Chapter 103 - 101: Autopsy Report

One question was answered, but it was immediately followed by a new one.

The killer...

How did he know the victims existed?!

"I don’t mean knowing about the bodies after they were killed. I mean when they were still alive," Xu Huo began to explain.

"Both bodies show signs of extremely purposeful dismemberment and have been heavily hacked at. Is that a coincidence?"

"That would be far too much of a coincidence."

Hearing this, everyone fell silent.

It was true. If these were random killings, it was all too coincidental.

The killer just happened to be near the school, just happened to be there when the teacher, Chao Yang, got off work late, just happened to know about the men’s restroom nearby, and just happened to be able to gain her trust and lure her inside...

Then, he also just happened to lure the second victim into the park at night, when no one was around.

It was too much of a coincidence!

When something involves too many coincidences, it’s no longer a coincidence.

It’s an inevitability!

"This wasn’t a coincidence."

"The school is five hundred meters away from even the closest villagers. With the restroom as the epicenter, there wouldn’t have been anyone within a five-hundred-meter radius at that time, aside from the security guard."

"At ten at night, the park was empty and there were few cars on the road. The killer stood just outside the camera’s view and waited for the victim, Sun Ling."

Xu Huo crouched down, placing a hand on the ground. He stared at the gruesome corpse and spoke in a low voice.

"This is Murder. Cold-blooded Murder!"

At the first crime scene, a five-hundred-meter radius means a one-kilometer diameter. The killer waited in that foul-smelling restroom for the only teacher working late that night.

At the second crime scene, the mere fact that he could avoid the surveillance camera at that angle means he must have observed the location beforehand and then lain in wait. These are not the actions of a random killer...

It has to be Murder!

But that brought them back to the original question.

The prerequisite for Murder is...

"Premeditation!"

"The very word ’Murder’ says it all. Premeditation first, then the act of killing."

"Whether it’s rape and murder, dismemberment, or even skinning and flaying, it all must involve the act of ’planning’."

Xu Huo borrowed the team captain’s notebook again.

He reopened the victims’ case files.

"When planning to target a specific person, the very first step is gathering information!"

"The killer has specific targets. He isn’t killing randomly. Judging from the scenes, it’s clear the victims were selected based on certain traits before he made his move."

As he spoke, he pointed to the victim’s face.

"Namely, their looks."

"So he specifically targets people whose looks ’sting’ him?"

The corner of Li Jianye’s eye twitched.

"Isn’t that just sick and twisted...?"

’Intentionally torturing himself?’

Humans have masochistic tendencies. This trait can manifest in minor or major ways.

Almost everyone has the minor version. For example, after picking your feet, you like to take a sniff. It stinks a little, but it’s addicting, so you sniff it again.

’A major version... S&M?’

’No, no, no, S&M is still too minor.’

’Amputation!’

There’s a type of person who will amputate their own limbs.

Is there something wrong with the limb? No, it’s perfectly fine, but that doesn’t stop them from wanting it amputated.

Their minds are incredibly twisted. To put it simply, they amputate all their limbs to become someone’s ’pet’. Food is placed in a dog bowl, and when it’s time to eat, their owner leads them by a leash and lets them drag themselves over to eat.

A human pet!

This is a deeply pathological mindset. They enjoy the feeling of being cared for like a pet. But if this concept were to suddenly appear before a normal person, shattering their worldview, they would most likely be utterly shocked.

It’s like when Qian Hua first learned about dwarfs.

"It’s obvious the killer is a pervert himself," Xu Huo said, pointing at the corpse’s thigh.

The others were speechless.

"Furthermore, the killer’s aesthetic sense isn’t twisted. Since it was rape, it’s natural he’d pick his victims based on their beauty. It just so happens that this criterion is also built on his own psychological pain point," Xu Huo said casually.

’As for whether he’s specifically a masochist...’

’I can’t be sure. Honestly, there are too many people like that.’

If the amputation fetish is too bizarre and hard to grasp,

then let’s talk about the ’emo teens’.

There are always people who love to read tragic literature. They know they’ll be emotionally devastated by the end, but they still love it. If you set aside the appeal of good writing, this is actually a kind of fetish for sadness.

Their numbers are huge, and it’s a common phenomenon among high school students.

"Of course, whether he’s a masochist or not, judging from the two bodies, the killer selects his victims based on their looks."

Xu Huo interrupted everyone’s train of thought, bringing the topic back to the case’s deduction.

"If it’s based on looks..."

"Based on the two bodies and the information on the two victims, where did he find these exceptionally beautiful victims?"

The two victims didn’t know each other in life, and their daily lives were centered in two different areas.

In that case, there were only two possibilities before them.

One, the killer staked out a spot on the street, found a target, conducted a detailed investigation, and then raped and murdered them.

Two, the killer has access to a file of personal information on a group of people, from which he screened and locked onto the victims!

’The first one?’

