Chapter 17: A Strange Method of Suicide

Seven days later, five consecutive cases of store-review livestreamers being killed occurred in Lan City. Three of these have already been ruled as suicides, but the methods were bizarre and terrifying.

Across the country, there was also a wave of suicides among store-review streamers.

In the meeting room of WorldSafe Pest Control Company, the executives called another meeting.

Lu Mou wore a wrinkled Tang suit, as if he hadn’t changed clothes for days. His face was weary, eye sockets sunken, exuding an air of lifelessness. Slowly, he pressed the button on the projector and muttered, “This is the fifth case in our city. In just seven days, six people have died, and all of them were streamers.”

“Fortunately, our account hasn’t been unbanned yet. Maybe it’s a sign for us to quit the industry,” Qin Qisan said with a wry smile.

“Although you haven’t been filming lately and naturally haven’t been in danger, today’s case is closely related to us,” Lu Mou said solemnly.

Ling Chi looked around and saw that everyone from the company was present. Scratching his head in puzzlement, he asked, “That’s odd. Everyone’s here. Who could it be related to? Aren’t we all loners? Unless it’s a distant relative?”

“Yeah, we don’t usually have outside collaborations. Who else could be closely connected to us?” Su Mido echoed with confusion.

Everyone glanced at each other, speculating whether it might be a close friend, or perhaps someone had broken company rules and found a romantic interest.

At that moment, Lin Yu spoke in a low voice: “It’s the Svil family, isn’t it?”

Lu Mou gently flicked the ash from his pipe, then placed it on a round, gelatinous device on the table. The device extended a tentacle, wriggled a few times, and swapped out the pipe for a fresh batch of tobacco.

Lu Mou relit it and nodded, “That’s right. The victims this time are indeed the Svil family.

It’s an odd story. I believe you all know the little girl, Dani, from the Svil family. She thought our store-review videos were interesting and decided to try making one herself, with her parents as the hosts. After all, they have a distinctive accent, and their Western faces make for a unique combination. Dani thought having them do a store-review would draw a lot of attention and could go viral.

But unexpectedly, shortly after their video was uploaded to UltraLive, the whole family suffered a tragedy.

The main characters in the video—her father Julian and mother Angelica—were both killed, and her brother Hulk lost control and injured several security guards at the villa.”

As he spoke, Lu Mou pressed the projector button, and a chilling image appeared on the screen:

A red-haired Caucasian woman lay face-up in a bathtub, her face covered by a black, seaweed-like mass, resembling bloodstains. If she were a local, one might mistake it for her hair.

Beside the tub sat an armchair, to which her legs were bound, but four-fifths of her body hung over the bathtub, which was filled to the brim with water.

Clearly, the woman had to maintain a painfully strained posture to keep herself balanced and avoid drowning in the bath.

Even if she lost her grip and slipped into the water, she could still resurface to breathe for a while. But stamina runs out. Judging from the image, after a long struggle, the woman finally gave up and sank beneath the water.

Lu Mou took a drag from his pipe and explained, “This woman was Angelica, Dani’s mother, the most intelligent member of the Svil family. Yet even such a shrewd woman fell victim.”

“Did she drown? That’s impossible!” Wu Miaoran exclaimed in shock. She’d interacted with Angelica before and knew that swimming was her favorite sport. Angelica also had unusual stamina; such a scenario couldn’t possibly kill her.

Lu Mou didn’t answer, but instead shifted to the next slide.

This photograph was taken in the same location, but zoomed in on the face.

The victim’s head had been pulled out of the water, but none of her facial features were visible.

Instead, her head was covered with plump, black tumors, like droplets of congealed oil beneath a kitchen hood, still squirming.

“What on earth is that? Are those nuclear bugs? So disgusting…” Su Mido’s face twisted in horror as she swallowed hard.

“It looks like those things grew right out of her head. It’s terrifying, like Faceless Void from Dota…” Qin Qisan shuddered.

