“Suicide?” Marcus frowned: “This was - too easy, don’t you think?”

  “It is not your pce to judge the findings of the unity collective.” The younger detective said: “We’re here for your information - ”

  “What we mean is - ” Pai Nguyen cut his younger colleague off: “We’re still looking into it, that’s ould like to hear from you. There’s certainly something nht going on. We haven’t ruled out the possibility of foul py. But I’d be lying if I told you there’s any credible lead or evidence supp this theory.”

  “Okay.” Marcus sighed. Such was the on affair of the ey most of the time, unfortunately.

  “We’re also here to learn about what happe the docks.” Pai Nguyen put the picture bato his pocket and asked with a smile: “We issued a query into your official report. But it was - please five me when I say this, not very detailed.”

  “That’s because I didn’t really know much about the gangs that ambushed us at the docks. Still don’t.” Marcus scratched his nose and said: “And the unity collective was already aware of our narcotivestigation involving Mr. Bai Gu.”

  “Yeah, and thank you very much for the detailed intelligence report, we really appreciate that.” Pai Nguyen smiled: “One see why Mr. Bulu Wang trusts you that much, even for someone who has lived for aended period of time in our district. How’s your father, by the way?”

  “He’s gettier now, thanks for the .” Marodded: “But - what else do you wanna know? I already wrote everything I recall in the report. So uhere’s other things I missed.”

  “This is why we came here in person instead of putting down an official query.” Pai ared at Marcus with a curious and inquiring look: “When our team ed up the bodies at the docks, we found the bodies of one very famous, or infamous member of a local gang. It was one of the Jiao brothers, have you heard of them, detective?”

  “I believe I have, but I am not super familiar with them.” Marcus shook his head.

  “They are infamous because they are, get this - ” Pai Nguyen smiled and nodded: “They are martial, they practice a mystic martial art niamed the Serpent Style, it’s ferocious, ing, even to the point of vicious. Not many have survived enters with them. Not to mention, you know, injuring the man to the point of incapacitated.”

  “I don’t know what you meant.” Mararrowed his eyes for a quient, then shrugged: “You knoolice officers we receive regur bat training, so - ”

  “bat training, huh?” Pai Nguyen looked around the room, his smile grew wilder: “I gotta say, detective, of all the uered martial persons, I’d figure someohat could take care of the Jiao brothers would best be someohat’s friendly, or at least not hostile to our district. But all things sidered, I would be lying if I were to say that I am not worried, if such a person is uhe employment of the city. Because, as you and I both know - the humble and down to earth people from our district fought long and hard, with blood and tears to be where we are today. And I ’t allow anyone from the city to jeopardize that. Should I be worried?”

  “... no.” Marcus thought for a while, then answered after a long sigh: “You wouldn’t o worry about that.”

  “Great.” Pai Nguyen nodded: “And you know, the unity collective is always a weling pce. Uhe city, run by the greed driven, ruthless barons and those always smiling but forever hateful teology socialites. We are a pce of love, shared struggle and faith. So, should the city fail you, the unity collective would happily catch those down on their luck, just like we’ve always been.”

  “Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The moment Marcus walked out of the room with the two iigators, he was hit with a strange sour, slightly rotten smell. Though it was a big building with not so bad ventition, the smell was still quite disturbing, especially to Marcus.

  “Who puked?” The younger iigator, Tak Le, asked with a heavy frown.

  “I’m sorry, that was me.” Mick emerged behind them holding a mop and a bucket, obviously embarrassed: “My apologies - I’ll everything up right away.”

  “No matter, we’ll be on our way.” Pai ook a look at Mick, then nodded and smiled with only his mouth but not his eyes: “We’ll be in touch, detective. Thank you for being a friend to our people.”

  “Just doing my job. Thank you gentlemen.” Marcus’ eyes followed Mick as he rao his desk and ed up the floor with a mop and some paper towels. There en folder on his desk, ohat Kevin Loo liked to use.

  “Ha, detective, that phrase meant very different things ing from different people.” Pai Nguyen waved his hand at Tak Le, signaling him to leave the prect: “Have a good night.”

  “Thank you, we’ll be in touch.” Tak Le Marcus before he left with Pai Nguyen.

  “What happehere?” Marcus walked over to Mick. Theiced a picture sitting on the opened folder. It was one of a body - a terribly mangled one, covered in red, brown and bck marks and tar, stuffed inside of a tight space among some pipes and mae parts and under a hood.

  “Kevin, uh, Mr. Loo.” Mick wretched one more time before tinuing with his ing: “I asked him for some more files so that I help you - and he gave me this. He said it was reted to a very strange case, so - ”

  “Let me guess, Carl Benson?” Marcus picked that picture up and exami closely. This was the body of someoh short hair, and a pair of blue-green eyes, one could barely see that it was a male body due to it being almost crushed into a small cube with one of his hands protruding upward with almost all of its fingers broken. “He’s right, this dude’s really into his car.” Marcus shook his head: “And you - you vomited because of this?”

  “... yes.” Mick appeared to be more embarrassed and slightly ashamed, “Sorry…”

  “... it’s okay.” Marcus thought for a short while, then said: “I didn’t ha as well the first time I saw something like this either.”

  “Is this - is it a typical case here?”

  “No, thankfully. This one’s quite the gruesome one, even by South-Eastern District standards.” Marcus put the picture aside and picked up the entire folder to look at the files, which mentioned some details about several bars Carl Bensoo before this happened. And there was an additional his information was not released to the public yet”.

  Cheg on es of files in the folder, Marcus found more pictures of this poor rich kid, and the further ruined luxury sports car. It was ihe engine roht us rear hood. His body was somehow stuffed into a small gap among the engine parts, obviously with many parts of the body pletely broken or crushed.

  Acc to the preliminary forensic report, judging from the ditions of his skin, it was theorized that his body went through horrendous physical trauma a, so much so that all the flesh became thhly cooked and there was almost no bodily fluids leaked out. It was only because of the smell did the examiners of evidence realize that there was a body packed into the engine room. A sign of negligence from the evidence handliment, one could argue, but sadly, acc to Marcus’ experie was not that unon, even for semi high profile cases.

  Also, the identity of the dead young woman was found: Lydia Mu, waitress and drink promoter of a nightclub named Emerald Starlight.

  “Okay. Good to hear.” Mick sighed and tinued with his up.

  “Kevin you tricky dude.” Marcus thought to himself and shook his head and took a peek at Mick, if this information made it out somehow, then he would o re-evaluate how much he could trust this youive-to-be. “Mick, just go home when you’re done. We o go for some field interviews tomorrow.”