They chose to sneak into the church at midnight.
The buildings in the night became more and more indifferent and deep, as if they had sunk into another world after losing the sunlight. Leo and Li Biqing stood in the courtyard under the clock tower, trying to use the length of time in the tape and Renee's walking speed to speculate where the door to the secret realm was opened by her unintentionally.
After searching for about half an hour, they finally pointed their suspicion towards a door deep in the corridor with a pattern that was very similar to the mural. The door looks old and does not have a handle, but it is locked, and the keyhole is an old-fashioned light bulb shape. Leo pushed hard, the door lock didn't move, just like an old stubborn stubborn.
"Have you brought a silencer?" Li Biqing asked in a low voice.
The federal agent nodded, "I brought it, but the door panel is very strong. You may have to fire several shots. I'm afraid it will startle other people. And if we can't find anything inside, we'll start to start."
"Then what should I do, find someone with a master key?"
"Don't be so troublesome." Leo said, "Let's find the genuine product-I think it can be found in Father Baisi's room. After all, he is the person in charge of this church. It is hard to hide it from him. What do you think?"
Li Biqing laughed, "You just don't believe that he is a saint, do you."
"There is no pure light in the world, including human hearts." The black-haired agent said solemnly, and then walked in the direction of the priest's dormitory that had already been ascertained.
… He is still blaming himself. The psychological shadow of many years cannot be disintegrated overnight. The Chinese boy sighed silently and followed him silently.
When they touched the room silently, Father Bai Yisi was sleeping on a hard wooden bed. And this bedroom of no more than 50 square meters, except for the necessary furniture such as bed, wardrobe, desk, etc., is unbelievably simple.
Li Biqing didn't know how well the other party slept, and he dared not walk around without permission. Leo prepared himself to take out a plastic bag from his pocket, unpacked, and drew out a white handkerchief, covering the priest's mouth. nose.
About 30 seconds later, he released his hand, carefully put the wet handkerchief back into the bag and sealed it, turned his head and said to Li Biqing, "Isoflurane, the preoperative anesthetic. He will be in a coma for several hours. Now we You can act at will."
The whole room was almost turned upside down, and no key corresponding to the door lock was found. Li Biqing found an account book under the "Bible" in the drawer of the desk, which was the registration of various incomes and expenditures of the church. Every public donation received, church grants, daily expenses of churches and welfare homes, and even children's food expenses, etc., are clearly recorded. He turned to the last page and found two donation projects, which were sent from the church to the Children’s Relief Society and the American Red Cross. One or two months later, there will be one.
"Look at this—" Li Biqing pointed to the column at the end of the ledger and said to Leo, "This item is the priest's own monthly expenses. Last month, it was only 163 dollars, which was crossed out by a black pen. , Changed to 142. Then the donation sent to the Children’s Aid Society that month was also changed, an increase of 21 yuan. If this bill is true, a person from the meager personal expenses that even the slum consumption level can’t keep up with, can still Try to squeeze out a part of it for charity. What do you think this shows?"
The black-haired agent remained unmoved: "It shows that he is either a saint out of a million, or a hypocrite with profound skills."
Li Biqing flipped through the ledger and thought for a while and said: "I don't think this is a disguise. Father Bai Yisi really loves the children. Didn't you see the look in the eyes of the black kid holding the drawing board? It's like that kid. There are a pair of small fluffy wings on the back."
Leo couldn't refute this, but even so, he still felt that the blameless priest was inconsistent. Due to strict work requirements, he has always vouched for what is said, but this time, he chose to follow his intuition, just like Li Biqing did when reasoning about the case. "... I called the headquarters and asked them to check the charitable donations. If they are true, both the Children's Relief Society and the American Red Cross will keep a record." He said, calling the duty number of the Information Services Division.
Ten minutes later, the results of the investigation came, and these donations were all real.
"It seems that we have to temporarily turn our skeptical gaze away from Father Bai Yisi and look for another more suspicious object. There are quite a few clergy in this church, right?" Li Biqing said.
Leo had to default.
They worked hard to restore everything in the room to the original state, hoping that the priest would not notice anything unusual when he woke up. Before leaving, Li Biqing walked to the bed and drew a cross at the unconscious priest comfortingly, "Sorry to disturb you, Father, I wish you a good dream—" He paused, and suddenly he found something and stretched out his hand. , Unlocked the button on the collar of Father Bai Yisi's pajamas, and in Leo frowning unhappily, he pulled out a silver necklace from the inside, with a gray old-fashioned key hanging from the end of the necklace.
