Chapter Seventy-Nine: Corpse Worm Meat Sauce!

They said they only ever saw her come out at night. At night, there were often sounds of something being processed in the room, and it was so loud it drove people mad.

“Then is she still in the room now?” I asked at once.

“Probably. We never saw her leave.”

I gave them a smile. “Thank you. You’ve been a great help.”

After seeing them off, I hurried back to report the situation to Elder Lin.

Elder Lin’s expression turned grave. With a sharp wave of his hand, he said, “Come on. Let’s go in and take a look!”

I went upstairs and knocked on the door, but no one answered. I called out several more times, still with no response.

I glanced at Li Hong. He came up at once and told us to stand back. Then, with all his strength, he and the young soldier drove a kick into the door and sent it flying open.

The moment the door was forced open, a thick stench of blood surged out at us. I instinctively covered my mouth and nose, only then realizing I wasn’t wearing a mask. I quickly put on my N95.

With Tang Jingjing’s help, Elder Lin also put on his mask.

After Li Hong and the young soldier stepped inside, they came back out almost immediately, staring at us in terror.

“You... should stay out here. Let the police handle this.”

Seeing the fear on Li Hong’s face, my heart gave a hard jolt. It was not often that anything could frighten him like this. What on earth had he seen?

I could hardly believe it.

Li Hong took a deep breath and said, “The scene inside is... a little too horrific. We looked. There’s no one there. Let the main force arrive.”

How could Elder Lin possibly wait? He insisted on going in. I was desperate to see for myself too, so I ignored Li Hong’s advice.

Once inside, I regretted it immediately. Why had I been so stubborn? The sight before me nearly made me vomit.

Blood—blood everywhere. The walls, the floor, every surface was stained with dried blood. It had all flowed out from an electric grinder, and heaps of minced flesh had been carelessly dumped into several large iron buckets.

Though I wore a mask, I seemed still to catch the dense reek of blood. The visual horror, combined with the mind’s own lurid imaginings, was enough to test anyone’s limits.

I held onto the wall and watched Tang Jingjing crouch down, retching over and over. Even Elder Lin looked deeply unwell, covering his mouth and nose with a hand.

“Close the door,” Elder Lin said.

“Why?” I asked, because that was not safe at all.

“We can’t let the smell of blood spread,” Elder Mo explained. “It would cause panic among the public.”

As always, Elder Lin had thought of everything. I hurriedly shut the door.

We walked up to one of the big iron buckets and looked at the mass inside, completely ground into sticky fragments. Our first thought was that it must be human flesh.

How many people’s worth of flesh was in there?

“Look at this. What is this?” Li Hong suddenly shouted in alarm.

We rushed to his side and examined what he had found.

It was a packaging machine for vacuum-sealing bottled food. On it sat several bottles sealed tight, labeled with the familiar spicy condiment brand, and inside them was this very flesh paste.

Stuffing human flesh into condiment jars—damn, that was grotesque beyond measure.

Then a more terrifying thought struck me. “If she put human flesh into those jars, what was she planning to do with it? Sell it to people to eat?”

The young soldier picked up a bottle and examined it carefully. Then, pale as paper, he looked at Elder Mo.

“Elder Lin... I... I just remembered something.”

“What is it?”

“In the homes of several dead officials, there were jars like these. The meat inside had been eaten halfway.”

“Ugh!”

At last I could not stand the stimulation any longer. I rushed off to the side and vomited violently.

Struggling to suppress the urge to retch, I turned a deathly pale face toward those jars.

Huff, huff!

At that very moment, the machine suddenly started up. The abrupt noise startled us all, and Li Hong and the young soldier immediately shielded us in the middle without hesitation.

Aside from the sound of the machine running, nothing else seemed amiss, and we all let out a breath.

“There seems to be something moving inside the feeding cylinder. Listen,” Elder Lin said.

We pricked up our ears and listened carefully. Sure enough, from within the covered intake opening of the cylinder came faint tapping sounds, as if someone were knocking from inside.

There was a living person in the intake.

The thought sent chills racing over us.

Li Hong immediately drew his baton and edged toward the intake opening, then forcefully pried up the lid on the cylinder.

At once he let out a scream and grabbed the opening for support.

“What’s wrong?” I cried in shock, starting forward at once, but the young soldier seized me. “Don’t go over there. Stand behind me.”

