Chapter 186 - 184: The Thread Connecting All the Clues (Part 1)

Chapter 186: Chapter 184: The Thread Connecting All the Clues (Part 1)

Xiao Yi was used to the occasional unfamiliar words from the woman in front of him, though their meanings weren’t hard to guess.

He walked over, stood beside Xu Jing, and looked at the table on the paper, saying, "The officials think the same way. When each victim was discovered, the time of death never exceeded two days. In the meanwhile, the perpetrator must have hidden her somewhere.

Moreover, when the perpetrator assaulted the victim, she would inevitably make various sounds of struggle and scream. If there were other people nearby, it would have been impossible not to hear any noise. Therefore, I speculate that his hiding place must be rather remote, with few people around, or the place can block sound, so people outside couldn’t hear, like an underground cellar."

"Exactly," Xu Jing nodded, pointing at the places where the victims were found, "Moreover, all of them were found in the outskirts, but most of them disappeared within the Western Capital. Only Chen Lili from the third case disappeared outside the city because she originally lived in a village outside the city.

This indicates that the perpetrator must have some means of transportation, like a carriage or a donkey cart, to conveniently move the victims."

Saying this, Xu Jing looked at Xiao Yi and asked, "I want to know, how strictly are the vehicles passing through the Western Capital typically inspected by guards?"

Xiao Yi replied, "Not too strictly. They mainly check the passes of individuals, and if someone arrives by a conveyance, they might briefly check the inside of the vehicle. After all, with over tens of thousands of citizens coming in and out of the Western Capital daily, even with two gates on each side, it would still take a tremendous effort, and checking everyone thoroughly would mean not checking too many in a day.

It’s only when the government imposes martial law or when there is an important event occurring in the Western Capital that the inspections become more rigorous."

Xu Jing figured it was like this. She looked at Xiao Yi and said, "If someone reports to the authorities that a family member is missing, would that lead to martial law?"

Xiao Yi immediately understood her meaning and shook his head, saying, "Generally, it wouldn’t. There are too many reported missing persons to the authorities every day. The authorities need time to verify whether the person is truly missing or just temporarily misplaced due to some mishap or negligence. Only if an important individual goes missing would the authorities impose martial law.

If you are referring to the Smiling Killer case, the authorities have never issued a martial law order over it."

Indeed.

After all, most victims of the Smiling Killer were ordinary women, and the cases were so spaced out that it was hard to immediately associate the disappearance with him.

Xu Jing mused, "So it’s not that difficult for the perpetrator to transport the victims outside the city, but moving a corpse outside the city is quite risky. I tend to think that the perpetrator moves them out before they’re dead."

Xiao Yi raised an eyebrow, "You mean the so-called safe house is outside the city?"

Xu Jing nodded, "That’s how I see it. If I were the perpetrator, that’s what I would do."

After all, even without martial law, soldiers at the city gates still conduct routine inspections. If one day they happen to be more thorough and discover someone, it would be troublesome.

At that time, if they discover a living person, the perpetrator still has room to maneuver, but if it’s a corpse, it’s over.

"I also found something that caught my attention."

Xu Jing suddenly picked up the brush on the side table and wrote four numbers in the blank space on the paper—one, one, three, three, four.

Xiao Yi was slightly puzzled, "What are these numbers?"

"These are the actual times the victims were in the perpetrator’s custody, calculated by subtracting the estimated time of death inferred by the forensic doctor from the days they went missing."

Xu Jing pointed to the fourth case, "For example, the victim Qian Honglian went missing on July 26th and was found on July 30th. The forensic doctor estimated her time of death to be roughly two days prior, meaning she was in the perpetrator’s hands for about three days.

Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that when the perpetrator committed the first two cases, he didn’t keep the victims around for too long. He likely committed the crime shortly after capturing them and then disposed of the bodies.

After disappearing for a year and then reappearing, he clearly kept the victims for a much longer time."

Xiao Yi couldn’t help but stare at those numbers, saying, "In the cases committed after he reappeared, the victims had more injuries than those in the first two cases. It seems like he kept them around to torture them."

Xu Jing pressed her lips together, "I suspect the same, but I still feel something is off. Does he really need to keep the victims for three to four days just to torture them? The most crucial question is what happened during the year he disappeared that could have changed his modus operandi so drastically?"

Xiao Yi also pondered for a moment before suddenly saying, "Today, I went to the Ministry of Justice and instructed my subordinates to list all the households in the city that have at least one conveyance."

Ah, this...

Xu Jing shot him a subtle glance, "Your subordinates don’t have any objections?"

While conveyances are not cheap, even the simplest donkey cart is beyond the reach of an ordinary household, the Western Capital is not short of affluent families, not to mention its vast population. Listing all families with at least one conveyance sounds daunting.

Xiao Yi chuckled, "It’s just routine work, why would there be objections? The Ministry of Justice also tried making such a list before, but they stopped halfway due to the tremendous workload. We’re just continuing what they didn’t finish, saving us some effort.

Without other leads, no matter how cumbersome, we have to give it a try."

True, although it’s a "foolish" method, without leads, we have to try everything.

"I’ve also instructed the Gatekeeper General responsible for city gate security to order his men to focus on checking the vehicles entering and exiting the gates these days."

Xiao Yi continued, "Although it is not out of the question that he has committed a crime we haven’t detected yet, the absence of a new victim suggests that something on his end has possibly delayed his plans."

Xu Jing furrowed her brows.

Another "foolish" method.

With no breakthrough, using such a needle-in-a-haystack approach—who knows when they’ll finally crack the case?

Xu Jing thought for a moment before suddenly grabbing a new sheet of paper from the table and pinning it to the empty spot on the wooden board, saying, "I have another finding; the dumping sites for the bodies are mainly concentrated to the west of the Western Capital. Except for Qian Honglian from the fourth case, found near the Famen Temple in the north, the other victims were found to the west. Does this mean the perpetrator uses the two west gates to dispose of the bodies? Is it a habit, or is there another reason? If it’s a habit, why was Qian Honglian’s body found in the north?"

It turned out that the new paper was a map of the Western Capital and its surrounding areas, with the places where the victims were found marked in red ink.

Xiao Yi hadn’t expected the woman had thought so thoroughly and couldn’t help but glance at her with admiration, saying, "According to you, among the five cases, only Qian Honglian was killed in July; other victims were killed between January and February. There might be some significance to this as well."

Every time he collaborated with her on a case, he couldn’t help but marvel; talents like hers would be squandered if not at the Ministry of Justice or Dali Temple.

Xu Jing clapped her hands, immediately grabbing a brush to jot down this point of doubt, saying, "The perpetrator is a serial killer, and from his cases, he has developed his own style and habits. Each detail of the case must have its purpose.

And these intentions, if we can decipher just one, might serve as a breakthrough for this case!"

After writing, Xu Jing stared at the papers in front of her, her brows furrowed deeply.

There were many points of doubt, but they were scattered and fragmented, lacking a thread to connect them.

But she didn’t know where this thread was. Do they really have to wait for the next victim to find it?