Chapter 28: The Diary Leading To The Truth?
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Tang Luo pulled and broke the chains locking the double metal gates and pushed open the doors.
"Let's go in and take a look."
The other two naturally didn't object. They kept up with Tang Luo's footsteps.
Zhou Zhenguo even examined the corpses and made sure that they were thoroughly dead.
Their guts had been ripped open, the standard modus operandi of Jack the Ripper. But the strange thing was that there wasn't any blood. It was the same as what had happened to Old John the other night.
At this point, they couldn't be bothered to make deductions through the various signs and clues about what kind of abilities Jack the Ripper had anymore.
Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian followed behind Tang Luo.
The only thought in their minds was, 'F*ck this sh*t'.
It wasn't to say that they were fearless. Rather, it was the feeling of helplessness of having no choice but to make a last-ditch attempt and fight.
"Something isn't right."
They weren't bothering to make guesses about Jack the Ripper's abilities anymore, but this didn't mean they had given up on thinking.
The moment they entered the manor's grand hall, Tang Luo and the others immediately sensed something amiss with the situation in front of them.
The hall was empty. There wasn't the scene that came straight out of an abattoir purported in the news reports and rumors here.
No corpses, no blood.
It was very normal for no corpses to be there.
Even if they needed to preserve the crime scene, the corpses had to be transported away no matter what. Marking the silhouettes in the corresponding areas as an indication would do.
However, all the bloodstains had disappeared.
Now, this wasn't normal anymore. Bloodstains were very important clues and evidence. Even if Cotland Yard had a moment of stupidity and wanted to clean off the bloodstains too, they couldn't possibly have cleaned so well.
There was no trace of murders ever having happened in the entire hall—other than the white human outlines that Cotland Yard had marked out.
Instead, it looked more like it had been burglarized. No, rather, it had indeed been burglarized.
A large number of valuable objects had disappeared, only leaving behind traces that they had once been there.
"Even the blood has disappeared," said Chu Chongtian. "What does this mean? Jack the Ripper has started to turn into a god in the city?"
"Let's take a look at the secret chamber," said Tang Luo and headed towards the second floor.
There were fewer 'corpse outlines' on the second and third floors than on the first floor.
The three of them reached the study. The door of the study was closed, but it wasn't locked.
After they opened the door, they could similarly see empty spaces left behind in the study after some of the valuable objects had been removed.
As for things like books, not many found them valuable.
The Cotland Yard detectives hadn't discovered the secret behind the bookshelf either.
According to Cotland Yard's news, Earl Thorndike and the others were still filed as missing persons. They would only be confirmed dead when their corpses were discovered.
"Master, so you killed those people down there?" Chu Chongtian asked in the small and narrow elevator.
He had noticed quite a few bullet shells on the floor.
"Yes." Tang Luo added, "Ill Omens was something I got from Thorndike… I wonder if their corpses are still there."
Soon, they reached the underground chamber. What 'greeted' them was the thick and strong odor of blood.
On the floor were dark bloodstains that had already dried, but all the corpses had vanished, just like the situation outside.
"Does Jack the Ripper eat people too?" asked Chu Chongtian.
After checking the area, the three of them left the empty manor and continued towards the city.
"Perhaps." Zhou Zhenguo thought for a moment. "Do you think Jack the Ripper is becoming stronger?"
"Becoming stronger?"
"From the sneakiness in the beginning to his large-scale massacres now where even the corpses and bloodstains vanished," said Zhou Zhenguo. "I think he's becoming stronger bit by bit through his murders."
"What Benefactor Zhou said makes a lot of sense." Tang Luo nodded in agreement.
Chu Chongtian raised his head 45 degrees and gazed at the sky.
He had constantly been analyzing the upper and lower limits of Jack the Ripper's abilities in an attempt to achieve knowing both themselves and their adversaries.
In the end, everything was overturned by one sentence: "…he's becoming stronger…"
The wind today was a little
"Therefore, the more we drag this out, the more disadvantageous this will be to us. By then, even Master may very well not be his match anymore." Zhou Zhenguo worded it rather tactfully.
In his opinion, Jack the Ripper was already very difficult to deal with at this point. "We'll still have to search for him and find his true form!"
"We only have the dagger as a clue. Speaking of which, is there any name engraved on it?" asked Chu Chongtian.
It wasn't uncommon for names to be engraved on personal belongings.
"I didn't see any." Zhou Zhenguo smiled wryly. "Maybe 'Jack' is engraved on it."
"Wait!"
All of a sudden, Chu Chongtian stopped in his tracks.
Because of Zhou Zhenguo's wry joke, a spark of inspiration seemed to flash past the darkness at the back of his mind. It formed a thin and narrow string of light and cut across the darkness.
'Could it be!?'
"Why is Jack the Ripper known as Jack?" Chu Chongtian asked a question which seemed as if he was asking why one plus one equated to two.
At first glance, it seemed very simple and very foolish. But when one thought about it carefully, this was a huge world-class mystery.
"Because it's a very common name?" speculated Zhou Zhenguo.
Jack the Ripper, Spring-heeled Jack, Jack of Titanic fame.
Jack was an extremely common name.
"That's in the real world in North America." Chu Chongtian added, "In the small city, how many Jacks have we met? Other than that one Jack White? Not a single one. This isn't a common name here.
