Chapter 9 The Smell of Lemon in the Corpse Pit

Although Nangang is just a small city, supernatural events have never been viewed with tinted glasses. They rarely occur in first-tier cities, but mostly occur in more remote areas.

This kind of ringing alarm was the first time Chu Yu had encountered it since he started working.

This means that an incident occurred in Nangang that had a wide-ranging impact and caused social panic.

Except for the three armed personnel who stayed behind, everyone must rush to the scene of the incident immediately, including logistics and data analysts.

In the garage modification department, everyone was busy, carrying all the equipment and instruments, and getting into the broken Santana and the noisy vans.

After getting in the car, Chu Yu saw the mission briefing.

The incident occurred in an old shopping mall in a busy area of the city. The ground collapsed with a diameter of more than twelve meters and an unknown depth, causing panic among the surrounding residents. It was temporarily announced to the outside world that the air-raid shelter collapsed.

It is defined as a supernatural event mainly because of two reasons.

First, there were no underground facilities built near the old shopping center, including subway tunnel construction and air-raid shelters, so it was impossible for a collapse to occur for no reason.

Second, the collapse was definitely not man-made, because the large pit with a diameter of twelve meters is very round, just like it was drawn with a huge compass. There is no explosive material left at the scene, which rules out the possibility of directional blasting.

After all, it is a special department. Except for the armed personnel, Chu Yu and other civilian staff in the car all changed into work clothes of other departments.

Chu Yu was assigned a set of road administration work clothes. When he arrived at the scene, he found that the old shopping center was blocked by a crowd of people with bad intentions.

After getting off the car, Chu Yu sighed silently.

People are like this, they go wherever there is fun, without knowing whether to live or die.

Such a large number of spectators undoubtedly created many obstacles for our investigation.

Seeing that the patrol officers who were responsible for maintaining public order were somewhat overwhelmed, several jeeps from the camp drove to the outskirts.

Bai Yue jumped out of the car, holding a camouflage combat bag in his left hand and a big lama in his right hand, and jumped directly onto the hood.

"Get out of here, there's a gas leak, it's going to explode to death, you bastards who are just watching the fun!"

As soon as the loud speaker shouted, the onlookers scattered like birds and beasts.

Natural gas leaks are much scarier than Godzilla because they are not covered by insurance.

Chu Yu and a group of young people were all civilian staff and were left on the periphery for guard duty. Bai Yue, on the other hand, took Meng Yong and a group of lackeys to the vicinity of the collapsed tunnel.

Chu Yu was a very curious person. He stood behind the cordon and looked back from time to time.

Bai Yue, who was the on-site commander, perhaps noticed Chu Yu's gaze. He didn't know what he was thinking about, but he hooked his finger at Chu Yu who was dozens of meters away.

Cursing his mother inwardly, Chu Yu ran over reluctantly.

He was not afraid of Bai Yue, but mainly because he didn't want to deal with Bai Yue.

Because this woman is unreasonable and her beatings hurt especially badly.

The most important thing is that we can’t beat them.

Others beat their chests with their fists, but she broke her ribs with her fists.

When he arrived at the side of the tunnel, Chu Yu couldn't help but stretch his head and look down.

Before he could see clearly what was in the tunnel, he was suddenly pushed by someone.

Just as Chu Yu was about to fall, the slender arm that pushed him pulled him back again.

"Hahaha, you idiot, scare me to death!" Bai Yue, who was holding Chu Yu's collar, was laughing so hard that her body was shaking.

The others were speechless and pretended not to have seen anything.

Chu Yu was too lazy to curse. He felt that Bai Yue seemed to have some mental problems. How did this woman become the deputy eunuch? This was too fucking stupid.

"You are a data analyst, right?" Bai Yue snapped her fingers and said, "Search the intranet to see if similar incidents have occurred before."

Chu Yu rolled his eyes, opened his notebook and began to search for information.

As for Bai Yue, he asked Meng Yong to operate the drone to conduct underground surveys.

After searching for a long time, Chu Yu did not find any relevant information, but suddenly he smelled a faint scent of lemon.

At this moment, the drone transmitted back images from underground. Because it was too dark underground, the images were very blurry.

Everyone gathered around the screen and looked at it, but for a moment they couldn't make out what was going on.

The picture was rather blurry, and one could only see a pile of silkworm-like things piled together at the bottom of the pit, with many strips of cloth scattered around.

Meng Yong glanced at the data on the screen and said, "The depth is nineteen meters. The underground space is large, the air is humid, and there are no toxic substances."

Bai Yue pointed at the hill-like thing on the screen and asked, "What is that?"