"... My God, that key is here!" The Chinese boy said silently.
Leo immediately went to the front and looked at it. "This is the key to that door," he said affirmatively. "Let's go, let's see what's behind the door."
The key tied to the priest's neck allowed them to smoothly open the secret door deep in the corridor. The door turned out to be a narrow, closed staircase extending all the way down, seeming to lead to the underground of the church.
After walking up the reverberating staircase, they were greeted by a very wide hall. The ceiling was made into a circular vault like a sermon hall, covered with religious-related frescoes, heaven, Eden, or something. Neither of them had any deep research on religion. They could only recognize God and saints who had forgotten their names, as well as bare-bottomed little angels flying all over the sky.
In the center of the hall, there are more than a dozen glass pillars. Through the transparent barrier, you can see the statues inside without any hindrance. They are all children under the age of twelve or thirteen. The skin color varies from white to black. Brown, all spread out the white wings of a dove on the back, posing the graceful posture of the angels on the mural.
—These angel statues are so exquisite! It's more lifelike than the ones in Madame Tussauds. The color of every hair and the texture of every inch of skin are so real, it's like a living person frozen in a glass cover by the sudden freezing time.
"...Is Renee frightened by these statues? It really looks like a real person who is still." Li Biqing visited one by one, and said, "These are the works of Father Bai Yisi? He is really comparable. The artist of Chelangelo... Do you see how the wings are glued, do you use swan feathers?"
Leo looked at one of them intently, almost touching his face to the glass. After a while, his face was covered with haze and became more terrifying than the sea surface of the hurricane and tsunami. "These—" His voice was extremely dry and harsh, like a hard drill bit through the glass, "Are these statues?! Me?" I think they are more like—"
He squeezed a creepy word from his teeth: "corpse!"
Li Biqing asked in shock: "What?!"
The black-haired agent staggered back a few steps, "Yes! These are embalmed corpses! Very clever handling! If it weren't for visiting an expert who specializes in corpse preservation technology in a previous case, listen to him. Telling some relevant knowledge, I will treat these corpses as wax figures!"
"God..." the Chinese boy murmured, "This is a corpse exhibition hall, right under the church!" He turned his head to the agent as if asking for help, "Is this normal, Leo? I have heard that there are some gods in Europe. A church or a monastic society once set up a catacomb to store the embalmed corpses. They think this is a kind of homage to the dead, but this custom seems to have been abolished for a long time, right?"
Leo nodded: "It's been cancelled for a century. I didn't expect to see them here. These corpses look intact, as if it hadn't been long since they were made..." A terrifying thought suddenly penetrated into his brain, which made him handsome. His face was almost distorted, and he said with difficulty: "If the bodies of these children were not made into specimens after natural death..."
Li Biqing let out a stern light from his eyes. He looked like he was about to vomit, and then gagged his mouth with his fist, "Oh my god... my god..." He moaned incoherently.
"If that's the case," the federal agent was furious, "that so-called priest is simply a perverted serial murderer!"
The two took a deep breath, as if the underground hall suddenly became oxygen-diluted, and the glass covers seemed to slip in with them.
"... He should, there is a production room or something." Li Biqing looked around and found another door as expected.
The door was not locked, they unscrewed the doorknob and walked in. The space inside is still huge, but it is full of various objects: neatly arranged medicine racks, spacious metal tables, consoles with various test tubes, glass bottles, alcohol lamps... There is also a row of giants with unknown uses on the wall. ceramic pipe.
"Alcohol, salicylic acid, glycerin, zinc salt..." Li Biqing scanned the label on the medicine bottle. "Why are these used? Formalin..." He said suddenly, "He used these drugs to make his own medicine. preservative!"
Federal agents laboriously opened the outer shell of a ceramic tube, and took a breath after seeing the contents! It was the corpse of a child about six or seven years old, with his hands clasped on his chest in a praying posture, his eyebrows seemed to fall asleep. "The smell of alcohol... He used this pipe and alcohol to dry, dehydrate and dry the corpse, and eventually mummify it!"
"But, those kids don't look like corpses..."
"I remember that corpse preservation expert once introduced that glycerin can prevent the corpse from being over-dried, salicylic acid inhibits the growth of fungi, and zinc salt and zinc salt harden the corpse, so those corpses can stand in a vacuum glass cabinet like a statue. …"
"... I sincerely hope that the priest is just a corpse preservation expert who specializes in antiseptic techniques." Li Biqing couldn't bear to take his eyes away from the young corpse. There was a deep and suppressed anger burning in his eyes.
