Chapter 124 - 113: Dissecting the Case! The Situation is Clear

They receive a higher education, enjoy their youth in college, then go abroad to burnish their credentials. They live a life of debauchery, and in the end, they return home to stand above everyone else, a shining star.

This is the reality.

If there were no killer, this is the future they would have had.

There was a case once, a man who kidnapped and gang-raped a woman. He was sentenced but remained at large.

Was that all?

No. After facing no punishment, he went on to commit several more crimes, all of which were smoothed over.

What level of crimes?

Two death sentences!

Interspersed with other crimes that would have warranted sentences of ten years or more.

He received his first sentence in ’98, but wasn’t ultimately sentenced to death until 2020.

In other words, during those 22 years, he lived a life of luxury that most people could only dream of.

He could live like that even after being sentenced to death.

Let alone someone like Cheng Yu, who was never punished at all...

"Don’t get lost in it. This isn’t the time to be dwelling on things like this!"

Xu Huo said in a low voice, breaking the atmosphere.

"Time is tight. We didn’t pull an all-nighter chasing this case just for you to stand around in a daze!"

Every one of them had been awake for at least a full day, all to make time for this investigation. It wasn’t to stand around spacing out!

"Back to the case!"

Hearing his words, the team’s spirits lifted a bit, and the atmosphere was no longer so gloomy.

"If the killer is really connected to Part Two, brought in by a victim from the private school, then... who is he!?"

Xu Huo guided their thoughts toward the fog surrounding the case.

They had investigated Shen Miao, but her profile had absolutely no connection to the killer, which had briefly thrown the case into confusion.

But if Shen Miao were replaced with someone else...

"A father? A mother? A suitor?"

Li Jianye paused, subconsciously spitting out the possibilities they had previously ruled out for Shen Miao.

"I don’t know."

Xu Huo shook his head.

He was decisive, without a hint of embarrassment.

If you don’t know, you don’t know. Trying to be mysterious will only delay the reasoning process!

"There’s not enough information. The police invested a huge amount of resources in the first part of the investigation—the public school—and didn’t do much regarding the private school."

"At the same time, we’ve found almost no information."

"This isn’t enough to form a theory about the timeline, or about who the killer is," Xu Huo said.

The investigation they conducted into the private school and its teachers all pointed to one thing.

The dean of discipline wasn’t lying.

Not the one who died, but the one they interrogated. He showed no signs of lying whatsoever.

He truly didn’t know, and both students and teachers confirmed it. In other words...

If it weren’t for their current theories pointing toward the private school...

Li Jianye and the others would have been ready to give up on investigating the second part of the case.

So much police manpower wasted for nothing...

"That’s not a big problem. As long as the chain of logic is solid enough to build subsequent deductions on, we’re fine."

"For now, let’s not worry about where the clues for Part Two are hidden."

"Let’s discuss the killer concealed within Part One."

Xu Huo waved his hand, wiping away the information written on the right—the details for Part Two. Qian Hua’s eyes grew strained as he stared, trying to commit every deduction to memory before it was gone.

"Now, let’s first consider the characteristics of the first killer."

The case was split into two parts, the theory evolving from one killer to two.

So, the current theory regarding the first killer was...

"Two questions. Let’s start with the first one."

"One, why did he cooperate with a second killer and have them commit the murder? If this is related to the public school, he could have killed his target a year and a half ago!"

Xu Huo felt a rush of clarity, as if his mind had been scrubbed clean with mint leaves, or like the perfect lucidity after waking up naturally from a deep sleep. His thoughts were sharp and effortless.

A single question that cut straight to the heart of the two-killer theory’s flaw.

’Am I about to overturn my own theory?’

Li Jianye mused, "A year and a half ago... Shen Miao died six months ago."

"In the time between, if there really was a killer, they had more than enough opportunity to strike."

"Given that a year and a half wasn’t enough to diminish their murderous hatred, they clearly weren’t afraid of the law back then."

"But..."

Before he could finish, Qian Hua jumped in, "He still waited a year and a half."

"It wasn’t until the early morning of October 24th, 2003, that he finally made a move on Cheng Yu!"

"And even then, he had a second killer do it instead of taking the life himself!"

"Why is that?"

’Was he afraid?’

Xu Huo thought not. There was no doubting an anger that time itself could not erode.

It had to be another reason.

"What kind of reason?"

"What could make someone, in a state of extreme rage, wait a year and a half for revenge, and then find a second person to kill on their behalf?"

Xu Huo added.

When you don’t personally take part in something, the emotions tied to it often can’t be released.

It’s like, no matter how many racing games you play on a computer, mastering every drift and corner to become number one in the country...

...the thrill still doesn’t come close to hitting 200, or even 250, miles per hour on a real road.

The two experiences are completely different.

Or when you’re watching a TV show, no matter how deeply you’re immersed, you can’t feel that complete satisfaction. You’re left hanging, which is an awful feeling.

Let’s take an example.

Thousands of years ago, there was an old man who was hunted down. The pursuer killed his family and framed him for it, leaving him as the sole survivor.

His hatred turned his hair white overnight, and he defected to an enemy state.

Later, while in that enemy state, what do you think he felt when he heard that the man who killed his family had died?

Joy? Happiness? Glee?

No.

It was immense grief!

He wasn’t happy about his enemy’s death at all. On the contrary, he was overcome with sorrow.

The reason was that he could no longer take revenge for his family *with his own hands*. He could no longer personally kill the man and take his head!

Later, after his forces broke through the enemy capital, this man had his nemesis’s corpse exhumed from its grave and flogged the body relentlessly.

And that is the origin of the term "flogging a corpse."

His name was Wu Zixu.

This incident is recorded in the *Records of the Grand Historian: Wu Zixu’s Biography*, though it doesn’t appear in texts like the *Spring and Autumn Annals*. So there’s a chance it’s apocryphal, but the probability of it being true is high enough to be used as a reference.

"His ability to give the second killer detailed information means he was constantly monitoring the movements of Cheng Yu and his circle."

"His anger, his resentment, was enough to make him flog a corpse repeatedly."

"Let alone a living person?"

"Especially one who was flaunting his presence right in front of him!"

Xu Huo analyzed further.

He gave the second killer the information, which prompted them to commit the murder around this time. But information needs to be gathered, and in this day and age, most of that has to be done by physically watching someone.

This means that the perpetrator, Cheng Yu, had been living right under the killer’s nose for a long time.

Could he have restrained himself? Xu Huo knew he couldn’t have.

"So, there must be a reason, something that forcibly overrode his emotions and made it impossible for him to act."

Xu Huo proceeded step-by-step, continuing:

"In other words..."

"A physical constraint!" Li Jianye ventured.

Xu Huo nodded.

The so-called shift from "not wanting to" to "being unable to."

At that moment, a name surfaced in everyone’s mind.

"The second question—which also contains the answer—is why the killer had to find someone else to do the killing."

"In other words, the physical constraint."

You want to drink water. You’re looking at the kettle. Whether you drink or not depends on your own will.

You want to drink water, but you have no arms, no hands, no legs, and the kettle is on a high shelf. Now, your desire to drink is no longer a matter of your own will.

That is a physical constraint!

This means the killer was under a physical constraint that made it impossible for him to commit the murder himself, which is why he took action to find a second killer to do it for him.

So who is this person?

For a moment, Xu Huo and the other two exchanged a look, their eyes narrowing.

A name was tentatively spoken.

"Sun... Yang?"