Chapter 1388: A Cold Case from Four Years Ago

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Xia Fan was very depressed. He, who had just left the ancient tomb not too long ago, was first acquainted with just how important this thing called money was.

Actually, Xia Fan was not penniless. There were Grade Nine energy crystals inside the spatial ring with almost a thousand cubic meter that the blind old man gave him. There were plenty of things that the scoundrels had given Xia Fan that were worth a lot, but Xia Fan had no plans to sell any of those precious gifts away. They were the only memories he had of his past, and more than a decade of his life.

Cheyenne ate her breakfast so quickly like she was a tornado that had visited town, patting her stuffed belly at the end.

After some thought, Cheyenne then told Xia Fan, “Actually, if you need money, it’s not that there isn’t a solution to it.”

“What can I do?” Xia Fan asked, curious.

“Be a bounty hunter,” Cheyenne winked mysteriously, as she lifted a cup of milk coffee and took a sip.

…

*Whoosh*

The hovercar from the Special Bureau was flying through the air at high speeds. A little over an hour later, Cheyenne and Xia Fan arrived at a mountain villa located in Cosmo Valley.

The villa spanned a large area, yet it gave off an atmosphere of neglect. The courtyard looked like it had been a long time since anyone did any cleaning, and withered yellow leaves littered the ground. The grass had grown wildly, and was even taller than a man, while the high brick walls were overgrown with moss.

The hovercar was parked in the yard of the villa. Xia Fan and Cheyenne got out, with the latter looking around and saying to the former, “This is the crime scene of the infamous corpse dismemberment case four years ago. One of the victims was the granddaughter of the villa’s owner. Because the case was never closed, the villa owner has a reward of ten million Union dollars for the apprehension of the murderer, dead or alive.”

Xia Fan nodded slightly after hearing her overview.

What Cheyenne meant by being a bounty hunter was to become a private investigator!

The Special Bureau was in charge of cases that involved criminals with special abilities, and they were hardly bothered with the murder cases of commoners. That meant cases like this one, where there was someone offering a reward to crack the case! As long as Xia Fan could successfully find the culprit, he would be given the reward. Meanwhile, as a trainee investigator for the Special Bureau, it was very easy for him to gain the trust of the owner.

The doors of the villa opened up, and an elderly couple came walking out. They seemed to be the caretaker and maid of the villa’s owner.

It was actually quite clean inside the villa, but there was an inescapable air of gloominess hanging over the place. Perhaps it was the corpse dismemberment case that had left the villa with no guests, resulting in the depressed atmosphere.

Jiang Chunwen was a thin but energetic old man. He was paralyzed, sitting on a hoverchair as he personally received Xia Fan and Cheyenne in the living room.

“I won’t die!” Once the topic arrived at the death of his precious granddaughter, this old man’s tone turned harsh and spiteful as he declared, “I don’t care if it takes a decade or even two! As long as the day when my granddaughter remains unavenged does not come, then I won’t die. I must stay alive, live on until the day the truth of that day comes to light!”

Xia Fan was somewhat taken aback. He was very impressed by the determination this paralyzed old man demonstrated. Though those were the words he said, Xia Fan could tell from his observation that he probably did not have much time left in this world.

Cheyenne nodded, “Best if we head to the scene of the crime and take a look first.”

Jiang Chunwen agreed, “Sure. Everything in the basement had been preserved as it was. My caretaker will lead you two down.”

With that he seemed to be a little tired, so he slowly shut his eyes. The old maid quietly went over and tucked him in.

—

Caretaker Feng brought Cheyenne and Xia Fan down to the basement of the villa.

They could tell that it had once been a child’s playroom, where children could play hide-and-seek, and even had a trampoline installed. There was even a small pool and a fireplace.

A thick layer of dust covered the basement, and the trace of blood on the floor had already been imprinted onto the carpet, turning it a dark red. At Jiang Chunwen’s vehement insistence, everything in the basement had been preserved as the scene of the crime from four years ago. Nothing had been touched.

Cheyenne said to Xia Fan, “This is the place. On a summer’s day four years ago, Jiang Xiaohan hosted a party with thirty-seven of her classmates. It was raining heavily that day, so they decided to head down to the basement and play.

“Deep into the night, everyone slept here in the basement, and because these kids did not wish to disturb the adults, they shut the door to the basement.

“The next morning, when Caretaker Feng was delivering breakfast, he discovered there were thirty-eight children, aged between seven to eight, all in a pool of blood. Their bodies were dismembered, and each of them had a limb or an organ removed.

“The coroner affirmed that when all thirty-eight organs and body parts were put together, they would happen to form a complete human body, and among them all, it was Jiang Xiaohan’s head that was missing.”

Xia Fan felt a chill run over him despite there being no wind. It was hard to imagine that there could be such a depraved person in this world, cruel enough to slay thirty-eight children, and then construct a complete human body from the body parts and organs of those killed. This murderer was not only a sociopath, he was a pervent, too!

“Were there no clues found?” Xia Fan asked.

Cheyenne shook her head, “Nothing. They spent half a year doing a large-scale investigation, but they still came up empty-handed. There was no traces of the murderer’s DNA anywhere, and no eye-witnesses. It seemed the video recording was also ruined due to the heavy storm.”

Xia Fan nodded, “I understand. You may leave first.”

—

Cheyenne left, and closed the door to the basement behind her.

Xia Fan was now the only one left in the room. Glancing at the already dried blood on the floor, it was as if he was witnessing the scene from four years ago, where a group of innocent children were all drugged unconscious, and their organs cruelly removed while still alive.

