Chapter 221: Twisted Minds

“The first place they took me was C City. It’s not that I don’t want to remember it, but when we got there, Second Brother and Third Brother made me wear a blindfold. They led me to a place,” Peng Junlong’s expression twisted with discomfort.

“When they finally took off my blindfold, I found myself in a basement. No, it wasn’t just a basement. It felt more like an underground prison. There were so many rooms, like iron cages and inside were three people: a woman, a child, and a man.”

He continued, his voice trembling, “Their bodies were covered in all sorts of wounds, and they were strapped with strange torture devices. They couldn’t even scream from the pain because their mouths were sewn shut with thread. The stitches were so close together, it looked like the legs of a centipede, each stitch right next to the other. Anyone with trypophobia would have nightmares just looking at it.”

Xiao Yu was stunned. 

Inflicting such brutality on fellow humans? He wondered. But why? What’s the purpose?

“I remember wondering, ‘How do these people eat if their mouths are sewn shut?’” Peng Junlong shuddered. “Second Brother told me they eat through their noses.”

“At first, I didn’t believe him. But then I saw it. They actually used their noses to eat! There were bowls of porridge placed in front of them. Even though they were bound by torture devices and their mouths were sealed shut, they knelt on the floor like animals, shoving their faces into the bowls, inhaling the porridge through their noses! Third Brother laughed and said if they didn’t eat through their noses, they’d starve to death. And then Second Brother smiled and told me that now that I knew their secret, I’d have to join them… or else.”

Peng Junlong began to sob, his voice breaking. 

“I was terrified. I wanted to run, but then Third Brother pulled out a knife and a gun. He pointed the gun at me and threw the knife down. He told me to kill someone, one of the women in the cages. Second Brother held a camera, recording the whole thing.”

Tears streamed down Peng Junlong’s face as he wailed, 

“I had no choice! If I didn’t do it, they said they’d kill me. They said if I refused, they’d kill my parents too. I knew they weren’t bluffing. They don’t see people as human beings. They’re capable of anything!”

Xiao Yu was silent, his face emotionless as he processed what he had heard. He could picture the horrific scene in his mind. The tortured men, women, and children trapped in those cages. The depths of their suffering must have been unimaginable.

Second Brother and Third Brother weren’t just sadists. The word twisted didn’t even begin to describe them anymore. They had surpassed the bounds of human cruelty.

This was no longer just abuse. It had crossed into sadistic torture, cruelty, and outright inhumanity.

As Peng Junlong had described, they didn’t see people as human beings at all.

“I killed that woman!” Peng Junlong shut his eyes tightly, overwhelmed with pain. “They forced me to use a knife to cut pieces of meat from her body… and then… they made me… eat it… ugh!” 

As he spoke, he began to retch violently.

Xiao Yu stood calmly, watching Peng Junlong as he vomited uncontrollably.

Sympathy? He had none.

Yes, Second Brother and Third Brother had dragged him into this pit of hell, but what about after? 

Why hadn’t Peng Junlong gone to the police earlier? 

Was he truly afraid for his own life, or for his parents?

Definitely not.

Even though those two were sadistic and twisted, if the police had learned about this, it would have triggered a massive investigation. Peng Junlong was hiding something. He had likely done things himself, which tied him to these crimes.

That’s why he’d stayed quiet all this time, only confessing when he had no other choice.

What exactly had he done? 

Xiao Yu wasn’t concerned with that right now. There would be time to dig it all out. What mattered now was understanding the full picture of this case, especially the part involving Wang Mei. That’s where everything had begun.

This was the key to the case.

“Go on,” Xiao Yu ordered coldly.

He ignored the nauseating stench in the interrogation room as he waited for Peng Junlong to finish vomiting.

“After that…” Peng Junlong, pale and weak, continued slowly, “They took me to two more places. One was a city, and the second place… it was strange. We had to take a boat to get there. It felt like an island. Even inside the house, I could still hear the sound of the ocean waves and the wind. I’m from Bencheng, so I recognized it immediately.”

Two cities and an island? At least three hideouts for their criminal operations?

Xiao Yu listened quietly, his mind processing every detail as he maintained his silence.

“The second place was similar to the first,” Peng Junlong’s face twisted with fear and disgust. “But that island was truly terrifying. The underground basement beneath the house was huge, beyond imagination, and it was filled with these horrifying traps. It felt like Second Brother and Third Brother built it just to watch people suffer. They would release captives into the basement and watch them try to escape. I saw with my own eyes, through the surveillance cameras, a person running through the traps, only to be sliced into pieces by a spinning saw. And another person… they fell into a pit filled with spikes. Their body was pierced all over, like a human pincushion. One more person… they were caught in a giant industrial mixer… turned into nothing but meat paste!”

Xiao Yu’s expression darkened as his gut tightened with an uneasy feeling. Something was horribly wrong with this whole situation.

First off, at least five victims were brutally tortured. Wang Mei, one woman, and the three who fell into traps.

Then, whoever designed those traps wasn’t just a sicko. They were smart. 

Do you think anyone can just whip up traps like that? That people would blindly walk into them?

Xiao Yu could already picture it. 

Those running for their lives, like Peng Junlong mentioned, probably didn’t even notice the traps until it was too late.

What was Second Brother and Third Brother after?

Xiao Yu had a rough idea. It was to satisfy their twisted, sick desires, chase after the thrill and excitement, or vent… for entertainment.

Are there really people like this in the world?

Way too many.

It was just that most people didn’t have the money or means to indulge in their dark fantasies. They didn’t have the power to act on it. But, give some people the resources, give them money, and they might turn even more insane.

“Four years ago, you and Wang Mei were hanging out. Wang Mei brought another girl along, and you had some kind of meat. What was it?” Xiao Yu asked, taking a deep breath.

“Four years ago?” Peng Junlong furrowed his brow, thinking. “Oh… that was pangolin meat. Second Brother and Third Brother said it tasted just like human meat… ugh!”

He threw up again.

No need to ask further. Xiao Yu had already figured out that the Second Brother and Third Brother ate people.

Otherwise, how would they know what human meat even tasted like?

“Why did they kill Wang Mei three years ago?” Xiao Yu zeroed in on the key question.

“It was Second Brother and Third Brother.” Peng Junlong shook his head. “It wasn’t me. They did it just for fun. Yeah, they were playing around. They mess around with someone’s woman, then kill her, just to mess with Wang Mei’s boyfriend and make him think he did it. They even stole Wang Mei’s body, worried that her boyfriend might talk. Without a body, even if people suspected something, no one would be able to find them.”

Xiao Yu sneered, a dark, murderous intent boiling inside him.

Wang Mei’s death was nothing more than a game to them? A sick form of amusement?

Treating murder like entertainment?

They deserve to die!