The Amber Part 6
Why?
What mentality did they have to want to do such a thing?
The people were silent. It wasn"t that this case didn"t have clues, but that there were too many clues. So many that they were like a pile of threads, entangled. Even Jiang Hu"s face had a little rarely-seen deep contemplation.
Shen Yexi let out a sigh. Today was yet another day of working overtime huh. He got up to go to the washroom. After coming back from using cold water to wash his face and refresh himself, he was a lot more energetic.
Captain Shen sat down, knocking on the table to have everyone"s attention. His two hands clasped together. "Let"s organize our thoughts."
He turned his head to tell Jiang Hu, not holding anything back, "Dr. Jiang, tell me what illogicalities there are in this case."
Jiang Hu was surprised.
The gaze Shen Yexi looked at him with was very firm and he stated, "Tell us. You know it well in your heart. Dr. Jiang, the reason why so many of us are working together is because everyone trusts each other and we can make up for each of our shortcomings. If you"re still not used to this kind of method, then I also can"t accept your criticism that "I don"t trust you"."
Jiang Hu sat on the chair, his position little shorter than Shen Yexi"s. He had to raise his head slightly in order to see the man"s imposing and pressurizing gaze. His expression was a little at a loss and he widened his eyes… He was being berated?
Shen Yexi did not speak another word and just stared at him. It took a while before Jiang Hu first averted his gaze. Clearing his throat, he said in that unique accent of his, "There are illogical aspects. Firstly, the new killer"s motivation. Normally speaking, for this kind of murderer without a specific target, this would be an essential channel for the killer to satisfy a certain distortion in his mentality. Let"s take Wu Ju as an example. Through abduction and harming others, it satisfied his desire to abuse, his desire for control and domination. He required his target victims to show submission and fear. He collected their corpses and then by relieving the scene of killing them, he regained the sense of pleasure again and again."
When Jiang Hu said this, he paused slightly. Yang Man and An Yining used a very odd gaze to look at him.
Jiang Hu lowered his eyes, fingers crossed and placed on the table. He collected his thoughts, continuing to himself, "While the new murderer didn"t have this need. They copied everything from Wu Ju, and after the place next to the warehouse started construction, they very quickly "abandoned" one part of their collection due to the environment. This means that those corpses weren"t valuable to them and they also didn"t plan to use the corpses to relive the process of killing someone. It was like while they were committing the murder, they were attaching a part of their personality on Wu Ju. At the same time, they anesthetized the victims before killing them. This means that towards these victims, they did faintly find it unbearable. As for the types of the victims, the only commonality is that they were all females. Frailer, young females. Other than that, there was no link in their outer appearances. I think… it"s likely because they"re "obtained" more easily."
Jiang Hu finished in a single breath and sat there silently. He used a calm gaze to look back at Shen Yexi. "I"m done."
Shen Yexi smiled. An Yining and Yang Man gave them a lot of face, looking between these two, flabbergasted. They felt that that smile of Boss Shen actually gave off a slight odd sense of defusing the animosity. Shen Yexi said, "This boy is going to come up in the world."
Jiang Hu instantly scrunched his brows, the edge of his brows arching. Yet another befuddled expression of him at a loss—the cla.s.sic reaction to hearing a foreign phrase.
The good thing was that Dr. Scatterbrain Hu could still differentiate the severity of the matters, so he did not fixate on asking about these trifles. So Shen Yexi began to summarize, "Right now, we have two pieces of information. First, the killer was someone who had an intimate relation with Wu Ju; Second, the killer is either limited physically or mentally a coward, so they didn"t dare to attack stronger targets who are harder to control."
Jiang Hu instantly felt defeated, feeling that the large chunk that he just said were heading in the direction of becoming rubbish.
"What about the shoe size forty-two?" Yang Man asked.
"That"s the shoe size, not their feet."
An Yining have slightly realized, saying weakly, "That crazy person with the surname Feng that Wu Zhida and Sheng Yao mentioned matched the first criteria. For the former, it"s his physiology, and for the latter, they are spiritually connected Plato-esquely."
After she finished, she found three people were looking at her with a disgusted look. "What?"
Jiang Hu"s face was serious. "Spiritually connected in a Plato-esque way, so you mean a Plato-esquely romantic relationship? But the information we have previously didn"t show that Wu Ju and Feng Xiaobin are lovers."