The black-haired agent rebuilt the pipe and said in a deep voice, "We need to obtain evidence and investigate the identities of these children. If they were all adopted by the church orphanage during the past 20 years when Father Bai Yisi was in office, the cause of death should be It’s not difficult to check..."
"What about the priest, do you want to arrest him?"
"No, now we have to leave here first, return the key to the original place, and don't stun the snake. I need enough evidence to prove that the children are still alive before lying on this metal table, otherwise we can only desecrate the corpse. Prosecute him for the crime." Leo said with restraint of anger.
The Chinese boy looked a little unwilling, but he had to agree.
Just as they were about to leave the production room, the door was opened from the outside.
"Gentlemen, it's not a reasonable and legal thing to break into someone's room and steal things without permission, right?" The priest in a black robe stood outside the door, his face showing that he had been rude during the sermon. Displeased look like a disturbing disciple.
"The premise is that the person is not a suspected murderer under investigation by the police!" The federal agent drew a pistol from under his ribs and said coldly, "I wonder why you are here. Have you been alert and didn't inhale isoflurane? "
"Isoflurane?" Father Bai Yisi was a little surprised. "You mean you sneaked into my dorm room and gave me an anesthetic? No wonder I woke up and found that the key to my neck was missing... Very Unfortunately, I didn’t make your wish. I was born with very low sensitivity to anesthetics. If you want me to be in a coma for a while, I’m afraid I’ll have to use several times the normal dose.”
This is another metamorphosis with mental numbness and no guilt! Leo thought angrily. He was caught upright at the crime scene. The whole room was full of victims' bodies. He didn't even move at all, as if it was just a small incident of a private collection being peeped by a stranger. ! "Since you showed up on your own initiative, things are much simpler," the agent motioned to him with the muzzle: "Raise your hands over your head, slowly turn around, and lie on the wall. You have been arrested, Father Bai Si, charged with suspicion. Deliberate murder and desecration of corpses."
The priest widened his gray-blue eyes, his face was full of surprise and incomprehension when the innocent was wronged, as well as the anxiety of self-defense: "Intentional murder? No, no, no, murder is a great sin in the Ten Commandments. The Lord said," Don’t kill’, “Whoever kills does not live in him forever”, we must obey the Lord’s commandments!"
"Then how do you explain the corpses of these children? Are you telling us that these are little angel statues made of plaster?!"
"No, they are not statues, they are sleeping angels." The priest's emotions quickly calmed down, "Their souls temporarily left the mortal bodies and ascended to the heaven where God the Father is. I can only preserve these bodies as completely as possible. Until the day the soul returns."
"... Are you going to fool the court and the jury with this kind of magic stick? Great, I hope you can get a few more religious fans by then!"
"No, I didn't lie." Liar mouths are an abomination to Jehovah; those who act honestly are pleasing to him.'" The priest said sincerely to the angry and disgusted agent. "Listen to me, child, I I know that in your opinion, this is a bit unkind and does not conform to the current law, but I have to do it. This is my mission—from twenty years ago, when I got the'revelation'."
"Revelation?" asked Li Biqing, who had been sitting on the sidelines, "could you elaborate more, Father."
"Of course. Twenty years ago, I was a shallow and ignorant young man who wanted to serve the Lord and listen to the Lord’s will, but I still couldn’t get in. Until that day, I traveled to Sicily, Italy, in Brazil. In the catacombs of the Capuchin monks of Lemo, I saw a sleeping angel..." The priest looked at the small corpse in the glass cabinet, his eyes warm and longing, as if he had stepped into the church of memories, "Her soul It has been out of the mortal world for more than seventy years, but the flesh has always maintained the appearance before death, the hair and eyelashes are curly and shiny, the skin is smooth, and the lips are fresh, like a fresh petal that has just been picked. In a moment of her, a flash of lightning split my foolish head, like a lost lamb suddenly found its way to the circle, at that moment my wisdom was lifted, and the long-awaited voice of the Lord finally came. My brain! The Lord said to me:'Anyone who guards an angel's body is better than one who guards his own flesh and blood. It comes out of goodness and will please God.'
This is a revelation! I can hardly imagine that I would be so lucky to be the recipient, a chosen person! I had an epiphany about the meaning of life: I live in this world to take this responsibility and protect the bodies of these little angels to the best of my ability..."
Looking at the eloquent priest immersed in the spiritual world, Leo and Li Biqing couldn't help but exchange "what's the situation?" eyes.
