Chapter 174: Victim Zero

"If I'm not mistaken, it should be because of the completion of the aquatic products building. This passage collapsed directly under the new building. The killer lost the altar in Dongji Zhen and had to find the next suitable altar. During that period, I don't know why he intersected with Bai Congshan. Xu Chunxia's death place was on the back mountain of Bai Family Village. Maybe it was because he hadn't found the second altar during that time," Qi Fei said. Those clues like broken glass shards were slowly piecing together a complete mirror in his mind.

As he said this, he turned to Song Tao: "Teacher Song, we need your help."

The joint exploration team composed of the police and the Ocean Research Institute arrived at the coast of Dongji Zhen with professional equipment.

March 9, the date with the lowest coastline this month. The sun rose on the horizon, and the tide began to recede. The moist rocks shone with crystal light in the morning sun.

When the tide receded to the lowest point, the team members found the passage entrance covered by seawater erosion under Song Tao's guidance.

A crack suddenly split between the jagged reefs.

It was covered by shells and barnacles accumulated over the years, making it grey-brown that was integrated with the surrounding rock walls. Only when the searchlight shone obliquely could one glimpse the jagged cave entrance—it was like a throat torn open by the sharp teeth of a giant beast, slanting into the depths of the ground.

The salty sea breeze carrying the smell of decay surged out from the cave, hitting the rock wall with a whimpering echo, as if it were the breathing of some ancient creature.

The moment the flashlight beam pierced the darkness, a few clusters of seaweed winding down the slippery cave wall were faintly visible. The passage, which had been unattended for decades, now only had the wind whistling and circling in the tortuous rock crevices, like countless wronged souls wailing in the labyrinth built of concrete and basalt.

This passage could no longer reach the underground altar that theoretically existed.

In 1983, the geological force changes caused by the completion of the aquatic products building caused the passage deep under the building to collapse. Field detection scanning confirmed that the model's speculation was correct. The blocked position was directly under the aquatic products building. Rash excavation would cause immeasurable impact on the building safety of the building.

Fortunately, this passage is U-shaped. After bypassing the location near the town center, the location of the underground cavity is in the suburbs not far from the coast.

Song Tao and the others studied a plan to drill from directly above the cavity, so they didn't have to enter from the passage.

The sun went from high hanging to tilting west. The drill bit made a continuous whistling sound on the concrete slab poured during land reclamation. With a strange sound of the drill bit idling, the concrete slab was finally worn through, revealing a vertical tunnel that could be passed by one person.

Qi Fei put on a headlamp and followed the exploration personnel of the research institute, tied on a safety rope, and entered the underground gap along the narrow passage.

The air was filled with the smell of salty fishiness and rotten wood, which penetrated the mask and hit his nasal cavity.

In the pale light halo of the headlamp, the grey-green traces of dead barnacles and algae on the rock wall were like tear stains, as if they were the source of the wailing at the cave entrance by the sea.

However, when Qi Fei stood still on the ground full of silt and saw the entire environment of this underground cavity, it was truly shocking.

The light source provided by the tunnel drilled from the top allowed the sunset light to fall into this underground cavity that had been sealed for forty-two years.

A simple stone platform was placed in the center of the stone cave, and the mottled salt frost had already formed on the black blood scab on it.

Thick pine wood piles stood up like the ribs of a giant beast. Looking closely, one could faintly see the bloody scratch marks on them.

Qi Fei was silent. He roughly guessed who these scratch marks belonged to.

Among all the victims, Lin Suzhen was the only one who was victimized a month after she went missing.

He didn't dare to think about what kind of desperate torture she experienced in this dark hell for this month.

The remaining police officers arrived one after another along the tunnel.

Fortunately, due to the temporary collapse of the passage, nylon ropes, crowbars, iron nails... these instruments of crime remained scattered in various places.

In the corner, there were five mirrors placed there.

They knew that if it weren't for the completion of the aquatic products building, these five mirrors would have been hung on more women in Dongji Zhen, and these women would have become poor sacrifices like the previous deceased.

And in the silt, Qi Fei found something unusual. He bent down and pushed away the sticky mud, his fingertips touching the cold metal. The fragmented texture on it knocked on his heart, like ice slag hitting his heart, and his scalp went numb.

He wiped the mud sticking to it slightly, and a wind chime shape appeared in his line of sight. The object in his palm emitted a dark green ghostly light under the white light of the searchlight. In the gap between the rust spots and the silt, the Sanskrit that he couldn't be more familiar with was faintly visible—the one that appeared on the palm of every Dongji Zhen victim, like a death curse: "All phenomena are false, like dreams, like flames, like the moon in the water, like images in a mirror, born from delusions." He recited its Chinese meaning involuntarily, as if overlapping with the desperate wailing here back then, echoing in the empty cave.

This echo attracted Song Tao's attention. He signaled everyone to be quiet, listened carefully to the tail rhyme of this echo, and finally stopped in front of an inconspicuous crack. His finger touched it lightly, and the surface that looked like rock actually turned into dust with a crash.

It turned out that this was a covering fabric, which had been mildewed and blackened over the years, and merged with the surrounding cement and rock.

The echo produced by Qi Fei's voice just now made Song Tao hear that there was an extra gap here.

I saw a skeletonized body sitting in the middle of the artificially excavated door hole.

There were two candlesticks and several porcelain plates in front of the white bones, on which the offerings placed back then were faintly visible.

It's just that this offering is very special. Qi Fei recognized it immediately—this dark brown hard shell and cracked texture, he had seen it not long ago—that is the specialty of Wuyin Bai Family Village, mountain walnuts. The scene of Zhong Kui and Bai Sanshui arguing because of this walnut is still vivid.

Only the mountain walnuts of Wuyin are this size.

And the style and craftsmanship of the candlestick are exactly the same as the old objects left in the Bai family ancestral residence.

"What is this?" Qi Fei lowered his head and saw a small pendant hanging on the skeleton's neck, which seemed to be a pocket watch.

This Western style couldn't help but remind him of the legend of the Bai family starting as pirates, as if it were an antique obtained by looting foreign merchant ships at sea.

He carefully took it off and opened the watch cover. The watch inside had long since stopped.

It's just that a black and white photo was embedded in the inside of the cover, on which a photo of a mother and son was faintly visible, a loving mother and a boy of about ten years old.

When he saw the faces of this mother and son, he couldn't help but make a sound of surprise. ===== CHAPTER 175 =====