Xiaotao asked Shopkeeper Tang for the abattoir’s contact information. I suspected that there wouldn’t be much to follow up on there since it would be impossible to supply human meat at such an industrial scale every day unless we were talking about an operation that rivaled the Nazi concentration camps.

“Is the meat delivered by the same person every time?” I asked.

As I expected, Shopkeeper Tang nodded immediately and answered, “Yes!”

“Do you know his name and where he lives?”

“I don’t know where he lives,” Shopkeeper Tang admitted. “But I know his name is Ma Jinhuo. He is dark-skinned and very thin. He’s a man of few words and he doesn’t seem very friendly at all. But he’s the one who’s been delivering the meat for the past six months.”

The name struck me as strange. I borrowed Xiaotao’s notebook and told him to write the characters of the name down. The ‘Jin’ in the name meant gold, while the ‘Huo’ meant fire.

Xiaotao took a look...