Chapter 30
Sizzle——
The collision between food and grease, spatula and iron pan continues.
Luo Jingyao could only watch with her eyes open as the blood from the pieces of meat dripped down the side of the chopping board onto the ground.
Tick, tick, tick.
Gradually, her world seemed to be reduced to a dark red pool of human blood.
Her vision began to blur. Indistinctly, Luo Jingyao seemed to hear someone murmur beside her: "Eat, eat more!"
“Huh!”
She gasped and came back to her senses. The unique cold touch of the iron door handle on her palm made her calm down quickly.
Luo Jingyao walked into the cubicle with an expressionless face and sat on the toilet. The next second, she dropped her shoulders resignedly and hugged her head with both hands in a slightly collapsed manner.
After a long while, the sound of flushing was heard in the empty bathroom.
She adjusted her mood and walked out of the cubicle. She washed her face twice with cold water in front of the sink. After making sure that others could not see anything unusual from her expression, she walked back to the meeting room in front.
Soon, more and more people came into the hotel.
When Luo Jingyao saw Lin Jiafan again half a month later, she was fine-tuning the decorative flowers on both sides of the stage according to the requirements of the host and the wedding company. As soon as she looked up after finishing the adjustments, she saw the other party's face that looked extremely superior in the crowd.
Today's groom, the client of this big order, is also surnamed Lin. Judging from the suit and tie he is wearing today, he should undoubtedly be the best man.
After retracting her covert gaze, Luo Jingyao had no intention of going forward to say hello. She took a handful of flowers from the wake-up bucket next to her and walked around the place to check for any omissions.
There were too many naughty children and many ignorant and clumsy adults. The wedding ceremony had not officially started yet, and she had to make sure every detail was as perfect as possible.
While walking around, Luo Jingyao also saw Pang Guang sitting at the table chatting and laughing with the people around him, Pan Chang sitting next to him with his head down and browsing his mobile phone, and Guo Zhen hiding in the corner of the banquet hall, talking on the phone with no one known person.
After a brief moment of shock, she felt normal.
It is no exaggeration to say that these people from the Special Case Investigation Team are inseparable day and night, so it is not surprising that they come together to attend the wedding of Lin Jiafan's relatives.
Finally, before Luo Jingyao's legs almost broke, the host walked onto the stage with his head held high and chest puffed out, loudly announcing the official start of the wedding ceremony.
With the successful conclusion of the ceremony, she finally finished her work for the day.
After finding the owner and successfully settling the remaining balance, Luo Jingyao worked together with the shop assistant to move the extra flowers and tools back to the truck.
Around 1 p.m., the truck slowly pulled out of the Marriott Hotel parking lot. Luo Jingyao, who was feeling drowsy in the passenger seat, was startled awake by the sudden question from the girl in the back seat.
"Eh? Boss, that handsome guy standing on the side of the road looks familiar. He must be the one who came to your store a while ago, right?"
Looking in the direction of the little sister's finger, she saw several people standing on the roadside ahead.
Perhaps because he was in a hurry to come out, Lin Jiafan was still wearing the same black suit, except that the bow tie on his neck was gone, and two buttons of his shirt were undone, making him look less formal and more unruly than before.
"Officers, what are you doing...?"
The truck slowly stopped in front of the crowd, and a puzzled yet familiar questioning voice came from above their heads.
Pang Guang, who was originally scratching his head anxiously, subconsciously raised his head. He had never felt that familiar pretty face was so kind. It was like seeing a long-lost relative. The young man immediately called out "Coach Luo" in a roundabout way!
"The bureau called us and said there was an urgent task, but the nearest online taxi takes more than ten minutes to arrive. The traffic conditions around here have always been bad and no taxis are willing to come. Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda, Coach Luo!" Pang Guang spoke very quickly.
Fearing that she would disagree, he took two steps forward, raised his arms, and simply put his hands on the car window frame.
They went to the groom's house to help early this morning, and chose to take the wedding car to the hotel for convenience. They never thought it would be such a coincidence that something happened at this time.
"Where are you going? Back to the bureau?" Luo Jingyao asked.
Pang Guang, who was hanging on the car window, was about to answer when Lin Jiafan, who was standing behind him, spoke first: "It's a bit late. I wonder if Coach Luo could ask the driver to take me directly to Bo'an Village in Haihe District. The additional expenses can be negotiated."
"I don't have any urgent business..." Luo Jingyao did not agree immediately, but turned around and talked to the shop assistant and the driver separately, and finally nodded.
Just as Pang Guang was cheering and wanted to open the back door to get in, she said with an embarrassed look on her face: "The back seat can only accommodate two people at most. The rest will probably have to make do in the cargo box at the back."
Hearing this, the young man froze in place.
