Chapter 152: Profanation

Before Qi Fei could finish his sentence, there was a "clatter" at the scene. A copper button tightly held in the skeleton's right hand suddenly rolled off. The night wind, carrying the lingering fishy smell of rain, blew through the hall, as if it were the ethereal evening prayer of a choir from afar. Seventeen mirrors simultaneously reflected the skeleton's face, which seemed to be wearing a bizarre smile.

Qi Fei picked up the copper button. The copper button, covered in green rust in the moonlight, silently told of Ye Ming's final battle—this was the evidence he had desperately preserved at the very last moment of his victimization, protecting it in his palm for 42 years.

The moonlight washed by the heavy rain penetrated the mirror array on the dome, and seventeen cold lights froze on the mold-spotted epaulets of the skeleton's uniform. The criminal police officers present stood solemnly in unison, their left hands clutching the guns at their waists, their right hands with five fingers together raised to their temples, forming a standard hat-removal salute.

In the solemn atmosphere, only Zhong Kui's question was inappropriate: "Who is Ye Ming?"

Time returned to the morning.

The sky, which had just started to brighten after six o'clock, had been overcast since seven, and a heavy rain started instantly.

Qi Fei sat in the office, re-examining the photos taken at the Jiangting Island scene, and stopped when he saw one place.

"Brother Fei, what did you see?" Wu Shanqiu leaned over to look.

"Chen Shan confessed to the crime, but the murder weapon hasn't been found yet. I'm looking at this place, in the VIP room. Look, is something missing?" Qi Fei asked.

Wu Shanqiu looked, and sure enough, a rectangular base was left on the ground, but the thing on it was gone. Looking at the dust marks, it should have just been pulled out.

"I don't have an impression of similar items at the scene," Wu Shanqiu said.

Ying Shuiwang said: "It really is a snake demon making trouble. We caught this while fishing yesterday. Everyone in the village says it's a dharma artifact used to suppress snake demons in ancient times."

Qi Fei looked carefully at this copper ornament. It was half a person tall, with a lifelike snake shape.

And there were sharp dorsal fins on the snake's back.

After looking for a long time, he suddenly laughed himself.

"Brother Fei, what are you laughing at?" Wu Shanqiu asked, puzzled.

"I know what's going on with the snake Wu Chun saw, Shanqiu." Qi Fei said, "Of course, we should have found the murder weapon."

"Remember Wu Chun said he saw a snake demon killing people? I don't think it was entirely an illusion." Qi Fei couldn't laugh or cry. "Chen Shan, in his excitement, grabbed this snake-shaped axe nearby. It was probably the snake demon Wu Chun misidentified, nothing more than him misjudging the scale in his fright."

"By the way, Brother Fei, there is one more thing, not big or small."

"Speak."

"When we were investigating Huang Daqiu's illegitimate child, didn't we try to contact Tang Zhaoxu? We actually found her. Her parents have passed away, and she married a foreigner in Australia. She heard that we found her son and is already on her way back to the country."

Qi Fei felt a mix of emotions after hearing this: "Then apply for a meeting between Chen Shan and Tang Zhaoxu."

"Yeah, it's quite moving. We chatted briefly, and Tang Zhaoxu said that she didn't even see the child when he was born before he was taken away by her parents. Unfortunately, this time she came back, it was the first and last meeting between mother and son. With Chen Shan's situation, it's hard to escape the death penalty," Wu Shanqiu said with emotion.

At this time, Liu Tong walked slowly past them holding a thermos cup. Seeing this, Qi Fei immediately got up and blocked Liu Tong's way.

Liu Tong's smiling eyes looked at Qi Fei and widened slightly: "Qi Fei, I'm going to be late for the meeting. What's the matter?"

"Captain Liu, I'm just curious and want to ask, how did you know that the Zhang Juying case would be related to this Jiangting Island matter?" Qi Fei threw out the question in his heart.

Liu Tong laughed: "You ask this? I don't know."

Qi Fei didn't believe it: "That's too coincidental. If we hadn't traced Chen Shan's misdiagnosis of leukemia from Zhang Juying, we might have ignored the clue of She Xiaohui all along."

Liu Tong unscrewed the thermos cup and took a sip of wolfberry tea: "Then you have to ask the person who brought Zhang Juying to me."

"Who?" Qi Fei asked impatiently.

"Jiang Tianyi." The name Liu Tong said made Qi Fei very surprised.

"Dr. Jiang? How could he get involved in this?"

"What's wrong with that? He and Dr. Li are alumni. Maybe he just didn't want Li Liang to be imprisoned," Liu Tong said lightly. "Okay, I'm really late." As he spoke, he was about to "escape" the questioning when suddenly, both of their phones rang at the same time.

"Nancheng Old Church?" The two said in unison, then looked at each other.

"Captain Liu, it seems you can't hold this meeting." Qi Fei knew they had received the same information.

"Knock, knock, knock." The sound of high heels came from afar. Zhong Kui seemed to have the ability to predict the future and appeared at the police station just in time.

As soon as she saw Qi Fei's expression, she immediately said: "It seems I came at the right time. Nancheng is really not peaceful." The corners of her mouth curled up, and for some reason, there was a sense of expectation and excitement in it.

Police sirens wailed, and the police car sped through downtown Nancheng in the heavy rain, heading southwest.

Passing through a cypress avenue that blocked the sky and the sun, the Nancheng Old Church appeared in their sight in the heavy rain like a skeleton dissected by lightning.

The Gothic spire pierced the lead-gray clouds, and the broken cross was inserted diagonally at the top of the tower. Rust meandered down with the rain, like solidified blood and tears.

The seventeen stained glass windows had long been shattered, and the remaining scarlet glass fragments flickered in the thunder, like the devil's single eye in a Bible story.

On the brick wall entangled with vines, the copper bell hung half-way on the edge of the bell tower, blown by the strong wind into intermittent sobs, like the low roar of the seven-headed ten-horned beast in "Revelation."

Moss swallowed the faces of the saints on the relief of the main entrance, and only the drainage outlet of the devil mask was still spitting out turbid currents. The fang-shaped cast-iron eaves gutter shattered the rain, merging with the distorted shadows cast by the church.

The moment they stepped into the church, everyone held their breath unconsciously.

This Catholic church, built a hundred years ago, carried a heavy sense of theological and historical oppression, making people feel awe unconsciously.

It's just that the smell of incense oil mixed with the stench of sewage made this sacredness mixed with the filth of being profaned.

"The recent heavy rain caused the groundwater of Nancheng Old Church to backflow. Workers found abnormalities when repairing water pipes." The police officer who arrived early cleared the passage. The floor tiles under the altar were pried open, and in the drained muddy ground, a hemp rope coiled like a snake tied a blackened arm, revealing half of it in the black mud.

The priest of the church made a cross on his chest and muttered: "May the Lord forgive this sanctuary profaned by the devil..." ===== CHAPTER 153 =====