Chapter 118: Profiling

2022-05-20

The bitter wind howled outside as I stood there holding a leg over a meter long in my hands. A chill settled deep inside me, one that ran from my scalp all the way down to my toes. It was the kind of bone-deep cold that made the actual winter air feel almost mild—a chill that burrowed straight into your heart.

Captain Zhou came up beside me, his breath steaming in the frosty air. “Wu Meng, are we heading back now?”

Glancing at the leg I was clutching, I replied quietly, “Yeah, let’s go back. Maybe we can find some useful clues from this leg.”

On the drive back, Captain Zhou didn’t crack a single joke. After something like this, no matter how optimistic you were, it’s hard to stay positive. I couldn’t bring myself to say much, either. The two cars rolled on slowly through the cutting wind…

In a rundown autopsy room.

This place looked like it hadn’t seen use in years. According to Captain Zhou, this autopsy room was just for show. Yumu City hadn’t had a murder case in ages, and accidental deaths were always handled at the hospital. This room was mostly forgotten.

With no heat, the chill in here bit right through your bones. I found myself stomping my feet just to keep warm.

Guan Zengbin looked around at the shabby conditions and let out a helpless sigh. “It may be rough, but it’ll do. The only issue is this leg’s frozen solid—it might as well be a block of ham. There’s no way we can start the autopsy until it thaws. We’ve got to wait for it to defrost first.”

“No quick way to do that in here,” Captain Zhou said, scratching his head awkwardly. “So, what now?”

“How about we just wait inside?” I offered.

It made for quite a strange scene: four of us sitting around a table, and right in the center, a human leg—foot and all. Not a pig’s leg, not beef, but an actual person’s. The radiator was running, and slowly, the clear ice clinging to the leg began to melt. Droplets trickled from the toes, forming a little puddle on the floor. Before long, water pooled beneath the table.

We looked like a pack of ravenous foodies, eyes locked hungrily on that long leg—as if we hadn’t eaten in days. Somehow, that leg became the star of the show, thawing before our eyes. After about half an hour, it was fully defrosted, except now it looked wrinkled and limp, nowhere near as firm as it had before.

Captain Zhou grabbed a towel, thinking to wipe off the leftover ice and water.

But Guan Zengbin stopped him. “Don’t,” she warned. “That rough towel is likely to shed fibers and could easily wipe away traces the killer left. The friction might even scratch the just-thawed skin…”

Captain Zhou’s eyes went wide. He nodded with admiration. “Incredible, truly impressive! Just a few hours with you and I’ve learned so much. Honestly, folks from the big cities really are something else. My respect for you is like a river—endless, overflowing like the Yellow River in flood…”

“Enough of that!” Guan Zengbin cut him off, hoisting the leg with a touch of excitement. “Let’s start the autopsy. Maybe we’ll find something useful.”

The four of us headed to the makeshift operating area. The cold hit us hard, almost unbearable. Every breath puffed out in a thick white cloud. Despite that, Guan Zengbin stripped to just gloves to avoid impairing her work, braving the cold to dissect the leg.

Her hands moved swiftly and surely, using the specialty tools sent for her.

Watching from the side, Captain Zhou was dumbstruck. “Has technology really gotten this advanced?”

Soon, Guan Zengbin got what she needed. Captain Zhou hurried off and came back with a hot water bottle for her hands. When she tugged off her gloves, I saw how red and numb her fingers were from the cold. She pressed the bottle close, blowing warm air over her hands. “No fingerprints,” she reported. “Either the culprit wore gloves, or the prints were washed away by melting snow. Judging from the leg, it was severed between six and nine hours ago.”

“So in other words,” Guan Zengbin continued, “by the time we got to the scene, the leg had only been cut off for one to three hours. The conditions here don’t allow for a deeper autopsy, and after freezing and thawing, I can’t narrow down the time much more. If we find more body parts later, maybe we can compare them.”

I nodded. Even a rough timeline gave us a starting point.

Captain Zhou looked a bit embarrassed. “Let’s hurry back to the warm room. There’s nothing to see here and it’s freezing.”

But Guan Zengbin just waved him off and tossed the hot water bottle into my arms. I caught it; the bottle was barely warm. Through the drafty window, I saw snow falling again. This year’s cold snap really was relentless.

