Chapter 141

During the time of anxiously waiting for the forensic doctor to arrive, the surroundings were dead silent, only the weak flashlight beam in Gu Changzheng's hand swayed in the darkness. He took a deep breath, slowly squatted down, and brought the flashlight close to the female skeleton that had already turned into white bones.

Borrowing the dim light, Gu Changzheng began to size it up carefully. The first thing that came into view was the pale skull, the empty eye sockets seemingly still retaining the fear and despair of the deceased before death. He touched the surface of the bone with his finger lightly, feeling a strange coldness and roughness.

Next, Gu Changzheng moved his gaze to the limbs of the skeleton. Those slender bones were placed in a twisted posture, seemingly telling the painful struggle experienced at the time of death. He noticed that one of the hand bones was tightly clenched, as if grasping something important, but it could no longer be distinguished clearly due to the long passage of time.

Then, Gu Changzheng looked at the chest part of the corpse. Although the ribs were still arranged neatly, they were covered with tiny cracks, as if they had been broken hard by a huge force. And below the sternum, some long-decayed clothing fragments were scattered, mixed with the dust on the cement floor around, appearing particularly desolate.

Finally, when Gu Changzheng's gaze fell on the feet of the skeleton, he found that a small bone was clearly missing. This unusual detail made a trace of doubt arise in his heart: where did this bone go? Would it become a key clue to unraveling the mystery of the entire case?

Just as Gu Changzheng was deep in thought, the forensic doctor Old Zheng finally arrived.

"Captain Gu!" Old Zheng came in with his assistant Little Lin. Liu Han directed others to set up strong light lamps in the basement, and several strong light lamps illuminated the basement brightly!

Old Zheng hurriedly took Little Lin to survey the white bones, carefully taking photos and recording, and then collected the white bones and the mostly rotten clothing.

After the preliminary examination, Old Zheng walked toward Gu Changzheng with a grim expression. "Captain Gu, this skeleton has been dead for at least ten years, and the cause of death is very suspicious. Those cracks on the ribs don't look like they were caused by external impact, but more like some kind of ritualistic destruction. And that tightly clenched hand, I suspect the deceased was desperately grasping something to resist at that time." Gu Changzheng frowned and asked: "What about that missing bone?" Old Zheng shook his head, "It's not clear yet, but it's definitely not as simple as natural detachment or being carried away by small animals."

It seems this skeleton still has too many secrets. Now, only by taking the skeleton back for further examination can they first figure out the identity of the deceased.

Gu Changzheng continued to search in the basement. The string of footprints near the skeleton was preliminarily judged to belong to a young man, very likely left by the murderer!

He followed the footprints and walked toward the depths of the basement. The entire basement was filled with the smell of rot and eeriness. Gu Changzheng moved forward cautiously along the footprints, suddenly hearing a burst of slight dripping sounds, like water droplets falling, or like a clock ticking. He gripped the flashlight tightly, his footsteps even more cautious.

Walking to a corner of the wall, the footprints disappeared. Gu Changzheng looked up and saw the wall covered with strange symbols, emitting a cold blue light. Just as he was studying them, a secret door beside him opened slowly, and a powerful suction force came. Gu Changzheng couldn't dodge in time and was sucked in.

Inside was a dim room with a stone platform in the middle. On the stone platform was a bone, the shape of which was surprisingly similar to the missing part of the white bones. Just as Gu Changzheng picked up the bone, a group of black shadows emerged around him, making sharp screams.

At this time, Old Zheng and the others arrived. Seeing this scene, Old Zheng shouted: "This is an evil formation, put down the bone quickly." Gu Changzheng hurriedly put it down, and the black shadows gradually retreated. Everyone was still in shock. Gu Changzheng speculated that this was the crime scene back then, and the murderer used evil arts to kill women and take bones. Now that they had disrupted the formation, perhaps the clues would be broken here, but fortunately, they had bone samples, and they could still try to find the identity of the deceased through DNA, thereby further uncovering the truth behind it. After returning to the police station, Old Zheng immediately set about analyzing the bone samples.

After several days of intense work, there was finally a result. The identity of the deceased was identified as a painter who had been missing for many years. Gu Changzheng investigated her social relationships before her death in depth and discovered that she had been in close contact with a mysterious art group.

Gu Changzheng followed the clues and found the old site of this art group, which was an abandoned factory. When he entered the factory, he found strange symbols similar to those in the basement everywhere on the walls. Here, he found an old diary, which recorded the group's crazy pursuit of evil arts, believing that they could obtain extraordinary artistic inspiration through special rituals.

It turned out that the painter discovered their secret and wanted to call the police, so she was murdered. Gu Changzheng also found the names of several other suspected victims in the diary. Just as he was about to leave, a masked person appeared behind him. The person sneered and said: "Do you think you can stop us?" Gu Changzheng calmly drew his pistol, and a battle between good and evil was about to unfold. Gu Changzheng aimed his muzzle at the masked person and said coldly: "The crimes you committed must be punished." The masked person was not afraid at all and slowly raised his hand, only seeing the symbols around flashing with eerie light. Gu Changzheng felt his body become heavy, as if suppressed by an invisible force. But he gritted his teeth and persisted, pulling the trigger, and the bullet shot toward the masked person. The masked person flashed, and the bullet hit the wall behind. Gu Changzheng knew he couldn't fight hard, so he thought of countermeasures while looking for cover. At this time, he remembered the encounter in the basement before. These evil arts seemed to be related to that missing bone. He deliberately said loudly: "You are missing that bone, I'm afraid this evil art is not complete either." The masked person was stunned for a moment, and Gu Changzheng took the opportunity to rush over to snatch a cloth bag from his waist. The two tangled together. Gu Changzheng struggled to tear off the cloth bag and found that it contained some strange powder. He threw the powder toward the masked person with force, and the masked person screamed, black smoke rising from his body. Taking advantage of the masked person's panic, Gu Changzheng quickly handcuffed him. It turned out that this powder was one of the key materials for them to perform evil arts. Subsequently, Gu Changzheng notified his teammates to come and destroy the den of this evil art group, and those suspected victims were also saved, and the case finally came to light...

"Captain Gu! Captain Gu!" A burst of shouting suddenly came to Gu Changzheng's ears; it was the voices of Liu Han and Old Zheng!

"Hmm? What's wrong?" Gu Changzheng shuddered, as if suddenly waking up from a nightmare, and said in a lost voice!

Seeing that he had returned to normal, Liu Han hurriedly said: "Captain Gu! Are you okay? You have been staring at these symbols for more than half an hour!"