Reborn: The Rookie Detective

"Something's not right."

Hidden behind a rock, Jack muttered to himself after observing the simple wooden hut for a long time.

"What's wrong?" Jessie, suppressing her nausea, watched as four men in front of the hut devoured a human leg by the campfire.

"Nothing's right. The hut is too small, there are too few people, and they all look like adults. There are no other buildings nearby. Strange, aren't these people supposed to live in groups?"

Jack was puzzled. The group of men he had encountered before numbered no less than 15, and he had killed or wounded about half of them. Even adding the two he had taken on the way here, the number didn't add up.

Moreover, the four men here only had axes, machetes, and shotguns beside them; they didn't have crossbows that could shoot a hundred or two hundred meters.

Just as he hesitated whether to make a move, the sound of an engine came from afar. Jack quickly grabbed Jessie and pulled her head down to prevent the newcomer from noticing.

A few minutes later, an off-road vehicle appeared on the path behind the cabin, circled it, and stopped by the campfire. A figure in uniform jumped out.

Jessie stared wide-eyed in astonishment at the man in the camel-colored forest ranger uniform and cowboy felt hat — a normal-looking Southern white man.

He immediately launched into a tirade against the four men, accompanied by punches and kicks. His words were heavily slang, and the two hiding behind the rocks only caught the gist of his outburst. He was essentially berating the men for their carelessness during the hunt, resulting in too many deaths and injuries, and implying a future labor shortage.

Surprisingly, the ferocious men remained silent, letting the ranger vent his anger. Even when kicked to the ground, they immediately got up and continued devouring the human flesh.

"Get ready to attack, but be careful. I want that man alive," Jack whispered in Jessie's ear. The girl nodded and began cocking her crossbow.

The forest ranger, seemingly exhausted from venting, sighed and pointed at the cabin to the tallest of the men, shouting, "Go get the stuff. I'm going to town to exchange it for some money to buy medicine for you damned bastards."

The tall man, without a word, hunched over and went into the cabin. A moment later, he came out carrying a heavy cloth bag and handed it to the forest ranger.

Just as the ranger was about to open the bag to check, a low growl came from behind him, "Attack!"

A crossbow bolt accurately pierced the tall man's eye socket, followed by a series of muffled gunshots. In just two or three seconds, the remaining three men were all shot in the chest and their heads exploded, falling to the ground.

The forest ranger, however, was shot in the side, his right kneecap blown off, and he fell to the ground with a piercing scream.

Jack, changing his magazine as he walked, reached the ranger's side; the bullet was already chambered.

Jack kicked the man over, pinning his chest down, and pressed the distinctive square barrel of the suppressor against his chin.

"I ask, you answer, understand?"

"Ah, help! Let me go! All this is yours! Don't kill me!"

Jessie struggled to pick up the heavy cloth bag from the ground, opened it, and gasped. Inside were gleaming gold dust.

"Who are you? What are these monsters?"

"I... I'm Sam Eugene, the ranger here. You... you can't kill me."

Jessie stepped on his wounded knee, her eyes red-rimmed, and demanded sharply, "Tell me, what's wrong with these monsters? Why did you let them eat people?"

"Ah, spare me! I didn't make them do it! They were born this way! Please stop!"

Through Sam's fragmented narration, the two finally understood the origins of these cannibals.

The story begins a century ago. In 1907, Indiana passed its first eugenics and sterilization law, which mandated the sterilization of "state-detained criminals, idiots, rapists, and those with intellectual disabilities."

California followed suit in 1909, and eventually, 32 states passed similar laws.

Thousands of Native Americans were forcibly sterilized, along with large numbers of immigrants of color. Most incomprehensibly, this law was remarkably indiscriminate; many impoverished white people were also not spared.

This included the lower-class white people of the Southern states, who were considered a degenerate, intellectually disabled, and inferior race.

Under the prevailing influence of Social Darwinism at the time, some believed that these people reproduced much faster than respectable white families, and if left unchecked, they would eventually replace respectable whites and destroy the superior Anglo-Saxon race.

The ancestors of these cannibals were a group who fled to New Mexico to avoid being "castrated."

"How did they become like this?"

Jack had some understanding of this history from his previous life, but he didn't understand. Even if they hid in the mountains in isolation and engaged in inbreeding, it shouldn't have led to this grotesque state.

"I don't know either. My grandfather said they originally hid in an oasis in the Alamogordo desert, numbering several thousand, and then…"

'Okay, then they were near a major event.'

Now Jack understood everything. On July 16, 1945, the United States detonated the world's first nuclear bomb at the Trinity Test Site in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, only two or three hundred kilometers from where they were now in Lincoln National Forest.

"Later they fled into the mountains. Since my grandfather, our family has been protecting them. There's a small gold mine upstream, and most of them live in the mine, trading gold with us for supplies. We're responsible for covering their tracks."

"Then why did you target the tourists who came here? And even eat people?" Jessie angrily stomped her foot, grinding it hard, causing Sam to plead in pain.

"No, we had no choice. The gold mine has dried up, so I organized them to pan for gold downstream. It was all their own initiative."

"Initiative?" Jack sneered from the side, firing another shot into Sam's left knee. Sam let out a horrifying scream, but his chest was pinned down, rendering him immobile, only able to convulse in pain.

Jack moved the gun between Sam's legs. "If I find out you're lying again, it won't just be a matter of spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair."

He deliberately left a hint in his words, letting the man think he would be spared.

"No, stop! I'll tell you the truth, please stop torturing me!" Sam gasped for breath, trying to ease the excruciating pain.