“Take a look at this.” In just a moment, Guan Zengbin used tweezers to lift a short, brown hair. It was stiffer than human hair—not sure what it belonged to.

Gu Chen asked, “What is that?”

Shaking her head, Guan Zengbin sealed it in an evidence bag. “No idea. There’s no way to test it here. We’ll have to send it to a better-equipped lab for analysis.”

Captain Zhou scratched his head again. “Alright, I’ll send someone to get it tested. Let’s get out of here, it’s way too cold.”

Everyone nodded and left the autopsy room.

The instant we opened the door, a rush of icy air smacked us in the face—almost shoved us right back in. The wind outside howled even louder, darkness swallowing everything around us. I’d never seen anything like it. Only when we got back to the heated room did I feel like a living person again.

Guan Zengbin pressed her hands to the radiator, soaking up the warmth. “This is hands-down the coldest winter I’ve seen. In summer, air conditioning keeps me alive. In winter, it’s all about the radiator.”

Her words made me think of the killer still hiding in the shadows. Wasn’t this person afraid of the cold? Even with our thick clothes, the wind still cut right through us. So who was bold enough to dump a body out in broad daylight like this?

Who?

Suddenly, I remembered what Wu Zui once said to me: If you have a gift and never use it, you’re just an ordinary person. But if I tried profiling, what if I lost myself in the role? Sitting on the sofa, gazing at the frost on the window, I weighed whether I should do it.

“So what’s next?” Captain Zhou asked, looking around at the rest of us.

Grinding my teeth, I made my decision—I would profile the killer.

I closed my eyes, picturing myself as the murderer: Why did I kill? How did I dispose of the body? What was my motive?

Scene after scene floated through my mind. Finally, I spoke, voice slow and steady. “I am the killer. I’m between 1.8 meters and 1.9 meters tall. Stocky, strong. I walk around with a big belly, wearing black or blue work overalls. My pants ride up over my waist. I wear boots and thick leather gloves.”

A dull ache started to throb behind my eyes, but I pressed on. “I’ve got on a fur-lined coat. In my hand is a machete—about sixty to seventy centimeters long. The blade is battered, nicked from chopping too many bones. It’s filthy, the whole blade stained almost black with dried blood. The metallic stench is overpowering.”

The pain in my head grew sharper. Still, the image of the murderer blazed in my mind. “My hands are covered in calluses. A scarf—once white—now crusted with streaks of black and red, wraps around my belly. Every time I use the knife, I wipe it clean on that scarf…”

“I have a little place all my own,” I forced out, pushing through the pain. “No one knows about it. There’s no electricity, no water…”

“I’m a butcher!” I shouted suddenly.

My mind exploded in white noise. For a moment, I felt nothing—couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Just darkness stretching in every direction. I was alone in the void.

“Wu Meng! Wu Meng!”

A faint voice echoed at the edge of my awareness, growing louder. Gradually, light and warmth seeped in—I felt a hand gripping my shoulder, shaking me.

Guan Zengbin’s voice was anxious by my ear. “Wu Meng! Wu Meng!”

I snapped my eyes open and saw everyone staring at me. I reached up, and my forehead was drenched with sweat. I gulped in air, panting like I’d just finished a marathon. My throat was parched and my head pounded.

Captain Zhou glanced at me, hesitating as if he wanted to say something but changed his mind.

Guan Zengbin looked worried. “You alright?”

I rubbed my temples, swallowed, and croaked, “Yeah, I’m fine. That’s as far as I could go, for now. If we get more clues, maybe the portrait will get clearer. Right now I can’t say what pushed the killer to murder—or what standard they used to pick the victim.”

Guan Zengbin took the towel Captain Zhou handed her and used it to wipe the sweat from my face.

“Wait, isn’t that the same towel you were going to use on the leg earlier…” For a second, I felt warm inside but couldn’t help but grumble at the sight of it.

Captain Zhou waved me off. “Come on, we didn’t use it then. Still, Wu Meng, that move you pulled was amazing. Just closing your eyes and drawing out all those details about the killer—I’m sure your profile’s a close match. You’ll have to teach me how to do that some day…”

“Sure. If you want to learn,” I answered with a smile.

But Captain Zhou didn’t realize—not everything can really be taught. I remembered how the founder of profiling was a psychiatrist who spent his whole life studying the insane. Honestly, to really master profiling, you might have to be a little insane yourself…