Chapter 107 - 104: Pocket Person

Zhang Ru had been caught.

There weren’t many people in the suburbs, and those who saw the police knew to stay away, so Zhang Ru had little chance to take a hostage.

So, Wang Hu prepared to take her alive.

The officers who had been left behind by Li Jianye and Xu Huo’s driving skills happened to arrive just in time to form an encirclement with them.

Everyone swarmed forward at once and restrained her!

Meanwhile, back at the residential area, Xu Huo had also apprehended someone.

A person who looked incredibly young, about 1.2 meters tall, and around ten years old...

A boy.

...

...

「That same day.」

The twenty-sixth.

Noon, 12:30.

"Goddammit, how did Zhang Ru know the police were coming?!"

"Son of a bitch, who leaked the information?"

Zhaozhou City, inside the Criminal Investigation Division.

Wang Hu was furious, slamming his hat on the table in a rage.

"Chief, it was the clinic director."

Qian Hua whispered to Wang Hu after finishing his investigation.

What did the director reveal?

News of the police’s impending arrest!

When the police arrived at the self-built house in the suburbs to make the arrest, Zhang Ru had been posturing as if she were taking a hostage.

At the same time, she had already put the second person—the "dwarf"—in the trunk of the car.

If things had gone as planned...

when the police kicked down the door, they should have seen the three of them standing together!

"The director?"

Wang Hu’s brows furrowed.

"Yes. He and Zhang Ru are married. When the police investigated the clinic, a doctor inside called the director."

"The director then called Zhang Ru, and that’s when the police operation was exposed."

Qian Hua explained.

Hearing this, Wang Hu’s anger subsided a little.

The most likely consequence of the police being exposed was...

the killer murdering the hostage preemptively and then escaping before the police arrived!

Zhang Ru couldn’t have gotten far. Hiding in the city... a county-level city is only so big. It would be impossible to hide for long.

Running out of town?

The closest was Linlan City, but Xu Huo and Wang Chao had put it on high alert. The perimeter was tight as a drum; sneaking in would be far from easy.

Traveling to any other city would give the police enough time to send out an alert, so she was bound to be caught either way.

The only problem was...

Wu Jiahui’s life.

Her life was what the police cared about!

Although she was still alive, if she had died because of some slip-up on the police’s part...

...the consequences would have been enormous.

CREAK—

Xu Huo pushed open the office door. Wang Chao and Chu Xi were standing beside him.

The three of them were holding four bowls of hot dry noodles.

Xu Huo pushed two of the bowls in front of Wang Hu and Qian Hua.

The two men stared, wondering what the others were eating. The next second, they saw Chu Xi skillfully pick up some noodles with disposable chopsticks and begin feeding them to Xu Huo, bit by bit.

Xu Huo wanted to resist but couldn’t.

He was about to take a couple of sips of water when he looked up and saw two expressionless faces staring at him.

"Hm?"

"What are you looking at me for?"

Xu Huo, looking utterly bewildered, swallowed the food in his mouth and asked suspiciously,

"Go on. Continue with the case."

Qian Hua: "..."

He took a deep breath, then shoveled a couple of bites of his own hot dry noodles into his mouth before continuing,

"Captain Li interrogated Zhang Ru. She confessed."

"She explained the whole sequence of events, including some other information, very clearly."

Zhang Ru confessed.

Compared to her criminal methods, her willingness to talk was at the complete opposite extreme!

She broke easily. Li Jianye had only applied a little psychological pressure before she confessed everything.

According to Zhang Ru’s own statement.

She killed people because she wanted her son to have an heir. At the same time, to improve the genetic stock, she only targeted people with good looks and high intelligence.

She did this four times in a row. Wu Jiahui was the fourth.

And that was how the police learned that there was still one undiscovered body from her very first crime.

The victim was a single woman living in a villa. Zhang Ru had hidden her body on the top floor, which was why it had never been found.

"However, there are some problems with her testimony."

