Although Ma Jinhuo was dead, his ‘soul’ was resurrected in Shopkeeper Tang’s body.
He quickly finished his own meat. Even the bones and internal organs that Shopkeeper Tang had planned to throw away were cooked and eaten.
What kind of experience was it to eat yourself? No one else in the world could understand it. It was a unique satisfaction and pleasure. In fact, he thought it felt better than having sex with a woman!
Ma Jinhuo’s meat and bones were quickly eaten up, but his desire to eat human flesh had just been ignited. For a while, he even contemplated cutting some meat from Shopkeeper Tang himself. However, he was just too fat and too old. Secondly, he knew that he was now stuck in Shopkeeper Tang’s body, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to damage it.
So he began to look for prey, and he wandered around every night until he met Xiaozhang, who was working in the supermarket.
The man was very young, had healthy wheat-colored skin, neither smoked nor drank, and he smelled very good. Every time they met, Ma Jinhuo could only see the strong muscles under his skin. If he didn’t stop himself, he would drool on the spot.
He made up his mind to eat this guy!
At this time, he made an accidental discovery. There was a bomb shelter underneath the bun shop. Shopkeeper Tang just used it to store some ingredients. Ma Jinhuo felt he had a better use for it, so he transformed it into a kitchen. When Ma Jinhuo was young, he used to work at a construction site, so it was not difficult for him to build a kitchen at all.
But he had to be very careful because he was not the owner of the body, and most of the time it was still ‘inhabited’ by Shopkeeper Tang.
It took him a month and a half to get ready. He stole a van from the nearby parking lot, prepared some tools, and kidnapped the victim.
The plan went very smoothly. In order to improve the meat quality, he gave Xiaozhang a lot of spices. After he completely digested it, he cut his meat. Ma Jinhuo tasted the first piece of meat with a knife, but the effect did not work as well as he had hoped.
However, the meat was still very delicious. He cut the meat piece by piece and was prepared to enjoy it slowly. Unexpectedly, though, the bones were discovered by Shopkeeper Tang. He got scared and threw away the uncut corpse and then turned the meat into the filling of steamed buns.
After realizing that, Ma Jinhuo almost wanted to burn down the shop, but when he thought about it, this was a good thing too!
He thought it would be amazing to turn people into eating human flesh. If people knew how delicious it was, then society would accept this behavior, and he wouldn’t have to sneak around trying to eat human flesh!
Most of the buns were sold out. The customers were full of praise for the human meat buns. At that point, Ma Jinhuo was happier than he could’ve ever imagined.
Soon, all the human flesh was consumed, so he kidnapped the second person. This time, in order to make the meat taste better, he made the victim breathe in laughing gas, tied her body to restrict blood circulation and cut off her flesh with a knife. Watching a living person cut to their skeleton gave him unspeakable pleasure.
It took a long time to process a human body. Yet, for the majority of the time, his body was inhabited by Shopkeeper Tang. As a result, before all the meat and bones were obtained, the second body was thrown away by the timid Shopkeeper Tang.
Ma Jinhuo was angry and helpless. But what could he do?
Later, he kidnapped the third victim. Shopkeeper Tang discovered this so he was about to discard the body just as he did to the previous two victims, but the police were observing the shop closely so he had to temporarily put it in the basement.
“You just haven’t tasted human flesh yet, that’s all,” said Shopkeeper Tang. “Once you do, you’ll understand everything. People should be a part of the food chain. If we can eat pigs and cows, why can’t we eat human flesh too? Being able to taste human flesh when they are still young—isn’t that just the peak of happiness?”
As he said so, he burst into a perverted laugh.
Xiaotao and I were both stunned, and the clerk on the side was also visibly uncomfortable.
Xiaotao ordered two policemen to take Shopkeeper Tang away. Once we were out of the interrogation room, Xiaotao whispered, “That was just too vile!”
“Yeah, it made me want to go out and take in fresh air.”
We both went outside and gradually we were able to calm down. Xiaotao asked me, “Do you think Shopkeeper Tang is really possessed by Ma Jinhuo’s ghost?”
“Though I’m not exactly an atheist, I still don’t think ghosts have such powers. If that was true, then what’s the need for the police?”
“So, you think he has a split personality?”
“Yes. After the weak-willed Shopkeeper Tang realized he murdered Ma Jinhuo, he was consumed by guilt and panic, and that slowly gave rise to the split personality. By the way, how does the law treat someone like this?”
“The law doesn’t recognize this kind of thing. He will be sentenced as a guilty man, but if his lawyer can get a doctor to declare him insane, he might be sent to a psychiatric hospital instead of jail. But for someone so dangerous, I think they’d lock him in there for the rest of his life…”
“That’s good. This kind of person should never be released into society.”
Xiaotao agreed. “I feel exactly the same way!”
We both walked very far without knowing it. Looking at the time, I told Xiaotao, “Let’s go back.”
“Ah, I have to go back to work again!” Xiaotao grumbled. “It’s been exhausting these past two days!”
“When the case is over, you should take a break!” I advised.
“No, I’m afraid I can’t do that yet,” Xiaotao sighed. “Once this battle is done, there’s always the next one. I’ll probably get to rest when I retire. By the way, I have a small request to make, Song Yang.”
“What...what is it?” I asked shyly.
“Look at you! Why are you so nervous when you’re alone with me? Am I more terrifying than criminals?” Xiaotao pouted.
“N-no! Of course not! What is your request?”
Xiaotao stretched out her arms, and spoke in the voice of a spoiled child, “It’s nothing really… It’s just that my feet are really tired. Can you carry me back?”
“B-but we’re in public!” My jaw dropped so low you could stuff two eggs into my mouth.
“Oh, come on! No one knows us here!”
“N-No... I won’t do it! I have to go back to college now! Goodbye!”
“Hey!” Xiaotao shouted in anger.
I walked away, but looked back after having gone a certain distance and saw Xiaotao still standing there. She was still pouting with anger. When she saw that I was looking at her, she extended her arms towards me. It made me want to laugh.
There were a number of people around us coming and going, and many of them stared at us with curious eyes, but I finally bit my lips and walked towards her.
“Get on!” I said, kneeling down.
“Awesome!” Xiaotao hopped on my back from behind. She then asked me, “Am I heavy?”
I smiled and replied, “No, not at all.”