Chapter 116: Intruder
The footsteps of the two people were very light, but they sounded as heavy as a bell in Linlang's ears.
In such a tense atmosphere, Linlang forgot how to respond. It wasn't until the two people outside walked to the window that Linlang remembered that Vina Yun had said that in an emergency, they could hide in the storage room inside, in the corner where the two mice were found.
Without further ado, Linlang tiptoed to the corner, found the entrance to the storage room, and ducked in. The storage room was empty, with nothing in it, so she wasn't worried about making any noise and being noticed by people outside.
Just as she hid, the person outside had walked to the door and gently opened it.
The door is not locked? Linlang was a little surprised. She had clearly locked the door from the outside when Vina Yun left. Why did these two people come in so quickly?
"Hey! Be quick and don't leave any traces." It was a woman's voice.
"I know," said another woman.
The two people only said these two sentences, and then fell silent in tacit understanding.
Linlang initially thought the people outside were searching for her, but for some reason, they only stayed for a moment before quickly leaving the house, cautiously closing the door behind them. After waiting for a while and finding no more movement outside, Linlang finally emerged from the storage room.
By this time, the sky was already dark, and the room was practically pitch dark, if not pitch dark. Linlang didn't dare turn on the light, fearing the Ghost Face Cultists outside would notice someone was inside. After adjusting to the dimness for a while, she finally noticed two long, cotton-wrapped objects lying in the middle of the room's floor.
This...could it be...
Linlang seemed to have guessed something, her heart leaping into her throat. After calming herself down, she stepped forward and slowly unwrapped the long section of cotton cloth—just as she'd expected, it was a human leg! A right leg! She unwrapped the short section, revealing a left arm.
Linlang gasped, then pondered: It looked like those two uninvited guests were the ones Vinayun had asked to return the two limbs. But why didn't she do it herself? Why did she have to ask these two women? What was their relationship to Vinayun? Could she really trust them? Perhaps she was in trouble, unable to escape on her own, and had to entrust them to return the limbs on her behalf?
More and more questions were forming, making Linlang uneasy. The current situation was becoming increasingly unfavorable for her. If something happened to Vina Yun again, she would be truly isolated and helpless. Not only were there those Satanic ghost-faced men, but there was also a murderer hiding in the shadows, specializing in brutally killing children!
Linlang shook her head, trying to wake herself up. Since Vina Yun had done her best to send the things even though she was in danger, how could she let her down?
But it's pitch black here and I can't see anything clearly. How can I search for clues on the broken limbs?
Linlang slapped her forehead. Yeah! Isn't there a storage room there? It's completely enclosed, and no one would notice it even if the lights were on.
Just do it!
Although the storage room is not big, it is more than enough to place two limbs for investigation.
Linlang lit the oil lamp and carefully examined the leg and arm. The skin on both limbs felt very delicate and soft, and the bones were slightly thin from the cross-section, clearly belonging to a child. The outer toes had slight calluses, indicating that the child exercised regularly and was most likely from a farming family. The index finger also had a few thin calluses, confirming this point.
Looking at the cut surface again, the blood had already clotted, and the muscles were retracted. Linlang remembered the knowledge she had gained about human anatomy during her travels with her teacher, Elliot, in Western countries. Because children's bodily functions are still immature, their muscle density is relatively low, so the muscles in the cross section tend to retract. However, the color of the muscles in the leg and arm before her was slightly different, the leg being darker and the arm lighter.
The findings on the legs and arms didn't seem particularly remarkable, and were far from pointing to the murderer's identity. Linlang couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
Hmm? What is this?
When Linlang moved the oil lamp to a different angle, the light shone on the inner side of the armpit at the top of the arm. There seemed to be an unusual mark there. It was a very shallow vertical mark, and there was a horizontal mark connected to the vertical mark along the cross section, like a T-shape.
Why did this trace appear here? Was it a clue? And what did it represent? Linlang was puzzled.
After examining the body for a long time, Linlang was exhausted and sweating. She sat down against the wall to rest and think. She had almost finished examining the body parts, and based on her observations, she could draw the following conclusions:
1. The deceased (or more precisely, the victim, after all, whether the person is dead or alive is still unknown) can be determined to be a child between nine and twelve years old, but it is still impossible to determine whether it is a boy or a girl.
2. Judging from the degree of blood coagulation, the limbs were severed at least two days ago.
3. Judging from the calluses on his legs and feet, this child exercises regularly, so he may be a farmer's son from a nearby village or town, but his nails seem to have been just trimmed.
