You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

"Sizzle—"

Lyon, expressionless, reached out and roughly pulled the zipper all the way back to the bottom.

The tent closed again, locking the nauseating smell of blood and the images that would give a normal person nightmares for half a year back into the shadows.

"Boss... you just shut it down like that?"

Mia held her knees, her voice trembling noticeably.

"What else? You want to stay here and hold a memorial service for him?"

Mia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her face appearing deathly pale in the afterglow of the flashlight.

"Is it called CSI (Criminal Investigations)? This guy's obviously a psychopathic serial killer or some kind of cannibal..."

"CSI?"

"Mia, wake up. This is Seattle. More homeless people go missing or die in alleys every year than you've ever seen an insurance policy."

"There were no witnesses, no identification, and the deceased may not even have had their social security number cancelled."

"The police department's budget is for taxpayers, not for these free souls living in tents."

"If I report that there's an art-level dismemberment case here, the police will indeed send someone over."

"But the next step is to seal off the scene, collect evidence, write thousands of pages of useless reports, and finally, because the family members and suspects cannot be found, the case files are stuffed into a dusty filing cabinet."

"More importantly, we are currently under FBI surveillance of transit warehouses."

"If we make a big fuss and alert the drug dealers, Sterling and Hayes could tear us apart."

Lyon knew very well that, given the current state of law and order, this tent was most likely the work of the drug dealers who had just moved in.

In the eyes of those madmen whose brains have been fried by new synthetic drugs, there is probably no difference between their own kind and livestock.

"Those damned poisoners..."

Leon cursed under his breath, then pressed the walkie-talkie on his shoulder:

"Calling dispatch center. We found a body while patrolling the edge of the industrial area."

"Preliminary assessment indicates he was a homeless person. The cause of death... well, it might be some kind of gang conflict or accident."

"There were no witnesses at the scene. I will contact the outsourcing company to clean up. That's all."

A burst of noise came from the other end of the radio, and the dispatcher's voice sounded completely flat:

"Received. We will make a briefing. If the outsourcing company cannot handle it, we will contact the public health department. Over."

See? This is America. Nobody cares if there's one less homeless person, not even the police.

Leon turned off the walkie-talkie and turned to look at Mia, who was still trembling.

"Alright, get back in the car, I'm going to make a phone call."

Mia felt like she'd been granted a pardon and stumbled toward the truck, which now seemed like paradise to her.

Lyon stood in the rain, watching Mia wade back into the truck.

He wasn't as calm as he appeared.

In fact, he now feels a tightness and burning sensation in his chest.

The longer he stayed in this so-called free country, the more disgusted he felt.

A living person was hung on an iron hook like livestock to bleed, sort, and cut up.

As a police officer, his first reaction was not to cordon off the scene and apprehend the murderer, but rather to act like a sanitation worker handling garbage, first considering the budget and procedures, and finally concluding that the person was worthless and not worth wasting police resources on.

How could this be?

If a heinous crime of this scale had occurred in his previous life, the entire city would have been turned upside down.

In Seattle, at this very moment, this is merely the death of a homeless man, who might not even receive a proper serial number.

"This is absurd..."

He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the urge to burn everything in front of him to ashes, and his fingers flew across the screen.

In this country, justice has a price, and his current paycheck and power clearly cannot buy the truth hidden in this tent. He can only try to find the instigator in the subsequent crackdown on drug dealers.

Lyon pulled out a number from his phone and dialed it.

Before the call could be connected, Lyon quickly walked to the shade of a rusty shipping container, avoiding the irritating cold rain.

The phone rang five or six times before being answered. The first sound from the receiver was a cough that sounded like someone was coughing up their lungs, followed by a weak male voice that sounded like he had just crawled out of a morgue freezer.

"Hello...who is this? If there are any donors..."

The other person's English pronunciation was strange, and their enunciation seemed extremely perfunctory, as if saying even one more word would cause him to suddenly die on the spot.

"It's me, Leon."

Lyon switched to fluent Chinese immediately, his tone low.

The person on the other end of the phone was clearly taken aback for a few seconds.

Then the half-dead tone turned into a strong Northeastern accent. Although the voice was still weak, it at least revealed a bit of a living person.

"Oh... it's Lyon. It's the middle of the night, and the rain in Seattle is making my bones ache."

"What, more work? I was just dozing off, practically studying anatomy with Morpheus..."

Alex's voice sounded like he hadn't had a sip of coffee for three consecutive nights, and every word exuded a sense of despondency, as if he wished the world would just end.

"I have a job. It's in the industrial zone, near the abandoned container yard. I'll send you the coordinates to your phone later."

Leon glanced back at the camouflage tent that looked eerie in the rain.

"He's a homeless man. There's a tent, and inside there's... a jigsaw puzzle scene. You'll have to come and see for yourself; the situation is terrible."

A rustling sound came from the other end of the phone, followed by a heavy sigh.

"well……"

"Oh no... how bad could it be? Did I get crushed into a pancake by a truck, or chopped into mincemeat by those high-dose black guys?"

"Being homeless is great, no family, no trouble, this kind of work is the cleanest."

"It's not that bad."

Leon paused, the image of the half-section of the torso that had been hanging on the hook flashing through his mind.

"The pieces were broken very neatly, as if they had been processed in a slaughterhouse, possibly some kind of cult ritual."

"Looks like some crazy, eccentric people have gotten into the area. Be careful when you bring your men over; this place isn't safe right now."

"A madman? Who isn't mad?"

Alex sighed again on the other end of the line.

After a long pause, he slowly replied:

"Okay, got it. I'll bring a few large, thick, resealable bags. These days, there are more perverts than normal people; I'm used to it."

"How long will it take you to get there?"

"About half an hour."

"Okay. I still have a mission here. If nothing unexpected happens, I'll stay nearby and keep watch. Hurry up, the smell in this place is getting stronger and stronger."

"Understood, wait for me."

Alex hung up the phone.