Chapter 278: Cyanide Poisoning

2022-05-20

All at once, everyone crowded around the door. I pulled out my ID and showed it to the young waitress, then asked her to get the manager. Meanwhile, Zhao Mingkun and I began a quick inspection and preliminary autopsy of the three bodies.

We lifted the towels covering the corpses and saw that all three at least still had their underwear on, so we went ahead and removed the towels. Zhao Mingkun and I carefully examined each body, but no matter how closely we looked, we couldn’t find a single fatal wound. In fact, there weren’t even any minor injuries.

That alone told us these three hadn’t died from mechanical trauma.

Mechanical trauma refers to injuries caused by physical force that disrupt or destroy organ or tissue structure. Classic examples are blunt force injuries, contusions, fractures, or sharp force trauma—basically, anything from self-harm to homicide.

In contrast, typical examples of non-mechanical injuries include poisoning, chemical damage, and radiation injuries.

To put it simply, it’s kind of like physical attacks versus magic attacks in a game. For these three, the odds they died this way just didn’t add up. I pried open Zhang Yifa’s mouth for a closer look. Zhang Yifa’s tongue was a bluish purple, with small white spots on the tongue coating. His lips were a bright cherry red.

I’d noticed when I saw Cheng Lu’s body earlier too—his face also had a slight reddish tint. I brought my nose close to Zhang Yifa’s lips and sniffed gently. There was a faint scent of bitter almonds—so weak you wouldn’t detect it unless you really got up close.

I looked up and noticed that on each bedside table, there was a cup. Cheng Lu’s near-empty, while Zhang Yifa’s and Sun Shouwang’s were half-full. That meant all three had drunk water. I picked up Zhang Yifa’s cup, brought it to my nose, and sure enough, I caught that subtle whiff of bitter almond.

Which could only mean—they’d all died of cyanide poisoning.

At that moment, a woman in her forties stepped out from the crowd. Frowning, she walked in and asked, “What’s going on? What happened here?”

The waitress stood in front of her nervously. “This is the owner of our store.”

I nodded. “There’s been a death.”

As I spoke, she spotted the three people lying on the beds and gasped. “What? They’re dead? What the hell happened here?”

I turned to the woman boss and asked, “Who brought these three cups of water? There’s poison in the water! If there was enough cyanide, it could kill in under a minute!”

The woman boss looked at the waitress and demanded, “Did you bring that water in?”

Under the boss’s stern questioning, the waitress was on the verge of tears. She managed, “After the guests came in, they asked me to boil a pot of water. That’s what I did. They told me they were going to soak in the pool and to just bring the hot water in when it was ready and leave it on the table.”

“Ten or so minutes later,” the girl said, voice trembling, “I knocked, but there was no answer, so I just went in myself. They were probably still soaking. I left the hot water on the table and pulled the door shut on my way out. I could still hear them in there, talking about something, but I couldn’t make out a word! I swear I didn’t poison anyone!”

I nodded. “Yeah, you didn’t kill them—I know.”

Then I pointed at a two-way sliding door in the room and asked, “Is the pool behind this door?”

The woman boss nodded. “Yeah, they booked a four-person private room. We’re not like other places—our rooms come with private pools. Come see for yourself.”

She walked over and slid open a door, and sure enough, behind it was a big pool. Steam was still rising from the water; the temperature was still pretty high. I stepped inside and saw everyone’s clothes still hanging on a rack in the room.

There was plenty of space, and on the wall facing the door was a giant TV for entertainment.

I turned to the woman boss. “Let’s check the surveillance. Has anyone else come into this room?”

But her expression changed, and she said flatly, “We don’t have surveillance cameras here.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it. A place this big with no cameras?

Just then, Wang Yikai hurried over and whispered in my ear, “You know what kind of business this is. Like I told you before—no cameras is exactly why this place has so many customers. People can do whatever they want and no one will ever know. Not even your visit gets recorded.”

With that explanation, it all made sense. No surveillance meant no evidence. But it also meant things could be stolen or strangers could wander in, so it’s got pros and cons for the owners.

And now, we had no way of knowing who else had been here or who might have added the cyanide to the water.

Coming out from a bath, people tend to get thirsty. Maybe the killer counted on that and slipped poison into the hot water. None of the three would ever have guessed that one pot of water would turn into deadly poison just because they wanted a bath. They barely hesitated before drinking the water.

“Couldn’t the door be locked from the inside?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” the woman boss insisted.

The waitress explained, “Since they wanted me to bring water, the door was shut but not actually locked.”

I nodded.

That alone told me the killer had to know in advance these guys were coming. Otherwise, how could they have set up something like this? If even one of them hadn’t drunk the water and spotted something off, maybe all of them could have been saved. But after soaking in the pool, all three would be thirsty and naturally reach for a drink.

If we hadn’t called Wang Yikai and delayed his arrival, he’d probably be lying here as the fourth victim.

The murder method was simple—anyone could do it, even a kid. Just walk in, pour a lethal dose of cyanide into the kettle, and let the rest play out. And if the person knew a bit of chemistry, making cyanide themselves isn’t impossible.

Sounds straightforward, but think about it: without keen observation, how could the killer have known there was no surveillance? Or that a plan like this would guarantee everyone died?

I glanced at Wang Yikai. “Are you and the others in regular contact?”

He nodded. “We were all college roommates, and after graduation, we stayed in Dongxing City. We’ve always kept in touch and get together whenever we can.”

He looked crushed. “We’ve been friends for over a decade. How could I have known, just like that, three of them would be gone? How am I supposed to tell their families?”

But then his face changed, and he said, “If you guys hadn’t called me, I’d probably be dead too.”

Clearly, Wang Yikai realized just how close he’d come.

“Do you all come here often?” I asked again.

This time the young waitress answered, “I’ve worked here for over a year. I have seen those three here several times, but not this gentleman as often.”

Wang Yikai waved his hand. “I don’t really come here.”

I knew exactly why.

Even with three deaths, a strange sense of clarity began to form in my mind. This time, there were no weird hallucinations, no one dying from fright. No one gouged out their eyes. Given all that, it was clear—the killer was definitely human, not some ghost.

Maybe it was just daytime—not the time for headhunters or monsters to come out. So the killer turned to an ordinary method.

The main thing now is, what method did the killer use in those earlier cases?

Zhao Mingkun pulled me aside and said quietly, “Let’s not hang around too long—we’ve learned about all we can.”

Zhao Mingkun had a point. We were surprised the killer got ahead of us again. We had to investigate suspects one by one, while the killer didn’t bother with any of that. In reality, these three had the least motive for suspicion—they just happened to agree with a few things Wang Yikai said, and now they’d paid with their lives.

Does the killer really not have a moment to investigate properly? If he’s spent all these years chasing revenge for Lü Zhiqiu, why not care about the truth behind what happened? Isn’t he the least bit interested in knowing who actually killed Lü Zhiqiu?

Zhao Mingkun and I headed out. As we walked, I said, “Someone will come take the bodies away soon. Nobody touch anything in this room, especially the water in that kettle—that stuff’s deadly. Wang Yikai, come with us.”

Wang Yikai nodded hard. “Y-yes, of course!”

He drove us to his home. The whole ride, Wang Yikai was shaking, clearly terrified.

“How many people have died now?” Wang Yikai finally looked back at us.

I did a quick count in my head. Six people were dead already—in just two days, almost half of the original thirteen were gone.

The killer was like a perpetual motion machine, incapable of stopping his urge to murder. At this rate, all thirteen would be dead in five days. The scariest thing was, we were no closer to finding a clue—not a trace or an idea of how each murder was committed.

We still had so much left to investigate.