The Same Fate Awaits All Sins Chapter 27

Worship – 12

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The two men followed the path to the warehouse door.

"It's still the same here, eh? By the way, what was that about me saving you back then? I didn't quite understand before you shifted the topic to your ex-boyfriend," Gu Yanta asked.

"Back then, it was because he heard someone striking a tree trunk with a metal pipe that he panicked and fled before he could commit the crime. Thinking about it now, that person hitting the tree trunk might have been you. Speaking of which, what were you doing in the woods on a dark night back then?" Lu Zheng looked at Gu Yanta with a puzzled expression.

"Ah... I don't remember. I remember that I didn't usually stay at my grandmother's house back then unless my mum had to go on a business trip. Maybe I was upset with someone and came here to blow off steam? Honestly, I've forgotten..." Gu Yanta turned his head and saw Lu Zheng giving him a complicated look. "Why are you looking at me like that? Don't tell me you think I was sneaking off to the woods at ten years old to have a romantic tryst?"

"That's not what I mean. I'm just thinking that it's a good thing he didn't see you back then. You were just a child yourself, if he'd caught you, you might have fallen victim to him as well" Lu Zheng sighed. "Fortunately, you were lucky."

"Haha..." Gu Yanta burst out laughing. "Don't worry, Lu Xiaozheng, I have always been blessed with incredible luck. Stick with me, and you'll be well-fed!"

"All right, all right, just get inside!" Lu Zheng waved impatiently as Gu Yanta started boasting again.

Gu Yanta stepped forward and pushed the door open. The iron door, long rusted and dilapidated, still bore traces of the police seal from years ago. As Gu Yanta pushed it open, the old latch fell to the ground with a loud clang.

"Cough, cough..." Gu Yanta waved away the dust that rose in front of him and turned on his flashlight. The blinding light pierced into the warehouse.

Inside, it looked as though nothing had been touched in decades. Piles of junk covered the floor, coated in layers of thick dust. This was an abandoned warehouse from a steel pipe factory, made even more desolate after the kidnapping case that occurred here years ago.

Lu Zheng stood at the crime scene, memories from twenty years ago flashing through his mind. He raised his hand and pointed. "It was over there, next to that pile of junk. That's where he forced us to play his games."

There were still faint black marks on the ground, triggering unsettling associations. The oppressive darkness of the space added to the discomfort. Gu Yanta put on his gloves and approached the pile Lu Zheng had indicated. He noticed signs that the soil had been disturbed. The old warehouse didn't even have a concrete floor, essentially, it was just an empty frame built over dirt.

"Come and have a look!" Gu Yanta crouched down, shining his flashlight over the obviously freshly disturbed patch of soil.

Lu Zheng walked over and observed as Gu Yanta picked up some loose earth. "Should we call someone in to dig it up? No one else should've been here, could it be..."

"Who?!" A rustling sound came from the bushes outside, and a dark figure darted past. Gu Yanta bolted after it, shouting, "Stop!"

Lu Zheng followed closely, but the shadow quickly disappeared. "Be careful!" Lu Zheng called out to Gu Yanta, who rushed ahead.

Gu Yanta waved a hand and drew his firearm from the holster at his waist. He crouched and began searching along the bushes. Tonight, the sky was covered in heavy clouds, leaving no moonlight to illuminate the scene. The wind rustled the dense tree branches from time to time, and the overgrown bushes, untrimmed for years, sprawled chaotically, making it hard to tell where someone might have trampled through. The conditions made it easy for a suspect to hide.

Gu Yanta signalled for Lu Zheng to maintain some distance behind him so he could react quickly if they encountered the target.

"They probably didn't expect anyone to come here, otherwise, they wouldn't have taken the risk alone," Lu Zheng whispered as he moved closer. "But if they're desperate, they might try to ambush you, be careful."

"Shh..." Gu Yanta's eyes were fixed on a patch of shrubs ahead.

The dense foliage rustled with the sound of laboured breathing. Gu Yanta advanced stealthily. Suddenly, a dark figure burst from the bushes and lunged at him. Taken by surprise, Gu Yanta was knocked to the ground. His service pistol slipped from his grasp, and the glint of cold steel flashed before his eyes. The assailant's knife thrust straight towards him! Gu Yanta jerked his head aside just in time, and the blade plunged into the soil instead. Before he could recover, the knife was already arcing down for a second strike!

"Freeze! Hands up, or I'll shoot!" Lu Zheng's voice rang out. At some point, he had retrieved Gu Yanta's fallen pistol, and now the barrel was trained on the assailant.

The attacker hesitated, clearly not expecting there to be a second person in the pitch-black darkness. Gu Yanta seized the moment, flipping himself nimbly to pin the man to the ground. Twisting the assailant's arm behind his back, Gu Yanta swiftly subdued him.

The attacker was pinned and immobilised. Gu Yanta took out his handcuffs and cuffed his hands behind his back. Then yanked off his mask, and he was surprisingly...

Xu Leixin?!

"You're... Li Wenli's ex-boyfriend!" Lu Zheng recognised the man immediately. "You, what are you doing here?"

Xu Leixin struggled against the cuffs, "Let me go! I was just doing a job, taking a look for someone. I didn't kill anyone! I'm being set up!"

"Kill someone?" Gu Yanta shot Lu Zheng a surprised glance, but Lu Zheng winked.

