Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 22 Peeping
On a hillside in the southern suburbs, Milo, along with Emma, ​​Finn, and Kang, met Yan, who happened to be on duty in the vicinity.

Before he came, Milo had already informed him in advance that he and Yan had both been transferred to this area for duty. He felt more at ease staying with his family. In any case, Yan's family was also performing sacrifices near this mountain, so it was a win-win situation.

"My dear brother, you've finally arrived! I thought you were really going to leave me all alone on the mountain!" Yan started yelling as soon as he saw Milo.

He was originally the one who most wanted to participate in the city's parade in the first half of the night, since it was basically a young people's world, full of pretty girls and sexy older women.

However, at least one of him and Milo had to stay in the suburbs to keep watch, and since Finn and Emma absolutely had to go, Milo had to accompany them all the way. So Yan became the abandoned orphan, squatting on the mountain before it even got dark, and he had been squatting there for several hours now.

"The tents are all set up. If you're tired, go and rest for a bit."

Kang carried an axe and had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Below the hillside was an open space where a wooden bonfire altar had been erected. It was built by everyone in the vicinity together, and everyone would gather around it when the sacrificial ceremony began.

"I'm not tired!" Little Finn immediately tried to dart into the bushes.

Emma grabbed him by the back of his collar and hoisted him up: "Don't even think about wandering around in the mountains."

With that, she tossed little Finn into the tent and sat down to rest herself.

Next to the tent was the grave of Emma and Finn's mother. Emma sat quietly in front of the grave without saying a word.

Milo and Yan wisely walked a little further away, not wanting to disturb the peace.

……

"Here, take this."

After walking a distance, Yan took a cloth bag from his waist and handed it to Milo.

"What's this again?" Milo opened the bag and found it was full of white candles.

"You don't know, it's been like this every year. In addition to being responsible for the security of this area, the guards of the city also have to light a candle for those lonely graves nearby that no one worships. It's a traditional custom, and it's quite troublesome," Yan explained.

"So ghostly?" Milo raised an eyebrow.

He had only been serving as a guard for a few months, and this was the first time he had spent the Day of the Dead as a guard. In previous years, he had indeed found some unattended graves with candles lit, but he did not know that those candles were lit by the guards.

“Let me tell you a secret, last year’s fire was actually caused by some idiot guard who lit a candle and forgot to go back and put it out before leaving. Now you understand, right? There’s a reason why other departments look down on guards. You’ve got a stroke of luck, kid. You’d better seize this opportunity to join the law enforcement team… for the sake of the girls at the pleasure house.” Yan patted Milo on the shoulder.

"That's natural."

Milo felt a headache coming on whenever he thought about the huge exam outline that the wildcat Enid had prepared for him.

He didn't say much. After the two of them shared some candles, they started lighting them for the unattended graves on the hillside. It was already late at night, and most of the people who were supposed to come had already arrived. The fact that there was no one in front of the graves meant that the grave owners had no descendants in Nanwei City.

According to Milo, this candle was the last bit of humanity that Nanwei City had shown to these undead.

Soon, the hillside was dotted with candlelight.

Standing atop the small hill and looking into the distance, the city outskirts, shrouded in mist, were filled with the glow of candlelight, creating a hazy and enchanting atmosphere.

Milo was lighting the last candle on an abandoned grave.

He suddenly realized that it looked like a new grave.

Why is no one coming to pay respects at the newly buried grave?

He looked at the name of the deceased engraved on the tombstone—"Robben".

……

"Clam?"

Milo looked at the brand-new tombstone and the golden tree totem engraved on it, then at the candles that had already been lit in front of the grave.

"Forget it, you're dead now, so I won't hold it against you anymore."

He spat on the ground, stopping himself from the urge to extinguish the candle.

This Robben is, of course, the same Robben who nearly killed Milo in the sewers not long ago.

He went through so much trouble to save Daisy, but this guy is still haunting her and even blinded her. Knowing Milo's personality, if Robben were standing in front of him right now, Milo would definitely not hesitate to give him a few more stabs.

But since the person is already dead, there's nothing we can do but let it go.

……

It seems the law enforcement agency has no intention of overturning the case. The serial murders will remain as previously reported, with the unfortunate stable boy who died under mysterious circumstances becoming the scapegoat. The real killer, however, is now being buried in the name of a church member; the golden tree motif on Robben's tombstone says it all.

