Chapter 375: Iron Nail

2022-05-20

We all froze at the doorway, stunned by what we saw. Just how deep must this hatred run for someone to go this far? It was clear Guo Limin had never shown an ounce of mercy to the children who might have once bullied her son.

I shook my head and carefully examined the body. I walked a full circle around Guo Li’s corpse, studying the small girl’s injuries. Her body was covered in wounds—everywhere I looked, there was another mark.

Judging from the injuries, they were made by a thin, flexible whip. The marks showed the whip’s tip was especially narrow but strong. Where the lashes fell, you could see deeper wounds on the outside, shallower on the inside, overlapping again and again. Each strike left a long trail, and every lash overlapped the last.

Blood had pooled on the floor, filling every dip and crevice, now dried to a dark, sticky mass. The coppery stench of blood mixed with the reek of decay, and in the thick summer heat, it hit like a wall. Even Uncle Chen couldn’t stand it—he rushed out to the courtyard for fresh air.

In this muggy summer air, the gory scent had drawn in swarms of flies. As we moved, the flies scattered, buzzing through the apartment, dragging tiny droplets of blood wherever they landed. Looking closely, you could spot specks of blood on the walls, on the furniture, everywhere. But in the blood itself, there wasn’t a single footprint.

Whoever killed her had made sure to clear away any evidence before leaving, scrubbing the scene of their own tracks.

Just looking at this crime scene, we could piece together a picture. Last night, while we were interrogating Zhang Zijun, Guo Limin had driven the unconscious Guo Li here. She’d tied Guo Li up and started whipping her with brutal force.

Somewhere in the pain, Guo Li had become conscious, only to slip in and out of consciousness for the next few hours. Guo Limin gagged her so she couldn’t cry out.

And yet—

The killer still didn’t leave behind a single footprint. Was Guo Limin really capable of all this?

Coroner Wang spoke up, “Looking at the different stages of healing, some injuries are badly oxidized, others not as much. From the worst to the newest, we can say this took place over four hours or more.”

Gu Chen frowned, “No one around noticed anything?”

I answered, “That suggests the killer planned the timing perfectly. In summer, it gets dark late. The old women here are out doing their evening square dances every night—they don’t come back until it’s really late…”

“You mean…” Mary seemed to catch my drift.

I nodded firmly. “Exactly what you’re thinking. As soon as we left, Guo Limin drove here. Sometimes the most dangerous place is the safest. She must’ve known we wouldn’t double back, so for the next few hours, this place was her sanctuary. At the time, we were tailing Zhang Zijun. No one could’ve guessed something like this would go down here.”

“Bringing in Zhang Zijun also helped delay us,” I added. “While our attention was all on him, Guo Limin slipped off into the shadows and finished everything. Zhang Zijun got himself caught on purpose, so Guo Limin could safely take away Hu Ningning and Guo Li.”

I pressed a hand to my temple. “But could this meticulous planning really come from just the two of them?”

“Let’s not get sidetracked,” I shook my head. “We need to figure out what happened with Guo Li’s body.”

By now Coroner Wang was already examining the corpse. He pinched Guo Li’s wounds gently and told us, “Looking at the rigor mortis and lividity, she’s been dead for about six hours.”

“Good thing we got here early,” Coroner Wang murmured. “Living people don’t attract bugs, but a body begins a whole chain of chemical reactions that draw in swarms of insects…”

Mary covered her mouth, exasperated. “Do you have to put it that way?”

Coroner Wang just shrugged. “Thing is, these wounds are clustered but superficial. Whipping hurts plenty but unless you hit something vital, you can’t kill like that. There are a lot of wounds but none go deep enough to reach bone. Judging from the pattern, the whip was soaked in water to make the cuts thinner but—”

I looked at him. “But it makes it hurt a lot more.”

I stepped closer, focusing on the injuries. “Most whips have an oily, furry surface with pockets of air, spreading out the force. If you soak it, the material tightens and friction spikes. It stings a whole lot more. But you’re saying the whipping didn’t kill her?”

Coroner Wang nodded. “With the blood we see here, it’s not enough for a child’s fatal bleed. The cause of death isn’t from the beating. There’s something else.”

But other than those lash marks, her body didn’t show any other wounds. If the cause wasn’t external, it had to come from the inside.

Guo Li was still tied up, every wound on her non-lethal.

Coroner Wang now carefully pried open Guo Li’s mouth.

We’d guessed before that Guo Li must’ve been gagged, or at least threatened not to scream, because with the pain she was in she surely would have. But there was nothing outside her mouth now, which meant the killer must have taken it away.

Coroner Wang forced her mouth open, and what we saw told us everything.

He glanced at me. “Maybe we just figured out what killed her.”

I nodded slowly.

But there was no blood around her lips, which meant the killer had wiped it away after the fact.

What sort of mindset does that reveal? Was there some kind of message in this?

If it was to hide evidence, it doesn’t make sense—these details couldn’t pin down the killer anyway. Aside from the blood on the floor, the victim’s wounds had turned pale, which showed the killer had cleaned them as well.

We’d noticed the same thing on the bodies of Li Jun and Liang Zhengyu. The killer had treated all three the same way. And the thing these victims had in common—they couldn’t speak.

In Liang Zhengyu’s case, he was alone, so the killer didn’t even need to worry about his cries for help. Yet the killer still never gave any of them a chance to speak up. He just tied up Liang Zhengyu and left. He could’ve said something, but the killer made sure he couldn’t.

Why would they do that? Didn’t Guo Limin or Zhang Zijun want some information from these three? Or was it that someone else didn’t want the killer to hear anything at all?

Coroner Wang used forceps and pulled something out—I craned my neck to see. It was a corroded half-nail.

He handed it to me. “I pulled this from her throat.”

I shook my head. “If there’s one nail, that probably means there are plenty more inside her.”

“Exactly,” Coroner Wang sighed. “They’re not that long, but definitely not short either. We won’t know the full damage without an autopsy, but I suspect…”

He hesitated. “Whatever’s inside must be just as bad. Her airway or esophagus is probably torn up.”

“It’s only seven thirty. Let’s get her back for a full examination,” I said.