Chapter 155: Necrophilia

The two of them screamed and stumbled backward in fright.

I caught the stiff corpse dressed in burial clothes with both hands. His body was rigid, arms stretched forward like a zombie—that's normal rigor mortis. I chuckled, "What's so scary about dead people?"

Wang Dali, still shaken, snapped back, "Song Yang, I've been wanting to say this—your phrasing is all wrong. What do you mean 'What's scary about dead people?' The scariest thing in the world is the dead!"

I smiled but soon noticed another corpse in the room. I pushed the male corpse against the wall and strode deeper inside.

The cremation room held three large iron furnaces. Two were locked, but one was burning, glowing red from the furnace mouth, lighting up the entire space and filling the air with the smell of roasting flesh. Burning a body to ash takes hours, requiring someone to monitor the temperature and stir the remains with iron rods so it burns evenly.

On the other side, a table was cluttered with unfinished dishes and bottles of liquor. Nearby was a basin holding a comb, towel, and petroleum jelly, with a thermos of warm water beside it.

On the floor in front of the table lay a man on his back on a rolled-up straw mat. Half his face was mangled, flesh torn, both eyeballs bulging grotesquely. Blood ran down his cheek, soaking into his padded jacket.

Beside him was a bloodied ashtray, cigarette butts and ashes scattered about.

Judging by his clothes, he looked like one of the cremation workers, probably in his forties or fifties. He wore a cotton jacket on top but was completely naked below the waist.

...

The corpse was obviously freshly dead; the blood hadn't dried yet. Huang Xiaotao gently probed his jugular vein and said, "I'll call the bureau."

I asked, "How do we explain this here?"

Huang Xiaotao replied, "Let's be honest. We're here investigating a case, and only the insiders need to know. This mustn't get out."

I nodded. Huang Xiaotao called headquarters, asking them to send people immediately.

Wang Dali complained, "I've seen more dead bodies this one night than in my whole life…"

I shot him a glare and used my listening wooden rod to check the victim's internal organs. The organs showed no direct trauma, but there was a ruptured blood tumor in his stomach, likely caused by the head trauma and the fall. This was probably the direct cause of death.

When a person's head suffers a violent blow, they don't immediately pass out like in the movies. Instead, their body stiffens and convulses uncontrollably, saliva foaming at the mouth—a terrifying sight.

The victim's drooling mouth and bulging eyes fit this perfectly.

I blew some seaweed powder over the corpse and found clear palm prints on his collar. Excited, I took out my phone and snapped a photo of the fingerprints.

Suddenly, a realization hit me. I pulled up the fingerprint fragments I'd just photographed and compared them, telling Huang Xiaotao, "It's the same killer."

She gasped, "What are the odds?"

Like a hound, I sniffed the straw mat. A faint feminine scent lingered. I said, "Wait here. I'll be right back."

I rushed out of the cremation room to the morgue next door. Beside the gang leader's corpse was an empty bed—not the one we'd used earlier, but the other side. The white sheet was rumpled, as if someone had just tossed it aside.

How had I missed this detail?

I sniffed carefully. The bed smelled of corpse odor and detergent, but buried deep within was a subtle trace of female scent.

The gang leader and the cremation worker were killed by the same person.

The killer had lain side by side with both victims.

Not a single living soul was present at the crime scene.

All the clues coalesced in my mind. The truth was just within reach. As the pieces clicked together, I almost burst out laughing. So that was it! So that was it!

Suddenly, a bright flash streaked past the window—headlights. Police wouldn't arrive this fast. My first thought was someone stealing Huang Xiaotao's car.

I dashed outside. Huang Xiaotao's BMW was parked normally, but a black Santana was pulling away, its license plate covered with red cloth. That car was suspicious—likely connected to the two murders.

I shouted for it to stop, but it ignored me. Then I remembered Huang Xiaotao had used blank cartridges to mark cars before. I picked up a rock and hurled it with all my strength, shattering the rear windshield.

Huang Xiaotao and Wang Dali came rushing out, but the car had already sped away. I filled them in on the situation, and Huang Xiaotao nodded, "When our people arrive, I'll have them track that car."

I said, "And I know who the killer is."

"Who?" They asked in unison.

"A female corpse," I said mysteriously.

This gang leader had a necrophilic obsession. That day, he was alone in the sealed room, bathing her—perhaps even dressing her up—like a child carefully grooming a doll, then engaging in acts with her.

But unexpectedly, during the process, the corpse suddenly revived. With a knife she'd prepared—or found on the spot—she stabbed the gang leader to death. Afterward, she shoved the knife into his hand and feigned death once more.

The killer didn't need to vanish—because no one would ever suspect her.

When the gang's men burst in and saw the leader stabbed multiple times, clutching the murder weapon, they never suspected the female corpse. Hence, they said there wasn't a single living person at the scene.

Both the leader and the female corpse were sent to the mortuary. The cremation worker, being in the same business, lusted after the young woman's beauty and brought her to the cremation room late at night.

The comb, towel, and petroleum jelly we found at the scene were his tools. The comb for her hair, the towel to soften her stiff joints, and the petroleum jelly… well, you can imagine.

For unknown reasons, this female corpse revived again, smashed the cremation worker to death with the ashtray, then escaped. She wandered aimlessly inside the mortuary, and I caught a glimpse of her once. Later, Wang Dali saw her and thought she was a ghost.

Huang Xiaotao mused, "A resurrected corpse… Looks like we've all been thinking in the wrong direction."

Wang Dali turned pale, almost in tears. "Song Yang, this case is terrifying. Maybe we should just quit—our killer is a zombie!"

I shook my head. "No, the killer is definitely human. She's just suffering from some form of catalepsy or using drugs to fake death. Wang Dali, you saw the killer's real face just now, right?"

We both looked at him. Wang Dali frantically waved his hands. "My phone fell in the toilet—I only saw a blurry female shadow. I couldn't tell what she looked like."

I sighed. Huang Xiaotao asked, "Does the killer have accomplices? Could that Santana be involved?"

I thought for a moment. "Let's go back and continue the autopsy. Maybe we'll find something new."