The locker room is the most decent building in the entire inn. It is made of wood and has a thick rammed earth foundation underneath. The layout inside is no different from an ordinary inn locker room: there is a wooden cabinet in the middle room, a locked vertical cabinet, a guest book on the cabinet, and tea sets. There is nothing suspicious, and there is nothing special about the east and west chambers. However, on the back wall of the east chamber, there is a secret door covered by a cabinet. When you open the secret door, you will find a small courtyard with humid air and surging river water. The sound is endless - obviously we have reached the riverside.
There is a shed open in all directions in the courtyard. There is a brick stove against the wall with an iron pot. Scattered next to it are guillotines for cutting medicinal materials, mortars of various sizes, large and small pots and baskets, and copper pots. There is a cauldron made of iron for refining medicine, and unprocessed medicinal materials are scattered on the ground. At first glance, it looks like a combined pharmacy of a drug store.
However, the air of this pharmacy is filled with a strange smell, including the aroma of cooking meat and a disgusting rancid smell, sometimes mixed with spices and medicines and the smell of water and fish outside. the smell. As soon as Wu Xiang entered the courtyard, he felt tight in his chest and nauseous.
Gao Chongjiu knew that there was a big deal here. This is obviously where the gang's evil deeds took place. At a glance, he saw the necessary things for this business: cutting knives, iron needles, incense and herbs to stop bleeding, and bags of lime. The river wind here is strong and all kinds of smells are easy to dissipate. The large amount of dried fish outside and the smell of water from the river itself can also cover up the smell here.
Gao Chongjiu stood in the yard, smoking silently. Li Ziyu looked panicked and frightened.
"Section Chief, look." The policeman opened the lid of an iron pot. Inside was a half-pot of white broth, with some bone-in meat floating in it. The surface of the soup was covered with foam. It was obvious that The blood was not removed.
Wu Xiang kept his composure, picked up the fence next to him, and put it into the pot. Suddenly, a little foot appeared on the surface of the soup. Judging from the size, he should be a child of seven or eight years old.
Several policemen who were searching nearby couldn't stand it any longer and quickly turned their heads.
Wu Xiang looked solemn and put down his fence. He turned around and said, "Lao Gao, what do you think?"
Gao Chongjiu said: "Section Chief, this should be the place where they collect and cut raw materials. Boiling human flesh is not to satisfy hunger, but to combine with medicine."
"Combined medicine?" Wu Xiang had only heard that human blood could cure tuberculosis. He also knew about purple river carts, red lead, and autumn stones, but he had never heard of eating human flesh to cure tuberculosis.
In this era of famine and military chaos, cannibalism was not uncommon. Not only did such news continue to come from other places, but even from the suburbs of Guangzhou, such news would occasionally come from during the famine season. But this is all forced by hunger and cold. It was unheard of for him to kill someone, cook their meat and combine it with medicine.
Gao Chongjiu said: "Yes, human flesh, human bones, and internal organs can be mixed into medicine in their hands. Each has its own use."
These "medicines" created by killing people are not on the market, and their uses are naturally shady - most of them are aphrodisiacs, abortion pills and "drugs for torture". The price is high, and it pretends to be mysterious, so the sales are very good.
Wuxiang found it a bit unbelievable. He had received modern scientific education from the Senate since he was a child, and he had always scorned such nonsense. Asked: "Is this useful?"
Gao Chongjiu said: "If it doesn't work, how can anyone buy it? There probably are."
Jianghu secret medicine is a very big school, with many styles and countless ways. The Public Security Bureau has caught some people selling "secret medicines", most of which are made from various Chinese medicinal materials. Although they are also mixed with all kinds of incredible raw materials, generally speaking, most of them still have some medicinal properties. But what effect can a "secret medicine" made from human flesh and bones have?
Wu Xiang is full of suspicion, but he has been a policeman for a long time and knows that the dark side of human nature is sometimes unfathomable. Regardless of whether it is useful or not, the existence of this kind of activity shows that the demand is strong.
The police conducted further searches in the yard, and more and more horrific scenes unfolded before their eyes. An iron pot was filled with the withered bones of children, and the dried internal organs were on a wooden plate. A policeman opened a small wooden plate. The box contains the boy's genitals dried with lime as if to store treasures.
There are more and more signs of corpse destruction. There are remnants of unburned clothing in the furnace. There are many bone fragments and hair mixed in the mud of the drainage channel on the back wall that leads directly to the river. This horrific and nightmare-like scene was unbearable even for the well-informed police officers. Some people couldn't bear it anymore and ran out to vomit. Although Li Ziyu hadn't started to vomit yet, her face turned pale and she could hardly stand still.
Although Gao Chongjiu was still calm, he was secretly suspicious: What is the origin of this group of people? Since ancient times, harvesting and cutting of raw materials has been a secret. Most of the people who do it are traveling around to commit crimes, and they rarely "work" continuously in one place. There must be some other reason for setting up a stall like this.
