Chapter 281

The technician manipulated the robot through the handle to adjust the angle, and the black mass finally revealed its true face.

The technician screamed, threw away the equipment in his hand, and ejected from his seat to hide far away.

Everyone's eyes were focused on the display screen. In the dark pipeline, it seemed as if there was really a ghost lurking—it was vaguely an infant's face, but the face that should have been plump had already sunken and was broken, festering and unbearable. Under the effect of the lens, it appeared particularly terrifying on the display screen.

Qi Fei's heart sank: "Huang Ruifen has an eight-month-old child..."

He looked at the robot's positioning on the operation interface, which was exactly located below the recycling station.

In the police station, Wu Shanqiu sat at her workstation and said to Qi Fei: "Brother Fei, we checked the situation of the shop rented by the recycling station. Before the Sheng family rented it as a recycling station, it was a restaurant. There is a penalty record. I sent it to you. Take a look."

Qi Fei clicked the mouse, and a penalty ticket appeared on the computer screen.

Wu Shanqiu continued: "The shop where the accident happened was not allowed to have heavy oil smoke catering. The previous tenant was reported for violation and had been rectified once. However, not long after, the landlord terminated the lease early, and later the Sheng family rented it as a recycling station."

"Heavy oil smoke requires exhaust." Qi Fei reacted immediately, "Call that landlord to the recycling station!"

In the recycling station, with the cleaning of the rotting meat, the stench had basically dissipated. The landlord of the recycling station was found.

"I shouldn't have invested in this broken shop in the first place." The middle-aged man complained as soon as he spoke, "I haven't made a penny in the past few years, just losing money!"

Qi Fei had no intention of listening to his complaints: "We suspect that your shop illegally connected to a residential exhaust pipe. We need to find the entrance."

The landlord waved his hand to deny it upon hearing this: "I didn't violate any rules. That was done by my previous tenant. They secretly did black-market takeout and were caught. I paid all the fines that should have been paid. I was just too soft-hearted; I should have kicked them out when they were caught. Later, it was true that no one reported oil smoke, but I discovered that they had set up an underground kitchen without my consent. Damn, they were so bold, secretly connecting the exhaust pipe to the residential building behind my back. It made me so angry that I kicked them out right then."

"Underground kitchen? Take us to see it." Qi Fei asked hurriedly.

"I've already sealed it up. Why do you want to find that place? The family collecting waste doesn't know about this place..." The landlord muttered, took them around to the back door of the shop, and arrived at a place covered by a pile of debris, "Damn, these waste collectors made this place so dirty." He said, pushing aside the wooden boards and garbage bags, and saw something like a manhole cover in the corner of the wall.

Seeing that cover, the landlord was startled: "Didn't I seal it with cement? How..."

Qi Fei didn't care about that much and hurriedly stepped forward to open the cover. A smell mixed with mold and fishy stench rushed up. He turned on his flashlight and shone it down. It was a basement of a few square meters. A rope made of bed sheets was hanging on a pipe near the entrance of the cave. Filthy food scraps and mineral water bottles were scattered on the ground.

However, besides these, Huang Ruifen's figure was not seen here.

After several tosses, the infant's remains were finally taken out from the depths of the pipeline. A protective amulet praying for peace was still left on the swaddling clothes, but unfortunately, it didn't save the child's life.

Xiao Tao deftly wore rubber gloves, his eyes falling on the special corpse in front of him.

The autopsy table had never been as big as it was now.

He checked the corpse with a gentler technique than usual: "Severe skull damage. The wound was caused before death. In other words, the deceased was very likely thrown to death while being held like this." He said, demonstrating the gesture.

Qi Fei glanced at Sheng Tianbao's corpse lying not far away: "A large number of Sheng Tianbao's fingerprints were found in the basement, especially at the entrance of the exhaust pipe. Coupled with his abnormal behavior of purchasing a large amount of pig viscera, the child's death cannot be separated from him."

"Oh, speaking of this." Xiao Tao suddenly had something to say, "Regarding Sheng Tianbao, I conducted a further examination out of personal interest, and there is a new discovery."

"Personal interest?" Qi Fei looked at Xiao Tao curiously. Only when Xiao Tao, as a forensic pathologist, said such things about a corpse did it not appear perverted.

"Hmm, from the appearance characteristics, Sheng Tianbao is slightly different from ordinary people. He is tall, his arms are particularly long, and his bone joints are thick. I suspect he has congenital abnormalities, so I examined his brain and gender characteristics, and sure enough, there was a discovery. His brain and organ development have abnormalities. I sent his cell samples for specialized chromosome testing and just got the results. All cell sample karyotypes consistently show an extra Y chromosome. That is the 'super-male' syndrome popular on the internet these two years."

"Of course, those on the internet are all jokes, but Sheng Tianbao is a true 'super-male' in the pathological sense. He will be more difficult to control his temper than the average person and likely has violent tendencies."

"You've been depressed since you came back from Xiao Tao's. It seems something has had a violent conflict with your values." Zhong Kui handed a cup of milk tea to Qi Fei, saying the words of caring for people very uniquely.

Qi Fei picked up the straw, "popped" the milk tea lid, and said depressingly: "The DNA comparison results show that the infant is Sheng Tianbao's child. From the current clues, the child was very likely thrown to death by Sheng Tianbao himself. Xiao Tao said Sheng Tianbao has 'super-male' syndrome. I have seen so many deceased people, and logically speaking, I should have accepted these cruel facts long ago, but this is a child, and the murderer is his biological father. I don't understand..."

"That's because you are a modern person who has been well-socialized." Zhong Kui didn't seem surprised at all, "If you stretch the timeline long enough, oh, not particularly long, at least a hundred or two hundred years ago, many places actually didn't have the concept of children. People are just people, or rather, infants in their view are not people. 'Super-male' is one aspect. If it weren't for the indifference to human life, they wouldn't have let Luo Yongmei's injury go untreated, nor would they have carried out despicable attacks on Dr. Li. This sounds sad, but you have to see that people are domesticated from beasts by civilization. Animality is the source of those inexplicable fears in the middle of the night. The so-called demons and ghosts are all imprisoned animality, clamoring in the depths of the soul to break out of the cage..."

"Hiss..." Qi Fei raised his head to look at Zhong Kui, "You sound very unlike a human being when you say this."