’It’s possible, but not likely.’

To find a target, the dwarf would have to do the selecting himself. Even if the other person—the woman—was the only one needed to investigate later, the dwarf would still have to show his face at some point.

Besides, solving that would be as simple as investigating who looked up the victims’ information.

Li Jianye was in charge of that area. He wasn’t good at deduction, but his methods for investigating people were brilliant. If someone had, they wouldn’t escape his notice.

After all, this era was different from his previous life.

In his past life, private information was passed around through countless hands. If you logged into a car-buying app and looked at a car for half an hour, you were guaranteed to get a call from a salesperson at six or seven the next morning.

Where did that information come from?

It was sold internally!

But 2003 was different.

In this era, an ID card was only useful for official purposes and for finding a job. It was basically useless for anything else.

People didn’t even carry their IDs with them when they went out. Information leaks were pitifully rare. If someone could look up a victim’s detailed file, they’d have to be exceptionally skilled. Of course, it’s also possible they only found superficial information, like which route they took home.

But the second possibility...

"...is much more likely."

"First, the times of death are close together."

"The two deaths were three days apart. Three days isn’t enough time to conduct a whole new investigation."

"But it is if you’re just looking at files!"

Xu Huo pointed to the file information on the computer.

In just a few seconds, they had grasped all of the victim’s basic information.

"In other words..."

"The killer has the victims’ files?"

Wang Hu understood. "This file contains more than just the two of them; it includes other people. And these two were the targets selected from that larger group!"

Xu Huo nodded. "Exactly. Otherwise, it makes no sense that he could carry out another Murder in such a short time."

Murder requires premeditation, ’planning’, and planning takes time!

Three days isn’t enough time.

But, if he did it like Xu Huo did, it would be enough...

Just look directly at the case files!

"But the two victims never met. How could their files be in the same place?"

Li Jianye’s brows furrowed deeply.

In this era, the internet didn’t hold any decent information, so it had to be something in the real world.

Before knowing the victims, there’s no reason the killer would have actively gone to the places they frequented just to find them.

It’s highly likely the victims were the ones who went to *them*.

But their professions indicate that their daily routines had no overlapping areas.

It’s like random movement—a bear in the Arctic will never meet a penguin in Antarctica. Their habitats are different, so a single predator could not naturally kill one of each in a short period.

But reality showed that the penguin and the polar bear had died together...

"Then based on this theory, it can only mean their files were obtained by someone, and it’s highly likely the victims provided the information themselves."

"So what is this place?"

Questions, always more questions...

One question followed another, catching them completely off guard!

Everyone was lost in thought. However, Li Jianye, who was familiar with Xu Huo, suddenly paused. He looked at Xu Huo and narrowed his eyes.

"You kid... you’ve thought of something, haven’t you?"

"Yes, I have a theory... Remember what the killer used to screen his victims? Their looks!"

"But the most important thing to look at is..."

Xu Huo took a shallow breath. He looked up, his gaze sweeping over everyone.

"The autopsy report!"

...

...

The killer screened his victims based on their looks.

The people he chose weren’t just above average in appearance.

Chao Yang, the elementary school teacher, had a boyfriend, but she still had many suitors. Her hands alone were perfect enough for her to be a hand model, and not just barely.

As for Sun Ling, if she had entered the entertainment industry and had low moral standards, it’s no exaggeration to say she would have become an extremely famous and beautiful actress in a future generation!

The only thing the two victims had in common was their beauty.

So, could we venture a bold guess that the reason the killer obtained their files was precisely because of their looks?

What kind of place would have files on beautiful people?

There aren’t many. You could count them on one hand.

Of course, a guess is just a guess, not a logically sound deduction. So, before thinking about it any further, they needed a solid foundation of information.

Namely, the autopsy report!

「The 26th.」

「Eight in the morning.」

A brand new autopsy report appeared before them.

"It’s been too long since I’ve done one of these. I’m a little rusty, so it took me a bit longer..."

In the Criminal Investigation Division, a middle-aged man gave an awkward smile to the police officers in front of him.

The faint smell of rot clinging to him was proof of his identity.

A forensic pathologist!

But he wasn’t a police pathologist; he was one from an insurance company.

He had been promoted and gotten raises, so he hadn’t personally examined a body in a long time. His skills were rusty, which was why it took until now to get a verified report.

"Thank you for your trouble."

Xu Huo first expressed his thanks, then took the report and scanned it quickly.

"Most of the information on the bodies is the same as what the police already have."

"The wound surfaces, cause of death, time of death, and the type of blade used to inflict the wounds are all consistent with the police’s speculation."

"Both victims died of mechanical asphyxiation."

"The white fluid found in the wound areas was tested and confirmed to be residue left by the killer. The killer is the same person."

"The only difference is..."

The pathologist paused, frowning, and said hesitantly,

"I detected several types of..."

"Chemical drugs."