Atlas Studios

  Atlas Studios

  The detectives split into two teams.

  With the stairs in the center, one team turned to the left, the other to the right.

  The left was as though a prosperous, flourishing world while the right—a bleak, desolate world—they were totally like two extremes worlds.

  Xiang Wan would, of course, tag along with Bai Muchuan as part of the team.

  She was timid. She followed behind him closely and did not want to be anywhere but next to him.

  The right was most probably built to look like a cemetery. The lights were dimmer than the left that most of the time, the view they had were rather obscure. Hence, Tang Yuanchu held on to the flashlight tightly……

  Soon, the detectives arrived in the first tomb chamber where the first thing that came into view was a thatched hut.

  Yes, the roof was made of straw which was very similar to the buildings in rural China around the 1940s.

  Outside the hut stood quite a huge stone slab where they saw the name of Zhou Dequan’s father on it—


  His father had passed away before he earned his fortune—his father did not manage to enjoy the fruits of his son’s hard work. Nevertheless, as for the cause of death of his father—since the matter had happened a long time ago—the police were unable to come to a specific conclusion during their investigations.

  It was only when they came here and read the inscriptions on the stone slab that everyone understood what happened to Zhou Dequan’s father.

  Back then, Zhou Dequan’s father had a quarrel with a fellow villager called Liu Xinbing. It was not clear what was the dispute about, but his father suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died on the spot. They didn’t even have time to send him to the hospital. In actual fact, during that point in time, they could not afford to send him to the hospital as well. Hence, his father passed by without leaving any last words.

  When Xiang Wan read till what Zhou Dequan had done as a sacrificial offering to his father, she felt a chill sent up her spine and she quivered in shock.

  Many years later, when Liu Xinbing was about to enjoy a good life—when his family received a sum of money for relocation as their land was chosen for a redevelopment project—the whole family of six died in a fire.

  At that time, when they heard about these from Ma Suying, they were told that Liu Xinbing’s family was a holdout which caused Zhou Dequan to commit arson. He burned the whole family to death to get the redevelopment project on schedule, but who would have thought it that was actually his revenge.

  “Sure enough, hatred is more lasting than love.”


  The moment after Xiang Wan made this remark, she heard Tang Yuanchu’s yell coming from the thatched hut.

  “Boss, quick! Come here!”


  He was not interested in the stone slab which was inscribed with words. Hence, Tang Yuanchu was the first to enter the hut.

  Never did he expect to see a huge glass coffin inside.

  The glass coffin had a height that reached the roof of the hut, and it contained six bodies inside.

  These corpses were dressed in clothes from the 1940s. All of the corpses were arranged to kneel on the ground in a kowtowing position inside the huge coffin.

  Xiang Wan’s heart was jittery. “Are they Liu Xinbing and his family?”


  “They’re not!” Bai Muchuan walked in unhurriedly. “Liu Xinbing and his family were burnt to death and then cremated. We’ve verified this.”


  “So these people are—” When Xiang Wan said this, she noticed another piece of stone slab inscribed with words beside the coffin.

  Details of these people were found on the stone slab.

  Zhou Dequan named these people as—story actors.

  These people had one thing in common—they resembled Liu Xinbing and his family members.

  Due to the likeness, these people were brought to this place, forced to knelt down before him, and died here. One of them was even a pregnant woman.

  “Tsk!” Tang Yuanchu shuddered and gasped. “Zhou Dequan totally had it easy by choosing to commit suicide. He must not have the courage to face his sins?”


  Nobody answered him.

  Xiang Wan looked at the huge glass coffin quietly.

  “I wonder what Zhou Dequan’s father would feel if he knew what his son did?”


  This was a hypothetical question for there would never be an answer for it.

  When they got to the next tomb chamber, the detectives received another shock and insight into Zhou Dequan’s cruelness and imagination.

  Zhou Dequan had killed many people, especially—women.

  Most of them were killed for the purpose of being the sacrificial offering for his ancestors.

  In the tomb chamber he built for his great-grandfather, there were seven corpses of young beautiful women being “showcased” in a huge glass coffin.

  His “explanation” was that during his great-grandfather’s time, men were allowed to have many wives and concubines. However, as his great-grandfather was too poor, he had no way to enjoy such a social benefit back then. Therefore, he decided to let his great-grandfather enjoy such a benefit in the netherworld by finding seven young beautiful women to accompany him. As a widely known Chinese idiom that described having many wives as “three wives and four concubines”, Zhou Dequan just took it literally by adding up the three wives and four concubines mentioned by offering seven women in total.

  “D*mn, was he taught math by a P.E. teacher? Three wives and four concubines, a total of seven—but where’s his great-grandmother?”


  “To him, he had no great-grandmother,” answered Xiang Wan. As she was an author, she was more interested in reading the stone slabs than scrutinizing corpses.

  According to the stone slab where it told the life story of Zhou Dequan’s great-grandfather, after his great-grandmother gave birth to his grandfather, she left home with a younger peddler. Because of that, his grandfather nearly starved to death—these were told to him by his grandfather.

  “.……”


  Everyone was speechless.

  No words could describe the hair-raising creeps they felt at the scene—


  How perverted could one be in order to do such a thing?

  He had built a tomb for his ancestors, that was fine. But he had to kill so many people to “accompany” or as “sacrifice” to them…… All these people “showcased” in the coffins were total strangers who had nothing to do with Zhou Dequan and his ancestors.

