Chapter 316: The Murderer’s Memoir

2022-05-20

After talking for so long my mouth was feeling dry. Pulling off a meticulous murder like this is a lot harder than just running your mouth, but somehow the killer managed to do it flawlessly. If she hadn’t been unaware that someone else out there knew her secret—that she was attracted to women—I probably never would have suspected her at all.

I swallowed and continued, “During those murders, the killer seemed able to tailor her methods to each victim’s personality. That’s so odd, isn’t it? How could she know them so well? Even after seven years of research, without personal interaction, it’s impossible to really understand someone. Now it makes sense; if the killer had been their classmate seven years ago, then everything falls neatly into place.”

“After pretending to be insane, the killer left her house several times. The first time was specifically to murder Liu Ruijie. She knew Hu Pei received insurance money after Lü Zhiqiu died, and guessed that Hu Pei might have been working with Liu Ruijie. She also discovered Liu Ruijie—who owed hundreds of thousands in debt—had suddenly repaid his debts and even bought a new place. That was suspicious as hell. Clearly, he must’ve gotten a share of that insurance payout too.”

I chuckled. “The killer repeated her usual tricks, but this time she put a corrosive liquid inside a spray bottle. Liu Ruijie, enchanted by the sight of a beautiful woman, opened the door with a smile only to get a faceful of that spray. He rushed to wipe his face, but while he could clear the liquid from his skin, there was nothing he could do for his eyes. In a panic, he locked his door and collapsed, dying soon after.”

“I imagine the killer got pretty nervous,” I said, glancing at Jiang Xiaochun. “She couldn’t be sure if this would work on a grown man. But when nobody came after her, she realized it did. Ironically, Liu Ruijie locking his door made us wonder if we were dealing with a ghost—it muddied the waters, making us question whether the killer was supernatural.”

“The next event made the ‘ghost killer’ theory even more convincing.” I pressed on. “To figure out who killed Lü Zhiqiu, I naively asked our advisor to organize a class reunion. That backfired spectacularly. Instead of helping, it turned the whole case into a stalemate, as people started pointing fingers and making wild accusations at each other.”

“Of course, the killer heard about this gathering and showed up at the hotel, too. She disguised herself as a cleaning lady and swapped her prepared corrosive solution with someone’s contact lens solution. The truth is, she had no idea who would die or when, but it didn’t matter. Think about it—if four people had died at once, the ‘ghost killer’ theory would’ve been ironclad. Even if no trail led back to the killer, it wouldn’t matter; she’d set it up for double insurance from the start.”

“In the end, only one person died that night, but the location of Xing Yafang’s death worked out perfectly for the killer. I have to say, her luck was almost supernatural. We saw Xing Yafang die in such a bizarre way with our own eyes and naturally started believing in ghosts.”

“That night Luo Ding was scared out of his mind, and the killer had planned for this. To really sell the ghost theory, you needed someone who could be literally frightened to death, and Luo Ding and Hu Pei were perfect targets. She used sleeping pills to knock out Hu Xiaoxue’s mother, then visited Luo Ding’s house every day to create creepy, supernatural effects. Since she and Luo Ding were classmates, she could slip in with any excuse she wanted. I’d bet the whole ‘vengeful ghost’ rumor originated with her.”

“Xing Yafang’s strange death pushed Luo Ding to the edge. On the night of the reunion, after swapping in the corrosive liquid, the killer left the scene early and headed back to Luo Ding’s place. There, she set up the perfect scare that could’ve killed him from sheer terror.”

“I’d always wondered about that fleeting, giant human face we caught a glimpse of. Only yesterday did I finally solve the puzzle. I have a knack for drawing connections, and my memory’s pretty sharp. When I remembered how people instinctively try to flush out their eyes with water if they get chili powder in them, it led me to the killer’s method of blinding victims with corrosive fluid. Then I realized—the giant face probably came from someone wearing glow-in-the-dark clothing.”

I laughed. “After returning home, I did some research and found out you can buy photoluminescent materials made from zinc sulfide. They absorb sunlight or bright indoor light, then glow in the dark. Simple as that.”

“And I found something that fit perfectly.” I looked at Jiang Xiaochun. “If you add copper as a dopant to the zinc sulfide powder, it will absorb light and release a very bright glow in the dark—a pale yellow light that appears almost white. That’s the glow you see in darkness.”