Wu Xiang smoked a cigarette and watched the workers retained by the forensic department who arrived to clean up the human remains. Seeing that they were almost done, he asked, "Approximately how many people are here?"
The leader of the team said: "I haven't counted the shapes yet, but at a glance there are at least four or five human skeletons."
This is too much! Wu Xiang thought.
However, Gao Chongjiu thought just now that there were more victims: there were as many dead as there were gourds that collected living souls.
"There is something wrong with the ground. There is lime in the soil, and there are probably corpses buried underneath." Gao Chongjiu said. The ground in the backyard was covered with a thick layer of plant ash and sand. The sand was white. Wu Xiang squatted down and used his hands. When you twist it, you can see the white lime inside.
Wu Xiang nodded: "Dig!"
Under the command of Gao Chongjiu, the gangsters began to dig the ground.
The first excavated place was not far from the entrance of the drainage channel. Gao Chongjiu thought this was probably the place where they disposed of the bodies. There was a desktop-sized river stone sunk into the ground, with a slightly flat surface. When the gangsters were digging ditches, they once found black residue in the cracks of this stone. When they picked it out with a bamboo stick, they found it was blood.
The excavation started from the front of the stone. After removing the thick layer of covering, the moist soil below was exposed. The police immediately discovered that the color of the soil in one area was darker than that of the surrounding areas, which was a full three or four feet. Square. Gao Chongjiu knew something was wrong at first glance: not only were there corpses down there, but there were also a lot of them.
"Dig along the edge, don't use too much force." Gao Zhong ordered.
After digging a few times, a gangster suddenly stopped.
"So?" Wu Xiang asked.
The widower didn't answer, he looked very nervous. I saw some blackened reed mat fragments in the excavated soil.
This strengthened their judgment. Below is the burial place!
Gao Chongjiu asked the laborers to continue digging. The covering soil was not thick, just more than a foot. After removing the covering soil, a layer of rotten reed mat fragments were revealed, which had turned black. However, residues of lime can still be seen on the edges.
Several gangsters continued to dig down, their feet always slipping on the shovel. More remnants of reed mats were turned up. When another shovel of soil was turned up, the worker suddenly stepped back, screamed like a snake and a scorpion wrapped around his hand, threw the shovel and fled the scene.
The police who were searching the scene rushed up. Gao Chongjiu asked: "What's the mess?" He rushed over and took a look, only to see something stuck on the head of the shovel. Looking at the dug area, there was something. Some red and black liquid came up and soaked the soil. There were many fragments of reed mats mixed in the soil.
What devastated the widower was a small black hand sticking out of the soil.
"Asshole!" Gao Chongjiu heard a policeman cursing. His face was ashen and he said: "Keep digging! Hurry!"
As the covering soil was continuously removed, the fragments of the reed mat could no longer cover the body underneath. Only a small arm could be seen stretching straight out from the hole in the reed mat, stretching stiffly into the air.
The gangsters sped up their movements, and all the reed mats were uncovered. Out of curiosity, the police and national soldiers who came to watch stopped their work at hand and turned away instantly after taking one look.
Many of them have experienced mountains of corpses and seas of blood on the battlefield or walked on the bodies of hungry people on the road to escape. But no one has ever seen such a miserable and terrifying scene.
At first glance, there were four or five corpses. They were stacked using the method of stacking firewood. They were stacked very neatly. The heads and feet were staggered and inverted, so they were very compact. However, from the edges, you could see that there was another layer or layers underneath. More than one layer.
Although these corpses have been decomposed to varying degrees and are mixed with mud and sand, most of them have short heads and are either women or children in stature. Some are even quite young. What’s even more frightening is that many corpses have missing limbs, similar to the corpses dug out from Tianzi No. 3 room.
The commanders present could no longer maintain even their superficial composure. They stared blankly at the corpse pit, not knowing what kind of instructions they should give. After the crowd's uproar, there was silence. Everything inside and outside the scene seemed to be freeze-framed in a movie. Even the air was frozen - people were haunted by the nightmare scene.
Wu Xiang touched his hat nervously and issued an order: Temporarily stop the survey and report it to Chief Mu of the Municipal Bureau immediately!
Soon, the National Army sent another platoon loaded with live ammunition from the city and completely blocked the scene. At the same time, another company blocked the streets on Haipi where the inn is located, strictly prohibiting anyone from entering or exiting. The police began to conduct house-to-house checks, searching for suspicious persons. Wu Xiang's order is simple: arrest all suspicious persons. At the same time, a "typewriter" was set up on the riverside, the harbor was blocked, and the boats of the Dan people on the riverside were ordered not to leave. In order to enhance the effectiveness of the blockade, two more patrol boats and several small and medium-engine motor boats were mobilized from the Coast Guard to monitor the riverside. The black artillery and "typewriter" took off their gun jackets and pointed directly at the people's boats.
