31 The Mass Grave Underground

 

I really didn’t expect Ol’ Zhang to be so good at anti-surveillance. If I had not sent someone over to watch over him, he might have disappeared the day after Zhang Mingliang’s death. Then again, how could a normal senior know how to make dog snares that could trap an intelligent man like Gao Rui, I should have known better. However, it was too late for regret now.

“If there’s something suspicious about Ol’ Zhang’s background, why would he call the police? Wouldn’t he be afraid that he’d be exposed?” Guan Zhenglin asked a crucial question. I gave it some thought and answered, “No, if Ol’Z Zhang didn’t call the police, it would have looked even more suspicious. Ol’ Zhang probably spent the whole night weighing the pros and cons. He was the hired guard at the construction site, it would have been impossible for him not to notice something this huge. In that case, what he needed to do was to make himself look as normal as possible…”

“Then what should we do now?” Guan Zhenglin asked.

“We’ll go visit his recycling centre.” I answered.

…

Qing Cheng, Old Rubbish Collection Centre.

When I saw the name of the recycling centre, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “At least you know the nature of the business directly from the name.” The recycling centre was surrounded by a double layer of iron fence. The facility looked quite spacious. The centre was located in the countryside of the city, we stood there for half an hour and saw no other individual other than the team. The centre’s front gate was locked and the lock was covered in a layer of dust, looks like this place had been abandoned for quite some time already. The link of the lock was as thick as one’s finger. Sawing through it would require some time. So I suggested, “This fence doesn’t look that high, we should be able to jump over it.”

Gu Chen took several steps back. With a running start, and a few jumps on the fence, he easily reached the top. Then I helped Guan Zhenglin over the fence and finally with Gu Chen’s help, I also got over the fence. Xiao Liu stayed outside to be our watchman, just in case.

We walked around the centre to take in everything. Most of the space was dominated by wooden pellets and they were stacked about 2 metres tall. They formed some kind of maze. We wandered among the gaps between the wooden beams and soon found ourselves lost.

“Isn’t this supposed to be a recycling centre?” Gu Chen knocked on some wooden beams and they were solid. “No wonder he had no business, it would be so difficult for the customers to navigate this place. This feels more like an escape room than a recycling centre.” I snapped my fingers. Gu Chen had hit the nail on its head. Even a child would know this arrangement would not be good for business. The fact that Ol’ Zhang still did this meant that something other than the ostentatious business was going on here. Since this was a maze, the secret might be hidden at the end of one of the paths.

“Let’s split up.” I told the two. “There has to be some kind of secret here. So look carefully. If you’re lost, just climb onto the wooden pellets, you’ll see better from above.”

When the sun almost set, we finally found something. At the corner of this wooden maze, Guan Zhenglin found a hole that led underground. The hole was covered up by wooden planks. When the planks were removed, a tunnel appeared. We shone our flashlights into it and we saw a steep ladder reaching into the earth.

“This won’t be dangerous, would it?” Taking in the dark maw, Guan Zhenglin said nervously.

“What kind of danger could there be?” Gu Chen slid into the hole, “This is not a game, do you think we’ll run into zombies down there?” Guan Zhenglin and I dropped in after Gu Chen. The tunnel was extremely dark and humid. We only took a few steps when we were hit by a stench that made us stop in our tracks. We had been dealing with this smell for the past few days. It was a smell unique to dead bodies.

“Be careful.” I warned. “There’s no telling what we will find.” We moved slowly forward. The flashlights became our only guide in the darkness. However, suddenly I was blinded by a bright light. The intense brightness lingered for a long time. “Not good, enemy ahead, we need to retreat…” Gu Chen shouted, “Those are flash grenades! We need to go!” At that moment, we heard Guan Zhenglin’s voice say calmly. “Gentleman, I hate to spoil it for you but I saw there was a switch on the wall so I flipped it on. So it was just the lights coming on, there is no enemy…”

Gu Chen and I turned our heads up and the ‘flash grenades’ turned out to be lightbulbs. I had a feeling Guan Zhenglin would lord this over me for a long time so I quickly explained, “We’ve been walking in the dark for too long, the sudden brightness understandably fazed us…” “Yes, and these are incandescent lights, they are such a waste of electricity. A fluorescent bulb will provide less electrical wastage and also a softer lighting…” Gu Chen joined in.

