Eerie Scene!

The owner pushed the door open, not daring to look inside.

"This female guest checked into the motel around eleven last night. She came alone, driving herself, with a very large suitcase and a little dog.

She paid for one day's room, but asked me to call and remind her to check out around eight the next morning.

But when checkout time came today, she didn't answer the phone.

I thought the lady was still resting, and since she'd left a deposit, I didn't go up to disturb her.

Around ten.

She still hadn't come down.

I went to knock, found the door wasn't shut, and after I went in, I just—ugh~"

The unlucky owner covered his mouth again, dry-heaving.

After Brian finished listening to the information the owner provided, he put on gloves and shoe covers, then pushed the door open.

He had not even gone in yet.

A thick stench of blood hit him in the face.

Susan frowned.

Brian, however, switched on his enhanced Scent as if it were routine, then walked into the small room.

It was a typical hookup room.

Just inside the entrance was a small bathroom.

Two steps farther in, there was a TV cabinet, and in front of it stood a raised king bed that took up seventy percent of the room.

A very large suitcase sat to one side of the cabinet.

Above the bed.

On the wall where an oil painting or something else should originally have hung, a dark-red corpse had been nailed alive to the wall in the shape of a spread-eagled star.

The female corpse's flayed face was twisted, her eyes wide, her mouth gaping as if she wanted to scream, yet only pitch-black hollows remained. Countless streams of blood slid down the yellow-white wall, as if savage blood-colored tentacles had grown out from behind her.

The killer had taken the victim's eyeballs and tongue.

Brian looked at the female corpse's exposed flesh and vaguely felt a sense of familiarity.

The way the corpse looked now.

Even her own mother probably would not have recognized her.

But Brian still felt she was familiar.

Some people recognized others by their features.

Some people recognized others by their bone structure.

Brian, who had personally dissected more than a thousand corpses, leaned toward the latter.

He might know the victim.

Susan, having put on shoe covers, came up behind Brian. She first swept a glance over the dead woman's miserable state, frowned slightly, then patted Brian on the shoulder. "Why are you spacing out?"

Brian shook his head and covered it up. "I just think the scene is too strange."

Confusion showed on Susan's face. "Aside from being a little cruel, what's strange about it?"

Brian:

He stepped forward and pointed at the neatly spread bedsheet.

"The victim's frame isn't small, and her body was full. She looks like she weighed at least over a hundred pounds.

How did the killer get her stuck to the wall?

Besides that.

The scene is too clean!

Based on the distribution of blood behind the victim.

She was most likely nailed to the wall while she was still alive, but aside from the wall, there's no excess blood spatter on the sheets and quilt below at all.

There are no obvious signs of cleaning anywhere else at the scene either.

That means the killer first nailed the victim to the wall, then skinned her afterward.

That's too bizarre.

Even the best skinner in the world couldn't do it that cleanly and efficiently!"

Hearing that, Susan nodded. "Now that you put it that way, it really is off. Could the killer have injected the victim with some kind of coagulant?"

Brian shook his head at once.

Never mind that his nose had not smelled any medicinal odor at all.

Even the color change in the victim's blood did not fit the symptoms of a coagulant.

In fact.

Inside the room, aside from the scents of the innkeeper, the deceased, and a canine creature, Brian did not detect the smell of any other living thing at all!

Brian did not voice his doubts.

He stepped onto the cabinet in front of the bed and, with Susan supporting him, managed to plant his uninjured right foot on it, beginning a more detailed examination of the deceased's body.

One look, and it seemed even more wrong!

There were no obvious external injuries on the female corpse.

But a large amount of blood had run down the wall and pooled on the floor.

Judging by the volume, it was nearly the total amount of blood in a human body!

That meant...

The deceased had bled to death while still alive!

But that made no scientific sense!

After an ordinary person died, the body would rapidly begin to change, and the blood would start to clot.

Even if the killer drained the blood immediately, it would still be very difficult to drain more than two-thirds of the total blood volume.

Unless they had directly cut open the victim's artery and killed her that way.

But Brian found no such wound on the corpse!

This case was far too bizarre!

Brian took a deep breath, confirmed once more that there were no other scents, then switched on the recorder he was carrying and said in a low voice:

"The deceased, female.

"Based on dental wear, estimated age is approximately thirty to forty years old.

"The entire outer layer of skin is missing.

"No obvious adhesion found on the surface of the flesh..."

Brian swallowed.

Another bizarre detail had appeared.

Under what circumstances would there be no obvious adhesion when skin was torn off and peeled away?

Did they know how pigs were slaughtered?

With those old black-skinned pigs in the past, because they had so many folds on their bodies, to make hair removal easier, people would first cut a slit in the pig's foot, then use an air pump to pump air inside, separating the skin and flesh from the pig's body until it puffed up like a balloon.

The problem was...

Brian had not found any obvious cuts on the female corpse.

He licked his lips before continuing:

"The deceased's limbs were pierced through by large iron nails, with no obvious signs of struggle.

"The deceased's eyeballs are missing from both eyes, and the wounds are extremely clean.

"The deceased's tongue is missing, and the severed edge at the tongue root is neat and smooth.

"The deceased..."

By the end...

Brian said somewhat weakly, "The deceased's cause of death is unknown."

This corpse was absolutely the strangest corpse he had ever seen.

Between the remaining traces and the clues...

There was no logic to speak of!

Susan was still perceptive. "No findings?"

Brian carefully climbed down from the cabinet, steadied himself on his crutch, and nodded. "The death is very unreasonable. If we infer from the traces on the surface of the body, we'll find a lot of places where the logic doesn't hold up. I can't imagine how the killer managed all this."

"If you can't figure it out, don't dwell on it for now," Susan said, clearly taking it in stride. "The inn has surveillance, the victim's suitcase is here, and the victim's car is parked outside. Let's confirm the victim's identity first, then discuss the cause of death afterward."

Brian nodded.

Since the autopsy had yielded no leads, that was all they could do.

The body removal vehicle had not arrived yet.

After the two of them closed the room door, they took the deceased's suitcase and returned downstairs.

The travelers had already finished the basic questioning.

Brian took the notes and looked them over. Finding no issues, and since they were all in pairs, he memorized their scents first, then let them leave.

He had two patrol officers go upstairs first to watch over the crime scene.

Brian and Susan followed the innkeeper behind the counter and began watching last night's footage.

Thanks to certain technological developments in this world, which far exceeded the level of Brian's previous life at this point in time...

Although the innkeeper's surveillance cameras were very cheap, they could still make out the footage from around midnight last night.

According to the surveillance footage.

At 11:03 last night, a plump woman wearing a hat hurried up to the counter, pulling a suitcase and holding a dog's leash.

When he saw the woman's side profile and that little dog, Brian's pupils constricted.

It was actually her!

Two chapters delivered.

Good night, brothers. See you tomorrow!