Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!
Chapter 123 - 108: The 300-Pound Child, The Disappearing Parents

Chapter 123: Chapter 108: The 300-Pound Child, The Disappearing Parents

Brian thought he might have identified the wrong person, so he looked again at the chubby kid, munching on a pile of indistinguishable stuff in a basin, and asked, "Are you Pier, with a dwarf brother, the eight-year-old Pier?"

The chubby kid looked at Brian and swallowed hard, "Yes, it’s me."

His voice did sound like a child’s, albeit rougher.

Looking at Pier who was tall and burly, weighing at least three hundred pounds, Brian really wanted to ask him, "Did you grow up on hormones?!!!"

How could a child’s skeleton support such a frame?

Considering the reason he came today,

Brian didn’t waste time on such trivial matters.

Smiling, he said to Pier, "Uncle is a reporter from the TV station, and here’s the thing, there are some questions I want to ask you. If you answer honestly, you can get a reward, and with that money, you can buy lots of delicious food."

Pier perked up at the mention of delicious food.

He nodded earnestly, "Ask away, Pier is very honest."

"Where are your parents?"

Pier shook his head, "I don’t know, they disappeared many days ago. My brother is still around, he tried to beat Pier, but even though he’s grown taller, he can’t beat Pier. After Pier gave him a beating yesterday, he ran away crying and hasn’t come back."

Brian: ...

He sensed something was amiss.

But to fulfill the clown’s obsession, he continued to ask, "What are you afraid of?"

Pier looked down at the large basin in front of him, then back at Brian, and licked his lips, "Afraid of hunger. Pier gets hungry very fast, Pier is hungry now."

As he spoke, his plump, ring-laden palm reached towards the basin, eager to continue eating.

Suddenly, a pebble flew in and overturned the basin.

A feed-like substance spilled all over the ground, emitting a rancid smell.

Pier blinked, looking somewhat blankly at Brian, seemingly confused as to why he turned over his own basin.

Seeing this, Brian revealed a fierce expression, "No eating!"

"Why?"

Pier asked, puzzled.

"I said no eating, so no eating!" Brian turned into a bully tormenting a child, "Not just now, you’re not allowed to eat ever again!"

"Oh."

Pier looked at Brian, large and heavily built, but seemed quite gentle in character, and nodded, "Then Pier will go to sleep, it’s not so hungry when you’re asleep."

Saying this, he went over to a heap of straw in the room and laid down.

A few seconds later,

he started snoring.

"Ah?"

Brian was dumbfounded.

He had considered many possibilities, like Pier being a mutant and suddenly attacking him, or being scared by him into fulfilling the clown’s obsession,

But he didn’t expect him to be so obedient.

Brian couldn’t help but feel a guilt for bullying the child.

How was he supposed to fulfill the clown’s obsession this way?

...

Watching Pier fall asleep so quickly,

Brian, feeling helpless, started to roam around the house.

The place where Pier ate was a room in a warehouse.

The warehouse contained piles of miscellaneous items and a freezer.

But the freezer was open, without any weird smell, and nothing inside, just some hooks stained with bloodstains and clear plastic bags.

There were no signs of livestock being delivered to the slaughter area.

Judging by the looks of it, it hadn’t been in operation for some time.

Brian noticed a blood-stained depression on the ground near the slaughtering spot, similar in shape to the hammer the clown held.

He had an epiphany.

Perhaps the clown usually held the hammer, helping his parents slaughter the livestock.

Yes, slaughter on a small farm was that crude.

Actually, this was illegal and also affected the quality of the meat.

It was only in remote small workshops like this that such a method of killing livestock was still used.

A regular slaughterhouse, similar in setup, would have an additional high-pressure device to instantly electrocute the animals, followed by mechanical dismemberment, and also required not inexpensive equipment for processing offal and other waste.

The waste that they didn’t consume would be processed into cans, sold to countries around the world that eat offal, part of it would go to pet food processing plants, and some would be sent for oil production or made into high-protein powder for industrial use...

As for where exactly it was sold, whether for human consumption or used as industrial material, that was hard to say.

Additionally, the bones left from the livestock also required extra processing.

They used to be sold to feed factories.

After the outbreak of mad cow disease, this was no longer allowed.

...

Walking along,

Brian arrived at the residence here.

As he got close,

he smelled a sour stench.

He pushed the door open.

Before him lay the disordered furniture, showing signs of a struggle.

In the open kitchen, there were piles of feed bags, and in the large pot, he could see an unserved yellow thick soup.

This soup was the same kind that had been in Pier’s basin.

Brian couldn’t help but exclaim, "Good heavens."

They actually ate feed.

This made him feel some pity for the child who was only eight years old.

Through the chaotic living room and kitchen,

Brian entered the bedroom.

He went straight into the master bedroom.

Upon entering, he smelled a faint scent of blood and decay.

This put Brian on high alert.

He activated his enhanced sense of smell to gather and filter the dispersed scents through his nostrils, then he pinpointed their locations. Finally, following the smell of decay, he arrived in front of a patch of dark-colored flooring.

All around were splatters of blood residue.

The bloodstains had turned black, indicating they’d been there for quite some time.

Besides that,

Brian saw on the floor two pieces of clothing entirely soaked in black with blood. Judging by their style, they were men’s and women’s pajamas, piled together.

This led him to a certain conjecture.

According to Pier,

his parents had been missing for many days, leaving only his older brother, the clown, behind.

It looked like they had met with foul play.

Brian suspected that it was the clown who, after awakening, had bludgeoned his own parents to death and disposed of their bodies.

With this hypothesis in mind, Brian continued to investigate the traces.

He squatted down and observed carefully, noticing in the cracks of the flooring some remnants of decaying flesh.

No wonder the stench of decay lingered.

There were signs of attempted cleaning around the area, appearing as if someone had used a brush made of three or four fingers to scrub the spot.

These brush marks were evident on both the walls and the floor.

"Something’s not right, the earlier conjecture seems off!"

Brian overturned his initial hypothesis.

Something about this scene seemed terribly amiss.

He rubbed his chin, "I can’t help but feel like someone ate Pier’s parents right here, and not just ate them, but licked the place clean afterward..."

The image of Pier slowly emerged in Brian’s mind.

At the thought,

even Brian, accustomed to killing, felt a chill run down his spine.

The stark contrast between his speculation and Pier’s earlier demeanor was too great.

If his speculation was correct...

Just then,

his cellphone rang, startling the already jumpy Brian enough to draw his gun.

He rolled his eyes, "Damn, when did I become such a scaredy-cat!"

Brian put away his gun, realizing it was Orba calling, the one who had led the team to collect the bodies yesterday.

He answered, "Orba?"

"It’s me, Brian, any news?"

Orba’s voice carried a hint of anticipation,

"If there’s a problem, I’ll just bring the guys over for a harvest.

The one from yesterday turned out to be a mid-concentration Mutant, shame it’s dead. Otherwise, you could have landed at least a $300,000 reward; now it’s just $200,000, half off.

If there’s more, we’d better catch them alive; they’re worth more!"

Brian spoke with some uncertainty, "There’s something, but I’m not sure..."

Suddenly,

he sniffed and said, dumbfounded, "Alright, it’s confirmed, that eight-year-old kid is also a Mutant. I’ve only got a small handgun; not sure if it’ll be enough."

At that moment, a massive figure blocked the entrance to the house.

Pier’s crimson eyes seemed to penetrate the wooden walls, fixed intently on the direction of the master bedroom where Brian was. Drool poured from his mouth: "Meat, hehe, meat, I want to eat meat..."