Pristine Darkness

Chapter 81

At this time, the news about the ‘b.u.t.terfly Killer’ had spread throughout the country, including Beijing .

When Jin Xiaozhe saw the news item, she was on set . Dazzling lights, crowds of people . She sat in a nanny car, seeking a moment of silence in the midst of the noise .

She watched the real-time news on a small television set and learnt all about the cases undertaken by the special investigation team . The on-site camera even made a sweep of the police force at the crime scene, and she vaguely made out a familiar figure, tall and grim, but she couldn’t be sure it was him .

No, it was definitely him .

She could not be mistaken about his figure .

Jin Xiaozhe sighed softly and pulled her blanket tightly around herself . She stared at the awning outside the window, seemingly lost . With a swoosh, the door opened, and her a.s.sistant handed her a cup of her daily throat-soothing tea . “Jin jie, drink this while it’s hot . Your throat must be sore after crying so much during that last scene . ”

Jin Xiaozhe took the cup and swallowed a big mouthful of tea .

After a while, the director shouted for everyone to prepare to shoot . Jin Xiaozhe pulled off her blanket and stood up . She wore an enchanting qipao, and her bearing was exquisite and charming . She took a deep breath, slipped into her high heeled shoes and walked towards the camera .

He had his battlefield, she had hers .

Would the both of them fare well .

    ——

At the same time, Fang Qing standing stock-still in front of a big tree, staring keenly at the tree bark beside the corpse . It was already dark, but the tiniest sliver of a clue was unable to escape the grim eyes of the criminal investigator .

“There’s something here!” he said sharply .

Bo Jinyan and the others gathered around him .

“This is . . . “ An Yan said hesitantly .

“J . . . ” Jian Yao had placed Bo Jinyan’s hand on the bark, and he was tracing the outline . He asked, “Is this the letter, ‘J’?”

Jian Yao was startled .

On the tree where Feng Yuexi had been crucified, blood had been used to write this simple pattern . On closer examination, it really looked like the letter ‘J’ .

“What does this mean?” Everyone looked at Bo Jinyan and Jian Yao .

It would be impossible to divine the hidden meaning based on this single letter alone . Bo Jinyan’s smile was chilling as he said, “Do you know why he wants to leave this mark behind? Because he can’t control himself . He was following his heart when committing these crimes; if he has to control his desires at this time, then it would all be meaningless . ”

Fang Qing had his doubts . “Could it be that he’s deliberately left this ‘clue’ behind to mislead us?”

Bo Jinyan replied, “With Chen Jin, who was really an amateur, maybe . But someone who has reached this level of brashness and experience would totally disdain to do such a thing . Do you think he cares about what we think of him?”

An Yan suddenly spoke up . “In the anime twins revenge-murder case, Ke Qian was also crucified . Is there a link?”

Fang Qing said, “The technique is similar, but not identical . ”

Bo Jinyan said, “Crucifixion always carries with it the sense of punishment and shame . It is not an uncommon sight in the history of crime . However, their core markers and actions are not the same . This killer is obsessed with b.u.t.terflies but the masked killers were not . It’s not possible to say right now whether there’s a connection between the two . ”

Everyone fell silent . Only Jian Yao had been able to discern that Bo Jinyan was clearly somewhat excited, so that he had spoken faster and louder . She herself had felt agitated and depressed, but, on seeing this small glimpse of his self-satisfaction, she felt an inexplicable warmth in her heart . She could almost visualise how Bo Jinyan’s mind was working right now: Hey, finally there’s a serial killer who is up to standard . It’s just that the Bo Jinyan of the present was not as ostentatiously arrogant and thoughtless as he used to be .

    ——

There were no footprints .

There were no fingerprints or DNA traces .

There were also no surveillance records .

So much had been done to the body at the crime scene, yet the rest of the crime scene, even in the nooks and crannies, was completely devoid of clues, as if no one had ever been there .

Even the most inexperienced criminal investigator could see that this was the work of a criminal master of consummate skill .

He is the true b.u.t.terfly killer .

The police once again questioned Shi Peng .

Shi Peng told them a short, vague, and mysterious story .

At that time, he, Chen Jin and Feng Yuexi were only in their teens . They often played in the hills and mountains of their old hometown . Once, they visited a barren mountain they had not gone to before .

They got lost .

When Shi Peng and Feng Yuexi found Chen Jin, he was sleeping outside a cave . They hurried to wake him up, but Chen Jin could not recall anything of what had happened . “If was as if he hit his head or something when he was running down the mountain . . . ”

When Shi Peng looked into the cave with the aid of the gloomy sunlight, through the pitch-darkness of the interior he could vaguely make out what seemed to be a painting on the cave wall .

As a child, Shi Peng was undisciplined and uncaring of rules and regulations, and loved to get involved in fights and brawls . However, when he actually encountered a situation, he was much more cautious than Chen Jin and Feng Yuexi .

“Let’s go back,” he said, avoiding suggesting that they should further examine the cave . Chen Jin was still dazed, and, although Feng Yuexi was curious, she complied with the boy’s suggestion .

After that, from some time that no one could remember, Chen Jin started liking b.u.t.terflies . Every species of b.u.t.terfly, b.u.t.terfly art . . . However, he didn’t appear to be obsessive, so people just considered it to be a biology-based interest of the top student . As for that time on the mountainside, when he had been briefly separated from his companions, he could never remember what exactly had happened . Apart from a big swollen lump at the back of his head which took more than ten days to subside .

Time pa.s.sed . The adult Shi Peng naturally forgot all about this little episode, until Fang Qing showed him photographs of Chen Jin’s painting at the crime scene . Shi Peng had been extremely shocked, and experienced a sense of deja vu . As he turned the matter over in his mind at home, he thought, wasn’t the painting just like that vaguely seen b.u.t.terfly painting in the cave?

What did this have to do with Chen Jin’s crime and Feng Yuexi’s death? Shi Peng had no way of finding out .

The police wanted to interrogate Chen Jin again, but it was already a useless proposition . Because Chen Jin was in the detention centre, insane .

Jian Yao, Bo Jinyan and some others went to visit him . A man who was once tall, good-looking and dignified, was now like a little child, huddled in a corner of the cell, trembling with fear, repeatedly muttering, “Don’t eat me . . . don’t eat me . . . Ah Peng, Yuexi, save me . . . ” No one knew if he had seen b.u.t.terflies, or something else .

Moreover, when the police mentioned ‘b.u.t.terfly’ or ‘cave’ to him, they were met with a vacant expression . No matter how they asked, he remained silent .

——

“A memory is an interesting thing,” Bo Jinyan said . “He thinks he’s forgotten, he believes that he has never experienced it . However, in reality, it is always in his mind . ”

Thus spoke Bo Jinyan in the car on the way to the mountain that Shi Peng had pointed out .

“I’ve noticed that Chen Jin mentioned b.u.t.terflies quite a few times in his confession:

In his youth, he saw b.u.t.terflies in the mountains, and was moved by their freedom and beauty . From that time, he was obsessed with them;

Before he committed murder, he dreamt about a young man, standing and holding a knife . A b.u.t.terfly landed on his shoulder;

He always saw a b.u.t.terfly staring at him . . .

Perhaps, the b.u.t.terfly that he saw in his youth was not a real b.u.t.terfly, but was the b.u.t.terfly drawing that Shi Peng mentioned .

We earlier thought that the knife-wielding youth was a metaphor for himself . Maybe it wasn’t, but another person he saw as a child . ”

Fang Qing and the others were all taken aback . “The youth? Do you mean to say that Chen Jin saw the real b.u.t.terfly killer when he was a child?”