The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 235 Deformed Hand Bone
"Huh? Am I seeing things?" Liu Tong suddenly said, "There are words on this bone."

Reminded by him, Qi Fei put on latex gloves, wiped away the clay, and saw a sentence clearly engraved on the bone: "Congratulations on finding me. Guess who I am?"

These words sound witty, but they send chills down your spine.

"Heh, quite witty," Liu Tong said from behind Qi Fei.

Qi Fei felt a chill run down his spine. These words were clearly spoken in the voice of the dead. The bones were old, but the carvings were fresh. Without a doubt, they must have been left by Xi He.

If it weren't for the rain washing it away, they wouldn't have discovered the skeleton so quickly.

Qi Fei faced the horror of Xi He for the first time—he had not only planned to make his move on the day Lu Man arrived, but he had even taken the weather into account—it had to be a rainy day, the rain had to be heavy enough to wash away the soil that Lu Man had loosened, exposing the white bones under the maple tree roots, and he did all this just for fun.

Like an archaeological excavation, the soil under the maple tree was constantly being dug up, and a complete human skeleton appeared in everyone's sight.

The skeleton, in the posture of an infant, head down, curled up under a maple tree, with fine roots embedded in the gaps of every joint and the hollow eye sockets of the skull.

The dead and the vibrant maple trees are intertwined, creating an indescribably eerie scene.

The words were etched on its shinbone: "Guess who I am?"

Below the shinbone, the skull's grinning mouth seemed to be reciting these words with a mocking smile.
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Xiao Tao held the skull up, examining it carefully under the operating light, as if admiring a work of art: "This is truly an excellent skull."

"The key is, the information about this skeleton..." Qi Fei said anxiously from the side. He didn't understand Xiao Tao's unconventional aesthetic.

For him, this was simply evidence, not a matter of beauty or ugliness.

"Male, around thirty years old at the time of death. There is a stab mark on the fourth rib on the left side, indicating that the deceased was stabbed before his death, which is considered a possible cause of death." Xiao Tao pointed to the stab mark with tweezers.

Qi Fei half-squatted, his face almost touching the stainless steel dissection table, staring at the puncture marks: "The angle is from the lower left to the upper right, which means..."

Before he could finish speaking, a hand grabbed his back, making him straighten up and turn around.

The person who arrested him was Zhong Kui, or rather, Zhong Xiaoyu.

She grabbed a scalpel from somewhere, grabbed his arm with one hand, and pressed the scalpel against his ribs with the other.

Her eyes flashed with a chilling and fierce light that instilled fear, like a mother wolf that had been lying in wait for a long time.

At that moment, Qi Fei felt a chill run down his spine, certain that she was about to stab him.

Just as he was panicking, Zhong Xiaoyu's expression softened, and she said, "Like this, the other person is shorter than the deceased, and the height difference with us is similar, so either the other person is a very short man, or a woman with a height similar to mine." When she mentioned the latter, Zhong Xiaoyu's eyes turned gray, and there seemed to be a dark current in her black pupils, as if she wanted to swallow up Qi Fei's hidden unease. "You know, a three-year-old child can't do these things."

The three-year-old child, Zhong Xiaoyu was referring to Xi He, which Qi Fei knew.

However, at this moment, he would rather the murderer be that three-year-old child; no matter what, that answer was less absurd than another suspicion. The maple tree was planted by his mother, Xi Ziyun, which meant that this skeleton was inextricably linked to Xi Ziyun.

But his mother was so gentle and kind, the warmest element in his life. How could she possibly be involved in a murder case?!

He stumbled and bumped into a stainless steel cabinet. The cold, metallic objects on the cabinet made a noisy clanging sound, vividly illustrating his panic at that moment.

"It's really interesting. Xi He told me about his childhood, his love for his mother, and his hatred for his father. Everything was like the ancient myth of killing one's father and marrying one's mother. In Xi He's story, Xi Ziyun was always a perfect, angelic figure. However, he also talked about the strange dreams he had, in which his mother and womb were filled with blood and dark colors. I always thought this was a reflection of his own dark side."

It seems I was wrong.

I never truly understood Xi He.

Qi Fei refused to listen to Zhong Xiaoyu's words and stubbornly said, "This is Xi He's trick. You know him so well, don't you know it's too early to draw conclusions?"

“Excellent detective, instead of arguing with me here, you should prove me wrong with your actions.” Zhong Xiaoyu’s expression was unfamiliar; the contemptuous sarcasm was something he had never seen on Zhong Kui’s face before.

He missed Zhong Kui, who had always stood firmly by his side. This thought crossed his mind and was betrayed to Zhong Xiaoyu through his subtle expression.

Like a devil's deal, Zhong Xiaoyu leaned closer to Qi Fei and whispered, "I promise you, as long as you bring Xi He to me and let me settle things with him, once my wish is fulfilled, I will give this body to Zhong Kui and return her to you."

Qi Fei looked at the woman in front of him, whose face was familiar yet felt so unfamiliar. He didn't believe her words at this moment. After all, she had made a promise with Zhong Kui using the same words before, and in the end, she failed to keep it.

However, he had no choice.

"Hmm? This person's hands are strange." Xiao Tao's words interrupted the subtle standoff between Qi Fei and Zhong Xiaoyu.

The two turned their heads simultaneously and saw Xiao Tao carefully piecing together the finger bones to form the shape of a hand: "His finger bones are curved."

"What do you mean?" Qi Fei asked, puzzled.

Xiao Tao brought over the human skeleton model that had been sitting in the corner for a long time. He picked up the skull's hand and placed it next to the deceased's finger bones, explaining, "Normal finger bones are straight and connected segment by segment through joints. But this person's finger bones are curved, which is a clear deformity. However, I can't determine whether this deformity is congenital or acquired."

Qi Fei couldn't help but look at his palm after hearing what Xiao Tao said.

“Hmm, I feel like I’ve seen this situation somewhere before.” Zhong Xiaoyu walked to Qi Fei’s side, frowned, and looked somewhat pained.

"Where is it?" Qi Fei pressed.

Zhong Xiaoyu opened her mouth slightly, hesitated, and then uttered three words: "Sanwu Town".

"Sanwu Town?" Qi Fei was excited when he heard this place, because it was where Zhong Kui lived. In a sense, if Zhong Xiaoyu's hometown was Baicheng, then Zhong Kui's hometown was Sanwu Town. His intuition told him that Zhong Xiaoyu was unwilling to mention this place.