Chapter 7: Chapter 7: A Tricky Angle
To be honest, Li Jianye had never considered it before...
That the victims themselves were strongly suspected of having done something wrong. A crime, even. Murder!
And this case had become...
"A revenge killing."
"This is retaliation. A frenzied act of vengeance, born from overwhelming resentment!"
Xu Huo took a coin from his pocket and casually tossed it. It landed showing a flower. Was the other side stamped with text? No, the other side was a flower, too.
It was a misprinted coin.
’Sometimes, people are like this coin. Not black and white, but a subtle shade of gray.’
"What did they do!?"
Li Jianye asked in a heavy voice.
The thought of a case arising from a police error... just thinking about it made everyone feel as if a massive boulder was crushing their chests.
"Who knows."
Xu Huo shrugged. He wasn’t a god; he couldn’t give a precise answer without any clues.
But... with clues, he could!
"Captain Li, you know what the first thing to observe is after a typical crime occurs, right?"
Xu Huo narrowed his eyes, his speech suddenly quickening as he stared at Li Jianye.
The man was a veteran detective. He might not know any formal deduction formulas, modern equipment, or what have you, and his experience could be hit-or-miss, but...
Experience was still useful!
"Reactions. You watch the reactions of the people around!"
Li Jianye blurted it out subconsciously. The moment he spoke, he paused, a sudden realization dawning on him.
"You mean..."
"We can bypass the case itself, observe their past reactions, pinpoint a specific time, and then indirectly investigate the crime they committed!?"
Xu Huo smiled and nodded. "Clever."
From what angle should one examine post-crime reactions?
For example.
In his previous life, Xu Huo had participated in a body-concealment case. The victim was a girl under ten years old, and the initial investigators found nothing on the killer. Three years later, Xu Huo took over the case.
In one day—less than a day, in fact—he closed the case!
Xu Huo arrested a thirty-year-old man from the same village.
How did he figure it out?
Abnormal behavior!
When he arrived at the victim’s home, her parents had already passed the stage of overwhelming grief and were just sad. The neighbors were only slightly mournful. But this man was overly enthusiastic, showing even more concern than the victim’s own parents!
His behavior went far beyond what was appropriate for his relationship to the family!
A quick background check revealed he had acted the same way during the initial investigation, yet his connection to the victim’s family was practically nonexistent...
After focusing the investigation on him, they eventually found the burial site and solved the case.
"The appearance of abnormal behavior often indicates an emotional or psychological disturbance. Think of a date, a blind date, or being alone with a girl you like—the intense emotions can cause abnormal behavior like fidgeting, being tongue-tied, or a racing heart."
Xu Huo explained slowly.
Here’s another simple example.
Suppose you’ve killed someone, and a group of police officers are interrogating you.
How would you act? Would you follow the old saying, ’a clear conscience fears no knock at the door,’ and appear perfectly calm and unfazed on the surface?
Wrong. The vast majority of people feel nervous and guilty during a one-on-one interrogation.
Among a group of nervous people, you suddenly appear, feigning calmness. You might as well have ’killer’ written on your forehead!
They’d definitely dig deeper and investigate you inside and out.
So, after killing someone, you can’t be too panicked, but you also can’t be too calm!
"The same logic..."
"...applies to their crime!"
The deceased might not have killed anyone, but they most likely committed a crime. At eighteen or nineteen, it’s almost impossible to hide it completely. So, at some point, there must have been abnormal behavior.
"What time?" Li Jianye quickly lowered his head, his heart pounding like a drumroll and his breathing unconsciously quickening.
"Behavior! What kind of behavior did the deceased exhibit?"
For a man like him, he knew exactly what it meant to deduce the timing of such an event...
It meant cracking the case!
It meant that this homicide case—four lives lost, on the verge of becoming a cold case—was about to be solved!
He wouldn’t have to face disciplinary action, the archives wouldn’t gain another dusty file, and the Jiangdong District police wouldn’t have to endure public condemnation!
Li Jianye stared intently at Xu Huo, his heart thumping, afraid of missing a single word.
"Captain Li, you haven’t forgotten the typical post-murder behaviors of a killer, have you? Their reactions concerning the case or the body."
Xu Huo pressed on, continuing to guide everyone’s thinking.
"Dump it far, bury it close!" Zhao Shui blurted out, speaking in a rush.
"And running away," Chu Xi added after a moment’s thought, pausing her writing.
"Exactly. Just like I said, the abnormal behavior after a crime is either to run or to hide! Sometimes both!"
Running means hitting the road. If it were just one person, they could go wherever they wanted. But for the deceased, there were four of them...
Who would dare to run off alone?
And who would dare let one of the others run off alone!?
’Would you trust them? No way. When your life is on the line, entrusting your fate to someone else goes against the body’s self-preservation instinct!’
So... the four of them must have stuck together!
Shared interests can bind a group of people together, but only crime can bind them even tighter!
"Their living address!"
"The deceased went to middle school and high school together. They were even roommates every single year!"
Suddenly, an inconspicuous clue from the case file surfaced in Li Jianye’s mind.
Everyone froze for a second, and then it was as if they’d all had an epiphany.
"It didn’t stop there! In college, too!"
"One of the four scored high enough on the college entrance exam for a top-tier university, and the school even extended an offer, but he chose to enroll in a second-tier university with the other three!"
Someone suddenly spoke up, mentioning another clue that had been overlooked.
’Giving up a better university for friends or a girlfriend is something you usually only see in novels, and even then, the character gets mercilessly flamed for it!’
"Also, before school started, the four of them asked their advisor to be placed in the same dorm room. When they were rejected, all four of them decided to rent a house off-campus together..."
A relationship like that...
Either they were gay, or something was seriously wrong.
No matter how close friends are, they don’t act like that!
"So..."
"It’s obvious, isn’t it?"
Xu Huo took a deep breath and looked down at the four cold bodies.
"Investigate this behavior. Find the first time it happened!"
Was this easy to investigate?
Yes, it was very easy. Behavior like this was bound to have witnesses.
The police might not even need to investigate. They just needed to look through the files they already had!
Suddenly, everyone in the room did the same thing in unison.
Without a moment’s hesitation, they immediately lowered their heads and began flipping through the case files they had compiled earlier.
The interview notes in the files had errors... but the official records the police pulled wouldn’t be wrong!
Seeing this, Xu Huo breathed a sigh of relief.
He gently rubbed the bridge of his nose.
’This investigation method takes a huge toll on your mind and spirit. Getting through one case like this is more exhausting than jacking off five times in a row.’
’But there’s no other way. This is the best investigative method I can think of...’
’It’s 2003. There are no surveillance cameras, no special talents. Jiangsan City doesn’t even have a medical examiner; we have to find a doctor for autopsies. The equipment is just electric batons and magnifying glasses. Both are useless when it rains. The latter is okay, still somewhat usable. But the former, in this rain... you’d probably electrocute yourself the moment you turn it on.’
’Xu Huo wasn’t a masochist; he had no desire to get zapped.’
Time ticked by, second by second, flowing away to the sound of raindrops and the rustling of turning pages.
The scene was terrifyingly quiet; even the sound of breathing could be heard clearly.
Until...
"Found it!"
Suddenly, Li Jianye spoke up, his voice firm and loud. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at a piece of information in the file.
"Four years ago..."
"During the Spring Festival!"
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