The three people in the room fell silent after listening to Ye Huohuo's narration.
Among the four Li brothers, Li Mochen was the only one who hadn't seen Ye Huohuo use Xuanmen Daoist arts much. Most of what he knew came from Li Moyan, the most talkative of the Li family. Now, hearing Ye Huohuo's account, he felt that his sister-in-law, who was two years younger than him, was truly mysterious.
Cai Bei was the hardest to accept this. As a forensic doctor, he was a complete atheist. To him, a corpse was just a corpse. He was also a very stubborn person; if he didn't see it with his own eyes, he wouldn't believe even what he heard.
He remained skeptical of what Ye Huohuo had just said, while Liu Keqiang showed no change in expression throughout, listening attentively.
After a long pause, Li Mochen spoke first.
"Huohuo, don't blame yourself too much for that incident. You didn't do it on purpose, and your master saved the person in the end, didn't he? Just take it as a lesson.
These two cases are murder cases, and the police will handle them. You should stay out of it. Those are murderers who don't bat an eye when killing. If anything were to happen to you, I..."
He almost said, "How would I explain it to my brother? My elder brother would skin me alive." But he swallowed the words and replaced them with, "I wouldn't be able to live either!"
This time, even Liu Keqiang noticed something was off. He gave Li Mochen a peculiar look, then glanced at Ye Huohuo, wondering what relationship this young girl had with which of the Li brothers.
Last time he saw her, she was with Li Moyan, and they seemed quite close. This time, her relationship with Li Mochen also seemed very good. Could it be that these two brothers were both interested in this young girl?
Ye Huohuo's thoughts were still unsettled from her recent memories, so she naturally didn't notice the subtle changes in the expressions of the other two.
The hot water in her hand had cooled down. She took a large gulp, as if drinking a large dose of bitter medicine, finding it difficult to swallow.
"No, this matter is related to me. And judging by the current situation, the killer's motive is likely not just to kill, otherwise, there would be no need to go to such lengths to dispose of the bodies.
You might not understand the process, but I can explain it simply. First, the person drawing the talismans must have some cultivation. If they were just drawing a pattern on the corpse by copying, it would be useless and have no effect whatsoever, merely leaving a pattern on the body.
This person not only needs to know how to draw this pattern but also how to gather energy and activate the talisman. I saw when you brought back the bodies that they were not accompanied by souls, and no malevolent spirits have appeared in the building. According to my previous experiments, if a corpse could be desiccated to that state within a day, a malevolent spirit like that large rat would inevitably appear.
However, you haven't been troubled by malevolent spirits during this period, which means the malevolent spirits of these two corpses have been dealt with.
Perhaps they were destroyed, or perhaps they were taken away!
In either case, it indicates that the person who handled the bodies is proficient in Xuanmen Daoist arts and possesses advanced techniques. Captain Liu, you are skilled at solving cases, but when it comes to dealing with someone like this, I have more experience than you.
I can definitely help."
Ye Huohuo spoke with a hint of pleading in her voice, driven by her guilt.
"Miss Ye, Mochen is right. This is our police case, and we can handle it. For your safety, it's best if you stay away.
Moreover, what you just said, frankly, I cannot understand or believe. Even if the talismans you draw can indeed cause rapid decomposition or desiccation of corpses, I would find it more believable to attribute it to an undiscovered bacterium or virus rather than some talisman."
Cai Bei was indeed not someone who would easily believe Ye Huohuo's words, always playing the contrarian.
Ye Huohuo cast him a faint glance and said nothing, having grown accustomed to the doubting looks from others.
"It's alright. They say seeing is not always believing, let alone just hearing. Actually, you are quite lucky. If I'm not mistaken, the previous desiccated corpse was placed in a spot where sunlight could reach it, and it was a sunny day that day?" Ye Huohuo asked.
Liu Keqiang pondered for a moment, then checked his phone for a while and nodded. "Indeed, it was a sunny day when the corpse was discovered, with a good sunlight index. As for the location of the corpse..."
He frowned, thinking hard. Cai Bei narrowed his eyes, his already small eyes becoming even smaller, almost slits. "I remember it was by a south-facing window. That spot indeed gets a lot of sunlight.
What does this have to do with our luck?"
"You're being dense! Huohuo said today that if this corpse doesn't get enough sunlight for two hours, your entire team will get sick. But with the previous corpse, you didn't intentionally let it sunbathe, and nothing happened to you. That means before you discovered it, it had already sunbathed for two hours," Li Mochen, whose mind worked the fastest, explained.
"Corpses need to sunbathe? That's too incredible. I don't believe it. As long as I don't see it with my own eyes, I will never believe in ghosts," Cai Bei muttered as if to himself.
"Alright, since Miss Ye is so sincere, I won't be polite. If we encounter any problems, we won't hesitate to trouble you," Liu Keqiang, being the smarter and more diplomatic one, said.
"By the way, Mochen, what business do you and Miss Ye have here today? We didn't get a chance to ask," Liu Keqiang asked.
He didn't ask, and Ye Huohuo almost forgot why she was there. She glanced at Li Mochen, as she had only met the police officers once and wasn't very familiar with them.
"Ah, we want to retrieve some information," Li Mochen immediately understood Ye Huohuo's intention.
"What information?" Liu Keqiang asked.
"Qingshan Orphanage," Ye Huohuo added.
"Qingshan Orphanage? It closed down ten years ago. I heard it was a privately run orphanage, and the director went abroad ten years ago, so the orphanage closed down.
The remaining children were distributed to the state-run orphanage by the government. Are you looking for those children?" Liu Keqiang was clearly surprised, not expecting them to ask about this.
"I lived at Qingshan Orphanage for a while when I was young. I want to find my old friends. I heard that the orphanage's records of the children are kept at the police station, so I wanted to review them," Ye Huohuo smiled sheepishly, "Sorry for the trouble."
She didn't tell them the full truth, as Lihua's body had never been found. It would be impossible to convince the police now. Without a body, they couldn't prove Lihua was dead, let alone identify the killer.
"Xiao Xi is in charge of archives. Why don't you look for her?" Cai Bei asked from the side.
"Brother, you know as well as I do how principled your sister is. Without the captain's approval slip, no one can borrow them," Li Mochen said with a distressed expression, like a wronged little wife.
"This..." Upon thinking of his sister, Cai Bei couldn't help but sigh inwardly. No wonder this girl couldn't win over Li Mochen. She wouldn't seize such a good opportunity!
"Captain Liu, given how enthusiastically we're helping, could you bend the rules a bit and write us a note!" Li Mochen didn't want to lose face in front of his sister-in-law. This was the first time she had asked him to do something, and if he messed it up again, how could he continue to have a standing in the Li family?
Liu Keqiang hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. "The bureau's records are not allowed to be accessed by outsiders. However, you are a consultant for the police station, so you are half an insider. I'll make an exception, but you can only view them in the archive room and cannot take a single piece of paper out. Can you do that?"
"Alright, don't worry. We're just looking for someone. Once we find them, we'll leave and won't cause you any trouble."
A few minutes later, Li Mochen, with a hint of triumph, handed Liu Keqiang's approval slip to Cai Xiaoxi. In a good mood, he sat at the archive room table and, along with Ye Huohuo, began to go through the records of Qingshan Orphanage.
They had initially thought that knowing the name Lihua would make it easier to find the person. However, to their surprise, they found three people named Lihua in the orphanage's records!
This was a disaster. Which one of them was the Lihua they were looking for?