Chapter 97 - 96: The Man in High Heels! A Pervert

"Hiss... Something’s not right..."

At seven in the morning, Zhou Zheng stood at the crime scene in Zhaozhou City, a dull ache throbbing in his teeth as he surveyed the surroundings.

Wang Chao sidled up to him.

"What’s not right?"

Zhou Zheng: ...

Zhou Zheng pondered for a long time. All sorts of thoughts surfaced in his mind, but none of them led to a clear conclusion. Finally, he could only let out a silent sigh and look up at Xu Huo.

"I still have things to handle at the Special Seventh Bureau, so I’m leaving."

"This case... Hmm, I’ll make a brief note of it."

Hearing the voice, Xu Huo snapped out of his thoughts and nodded subconsciously.

Zhou Zheng left.

He arrived in a daze.

He left in an even bigger one.

To be honest, Zhou Zheng didn’t really believe in things like luck. He thought everything was a matter of probability and was convinced that all so-called metaphysics could be explained by science.

But now, he felt he’d been a bit too naive...

’I really need to go back to the Special Seventh Bureau for a few more years of advanced training!’

"Brother Huo, what’s with him?"

Wang Chao scratched his head, watching Zhou Zheng walk away in the distance, and asked in confusion.

"It’s nothing. Go on, run along."

Xu Huo gave a perfunctory reply, his gaze sweeping over the area.

This was the crime scene.

A public toilet near a school. One that was never cleaned, reeked to high heaven, and was swarming with mosquitoes and flies. A public toilet where you could see "strawberry towers" in several of the stalls!

The area was littered with household trash, and the ground underfoot was a sickening sludge.

The school was about a hundred meters from the toilet, with only a main road in between.

There was a small town nearby.

Just yesterday, on the night of the 24th, Xu Huo had pulled a woman’s body out of this very toilet in the dark.

As for the information on the body itself...

Xu Huo’s brows knitted. He lifted his foot and walked into the toilet.

Seeing this, the surrounding officers from the local Zhaozhou City police station didn’t stop him.

Xu Huo’s reputation was huge now. It wasn’t just known in Zhaozhou City, which was close to Linlan City.

Almost every police chief in the entire Hanhai Province, and even in several neighboring provinces, knew his name!

To them, his was a name they might be able to call on to save their lives in a crisis...

Therefore, after his identity was confirmed, Xu Huo was able to enter and exit the crime scene at will to conduct his investigation.

He even had command authority!

"What’s the information on the deceased?"

Xu Huo put on a mask and stepped into the toilet. His brow furrowed as he observed the body in front of him and looked at the officer by his side.

The officer nodded, took out a notebook, and began to read.

"After the case was officially opened, the police confirmed the victim’s identity within one hour and twenty-three minutes."

"The deceased is named Chao Xia, female, an elementary school teacher, twenty-four years old. She worked at the elementary school less than two hundred meters from the crime scene."

"Time of death was between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. yesterday. Cause of death was asphyxiation. The body was dumped in a squat toilet stall post-mortem."

"After an overnight investigation, the police confirmed that no one at the school held any animosity toward her."

"She had just passed her probationary period six months ago, and there was no one at the school with whom she had any conflicts."

"During interviews at her residence, we confirmed she was a renter. She had only been living at her current address for three months, so her relationships with her neighbors were distant, with no apparent conflicts..."

"..."

Listening to the voice in his ear, Xu Huo stared at the body before him.

Xu Huo’s brows knitted tighter.

’The victim... had no conflicts with anyone?’

Xu Huo had said it before.

Murder requires a motive.

Imagine there’s a scale in front of you.

On the left side of the scale is your reason; on the right is the price.

For a murderer, the reason for killing must outweigh the price. Only then will a person choose to act.

For example, if you’d get a life sentence for picking up a dollar, would you still pick it up if you saw one on the ground?

But what if there were over a hundred pounds of gold hidden under your house? How many people could resist that temptation?

It’s the same with murder. You need a reason to kill, and in your own eyes, that reason must outweigh the price.

"From the looks of it, the killer’s motive was..."

Xu Huo paused. His brows furrowed as he glanced at the lower half of the body.

The body was wearing a long dress, but now it was soiled with filth and had been roughly pulled down.

Followed by... some terrible things...

The victim’s lower body was a complete mess!

"For sex?"

A jolt went through Xu Huo’s heart.

Hearing that motive brought up again, the surrounding officers also felt a chill run down their spines.

The last case, the Corpse Well case, whether it was the bodies or Wang Jinyuan, it all started with...

Lust!

’Damn, now there’s another one...’

Of course, that wasn’t what worried Xu Huo the most. It was something only he knew.

’Modern Devil?’

’I remember Sun Jiang’s case was called the Modern Jesus case.’

Xu Huo fell into a memory.

Last month, in early September, when he was still in Jiangsan City.

A case had occurred in Jiangsan City, dubbed ’Modern Jesus’. There were two main culprits: one was Sun Jiang, the other was a priest.

Sun Jiang was a beggar, had been since birth. He only became an executioner after his family was murdered.

From a third-party perspective...

...the executioner wasn’t actually the bad guy.

The four victims deserved what they got.

So what about this case?

’Modern Devil?’

Xu Huo murmured, his mind racing.

’Devil and Jesus are opposites.’

’One is Heaven, the other is Hell. Since the system has presented such polar opposites, the content is likely to be similar, yet fundamentally different.’

