How You Can Sue Me for My Crimes in Dreams

Xu Huo paused, then reached out and pried open the eyelid.

In that instant, a foul stench shot up his nostrils and into his chest.

The sight of countless white maggots squirming in the eye socket filled his vision.

“BLEGH~”

A few of the police officers taking photos couldn’t hold it in, overcome by a wave of nausea that seemed to well up from their very souls.

Needless to say, the scene was utterly revolting.

They swore that no matter how gruesome their past cases had been, they were all child’s play compared to this.

A sight like that strikes you deep in the soul. It had nothing to do with courage; no matter how brave you were, when you added the smell to the mix, you were going to vomit.

Li Jianye, however, merely frowned. He was fine.

He’d worked a “body-in-the-well” case before and had become desensitized.

Xu Huo was even more composed. He showed no reaction at all, even placing the eyeball in his palm to examine it for a moment.

Then, he shifted his gaze to the floor.

The floor was covered in a pile of internal organs. The residue left after the bodily fluids had dried, combined with nearly a week of decay, had turned it all into a heap of rotten flesh, unrecognizable from its original state.

“Did Zhang Jiahao’s eyes ever suffer any kind of trauma?”

Xu Huo stood up and looked at a nearby Police Officer.

The Police Officer hesitated, stepped out to ask someone, then returned and said,

“No.”

The basic information about the villa’s owner had come from the cleaning lady.

She had worked here for a year and a half. While she might not know any secrets, she was expected to know the basics.

“Did he have any medical conditions, like Chen An?”

Xu Huo pressed.

“We don’t know. We just asked, and the cleaning lady doesn’t know either. At the end of the day, she’s just a cleaner. She cleans and she leaves,” the Police Officer said, shaking his head.

“We could, however, bring her to the station for another round of questioning.”

Other than small talk while she was cleaning, they barely interacted.

And people don’t just randomly tell others about their medical problems.

‘So it’s highly unlikely the cleaning lady has any important clues.’

Xu Huo stared at the corpse for a long time before finally shaking his head.

“Take him back to the municipal bureau.”

…

…

The corpse was a mess, and getting it to the municipal bureau was no easy task.

Fortunately, the officers at the scene were all veterans. Stifling their disgust, they placed the body in a body bag and packed the scattered organs into separate evidence bags.

By eleven in the morning, the body had arrived at the forensics lab.

The old medical examiner was stunned when he saw the body.

“You want me… to run a blood test on him?”

The old man looked at Xu Huo, then at the badly decomposed corpse. A few question marks practically appeared over his head.

“It’s just a suggestion. If the body is too far gone for even the most basic tests… then forget it,”

Xu Huo said after a pause.

“Never mind. I’ll take a look first.”

The old man took a bite of a pie and hurried inside.

He used to have an apprentice.

Unfortunately, the kid quit after a few tough cases. Now the old man was swamped, working all by himself. It was exhausting, and he had no idea when he’d ever find a successor.

SLAM!

The door slammed shut.

Xu Huo and Li Jianye waited outside, bored, for the autopsy report.

“Tsk. And on New Year’s, too,”

Li Jianye said, clicking his tongue.

This New Year was turning out to be one the entire department would never forget.

His expression grew serious as he turned to Xu Huo.

“Anything strange about Zhang Jiahao’s eyeball?”

“I’m not the medical examiner. Asking me is useless.”

Xu Huo shook his head, then suddenly changed the subject.

“From what we’ve seen, the killer isn’t choosing her victims at random. She’s screening them somehow.”

“The targeting is very specific!”

“If that’s the case… there must be a connection between the victims. Or, if not a direct connection, then a commonality!”

“What’s the commonality between Zhang Jiahao and Chen An?”

‘Was it the eyes?’

‘No. Based on the crime scene, Zhang Jiahao’s eyeball was still hanging from his face. The commonality isn’t that.’

‘If the focus was on Chen An’s eyes, the key was his recovery from a half-blind state.’

‘Did Zhang Jiahao also recover from something?’

‘Wait, they didn’t live far from each other. Maybe they were friends.’

‘If they were friends, it’s possible that after one of them did something, he might have roped the other into it.’

‘Connecting this to the issue with Chen An’s eye…’

At this thought, something clicked for Xu Huo.

“Captain Li, check what Zhang Jiahao was doing six months ago, after Chen An’s car accident.”

“To be specific… pinpoint the time he threw away his cane and started shopping on his own at the nearby convenience store!”

“Check what Zhang Jiahao was up to around that time.”

Li Jianye paused, a look of suspicion on his face.

“Are you suggesting their common link might be something they did at the same time?”

“Yes.”

Xu Huo nodded.

‘Once a corpse that has suffered external trauma decomposes, it’s hard to extract any useful clues. And without clues, the difficulty of solving the case skyrockets for the police. On top of that, the critical window for the investigation is long gone. If we just stand here dumbly waiting for the M.E.’s report… this case will go cold.’

“Alright.”

Li Jianye nodded.

Without another word, he headed back inside.

Checking on something like this would normally require mobilizing officers for interviews while having the internal affairs team dig through files.

If his case was truly like Chen An’s, however…

…it would be much easier to investigate.

Any diagnosis at a hospital or clinic would leave a medical record, complete with the exact time of the appointment.

So, all they needed to do was pull Zhang Jiahao’s file.