American Zombie Detective

Chapter 159 Possible Death

The cabin fell into complete silence instantly; the absolute stillness was even more suffocating than the previous clamor.

People stared wide-eyed, digesting the words "supernatural," "ghost flight," and "specific pattern."

The immense fear remains, but as Qin Jin predicted, when the vague and unknown terror is concretized into an "investigable pattern," the human mind instinctively grasps at that straw—

At least we know where the problem lies, and at least there is an "expert" trying to find a solution. Even if the pattern means that people may still die, it seems to have become a "risk" that can be avoided through our own efforts, rather than a random destruction.

Qin Jin wasted no time and went to the white woman whose husband had been replaced.

"Madam, I need you to calmly recall what your husband was doing around the time the thunder rumbled before the accident. Any detail could be helpful."

Qin Jin's voice was as calm as if he were asking about a lost item. This unusual calmness gave the woman, who was on the verge of collapse, a sense of security.

She sobbed, trying to remember: "Ekri—he, he couldn't sleep—yes! He was watching a movie, it seemed to be—The Ring—yes, that's it—God, why did he have to watch that—"

The woman seemed to realize that her son had gone astray, and all color drained from her face.

Qin Jin nodded without comment, then turned and walked towards the passenger who had found the body in the empty seat in the corner.

He calmly picked up the book from beside the corpse, opened it, and found it to be a Chinese novel called "Da Hua Le Tian" by Liu Yun Fei Du, which was likely an online novel.

I flipped through it casually; it's a collection of horror stories from the Republican era, mostly about ghostly fetuses that crawl out of dead people's bellies and are raised to adulthood. It looks quite scary.

Qin Jin went to the three-seater where the third body was located and asked the two passengers next to him.

"Him?" A middle-aged businessman wiped his sweat. "He was typing on his iPad, very focused. I glanced at him out of curiosity, and it seemed—he was writing something? The title bar said 'There are eyes in the mountains'—"

Clues quickly converge as you watch a horror movie.

Read horror novels.

Write horror stories.

Qin Jin had a general idea in mind. He returned to the former service area, where the captain was anxiously waiting for him, and Detective Nils was also lingering there.

"Have you found anything, Detective Qin?" Captain Dyson asked anxiously.

"I have a preliminary deduction that we can try," Qin Jin said quickly. "When the disappearance occurred, most people were asleep, and these three chosen individuals happened to be exposed to content related to terror at the time: watching movies, reading books, and writing. I believe they were all experiencing some kind of fear at the time, which is likely the reason they were switched."

He paused, looking out the window at the decaying fuselage that was almost touching him.

"Therefore, the key may lie in fear," or rather, the fear emotion generated by the brain, but the pattern of when it occurs has not yet been found.

"So what should we do now?" Dyson's voice trembled.

"Let's broadcast it again," Qin Jin said, making his own judgment. "Let's make this clear first. This is our initial assessment. If you want to survive, try to stay calm and think about positive things."

"What if the judgment is wrong?" At this moment, Detective Nils suddenly chimed in, "You said it yourself, this is only a preliminary judgment, and you can't guarantee it."

"No, it can't be wrong, and it can't be wrong!" Qin Jin lazily shook his head. "Until I discover other patterns, this is the correct one. No matter who disappears, we must assume it's because of fear. Only in this way can we soothe the passengers' emotions to the greatest extent. Detective Nils, I hope you'll keep your mouth shut, otherwise, I'll tell everyone that the ghost flight is here to find you!"

Niels was so frightened that he waved his hands repeatedly, indicating that he would never say anything out of the ordinary.

Dyson and Klaus immediately understood Qin Jin's meaning:

Although the reason of fear was merely Qin Jin's conjecture, it was the best way to appease people's hearts, which was equivalent to giving everyone hope of survival and preventing greater unrest.

Moreover, fear is invisible and intangible; as long as someone disappears, it's attributed to fear, and no one can prove right or wrong, thus maximizing the margin for error.