"First, the issue of producing an heir. No traces of semen were detected in the victims’ reproductive organs."

Qian Hua flipped open his notebook, looking at the notes Li Jianye had just jotted down.

"Furthermore, after each rape, Zhang Ru would strangle the person to silence them."

"This also doesn’t align with the concept of leaving an heir."

How could she leave an heir if the person was already dead?

Not even the guy next door could manage that!

Besides...

"Her son?"

Wang Hu, who was eating his lunch, paused, his brow knitting.

"That dwarf... is her son!?"

According to her file, Zhang Ru did indeed have a son.

However, that son had died prematurely long ago.

This was a real death. When he was three years old, he had a persistent high fever and subsequently died.

It was a confirmed death; the hospital, the crematorium, and the cemetery could all provide strong, valid evidence for this claim!

"The hospital ran a DNA test. They are indeed mother and son."

"We checked the bone age. He was born secretly while the first child was still alive. His household registration was listed under a family they didn’t know—they most likely paid them off."

Qian Hua explained, and only then did Wang Hu’s brow relax.

’Inspections aren’t as strict these days.’

He had forgotten about that detail.

But...

"Is he really a dwarf!?"

Wang Hu couldn’t help himself. He was a man nearing retirement, a veteran detective with decades of experience, still in his white shirt, but...

...at this moment, looking at the man’s photo, his expression was dazed.

The dwarf’s name was Lin Shan.

When Xu Huo arrested him, he had been tied up by Zhang Ru with a dog chain around his neck, looking as if he had been abused for a long time.

As for him, he was 1.2 meters tall.

He looked innocent and harmless, and sitting on the floor, he was indistinguishable from a child!

He wasn’t the type with short limbs and a large head.

There was nothing wrong with Lin Shan’s body proportions!

He simply had the appearance of a child. Even his facial features were frozen around the age of ten, showing no signs of aging. It wasn’t the mature face of a typical dwarf at all.

"How... how old is he?"

Wang Hu swallowed hard, staring at the face that could blend into a kindergarten class without anyone noticing.

"Twenty-one..."

After saying this, Qian Hua also fell silent.

The man was 1.2 meters tall and looked no different from a child.

But...

He was twenty-one years old!

It was hard to imagine that someone who looked so young had already reached that age.

"Pituitary dwarfism."

Xu Huo, in the middle of being fed, managed to free his mouth to explain.

"It’s a rare condition. The patient’s appearance remains frozen at the age they were when it developed. You could call them a real-life Peter Pan."

’In my last life, someone had this disease. It didn’t get widespread attention, but their appearance gave people a clear visual concept of the condition.’

’The "Pocket-Sized Person," Wu Kang.’

"Pituitary dwarfism, huh..."

"So for these twenty-one years..."

After a moment of shock, Wang Hu collected himself. He thought for a moment, then pressed on.

"How did he live?"

"We don’t know."

Qian Hua shook his head. "Judging from the crime scene and the circumstances of his arrest, Lin Shan has likely been enveloped by a twisted form of motherly love from birth until now."

"She chained him up, afraid he would leave her like her first son, so she put a dog chain around his neck and kept him in endless confinement. And now, she wants him to give her a grandchild?"

Qian Hua speculated.

"I never would have thought that the roles of perpetrator and accomplice, compared to our initial theory, would be completely reversed."

Initially, the police suspected the rapist was the main culprit, and the woman holding the victims was the accomplice.

But as it stands now...

it’s possible the rapist is actually a victim.

The accomplice is the real culprit!?

Hearing this, Xu Huo remained silent, mechanically chewing the food fed to him by his robotic feeder.

Meanwhile, images from the arrest scene flashed through his mind.

’This case... It looks like it can be closed now.’ The killer has been caught, and the accomplice is in custody.

Wu Jiahui is still in the hospital. Regarding her massive blood loss, as long as she was saved in time, she should survive.

Xu Huo’s bandaging had been timely. Even though she’d lost a lot of blood from her thigh, she held on until she could be treated at the hospital.