"Then how do you explain the corpse inside the warehouse?" Lu Zheng looked down at Xu Leixin and spoke in a dignified tone.

Gu Yanta thought to himself, Lu Xiaozheng, you're quite the bluffer, when did a corpse show up in the warehouse?

"I... I don't know! I really don't know! I just took some money to do a task for someone..." Xu Leixin stammered, his voice faltering.

"Took money to do a task? You've got some nerve! And you even dared to attack a police officer?!" Lu Zheng barked angrily.

"Attack police? Brother, you two are cops?! I didn't... I didn't know! I thought you were thieves!" Xu Leixin's voice quivered now, obviously not expecting this to happen

"Be honest! Have you ever seen thieves come to the middle of nowhere to steal things?" Gu Yanta hauled Xu Leixin to his feet and walked in the direction of the car. "You're coming back to the station with us, let's see what you have to say then!"

Half an hour later, Ma Qin arrived at the abandoned warehouse with the action team, shovels in hand. They quickly got to work.

"Careful!"

Ma Qin snatched the shovel from one of the officers, who had hit something hard while digging. As they uncovered the soil, a pale, bone-like fragment emerged.

"Boss Ma, this... can't be human bone, right?" the officer asked cautiously.

"It's possible, be careful not to damage anything while digging," The glare of the flashlights made it difficult for Ma Qin to confirm the exact nature of what was buried at first glance.

Within minutes, the team had dug up a sizeable pit, revealing a fully intact skeleton. Judging by its length, it was clearly no young child, but rather an adult. The sight made everyone draw in sharp breaths.

"Just as Consultant Lu suspected, there really is a corpse buried here," Ma Qin muttered to himself.

"Fuck, what kind of person would kill someone and bury them here? Could it have been Meng Yong?" A few of the police officers' eyes widened in shock.

"Impossible, Meng Yong lost both legs in an industrial accident in 1999, there's no way he could have overpowered and killed an adult. Call the forensics team to transport the body, we'll need to confirm the identity first." Ma Qin said.

City bureau.

As Gu Yanta and Lu Zheng escorted Xu Leixin into the city bureau, Chen Chen came rushing towards them, flustered. Gu Yanta motioned to the officers to take Xu Leixin away first.

"Boss, the records of the surviving victim from twenty years ago have been checked. That girl, Pei Jing, has been missing for quite some time!" Chen Chen finished speaking and glanced at Xu Leixin's retreating figure. "Huh? Isn't that Li Wenli's boyfriend? What happened to him?"

"I'll explain later, finish your report first."

"According to her old neighbours, Pei Jing's mental state was a bit unstable after the incident. Her parents later had another child, a boy. When Pei Jing was in her teens, her parents both died in a car accident, leaving her to care for her underage brother. She could barely take care of herself, and it's unclear where her brother ended up. After graduating from high school, she worked various odd jobs and eventually became a cashier at a supermarket. But she hasn't shown up to work for a long time now," Chen Chen reported truthfully.

"She's missing? Why isn't she registered as a missing person?" Gu Yanta asked.

"She doesn't have any relatives. The supermarket owner didn't bother when she stopped showing up and just hired someone new."

"It seems the factory where Hou Rong worked was relatively kind..." Gu Yanta sighed. "Did the owner mention how long it's been since she last came to work?"

"He couldn't recall exactly, but it's been over half a year," Chen Chen said helplessly. "Their supermarket is a small family-run business without standardised management. Sometimes, they even pay wages via online transfers."

In a world of cold indifference, where everyone focuses only on their own problems, no one will care where a strange girl has gone, or whether she is dead or alive...

"Wait, she has a younger brother, doesn't she?" Lu Zheng pondered. "Since he was born after Pei Jing's incident, he should be around Xu Leixin's age, eighteen or nineteen."

"Right, but a few years ago, Pei Jing sent him somewhere, and we haven't been able to trace him," Chen Chen nodded.

"Keep investigating. What's her brother's name?" Lu Zheng asked.

"Let me see..." Chen Chen flipped through the records. "He was previously registered as... Pei Fan, though it's unclear if he has changed his name since."

Just then, Gu Yanta's phone rang.

"Boss, we've uncovered a skeleton in the abandoned warehouse," Ma Qin's anxious voice came through the receiver.

"Transport it back to the bureau for forensic examination immediately, and carefully search the area around the warehouse thoroughly for additional clues!" Gu Yanta instructed.

"Yes, Boss!"

"It's just as you predicted," Gu Yanta said as he hung up, lighting a cigarette. "Who do you think the deceased is? Could it be the missing Pei Jing?"

"It's too early to say, there could be more victims in places we haven't discovered yet," Lu Zheng pressed his lips tightly together, his eyes slightly reddened. "We need to catch this copycat killer as soon as possible."

"Meng Yong runs a small shop at Yuchuan Vocational and Technical College, and Xu Leixin works as an internet café administrator near the college... Do you think this might have been instigated by Meng Yong?" Gu Yanta stubbed out his cigarette forcefully. "Do you think that bastard would stop his schemes just because he's disabled?"

"It's not impossible. I may have underestimated him before," Lu Zheng nodded. "Now, it seems Meng Yong might be playing a crucial role in this case."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: December 18, 2024 by Angel

Edited: January 14, 2025 by Angel