"Disappeared?"
Li Ang furrowed his brow and asked, "How did she disappear?"
"I don't know."
Forensic expert George Carter shook his head. "When I arrived at the office that day, the door of the freezer where Eileen Raphael's body was located was open. Inside, it was completely empty. My first reaction to the disappearance of the body was that someone had stolen her. However, the office door requires an ID card to open. Apart from me, only my two assistants, a few other forensic experts, and my boss have access. I immediately reported it to my superiors and requested to review all the surveillance footage from that night at the Forensic Research Center..."
He paused for a moment, then said somewhat sheepishly, "They told me that there had been a short-circuit malfunction with those surveillance cameras the previous night, so nothing from that night was recorded."
"A malfunction?"
Li Ang couldn't help but laugh. "Your Frankfurt surveillance cameras sure are intelligent. They know when something's going to happen so they can conveniently malfunction—either a short-circuit, a power outage, being worn out from lack of maintenance, or the hard drive storage space being full. Quite miraculous indeed."
"COUGH, COUGH, COUGH."
George Carter cleared his throat awkwardly. "For the Frankfurt Forensic Office, the disappearance of a body is a very serious disaster—especially those bodies that are claimed by family members. As per usual, we have to pay out a large sum of compensation, which affects the next year's budget. But my superiors told me not to worry about it. They said someone would pay the compensation, and that within the institute, they weren't going to push me out to take the fall for this. They even gave me half a month's paid leave to rest at home. After some inner conflict, I succumbed and left the institute. As I was driving away, I saw you again trying to storm the institute..."
"Heh."
Li Ang smirked sardonically. From this perspective, it seemed the ordinary mother he was impersonating, Catherine Raphael, had bought a handgun and parked her car in this upscale neighborhood tonight with the intention of interrogating the medical examiner. She wanted to find out her daughter's cause of death and seek justice for her.
"So, what did you mean when you just said 'you're one of them'?"
The medical examiner hesitated for a moment but still clenched his teeth and stood up from the sofa. "Follow me."
He turned and walked toward the study, with Li Ang following at an unhurried pace, his finger lightly touching the grip of the Glock 19 Catherine Raphael had purchased.
The two entered the study. George Carter rummaged through his cabinets, pulled out a large stack of files with photos, and handed them to Li Ang. These files were all autopsy reports from the Frankfurt Forensic Research Center in Frankfurt City. Technically, these should not be taken home. However, because the pay for forensic experts in the United States is so poor and staffing so inadequate, they were allowed to work from home.
Li Ang flipped through the stack of thick autopsy reports. He noticed that the conditions of the dozens of bodies varied—one burned, another dismembered, yet another smashed into a pulp. The only commonality was that most of them belonged to the underprivileged layers of society: homeless vagrants, teenagers addicted to compounds, young women living in abandoned trailers... Their deaths went unheeded, and even in death, no family came forward to reclaim their bodies.
"These people were all murdered. The real cause of death was massive hemorrhaging of the carotid artery," Li Ang observed, then calmly stated, "But someone intentionally damaged the bodies in various ways to prevent the truth from being discovered."
"Exactly. All these bodies were prey, hunted down. Some were even victims whose skulls were smashed to pieces with bare fists by living assailants. Some colleagues at the bureau were also murmuring, wondering if it could be the Vampire from the urban legends of Frankfurt."
The medical examiner tapped a few keys on his laptop, pulled up some video files, and turned the screen toward Li Ang.
"This is... the video record of the autopsy I conducted on Eileen Raphael," George Carter whispered. "If you want to watch it, you'd better brace yourself..."
Li Ang shook his head, stepped past the medical examiner, opened the video file, and fast-forwarded through it.
「Ten minutes later.」
Li Ang silently closed the interface. Even he felt a chill run through his body from the horrific torture Eileen Raphael had endured before she died. Any "person" who still possessed a sliver of conscience or boundaries would not commit such cruelty to their own kind.
Li Ang exhaled a plume of turbid breath expressionlessly, his hand clenching into a fist without him realizing it.
[Phase One Mission Objective "Identify the Cause of Eileen Raphael's Death" Completed]
[Phase Two Mission Objective: Proceed to Iceberg Club, 17 Hudson Road, Frankfurt City, and find Felix Miller]
[Mission Time Limit: 2 hours]
[Mission Reward: None]
[Mission Failure Penalty: Erasure]
To George Carter, Li Ang's silence seemed like the expression of a mother's heartbroken despair. He wanted to say something to comfort her but hesitated, slowly closing his mouth.
Li Ang pulled up a webpage on the laptop, searching for the name Felix Miller while browsing through related information. Meanwhile, he asked the medical examiner, "Felix Miller, do you know him?"
"I do."
The medical examiner said quietly, "The Miller Family owns an arms company and amassed a fortune decades ago, making them one of the most influential surnames in the city. Felix Miller's father is the president of the arms company, his mother a TV station owner, his uncle a prosecutor in Frankfurt, and his other uncle a state legislator. He himself is an absolute scoundrel. As a minor, he imprisoned and beat his classmate to disability and paralysis. As an adult, he and a few others born into powerful families ran wild, abusing their family's influence to do as they pleased. They are involved in dozens of criminal charges, including intentional injury, forced gang rape, provoking trouble, unlawful imprisonment, driving under the influence causing death, and hit-and-run. They are well-known throughout Frankfurt City, but no one can punish them. Even insulting them on Twitter or Facebook can lead to Miller Family enforcers crossing state lines to knock on your door."
"Very well."
After scanning enough information on the webpage, Li Ang nodded, casually took the medical examiner's laptop, and walked out of the study.
The medical examiner exclaimed, "Where are you going?"
"On a trip on a whim." Li Ang waved his hand and said without looking back, "You better take your wife and kids and leave this city. If I find out you've talked about tonight's events, I will find you, catch up to you, and then kill you."
The medical examiner wanted to ask more, but Li Ang's figure had already disappeared into the pitch-black backyard, vanishing from sight.