Milo didn't bother to investigate the unspeakable reasons behind this, as it was a matter between the law enforcement officers and the church.

Milo looked up at the scattered firelight on the hillside. By now, almost all the lonely graves were lit with candles, and the air was thick with moisture. Milo couldn't see Yan for a moment, so he simply sat down to rest. He looked back at the golden tree totem on Robben's tombstone and suddenly remembered the grotesque totem he had seen on the sewer wall, the totem drawn by a corpse...

The church's golden tree totem has very simple strokes, basically depicting a towering tree, but the totem in the sewers is an upside-down golden tree with a ring of runes, which at first glance looks like some kind of eerie creature covered in tentacles. The two are starkly contrasting, one holy and the other sinister.

"Tsk, I should have copied that totem after I got home that night."

Milo knew that the most important clue connecting the entire series of murders was the totem on the wall, and now, he was probably the only one who could possibly replicate the totem.

He noticed a layer of mist covering the tiled platform in front of the tomb, so he simply started drawing on the tiled surface with his finger.

A few minutes later, the condensation on the tile surface outlined a circular pattern, which Milo replicated from memory...

"That should be about right."

Milo shook the dew off his hands.

Gradually, he began to feel as if the lines of the totem pattern on the tile slab were starting to move...

"Ok?"

He initially thought that the flickering candlelight was causing a visual distortion.

But upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the totem was becoming increasingly distorted, drawing Milo's attention like a vortex.

When Milo realized something was wrong and tried to look away, he found that he had lost control of himself!

"Holy crap, this is..."

Before he could finish speaking, his vision suddenly went black, as if he had suddenly plunged into deep water.

After his vision gradually returned, he saw a completely unfamiliar scene.

At the edge of his field of vision were countless densely packed, trembling black dots, like oil slicks floating on water. Every time Milo moved his eyeballs, those black dots would tremble.

The scene he could see was as if it had been filtered through a dark, underworld lens, with all the colors appearing extremely gloomy.

Milo felt as if he had stepped into the perspective of a stranger.

He found himself in a desolate city, the streets and alleys deserted, the surrounding buildings covered with black cloth, and the walls painted with triangular symbols, totems representing the plague virus, indicating that there had been infected patients inside the buildings, warning citizens not to approach.

What's going on... This is, this is Nanwei City during the Great Plague?
The air was filled with a pungent odor, a mixture of putrid smell and the astringent taste of medical solutions.

Meanwhile, from Milo's perspective, the owner is pushing a cart to transport supplies from the city center to the suburbs, all the way to the makeshift patient shelter.

He wrapped a scarf around his face several times to cover his mouth and nose before starting to distribute supplies inside the shelter.

The situation inside the shelter was desolate, filled with the heavy breathing of patients.

In his gloomy perspective, he saw countless rotting faces and desperate eyes.

But he never stopped, constantly traveling between the city and the shelter, delivering daily necessities to the patients in the shelter.

After a long, mechanical day, he finally met the shelter's doctor.

He begged the doctor in utter humility, even kneeling and kowtowing, just to see his daughter one last time.

Perhaps because he had been working tirelessly day and night for the shelter, the doctor granted his request.

In the isolation ward for mild cases, he saw his baby daughter through the glass window.

Compared to her near-death state a few days ago, the daughter's complexion is much better now. She seems to recognize her father outside the window, and her confused eyes have a slightly different look. She bursts into tears on the hospital bed.

The doctor told the man that after the girl received blood therapy, she had developed antibodies and was recovering rapidly. The virus was under control, and she was now completely out of danger.

The man wept with joy outside the ward, kneeling on the ground for a long time, unable to get up.

He repeated the Golden Rule prayer with utmost devotion, kowtowing to the church doctor again and again, saying he would do anything for the asylum, and pleading that if he fell ill, medicine should not be wasted on him, but rather his share of resources should be used on his daughter…

……

The moment Milo saw the girl's eyes in the hospital room, his thoughts were suddenly jolted.

If I remember correctly, the hair color of the haggard-looking girl was the same color as the long hair of the girl's corpse that Milo saw in the sewers.

Although the girl in his field of vision was only two or three years old, Milo was certain that the child was the same person as the corpse he had seen in the sewer.

In other words, the person in Milo's perspective at this moment, this humble and devout man, is the murderer Robben...

……

(End of this chapter)