Love letters are not allowed in the exorcism notebook!-Chapter 130: Fresh Corpses Starved to Death Collectively

There were many corpses in the pit, all of them fresh.

Wang Yunxiao thought this was getting interesting.

But even with many corpses, that was typically the job of regular police, not something for Elite Garrison Troops to handle.

Moreover, they had rushed over around noontime. Could it be that the corpses had already begun to grow hair and turn into glutinous rice dumplings?

Gao Shan was not clear on the specifics either, only knowing that Qin Xiangdong placed great importance on this case. After hearing the report, he immediately deployed this squadron of the Special Service Section, which had just been formed and had yet to gain any actual combat experience.

Wang Yunxiao and others carried huge travel bags containing their complete set of protective gear. As for weapons, they hadn’t brought them back yet; Gao Shan said they had already been sent to the site using reverse donkey delivery.

An elite squadron of Special Service Garrison Soldiers having to rely on reverse donkey delivery for their equipment was indeed mortifying to admit.

Many people... not just elementary school students, but also many adults, tend to think that ancient elite infantry and heavy cavalry could go without eating, drinking, or relieving themselves, traveling from the far south to the far north in full gear.

One hundred thousand Great Snow Dragon Riders battling across the Nine Provinces of Huaxia sounds incredibly awe-inspiring and enchanting.

Reality hit when the Special Service Section squadron couldn’t even carry their own equipment; each person, carrying a travel bag weighing about twenty kilograms, was drenched in sweat by the time they arrived at the location.

Even upon arriving, they couldn’t don their gear right away.

In early May in Tianmen City, the temperature was already above twenty degrees Celsius. Coupled with it being high noon and the sky being cloudless, temperatures soared above thirty degrees.

If you wear that heavy leather coat, within half an hour, you’ll be steamed to near doneness.

This place was called Three Trees.

From the name alone, one could tell it was a very rustic location, surrounded by mud-brick bungalows and farmhouses without any tall buildings.

From a distance, the stench of the rotting corpses was already overwhelming.

The local residents had already been evacuated by the police.

Qin Xiangdong was present at the scene himself, looking very somber. Upon seeing Wang Yunxiao, he immediately called him and Gao Shan over.

"Twenty corpses have been dug up so far."

As the head of the detective team, Gao Shan was among the first at the scene. Qin Xiangdong signaled him to give Wang Yunxiao a brief overview of the situation.

"Judging by the rate of decomposition, the time of death cannot be more than three days. The identities and causes of death of the deceased are all very odd. Look at their clothing and attire..."

Wang Yunxiao pinched his nose and followed Gao Shan, inspecting the spread-out corpses. He immediately spotted the issue.

"Foreigners?"

"Not just foreigners, but mostly overseas Chinese."

These people who returned from overseas had a distinctly different style of dressing compared to the locals, making them easy to identify.

"There are men and women, old and young, so many overseas Chinese, silently dying together, without any obvious external injuries, and it appears as if they were... starved to death. It’s absolutely abnormal."

Gao Shan looked around: "And most importantly, they shouldn’t even be in a place like this."

This area was Nantong District, one of the oldest historical districts in Tianmen City. Except for the area surrounding Nanshi Main Street, the rest were still largely undeveloped, still retaining traditional local architectural styles from decades or even centuries ago.

There was quite a distance from the Seaside District, an area along the coastline that had absorbed a large number of foreign immigrants.

This was a muddy, rural hometown, not a place for those sophisticates who drank black coffee and used Western ink.

Such a group of people, abruptly appearing in such a place and then silently starving to death, was inconceivable.

Even the most insensitive people could sense that something was off.

But that was still not the actual reason Qin Xiangdong had mobilized the Special Service Section’s squad.

"This morning we came to inspect and noticed a stench of corpses in this courtyard. Upon entering, we found a pit in the backyard filled with bodies, and there was also a tunnel in the pit, but we don’t know where it leads. Most importantly, the pit... seemed like it was dug from the inside out."

"In other words, something might have climbed out from the pile of corpses, dug through the ground, and then gone door to door knocking..."

At this point, Gao Shan’s expression was quite grim.

He was not afraid of so-called demons or evil spirits, but he was quite troubled by this entity of unknown form and whereabouts.

At that moment, a police officer squatting beside the corpses just turned out a folded ship ticket from the inner pocket of a corpse’s clothing: "Captain Gao, take a look at this."

Gao Shan took it and read the information with Wang Yunxiao.

"Ocean liner Cosmos... point of departure, Saifo City, departure date 1370/5/1... destination, Tianmen City, arrival date 1370/5/22..."

Wang Yunxiao stared at the date on the ticket, puzzled, "A ticket for May 1st? Today is May 1st, could it be from last year..."

"The Western Calendar is different from ours. It’s one or two months ahead. Let me calculate, their May 1st is..."

While Gao Shan was still counting on his fingers, Qin Xiangdong abruptly interjected, "Year 1370 of the Western Calendar is the second year of Ming Country. Their May 22nd would be, in our terms, around the beginning of April."

"The beginning of April? That’s almost a month ago, I wonder if that ship is still around..."

"Whether it’s around or not, we need to clear this up."

Qin Xiangdong’s expression was stern.

"Go to the customs house and retrieve all records pertaining to the Cosmos and its passengers!"

"Yes!"

Having a lead was a good thing. Gao Shan glanced at Wang Yunxiao and then left.

Just then another police officer came in to report, "Report, we have advanced one hundred meters in the tunnel and haven’t found anything unusual, nor an exit!"

Qin Xiangdong turned to Wang Yunxiao and said, "It’s your squad’s turn to go in, try to find an exit but don’t delve too deep. If there’s no discovery within thirty minutes, pull out."

Wang Yunxiao didn’t waste words, he immediately went out to summon his team to gear up.

Upon returning, he approached the officer who had just come in to report, "Comrade, may I have your surname?"

"No need for formalities. My surname is Zhang, Zhang Meng. You must be Comrade Wang then?"

The attitude of this police officer was much more amiable than Gao Shan’s. He reached out to shake hands with Wang Yunxiao and said with a smile, "I’ll brief you on the situation inside. There’s really nothing special, it looks like an underground civil air defense project. There seems to be a ventilation shaft right beneath our feet, leading downward into an east-west corridor. There’s no lighting and the air isn’t very fresh, although it’s somewhat better now..."

"Is there any standing water?"

"...It doesn’t seem so, the ground is quite dry, probably not..."

Zhang Meng obviously hadn’t noticed this detail and hesitated for a moment, immediately earning a stern gaze from Qin Xiangdong.

Wang Yunxiao nodded, already forming conclusions in his mind.

Another civil air defense project, and one that’s completely devoid of standing water.

Three Trees here, to put it bluntly, is like using a mortar to hunt rabbits; the rabbits aren’t even worth the cost of the shells. Who would bomb such a backwater place lacking even hospitals or schools?

If it has no value as a target, why was the civil air defense project constructed?

The civil air defense project beneath Tianmen City seems excessively developed.