Xia Fan squatted down and muttered, “Olfactory senses, enhance!”

*Huuu*

After taking a deep breath, the olfactory factors of the room entered Xia Fan’s nostrils, and were instantly transmitted into recognizable signals to his brain.

Xia Fei possessed a sense of smell that was classed as a type of perception special ability. Normal people might think that a highly-developed sense of smell would not be a particularly powerful special ability, but the reality was just the opposite. A developed olfactory sense allowed Xia Fan to capture a lot of special information that others would never be able to understand, allowing him to conduct a deeper investigation.

It had been four years. A very long time had passed, and so any lingering smells would be extremely mild. Xia Fan needed to work extra hard to differentiate just what the smells were.

Slowly, a miraculous image of the dead children appeared in Xia Fan’s mind. While they were having peach pie for dinner, some of the little girls had worn perfume, and he could smell the scent of the silk fabric of their pajamas. It was as if Xia Fan was there that night four years ago. Everything that happened that night gradually formed in Xia Fan’s mind through the reorganization of the smells he had picked up.

“This smell… is strange…” Xia Fan furrowed his brow. He thought to himself, ‘It seems like it’s coming from the sea, but we’re in the mountains right now. The nearest sea would be over a thousand kilometers away, so why would the smell of ocean fish appear here?

‘Nothing that the children ate held the smell of fish, so this smell could not have originated from any of them.

‘So, could this scent be from the killer? For the smell to be so distinct even after four years, it must definitely be a special kind of pickled fish…

…

Not too long later, Xia Fan left the basement and returned to the living room. He related what he had learned to Cheyenne.

“A special kind of pickled fish that has a very distinct smell. They should have added plenty of lemon in the process of pickling it, so as to preserve the freshness of the fish. Perhaps it is an acquired taste of the fishermen somewhere around here,” Xia Fan told Cheyenne.

Cheyenne nodded. She was no longer surprised by just how sensitive Xia Fei’s sense of smell was.

“I’ll go check. The Special Bureau has an artificial intelligence analysis system,” Cheyenne said. She sat down on the couch and switched on her portable tablet computer, which had access to the Special Bureau’s intranet.

Xia Fan paced aimlessly about the living room. A painting drew his attention; the little girl depicted must be the victim Jiang Xiaohan. She had a swan-like long neck and a sweet smile, looking like a very adorable child.

The little girl was sitting upright with her hands on her knees, looking like a little lady. A sapphire pendant was hung around her neck, shaped like a key.

“Hmm,” Caretaker Feng heaved a sigh from behind Xia Fan. “This is the last portrait of the young miss. The old master had bought a strangely shaped sapphire pendant from an auction that the miss really liked. She wore it around everyday, and even found a portrait artist to have this portrait of her done.”

“But who would have guessed the second day after this portrait was completed, such a tragedy would happen.”

“Oh?” Xia Fan blinked, “So do you mean to say that the young miss was murdered not too long after she received that sappihre pendant?”

“About a week after. In the past, the old master would attend the summer auction of the Qinhai Auction house every year, and this sapphire was on auction four years ago. He spent approximately eight and a half million alliance dollars to acquire it, which was considered fairly expensive. However, the old master always had a shrewd eye, and he felt that the sapphire itself was not worth much, but rather the fact that it naturally formed into a shape of a key, which made it rarer.

“After the killer murdered the young miss, he stole that sapphire as well. Meanwhile, the classmates of our young miss were all from the local wealthy families, and they also lost a lot of valuables. However, the police surmised that the thefts were secondary, while the real cause of death was the killer’s perverse nature.”

Xia Fan nodded. He seemed to have thought of something, so he quickly walked over to Cheyenne and said, “I want the details from the summer auction of the Qinhai Auction house four years ago, including the names of the people who participated in the auction at all levels.”

“What do you want it for?” Cheyenne asked, puzzled.

Xia Fan replied coolly, “Don’t ask so many questions just yet. On top of that, I need you to research the origins of that key-shaped sapphire.”

…

The investigation very quickly hit a roadblock.

The information showed that practically all the coastal cities and islands on Brenia had the habit of pickling their fish with lemon. This style of lemon pickling was a planetary speciality, and was used as natural food preservation. There was no way for them to narrow down the possible suspects from that point alone.

Xia Fan and Cheyenne left the villa, and traveled to a mid to large-sized city over two hundred kilometers away named Lunza. In the city’s center, they located a supermarket that specialized in various sea products.

Entering the supermarket, a quick sniff of his nose and XIa Fan promptly led Cheyenne to a corner, an open counter that was dedicated to the sale of pickled fish. There were pickled fish in glass cans on display, each no bigger than an adult’s finger. The packaging indicated that these were small pickled short-tail flyfish.

“This is the fish,” Xia Fan informed Cheyenne.

Cheyenne renewed the search with further perimeters, and soon she was reinvigorated as her expression turned stern. “Look, the region where these small pickled short-tail flyfish are the most popular are concentrated in several northern cities and islands.

“This here is Camelback Island, and the islanders have the tradition of eating those small pickled short-tail flyfish. Meanwhile, the sapphire that Jiang Xiaohan wore is called the Ocean Code, and was also salvaged from the same island.”

The sequence of events was gradually becoming clearer. Xia Fan smiled and quickly left the supermarket with Cheyenne, getting in their hovercar.

“Take the name list of those who participated in the summer auction four years ago and cross reference with the population of Camelback Island for the last five years,” Xia Fan directed her after some thought.