My Healing Games

Chapter 67 Photos
The Donghua Ice Factory has been closed for a long time, but its underground ice storage is very clean, as if it is regularly cleaned.

"You stay up there and guard the entrance to prevent anyone from locking us both inside. I've already notified my colleagues nearby; they should be here soon."

Li Xue looked around the ice storage with her phone in hand, and soon she made a discovery.

"what is that?"

The light from the phone shone on the corner of the wall, and Li Xue saw an incense burner with a color photo of Meng Shi next to it.

"A photo of the deceased? Why is there a photo of the deceased here? Is someone mourning her here?"

The underground ice storage area was not large; you could see the whole thing at a glance, and there were no obstacles to block the view, so Li Xue gradually became bolder.

She walked to the corner of the wall, but instead of touching the portrait on the ground, she used her body camera to record everything.

"Did you find anything?"

“I found Meng Shi’s photo. Someone came here specifically to pay their respects to her and look at the incense ash in the incense burner. That person has been here many times.”

"Is that all?" Han Fei took the clues provided by Meng Shi very seriously, but judging from Li Xue's feedback, they didn't seem to be very important. "Why don't you come up? I'll go down and take a look?"

After pulling Li Xue up, Han Fei jumped into the ice storage room. Almost the instant he entered, he felt a strange sense of familiarity.

Enclosed, cold, and endless darkness kept creeping in.

With his hands and feet feeling numb, Han Fei recalled his experience at Meng Shi's house. When the old lady lost control, room 1031 gave Han Fei the same feeling as this underground icehouse.

"So that cold feeling is what old people feel before they die!"

He turned on his phone's flashlight and went to the corner, looking at the incense burner and Meng Shi's photo on the ground.

Meng Shi in the photo is very young, her hair hasn't turned white yet, and it seems that the person who came here specifically to pay tribute to Meng Shi only has this one photo.

"The Donghua Ice Factory should be the primary scene of the victim's death. The people who came here to pay their respects must know the inside story and have a close relationship with Meng Shi. They are very likely Meng Shi's three children."

“The eldest brother has set up an altar at his own home, so there’s no need for him to come all the way here. Apart from him, there are only Meng Changxi and Meng Chang’an left.”

A cold wind blew across Han Fei's face. Although the ice storage at the Donghua Ice Factory was designed underground, the ventilation was excellent, which puzzled Han Fei: "Does an ice storage facility also need to maintain air circulation?"

He followed the direction the wind was blowing to the corner of the ice storage room, where there was a gap between the drain outlet that seemed to be integrated with the floor.

Seizing the gap, Han Fei exerted force and discovered that the drain was just a decoration; underneath was a passageway.

"Can it go any further?"

Looking at the dark underground passage, Han Fei hesitated.

The air became humid, and a faint stench wafted from the passageway.

"The ice storage's drainage outlet has been hollowed out; it's connected to the city's underground drainage system. Should we go down and take a look?"

"Let's wait for reinforcements. Previously, Xinhu used underground pipe network drainage facilities, but with the city's upgrade and expansion, they have all been changed to underground corridor drainage. They are interconnected and complex, and it's easy to get lost without a map." Li Xue used to be a police officer in the criminal investigation team. She is experienced and never hesitates to rush forward when necessary, and she rarely acts rashly when she needs to think calmly.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, two of Li Xue's former colleagues arrived. Unlike ordinary police officers, they were members of the criminal investigation team.

One of the detectives applied for temporary access to the city's sewage system and retrieved a map, after which they followed the passage underground.

There was a faint, strange smell in the air, and the underground artificial river made a gurgling sound. They walked on the passageway for maintenance personnel, with water, gas, and communication pipelines laid more than a decade ago overhead.

"If the Donghua Ice Factory was the primary crime scene, then did the murderer move the body through the sewers after the killing?"

Li Xue was pondering the case, Han Fei was thinking about every word Meng Shi had said before, and the other police officers around them were studying the map.

“Sister Li, this area we’re in doesn’t appear on the map.” A police officer zoomed in on the electronic map: “There’s a man-made tunnel under the ice storage.”

The map of the city's sewage system did not match the actual site. Li Xue and her group entered an area not shown on the map, where a hidden "room" had been dug out.

As they entered through the cave entrance, Li Xue and Han Fei were both somewhat incredulous at the scene before them.

The dark cave contained various blueprints and a thick stack of documents about the case of the corpse hidden in the refrigerator and the human body puzzle.

Some of the documents have yellowed, indicating that they were collected over a long period of time, likely over several years.

"Don't move around! Everyone wear gloves!"

What surprised the police even more was what happened next: on the innermost wall of the cave were some cropped photos and pictures involving more than a dozen people, most of whom had a circle drawn around their pictures in black pen.

There were only three exceptions. The first was He Shouye, whose photo had a red cross drawn on it.

The second is Meng Chang'an. His photo is circled in red and is covered with holes poked by pen tips, which shows that the owner of the cave seems to hate Meng Chang'an to the core.

What surprised everyone the most was the third photo. It was a very recent photo, and the person in the photo was Han Fei.

A question mark was drawn on Han Fei's photo with a black pen.

"The photos circled in black ink likely represent people who have been ruled out as suspects, the photos crossed in red ink represent people who have already been killed, the photos circled in red ink may represent people who are to be killed next, and as for the question mark at the end..."

All the police officers looked at Han Fei, who also felt strange: "I felt like I was being followed a while ago. Could the person who was following me be this guy who lives in the sewers?"

“Very likely, but why would he put a question mark on your photo? Did you do anything unusual while he was following you?” Li Xue stared intently at Han Fei’s photo.

"I first realized I was being followed on the set of 'Flower of Evil.' I was on the phone with you at the time, and I think I said something like, 'Compared to Meng Changxi, you guys really should pay more attention to Meng Chang'an. That seemingly harmless guy might be the one who killed his own mother.'" Han Fei's eyes widened suddenly: "Yes! Right after I said that, I heard a sound coming from around the corner behind me. The other person must have been affected by what I said!"

“Based on the information the police have, all the evidence points to Meng Changxi. You’re the only one speaking up for him. Do you think the real culprit is Meng Chang’an?” Li Xue looked at the thick stack of documents in the cave and made a bold guess: “Could the person living in the sewers be Meng Changxi, who disappeared years ago?”

(End of this chapter)