“Gentlemen, I don’t think now is the time to discuss things like that. Would you please take a good look around you!” Guan Zhenglin waved her hand in the general direction before us and we turned our heads towards it. Then, the scene almost caused my eyes to fall out from my head. I had never seen so many dead bodies in my life, they were just lying on the ground. There was not even a mourning shroud to cover them. We took a rough count and there were at least 10 of them. From the level of decomposition, some had recently died, while others had been here for a long time already. All of the bodies were naked. There were victims of varying age and gender.

“I’ll go take a closer look, wait here.” Guan Zhenglin said as she moved to the middle of the mass grave. Gu Chen shook his head. “See, I told you there isn’t any danger here. I don’t know why she was so scared earlier.”

Hearing that, Guan Zhenglin countered, “Well, I was afraid of the dark, after all, I’m just a little girl.”

Gu Chen was immediately silenced.

While Guan Zhenglin looked through the bodies one after another, I also made my own observation. At a cursory glance, these people died from different reasons. Some bodies looked pristine, they probably died from illness or old age; some bodies had sutures on their stomachs; some had a giant hole in their chests; others had crushed heads. We only knew that Ol’ Zhang had the habit of drinking human blood but we had no idea there would be a mass grave under the old man’s recycling centre. It was unknown what Ol’ Zhang planned to do with them. Did Ol’ Zhang source his blood from these people but why would he keep the bodies around after the blood had literally run dry?

As Guan Zhenglin turned over the bodies, she frowned. “These people have various causes of death, some are easily discernible, others might need further autopsy. In terms of their time of death, they are all different as well. This one is just dead for two months and that one over there should be dead for half a year already.”

Guan Zhenglin had noticed the same thing as I did.

The bodies were all naked, there was not one shred of clothes on them, much less accessories. But then, that was the strangest part. Since these bodies were not cremated, they were most likely buried. If that was the case, according to Chinese culture, they should be buried with their important accessories like their wedding ring. Some of these people were quite old so it was impossible that all of them were unmarried. With that in mind, I inspected the ring finger of a few bodies and noticed that on some of them, there was a clear ring indentation but the accessories were nowhere to be seen. They were plucked off. Suddenly a story that I heard when I was small entered my mind. If I was not mistaken, Ol’ Zhang was most likely one of those people.

“Where do you think these bodies come from?” I asked.

Guan Zhenglin took a deeper look at some of the bodies and said, “There are so many bodies here, Ol’ Zhang couldn’t have murdered all of them and managed to escape the law enforcement. I believe he dug them up from grave sites. When I inspected the bodies earlier, I noticed all of them had dirt in their nails, those were probably left there when they were dragged out from the ground…”

“I agree.” I nodded.

“But even if he’s a grave robber, why would he keep the dead bodies under here?” Gu Chen enquired, “Plus Ol’ Zhang left Qing Cheng 2 months ago, so why did he leave these bodies behind?”

Several possibilities entered my mind. “Ol’ Zhang left Qing Cheng when Lin Su was arrested. Maybe that’s not a coincidence. If a live human can be used to transport drugs, why not a dead human?” I turned to Guan Zhenglin, “I need you to open them up to see if they have been used to hide drugs or not.”

“Even if that’s true, why not bury the bodies after they are used?” Gu Chen shook his head. “Why keep them preserved like this? Is there a way to recycle a dead body?”

I scanned the pile of dead people and the answer came to me. These dead people were worth more than Gu Chen could have imagined, in fact, they might be worth more now that they were dead. I looked at Guan Zhenglin and then at Gu Chen. “If I’m not mistaken.” I said, “Ol’ Zhang is also in the match-making business as well. I believe it’s time for us to pay a particular village a visit.”