The Way Of The Evil Chapter 10

The Amber Part 2

There was just one good point about Jiang Hu: he was quiet.

If you put him there without asking him anything, he definitely won't make a sound. Shen Yexi really didn't know how he could be a psychologist with such a personality. Could it be that he and the patient would also just stare at each other in the clinic? And he'd also do whatever he was asked to. You couldn't quite tell how willing he was, neither could you tell how unwilling he was. He'll go wherever he was told to, and he won't even ask why. He would just go along with the waves.

In these days, he had been contemplating. What exactly was Chief Mo's intention? Transferring such a professional in criminology into the office and even making him tag along in fieldwork and even gave him a gun. Why did he shy away from  saying it straight? And just had to add such a lame name to it like "psychological intervention for the benefit of the employees"? 

Shen Yexi felt that to someone like Jiang Hu, it was best to say it straight if he had something to say. If you slightly curve off track, he might twist your meaning and understand it in some other way. "Xiao Jiang, with your background, it'll be good if you become a criminal investigation expert in the bureau or a criminal policeman after some additional training, so why do you have to be a psychologist?"

His question was too abrupt. Jiang Hu tilted his head. "There's too much stress on everyone at work. To start a psychological intervention is one part of it and Chief Mo didn't allow me to talk about the other part of it."

Seriously, it really gave one a headache. Shen Yexi shook his head, continuing to examine, "Is it just me he didn't allow you to tell or everyone else too?" 

People sensitive to the tiniest details were truly detestable. It was the first time Jiang Hu felt a little emotion. He originally wanted to muddle his way through with his usual way, but he didn't expect that after only interacting with Shen Yexi for a short period of time that wasn't even a month, this person would have already completely figured out his ways of thinking and speaking.

This was the first time he didn't make a sound in front of Shen Yexi when he was asked a question. Shen Yexi looked at him and found Jiang Hu's expression a little troubled, so he laughed, "He didn't allow you to tell me only right?"

Jiang Hu looked at him in conflict and could only nod.

It was a pity that Shen Yexi wasn't Yang Man, so it was not easy to hit his soft spot. Towards this situation just like he was bullying a child by himself, a certain someone didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt.

Shen Yexi lifted a brow, laughing. Then, once again he used his seemingly inexplicable battle strategy of "suspending others in tension" and did not open his mouth to ask anything of his own accord.

And at the same time, Jiang Hu was also silently sizing up this person. Shen Yexi was almost one of the hardest people to fool that he had ever met. His chuckling face with hidden evil intentions and his chest full of confidence and surety could compete with Chief Mo's. What was even more irritating was that sharpness and observation powers of his. He didn't need anyone to expose their nature. If they barely showed a tiny portion[1], he'll be able to infer the general picture.

Thinking a little, Jiang Hu decided to confess. "Previously, after the July 25th case, your partner died in the line of duty. Chief Mo suspected that you had PTSD, so he asked me to especially take note of you. Mn, PTSD is a psychological disorder after trauma, so it is a type of…(*)"

"That's enough. I know what's PTSD. It's one of the psychological disorders common in our line of work." At first, Shen Yexi was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that Jiang Hu would actually tell him. This instead made this person beside him a little harder to make sense of. "Didn't Bureau Chief Mo tell you not to tell me?"

Jiang Hu was silent and didn't speak.

"What's wrong?"

Jiang Hu let out a sigh, his brows furrowing in a rare occasion. Then, he relaxed his body and leaned on the back support of the seat. "You don't trust me. Even if there was really a problem, you won't let me treat you either, so I don't want to bother anymore either."

Shen Yexi nearly choked on his saliva — This lord here, you truly are open minded.

Although it was certainly a fact, Shen Yexi had no choice but to admit that he really felt a little uncomfortable inside since the other party said it plainly without shying away at all. No wonder that people who were always honest weren't welcomed in this world. Moreover, Shen Yexi personally thought that he was already polite enough towards this western doctor whose IQ and EQ suddenly fluctated low and high and would occasionally do stupid things. So why did it become that he didn't trust Jiang Hu?