Linlang was also concerned about the location where the leg and arm were found. One was in the confessional in the west church, which was a closed room at the time, while the other was hanging on the cross atop the plaque outside the hospital, an open environment. The two locations were completely different in nature. Why would the murderer arrange them this way?
More crucially, where is the child's body? Is he still alive? Will the other two limbs turn up somewhere later?
Then I thought about how the villagers in the local towns rarely leave their homes. Few people venture out. Perhaps they're just afraid of something. Instead of staying here in Vinayun doing nothing, why not go out and visit the townspeople and see if I can get any valuable clues from them? It's already night, so if I'm careful, I shouldn't be discovered by those ghost-faced men.
Linlang made up her mind and tiptoed out of Vinayun's house. She looked around. It was pitch black, with only a few dim lights in the nearby homes of villagers. Linlang cautiously approached the door of a house farther from the church and knocked gently a few times.
"Who?" A weak voice of a middle-aged woman came from the door, and her tone seemed particularly nervous.
"Hello, don't be afraid. I'm a traveler passing through here and would like to stay here."
The woman inside lowered her guard a little when she heard that there was also a woman outside.
"Oh my god, how could a woman like you come to this remote place? My house is not suitable for you to stay. Please find another place."
"Sister-in-law, I'm not sure if that's the right way to address you. I'm a woman from another place. I was planning to stay with relatives and friends nearby, but I came here because I couldn't keep up the journey. Please be kind and take me in. I'll give you more money."
After these words were spoken, the room fell silent for a moment, and then a man's voice was heard, "Since she gave us money, it would be pitiful for her to stay outside the door. Why don't we open the door and let her in?"
"Why haven't you learned your lesson yet? Don't you know how Dong'er died? Just because someone gave you some money, you just ignored everything else?"
"Oh, you're really asking for trouble! Since Dong'er is gone, why should we still be so hard on the client? Aren't you afraid that those ghost faces will pass by here and grab this lady?"
“But…but…”
"What else could it be? Hurry up and open the door and let them in!"
The woman had no choice but to listen to the man. She gently opened the gate a crack to let Linlang in, and then quickly closed the door.
"Thank you, sister-in-law."
"You're welcome. Come inside and I'll boil some water for you."
Once Linlang was let into the room, she saw that it was completely bare. Apart from two beds, one large and one small, two benches, and a wooden box, there was nothing else. A man sat listlessly on the edge of the bed, his upper body bare and wearing only a pair of open trousers covered in countless patches.
"Girl, are you alone?" the man asked.
Linlang bowed and said, "Brother, my surname is Lin. I'm going to a nearby village to seek refuge with my relatives. I'd like to stay here for one night and leave tomorrow. I have some silver dollars with me, please don't mind the small amount." As she spoke, she took out three silver dollars from her clothes.
Seeing that he was really rich, the man quickly took it and said with a smile, "That's enough. You see, my house is so small, there's no place to entertain you..." The man scratched his head and said, "How about asking the guests to stay in our house, and my wife and I can just stay in the woodshed next door for one night."
Linlang shook her head repeatedly, "No need, no need. How can I take over the show? I can just endure it in the woodshed for one night."
"How can that be?" The hostess walked in with water. "You've spent so much money, how can I let you suffer? Besides, you're a woman all alone, you need some care." As she said that, she glared at the man.
Linlang smiled, "If you feel it's too much to bear, why don't you two chat with me and help me through this long night? It can be considered a form of compensation."
The host and hostess looked at each other. "What do you want to talk about?" the host asked.
"Just now I heard you two say something about a ghost face outside the door. What is that?"
At first, both of them hesitated, unsure who should start the conversation. Finally, it was the hostess who spoke: "My husband's surname is Li, and our village is called Jushuitun, named after the waterway that brings together several tributaries of the canal. During the Qing dynasty, the village had a large population, but during the Xuantong reign, many foreigners arrived from nowhere. They built churches and hospitals here, and even bought several houses in the village."
"You may not know that during the Guangxu period, foreigners chose this site here to build a church. If the Boxer Rebellion had not burned down the half-built church, it would not have been the turn of these people to rebuild it. So the people in our village were not surprised by this. But just a few days after the church and hospital were built, these foreigners started to make trouble. During the day, they would honestly chant sutras and worship the foreign Buddha, but at night, they would put on ghost-faced masks and worship some evil gods.
"If they had just been doing this, we would have just thought it was noisy and put up with it. But who would have thought that after just a few days of this, families in the village would start abandoning their children."
"Lost a child?" Linlang widened her eyes.
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