52: 55 Chapter Death Curse (5)
52: 55 Chapter Death Curse (5)
In the corridor of Shuijing City Police Station, clad in a yellow suit, Stack Soldier leafed through a thick stack of case files while striding forward.
Several local police officers followed by his side.
Normally, ordinary people wouldn’t have access to these files, so Stack Soldier used some tricks—forging documents, hacking into the police network to create a false record, pretending to be a Superintendent from the Criminal Department of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
That’s the same rank as Detective Moku from “Detective Conan.”
A Superintendent, and moreover, from Tokyo, the local police in Shuijing City received him warmly and agreed to let him enter the records room to review the files, even assigning someone to accompany him for the entire process.
“The origin of the serial death case dates back twenty-five years ago, to the family massacre at the Fujita residence in Fourth House, Third District.
The thirty-four-year-old housewife, Fujita Yu, was beheaded in the backyard. Fresh chapters posted on novelꞁire.net
Her husband, a thirty-six-year-old slaughterhouse worker named Fujita Yuuhi, had his limbs severed and died on a mountain path.
Their bodies were only discovered the next morning.
The only daughter of the family, nine-year-old Fujita Nobuko, went missing.”
“The police were unable to catch the murderer.
The local government organized volunteers to search for Fujita Nobuko to no avail.
The Fujita house thus became known as cursed, and it has remained unoccupied ever since.
During this time, three middle school students, seeking to explore a haunted house, entered the old Fujita residence.
Two disappeared, and the only surviving teenager went mad and was admitted to a mental hospital in the neighboring city, ending up hanging himself a while later.”
“It wasn’t until fifteen years ago that a construction company redeveloped the site, renovating the old house, and the Suzuki couple from another region moved in, living there peacefully for fifteen years.”
“A month ago, the death incidents suddenly occurred again.
First the Suzuki couple living in the house, then the Funeral Master who prepared their bodies and his two friends.
Then, the real estate sales agent Sakaihara and his wife.”
As Stack Soldier flipped through the files, he was led by two local police officers to the forensic laboratory.
The bodies of the Suzuki couple had already been cremated after a funeral, and the Funeral Master, who died from heart disease considered an accident, had also been cremated.
The only bodies temporarily left at the police station were those of Sakaihara and his wife.
The young forensic pathologist in the laboratory welcomed Stack Soldier.
While opening the refrigerated cabinet where the bodies were stored, he explained, “Normally, in the case of Sakaihara killing his wife, the perpetrator and victim are clear, and the case is simple enough to close directly.
However, due to some special reasons, the bodies have been left here in the police station.
If you hadn’t come today, they were going to be sent for cremation…”
As the two bodies were pulled from the refrigerated cabinet and the white cloth covering them was unfolded, Stack Soldier immediately understood what the “special reasons” were.
Both bodies remained in the state they were in at death, the woman stabbed multiple times, with her eyelids sliced off, her lifeless eyes staring straight up.
The man, who died from a fall from a building, had broken limbs, and his neck twisted a full 360°, an effect impossible to achieve by any form of falling.
The unnatural posture of the bodies meant that only the experienced forensic pathologist could barely maintain composure, while the two local police officers involuntarily looked away, unable to face the sight directly.
Stack Soldier pressed his lips tightly together, a nearly imperceptible glint reflected off his glasses, as he quickly scanned the corpses and noticed a ring of white residue around the mouths and noses, “Wait, is this froth residue?”
“Yes, mushroom-shaped froth,” nodded the pathologist.
The so-called mushroom-shaped froth is the white or pale pink foam that forms when the respiratory tract secretes mucus due to irritation, and the intense breathing action mixes it with air and water.
It commonly appears in cases of drowning victims, carbon monoxide poisoning deaths, deaths due to cranial trauma, strangulation, and drug overdoses.
Both of the deceased—one stabbed to death and one dead from falling—should not have had mushroom-shaped froth.
The pathologist explained, “Sakaihara jumped from a six-story building, hitting objects like the air conditioning unit on his way down, slowing his fall, so he didn’t die immediately upon hitting the ground.
It is more accurate to say that he died from internal bleeding in combination with drowning—since it was raining at the time, his head happened to be submerged in a puddle below the building.”
Stack Soldier nodded, prepared to continue scanning the bodies, when suddenly, as if realizing something, he looked up abruptly and asked, “Rain?
Didn’t the newspapers say that the crime occurred on a sunny day seven days ago?”
The pathologist explained, “The newspapers were referring to the time when the police discovered the bodies.
The actual time of the murder was eight days ago, during rainy weather.”
Stack Soldier’s heart skipped a beat, suddenly thinking of a certain possibility, as the inside of his glasses rapidly flashed through all the case files.
The 25-year-old Fujita family massacre, the middle school student disappearance case, the Suzuki couple’s death case, the Funeral Master’s death case, the Sakai wife murder case, and even this afternoon, when several players were teleported over, the weather was rainy.
The long-brewing thunder finally bore fruit, and the fine drizzle pattered against the forensic laboratory’s windowpanes.
Stack Soldier disregarded the presence of the two police officers, immediately took out his mobile phone, opened the communication app, and shouted: “The amplifier is the rain!
Once it rains, that thing’s strength will increase!
When we arrived this afternoon, the sky had just cleared after the rain, that’s why the van had an accident and fell into the water, we’ve been entangled!”
The reason why the killing field set the teleportation node after the car fell into the water was to remind the players that the four people from the TV station were already contaminated with the curse.
The local police officer next to him, unclear why Stack Soldier suddenly became so agitated, asked puzzled: “Are you alright?”
Without warning, the long fluorescent light tubes hanging from the room’s ceiling suddenly went out, and the refrigerated body cabinet violently retracted, pulling the two corpses back into the cabinet with force.
Click-click-click-click—
A dense and noisy sound emanated from the body refrigerating cabinet.
Strands of black hair began to continuously emerge from the cabinet door cracks.
The three ordinary people in the room were all scared silly by this sudden turn of events, and the medical examiner yelled as he flung open the door and dashed out of the room.
Stack Soldier yelled out a warning, but alas, it was too late.
As soon as the medical examiner reached the corridor, a pair of deathly pale hands with no trace of blood color grabbed him by both sides of the head, violently pulling him into the dark corner.
Stack Soldier sprinted out after him, only to see that the corridor lights were completely off, with only the faint green light of the emergency exit sign at the end of the corridor.
Borrowing the dim green light, one could faintly discern a silhouette hanging from the ceiling of the corridor.
His feet dangled in the air, with arms hanging loosely by his side, his neck stretched to an unnatural length.
The entire corridor’s lights flickered intermittently, and that figure momentarily floated in front of Stack Soldier.