The captain immediately complied, and a new announcement was made, clearly conveying the terrifying rule that "fear leads to replacement" to every passenger.

In an instant, the expressions of the people in the cabin became extremely complex and conflicted. Many people turned on their media players and started watching comedies, while others tried to take deep breaths and recall fond memories—the scene became both bizarre and pitiful.

At the same time as the broadcast, Qin Jin walked to Alessa's side and had her pull out the spare Cold Steel kukri from behind the Frankenstein doll. The blade gleamed with a cold, eerie blue light under the dim cabin lights.

Qin Jin took the knife and whispered something to her. Alessa nodded, stood up, and followed behind Qin Jin. Yuanxiao immediately wiggled her hips and climbed down from her seat, trailing behind Alessa.

Then, Qin Jin turned to the security officer and the flight attendant next to him and said, "You two, find some large garbage bags and come with me."

"What are you going to do?" Millie felt a chill run down her spine.

"Deal with those three things." Qin Jin said calmly, "Although they're not moving now, no one knows if they might undergo some kind of mutation in this environment. Let's deal with them a little, take them away, and put them away."

He carried a knife, accompanied by the pale-faced flight attendant and security officer carrying large black garbage bags, Detective Nils who cautiously followed at the back, and Alessa, who was strolling around with her bear cubs with a blank expression. They walked through the cabin aisle and came to the nearest corpse.

Under the horrified gaze of all the passengers, Qin Jin expressionlessly raised his knife and brought it down!

Click!Click!

With two clean and swift strokes, the neck and spine of the rotting corpse were precisely severed, and its head was completely cut off and split in two.

Then, with another stab, he plunged the knife into the corpse's heart, twisting his wrist and turning it around.

The movements were practiced, calm, and even carried a chilling elegance, as if they were not dismembering a body, but handling an ordinary ingredient.

"vomit-

'

A passenger nearby vomited, and many more turned their heads away, unable to bear watching. The intense visual impact and emotional shock almost suffocated them.

The fear that had just been barely suppressed and disappeared gripped the hearts of everyone around them again, and it was even stronger than before!

But this time, the source of fear came more from the calm and collected Eastern detective wielding his knife!

"Pack them up, pile them in the toilet in the front cabin, and lock them up."

Qin Jin instructed the flight attendant and security officer, who were nearly fainting, with a perfectly reasonable explanation: "Centralized management to prevent accidents."

In this extreme atmosphere of oppression and silence, Detective Nils, who had been following them, finally couldn't hold back any longer and hesitantly spoke up: "Detective Qin, I have a question—"

All the passengers, and even the crew, instantly turned their gaze to him, their eyes filled with expectation, hoping he would remind the detective—

Sir! Don't you consider the psychological impact on everyone when you dismember a body in front of them like this?

However, Detective Nils pointed to the kukri in Qin Jin's hand, his voice filled with curiosity: "—This knife! Where did you get it? I want one too to protect everyone!"

"6

In an instant, the entire cabin seemed to fall silent, even the engine noise. Everyone stared at Nils as if he were an idiot, inwardly screaming, "Damn it, I'm about to die and you're still wondering where the knife came from?!"

"That idiot detective!"

"God, shut him up!"

Qin Jin was clearly taken aback for a moment. He looked at the knife in his hand, then at the serious-looking Nils, paused for two seconds, and then very naturally gestured with his chin toward the business class section in front of him: "Oh, this." Qin Jin spoke as if it were a trivial matter: "My sister picked it up from the floor when she went down to the storage room."

Found it—found it?! Found a sharp kukri in the airplane's storage compartment?!

Niels' expression froze completely; his mouth was agape, and he couldn't utter a single word.

All the passengers and crew members who were listening intently were stunned. A sense of absurd black humor diluted the extreme fear, and many people showed a twisted expression of not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Qin Jin ignored him and, carrying the dog-leg knife that was still dripping dark liquid, walked toward the next corpse.