Lin Yu studied the screen carefully, as if noticing something. “Wait… Lu, zoom in!”

Lu Mou complied, enlarging the image. The black tumors gradually came into focus.

When they finally saw what they were, everyone gasped.

The black tumors on Angelica’s face were all leeches bloated with fresh blood!

These leeches had swollen to the size of inflated tires, on the verge of bursting from another drop of blood.

They clustered thickly on her face—some attached to her skin, some wriggling into her nostrils and ear canals, others squeezing into her eye sockets and pushing out her eyeballs in a grotesque spectacle.

“Good heavens, those leeches are enormous! This must be the work of nuclear bugs, right?” Su Mido exclaimed in alarm.

Lin Yu shook her head. “These are Tyrannosaurus leeches. They’re much larger than normal leeches and have sharp teeth on their jaws. They’re extremely bloodthirsty and, unlike typical leeches, prefer to bite through the orifices of humans and animals, invading the facial and reproductive cavities.

They’re an ancient species, living fossils, and experts think they once parasitized the bodies of dinosaurs—hence the name.

If the killer chose such a cruel method to murder Angelica, it was surely to inflict maximum suffering.”

“With such brutality, the hatred must be as deep as the ocean…” Kyle muttered in awkward Chinese.

“No,” Lu Mou interrupted, “I went to the scene myself. It was staged. Angelica committed suicide.”

“Suicide? That’s absurd! If someone wanted to end their life, wouldn’t they choose a quicker, less painful way? Why would anyone torture themselves like that?” Ling Chi said in disbelief.

“Like the other bizarre streamer deaths, they all inflicted extreme cruelty on themselves before dying, as if under some kind of psychological suggestion or hypnosis,” Lu Mou replied.

“By the way, I saw something online recently—‘The Store-Review Taboos’—a list of weird rules patterned after the ‘Zoo Code of Conduct.’ It’s gone viral several times. Supposedly, violating these rules brings terrible punishment. Could the Svil family have triggered one of these taboos?” Wu Miaoran asked.

“Those so-called taboos are just internet jokes,” Lu Mou said, “but judging from the analysis of recent streamer deaths, our industry is seeing some unexplainable coincidences. Perhaps violating certain taboos during store-reviews really does invite punishment.”

“Heh, this is getting interesting. So, boss, should we get involved in the investigation?” Ling Chi asked, suddenly excited.

Lu Mou glanced at Lin Yu and said, “Since this involves the Svil family, I plan to assign someone to stay at their villa for a while. Given the special circumstances with that wild girl, we don’t have an ideal candidate yet. Vice President Lin, if you have time, could you personally take on this mission?”

Lin Yu was deep in thought and didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to Duan Xiaoyu next to her. “Xiaoyu, is there any result from what I asked you to look into?”

“There is. On November 4th, many people experienced brief dizziness. Using big data, we found that these people all witnessed a bizarre livestream that day, where the host viciously cursed the store-review industry and set down three taboos.

But as for the content of those taboos, everyone is tight-lipped. We haven’t been able to track down their identities, and it’s quite likely someone made it up. I’ve compiled all the information into a zip file and sent it to your email,” Duan Xiaoyu replied.

Lin Yu opened her phone, skimmed through the material, then turned to Lu Mou. “Lu, I’ve just received some important leads that might be the key to cracking this case.

I intend to investigate alone. As for assigning someone to the Svil family, I suggest recruiting a new member for this mission—it might reduce their wariness. Kyle still has several suitable candidates to fill the gap in the store-review team.”

Lu Mou raised his eyebrows, pondered a moment, then asked Kyle, “Kyle, do you have someone suitable?”

Kyle nodded, stammering, “I have plenty of talented people, all with nuclear bug connections, but the best candidate is a young man—unfortunately, he doesn’t have long to live and may die soon…”

Lu Mou’s eyes lit up. “Good, then let’s go with him!”