Pristine Darkness

Chapter 2

Translated by Mei Ting

TLCed by tranzgeek

Edited by librismuse

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The person who died was male.

He was also a young, refined person with a kind and harmless smile.

Of course, Fang Qing had only gleaned this from the identity card found on the dead body. As matter of fact, this poor man had been thoroughly mashed up into pieces, as he lay next to Fang Qing's feet.

"Fu Wei, 25 years old, native of Gansu. He's a tourist visiting from Beijing and these past few days he has been staying at the Yao's courtyard inn.*" The investigator reported with a cold and solemn voice.

*TLN: A courtyard inn is like an antiquated inn, where they convert ancient Chinese buildings or replicate ancient Chinese buildings and make them into inns.

Fang Qing used his hand to block his face from the sun. He picked up the white cloth covering the body and looked at the body once more. However, he only felt like cursing in his head, Damn it! He wanted to be transferred to another post, but such a big case had occurred now. Was God trying to mess with him? But silent curses were still silent curses. Fang Qing stared into the corpse's eyes, which looked crueler than that of an eagle.

"What did the forensic investigator say?" he asked.

"From my initial deductions, I can conclude that the time of death was today in the early morning between one to three a.m. The murder weapon stabbed his chest. The majority of the stabs occurred in his abdomen and caused him to bleed to death. Additionally there are wounds from his wrists being slit, so he probably grappled with other people. The weapon is a wide and thin blade, ranging from 15-20 centimeters in length. It is about 8-10 centimeters wide, and the knife will have a certain weight. Specifically, the material and model number of the weapon will need to be further investigated..."

"How many cuts were there altogether?" Fang Qing asked.

"... around forty cuts."

After he finished his examination of the dead body, Fang Qing leaned against a police car, smoking a cigarette. A young police officer looked at the dead body but he wasn't able to stop himself from holding his stomach and throwing up next to the gutter. Fang Qing's complexion did not change. He took out another peppermint and chewed on it to freshen his breath.

The sun was bright. Outside the police cordon region, the area around them was full of people who would not go away no matter what. Fang Qing slowly inspected the crowd. Perhaps, the murderer could be in the crowd at that moment.

However, it was only a thought. With such a huge crowd, he couldn't even tell. Plus, the murderer wasn't stupid.

He lifted his head, looking around at the little alley, as he began to outline last night's circumstances in his head.

It had rained hard in the latter half of the night. As Fu Wei returned, it should have been raining. He returned via an isolated path that led to the back of the inn and Fu Wei was your average guy so it wasn't weird for him to be taking a shortcut.

In the ancient city, many tourists would stay out until midnight or even stay out all night. So, Fu Wei hadn't returned at an abnormal time either.

Even though the rain removed most of the traces, the soil by the dead body was already immersed in a crimson red color that had penetrated extremely deeply. Moreover, the dead body showed no evidence of being moved. It could be assumed that this was the primary crime scene of the murder case.