At the police station:
"Captain Li, here are the missing person reports from the past two months. There are five in total, all young female university students. We investigated all of them - they were law-abiding students without boyfriends who were nice to others and did not have conflicts with anyone. Just very average students with mediocre grades and looks. Each had two or three friends."
"These five students were not from the same schools. One was a freshman, two were sophomores, and two were juniors. Their majors were all different too, no discernible pattern."
Captain Li listened intently and observed, "What about their parents? Did the parents have any enemies?"
"No, all very average farmers or workers, all migrants. Two sets of parents had ordinary quarrels with others, but nothing serious enough to kill someone over. Another guess is human trafficking."
Everyone listened feeling perplexed, without a clue where to start. But they all felt there must be a connection between the five missing girls.
"Captain Li!" Someone suddenly rushed in from outside. "A corpse has been discovered in a lake in West City!"
"Let's head over right away!"
...
When it was time to rest for the evening, Chu Yang had just seen the message Wei Qianduo sent her. The customer was quite generous so despite it being bedtime, Chu Yang still brought out her crystal ball onto her bed.
Soon, Chu Yang's bed lit up. Jin Yang and the others were all used to it by now - they had learned to ignore it and just kept playing on their phones or doing their own thing.
About ten minutes later, Chu Yang's face turned "ugh" and she got up to open the curtains and went into the bathroom to throw up several times.
When she came out her face was pale white.
Jin Yang and the other two roommates looked at each other. "Yang Yang, what's wrong?"
Chu Yang sat down, poured herself a cup of hot water and took a sip before she felt a bit better.
"It's fine, just a scare."
Jin Yang carefully asked, "Is it because of a bad prophecy?"
Chu Yang was silent. It was worse than just bad, it was horrifying! She saw someone wrapped up completely butchering a corpse into pieces and...plating it.
"Ugh!" No, just the thought made her want to hurl again!
Chu Yang opened Weibo, unsure of how to respond to her customer. She had not even finished the prophecy yet, as soon as she saw that scene she immediately closed it!
Unbeknownst to her, in another city earlier that afternoon a corpse had been dredged up from a lake. But parts of that corpse were missing and the body was bloated from being in water so long that the features were unrecognizable. Many of the police officers who saw it threw up!
It was too disgusting!
On the other end, Wei Qianduo saw that Chu Yang was online and started messaging again: "Witch, how is it going?"
"Witch, if not enough money I can add more."
"Witch, whatever the result we can accept it."
Seeing the reply, Wei Qianduo's face turned pale. She screenshotted it and sent it to Qin Hai: "What do you think the witch means?"
It was a long time before Qin Hai replied so Wei Qianduo called him directly. "Hey, Qin Hai. Take a look at what I sent you."
On the other end, Qin Hai sounded like he had been woken up, "Miss, it's the middle of the night!"
But Wei Qianduo did not care. "It's only midnight, why are you sleeping so early? Hurry and take a look at the message!"
"Alright alright."
After reading it, Qin Hai replied: "I heard something this afternoon."
Wei Qianduo: "What is it? What's the relation? I'm asking what the witch meant!"
Qin Hai went on: "The police found a corpse in a lake in West City this afternoon. As for the Lingxi Reservoir the witch mentioned...you know."
Wei Qianduo's face went even paler and her eyes reddened. "Then...what should we do?"
Qin Hai: "Report it to the police! The witch said tomorrow at Lingxi Reservoir right?"
Wei Qianduo: "Okay okay, I'll call the police right away."
"Hello, officer? I'm a classmate of Sun Yue who went missing. I have a clue - Lingxi Reservoir."
The officer registered it and asked: "May I ask where you got this clue from?"
Wei Qianduo stumbled over her words, "Uh...I...I found fortune teller blogs online that said it."
Officer: "Miss, please refrain from interfering with police investigations."
Wei Qianduo: "The blog is really accurate! What they say must be true! Please go check it out."
Officer: "Alright, if there are more clues we will look into it. Thank you for the information. Anything else?"
"No...please send someone to keep watch over Lingxi Reservoir!"
"Got it."
*click*
After hanging up, the officer complained to his colleague: "With those missing person cases lately, someone actually went online looking for fortune tellers and prophets for clues? And mentioned Lingxi Reservoir?"
"Lingxi Reservoir? That remote place? Who would go there?"
"Right. Other than the perpetrator, who would be at such a desolate location."
Captain Li had just returned to the station and overheard. "What are you guys talking about? What's this Lingxi Reservoir?"
The officer who took the call quickly stood at attention when he saw him. "Captain Li, you're back! How's that corpse from the lake today?"
Captain Li: "The coroner is examining it."
"I just took a call..."
After thinking for a bit, Captain Li ordered: "Lingxi Reservoir? Send someone there to stake it out right away!"
Officer: "Huh?"
"What do you mean huh? Hurry up!"
"Yes sir!"
Because of last night's prophecy work, Chu Yang had no energy at all the next morning. While going to breakfast with Jin Yang, Jin Yang asked her: "Yang Yang, do you want century egg congee and lean meat porridge?"
Chu Yang: "Ugh!"
Jin Yang: ...?
Chu Yang waved her hand, "I'll just have rice porridge."
Jin Yang: "Sure sure." He was dying of curiosity about what exactly happened last night, but seeing Chu Yang's pale little face, Jin Yang did not dare ask.
In the morning Chu Yang had a bowl of plain rice porridge and a vegetable bun.
During class, the teacher was lecturing: "In the Shang Dynasty, one type of ritual sacrifice involved human sacrifices. As you can see in the PPT, they would hack off the limbs and then..."
"Ugh!" Chu Yang blurted out and everyone looked over.
Chu Yang: "Sorry, I'm not feeling well today."
Chen Xixi: "Chu Yang, you're not pregnant are you?"
Everyone: !!!