Everyone remained silent. The visibility was too low to tell what the ghost was.

Chu Yu, on the other hand, sniffed hard and looked thoughtful.

Everyone returned to the tunnel again. Bai Yue took out a flare and was about to throw it down, but Chu Yu quickly stopped her.

"Wait!" Chu Yu frowned, "There might be a mummy down there, we can't see open flames!"

"Mummy?"

"There are a lot of cloth strips in the underground space. As for those silkworm-like things, although they are not clear, they are very likely mummies." Chu Yu pointed to the bottom of the tunnel and continued with a somewhat uncertain tone, "The most important thing is that I smelled a faint scent of lemon, so I suspect that the hill-like things are mummified corpses piled together."

After Chu Yu finished speaking, Bai Yue and Meng Yong also sniffed hard.

"It seems so. It does have a light lemon flavor."

Chu Yu explained, "Thousands of years ago, people in ancient times believed that people could be resurrected after death, so they developed mummies to ensure that the body would not decay and be preserved intact."

"There are dozens of ways to make mummies, but they are all similar. Generally, the body is cleaned first, and then an iron hook is inserted into the brain through the nose of the deceased. After the brain is crushed, the brain and other fluids in the brain are drained out of the brain, and finally some medicines and spices are stuffed into the skull."

"The next thing to deal with is the internal organs. Except for the heart, the lungs, stomach, intestines, and liver are all taken out. Then they are cleaned and soaked in alkali. After they are completely dried, they are placed in four separate bottles and jars for storage and filled with spices. The remaining two steps are to dehydrate the body and make up. Finally, it is wrapped with specially treated cloth strips. No matter which step, a large amount of spices are used. These spices include palm wine, alkali bags, resin, salt, frankincense oil, etc.

After a pause, Chu Yu said with more certainty, "When these spices are mixed together, the initial smell is a faint lemon scent, which means that the corpse has not yet been... marinated."

After Chu Yu finished speaking, Bai Yue looked at him suspiciously, "Aren't you a data analyst? How do you know so much?"

Chu Yu said helplessly, "I used to study religion and mysticism overseas."

"Wow, it sounds like he's quite impressive." Bai Yue said with a smile, "Then why did you go back to China?"

"I came back to do some work, and you tied me up right after I got off the plane."

"Why are you talking so much nonsense?" Bai Yue pointed at the tunnel with a slightly embarrassed look, "Send one person down, and if it's a corpse, bring two up."

Chu Yu pretended not to hear and took two steps back.

Meng Yong, a more down-to-earth person, took his oxygen tank and equipment and began to descend along the safety rope.

A moment later, Meng Yong, covered in dust, climbed up with a corpse wrapped in cloth strips tied behind him.

"Damn, Xiao Chu is right." After putting the bodies on the ground, Meng Yong took two breaths of fresh air and continued, "There are 32 bodies in total. Preliminary speculation shows that they are all adult males. Some of the cloth strips have fallen off. Judging from the hair and facial features, they should be Dong'ou people."

Everyone squatted down and surrounded the mummy.

Chu Yu did the same, covering his mouth and frowning.

Bai Yue observed for a moment, then put on gloves and pulled out a sharp knife from his waist.

With a flash of cold light, the sharp knife cut through the cloth wrapped around the head.

After pulling it twice with his slender fingers, the cloth strips fell apart, and everyone could see the face of the corpse clearly.

The face was relatively well preserved with no signs of decay. He looked like a Dong'ou person, but his hair had been shaved off and there was a long scar from his forehead to the back of his neck, which clearly showed that he had undergone a craniotomy that was not "rigorous" before his death.

"Huh?" Bai Yue raised his long eyebrows slightly, then raised his knife again, and all the strips of cloth on the corpse were cut open.

Just as Chu Yu expected, it was indeed a "mummy". There were long sutured wounds on the chest and abdomen of the corpse, and the space between the chest and abdomen was bulging, obviously with a lot of fillings.

Bai Yue picked up the silk thread between the chest and abdomen of the corpse with her fingernails, and then she gently patted and pressed down on the surface of the corpse with her hands.

After a moment, Bai Yue stopped, wiped her hands with a wet towel and said, "Yes, it's the way mummies are made. The heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, and liver have all been taken away."

After finishing speaking, Bai Yue looked at one of his subordinates and said, "Start investigating. We can't rule out a Class A incident. We should investigate in the direction of religious worship, especially those in this city who are more familiar with this kind of culture. We should focus on investigating them and also check the files of missing foreigners."

"No!" Chu Yu behind him looked at the corpse, narrowed his eyes slightly, and couldn't help but shout out.