"So I started to follow the ruins to look for the former guardian, a doctor named'Alfred? Salaphia'. Only he completely mastered the core of the entire technique. Can you imagine that he has been in for nearly a hundred years Under the previous backward technology, such a miracle was created! This must be the wisdom bestowed by the Lord! After spending a whole year, I finally found the notebook in the hands of his relatives, which recorded the perfect antiseptic technology..."
"Alfred? Sarafia?" Li Biqing asked in a low voice, "Who is this doctor who is so admired as a prophet by the priest?"
Leo asked back: "Have you heard of the'Sleeping Beauty in Sicily'?"
"... Ah, is it the two-year-old girl in the Catacombs of Palermo? I have seen pictures on the Internet. It is indeed a miracle in the history of corpse preservation." Li Biqing said suddenly, "But what is even more strange for me is that every year Thousands of tourists came to watch, why only this Father Baisi got the'revelation of God'?"
The black-haired agent thought for a while, and answered him concisely with a TV drama line: "You talk to God, you're religious; God talks to you, you're psychotic." (You talk to God, you are a believer. ; God speaks to you, you are mentally ill.)
Looking at the priest who is still eloquent, the Chinese boy almost laughed, "But it seems that he is a pious and harmless mental patient, doesn't he? I still think that he will not kill people. Those children may be after death. It was treated with embalming."
Leo frowned and retorted disapprovingly: "A small welfare institution, in 20 years, 13 natural or accidental deaths? Is the child mortality rate so high today?"
"That's true, could it be that someone else is the murderer?"
"It does not rule out that the priest himself is a mental illness disguising his personality."
"Well, let's try if we can ask something out of his mouth."
When the two stopped whispering, the priest had bowed his head and put his hands together, standing in front of his little angels and muttering in prayer. His spirit had entered a sacred and ethereal realm far beyond the reach of mortals.
Leo decided to drag him back alone. "How did these children die, priest? In order to join the heavenly choir, did you make them alive as corpses?"
Father Bai Yisi stopped praying, turned his head and glanced at him. There is no anger in this eye, only tolerance and compassion for a foolish world. "It's not right to kill, my child, and your mind is full of murder-related thoughts. It's dangerous." He stretched out his hands to the glass cabinet like praising: "Death always comes in ways you can't imagine, sickness, All kinds of accidents, but you don’t have to resist it. These are the Lord’s arrangements. The main thing is to call back his servants, so they leave the flesh and return to the kingdom of heaven. That’s it."
Li Biqing muttered to Leo: "Additionally, he is a pious, harmless, and naive mental patient. He would never doubt and investigate the cause of the children's death, because he believed that everything was arranged by God. "
The agent sighed helplessly. After thinking for a while, he asked the priest: "Who is taking care of the children's daily life?"
"Nuns, the sisters in the church take care of them in shifts."
"Who's turn today?"
"It's Emma. Oh, you met her today, remember, when we first met."
When he said this, the two suddenly remembered that at the time the priest was discussing his thin whale painting with a black boy, and then he was coaxed away by a plump nun who rushed over. "You want to eat small fish, Matt? Okay, I will make fried small fish tonight." she said.
As if the silk string was gently moved by the fingertips, the young nun glanced at them before leaving, and extracted from the neglected memory-that look is not ordinary curiosity and exploration, it is on them. It stayed for more than two seconds, far more than people's normal glimpses of strangers. Looking back now, after Leo had shown his FBI ID, the emotion that was suppressed in those dark green eyes was clearly a panic with nowhere to hide!
"Where is the nun named Emma now?" Leo asked.
"At this time? It's probably a night patrol to see if the children have bedwetting, nightmares, or physical discomfort." The priest replied.
Leo grabbed Father Boys' wrist and violently pulled it to the side of the stairs. He quickly put a pair of steel handcuffs through the railing and buckled his wrists together. "Sorry, Father, there is no direct evidence that you did not kill these children. Before the suspicion of killing is cleared, please stay here for a while, and the police will come to you."
The priest pulled the chain on his wrist and made a crisp metal tapping sound. He said annoyedly: "You are like this, I can't pray anymore."
"Oh, you can try to lie on the handrail of the stairs," the federal agent said disapprovingly. "Anyway, the form is not important, but the soul is important, right?"
Just like seeing the sun, the priest smiled with joy, "You are right! Only when you worship the Lord with your heart and honesty can the Lord accept it. Prayer is not limited by time or space. Just tell the Father in awe and gratitude. "He tried to let himself hold on to the railing, clasped his hands together, and began to recite the prayer eloquently.
He didn't even ask the two uninvited guests who had left, why are they looking for Sister Emma-these things are not important at all compared to praying, are they