He laughed dryly. "I really don't know…"

"On one end, with Chief Mo, you feel that you want to trust his judgement. But on the other end, for one month now, you have been relentlessly attempting to feel around and speculate on my motive in coming to the bureau, right?" Jiang Hu interrupted him with a slow, relaxed voice. His tone was also ordinary, unable to tell if he was angry or enraged or anything. But Shen Yexi guaranteed in his mind that in that instant, he saw a fake smile on his young man's face. Yet, in the blink of an eye, it vanished and what remained was that thick-facedness where everything was a matter-of-fact and everything would be said honestly.

Shen Yexi's heart slightly leaped. There was a feeling as though all the secrets inside him had nowhere to hide. He didn't know why but there was just that slightest instant that he actually felt that the person beside him was very… dangerous.

This strange feeling, was one that he only experienced from another person before. That scholar and lover of Bureau Chief Mo, An Jie. The latter's background was something that he faintly guessed after he slowly became closer with him.

But Jiang Hu…

The air peculiarly stiffened. Until they got off the car, the two didn't say anything at all.

It really was an abandoned warehouse next to the construction site. The warehouse has already been cordoned off by the police and the construction site was also newly made in the recent half month. It was clear that it was something out of the murderer's expectations.

Near the construction site, there was no other advantages. Other than eating the dust and soil, you can only enjoy the noises. The senses of taste and hearing would double the "feast". Jiang Hu pressed on his ears, brows furrowed as he glanced at the construction site not far away.

Then, Shen Yexi remembered the Amber Killer. He was clearly a perverse, mentally unsound person who always thought that he was some s.h.i.+tty artist. If it was that person, he would probably hope to put his collections at a deserted place where no one would normally disturb.

A rather unpleasant thought suddenly flashed in his mind. His face changed, and he took out his phone to call An Yining. "Yining, the photos of the missing people that you brought over, were they all soaked in gla.s.s tanks?"

An Yining paused in surprise. "Yeah."

"Immediately add all of the people who went missing in the past month and over into our scope of consideration. This place should be one of the nests that the murderer abandoned. I think there are still more of them."

Could it be that the police team have to be turned into a search team for corpses placed in gla.s.s tanks? Amber Number 2, don't tell me you were born in the year of the rabbit? How many nests do you have? An Yining who put down her phone had a violent shudder from her extraordinary imagination.

Entering the warehouse, there were already some policemen investigating the current scene and cataloguing their evidence. The corpses in the giant gla.s.s tank remained untouched. After all, this case had a very high possibility of being related to the Amber Killer's case three years ago. The forensic investigator was waiting at the side, observing the corpses with immense interest through the gla.s.s cover.

Jiang Hu was also standing beside the forensic investigator, both of them surrounding it to observe the corpses.

The forensic investigator was an old man. The hair at his temples have already turned grey, and acted rather friendly at first meeting. He looked at Jiang Hu, "A newcomer?"

Jiang Hu nodded.

The forensic investigator glanced at him. "You're pretty good, small pal. You're a newcomer and you're already following Cap Shen into such a shooking crime scene. Seeing that you don't have much negative reactions, your mental fort.i.tude isn't bad."

Shooking… Jiang Hu actually wanted to ask what this adjective meant, but seeing Shen Yexi's face full of seriousness, he instinctively felt that asking this might not be too good so he swallowed it back again — and he didn't expect that this forensics grandpa's speech to be pretty modern.

The old forensic investigator saw that his face was calm without much of a reaction and thought that it was because this young man was unperturbed, so he found him even more praise-worthy. Thus, he became a chatterbox. "When we caught that Amber Killer a few years ago, I was the one who examined the corpses. I even thought that everything will be fine after executing and shooting that crazy person but look, it has only been a few years before one like this showed up again. Say, do you think this perverseness is contagious?"

Jiang Hu thought, letting an old man talk by himself and not say a word was also pretty impolite. But if he carried on the conversation, he also didn't know how to continue it. The other party was clearly prattling on by himself. So he thought for a little, racking his brains to produce such a line: "That… The waves behind will always push the ones in front[2], I guess?"

The old forensic investigator's funny bone was tickled. "They really will. The waves in front already crashed on the sand — Little pal is pretty humorous, mhm, let's not talk about it. You're so young and you really seem like you won't be affected at all even if Mt. Tai collapses in front of you[3]. Learn well from your Cap Shen and you'll have a good future ahead of you."