“This kind of glow powder is easy to find, and it’s got a weird property. It actually stops glowing instantly when exposed to infrared or even ordinary electric light. That’s why the giant face flashed and disappeared as soon as we turned on the lights, like it passed through glass and vanished. If we had turned the lights off and waited a bit, I bet the face would have reappeared. The killer must have painted it on the back side of the glass.”

I sighed. “But when Luo Ding screamed that night, the neighbor came over, and we couldn’t stick around. Even I started doubting whether supernatural forces were involved after everything that happened. But in reality, it was just clever little tricks.”

“By this point in the investigation, things seemed unbelievable. But there are no ghosts, and there’s no such thing as a ghost killer. Right now, our top priority is to bring this case back to reality—a real crime committed by a real person, nothing more.”

“The killer understood this, too. After Wang Xianduo’s death, she deliberately left a clue behind.” I went on. “Wang Xianduo suffered terribly from the corrosive fluid, but she didn’t have the courage to gouge her own eyes out. She kept ramming her head into the wall, hoping the intense pain would drown out that unbearable itch and burn. It was overkill, and by then, she was clearly out of her mind. In the end, she accidentally fell from the seventh floor and died.”

I shook my head. “By this stage, the killer must have realized that her method—the eye gouging—would soon be figured out, so she left an obvious clue. That night, she contacted Sun Shouwang and others from the old class. Of course, as classmates, they trusted her and never suspected a thing, not realizing they were handing their lives to the killer.”

“She found out where Sun Shouwang and the other two would be and knew they’d have water after a bath. This time, she pretended to be a server and brought them three glasses of water laced with cyanide. She probably never expected that there wouldn’t be any surveillance in the shop. Otherwise, we could have identified her body type, which is pretty similar to Deng Xuemei’s.”

“No one picked up on the clue she left, or we’d have started looking for a woman with Deng Xuemei’s height and build by now.” I continued, “But this told us one thing for sure—it wasn’t ghosts, just a real murderer.”

“At the same time, the killer made her boldest move yet.” I said, “She knew Wang Yikai was about to join us, but she poisoned him ahead of time because she knew plenty of people were about to split and leave Dongxing City, so she had to act first. Later I wondered, how did Deng Xuemei manage to poison people she’d never even met? But if you think of the killer as someone who knew all twenty people, everything makes perfect sense.”

“The killer used the toxic powder from a small caterpillar and some moths and fed it to Wang Yikai, who suffered from hemorrhoids. She figured that if he saw blood in his stool, he wouldn’t panic. And once again, she was right. We stayed at his place for a day, and by the early morning Wang Yikai developed severe stomach pain. When we reached Yang Licheng’s house, it took a turn for the worse, and he died from it.”

“While we interviewed Yang Licheng, Zhao Pingjuan, and the others in their dorm, the killer was far from idle. She met with Wang Xin and saw his incense burner. At that point, Wang Xin hadn’t heard from Yang Licheng and had no bodyguards. Pretending to give Wang Xin some incense, she slipped mercurous chloride into the burner. Wang Xin only hired bodyguards the next day, after Yang Licheng had arrived at his house.”

I shook my head as I kept talking. “The killer had a firm grasp of Wang Xin’s character. There was no way Wang Xin would ever admit he didn’t know how to use the incense burner or blame anyone else, so he definitely wouldn’t name the killer. Sure enough, he kept his mouth shut, and once again the killer got away with it. She even scored an unexpected bonus—Yang Licheng died along with Wang Xin, which saved her another trip.”

I said, “Even the killer probably didn’t anticipate how smoothly everything would go—not a single misstep. The mutual suspicion between the victims only made the case more confusing and left us going around in circles. Around then, the killer tipped off the police: this was the work of someone skilled in chemistry, standing around 165 centimeters tall with an average build and a woman to boot. Of course, that last detail would only have gotten out if the bathhouse had surveillance cameras, which it didn’t.”

But—” my tone shifted—”we were still able to find out that seven years ago, Lü Zhiqiu had financed a female student from the biology department. And anyone from that department would have studied chemistry. This is where Deng Xuemei comes in—she fit every condition, had motive, opportunity, and the means to kill.”

“By this time, the killer must’ve known the last three women—Zhang Xue, Zhao Pingjuan, and Zhou Moli—would be dead sooner or later. Hindsight makes this easy to say now, but all three have indeed died. Yet there was still one person left, one who never wore contact lenses. The killer would have to find another way to get rid of her…”