Chapter 112 - 107: Human Head Fruit Tree! The Killer with Maxed-Out Counter-Surveillance!

Xu Huo shook his head again, his brow furrowed. This was an incredibly thorny case.

Within the area cordoned off by police tape, centered on the Human Head Fruit Tree, there were no footprints whatsoever.

The culprit had meticulously swept the scene before leaving.

There were marks on the ground where the killer had swept away the footprints. They knew prints had been left here, but there was nothing they could do. They were completely gone.

Even the footprints the orchard owner had previously seen were wiped away clean!

"On top of that, we have no definitive information on the murder weapon, fingerprints, or anything else."

"From the time the crime was discovered until now, we’ve made basically no progress."

There were no paved paths here; just a little wind would be enough to cover any footprints.

Essentially, aside from the marks left by the killer sweeping the ground, no other evidence existed.

"I’ll go take a look."

Li Jianye’s heart sank.

He hurried forward, frowning, and began to inspect the area closely.

But after a long moment, a thought surfaced in his mind. ’This is... The one thing a detective fears most has happened!’

What did they fear most?

Rain, or a fire. Those two things gave the police the most grief.

But their essence was the same—they both obliterated all traces at a crime scene.

And the killer’s actions had accomplished the very same thing.

As for any scent...

Xu Huo paused and sniffed the air.

A rather sharp scent entered his nostrils.

A faint scent of pepper powder filled the air, perfectly masking the culprit’s own body odor.

’This son of a bitch...’

’He even disguised his scent!’

After a moment of thought, Xu Huo set off, following the scent of the pepper powder.

"Where are you going?" Li Jianye asked, turning just in time to see Xu Huo move.

Xu Huo didn’t answer, and Li Jianye followed him.

He followed the scent steadily, avoiding the dirt path and instead cutting through a patch of dead leaves to a stone-paved path.

From the stone path, he went toward a small grove and passed through it.

And then...

A river with a gentle current appeared before them.

Xu Huo stopped in his tracks.

Even that sharp scent... went cold right here.

The culprit had not only masked his own scent but had even jumped into the river and let the current carry him away, leaving not a single clue behind.

He had come here last night and discovered this.

’I thought coming back in the daylight might reveal something different, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.’

"WOOF WOOF WOOF!"

A dog’s bark pulled Xu Huo back to reality.

He turned to see the head of a police dog poking out from the bushes.

The police dog seemed quite pleased to have reached the end of the scent trail, but when it looked up and saw the familiar face of Xu Huo, the dog simply stared, its expression frozen.

"A river?"

"Son of a bitch, he jumped in the river?!"

Just then, Qian Hua appeared, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at the river.

He paused, only then noticing Li Jianye and Xu Huo standing off to the side.

"Huh? What are you two doing here?"

Qian Hua was stunned. He had arrived late because he’d had to go and borrow the police dog, which had just been reassigned.

’I rushed right back and started tracking with the dog, so how come it looks like...’

’The dog was still a step behind?’

The police dog also eyed Xu Huo with suspicion. It padded closer, sniffed him, and after confirming he was human, its eyes filled with confusion.

"There were tracks in the dead leaves. I just followed the path they made,"

Xu Huo said, glossing over the details.

’Is that so?’

Qian Hua was still skeptical, but Xu Huo was already turning to leave.

"The killer escaped into the river, so the scent trail is a dead end."

"Get two men to walk the dog along the riverbank. See if they turn up any clues."

With that, Xu Huo turned and walked back toward the primary crime scene.

The scent trail was officially cold.

The river’s current would have slowly washed away any scent the killer left behind.

And that’s not to mention the killer had disguised his scent to begin with.

Some might wonder what the point of a scent disguise is. Can’t you just find the person and smell them again later?

The truth is, many people misunderstand how scent tracking works.

When you use something like pepper powder or perfume, it doesn’t erase your own body odor.

Instead, it covers it up, masking and disguising it!

This means that Xu Huo and the police dog could only lock onto the killer’s disguised scent—

in this case, pepper powder.

Once that trail went cold, all the killer had to do was switch to a different scent, like a perfume, and you wouldn’t be able to identify them even if they were standing right in front of you.

