Bruce nodded and said, "I'm afraid that's the case."
"But... but those beasts also defecate, don't they? Could it be them..."
"Don't forget, beasts mark their territory with scent. They are much more sensitive to smell than the human race. So in the field of beast taming, how to handle the excrement of wild animals is very important. Because if not handled properly, beasts like lions and tigers that use scent to mark their territory will become extremely agitated, making them impossible to perform."
"Oh, I understand now," Kent said, "If they smell too much of their kind's urine, they'll feel their territory is being invaded and then go crazy?"
"Not exactly, but you can think of it that way. In any case, the circus needs these wild animals to make money, so they must ensure these animals can perform on stage smoothly. But humans..."
Kent also fell silent, likely imagining what was intended by locking people up here. Still holding onto a glimmer of hope, he said, "Maybe it's animals like gorillas? They have nimble fingers that can be used to unlock things, and they're smart, so they might escape and not be so violent..."
"Do you know another trait of primates?"
"What?"
"They throw feces at each other," Bruce said. "Because they have nimble hands capable of grasping, they use their feces as weapons to throw at each other, especially when they're in a bad mood, this behavior is frequent. The gaps in the bars of this cage are large enough for them to throw their excrement through. Even though the lighting wasn't good before, I've checked the surrounding clothes and other things prone to getting dirty, and there's no feces on them. Also, only the soil under the cage is different, indicating that the excrement wasn't thrown everywhere."
Kent sighed and said, "Alright, it looks like I have to accept the worst possible scenario. Let's study why they're doing this. Is it purely to satisfy their own desires?"
Bruce shook his head and said, "If it's just one person secretly doing it, it's possible. But given the scale of this cage, it's likely everyone in the circus knows about it, yet they choose to cooperate tacitly, even becoming accomplices. This shows that they couldn't be doing it just to satisfy desires, because there are certainly women in the circus, and if they didn't gain anything, they might not cooperate so willingly."
"Maybe they're just coerced by violence," Kent said.
Bruce shook his head again, then said, "That might be the case in a closed environment, but this is the circus, after all, with its touring performances. They have too many chances to come into contact with the outside world. Violence might suppress for a time, but with so many people, if just one person wanted to rebel, they could easily contact the audience, and things would surely be exposed."
"Then it's unlikely it's a male-driven kidnapping case for satisfying desires. Could it be human trafficking? It fits with the nature of the circus's touring performances."
"That's very possible," Bruce nodded. "This circus might be involved in human trafficking, using its touring routes to continually kidnap victims and sell them in unfamiliar cities."
"But there's also a problem: passing through so many cities, they'd have to grease the palms everywhere, know enough human smugglers to sell them successfully. Otherwise, if they capture new ones while the old ones haven't been sold, they're in big trouble."
"Why do you say that?"
"Once people are captured, it's impossible to release them, or else they'd surely report it to the police. But if they kill them, it involves a more troublesome issue: disposing of the bodies. Handling bodies isn't as simple as you might think; sometimes it's harder than dealing with living people."
"Sounds like it's indeed difficult to achieve," Kent scratched his head, still unsure of what exactly was going on.
But Bruce, having information from his dreams, had a possible hypothesis. The actor playing the Joker wasn't courting rich girls, but seeking to marry a prostitute because he was in this line of work.
The circus secretly harbors dark industries, whether it's human trafficking or other unsavory activities. Such businesses need reliable local people to continue smoothly.
But while the industry can operate like this, marriage cannot. In townships with generations of residents, consanguineous marriages are greatly feared. The Joker actor's era was last century, not the Middle Ages, and they were well aware of the harms of such marriages. They had to seek outsiders.
However, once they bring in an outsider, this person inevitably learns what they're doing. You can guard against everything except a home thief. So it's best to find people without much influence, with distorted morals, easily controlled and brainwashed by them. It's best if they have experience and can help with the work.
Bringing in a rich girl poses too many risks; if she escapes and tells her family, it would deal a devastating blow to the circus. And being too weak physically, she couldn't handle the work. Just thinking about it, a circus environment with so many confined individuals would be intolerable to an average person.
Prostitutes, however, are a better fit. A background thin enough not to resort to prostitution, having mingled in the underworld, seeing all sorts of people, folks from such environments often lack high moral standards. Capable of doing the dirty work, they make a perfect choice.
What puzzled Bruce, though, was this: if such a dark business is about making money, why not simply find a rich woman to marry, which is also profitable? And the latter option is certainly more respectable and safe. This Joker actor doesn't seem to be an idiot; with his looks, he could ditch and marry into wealth on his own. Why take such a risk to marry a prostitute and insist on staying in the murky waters?
While Bruce was pondering, the agent had already followed Linda back to the foot of the waterfall upstream.
The bad news was that due to the material, this fishing rod couldn't have any flex, making it useless for fishing. But the good news was that being rigid enough, and with the tip sharpened, it could be used for spearfishing.
And somehow, this girl who had never fished before suddenly developed a great interest in fish. Out of nowhere, she retrieved a worn-out kayak and prepared to paddle to the base of the waterfall for spearfishing.
The agent, of course, didn't go with her but stood on the shore watching her paddle away. Her back no longer seemed as stiff as before, and amidst the mist rising from the waterfall, she appeared to take on a uniquely vivid demeanor.