The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 279 The Smell of Half-Human, Half-Beast

"The flue!" Qi Fei immediately thought, then put on gloves and disassembled the exhaust pipe of Wang Jie's range hood. Over the years, the damper of the exhaust pipe was covered with grease and could no longer be closed, which meant that the gas that was discharged into the flue from elsewhere would flow back into Wang Jie's house.

"Then we'll have to check all the residents of this building," Qi Fei said, looking at the half-open ventilation door.

"I wonder how the investigation into the source of the gas at the shop is going?" Zhong Kui asked, seemingly casually.

While urgently calling Wu Shanqiu to arrange the investigation, Qi Fei returned to the recycling station with Zhong Kui.

Inside the shop, testing personnel were still braving the high temperatures to locate the source of the gas.

"How is it? Did you find it?" Qi Fei asked anxiously, sweating profusely.

However, the inspectors were puzzled: "This is strange. This gas doesn't seem to have a specific leak source. It's like it's seeping out from everywhere, a diffuse type..."

As they were talking, Zhong Kui walked into the shop without wearing a mask.

Qi Fei hurriedly grabbed his protective gear and chased after him, shouting, "What are you doing? That's hydrogen sulfide!"

But Zhong Kui sniffed the scent carefully: "It's not quite the same as that one."

Qi Fei didn't bother asking her what she was saying; he first pulled her out of the stinking shop: "What are you doing?"

“The taste here is different from the taste in Sister Wang’s pipe,” Zhong Kui said.

"Are you sure it's the smell of a corpse?" Qi Fei leaned closer and asked in a low voice.

Zhong Kui glanced at him: "This is the scent etched into my DNA, I can't be wrong. It's just that the smell of this recycling center doesn't quite resemble the stench of a human corpse, well, sometimes it smells like it, sometimes it doesn't. This is also the first time I've encountered this situation, how should I put it, half-human, half-beast."

Qi Fei chuckled, "How did this turn from a horror movie into a fantasy movie?"

Zhong Kui didn't find it funny at all: "Once it becomes a corpse, it doesn't matter how it's mixed, does it? It's the same principle as cooking."

"Uh, you mean dismemberment? Can we stop using cooking as an analogy?" Qi Fei said speechlessly.

Zhong Kui finally took the protective gear from Qi Fei, put it on, and returned to the scrap metal recycling station. She looked around, went around from the front door to the back door, and further in was the Sheng family's residence. Living and eating at the scrap metal recycling station, one could see the poor living conditions there.

One of the bedrooms still contained baby bottles, diapers, and other items, suggesting it was where Huang Ruifen and her child lived.

"Aren't you taking the baby back to your parents' home without bringing formula and bottles?" Zhong Kui asked as she looked at her.

Outside the bedroom was a simple kitchen with an old green refrigerator.

Qi Fei's heart was in his throat. He had once handled a case where the victim's dismembered body was hidden in a green refrigerator like this. Based on his experience, he opened the refrigerator door and rummaged through it. It contained only common household ingredients, which relieved him.

However, Zhong Kui, who was standing nearby, made a different observation: "How much does this family like to eat offal? These things don't taste very good after being frozen."

Qi Fei almost forgot that Zhong Kui was a hidden cooking expert. She was referring to some pig offal in the freezer compartment, which looked like pig lungs and large intestines. He had already looked at the receipt still on the plastic bag and, based on some preliminary characteristics, he was pretty sure that these were not human organs.

Zhong Kui seemed to agree that these were pig offal, but she found the way they were stored strange. She also glanced at the receipt: "It seems they only froze a portion. They bought quite a lot, more than just these."

After she pointed it out, Qi Fei also noticed that the supermarket receipt listed pig lungs, pig liver, pig intestines, and the like, totaling twenty jin (10 kg).

"Is this for opening a braised food shop?" Zhong Kui asked with some skepticism.

Qi Fei seemed to be deep in thought, muttering Zhong Kui's earlier words: "Half-human, half-beast..." The ominous premonition in his heart grew stronger. He suddenly had an idea, and then returned to the recycling station's shop. The cardboard that had been compressed, packed, and stacked neatly caught his attention.

He took a utility knife and cut the packing rope, unfolding the tightly packed cardboard sheets one by one.

After flipping through a few pages, something was amiss. As the cardboard was lifted, a stench exploded in the room, and even wearing a protective mask couldn't block out the assault of the smell.

These cardboard pieces looked no different from ordinary waste, but as Qi Fei unfolded the folded parts, large black stains appeared before everyone, along with fragments of internal organs that had been compressed into a membrane. It seemed that the pig internal organs that had not been put in the refrigerator had been found.

With everyone's help, they finally managed to search through all the junk piled up on the three walls. These entrails were stuffed into hidden places and continued to rot in the hot and humid weather, emitting a nauseating stench.

Qi Fei looked at the large splatters of stains and muttered, "No wonder we can't find the source of the stench; this whole house is the source."
-
"Brother Fei, the jobs you give me are all quite demanding." As soon as Xiao Tao saw Qi Fei enter the forensic room, he immediately said, "The Snake Island case last time took up a lot of my time, and this time I've become a garbage collector."

"I can only say the method was disgusting, but it's not my fault," Qi Fei said with a wry smile. "So, have all the stains we brought been tested?"

"Guess if I slept yesterday? Yeah, I stayed up all night. They've all been tested, and they've all been confirmed to be different pig organs," Xiao Tao said.

"It's been hot lately, so I haven't seen many flies. Otherwise, I would have found them long ago," Qi Fei said, somewhat annoyed.

Xiao Tao, however, thought it was perfectly normal: "With the recent high temperatures, a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius would reduce the hatching capacity of flies by 80%-90%. All the factors just happened to coincide. This family is quite interesting. Normal people would deodorize their homes, but this family does it the other way around, as if they're afraid their home isn't smelly enough."

"Hmm, we'll have to ask the lady of the house," Qi Fei said coldly.
-
The supermarket receipt, covered in descriptions of pig offal, was placed in front of Zhang Yingdi.

"These are what we found in your refrigerator. Did you buy these things?" Qi Fei asked.

Zhang Yingdi shook her head blankly, holding the receipt: "What is this? Pig what? I can't read very well."

"Your freezer has a lot of pig offal in it. This is a supermarket receipt I found on a plastic bag. You don't forget about this, do you?" Qi Fei asked with obvious suspicion.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yingdi suddenly remembered: "Those things you mentioned, I put them in the freezer. That day I saw someone stuff them in a corner. These things spoil easily in this hot weather, so I quickly froze them."