Chapter 4: The Deathly Dinner Table

As Du Zhixun approached the window, the scene he saw was more unbelievable than what Guo Rongrong had described. It wasn't just one person, but a group of people dining. In the living room, there was a huge round table surrounded by six people, with wine bottles and plates on it, as if they were having a gathering.

"Team leader, what's going on here?" Guo Rongrong asked in panic. "Could it be an issue with Ding Qian's hypnosis? That woman's memories are confused, talking nonsense. This isn't the crime scene..."

Du Zhixun turned to look at Ding Qian, seeing only his eyes calm like deep waters, inscrutable. Without expressing his opinion and considering Ding Qian's confidence, Du Zhixun decided not to comment.

He pulled out his gun and said to Guo Rongrong, "Let's go inside and see."

He tried the front door, which was unlocked. To avoid alerting the people inside, he quietly opened the door. He hadn't expected so many suspicious individuals at the crime scene, outnumbering his team. To prevent a clash, he needed to take them by surprise.

Du Zhixun swiftly entered first, with Guo Rongrong following to cover him. He was skilled in action. He quickly opened the living room door and, almost simultaneously, rushed in with his gun, giving no time for the group to react.

"Stop, hands up..." he had intended to yell.

However, upon bursting into the room, he immediately sensed something amiss.

The large living room was eerily quiet as if a massive whirlpool had absorbed all the sound.

Around the big round table, six people were seated properly, but—

Nobody moved, nobody spoke.

It was as if they had frozen in time.

After a moment of shock, Du Zhixun's senses sharpened.

He suddenly realized he was in a room with an incredibly foul smell. The room, with its doors and windows closed, trapped the stench of decay and fermentation.

He recognized this smell too well.

The six people around the table were actually six corpses.

Under each of their chairs, large pools of blood had formed.

As Du Zhixun approached, the sight before him deeply rattled even this experienced, usually unflappable detective.

Approaching them, Du Zhixun, an experienced detective accustomed to chaos and complex cases, is deeply shaken by the sight before him.

He had never encountered such a bizarre and horrifying scene before—

The six victims were bound to their chairs with thin ropes, a plate set before each of them, accompanied by knives, forks, and chopsticks. Their facial skin had been meticulously removed, appearing unnaturally large and laid flat beside their plates. Deprived of their skin, their eyes bulged grotesquely, seemingly fixated on the food on their plates.

Each plate held an entire organ— a heart, a liver, a spleen, lungs, kidneys. These organs were cooked and seasoned with Sichuan peppercorns, garnished with chopped green onions, garlic slices, and drizzled with sesame oil.

However, a portion of each organ was missing, that missing part crammed into the mouths of these faceless corpses.

Looking closer, one could notice the clothing over each victim's chest was stained with copious amounts of blood, now dried. What lay beneath was of interest only to the medical examiner.

The mix of seasoning's fragrance and the stench of decay created a nauseating smell that made one want to empty their stomach.

Guo Rongrong could only bear to stay in the room for five seconds, just enough time to grasp the grisly scene and catch the foul odor before running out to the yard to vomit.

Du Zhixun, however, managed to hold back, given his role as the team leader. He could not afford to falter or make a mistake at such a critical time.

"How can you look at such disgusting things so intently? You have quite the stomach for it," a voice said from behind him.

Du Zhixun turned to see Ding Qian, who had apparently also entered the room, stretching his neck to examine the dead bodies around the table.

"What are you doing here? This isn't a place for you," Du Zhixun said, annoyed.

"I just came to have a look... uh... this place really stinks," Ding Qian said, pulling out a handkerchief to cover his nose, cautiously approaching the table to observe the corpses.

"Hey, what are you doing? Don't disturb my crime scene!"

As Ding Qian was absorbed in observing the knives, forks, and chopsticks on the table, he was startled by a woman's scolding voice from behind, causing him to quickly recoil. Turning around, he saw a tall woman in a white lab coat and a large mask, holding a heavy aluminum case, staring intently at him. Her mask covered most of her face, revealing only her cold, emotionless eyes.

Ding Qian, drawing from his experience with psychologically troubled female patients, labeled her as a classic case of hormonal imbalance, an older spinster filled with both disdain and longing for men.

Du Zhixun addressed her, "Liu Fei, you've arrived just in time. We're waiting for your autopsy. This case is a bit tricky."

Ding Qian thought to himself about the autopsy, realizing this woman was a forensic scientist, which, to his mind, explained her hormonal imbalance and difficulty in finding a partner. Her unapproachable demeanor, as if everyone owed her money, seemed to seal her fate of remaining unmarried.

"I know, it's evident," replied Liu Fei to team leader Du Zhixun, her perennial cold face treating everyone equally.

She placed the case on the ground, opened it, revealing its contents organized in layers, with different tools in each: dissecting knives, bone saws, tweezers; evidence bags, evidence bottles; one section for fingerprint analysis; another for blood analysis, and so on.

Liu Fei first took out a camera and began photographing the eerie scene of the six corpses from various angles. After individual shots, she started collecting blood samples...

She then informed Du Zhixun that the time of death varied among the victims, the longest being nearly two weeks, the shortest a week.

"So they weren't killed at the same time. It looks like the murderer first controlled them and then imprisoned them," Du Zhixun commented, glancing at Ding Qian. This matched with what the survivor Yan Guo recalled under hypnosis.

Liu Fei then proceeded to examine one of the bodies, a corpulent man, revealing his chest covered in bloodstained clothing and a scar stitched with thick threads, resembling a giant centipede.