  “He’s sleeping above this ‘cemetery of corpses’. Won’t he get nightmares?”


  “I don’t think so,” replied Xiang Wan, “he’s already devoid of conscience. He did not even have the most basic compassion that a human should have. This is the flower of sin bred from the seed of hate!”


  “.…… I don’t get it.” Tang Yuanchu rolled his eyes. “Speak human language, please?”


  “!”
……

  The detectives searched for a long time and finally found Mao Guigui’s headless corpse in the last, as well as the largest chamber.

  This was not a tomb but rather, an enormous chamber of torture.

  There were not only chainsaws, but also plane cutters, chisels, nail guns, pistol drills and so on. Not only did it contain a complete set of woodworking tools, but there was also even a mind-boggling amount and variety of torture instruments designed especially for women.

  Every time Xiang Wan took a look at each torture instrument, her heart would tremble.

  Soon enough, she saw the headless body which was left in a corner.

  The headless body was bare and exposed without anything on it. It leaned against the wall like a heap of rotten meat.

  The dark-colored dried blood on the floor had not been washed away. The chainsaw seen on the video had not been cleaned up, either, still stained with blood. The detectives did a match against the video retrieved from Jia An’s phone and found the background to be consistent with the video.

  As the body was just left there, it had started to rot, making it an especially revolting scene to watch.

  Being suddenly exposed to such an impactful, gut-churning scene, it triggered an immediate response in Xiang Wan as she was not a real police officer after all.

  “Uurrrrgggh!” Her stomach could not take the shock.

  She was unable to control herself—she held her stomach and started to retch.

  Bai Muchuan took a glance at her and held her shoulders. “You want to go up for a rest?”


  “It’s okay, I’m alright—” Xiang Wan adjusted the mask to cover her nose well before replying him. “I’m here to work, not to get preferential treatment.”


  She did not want to ruin her friendship with her colleagues because of this incident…… When everyone heard Bai Muchuan’s words, they all agreed and persuaded her to leave the place……

  Even tough men like them felt uncomfortable at that sight, let alone a young lady like her?

  Xiang Wan glanced at them gratefully with a smile on her face. “Everyone, don’t worry about me. I’m really fine. This is a rare opportunity for me as a web novelist, to be able to see all these.”


  “Teacher Xiang, we all know that you’re serious in your work. But you got to take care of your health at the same time……”


  “Thank you!” Xiang Wan straightened her posture. “Earlier on, I was not psychologically prepared and felt like retching! But I’m alright now.”


  This was because all those corpses she had seen so far were actually clean, not rotten, or bloody like this headless corpse……

  “This should be Mao Guigui, right?” She pressed on the edges of her mask and turned her head to ask Bai Muchuan.

  Bai Muchuan creased his eyebrows when he swept a glance at her ashen face. “We can only confirm that after the autopsy.”


  “Oh! You’re right.” Xiang Wan nodded her head and looked around the chamber again. “This chamber is unlike the other chambers. There isn’t any inscribed stone slab to give us any information. This feels more like Zhou Dequan’s ‘workshop’ instead.”


  It was only after they came here that the detectives learned that Zhou Dequan’s ancestors were all carpenters. Before Zhou Dequan became a mason worker, he was a carpenter as well. Later on, with the passage of time, traditional woodworking was replaced by machinery. Plus, with the rise of the construction industry, he decided to change his profession and became a mason worker.

  “.…… Teacher Xiang, is this what you’ve said earlier? The wounds of his past, his pain and inferiority complex?”


  “!” Xiang Wan felt that Tang Yuanchu’s question was really difficult to answer. “You can say that.”


  “I understand now. He suffered a setback in the carpentry trade and wanted to retrieve his dignity from chainsaws……” As Tang Yuanchu said so, he allowed his imagination to flow freely. “Those people in the glass coffins…… do you think they had been threatened in this ‘workshop’ and obediently complied to making those kowtowing poses so they could die with lesser pain?”


  “Maybe…… yeah.”


  After all, compared to being tortured to death, having a better way to die seemed to be very fortunate.

  Looking at the number of tools at this place, she was also convinced that many people would comply and submit to Zhou Dequan’s demands.

  “This body is the only incomplete body in this basement. It is also the only one that’s not placed in a coffin. Does this mean that she had refused to comply with what she was told to do?”


  Detective Tang came up with reasonable deductions that day, but this question was something that only Zhou Dequan would be able to answer.

  “.……”


  After a long pause, Xiang Wan made a remark.

  “This is the only corpse without any record why she was brought here or why she had died horribly unlike all the others. If this corpse belonged to Mao Guigui, we have no way of knowing the reason why Zhou Dequan killed her.”


  After seeing all these chambers, they could conclude that there were all kinds of ridiculous reasons why Zhou Dequan killed all these people. If he did not give a reason, no one would be able to guess it.

  Everyone fell silent.

  Tang Yuanchu took a peek at Bai Muchuan. “The reason is not important,” he said weakly, “the more important thing is, if this corpse belonged to Mao Guigui, this case is considered solved, right?”


  No one continued the conversation.

  Another round of silence ensued. The team did their work quietly.

  Although Xiang Wan had insisted not to leave, she could not do much at the place, either. She would help to pass the evidence bag, take a tool, help take a picture, and label or record something.

  Nevertheless, as the area of the basement was too big, she never thought that the team would take a total of five days to complete collecting and collating all relevant information of the basement.

  The tremendous amount of work was comparable to performing excavation with respect to the archaeology of cultural relics……