"This isn't a name people used because it was established by common usage.
"Think about it, Jack the Ripper was written straight on the cover of the documents and files we got. Why did Cotland Yard name the murderer as such?
"There must be a reason why the authorities had defined it as the Jack the Ripper serial killer cases!
"The name Jack is likely a clue that isn't any less important than the dagger.
"I've been wrong so many times! Surely they should let me be right for once according to the probability!"
Chu Chongtian was very agitated.
Was he going to be wrong for life just because he was wrong for a moment?!
He, Chu Chongtian, refused to admit defeat!
"Makes sense." Tang Luo nodded again in Buddha-style agreement.
"Master, let's go to Cotland Yard and get things clear why they had named him Jack the Ripper," said Chu Chongtian.
"Alright."
The trio visited Cotland Yard, which was in a mess.
They finally got what they wanted after suffering quite a few eye-rolls and impatient reproaches.
Jack the Ripper was officially named by Cotland Yard's Inspector General.
The Inspector General had officially named it as such around the time the third murder happened. Orders were then given to launch a full-on investigation.
Was the clue actually pointing at the highest-ranked security official of the city?
Moreover, he was already dead. His corpse had been collected by his family, and even the burial had already been held.
No one knew why the Inspector General had named the murderer Jack.
Perhaps the Deputy Inspector General, who was on close terms with the Inspector General, would know, but he was already dead too.
The remaining Deputy Inspector General was actually on bad terms with the Inspector General.
All of the Inspector General's personal effects had been sent back home. And so, Tang Luo and the others headed to the Inspector General's home.
After presenting their credentials, perhaps because the document was personally signed by the Inspector General, his family allowed them into the study to see if there were any discoveries.
They had originally been prepared to force their way through or to sneak in at night. But they were following the proper routine and searching the area now without excessive twists and turns instead.
Tang Luo forced the safe hidden in a cabinet in the study open.
The Inspector General's family members didn't know the code to the safe, nor had they gotten a locksmith or a blacksmith to force it open for the time being. Thus, it had been preserved in perfect condition all this time.
Inside, they found a revolver, a few bullets, some money, documents, and a diary.
They kept the diary discreetly and informed the family members of the Inspector General that the safe was broken and that there were some things inside.
After leaving, Tang Luo and the others started to look through the diary.
A few minutes later, Chu Chongtian couldn't help but exclaim, "What the f*ck!"
"He's certainly quite the player." Tang Luo gave his appraisal.
The diary recorded the Inspector General's exciting and vivacious nightlife. One could describe it with the phrase: a huge player.
But this was obviously not what they were looking for.
They continued to flip through it quickly. The dates in the diary weren't continuous. Sometimes, he wrote in it twice or thrice a week while sometimes, he only wrote in it once. There were even intervals of ten days to two weeks.
"It's been torn off."
Tang Luo and the others noticed traces of pages that had been torn off from the diary in no time.
"Surely not?" Chu Chongtian groaned.
It felt like the scam of a mission chain of "In order to complete Mission A, I have to look for B, who gave Mission C. In order to complete Mission C, I have to look for D" was going to pop up any moment.
Fortunately, after flipping another few pages, the continuation, which they had thought didn't exist, came back once more!
"Inspector General, what are you going off to do this time?"
"To enter the palace, have my
"Should I not return…"
"Then, so it shall
Whew, fortunately, the Inspector General wasn't someone like that.
Chu Chongtian was overjoyed at once, and he started to read hungrily.
After more than ten blank pages, the newly recorded date was a few days before the first murder.
November 23.
It's that nightmare again.
I wrote it down and then tore it off again.
I know now that it seems I have no way of escaping it anymore.
13 days!
A whole 13 days!
The same dream!
In the dream, I was lying on the cold and hard floor, my vision blurry.
A few shadows of people were moving about. I couldn't get a clear view.
I don't know who they are either.
Severe pain came from my body, but I couldn't move at all.
I endured it bit by bit, until the moment I suddenly woke up from my dreams.
I can still feel the pain on my body slowly fading away as if it had truly existed.
November 24.
The same dream, the same blurry scene, the same severe pain.
And similarly, even struggling seemed like a luxury.
But this time, I vaguely heard a name—Jack.
Is that 'my' name in the dream or one of those blurry shadows?
November 25.
I didn't dream of anything today. It seems like I'm going to be rid of it?
November 26.
A murder occurred last night. The victim's guts were ripped open. The influence of the case is terrible.
The nightmare is gone, but trouble in real life has come instead.
November 30.
Another murder, damn it!
December 5.
Alright, this is the third case. I'm starting to lose sleep.
Perhaps this is a good thing. At least, I won't need to worry about the nightmares.
December 8.
I'm not suffering from insomnia, nor am I having nightmares. This sounds like a good omen…
If not for the fact that I discovered myself standing outside the bedroom in the middle of the night when I woke up!
Fortunately, I've been sleeping separately from Mary since five years ago.
At least, she won't find out about my sleepwalking?
December 10.
I want to lock myself up because I discovered a hint of bloodstain on myself.
I don't know what I did during my sleepwalking. I'm a little scared.
December 24.
Alright, apart from the damned serial killer case, there isn't anything troubling me at the moment.
I need to give the murders a name. Let's call it the Ripper, the case of Jack the Ripper.
-- Gift
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