What Are They Doing 2022 Chapter 3

1

Liu Sang woke up. It was early morning the next day and the sky was already clear. He pulled up the radio on his cell phone and listened to the morning news.

When he opened the car door, the air was still very humid but cool.

He looked at a photo that had been stuck to his car. It had been placed between his phones.⁽¹⁾

He hesitated for a moment before memories of that year came flashing through his mind.

The radio began broadcasting news of the recent murders that occurred during the rainy season. All of the victims were female.

As he listened, he used a knife to carve the final stroke of a Chinese character onto his steering wheel.

Five people.

Have you finally gone off the deep end? Liu Sang thought to himself. What have you been going through all these years?

2

Outside the prison, Wang Meng watched the door open with a blank expression on his face. A rickety, white-haired old man walked out on trembling legs.

As Wang Meng stepped forward, the old man looked at him without a trace of recognition in his eyes.

He didn’t remember him anymore. Wang Meng honestly didn’t expect his condition to be this bad.

“Your father is finally released from prison after serving his sentence. All of his things are here,” the corrections officer said. “He doesn’t recognize you anymore, so if you want to rebuild your relationship, you may need to find a better doctor. The chances aren’t good.”

“How many years has it been?”

“It was discovered more than four years ago. His condition progressed very rapidly, probably because his personality is a bit problematic and he’s been very inactive,” the officer explained.

After he finished speaking, he went back through the iron door.

Wang Meng looked at his father, and his father looked at him.

“Let’s go,” Wang Meng said to him.

The old man didn’t react.

Wang Meng hesitated for a while before grabbing the other man’s sleeve and pulling him towards the car little by little.

After finally getting him to sit in the passenger seat, Wang Meng got into the driver’s seat, set the GPS, and headed back to Wushanju.

3

Wang Guo walked into the autopsy room and was met by the medical examiner, who was an old man.

The body was lying on the autopsy table.

“I’m afraid you can’t take this case,” the old man said to him.

“Why?” Wang Guo asked.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you,” the old man replied.

“Let’s just say you gave me the report yesterday,” Wang Guo said.

The old man removed the covering from the female corpse’s face and pushed her long hair aside. Wang Guo didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking at until the old man said, “Look at her ears.”

A plant root was stuck in the female corpse’s ear.

It was a rose branch.

As the old man carefully pulled the thing out of the corpse’s ear, Wang Guo could see that it was covered in blood and the end was sharpened.

“This thing pierced her brain through the ear and then she drowned,” the old man said. “But it would take a while to die from this thing alone.”

“Is it in both ears?”

“Yes, but the other side is different. I’ve already taken it out. The outermost rose on that one is still preserved.”

Wang Guo touched his chin and fell deep into thought.

“It’s actually very difficult to stick something into a living person’s ears,” the old man said. “People usually struggle so it’s necessary to keep their heads from moving. If you look at her forehead and the back of her head, you’ll see traces of clamps from a workman’s bench. The murderer used fixed clamps to keep her head from moving and then stabbed those things into her ears. He was very persistent. I don’t know what it is, but ears must hold some kind of significance for him.”

Wang Guo narrowed his eyes in thought.

“You’re not afraid of corpses?” the old man asked.

“When I was interning, I encountered a big case that I worked on for three months,” Wang Guo said. “Why am I not allowed to take this case?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow.” The old man sighed and looked around before adding, “The equipment here is too old. To be honest, this kind of case isn’t suitable.”

<What Are They Doing 2022 Chapter 2><Table of Contents><What Are They Doing 2022 Chapter 4>

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TN Notes:

(1) Per Tiffany: In Restart Part 1, Chapter 17, it was mentioned that Liu Sang kept a bunch of phones lined up so that he could check the weather forecasts of the coastal towns.