She opened it and told us, "The content is all in here. If you want to see it in detail, you can receive it via WeChat. The full text is currently 200,000 characters. I plan to publish it to see the effect. If it's well-received, I will help Deng Yuanwu continue writing."
"Thank you!" I scanned a QR code, and the Word file was quickly sent to my phone. I had initially just intended to skim through it, but as I read the words on the screen, I was instantly captivated.
It wasn't that Deng Yuanwu's writing was exceptionally good or the plot was thrilling. It was because the situation he described was eerily similar to the dismembered body we had seen at our processing plant earlier. The bizarre part was, wasn't the victim himself? I looked at the chapter he had completed. It was written before his death. This meant he knew how he would die even before the incident occurred?
My hand holding the phone began to tremble. I continued reading the content below. It was better not to look, but once I did, I discovered that there were several more cases. This was originally a crime fiction novel, a collection of cases. The first case bore a striking resemblance to Deng Yuanwu's death. The next one occurred in the flowing water beneath the Xinghe Bridge in our city, Guangming. I was just reading about this when my phone suddenly rang.
"Team Leader, just as you predicted, more body parts were found under Xinghe Bridge. But what's strange this time is that the body parts were stuffed into Snoopy dolls."
"What did you just say? Xinghe Bridge? Dolls!?"
"Yes, what's wrong? You should hurry over here! I'm afraid I can't control the scene!"
I didn't know what Liu Yuning had encountered. It was the first time I had heard her speak to me in such a tone.
We had to bid farewell to Ye Panzhen and then drove towards Xinghe Bridge.
Fortunately, it wasn't far from there. Upon arrival, Gao Mingqiang and I crossed the cordon and entered the sea area beneath the bridge. This bridge was another route connecting Guangming City and Fuming City. I never expected things to happen here.
Before I saw the dolls, I didn't understand why Liu Yuning thought it was a similar case. But the moment Xie Chuchu and Zhang Keying pulled out those body parts from the broken dolls, I realized the cutting methods were almost identical.
Innumerable fragmented pieces of flesh, mixed with blood and an unknown cloudy liquid, lay on the smooth earth like ancient malevolent spirits filled with resentment. I crouched down to examine them. Many pieces of skin and flesh seemed to have been soaked in some kind of drug, which slowed down the rate of decay.
Zhang Keying removed most of the body parts and began piecing them together one by one. The police were still searching the beach, and several floating objects were drifting towards us in the distance.
The dark, deep night sky enveloped the entire crime scene. The faint lights of Fuming City in the distance cast a reflection on the silent ocean, creating distorted black shadows that seemed to swim towards us like ghosts in the water, trembling precariously.
I glanced at my phone. It was already 12:30 AM.
I compared the content with Deng Yuanwu's novel, "Eligos, God of Sin." I found that the scene before me was almost identical to the descriptions in the text: the dead currents, the dark night sky, the broken dolls, the scattered body parts, and even the number of dolls recovered was 32.
Noticing my distress, Liu Yuning curiously asked, "What's wrong?"
When Gao Mingqiang mentioned the death novel, Liu Yuning immediately asked me to send her the file. As soon as she saw the description, she cursed, "How could this happen? Is the killer deliberately trying to scare us?"
"Before the killer murdered Deng Yuanwu, he likely knew him and had read his work. And this work hadn't even been published yet. If I'm not mistaken, this person must have been close to Deng Yuanwu!"
"Didn't you just investigate his female online acquaintances?"
"Yes, but I felt her reaction was normal."
Liu Yuning said nothing. At this moment, Zhang Keying had finished piecing together the last of the body parts. This time, it was a bit more troublesome because the victim's head was missing. The limbs were still there, but the right ankle was missing, and a large portion of the abdomen was rotten.
Zhang Keying examined the body and asked me to help turn it over. Xie Chuchu and Xiao Dong also helped. On the skin and flesh on the victim's back, we inexplicably found a symbol: bull horns, a silver mask, and a pair of red eyes?
"Is this a tattoo?" Zhang Keying said.
"It looks like a symbol, doesn't it? Based on the muscle contractions, it must have been applied after death," Xie Chuchu analyzed.
"This guy looks like some kind of demon," Xiao Dong chimed in.
"It's Eligos! That's right! It's him!" Gao Mingqiang exclaimed excitedly.
I nodded. "It seems we've found a key point." I sent the file to everyone. When Xie Chuchu saw the novel's content, she said, "No way? Killing according to a script again? I remember we encountered a similar case before, didn't we?"
"No, that case was far from this. This time, it's as if this is a death script. Everything has been arranged by the killer. All they have to do is enact it in reality."
As soon as I said that, Zhang Keying immediately thought of something. "So, the killer has a close relationship with the author of this work, Deng Yuanwu."
"Yes, I suspected this from the beginning. It seems the focus of this case is still on Deng Yuanwu."
As we were talking, the forensic technicians had finished their on-site investigation and were organizing the photos taken earlier. The body parts were being taken away by the body handlers. I picked up a few dolls and placed them in evidence bags. These items would need to be analyzed one by one.
As I carefully examined these dolls, I noticed they were all slightly larger than the usual ones we see. They were all Snoopy figures, but the workmanship was rough, suggesting they were handmade. The body parts were retrieved through zippers on the back.
During the on-site inspection, no fingerprints were found on the dolls. Considering the current wind and water flow, the dolls must have drifted from the direction of Fuming City. I asked Xiahou to follow me, and we proceeded upstream against the current. We went past Xinghe Bridge and arrived near a rocky area, where we indeed found footprints.
Xiahou took photos and said, "The guy must have put the dolls here. Then, according to the direction of the water flow, these dolls were carried to Guangming City. I just asked the people who found the dolls; they were some children!"