Chapter 185 - 139: Found! The Killer’s Real Identity

A criminal...

That’s an easy one to understand. A person who breaks the law and commits a crime is a criminal!

But...

Are there such things as born criminals?

Labeled a criminal the moment they’re born, before they can even open their eyes...

From that perspective, there’s no such thing as a born criminal. After all, their consciousness hasn’t even developed yet, let alone the personal awareness required to consciously defy the law.

But...

things look different from other angles.

Here are a few examples.

"Officer, are you talking about supermales? Or Down Syndrome?"

The head of the thieves looked at Xu Huo, unable to hold his tongue any longer.

As the head of a ring of thieves, he had naturally come into contact with people from other Lower Nine Professions, like human traffickers, and had seen people like that in their employ.

However...

Supermale syndrome and Down Syndrome are just medical conditions. It’s like getting unusually irritable after eating spicy food; it doesn’t make you a criminal.

"The child of a rapist?"

Li Jianye’s brows knitted together.

To be honest, he didn’t want to discuss the case in front of others, but time was tight, so he couldn’t be bothered with such trivialities.

"A child born of rape... is their very existence the result of a crime?"

"So even if they do nothing, they would be called a criminal?"

Li Jianye asked, full of doubt.

There was a very popular question that once circulated abroad.

"If a woman is raped and has an unplanned pregnancy, should she have an abortion?"

The question was posed to anti-abortion activists, but that’s a detail we can ignore.

Looking at it purely objectively, setting aside any subjective feelings.

Looking at the question itself, there are only two outcomes: have the abortion, or don’t. The argument against abortion is that the child itself is an innocent party to an accident.

But if she doesn’t have the abortion and gives birth, the victim, who has already been raped, is then forced to bear her attacker’s child. It’s a secondary violation, a double devastation of both mind and body!

Therefore, from the moment of conception, the child is the embodiment of contradiction and conflict.

Its very existence is the result of a crime, a product of an illegal act.

Disregarding their own personal will, and looking only at this fact, you could say such a person is a born criminal.

Because their existence is founded on the very act of a crime!

It’s a stretch, but it does somewhat fit Xu Huo’s question.

But...

it doesn’t fit the known facts of the case!

"No..."

"The timeline. Pay attention to the timeline!"

Xu Huo said in a low voice, looking at Qian Hua.

"How old is the killer?"

Qian Hua paused, glancing at the owner.

"Twenty-two at the absolute most!" the owner quickly replied.

"Twenty-two... which means he was born about twenty years ago, in 1983."

Xu Huo nodded, then his voice suddenly changed topics.

"Captain Qian..."

"In 1983... what happened to the victim of the case from six years ago?" Xu Huo stared at Qian Hua.

Qian Hua froze, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.

A flood of information ran through his mind, playing out like a movie in front of him.

The police didn’t have much information on the two victims.

Too much time had passed, and other factors had muddled the details, making them impossible to trace.

’So, whatever Xu Huo knows must be something I said back at the office!’

’And what did I say... about 1983...?’

Suddenly, it hit him. Qian Hua’s unfocused gaze sharpened, and he looked at Xu Huo, his eyes wide with astonishment.

"The year the vegetable vendor’s son fled his debts, and her daughter-in-law was sentenced to death!"

"In other words, the only leads connected to the victim, the only ones with a motive for revenge, are these two!"

"First, the son. Could he possibly have that kind of ability?"

"Obviously not."

"That leaves the other one."

Xu Huo paused, directing everyone’s attention to a detail that had, until now, seemed completely unremarkable.

"Inside the prison..."

"The daughter-in-law who was sentenced to death!"

"Her surroundings, her environment, the timeline—every single detail fits the developmental conditions the killer would have needed!"

A dead person?

The others froze.

"You mean..."

Qian Hua paused, the corner of his eye twitching. He took a deep breath and said,

"The killer... learned what he knows in prison?"

In prison...

Can you really learn anything in there?

Yes. You can learn a lot.

It usually falls into two categories. First, there’s the official rehabilitation through labor, where you learn skills like sewing or cooking.

And second, there’s what the inmates learn from each other.

The maximum-security blocks are filled with murderers, Thief Kings, or A-list fugitives.

There was even one prison that, in a past life, was jokingly known as a place for ’advanced studies’.

Let’s just call it the "Basket Prison." The criminals locked up inside were most famous for white-collar crimes of every variety.

Stock market manipulators, failed entrepreneurs, accountants who cooked the books, embezzlers...

And the killer in this case...

...possessed a wide and deep range of knowledge. A prison could absolutely have been the perfect breeding ground for him!

But... he would have been only about seven years old when he started learning...

Seven years old? Prison? The combination of those two words...

"In other words, the woman on death row... it’s highly likely that in prison, she..."

"Gave birth?"

After those two words were spoken, Qian Hua fell silent.

Can a convict give birth in prison?

Yes. It’s possible all over the world.

Of course, the delivery and postpartum recovery might not happen inside the prison proper, but they would be in a supervised facility.

In other countries, pregnancy is even used as a way to evade the death penalty; there are frequent cases of female inmates mysteriously becoming pregnant.

As for the child who is born...

there are generally three possibilities.

One: The child grows up in the prison system. They can visit their mother and interact with other female inmates, but they cannot leave the prison grounds freely.

Two: If there are no relatives, the child is turned over to a social services agency.

Three: The child is raised by the prison system until they reach a certain age.

During this time, the prison doesn’t proactively register the child’s birth. That’s left to the family. If the family doesn’t do it, then it’s left to chance. If the registry office finds out about the child, they’ll process the paperwork. If not, the child has to wait until they’re old enough to register themselves.