Chapter 79 - 78: Horrifying Information! They... Opened a Shop.

Yes. Right now, it seems the police have identified part of the killer’s motive: money.

But what about the carved-off meat?

Where did the chunks of flesh that disappeared from the bodies go!?

You can’t exchange that stuff for money.

Take it to a pork butcher to pass it off as pork?

Heh. After a lifetime of slaughtering pigs, they’d know better than anyone if it was pork or not.

So what else could it be for?

"As it stands, this information doesn’t align with a financial motive at all!"

October 22nd, 5:00 PM.

At the Linlan City Municipal Bureau, Wang Hu frowned after a moment of thought and spoke.

"This suggests another motive, but we lack the foundational information to form a hypothesis..."

"No, we have some."

Xu Huo mulled it over, a bold and horrifying conjecture forming in his mind.

Wang Hu paused, then asked, puzzled, "What information?"

"Money!" Xu Huo said.

Money was the reason there were victims, but...

It also revealed the killer’s circumstances!

"The killer’s circumstances are singular. Even if there are multiple motives, those circumstances don’t change, and the motives, in turn, arise from those circumstances. In other words, the purpose of the chunks of flesh and the purpose of the money both revolve around the killer’s own situation."

"There’s a common thread between the two!"

After a moment’s thought, Xu Huo connected the logical dots and began to elaborate.

"By working backward from the money, we can deduce the killer’s situation. Then, using that situation, the money, and the case information, we can deduce the true purpose of the flesh!"

What could their motive be?

’Apply the formula.’

What do people want?

It’s always what they lack!

No billionaire is going to personally kill someone out of greed for a couple of bucks.

But for someone whose entire net worth is just a couple of bucks, they might just stab someone to death!

The killer dared to murder for a small amount of money, which proved just how desperately they needed it.

"We said before that Zhang Family Town, due to its geography, remained undeveloped for years. Even now, it’s all thatched huts, with very few tile-roofed houses."

"The people here are poor enough to foster a deep craving for money."

Xu Huo spoke slowly, then paused before abruptly changing the subject.

"Which means the killer’s second motive, the one related to the flesh, also arises from this situation!"

"Because they’re so poor, living in squalor, they cut off parts like the buttocks and thigh meat."

"This is... for what reason?"

According to the people from the Madam, the man with the prostitute was rather stout. In a remote, backward village several decades ago, that would have been very difficult to achieve.

Unless he was able to supplement his diet with large amounts of meat.

Where could he get that meat?

A pork stall, buying cuts of meat. But unfortunately, in those days, even someone with a normal income couldn’t afford meat often, let alone someone in a poor village.

However, from the perspective of the case, there was another way he could have supplemented his meat intake.

The same thought surfaced in everyone’s mind at once.

In an instant, the office fell silent.

So quiet you could hear each other breathe.

Several police officers froze, staring at each other, their bodies rigid. But no one was willing to speak.

Until...

"To eat..."

Xu Huo glanced around, voicing the bold, terrifying thought in his head.

Then, he finished the sentence.

"To eat people..."

Eating people...

Cannibalism!

Qian Hua’s face instantly twisted in disbelief, his eyes filled with shock and horror.

At that moment, he, Wang Hu, and Li Jianye all looked at each other, the emotions in their eyes almost palpable.

This was a cannibalism case!?

Cannibalism among one’s own species is utterly horrifying, even in the natural world with creatures like praying mantises.

If the killer’s motive for cutting off the flesh was really this...

Then the importance of this case would increase exponentially!

’As for whether a case involving money and cannibalism could still happen in modern times, in this civilized era, not some primitive age of savagery... is there any precedent?’

’In my past life, a case emerged in a Western Country.’

’The main targets of the investigation could be described as a club.’

’The club had forty to fifty members, though these were likely just outer-circle members, used as scapegoats by the club’s owner and core members.’

’And the reason this club of forty to fifty people was arrested by the police...’

’Illegal assembly!’

’And cannibalism!’

’Literally. They had committed this very crime!’

’Where did they get their food?’

’Their main source was victims of human trafficking.’

’Don’t think that being abducted by traffickers just means being sold to some family. It could be an illegal brickyard, a scam compound, a black-market operating room, or even...’

’The dinner table!’

’Does it happen in the Eastern Country?’

’Heh, it does, and there’s more than one case. The most widely known one... how many victims were there?’

’Seven? Eight? Or maybe ten?’

’None of those.’

’Forty-two.’

’Husband and Wife Lung Slices, Stir-fried Heart and Liver, Flash-fried Kidneys...’

’A full forty-two!’

’As for whether someone would kill for money...’

’The victims didn’t actually have much money on them.’

’Back then, there were no electronic payments, only cash. But people didn’t carry much cash when traveling; they had a card and would withdraw money as needed.’

’One person might have a hundred or two hundred yuan in cash at most. Even if the killer sold their clothes and everything, it would only be about three hundred yuan.’

’So, would someone kill for three hundred yuan?’

’Yes.’

’In fact, three hundred is too much.’

’People will kill for one yuan!’

