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Chapter 110 - Escaping from Arcanum Train (III)

Editor: Kitty

“Will there really be a corpse stuffed in this luggage?” Owl climbed onto the sofa seat and pulled down a small luggage from the baggage rack high up. The bag was not heavy, but he felt that it was too small to put a person in.

“If the dead person was a woman, and a very thin woman...” It was unknown when Crow had walked to Owl’s side. The duo had long abandoned the idea of ‘keeping their distance.’ Crow patted the luggage that Owl had carried down: “I think this luggage would be able to hold it.”

“How about choosing those luggages that are very large and heavy first?” Owl suggested.

Crow nodded and said, “It’s worth a try.”

There are too many bags. If they only picked the larger ones that looked out of place, it would not be that of a difficult task. The toughest thing now was that almost all of those luggages were stuffed together. The luggage was bulky and huge. One after another, they were piled on top of one other. If one wanted to pull out a single bag, one had to clear the surrounding luggages as well.

Owl was the first one to feel dissatisfied with this:

“It’s not an easy job. If the murderer put the corpse in a bag so that it’s hidden and inconspicuous, he must use other luggage to cover it. But with so much luggage, it would be hard to move them with the strength of a single person.”

“The murderer quietly killed someone, and after that, he had to move many luggages, and he couldn’t wake us, who were probably sleeping at that time.”

“I think I know why.” Crow opened one of the baggages, and both of them saw that the interior—was empty.

“If the luggage is empty, it will be much lighter and easy to move.”

“Interesting.” Owl smiled: “But if the luggage is empty, where are the items originally inside it?”

“It could be everywhere.” Crow looked around: “You see, this carriage is very dirty and messy. There is a lot of garbage, food on the table, and clothes and other things all thrown on the sofa. If there were not a lot of things inside the luggage, it would be easy to disperse and throw the items away.”

And... Crow circled around several sofa seats, lifted the covers of several of them, and saw that there were several sets of clothes stuffed under them.

In order to move and hide the corpse in the luggage more easily, the murderer must have emptied several small luggages around it. In this way, it was easy to spot the luggage where the body was hidden. As long as there was an empty bag, they needed to search somewhere near it.

Crow and Owl both set their eyes on a large black bag.

They looked at each other, and both of them started to move the big bag. The luggage was very large and heavy. With just a mere touch, they felt some unknown liquid seeping from it. Crow lowered his head to look at his hands, which were covered with dark brown, viscous marks.

“Bloodstains.” Owl was already sure of it.

They moved the luggage down and placed it on the ground. They found that the luggage actually matched the clean area on the ground that was not occupied with garbage.

“The luggage was originally on the ground. It may have been empty in the beginning.” Crow guessed. “Because it’s so big, the murderer used it to hold the body.”

“Shall we open it?” Owl started to feel fainthearted.

Crow was also nervous. He took a deep breath: “Let’s open it. We have to find the key.”

There was no lock on the luggage. When one unlocked the luggage, one would be able to open it. When one opened it, there was an indescribable smell of blood and the faint rotting scent of a corpse. Owl stood aside, frowning. Crow also frowned, but he was very bold. He opened the luggage and lowered his head to look at the corpse inside.

The corpse was curled up in a ball. There were no bloodstains on his body. Only the blue marks on his neck proved that the cause of his death was strangulation.

His hair was messy and his head was caved in, but Crow could see the side profile of the corpse clearly.

The victim was a man, a man who looked very thin and weak.

The moment Crow saw this man, he could not help but suck in a breath of cold air. All of a sudden, he felt goosebumps all over his body. Completely frightened, he could not help but take several steps back and even planted his butt on the ground.

He knew the dead man, no—it was more accurate to say he was acquainted with him!

“Heavens! What’s going on?” Crow cried out in shock. He pointed to the luggage that held the corpse with his finger, turned his head, and stared at Owl beside him in horror. “This fellow looks exactly like you!”

Yes, the thin and weak-looking man in the luggage looked almost exactly like Owl. He had a small face and looked like a youth. He quietly laid in the luggage as if he was sleeping, and it appeared that now, he had been put to rest forever.

However, Owl did not seem surprised. He squatted down beside the luggage and stroked the hair of the corpse in the luggage. He seemed to be thinking about something. His eyes reflected a glimmer of darkness.

“What I can be sure of is that I should not have a twin and I don’t have any siblings,” Owl claimed, almost as if he noticed something. His eyes rested on the ears of the dead man in the luggage and saw a black ear stud on the earlobe. Such a discovery made Owl’s expression appear even more gloomy.

“Really... didn’t you kill him?” Crow sat on the ground and leaned backwards. He was now leaning on a sofa seat as his hands tried to search all over it to find a weapon to protect himself.