’But how will it unfold?’

’Is the killer the devil?’

’Or is the victim the devil?’

’Based on the current information, it’s unlikely to be the victim. Unless, like in the Jesus case, she faked her public reputation.’

’Then it’s most likely the killer. But after the Corpse Well case, there are many more possibilities.’

’In the Corpse Well case, Han Shi had escaped once and found someone to ask for help, only to be imprisoned and raped, abused until she was battered and broken.’

’To her, that villager was the devil, personally crushing her hope and pushing her off a cliff.’

’So in this case...’

’...could a third scenario emerge?’

’Namely, a bystander?’

After thinking for a long time, Xu Huo clicked his tongue and frowned.

"Does Zhaozhou City have a forensic pathologist?"

He looked up at the officer beside him.

"No." The officer shook his head awkwardly.

"These days, forensic pathologists are rarer than pandas. An entire prefecture-level city might not have one, so where would a county-level city like Zhaozhou find one?"

"Do you have a collaborating doctor?" Xu Huo’s brow tightened.

"There’s a forensic examiner who works in insurance. His expertise is a bit lacking, but he’s much better than a regular doctor," the officer said quickly.

"After the scene is processed, send the body over for a forensic autopsy report."

Xu Huo said.

Just as he finished speaking, another officer approached.

"Advisor Xu, officers from Linlan City have arrived as backup. Please handle the handover..."

Police from Linlan City?

Wang Chao, who had been standing by bored for a long time, raised an eyebrow.

"Who is it!?"

Xu Huo closed his eyes. His ears twitched, and he gave a slight sniff.

"Sigh, what is the world coming to? It’s just cases from morning till night..."

"Alright, cut the chatter. Zhaozhou isn’t far from us. This case might be connected to ours, so stay sharp!"

Faint voices drifted in.

"Captain Qian Hua and Captain Wang Hu."

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. Then, another voice reached his ears.

"Fucking bastards... I’m not even done with my work, and now another one? Fucking bastards..."

Xu Huo opened his eyes.

"That’s Captain Li!"

"Mm, looks like they all came."

Wang Chao was surprised. A moment later, several familiar faces appeared before them.

"I trust your captain has already notified you. The investigation is now being handed over to Linlan City. You will provide assistance. I don’t need to say more."

Wang Hu walked in, wearing a mask, flanked by Qian Hua and Li Jianye.

The local officers beside them nodded.

County-level cities generally don’t have a chief of police; they are managed by a detachment captain.

Over here, Li Jianye and Qian Hua approached Xu Huo.

"How’s the case looking?"

They asked with a frown, scanning the area.

"The situation is grim. On the surface, the victim had no conflicts with anyone. She had a boyfriend, but they were very much in love, so he’s been ruled out."

"Currently, the case is being classified as a rape-murder, a so-called ’rape first, kill later’!"

Xu Huo said gravely.

’Is that it? Just this?’

No, this was just the beginning...

"If that were all the information, it wouldn’t be any different from a typical rape-murder case. But..."

"The rape and murder took place in the men’s toilet!"

"There were no signs of a struggle at the entrance to the men’s toilet, and yet the victim is a woman."

"In other words, it’s highly likely the victim didn’t resist and walked into the men’s toilet voluntarily while she was alive."

Xu Huo frowned and gestured for everyone to look outside.

If the ground outside were hard, it would be difficult to guess.

But the ground outside was all sludge.

From the footprints in the sludge, you can clearly determine whether the victim entered willingly or was forced!

And the reality is, she most likely entered the men’s toilet willingly.

At the same time...

"From the sludge, they lifted two footprints. One was identified as the victim’s."

"The second footprint was left by the killer, but the print..."

Looking at Li Jianye, Xu Huo paused, then continued:

"It was from a high heel!"

A high heel?

Everyone froze, a million questions instantly flooding their minds.

A high heel?

A woman!?

A woman raped a woman?

A woman raped another woman in a men’s toilet!?

Or was it a man wearing high heels?

No, no matter how you looked at it, the logic was staggering...

But... was that all?

"It would be manageable if that were all. But the last discovery is the most troublesome."

Xu Huo sighed and then crouched down.

He lifted the white cloth covering the lower half of the body slightly, pointed to the blood-drenched thigh, and spoke.

"The killer raped the victim, but her sexual organs show no signs of tearing."

"Nor were any traces of sexual assault to her genitals found."

"And the reason it was still classified as a rape case under these circumstances..."

Xu Huo paused.

He pulled back the cloth covering the victim’s thigh.

The next second, a bloody hole on her thigh came into view.

Inside the bloody hole were the remains of some unknown liquid.

"The killer used a knife to dig a hole in the victim’s thigh, near her knee."

Xu Huo stood up, took a deep breath, and looked at the officers around him.

He was using this information to show them just how difficult this case was.

"And then raped and killed her!"

In an instant.

All the police officers who had just arrived at the scene stood frozen in place, their minds completely blank.

"The killer..."

"Is a pervert!?"

A woman’s body, raped and murdered, was in a men’s toilet.

The suspect is likely a man who wears high heels.

In other words...

On the night of the 24th, a man in high heels brought a woman into a men’s toilet. While she was still alive, he used a knife to carve a hole in her thigh, and then raped and murdered her...

This case...

What the hell is this!?

...

’The Modern Devil Case’

(Case Established!)