Chapter 124: Is He a Ghost?

“Three distinct scents, one belongs to the female victim, another likely to the victim’s boyfriend, and the third… what is this scent? It’s a man’s scent, but it’s mixed with something else, almost like an animal. Not livestock, nor poultry… what could it be?”

Crouching on the floor of the crime scene, Xiao Yu squinted his eyes as he examined the marks on the ground, lost in thought. Although the body had been removed, some dried meat fragments could still be found on the floor. They gave off the putrid smell of decay mixed with dried bodily fluids.

After a long while, Xiao Yu stood up and walked toward the living room window. Although the window was currently closed to prevent tampering with the scene, it had been open during the crime. 

Everyone knew that residential windows typically didn’t have handles on the outside and must be opened from within. 

‘How did you open it?’

Xiao Yu’s eyes carefully inspected the marks around the window. With his ‘Falcon Eye’ ability, he spent a full ten minutes examining it. To his surprise, he found no traces whatsoever.  Xiao Yu was a bit perplexed, unable to understand. 

Did the female victim open the window herself, waiting for the killer?

He remembered a saying: “After trying your hardest, you realize that the gap in intelligence is insurmountable.” 

‘My intelligence is being rubbed in the dirt,’ Xiao Yu’s face turned cold. 

If even his intelligence couldn’t figure it out, he wondered if there was any rational method left. Unless… there were supernatural means?

Through the window, he could see the opposite building. The distance wasn’t far, making it plausible to observe what had happened. What the witness saw must have truly occurred.

An interesting issue arose. The victim lived on the sixth floor. If the killer was a human… no need to assume.

Then, how did he manage to fly back and forth?

Xiao Yu blinked. As someone with all kinds of abilities, even he couldn’t do that. Could someone else manage it?

‘Originally, I didn’t want to be creeped out, but this guy’s maneuver is pretty terrifying,’ he thought.

An even scarier fact surfaced. Apart from the marks on the corpse, the killer left no evidence behind.

Slowly closing his eyes, Xiao Yu’s eyelids couldn’t help but twitch. 

There were two options.

First one. The killer was highly skilled in reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, and various criminal investigation techniques.

Second one. The killer was not human.

Either way, it was terrifying and not something any sane person would want to face.

Taking a deep breath, Xiao Yu prepared to leave the first crime scene. Before leaving, he looked at the police officer with the strange expression, touched his own face, and smiled, asking, “Is there something wrong with my face?”

“No,” Liu Lei quickly shook his head, respectfully asking, “I’m just curious, given your age, how are you so… skilled?”

He genuinely couldn’t understand. Age and appearance didn’t lie. How could a police officer younger than him command such respect from a group of national security officers? Was it because of his looks?

If that was the case, then he was going to lose all hope in this superficial world.

‘You mean, why am I so awesome,’ Xiao Yu almost burst out laughing and said to the officer, “You’re overthinking it.”

Leaving with the national security officers, they headed to the second crime scene. The home of the victim Zhu Xiaoying.

Walking into the second crime scene, Xiao Yu glanced around the living room. The victim was a messy woman. The nicely decorated living room was in disarray, with clothes, pants, and socks casually thrown on the sofa. The coffee table was littered with leftover snacks.

Opening the bedroom door, a foul stench hit him. It felt as if a husky had taken a dump on his head.

It was a corpse odor.

Why was the smell so strong? Because it was May, and after the heating stopped in April, the victim’s air conditioner was set to 20 degrees.

A normal person dies, and at 20 degrees, rigor mortis sets in within 2 hours, complete stiffness occurs in 9-12 hours, and decomposition starts in 30 hours.

When the victim’s mother found her, it had been nearly 40 hours. What happened then?

In a 20-degree heated room, the victim’s chest and abdomen were ripped open. The internal organs and flesh were exposed to the air. The corpse had decomposed to the point where bodily fluids were seeping out.

Taking the breathing mask handed to him by Wang Dong, Xiao Yu put it on and walked into the bedroom.

Even though the body had been removed, the lingering stench of decay in an unventilated space lasts far longer than one might imagine.

With his Monarch Butterfly’s nose, Xiao Yu spent twenty minutes examining the scene before moving to the living room. According to the national security investigation, the killer entered through the living room window again. The bedroom also had windows, so why was the living room window used in both cases? 

Xiao Yu was puzzled. Was it just a coincidence?

Picking up the tablet, Xiao Yu rewatched a surveillance video. He hit play.

At 2:21 AM…

In the dimly lit courtyard, a figure suddenly floated in from the darkness. A pair of wings with a two-meter wingspan flapped, carrying a humanoid figure, slowly drifting to the victim’s window. The courtyard lights, as everyone knew, weren’t bright enough to illuminate much. Residents needed to sleep, and too much light would annoy them, so the lights didn’t cover the residential buildings. The surveillance camera could only capture a blurry silhouette.

That was enough.

Xiao Yu instantly determined that it was a person. As for how he was flying…

Xiao Yu’s intelligence was once again challenged. He paused the video and began to brainstorm. He couldn’t understand it. A two-meter wingspan supporting a human body to fly high in the air? You might not believe it, but the figure flapped its wings a few times and was airborne. 

‘Science? Is my imagination limited by my lack of wealth? Oh, right, my wife has a net worth of hundreds of billions.’

With a twitch of his mouth, Xiao Yu reorganized his crumbling worldview. It was not the wings, it must be some sort of disguise. A ruse to mislead others and create an illusion?

The reasoning was sound. So how did he manage to fly? And in such a floating manner? Xiao Yu’s mind raced. Wires? Probably not. On the day of the victim’s death, there were no cranes or similar machines around.

Martial arts? Superpowers? Magic? Or was he a ghost?

Haha… Xiao Yu shook his head, closing off that line of thought. He couldn’t let his imagination run wild, it would turn into a fantasy novel. Though he couldn’t figure it out, the killer must have used some method. Some method beyond the reach of ordinary people.

What could it be?