Furthermore, the crime scene and the killer’s confession both matched up...

If he wanted to, Wang Hu could apply to close the case.

Barring any surprises, in a few months, the court would convene, and a judge would sentence Zhang Ru to death.

She had murdered three people, nearly killed a fourth, Wu Jiahui, and it was a case of rape-murder. The death penalty was practically guaranteed.

"What about Lin Chu?"

Xu Huo asked, signaling for Chu Xi to put down the chopsticks before turning his head to look at Qian Hua.

"Did Lin Chu have anything to say?"

Lin Chu was Lin Shan’s father, Zhang Ru’s husband, and the director of the Huanrong Plastic Surgery and Beauty Clinic!

His role in the case was extremely sensitive, and because he had made that phone call, the police had reason to detain and interrogate him.

"He didn’t say much. He fully corroborated Zhang Ru’s confession."

Qian Hua said.

"Fully corroborated, huh..."

Xu Huo mulled this over, continuing to recall the images in his mind.

Until finally...

"Tsk. This family is really something else."

Xu Huo smiled. He stood up and brushed down the hem of his clothes.

"Arrange an interrogation for me."

"An interrogation?" Wang Hu also stood up. "For who?"

"Lin Shan!"

Xu Huo said.

...

...

Lin Shan’s body was very small.

So small that if the police handcuffs were tightened to a normal person’s size, he could probably slip them off smoothly.

So small that the police didn’t have a suitable prison uniform for him to wear.

So small that when he sat in the interrogation room chair, his feet couldn’t even touch the floor.

Even the standard restraints for his hands and feet were useless on him; they had to improvise with handcuffs.

CREAK—

The interrogation room door opened, and a piercing beam of light shot in. The shafts of light, layered on top of each other, were visible to the naked eye.

The light shining in his face made Lin Shan squint instinctively.

In a daze, he saw a figure sit down in front of him.

"Go on. Tell me what you did."

Xu Huo said casually, sitting in his chair and looking at the boy.

Lin Shan was silent. A moment later, he covered his face with his hands.

Uncontrollable tears streamed from between his fingers, splashing onto the table.

"Officer... Officer... I’m sorry... I’m so sorry..."

He sobbed, wailing in utter anguish. His small, childlike appearance radiated an overwhelming sense of sorrow.

"You..."

Seeing this, a few of the officers were inwardly astonished.

"Officer, I... I didn’t want this... I didn’t want it to be this way..."

Lin Shan raised his head, snot and tears covering his face. His eyes were filled with self-loathing as he stared at his own incredibly small hands, weeping bitterly.

He didn’t say much.

Or rather, he had already said everything he had to say.

However...

Xu Huo watched his performance, his own face a mask of calm.

After a long moment, he looked at the "child" before him—this man who looked so incredibly young but was in fact twenty-one—and said slowly,

"Hah. Stop acting."

"I’ve seen a lot of actors. Your performance doesn’t stand out among them."

Stop...

...acting?

In an instant, the air in the room seemed to freeze.

The other officers froze for a second, then their pupils constricted as they instinctively stared at the bewildered and helpless-looking "child."

Xu Huo ignored his expression.

SLAP!

Xu Huo reached out and tossed a piece of evidence onto the table.

It was a sealed bag.

Inside the sealed bag was a dog chain.

"Explain this to me."

"Why does this dog chain... smell like a dog?"

Xu Huo steepled his fingers, his gaze calm and his tone nonchalant. Leaning back in his chair, he silently watched the person in front of him.

"Why."

"Would a dog chain that has been used to restrain a person for a long time have..."

"...a dog’s smell."

As his words fell,

the interrogation room fell deathly silent, as still as stagnant water.

Qian Hua snapped to attention as if waking from a dream, his eyes fixed on Lin Shan, the center of everyone’s focus.

Xu Huo’s nonchalant voice echoed in the empty room, resounding in everyone’s minds.

"Explain."