Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 201 Clues from Ten Years Ago
The canal bank in Nanwei City late at night.

Milo sat on a stone bench along the riverside street, a slightly charred roasted chicken leg in his hand, chewing on the chicken while gazing at the faint candlelight on the bridge spanning the canal.

"I'm starting to miss Kang's cooking. This is the worst chicken leg I've ever eaten."

Milo bought the items when he passed by a tavern that was open at night.

Once you get busy, your eating habits become irregular. After getting used to the feeling of hunger, you no longer feel hungry. You only realize that you haven't eaten dinner when you smell the aroma of food.

But in a tavern, the food fed to a bunch of half-drunk drunks doesn't need to be particularly delicious, since they'll be throwing up anyway in the middle of the night. So the chicken leg in Milo's hand was burnt to a crisp.

"Cherish it, because people like us will never taste chicken legs in our lives."

Eric's shadow appeared on the sidewalk, gesturing towards Milo in sign language.

Milo noticed that the guy sighed.

While buying things at the tavern, they saw Charles, the chief of the West City Law Enforcement Office, sitting in a corner completely drunk. Charles was Eric's brother.

He didn't notice Milo passing by.

Milo didn't take the initiative to go up and say hello.

Now the whole of Nanwei City believes the Seven are dead. Charles is one of the few who knows a little bit of the truth. He knows that his brother is missing, or at least his body has not been found yet, and that the funeral was just a joke.

This is also why Charles did not attend the funeral.

As a member of the enforcement team, he knew the decision came from higher-ups, but he could only obey because he couldn't find any leads.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have sought Milo's help in private.

Essentially, he and Theon were the same kind of people; they both knew the funeral was a complete lie, but were powerless to do anything about it.

Milo didn't know what Eric thought about this.

In the tavern, Eric's shadow stood quietly by his brother's table for ten minutes before disappearing.

Rumor has it that the two brothers don't get along at all in real life, and their relationship can even be described as terrible.

But as it turns out, blood ties can often still bind people together, even though their ideologies are diametrically opposed.

……

However, Eric did not seem to show much frustration.

He even took the initiative to discuss the case with Milo:

"I just suddenly remembered something, although I'm not sure if it's directly related to this case..."

“Speak.” Milo tossed the chicken bone into the canal and casually grabbed a clump of weeds from the roadside to wipe the grease off his hands.

Eric seemed to have hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to tell Milo these things:
“A long time ago, when I was still in school, about ten years ago, Charles took on a case. I accidentally saw his notes while I was rummaging through things at home. There was a drawing on it that looked very similar to one of the pieces of evidence in that case.”

Milo immediately pulled a document from his pocket and pointed to the runes Henry had drawn on it: "Is this it?"

Eric shook his head, and his shadow reached out and took out the simple sketch from the middle of the document. It showed the small "altar" made of woven branches that Milo had found at the discovery site.

“Charles’ drawing skills are terrible, and I’m not sure if that’s what he was trying to express in his notes at the time, but they are indeed very similar.”

"Ten years ago?"

Milo squinted at the sketch floating in front of him.

Frankly speaking, once a criminal case involves religious culture, many pieces of evidence will appear that cannot be analyzed using common sense, just like the bronze artifacts in the previous Great Library case.

Revenge killings and crimes of passion are not difficult to solve; the most difficult cases to investigate are often crimes of passion. Religious rituals fall into the latter category because it is impossible to investigate them through the victim's interpersonal relationships. The fact that a victim becomes a victim is inherently highly random.

The reason why no clues have been found on the corpse's antlers and the small altar since the beginning of the hanging corpse case is because of this.

"I understand what you mean."

Milo quickly stuffed the documents back into his trench coat pocket and hurried back to the tavern.

……

...

When I saw Charles again, he was completely limp and lifeless.

It's 4 a.m., and usually, drunkards are in this state around this time: some are vomiting, some are acting crazy, and those who are sleeping are sleeping with a street lamp.

Charles was not wearing a law enforcement uniform today, nor was he carrying a weapon.

When Milo returned to the tavern, he saw a man crouching suspiciously next to Charles, slowly pulling Charles's leather wallet out of his pocket.

The thief was committing the crime while cautiously looking around.

As luck would have it, when he looked towards the tavern entrance, his eyes met those of Milo, who was dressed in black.

……

The scene was very embarrassing.

The thief stared blankly for a few seconds, then silently pushed the wallet, which was already halfway out, back into Charles's pocket.

Then he turned to look at Milo, forcing out a very unpleasant "spare my life" expression.

Milo didn't speak, but took out a pair of handcuffs from behind his waist, shook them, and stared at the other person with a forced smile.

The next second, the thief took off running.

Instead of rushing towards the tavern door, he darted out of the window next to him.

But Milo didn't rush after them. He calmly walked to the bar counter and rang the bell, waking the bartender who was sleeping on it.
"Get me some clean water."

The dazed bartender glanced at Milo and swayed toward the kitchen.

……

Just then, a thief's scream came from outside the tavern:
"Wow! A ghost! A ghost! Help! Ah~"

No one knew what was happening outside. They could only vaguely hear the screams of the thief being beaten, but since everyone in the tavern was in a daze, no one had the strength to climb out and see what was going on.

...

Milo poured Charles a glass of water.

He saw a small blackboard hanging on the wall of the tavern, so he stopped, picked up the chalk, and wrote a suggestion on the blackboard—"Change the chef."

When they carried Charles past the tavern entrance, the thief was already tied to a pillar.

He had a bruised and swollen face, and there were about a dozen wallets and purses on the ground in front of him. It seemed that he was supposed to have a great haul tonight, but he was just unlucky to run into Milo.

Milo glanced at Charles's shadow on the ground beside him and shrugged.

(End of this chapter)