Chapter 197: Who Will Be Next?

2022-05-20

While rummaging through his custom toolkit, Guan Zengbin glanced up at the steel rod in Gu Chen’s hand and said, “You won’t find steel rods like this out in the market. No manufacturer would produce something like this. That means the killer made it themselves. So, they’ve got technical skills too.”

We nodded in agreement.

“But how did the killer manage to impale two people at once?” I frowned at the steel rod, trying to piece things together.

Gu Chen gave me a look, then mimicked the motion in the air, grasping one end of the rod. “If you hold it like this and drive it down hard—you’d stab both of them on the bed.”

“No, that’s not it.” I shook a finger at him. “Gu Chen, when you pulled the rod out earlier, didn’t you actually have to use a lot of force?”

Gu Chen shook his head. “Honestly, it came out pretty easily.”

I let out a sigh. “Not everyone has your kind of strength. From the marks and witness accounts, we know the killer is small and skinny. For someone like that, stabbing the rod through two people wouldn’t be easy.”

Xiao Liu’s eyes went wide. “You still think there was only one killer? Sometimes they’re weak, other times they’re strong. Sometimes male, sometimes female. I think you’re getting this one wrong. We’re investigating the wrong angle. I think there had to be more than one killer. The real question is—why did they do it? Maybe that’s the key to solving the case.”

I glanced at Xiao Liu, not quite sure myself. Slowly, I said, “In that case, let’s split up and investigate. I’ve never seen a team pull off a murder like this before. You can’t get a group to work together unless they share the same goals and interests. The killer can’t be more than one person.”

Xiao Liu and I shook our heads at the same time.

Guan Zengbin cleared his throat and spoke up. “I’m no psychologist, but let me give you a perspective from forensics. There’s a reason the killer shaped the rod like this—yeah, they wanted the victims to die fast, but that’s not the only reason. This design also makes it take less effort.”

“Take less effort?” We turned to Guan Zengbin.

He nodded. “That’s right. Gu Chen touched on this earlier. When someone’s alive, their muscles contract. If you stab them, the muscles tighten and grip the blade, trapping it with a lot of pressure. That’s even why sometimes when you leave a knife inside, the organs can stay intact for quite a while.”

He pointed at the deep groove—blood channel—along the rod. “See how deep this groove is? With that, the muscles can’t grip the rod tightly. There’s a gap, some air, so the pressure is gone. If you jab down quickly, it will go straight through—using much less force.”

It was a factor, no doubt. But how much force did it really reduce? Was the killer’s strength just enough for it? As I weighed the uncertainty, I wondered if Xiao Liu would buy this explanation. I believed a skinny killer could pull this off—but it was clear Xiao Liu wasn’t convinced.

Guan Zengbin looked over at the two corpses, then to our group. “Enough talking. Let’s separate the bodies first.”

Gu Chen and I each dragged a corpse aside, finally splitting the two. In a darkly ironic way, it made me think of that old song—bound by love, even in death.

Guan Zengbin started a quick external examination of the corpses while I scanned the room. It was pretty spacious for a bedroom. People who enjoy life usually have bigger bedrooms—Sister Mao once told me that. And Zhou Yufeng? She looked like someone who knew how to live well.

There was a folding screen about one and a half meters high on one side of the room. If the killer hid behind that holding the rod, it was plausible.

But then again, why wouldn’t the lady of the house check behind the screen? With the male victim being about six feet tall and fit, he’d have no trouble dealing with someone skinny and around five-seven. So, the killer must’ve known the hostess wouldn’t look. That suggests the killer had been to her place before—more than once.

I closed my eyes, trying to envision the scene of the murder.

Just then, Guan Zengbin spoke. “From what I see on the bodies, there’s just this one penetrating wound on both.”

He gestured for us to look closer. “There are a ton of signs of life around the wound, so that’s for sure the fatal blow. My guess—death was from massive blood loss leading to organ failure. But until I do the autopsy, I can’t say for certain. Judging from rigor mortis and the other signs, they died around ten last night.”

“Ten o’clock?” the others echoed.

Guan Zengbin nodded gravely. “Don’t be surprised—even though the autopsy’s not done yet, that time must be close. So after this couple was killed, the murderer headed to the roof to kill the kid.”

I asked, “Did anyone look into what happened to the kid? When did he go missing yesterday?”

Someone stepped forward and reported, “We talked to the neighbors. The kid went out to play yesterday afternoon and by seven or eight at night still wasn’t home. Gao Ze’s a playful one but always comes back on time. Never stayed out after dark before. Parents went looking but couldn’t find him. Come ten or so, everyone got worried.”

“So the whole building started searching.” He scratched his head. “Some folks thought the kid was just off playing somewhere. They kept looking but no one called the police.”

Ten at night—the couple were already dead.

If I’m right, by then the boy was already in the killer’s grasp. He probably heard his parents calling for him—it’s only the second floor after all. But that couple didn’t care about some missing kid; they were wrapped up in their own private business.

He continued, “They kept searching till past one in the morning. Then someone said maybe the kid fell asleep at Old Wang’s place. Old Wang has a reputation for being kind—always treats the kids, so they like hanging around his place.”

“So some people went up to Old Wang’s on the second floor, others kept searching downstairs.” He glanced out the window. “When they walked in, they saw Old Wang had hanged himself. Right at that moment, the clothes rod snapped and he fell hard. Didn’t look like he landed well. At the same time, Gao Ze fell from upstairs—worse off by far.”

The rest we’d already learned. Later, Old Wang and the boy were both taken to the hospital, but the child’s injuries were too severe—he didn’t survive.

But what nobody knew was, the couple had already died at ten. The killer stayed in the building the whole time—no way to slip out with everyone searching below. So, by the look of it, the kid was already in the killer’s hands at that point.

A sudden image flashed in my mind. Maybe it wasn’t just the killer behind that screen—it was the killer and the child together. The killer murders the couple, then leaves for the rooftop with the kid.

Nobody even dreamed that while they searched desperately, the lost child was right there in the building—being taken to the roof.

“Damn,” I muttered. “The killer is really following Old Wang’s twisted fantasies—now the widow’s dead, the child’s dead. Next is the factory worker. If the killer keeps going, the next killing will happen at the factory, and—”

“And someone will get caught in the machinery?” Xiao Liu’s eyes widened.

“Exactly.” I said, “Get in touch with the factory right now and send our people over. The killer is bound to show up there soon.”

I turned to the others. “Get the bodies back for autopsy. Guan Zengbin, you take care of the postmortem. The rest of us, let’s go check out the factory.”