Chapter 49: Suggest Sending Poisonous Scumbags Straight to the Crematorium

"Do you know how I feel right now?" Tang Hua asked, glancing outside while folding a blanket. "The three-year period has arrived. Welcome the Dragon King back to his estate."

Cen Lian reached out to feel his forehead, declaring with absolute certainty, "He's a hopeless case, completely brain-rotted by web novels. Send him straight to the crematorium."

"Let him stop by for some practice on the way to the crematorium," Forensic Doctor Lin said with a gentle smile, clearly in a fine mood, though her words sent a chill down everyone's spine. "Little Tang's physique is quite standard. He'd definitely be a smooth subject for dissection."

Tang Hua shuddered in front of the electric heater, feeling a chill run from his scalp down to his toenails, as if Forensic Doctor Lin's scalpel had just sliced him in half from head to toe.

Terrifying beyond measure.

Wu Qiushan and Cen Lian were already fully prepared. By the time Deng Yunwu, captain of the Jiangyuan City Public Security Bureau's Criminal Investigation Detachment, walked into the hall accompanied by the head of the Yun溪 Town Police Station, both men had already put on polite, standard social smiles.

Grievances were grievances, but since a superior had personally made the trip, basic courtesy still had to be maintained.

Everyone was an adult, and their emotional intelligence was at least passing grade.

"Captain Deng," Wu Qiushan, designated as the team's official diplomat, naturally stepped forward first.

Cen Lian maintained a polite smile right behind him.

"Thank you for your hard work," Deng Yunwu said, wearing the benevolent and considerate smile expected of a good leader. "You were already troubled to come all the way from Kang'an City for Chen Nan's case, and I never expected you'd also help us solve another case."

"You're too kind, Captain Deng. We're sister units, it's only what we should do," Wu Qiushan replied with practiced pleasantries.

In truth, both sides were well aware of each other's motives.

After exchanging a few rounds of playing dumb while knowing the truth, Captain Deng politely invited them to stay at the detachment's quarters temporarily, cleared out a laboratory for their exclusive use, and assigned a few detectives and technical staff to assist them with the investigation.

Standing behind Wu Qiushan, Cen Lian's smile grew increasingly enigmatic.

Tang Hua yawned secretly, caring about only one thing right now: whether the place they would sleep tonight was cold.

...

The guesthouse arranged by the Jiangyuan City Bureau was quite decent. Wu Qiushan reviewed the available manpower for the following day and tossed the roster to Cen Lian.

"You handle the arrangements. Shall we start with vehicle surveillance tomorrow?" he asked while picking up the menu.

Cen Lian had promised to treat everyone to a meal back in Yun溪 Town, and he was certainly not going to let such a golden opportunity slip by.

"There's nothing much to arrange. The tech staff can follow you, and the rest can follow me," Cen Lian glanced over the list, not harboring any high expectations for their investigative prowess anyway. "By the way, did they manage to get a confession out of Wu Yaozu regarding his motive for the murder?"

Tang Hua and Forensic Doctor Lin both looked up simultaneously, clearly harboring the same curiosity.

"It's honestly absurd," Wu Qiushan said, circling items on the menu as he plotted to recoup all the money he had previously spent on meals in one go. "That punk Wu Yaozu had been drinking and got tricked into getting high. Completely blasted, he went to an internet café to play video games. When he stumbled out, his brain was fried, and he thought he was still inside the game. Walking past the village entrance, he saw the gate to Wu Longxing's house open. By then, he was hallucinating that it was a game world, so he broke in to 'loot some gear,' only to find people actually inside."

Cen Lian's mouth twitched.

"And so he just murdered all of them?" he asked in disbelief.

"The drug-addled idiot was still plastered and thought everyone in the house was an enemy. After butchering them all, he even tried to strip their jackets, claiming he was 'looting death boxes.'" Even Wu Qiushan found the whole affair utterly ridiculous.

Tang Hua popped open a can of cola and gulped down a large mouthful while digesting the case details. "And then? How did his family cover it up?"

"Liu Fenxiu, Wu Yaozu's mother, noticed he hadn't come home by two in the morning and his phone wasn't going through. Fearing he'd pass out somewhere outside, she rushed out to look. She hadn't gone far when she heard a phone ringing from the other side of the village—it sounded like her son's ringtone. She hurried over and walked right in on her son hacking to death Wu Longxing, his wife, their two daughters-in-law staying at the house, and three grandchildren." Wu Qiushan sighed, feeling that Wu Longxing's family had truly suffered a miserable fate.

Forensic Doctor Lin also let out a sigh.

"Are his two sons still alive?" she asked.

"Yeah, and there was also a young granddaughter who happened to be visiting her maternal grandmother in a neighboring village. Everyone else was killed," Wu Qiushan shook his head. "Once Liu Fenxiu realized what happened, she called her two daughters, claiming she had taken a bad fall at home, and told her sons-in-law to rush over and help. Those two sons-in-law had no idea what was going on; they blindly rode their motorcycles over only to walk into this nightmare scene. Scared out of their minds, they blindly followed Liu Fenxiu's instructions to clean up Wu Yaozu's footprints and fingerprints from the crime scene. Only after making sure everything was scrubbed did they snap back to reality. But by then, they had already destroyed evidence, and they were easily manipulated and coaxed back home by their wives and mother-in-law."

"No wonder the DNA found at the scene didn't match anyone in Lingxia Village. Even though those two sons-in-law lived nearby, they were from a different township," Cen Lian mused, realizing the Jiangyuan City police had truly suffered some terrible luck. They never could have imagined it was a completely random murder, with the crime scene cleaned up by outsiders from another township.

Truth be told, given the pace of their current canvassing, they probably would have zeroed in on Liu Fenxiu and her son within a few days anyway, but the visiting team had beaten them to the punch.

"Doesn't that mean the only one in his family *not* in prison is Wu Yaozu's deadbeat dad who went out for migrant work and hasn't returned?" Tang Hua suddenly remembered. "Those two sons-in-law are so clueless—pulling a stunt like that will cost them at least three years."

"Tell me about it," Wu Qiushan rubbed his hands together as the dishes started being served. "Compared to the Chen Nan case we're currently chasing, this one feels almost dull."

Although a family of seven had been wiped out, the killer was neither a vicious, calculating serial killer, nor were the methods particularly sophisticated.

"When will we ever run into one of those legendary serial killers—you know, the cold-blooded, highly professional kind?" Before Tang Hua could finish his sentence, Cen Lian slammed a hand over his mouth.

"Stop jinxing it!" Cen Lian muttered, feeling like his life was flashing before his eyes.

Forensic Doctor Lin smiled. "If Tang Hua actually calls it into existence, we'll make him treat everyone to late-night snacks for a month."

Tang Hua immediately lowered his head, silently praying that his casual nonsense would not come true.

Even the next morning, Tang Hua still looked somewhat absent-minded.

"Stop overthinking it. If a real case happens, we won't be able to run from it anyway. Focus on the surveillance footage," Cen Lian slapped the back of Tang Hua's neck and shoved a USB drive containing the traffic footage into his hand before he could leap up in protest.

"We only have two days left! Do you still want your merits and awards or not?" Cen Lian began dangling carrots.

Tang Hua promptly plugged the USB drive into his computer.

"I want them, I definitely want them!" he chirped happily, turning his attention to the surveillance monitor.