Chapter 314: Seven Years of Hiding

May 20, 2022

The night passed without incident. The next morning, I woke up even before Zhao Mingkun had a chance to call for me. When something weighs on your mind, sleep never comes easy. After a simple breakfast, I called Gu Chen and told him to contact the police as soon as he received my text. Gu Chen didn’t ask questions—he just agreed.

This was actually the third time Zhao Mingkun and I had come back to this place. There was no doubt left—the killer wasn’t some stranger. It had to be Jiang Xiaochun, Hu Pei’s wife; the sole survivor among those twenty-plus classmates seven years ago, the very one who managed to exclude herself from suspicion right at the start.

When we arrived, Hu Xiaoxue’s mother opened the door for us again. She looked even more drained than before. But as she saw us, there was a flicker of hope among her tired features.

I said gently, “We’ve found the killer. But first, I need to speak with your daughter-in-law, Jiang Xiaochun.”

“Yes! Of course!” she nodded repeatedly, a feverish hope in her voice. “As long as you bring justice for my son and granddaughter, I’ll do whatever it takes. Please, you must catch the murderer!”

I nodded along, but deep down I had no clue what to say next. Was I really going to tell this old lady her daughter-in-law—the one who looked quiet and unassuming—was the real culprit? Would she even be able to accept that?

Hu Xiaoxue’s mother ushered us into the apartment. Jiang Xiaochun looked exactly like before, wrapped in a blanket, refusing to meet our eyes.

She brought us stools, letting us sit right across from Jiang Xiaochun. After that, she quietly left.

I turned to Jiang Xiaochun and spoke slowly, “You should know by now—all your old classmates have died recently. I’m talking about the twenty-something classmates who interned with you at the construction site seven years ago. You’re the only one left. That’s the killer’s biggest mistake. Of course, the murderer couldn’t include herself in the victim list; that was the only way she could keep herself off the radar and act when the time came. To make it convincing, the killer sacrificed an innocent little girl at the very start just to throw us off.”

I stopped and watched Jiang Xiaochun.

Her head hung even lower, practically buried under the covers. She refused to look up at me. I could guess what was going on in her mind—from her reaction to the ring I’d noticed during our last visit, I’d already begun to suspect her. She’d been shocked, and I’d seen it clearly on her face, but now she was determined not to let her expression give anything away.

Some people think that if they can hide their face, the truth disappears with it.

I let out a quiet laugh, shrugged, and pressed on. “Actually, I made a big mistake all along, one that completely messed up my ability to crack this case. But then one day it hit me—where I’d gone wrong. A doctor once told me that any diligent high schooler would have figured this out. But I focused on the wrong thing. I kept thinking a biology major would have an easy time pulling this off, so the killer had to be some chemistry expert.”

I shook my finger at the idea. “That was my biggest blunder. I should have broadened my thinking, not narrowed it down. Jumping to conclusions without thorough analysis is the quickest way to get trapped. The killer used that bias against everyone, steering the whole investigation down the path she’d already set up. Most people would follow the trail, find a woman from the biology department with means, motive, and the chance to act, and then close the case because it all seemed so certain—like it was set in stone.”

Even though I couldn’t see her face, the blanket covering Jiang Xiaochun was trembling. That was a sure sign of nerves or fear.

I couldn’t help but sigh. “Anyone smart enough to get into Dongxing University is nobody’s fool—many are bound for greatness. But if someone like that put their mind to murder, they’d barely leave a clue behind. You wouldn’t find fingerprints, footprints, nothing. They’d probably even plant evidence to throw us off.”

“Don’t you agree?” I stared at Jiang Xiaochun.

She was still curled up under her blanket, hugging her knees, eyes seemingly shut. But I knew every word had sunk in. And if she was listening, I was sure I could break through that act—a Dongxing University graduate, no matter how hard she tried to play crazy.

I continued, “Once I realized that, my pool of suspects grew. When I compared that with the clues I’d found, a picture of the killer began to form. Unfortunately, the killer was too skilled—by the time we caught on, she’d already finished what she set out to do.”

I kept my gaze on Jiang Xiaochun. “The killer had a simple goal: to find out who murdered Lü Zhiqiu seven years ago. But at the time, the case was a mess. Seven years ago there were barely any security cameras—the city’s surveillance net just didn’t exist. You couldn’t find anything useful there.”

Jiang Xiaochun’s trembling grew stronger. She seemed to realize the danger, started twisting left and right, and mumbled nonsense, trying to fool us into thinking she was losing her mind. I just sat there and shook my head.

After a moment, I kept going. “With no surveillance, we could only rely on what we found on site. But the scene was already compromised—the first workers to discover the corpse trampled everything. There were footprints everywhere, at least fifty pairs. Gathering evidence became near impossible. The killer took the weapon with her when she left…”

Right as I said that, something suddenly clicked in my mind. It was like I’d found a missing piece.

But this wasn’t the time to get sidetracked. I carried on. “With almost no clues, the motive for murder became even harder to pin down. But here’s the kicker—the person who butchered the body and the one who did the killing weren’t the same.”

I snapped my fingers. “If we kept searching for someone who both killed and dismembered Lü Zhiqiu, we’d never find the real murderer. Dismemberment is usually done for easier disposal or out of deep hatred.”

“The first reason doesn’t fit.” I held up a finger. “There was no sign the killer tried to move the body.”

I held up a second finger. “So that leaves hatred—the killer had a deep grudge against Lü Zhiqiu. But it was actually Liang Mei who dismembered the corpse. She did it out of rage, but she didn’t kill her. I’d always thought that small grievances might lead to killing, but not to cutting someone up. Actually, Liang Mei couldn’t bring herself to commit murder. Only after seeing the body did she lose control and start cutting it up. I’d gotten the order of things all wrong.”

I spread my hands. “So this case ended up a giant tangle—Lü Zhiqiu’s relationships were messy, the crime scene utterly destroyed. There was no way to track down the real murderer. You can’t just arrest someone on suspicion alone. But the killer didn’t care about that, not one bit.”

“She only needed to find someone she suspected. She didn’t have to wait for irrefutable proof to take her revenge. The one she suspected most back then was Hu Pei, because he acted strange that night. She married Hu Pei, all just to get closer and dig into it herself.”

I paused as an ad for a webnovel site crept into my head, but quickly moved past it.

Jiang Xiaochun wasn’t reacting—she huddled there like she hadn’t heard a word.

Still, I pressed on. “The night of the murder, she got completely drunk—she feared graduation and didn’t want it to come, but time waits for no one. She never dreamed that just one night without watching over Lü Zhiqiu, everything would fall apart.”

I pointed at Jiang Xiaochun. “She despised herself—if only she’d been there for Lü Zhiqiu, maybe none of this would’ve happened. On the very next day, she made her plan—find the killer and exact the most brutal revenge. But that meant waiting for years. Hu Pei did act strangely, but it didn’t seem like he killed Lü Zhiqiu.”

“Am I right?” My voice softened as I watched Jiang Xiaochun. “In the end, she realized the case from seven years ago was almost impossible to untangle. The more she investigated, the more suspects and motives piled up. There was just too much work for one person. As the years slipped away, it got harder and harder for her to get to the truth. Finally, she came to a painful realization—if she didn’t act soon, everyone from back then would disappear forever.”

I glanced at Zhao Mingkun and went on. “There was one trigger that forced her to stop hiding. She got hold of an old phone, and there was a photo in it—a picture of Lü Zhiqiu. Seeing that photo made her snap; she couldn’t wait any longer.”

I shrugged. “Killing them all was a lot easier than finding out who the real killer was…”