing after getting off work?