’There was a case once where, due to rising ingredient costs, the owner of a noodle shop did the math and realized he wasn’t making much profit, so he raised the price by one yuan.’

’And because of that one yuan...’

’He had his head chopped off.’

’That’s right. The noodles went up by one yuan, a customer was furious, and in a rage, he cut off the owner’s head and threw it in a trash can!’

’After that, the price of those noodles in that area didn’t go up for a very long time.’

’Three hundred yuan, compared to one...’

’That’s equivalent to three hundred lives.’

’Is three hundred yuan enough to live on?’

’No, but the problem is...’

’The streets are full of people! The station is full of people from other provinces every day!’

’If one victim for three hundred isn’t enough, then they’ll get two, three, four!’

’They want money. They don’t care how many people die. The body count is just a unit for tallying their earnings.’

’This is bad. Based on the clues, this really could be a cannibalism case!’

Wang Hu’s heart sank.

’A cannibalism case that’s been going on for years...’

A heinous case like this would be a devastating blow to local tourism!

At the very least, its reputation wouldn’t recover for years.

It wouldn’t affect other cities much.

But this is Linlan City.

A city whose development depends on tourism!

Wang Hu didn’t dare to imagine the consequences if a tourist city was exposed for having an unsolved murder case that had been going on for years.

"Who is this person!?"

Qian Hua asked anxiously.

"Zhang Cui’s background is very suspicious. Zhang Family Town has no record of her, and finding information through interviews won’t be easy."

"What about the male killer!?"

It was mentioned before that the man was likely a local from Zhang Family Town. If they could find other townspeople willing to talk, they could definitely try to lock down his identity.

But... the reason interviewing them was troublesome wasn’t because of the massive workload.

It was the solidarity among the townspeople. If you asked about someone, say, for debt collection, they would claim they didn’t know, even if they did.

To be honest, it was a nasty kind of solidarity, one that worked against the police.

But...

"Based on this new information, let’s add one more directive."

Xu Huo made a new decision.

"What?"

Qian Hua frowned.

"Pawnshops!"

"Pawnshops in the city, second-hand markets, watch shops, places like that!"

Xu Huo said.

"The victims were stripped of their clothes. They couldn’t wear that many clothes themselves. Besides, the bodies had no jewelry and no cell phones."

"Grab a pickpocket. Get them to tell us where they fence phones and gold."

As soon as Xu Huo finished speaking, the group paused for a second, then quickly moved toward the exit!

"Let’s go!"

The crowd dispersed in a flurry. Nothing more was said, but everyone knew exactly what their job was.

Pickpockets have their own networks. They steal money, but stealing cash is too inefficient and doesn’t pay well.

Take dollars, for example. For the same denomination, they’re worth seven times more than the Eastern Country’s currency and are lighter. As Xu Huo knew from experience, it was more profitable to take dollars when robbing a bank.

Same principle.

Phones, watches, jewelry, and necklaces are far more valuable than cash!

In this era, the average monthly salary was around seven hundred, but a phone cost a few thousand. You couldn’t even fit that much cash in your pockets.

Thieves understand this well. They know a lot of places to fence goods.

The killer forced her to sell her body, making her a quasi-prostitute. There’s a high probability she had contact with pickpockets.

These shops can’t withstand an investigation. As long as we get serious, they’ll spill everything they know!

"We have to be fast!"

Xu Huo pulled out his walkie-talkie and said grimly.

He suddenly realized something.

A very depressing fact.

"Everyone, unfortunately, I have to tell you a very harsh truth."

"Killing..."

"Is addictive."

His voice came through the radios, making everyone’s heart sink.

Killing... is addictive.

Yes, it’s addictive. Some psychopathic serial killers, in their later stages, have no motive. They kill purely for the sake of killing.

It’s an addiction more deeply ingrained than nicotine, impossible to suppress. The urge stirs within, growing more extreme, until they become a beast!!!

"The killers didn’t disappear because they stopped killing. They just changed locations. They didn’t quit..."

"In other words... the victims we recovered aren’t all of them."

"And the ones we couldn’t recover from the well aren’t all of them either..."

Xu Huo’s words made everyone’s scalp tingle, their hearts leaping into their throats.

That horrifying well, filled with bodies...

There might be... a second one!

A second well of bodies... or even a third!

The killers had been gone from Zhang Family Town not for a day or two, but for a full year and a half!

When their addiction takes hold, the killing gets faster, more extreme. Their minds grow more and more twisted!

In other words... they’ve had another year and a half to kill. What the police found were the "works" from their "debut"...

And...

"Eating people... is also addictive!"

...

...

Starting at 5:30 PM, the police began a large-scale roundup of pickpockets based on the new information.

And based on the locations the pickpockets provided, a large number of officers began conducting searches. The intensity of the interrogations immediately and obviously increased.

And five hours later, at 10:30 PM...

A piece of information—information about a suspect—gradually came to light.

The information was surprising, but more than that... it was...

Horrifying!

"The suspect..."

When the next words were spoken, the office fell deathly silent, a chill running down everyone’s spine.

"...opened a shop."