# 219
**Chapter 219: Surveillance Footage**
"Cutting off fingers, huh..." Lin Qiye murmured thoughtfully.
Many mysteries had twisted habits. For instance, the previous Ghost-Face Man would always gnaw a victim’s face beyond recognition before consuming the rest of the body.
A creature that enjoyed slicing off human fingers... he had never heard of such a thing.
"What about the blood at the scene?" Lin Qiye asked after a moment, looking up.
"There wasn’t much. Almost all of it came from the severed fingers. It ran down the wall and pooled on the floor—those photos captured it."
Xiao Hei bent down, picked up two snapshots from beside the evidence tag, and handed them over.
Lin Qiye studied them carefully, brow creasing. "Strange..."
"What is?"
"Don’t you think there’s too little blood?" He pointed at the images: only small stains on the wall and beneath the corpse.
"Fingers don’t contain many major vessels. Even when severed, they won’t spray like an artery. A small amount is normal," Xiao Hei replied.
Lin Qiye narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
"Anyway, let’s check the camcorder—it may be our only lead to whatever did this." Wen Qimo led Lin Qiye into the bar. Xiao Hei pulled the recorder from an evidence bag and gave it to them.
They pressed play.
First appeared a greasy, balding man fiddling with the device, cheeks flushed—clearly drunk.
"That’s the owner. Two nights ago they were throwing a big party," Xiao Hei explained.
The owner finally figured the camera out and began filming the revelry. The turnout was impressive: plenty of young, pretty girls among the crowd.
"The next few hours are just party footage—skip ahead," Xiao Hei said, fast-forwarding.
The celebration ended, leaving the bar trashed. The owner, crimson-faced and unsteady, sloppily set the camcorder on the counter—forgetting to turn it off—mumbled a few words to the waiter Sun Xiao, and staggered out.
For the next half-hour Sun Xiao cleaned up.
Suddenly the picture distorted—flickering as if jammed—then went black.
Lin Qiye glanced up; Xiao Hei shook his head: keep watching.
After ten seconds of darkness the image returned, the angle slightly skewed—as if the entire bar counter had been bumped.
Through the back door the lens now caught the open-air rear yard: unlit, murky. Against the bright bar interior, the yard was barely visible.
Yet enough remained clear.
Sun Xiao, in his waiter uniform, was pinned to the rear wall by an invisible force, hoisted slowly upward as though throttled. Limbs thrashed wildly.
Then nails on the ground sprang up, slamming one by one through his body, crucifying him to the bricks. Mouth gaping in a silent howl.
Distance and poor light obscured details, yet they could still see his fingers shortening—bit by bit—until nothing remained.
A final nail flew, piercing his heart.
Sun Xiao shuddered, head drooping—motionless.
Minutes later the screen went black; the battery had died.
Lin Qiye walked to where the camera had sat and stared toward the yard, thinking.
"Something’s off..."
Wen Qimo and Xiao Hei exchanged glances. "What?"
"In the video the fingers don’t get chopped at once—they disappear gradually. But the autopsy says they were cleanly severed by a sharp blade."
Wen Qimo pondered. "The shot’s too far; we’re missing detail. Maybe it used a knife, slicing bit by bit like cutting a carrot down to the base?"
"Then where are the fingers?" Lin Qiye’s eyes narrowed. "What happened to them?"
"Maybe eaten?"
"Like nibbling a steak, one slice per bite?" Lin Qiye shook his head. "If so, this mystery has quite the refined palate."
He asked, "What time did the party end?"
"Two-thirty a.m."
"Timeline fits..." He thought for a moment. "No nearby surveillance?"
"Only one camera, at the east street corner. It catches the bar’s exterior from a distance, nothing inside. We pulled it—no suspicious persons approached during the incident."
"The victim screamed on tape. Did neighbors hear? Can we fix the exact time that way?"
Xiao Hei shook his head. "This is a commercial district; every shop was closed. No one was around."
Lin Qiye lapsed into silence.
For some reason the whole case felt... wrong. He couldn’t yet say how.
He needed more data, more thought.
"At least we now know a mystery is prowling here. From the footage we can infer a few traits," Wen Qimo said. "Capable of invisibility or telekinesis, fond of severing fingers, and able to mildly disrupt electronics."
He sighed. "That profile’s too broad—who knows how long it’ll take to narrow down the list."
Suddenly Lin Qiye spoke again. "Weren’t there three earlier identical cases? Where are those files?"
"Those lacked overt supernatural elements, so local police handled them as ordinary serial murders. We have the dossiers; I’ll fetch them," Wen Qimo replied.
Lin Qiye added, "If possible, I’d like to examine the bodies myself."