Jiang Hu's level of the Chinese language was only limited to daily conversations using modern Chinese and some phrases used in his professional field. He'll also make do and only understand half of the four-character idiomatic expressions. As for ancient phrases or dialects or whatever, he basically can't understand a lick of it. "You won't be affected at all even if Mt. Tai collapses in front of you," he recited this line twice mentally. According to the forensic investigator's meaning before and after this, he was probably praising him for being calm and collected, but if he just heard this line alone, it was a little like… he was insulting him for being obtuse.

He looked at the the old forensic investigator, a little put on the spot. "Thank you, but if Mt. Tai collapses in front of me and if I'm not affected at all, it might be because I fainted."

The old forensic investigator laughed while holding his tummy, thinking that if he had to exchange three and a half words with this little young amusing black-bespectacled bean whose speech even had some craftiness — especially when they were said slowly with that unique, slow accent —  he was definitely the optimal choice for the person to beat the gong[4] at the end.

Shen Yexi's ears were good and very tragically heard all of it without missing a word. He turned his head around to glance at Jiang Hu. Even from the long distance, that gaze could still allow one to feel his grievances — this troublemaker was purely making a spectacle of himself, right?

So, he waved his hand to ask Jiang Hu to come over and lightly knocked on the giant gla.s.s tank. "How is it, do you have any thoughts?"

Jiang Hu startled and raised his head. That female corpse was floating in the formalin solution. After a long time, looking at it would really make one put up their guard. Jiang Hu gazed at it for a long time before shaking his head, as if he wanted to shake something out. Shen Yexi then asked him, "What's wrong, disgusted now?"

"No." Jiang Hu furrowed his eyes, thinking painfully before looking at Shen Yexi beside him and still deciding to share his own disgust with everyone. It was only truly disgusting if everyone was disgusted. "I remember the Amber Killer's case three years ago. The media revealed quite a bit of the inner details. I heard that those victims had their stomachs cut open when they were alive, so their expressions were all very terrified."

Shen Yexi nodded. He also felt that the corpses' expressions weren't quite right. He looked over, following Jiang Hu's gaze. The faces of those female corpses were already not quite easy to determine anymore. But if you look at it carefully, you can still see that kind of peacefulness and serenity, as though… they were asleep.

Shen Yexi furrowed his brows. A very big part of the reason behind the sensationalization of the Amber Killer was actually because of his cruelty in cutting open people's stomachs. That person had been collecting such extremely terrified expressions. The explanation that the crime psychologists gave back then was that the terror of the victims could give him a powerful and strong feeling of ego. But this one…

Then he heard Jiang Hu speak in a feeble voice, "Look at their expressions. Like they're sleeping — Actually other than reading Beauty and the Beast yesterday, I also read the Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard. I think that sometimes, fairytales are also pretty wicked…"

How very talented you are in your abilities in induction and inferring the connotations of literature. But actually, you could have chosen not to say it out loud.

The author has something to say:

Done. I'm so tired. From tomorrow on, I'll go back to a daily update~~~~

(*) posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD, is referring to a form of abnormal psychological response to trauma and other severe stresses. It is a type of delayed and continued mental disorder. It's caused by suffering an abnormal threat and disaster-like mental trauma, a mental disorder that showed up delayed and would maintain for a long time. TL;DR: PTSD is a form of loss of your mental state after trauma.

Translator Note:

[1]: The phrase for unmasking their true nature was "露出马脚" which is literally "reveal the cloven hoof". The subsequent phrase for showing a little is "露出个马毛" (lit. showing a small bit of fur") borrows from this metaphor.
[2]: 后浪推前浪 comes from the idiom "长江后浪推前浪" (lit. rear waves of the Yangtze River will drive on the waves before it), written by Liu Fu, a Northern Song Dynasty writer. Signifies that the new is always replacing the old. Jiang Hu's omission of "Yangtze River" in this use is likely due to his lack of proficiency in the language and culture.
[3]: 泰山崩于前而神不动 (lit. Mt. Tai collapses in front and yet you're unmoved) is yet another idiom written by Su Xun, a Northern Song Dynasty writer, to show how calm and collected you are.
[4]: "Beating the gong" is used in plays which signal the start of a fighting scene in the middle of speech, used as a metaphor to mean they are adding oil to fire or provoking a fight between two other parties.