Chapter 539: Dead Japanese[1]

In the middle of the night, Old Wang and another featured extra went to the toilet together. The toilet in the dormitory had been built outside. It was troublesome to use the toilet.

The two of them were still drunk and talked about how they had given the Japanese a piece of their mind while having their meal that day as they walked. They couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

Old Wang said, "No, I can't hold it in anymore. I’ll just relieve myself here!”

It was the middle of the night and nobody was around anyway. The two ran to a tree and took out their “tools” to apply “fertilizer”. Old Wang had the pee shivers.[2] He felt a bit chilly and sobered up a little. He suddenly thought he saw something in the thicket and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

"Baoqiang, look at what that is!" Old Wang raised his pants and called out to his companion.

The two made their way through the thicket and saw two Japanese officers tied up with ropes, kneeling down. Old Wang froze while Baoqiang laughed. "They look like the real deal!"

"Haha, they do look like the real thing."

They thought that they were stand-in dummies prepared by the crew. It was already early in the morning by then. It just happened to be 918, so it really suited the occasion.

"Let’s quickly pack them up and send them back to the props department." Old Wang proposed.

He stepped forward to touch one of the dummies, and a "Japanese officer" fell straight down. A pool of blood trickled down from the collar. Old Wang screamed as if he was being electrocuted. "Isn't that so and so? Hurry up and call the police. Hurry up and call the police!"

The next day, the place where the bodies had been found was cordoned off by the police. Peng Sijue led his subordinates there to investigate and obtain evidence. Lin Qiupu questioned the two who had called the police. Old Wang said, "The two who died are featured extras from Japan. One is named ‘Tamura’. Written out in Chinese characters, it’s ‘Tamura Shinji’. The other one is called ‘Fujiwara’. His full name is ‘Fujiwara Akinori’."

Lin Qiupu furrowed his brows as soon as he heard that they were foreigners. This case was bound to be a bit troublesome.

"How did you find them?"

"Last night at around 12:00, Baoqiang and I came out to use the toilet, because we had been drinking and urgently needed to relieve ourselves. We decided to relieve ourselves next to a tree when we saw the two of them kneeling on the ground.”

"Did you notice anything abnormal in the surroundings at the time?"

"Abnormal…"

"For example, were there suspicious people going in or out?"

The two shook their heads repeatedly. Lin Qiupu wrote down their names and contact information. One was named Wang Ying and the other was named Lu Baoqiang.

Back at the scene, Chen Shi squatted on the ground in order to examine the bodies. Lin Qiupu asked, "Why are you here?"

"Dongxue said that this case is a bit interesting, so I came over to have a look. I happen to be quite free today.”

"It's good that you came. The two who died are Japanese. If the case can't be solved, it will be very troublesome."

"I was wondering why they didn’t look Chinese."

The body lying on the ground was dressed in a cheap costume. He had been dressed up like a Japanese officer. His face was as white as paper. The one named Tamura had his throat slashed. The one named Fujiwara had been stabbed three times in the back. The wounds were under the clothes, indicating that the clothes had been put on later.

According to preliminary evaluation, the time of death was around 9:00 last night. One of the more troublesome things was that the place was a small town and there were no security cameras around at all.

Chen Shi observed the surrounding meadow. "There are traces of dragging. It seems that this wasn’t the original murder scene."

"Do you know what day it is today?" Lin Qiupu asked.

"September 18th, I heard the broadcasting of air defense warnings in the morning."

"Then do you think this case is..."

Chen Shi shook his head. "I never believe the clues deliberately displayed by the murderer, unless they had killed Japanese people with no connection to each other in succession. It’s the same saying. One person won’t kill another person casually. Lofty and commonplace notions like national enmity can’t be crime motives in this era.”

A middle-aged man wearing a beret came over. "Hello, I’m the director and producer of this drama. I’ve come to have a look at the situation."

Lin Qiupu said, "It’s being investigated. Can you tell us about the backgrounds of the deceased?"

"Uh..." The director glanced at the corpses, feeling a little frightened. "Both of them are from my cast. I also feel very sad that something like this has happened."

"What show were you filming?"

"An anti-Japanese drama series called "Fiery Divine Eagle” which talks about a group of commoners spontaneously organizing themselves to fight the murderous Japanese invaders. Of course, the series had finished filming yesterday, so our contract with them has expired."

"Labor contract?"

"Yes, it was a labor contract, not an employment contract." The director added, "According to the terms of the contract, we don't need to pay compensation. Our crew's funds are also currently tight."

"Okay, okay, that’s not something that we oversee. How long have they been in China?"

"Tamura has been acting here for six years, and he speaks decent Chinese. Fujiwara came here a year ago. The two of them shouldn’t have come from the same hometown, but they were usually together because they are both Japanese."

"What about their family backgrounds?"

"I really don't know. Our communication is limited to work."

"What about their relationship with the rest of the cast and crew?"

"It’s mediocre. After all, there’s a language barrier. They don’t usually get together with the others during their rest periods.”

Lin Dongxue ran over to Chen Shi and asked him if he wanted to go to the place where the two lived to have a look. Chen Shi agreed.

As the film and television base had been built here, the residents of the town had renovated the original houses and rented them out. The two Japanese shared an apartment with a monthly rent of 1,000 yuan. The facilities were very mediocre.

The apartment had a bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom was divided by a curtain. The half where Tamura lived was very clean, while Fujiwara’s side was the exact opposite – It was very messy.

When Lin Dongxue opened Tamura’s drawers, she found many instant noodle packages. She said, "It seems that he loved eating Chinese instant noodles."

"I don’t think so. Look, his personal items are all very old and he basically didn’t have any items for entertainment. This person must have been very frugal. He might have a family. Now look at the place where Fujiwara lived. He had bought a small refrigerator and there’s beer and snacks inside. He had also bought a laptop. He must be a bachelor.”

Chen Shi opened his laptop. There was no password set on the laptop, and there were all kinds of websites for watching anime and Japanese dramas in it. Lin Dongxue pointed out sentimentally, "His private life was really rich and exciting. He was still watching such an old Japanese drama!"

"Have you seen it before?"

"I watched it in middle school."

The biggest benefit for foreigners in China is the ability to download all kinds of films and television dramas online for free. It seems that in some countries, you have to pay just for downloading a song. This Fujiwara hadn’t been idle. He had thoroughly enjoyed the freebie culture.

There were two cans of beer on the table and a pack of opened potato chips. The beer hadn’t been finished. Chen Shi bagged them in order to bring them back for testing and made small marks on them to distinguish between them.

Chen Shi walked to the window and watched the crowd coming and going below them. Lin Dongxue glanced at her phone. "Xiaodong has discovered something. When they had dinner with several featured extras last night, something unpleasant had happened."

1. Can also be interpreted as “Damn Japanese”.

2. Some people shiver as they pee. Possible causes are centered on two main ideas: It's caused either by the sensation of the drop in temperature as the warm pee leaves your body or by a confusion between signals in the autonomic nervous system (ANS).