Crow intuitively felt the danger, but he did not know where the danger came from. He was full of vigilance and fear to the familiar but strange man in front of him. As the feelings of panic within him surged, Crow felt that he developed a terrifying dark thought.

But now was not the time. He must find a way to get away from Owl, away from these people, and find a way to get out.

Owl seemed to be somewhat uneasy. He looked at Crow and said, “Though he looks exactly the same as me, I feel I have no reason to kill anyone.”

“I don’t think so.” With the support of the back of the sofa, Crow stood up. He focused his gaze on Owl: “Your motive could be because he looked exactly the same as you.”

“He just looks the same as me. Why do I have to kill him because of that?” Owl seemed to be a little unnerved. He had been squatting by the side of the luggage. Subconsciously, he grasped the edge of the luggage, and now he inadvertently pressed the corpse’s wrist into the luggage.

The corpse’s wrist was tense, and one of the corpse’s hands was clenched as if he was holding something tightly. It might be a pendant or something similar to it, but only something similar to a broken black chain could be seen.

However, the emotional Crow and Owl did not discover this interesting finding.

Crow had almost dogmatically determined that Owl was the murderer. He thought about it. When one lost their memory and a person who looked exactly the same as them stood in front of them, it would be horrifying, wouldn’t it? The fear of uncertainties and the unknown would become his motive for murder. No matter how screwed up the truth would be, it would not be as screwed up as the situation now!

But soon Owl interrupted Crow’s dogmatic judgement. He lowered his voice and growled at Crow: “I know what you are thinking. I can think of what you can think of! But you have to understand! We’ve lost all our memories. I can’t remember the faces of anyone I know now! Including my face!”

Crow froze. He instantly understood what Owl wanted to express, so he calmly analyzed the situation momentarily and touched his face.

Owl was right. Crow thought thoughtfully because when he just woke up, he could not remember anyone’s face, including his own. After that, he looked in the mirror while searching for the corpse in the toilet. So currently, even if someone looked exactly the same as him, he would not be able to discover that that person looked the same as him.

Similarly, Owl should not have found out that he and the man looked exactly the same from the start and killed him for this reason alone.

But if this was not the case, who killed him?

Crow bit his lips slightly.

It’s impossible that I killed anyone because my memory starts from the moment I woke up, and I have no reason to kill a stranger. Even though we may have known each other before, we may also have had a conflicting or hostile relationship previously, but these feelings would have disappeared without the basis of memories.

Since it was impossible for him to kill someone, Crow naturally doubted the man in front of him. Such feelings of doubt seemed to have sprouted out instinctively, but Crow could not stop feeling suspicious because any human beings, when faced with an obstacle to ensure their survival or faced with danger, would begin to seek any way to allow them to live on.

Only by seeking to survive could one live on.

“Let’s not think about who this fellow is. He’s dead anyway... isn’t he?” Owl slowly began to calm down again. He lowered his head and fumbled through the corpse’s trousers for quite some time. The clothes that the corpse was wearing were exactly the same as those of Crow and Owl; the garb was also greyish-blue, and it looked like a prisoner’s uniform.

Owl quickly took a key from the corpse. It was a key that weighed very little and was black in colour.

Crow took a glimpse at him and suddenly said, “Give me the key.”

With a strange expression, Owl eyed Crow, but without putting up any more of a fight, he honestly threw the key to Crow. He knew that the man did not believe him. In fact, the moment he saw the body, for a moment, Owl even felt that he could not trust himself.

“I don’t want to waste time in this damn train car.” Crow got the key, stood up, and said, “There are 12 full carriages waiting for us before we reach the locomotive cab. In the meantime, as long as you don’t do anything that endangers me, I won’t do anything to you.”

“Does that mean that we are temporarily allies?”

“You can put it that way.” Crow retreated step by step and finally came to the corridor connection of carriages No.13 and No.12. He gave a quick glance at Owl, turned around, and jabbed the key into the keyhole on the door. The key snugly fit. No doubt, this key was the right one.

Owl was still squatting near the luggage that held the corpse. He lowered his head to take a glimpse at the poor man who looked exactly the same as him. He hesitated for a moment, stretched his hands out, and pulled the man’s wrist.

The corpse was curled up as it lay on a side, like a baby curled up in his mother’s womb. When Owl pulled the corpse’s arm, he could naturally see the name card embroidered on the chest of the corpse’s garb, and on it, an English word was engraved—

【Owl】

“This is the worst discovery ever made so far.” Owl subconsciously covered his chest with his palm and uttered to himself in a low, inaudible voice.

T/N: There’s some problems with my storage of c111 and c112, so the bonus chapters will be up tomorrow. So sorry about that.