Forget trying to track the old scent. For them, changing their scent is like changing their identity.

Unless... unless one could pick out the killer’s unique body odor from underneath the overpowering masking scent...

But.

Even Xu Huo couldn’t discern such a faint, subtle difference between two intermingled scents, to say nothing of a police dog that couldn’t speak.

「Back at the crime scene.」

Three heads were still hanging from the apple tree.

Wire had been threaded through the stumps of the necks and wrapped tightly around the branches, so secure that the wind couldn’t dislodge them.

Several officers were trying to figure out how to get them down without damaging the wire.

Xu Huo stood at a distance, watching the scene, his expression growing heavier with thought.

"Footprints, scent, weapon, fingerprints, escape route..."

As he spoke, he listed off every primary lead the police would investigate at a murder scene.

At a homicide investigation, these were the main things the police looked for; there wasn’t much else.

But now...

They were all gone.

Not a single lead had turned up!

"This son of a bitch... His counter-surveillance skills are this good?!"

Li Jianye surveyed the scene, utterly shocked.

His brow furrowed, his expression turning graver than ever before.

"What kind of person are we dealing with?"

The killer in a typical case leaves behind far too many clues.

There’s a saying: ’Every contact leaves a trace.’

It means that no matter what you do, a corresponding trace will remain.

It’s impossible to completely eliminate a trace.

You can only cover it with another trace.

It’s like when it rains. The water may wash over and obscure the original evidence, but something of it will always remain, more or less. It just makes the investigation more difficult.

The killer used one trace to cover another.

In other cases, Xu Huo had used this very line of reasoning—examining the surface trace to deduce what had been covered up.

But it was useless in this case.

This culprit...

"Just who the hell is this person?!"

Li Jianye asked again.

’Could an ordinary person do this?’

’No. Impossible.’

Let’s put it this way.

After killing someone, the average person wouldn’t even think to conceal their actions. Adrenaline urges you to run, and your mind goes blank.

Someone with a stronger stomach might try to stage the crime scene, but their attempt would be riddled with holes.

But to remain completely calm, and to be so proficient, so perfect...

"Don’t tell me he’s a repeat offender,"

Qian Hua chimed in, offering a plausible theory.

’When it comes to killing,’

’the more you do it, the more you get used to it. Your mental fortitude and practical experience naturally build up.’

However...

"Zhaozhou City is a pretty safe place. It’s impossible for someone to get this good at killing without being caught!"

Li Jianye thought for a moment, then shook his head and rejected the idea.

You can get good at butchering pigs, but you don’t become this proficient at murder.

You can’t find many cases of serial murder in the entire country; killing multiple people without being discovered is incredibly rare.

"And that doesn’t even account for such a high level of counter-surveillance expertise,"

Li Jianye said, gesturing at the scene.

Even a veteran crime scene investigator like him couldn’t find a single flaw.

The most critical question was...

"Why did the killer hang the heads on the apple tree?"

Xu Huo suddenly spoke, drawing everyone’s attention to the fruit tree, from which the heads had now been removed.

Other than being particularly large, the tree was unremarkable; there wasn’t a single scratch on its bark.

"Judging by the meticulous preparations at the scene, it would have been easy for the killer to dispose of the bodies in a hidden location and cover his tracks, leaving no information behind,"

Xu Huo said slowly.

"The killer’s methods are top-tier by any standard. Judging by technique alone, a case like this would be nearly impossible to solve in this day and age."

"But..."

"Why did he have to put them on a tree, of all places?"

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow, his voice tinged with confusion.

"Is he insane?"

"No. A method this precise requires a calm, clear head to execute, even if someone else was directing him."

"If he had used these same techniques at any other disposal site, the case would be virtually unsolvable!"

Take burying the heads, for instance.

After a few months, the heads would decompose, and their features would be unrecognizable.

Wait a few years, and they’d decay so much you couldn’t even get a DNA sample. How would you solve a case like that?

The killer’s methods were good enough to ensure this wasn’t discovered for months. You could say that if he had wanted to, this case could have stayed completely buried!

But...

the killer basically announced his own crime.

"He..."

"Why did he do it?"

Confusion flickered in Xu Huo’s eyes.