Li Hong glanced at us, then, face as white as ash, reached inside and pulled out something to show us.

It was a coat. Elder Lin recognized it at a glance—it was the coat that Elder Huo had been wearing.

Was this mass of flesh paste Elder Huo?

Elder Lin trembled all over with agitation.

Li Hong reached in again and pulled out another garment, a civilian outfit—the clothes worn by the martial expert from the military who had been guarding Elder Huo. Then he pulled out yet another piece of clothing. It was Ah Shan’s.

All three of them had been turned into meat paste.

Elder Lin was so distraught he nearly fainted several times, and all of us felt a heaviness in our hearts.

Ignoring the young soldier’s attempt to stop me, I stepped forward to examine it closely and said, “Elder Lin, wait. This isn’t human flesh.”

Elder Lin froze. “What do you mean?”

“Look carefully,” I said. “There isn’t the slightest trace of blood in this intake cylinder. It’s all slime. This slime looks like... the secretion of corpse insects.”

Elder Lin examined it closely, and only then did he relax.

“They were deliberately trying to deceive us.”

Learning that this might not be human flesh after all, everyone let out a sigh of relief.

“But then what about all this blood?” Tang Youyou asked.

I said, “Jingjing, take off your mask and smell it. See whether it’s human blood.”

When we first came in, we had instinctively assumed it must be human blood, and that had affected our judgment.

But now that I thought about it, the idea was absurd. No matter how deranged the culprit might be, they could not possibly grind human flesh into a paste, bottle it in condiment jars, and sell it. If it had truly been human flesh, it would have been discovered long ago.

Tang Jingjing was still somewhat uneasy and refused to remove her mask, so I took mine off first, sniffed it, and said, “It doesn’t seem to be the smell of human blood.”

Only then did Tang Jingjing remove her tightly fitted mask. After sniffing carefully, she said, “Yes, it really doesn’t smell like human blood. It smells more like... the corpse insects we found before.”

At last my mind eased completely.

“Don’t worry. Elder Huo and the others are still alive. They used corpse insects to make the meat paste,” I said.

“Just how many corpse insects would that take?” Elder Lin said.

Indeed. These several giant buckets were packed full. Where on earth had the other side gathered so many corpse insects?

At that moment, the police contacted the young soldier and said the main force had already taken position outside, awaiting orders at any time.

Elder Lin told them to wait outside. The situation here was complicated and beyond the authority of ordinary police. The chief commander himself would have to direct this operation.

Elder Lin personally reported the situation to the chief commander, who said he would rush over at once. For now, he instructed us to pay close attention to safety and not to begin an investigation.

After the call ended, the door suddenly gave a sharp click.

Li Hong cursed under his breath, then hurried forward and kicked at the door.

It was locked. On closer inspection, we found an electronic steel-bar lock installed on it. There was no way to open it unless the door was blown apart.

The windows had already been sealed as well.

The young soldier and Li Hong immediately drew their guns and fired two shots at the electronic lock, but it showed not the slightest sign of damage.

Elder Lin said, “Don’t bother. It’s useless. That lock is the kind the Federal Bureau uses to secure classified materials. Unless you have the key, not even a large-caliber round is guaranteed to blast it open.”

“Then we can only blow the door apart,” the young soldier said. “I have an electronic explosive device.”

Elder Lin quickly stopped him. “Have you not thought about why they would do this?”

I said, “They want us to blow the door open on purpose and create a huge commotion, drawing the attention of the nearby residents. They’re deliberately trying to trigger panic.”

Elder Lin nodded.

Damn it. The arrangement really was meticulous.

“We can’t just stand here and wait to die,” the young soldier said. “I have to make sure everyone is safe.”

Li Xingchen tugged at my sleeve, trembling. I turned to him and asked what was wrong.

He said, “I... I think I know why those criminal investigators killed themselves.”

I hurriedly asked why.

He said, “If you found out that the spicy condiment you’d been eating was actually made from corpse insects, wouldn’t you be so disgusted you’d want to kill yourself?”

I frowned. It was indeed a troubling question.

I drew in a cold breath. Li Xingchen’s reasoning made sense.

Then he said, “Do you remember? When we ate in the agency cafeteria, there were several jars of that condiment beside the head chef, set out as self-service seasoning. The food we ate... could it have been...?”