The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 18: Arranging the Remains
The car drove out of the Lanhe city and headed towards the remote funeral home along the desolate forest road in winter. Gradually, they began to encounter hearses with wailing sounds. Over the past few hundred years, times have changed in this place, but funeral customs seem to be similar. People in mourning are sending off the deceased on their last journey with endless grief for them.

"Brother Fei, you haven't said much along the way?" Wu Shanqiu turned around and looked at Qi Fei while sitting in the co-pilot seat and said.

"I'm wondering..." Qi Fei stared ahead, not seeming excited about getting closer to the truth. "Why did Yao Leilei have one finger intact? I've handled arson-related fatalities before, and it's unlikely that someone with severe burns would have only one intact finger out of ten."

"Brother Fei, you make sense. I imagined this situation, and the flames won't turn on their own."

"Unless someone deliberately wanted to preserve this finger."

"Didn't Yao Beibei say it? Liang Ming had already prepared Yao Leilei's will, waiting for her to sign, but how could she sign if her hands were burned? At that time, the people in the B&B only saw him desperately grabbing Yao Leilei's hand. What he wanted to save was not so much his wife's life as her finger. Even if he couldn't sign, he could still put his fingerprints on it. But he didn't expect Yao Leilei to wake up bravely, and his plan was ruined." Qi Fei's words made Wu Shanqiu feel cold to the bone.

"Zhong Kui is right. He is really born a bad guy!" Wu Shanqiu said indignantly.

The car had arrived at the funeral home, and the Lanhe police arrived here almost at the same time.

There are always a few bodies stored in the funeral home, some waiting to be cremated and some unclaimed.

When they arrived at the place where the remains were being prepared, they were surprised to find it was busier than they had imagined.

In the small room, several bodies were lying upright, lying on their backs, waiting for the last decent decoration before turning into ashes.

An old man who looked to be in his late sixties was quietly teaching a young girl in her early twenties to put makeup on one of the bodies.

"This is Fu Liansheng, our beautician." The staff member introduced him and called out, "Teacher Fu, someone's looking for you!"

The old man took off his reading glasses and gave him an unhappy look, as if the other party's shout would wake up these dead people.

He said a few words to the little girl and walked out angrily.

"Hello, Mr. Fu. We are from the Nancheng Police Station. We would like to ask you about the reconstruction of a body from three years ago." Qi Fei said politely.

"Three years ago? Who would remember something that happened so long ago?" Fu Liansheng looked at Qi Fei. "Nancheng? What are the police from Nancheng doing in Lanhe?"

"Related cases, this is normal. I wonder if you remember a deceased person named Yao Leilei who died three years ago. Her family requested that her appearance beautified." Qi Fei continued to ask.

"Who? I don't remember." Fu Liansheng's attitude towards the living is much worse than that towards the dead.

"It's a woman with severe burns." Qi Fei changed the question.

"Oh, I have some impression. What happened?" "The family said that a finger of the deceased was missing before cremation. Can you help me think about it?"

Upon hearing this, Fu Liansheng's already bad attitude worsened. "Are you suspecting I lost someone's finger? Ask the people at the museum. Have I ever received a bad review in my decades of work?"

Wu Shanqiu couldn't help but mutter after hearing this: "The targets are all dead, so there are no bad reviews, right?"

Fu Liansheng squinted at Wu Shanqiu. Everyone thought he was going to get angry, but unexpectedly, his tone softened. He said, "The person you're talking about isn't someone I serve, but I don't believe he would make such a mistake."

Hearing Fu Liansheng finally give in, Qi Fei hurriedly asked: "Who is this person you are talking about?"

Fu Liansheng said, "They know that at that time I took in an apprentice named Xu Wei. Not many people were willing to work in our field. Many came reluctantly just to have a job, but they left after a short time. Only Xu Wei was different. He really loved this, loved to study hard, and learned quickly. It didn't take long for him to be able to handle things on his own, sometimes even better than I could. The young lady you mentioned was very difficult to handle, and I knew he could do a better job than me. He's a meticulous person and strives for perfection in his work. It's impossible for him to lose a finger."

When Fu Liansheng talked about his beloved disciple, he was very eloquent and completely different from how he was at the beginning.

Qi Fei listened silently. What he heard was a completely different perspective. According to Fu Liansheng's description of Xu Wei, this person was cautious in his actions and had a strong interest in corpses. This was exactly the characteristics of the murderers in the cases of Zhu Mingen and Yang Jinhan.

"Where is Xu Wei now?" Qi Fei asked somewhat impatiently.

To his disappointment, Fu Liansheng shook his head. "He resigned after doing the job for the burned lady. He's a quiet guy and didn't explain why. I can only think that the body was in such a pitiful state that it got to him."

After hearing this, everyone fell silent.

Just when the atmosphere was tense, there was a loud bang in the room. The girl working inside accidentally knocked over her makeup box, and powder and eye shadow scattered all over the floor.

Fu Liansheng saw this and couldn't help but get anxious, muttering, "Oh, your dad made such a mess here, it will take a long time to clean up!"

When Qi Fei heard this, his head buzzed. The tone was strange and familiar. He couldn't remember where he had heard it recently. It should be an unintentional moment. Even the environment in which it was spoken was similar, cold and lifeless. There were corpses, no, there were many corpses around.

If he could travel through time, he seemed to see the hand reaching out silently from behind him and opening the door of the morgue. Then, Zhu Mingen's head, cleaned thoroughly, appeared in front of him.

This time, he noticed the hand, which was too young compared to the old voice!
Everything made sense. Why couldn't they find any suspicious persons after checking all the surveillance cameras around the hospital? Why did the murderer know so much about the situation in the hospital? Why was the door of the morgue ajar and the lock not broken? This person had never left the hospital and was even watching their every move at the crime scene, but he knew nothing about it.

At this time, the sharp-eyed Wu Shanqiu found more evidence. She picked up a jar in the corner and handed it to Qi Fei: "Brother Fei, look!"

Qi Fei recognized it at a glance. It was exactly the same paint can he picked up under the monster's graffiti at the scene where Yang Jinhan was murdered.

(End of this chapter)