Chapter 122 - 112: Major Conjecture! Two Inferences

"The progress of the police investigation, the search reports... they’re only circulated internally. How did the killer find out!?"

There were only three ways the clues could have been exposed.

One, the school. Two, the discovery of the bodies. Three, finding Shen Miao.

But even with these three, the killer shouldn’t have known.

’Why?’

’There wasn’t enough time!’

The time it would take to clean the crime scene and dismember the bodies is beyond anyone’s imagination. This isn’t like mopping a floor, where a quick once-over will do. It would require an immense amount of effort!

And then, on top of all that, they’re supposed to be investigating what the police know?

’Where would they find the time!?’

’Do they just not sleep? Impossible. They’d have to rest at some point.’

But that brought up another problem...

"If our investigation made the killer sense the danger, prompting them to speed up their actions..."

"Then... how did they get ahold of this internally circulated information?"

"Who told them?"

As the three questions hung in the air, the office fell silent.

"Are you saying... there’s a mole on the inside?"

Li Jianye’s expression darkened, familiar faces flashing one by one through his mind.

"No, it’s not necessarily a mole."

Xu Huo shook his head, pondering for a moment.

"Let’s set that question aside for now."

"To summarize: someone might be leaking police movements, forcing the killer to act with more urgency, to kill with more haste."

"Now for the second possibility."

"Which is... the killer’s attitude toward the victims from the two different areas is almost completely different!"

"The first crime scene shows a level of abuse akin to a blood feud!"

Xu Huo spoke slowly, his hands crossed over his stomach, his eyes thoughtful.

"That’s why, based on the victims’ identities, we zeroed in on the bullying angle and proceeded from there."

"But the treatment of the bodies at the second crime scene was completely different. Only the heads and the smiles were similar."

"In fact, if I were the killer, I could have calmly murdered the people at the second crime scene first, in order to mislead the police..."

If the second crime scene had been discovered first, the police would have been baffled and started from the wrong premise.

A killer who murders without emotion and possesses strong counter-surveillance awareness, leaving not a single useful clue at the scene...

’How could a case like that be solved?’

’With the level of forensic technology in ’03, it would be impossible!’

But they didn’t do that.

"People tend to gravitate toward what’s important to them."

"In other words, Cheng Yu and the other two were the killer’s primary targets."

"The others, judging by the crime scene, were killed simply for the sake of killing."

Xu Huo stood up, picked up a piece of chalk, and drew two areas on the blackboard.

The left area represented Cheng Yu and the other two; the right area, the public school.

The killer was clearly targeting those on the left, while those on the right seem to have been... incidental.

"The ’why’ isn’t important. What’s important is that analyzing the killer’s subconscious reveals... he holds no hatred for those other victims."

But if there’s no hatred for the victims on the right...

"What about Shen Miao? Is this case unrelated to her?"

Li Jianye frowned, bringing up the name of someone they had recently investigated.

If the killer truly didn’t care about the five victims from the public school...

Does that prove that Shen Miao, who dropped out of that school, has nothing to do with this case?

"Let’s put Shen Miao aside for now and focus on profiling the killer."

Xu Huo shook his head.

"The killer feels no hatred for the people at the second crime scene. So the question is..."

"Why did he kill them?"

You always have a reason for killing someone.

Suppose you have a grudge against your neighbors. You climb over their wall in the middle of the night, kill everyone inside, and leave signs of torture all over the bodies.

But would you then go ten-plus kilometers away, pick a random house, and climb inside to murder everyone there?

It’s baffling.

It’s completely inexplicable, illogical.

But this killer is logical.

Not only is he logical, his reasoning skills might even surpass those of the average police officer!

That proves he had a reason.

"For now, let’s discard the right side of the board."

"Focus all our attention on the left!"

Xu Huo erased the right side of the blackboard, leaving only the information on the left for everyone to see.

On the left was the information about Cheng Yu at the private school.

"The killer’s targets were people from this school. The first targeted incident occurred a year and a half ago."

"In other words, from a year and a half ago until now, every major incident involving Cheng Yu could be related to the killer and could have been a direct offense against them."

"But that raises another question."

"Why did the killer choose to strike now?"

"Couldn’t the timeline have been moved up?"

"People often do bold things when driven by intense emotions. It’s only after they calm down and think things through that they start to have second thoughts."

"If the killer dared to kill after careful consideration, then they would certainly have killed when driven by pure emotion."

"So why did they wait a year to kill?"

’If the case is related to the public school, then the anchor point of the events has to be when the transfer happened.’

’And that was... a long time ago!’

"If I were the killer, I most likely would have made my move a year ago."

"But the reality is, they killed now, a year and a half after that anchor point."

This question made everyone in the room fall into deep thought.

But before they could finish contemplating, Xu Huo’s voice rang out again.

"And now, let’s bring back the question from our first hypothesis."

"Namely... the information leak."

"Tell me, if the leak of police information prompted the killer’s speed and methods to become faster and cleaner..."

"Then, what prompted him to kill *now*..."

"Could it also be because someone leaked a certain type of information to him?"

At this, Xu Huo narrowed his eyes.

’Someone leaked information...’

Li Jianye froze, his pupils contracting to pinpoints.

"You mean..."

"There’s someone guiding the killer!?"

"Exactly. The killer’s starkly different treatment of the two sets of victims is so clear, you could almost see them as two separate cases."

"And if we apply that to our current chain of reasoning..."

As he spoke, Xu Huo’s voice grew lower.

"There might be... more than one culprit."

"But only one of them is the killer!"

’The killer wanted to kill the people from the private school. A second party also wanted them dead, but they had additional targets—targets the actual killer had no interest in...’

"There’s another culprit hiding behind this case!"

Xu Huo’s mind was perfectly calm.

"And *this* person is the one who holds the resentment and rage that should have been present at the second and third crime scenes!"

"However..."

’If that’s the case, then the conflict must have arisen during the time at the public school, before Cheng Yu transferred.’

’And from the public school, the police only pulled up information on one person.’

’A dead person.’

’Someone whose entire family was dead, with no relatives or lovers who could avenge her.’

’If that’s really how it is...’

"This culprit hiding behind the scenes..."

"Who is it?"