Chapter 139: The Last Victim
When the two of them arrived at the church entrance, they saw more than a dozen Cao Gang members gathered there, seemingly wanting to see but afraid to. Du Yunzhang welcomed them in. In the middle of the crowd was a reed mat, with something spread out on it, tightly covered with linen. The stench emanating from underneath was simply nauseating.
Yin Chuan and Vina Yun covered their mouths and noses at the same time, "Is that the body underneath?" Yin Chuan asked.
Du Yunzhang nodded. "We dug it out from the tree roots. It's rotten beyond recognition. I advise you not to look at it."
Yin Chuan waved to Du Yunzhang, meaning to lift the sackcloth.
Du Yunzhang was somewhat helpless, so he asked a fellow from the Cao Gang to get a hook pole. He used the hook on the pole to hook the linen cloth and lifted it up. An extremely strong stench hit his face.
Vina Yun's face suddenly changed, and she turned her head and bent over to vomit. Yin Chuan was also nauseated by the fumes, but fortunately, like Du Yunzhang, he had seen many corpses and was relatively resistant to the stench, so he didn't lose his composure.
The corpse on the reed mat was short and fat, resembling a meatball. A closer look revealed that, aside from the torso and head, all limbs were missing. Furthermore, the corpse was covered in damp dirt, with swollen, rotten flesh beneath. The skull and collarbone were exposed through the rotten flesh, a truly horrific sight.
"He's really pitiful!" Vina Yun exclaimed.
"What did you say?"
"Oh, I say this child is so pitiful."
Yin Chuan nodded. "It's really pitiful. Someone chopped off his hands and feet, and then buried him under a tree, letting the roots absorb his nutrients. He ended up like this. It's really tragic!"
"We compared the right arm and left leg, but they didn't match the child's body," said Du Yunzhang.
"Really? Let me see. Bring me those two broken limbs." Yin Chuan said to Du Yunzhang.
Du Yunzhang ordered his men to fetch the right arm and left leg. Yin Chuan took the right arm and compared it to the corpse's right shoulder. Sure enough, it didn't fit. The corpse's right shoulder was noticeably wider. He then compared it to the left leg. Just like the right arm, the leg joint was also thicker than the leg itself.
"Look, it's obviously not right," said Du Yunzhang.
Yin Chuan did not jump to conclusions immediately. Instead, he carefully compared the two parts and said after a moment of contemplation, "No, on the contrary, I think this arm and this leg should belong to this corpse. The other two—the left arm and the right leg—must be the same."
Du Yunzhang was very confused. "Ah? Old Yin, you saw it too. The two limbs clearly don't match. How can you say they belong to this body?"
Yin Chuan raised his head and smiled at Du Yunzhang, "Old Du, Old Du, we can't just look at the surface. Look—" He pointed to the broken part of his right arm, "The muscle texture on the broken arm is particularly messy and rough, but the bone is cut very smoothly. And on the broken right arm of the corpse, although the muscle has been rotted beyond recognition, the broken bone is also exceptionally smooth. Although the broken arm of the corpse looks larger than the broken limb, it's because the corpse was buried in the damp soil and swollen, and the muscle is high in water, so it is naturally thicker than the broken limb. But the bone is only slightly affected by water. If you look closely at the broken arm bone, you can compare them. The same is true for the left leg."
"Okay, you have a point." Du Yunzhang nodded. "But I still have a lot of questions. What's the difference between this child and the other ten murdered children? Why was he buried under the tree? And where are the limbs of the four children who are each missing a limb?"
"Linlang's reasoning is very clear. The biggest difference between this child and the other ten children is—" Yin Chuan stood up and looked at the rotting corpse and said, "He is a foreigner."
"A foreigner?" Du Yunzhang stared at the corpse with wide eyes. "The body was severely swollen and the face was unrecognizable. How did she know this child was a foreigner?"
“Of course, she hadn’t seen the body and only inferred it based on the left arm and right leg.
"Take a closer look. First, although these two severed limbs are relatively rough, similar to those of other children in the village, you should notice that the roughness is only on the palms and soles of the feet. The skin above is much more delicate, which shows that this child had taken good care of himself in the past, but coming to a village like this is bound to be covered in dust and dirt.
"Secondly, this child's fingernails and toenails are very short, in stark contrast to the other children's long, dirty nails. Just imagine, how can a rural child afford to cut his own nails?
"The above two points actually only prove that he is not a rural child. In fact, the most crucial evidence that he is a foreign child is the mark on his wrist."
Yin Chuan picked up the severed arm and showed it to Du Yunzhang at the inch, guan, and chi points of his wrist. "There's a circle of marks on the wrist. At first, we all thought they were from handcuffs, but look here, there's a faint pattern on it. How could there be a pattern on handcuffs? It was Linlang who figured it out. It's the pattern of a Scottish thistle. So she boldly speculated that the child must have worn a watch, and a watch with a Scottish thistle pattern engraved on the back of the dial. Watches with this pattern are only custom-made by local clergy in foreign countries, and there's no way they would have fallen into the hands of a Chinese child. As for the other four children's severed limbs, I think the murderer would have buried them in four areas of the garden, or directly thrown them into a tributary of the canal."
Du Yunzhang suddenly realized, "So that's how it is! If this child is really a foreign child, then things will be complicated."
"Yes, things are more complicated than Luo Mei and you think. But... Linlang's explanation seems to have simplified it. Because she eavesdropped on the conversation of the Satanists outside the dark room under the well connected to Ma Laoba's house. Only one of them spoke with a Scottish accent. Clark told him that he was fully responsible for arranging the sacrifices, and he said that he had already done it. Doesn't this mean that he was the one who committed all the murders?"
"So there's this happening!" Du Yunzhang slapped his forehead.
"As for the grudge between this man and this foreign kid, we'll find out once we catch him."
"So, Linlang has already stood up and started chasing after him?" Du Yunzhang asked.
Yin Chuan nodded. "However, she might encounter some troubles, but she should be able to handle them. I will catch up with her next, and everything else will proceed according to our plan."
"Brother Yin," Luo Mei followed up, "there was an explosion on the canal just now, and the authorities have already sealed the river. We can't travel by water anymore!"
"Well..." Vina Yun next to him interrupted cautiously, "There's a train station on the edge of town five miles away from Jushuitun. There's a train line running north parallel to the waterway. Mr. Yin, what do you think..."
"Okay, let's go there and take the train. I've never taken one in my life!" Yin Chuan suddenly became excited.
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