In the end, only Pan Chang successfully made it to the back of the truck. Lin Jiafan, Pang Guang, and Guo Zhen were left hand in hand, unceremoniously locked in the dark cargo box at the back by the driver.
Before arriving at Bo'an Village, there was a bumpy road that was not easy to walk on. Luo Jingyao and others sitting in the front had to hold on to the upper handle on the inside of the car door tightly to barely keep their bodies steady. They couldn't even imagine what the scene was like in the cargo box at the back.
Only occasionally could one hear the "bang bang bang" sound of something hitting the cargo box.
After more than ten minutes, the truck drove into the territory of Bo'an Village. Under the guidance of Pan Chang, the driver controlled the long and wide body of the truck to turn left and right on the narrow country road, and finally stopped near the village committee with a pile of dust.
After giving a few instructions to the shop assistant, Luo Jingyao jumped out of the car first, walked around to the rear of the truck, and pressed down hard on the lock on the door.
Click.
With the teeth-grinding sound of metal friction, the cargo door slowly opened to both sides.
The scene that came into view successfully made Luo Jingyao purse her red lips painfully, trying not to laugh.
The three people in the cargo box were seen sitting together in a fairly uniform posture, arm in arm and shoulder to shoulder in the innermost corner, each holding an empty red bucket in their arms.
"Officer Lin, Officer Pang, Officer Guo, we've arrived at Bo'an Village." The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably, and even her tone of voice trembled.
The three of them simultaneously threw away the red buckets in their arms. Pang Guang was the first to jump out of the car, but he almost fell because his feet were too weak.
The young man had a long pale face and staggered to the side of the road. He vomited all the hard food he had eaten at the wedding at noon into the gutter.
He was vomiting and trying to make excuses for himself: "I told you... Ugh... You can't carry someone on your back in a car... Ugh... Even if the king of heaven came, he would feel dizzy... Ugh!"
As for Lin Jiafan, who had just come out of the cargo box, not only had his suit become wrinkled, but his originally stylish hair was also disheveled. Because he had sprayed a lot of hair wax, each strand of hair was clearly visible, making him look like a hedgehog with its hair blown to pieces.
Of course, Guo Zhen was not in much better condition. His continuous and violent breathing made Luo Jingyao feel that the man might faint in the next second.
After hanging up the phone, Pan Chang took a moment to glance at the three of them. His thin face showed a hint of sympathy, but it was very limited. "The laboratory staff arrived twenty minutes ago. The crime scene is in the open space two hundred meters in front of the village committee."
Lin Jiafan nodded, adjusted his clothes a little, and then took the two of them over there.
On the other side, the young man was still squatting by the gutter, retching intermittently.
Luo Jingyao took two steps forward, patted him on the back gently, and took out a bottle of water from her backpack and handed it to him.
After a humble thank you, Pang Guang finally felt better after rinsing his mouth with water. He raised his head, revealing a pair of red eyes. He was still hunched over, his voice hoarse, "Where are they?"
"He said he went to the crime scene in the open space in front." Luo Jingyao replied casually, and stepped forward very naturally to support the unsteady young man.
Pang Guang's mind was still buzzing at this moment. He couldn't react for a while and naturally had no way to refuse.
The two of them walked forward at a moderate pace. When passing the truck, she raised her head slightly and winked at the shop assistant in the car. The shop assistant raised her eyebrows in understanding as a response.
About two minutes later, they gradually approached the open space that Pan Chang had just mentioned.
It was more like a simple loess square than an open space, just like every crime scene I had seen before. The villagers had now cordoned off the area, making it impossible to get in or out.
But the difference is that many villagers were kneeling on the yellow earth, kowtowing continuously and muttering to themselves.
Luo Jingyao then noticed that the square was covered with colorful red ribbons hanging everywhere inside and outside. There was a wooden platform on the far right side of the square, and a statue of a god was sitting steadily on the platform.
At this moment, a strong wind happened to blow by, rolling up the red firecracker debris on the ground. The debris flying up and down everywhere, coupled with the red cloth strips floating on the branches, gave people an inexplicable weird feeling.
"What are they doing...?" Luo Jingyao asked in confusion as her eyes swept across the villagers kneeling in front of her.
"Pray to the gods!" Pang Guang explained weakly.
"Haihe District has inherited these traditional customs quite well, and they hold related activities every year and every festival. Didn't we just have the Mid-Autumn Festival and now the Double Ninth Festival? It's inevitable that it's a bit lively."
"It's just a little different this time. I don't know which psychopath is resorting to human sacrifice for no reason!"
Pang Guang smacked his lips with emotion, broke away from her support, showed his ID to the police within the cordon, and trotted in.
Only Luo Jingyao was left standing behind a group of kneeling villagers, looking shocked.
Human sacrifice?
Could it be the pile of meat she saw in the hotel bathroom that morning...right?
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