Yang Man sighed, tone heartfelt. "Ningning, jiejie will urge you with a word or two. Read less of those harmful novels. It"s not good." Then, she turned her head to knock on Jiang Hu"s head, reprimanding him, "Don"t let your imagination run wild. You won"t learn right values."
Jiang Hu was confused. "But Yang-jie, isn"t the Amber Killer"s lover a very important target to watch?"
The little mysterious feeling that he had created was instantly shattered into pieces.
Shen Yexi habitually just ignored him straight, flipping open the forensics report. "The forensic pathologist said that no matter if it was the drug to anesthetize the victims or the st.i.tching techniques, it showed that this killer might have a background in medicine. If I wasn"t wrong, Wu Ju had a background in surgery, but his permit was revoked due to heavy drinking. Looking at it like this, it doesn"t seem to be Wu Zhida or Feng Xiaobin."
Yang Man looked at him, using a perversely slow, seemingly satisfied tone to say, "So you eliminated both of them. How amazing of you. We can start from the very beginning."—This woman had already completely become warped from working overtime.
Beside them, An Yining was already holding her chin, half-dead, beginning to investigate Wu Zhida and Feng Xiaobin"s background. Yang Man asked, "If we only have these two suspects, which of them do you guys think is more probable?"
Shen Yexi, "Feng Xiaobin."
Jiang Hu, "Wu Zhida."
The two looked at each other. The two women beside them turned silent. The atmosphere once again turned odd, so Jiang Hu slightly coughed. "No… Actually I wanted to say that neither of them seem like it."
—You don"t have to choose not to hold your ground like this. Yang Man glared at Shen Yexi. "Look, you"ve scared the child terribly."
Shen Yexi rubbed his nose at the side. An Yining was originally looking at the two of them with a grin when she stiffened suddenly. Because the eyes which had slight dark circles from burning night oil were widened into saucers, when it was combined with the pale face, her expression was a little frightening.
"Who"s gonna pinch me?" She asked.
"What"s wrong?" The few moved closer.
An Yining spoke trembling, "Feng Xiaobin and Wu Zhida both don"t have backgrounds in medicine, but someone else does—" She paused; the thunder that struck her was not light at all. "Jin Qiu."
The one that was size forty-two was the shoe, not their feet—
Yang Man said, "Friends, we can eat food carelessly, but we can"t talk carelessly. Back then, we were the ones who saved Jin Qiu from that b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s hands. She"s a good, proper lady, and now you"re telling me that she became a murderer?"
Shen Yexi"s face darkened. "Scatterbrain Hu, do you remember how Jin Qiu responded after you asked about her nightmare?"
"I dreamed that he was tormenting them, hitting them, hearing them scream and cutting open their stomach… Then, he walked towards me step after step. I started screaming. Then I woke up." Jiang Hu repeated it without missing a word.
"She didn"t tell us that." Yang Man instantly realized. "She said that she was jolted awake from the nightmare. Then she went out to drink some water and glanced at the balcony and found a figure. That"s when she screamed and woke up her family."
"Why did she say two different things these two times?" An Yining asked.
"I thought… she was scared by me so she might have forgotten the story she made up at the beginning." Jiang Hu said. The other three looked at him with a weird look—You? Able to scare someone? That person has the bravery of a rabbit, right?
"I"m serious. I think she doesn"t really like me." Jiang Hu said.
"Wait, so you guys mean that in the premise where Jin Qiu had been tormented into that state by that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, in order to commemorate the harm that he once caused her, she"ll turn around to continue killing for him. And in order to divert our attention, she would even run all the way to the police station from this far away to provide fake information like that?" Yang Man glared at the other three. "I"m already doubting if the one who isn"t awake yet is me or you three."
Shen Yexi pondered for a moment, turning around to ask Jiang Hu. "Do you still remember that you asked me why the others have theft-proof windows and only Jin Qiu"s apartment didn"t?"
Jiang Hu was stunned. Everything in his mind connected together and he paused. It was only then that he shook his head lightly. "Stockholm syndrome."
Su Junzi said that she was afraid of returning to the environment of being surrounded by railings. But thinking about it now, that room of hers was like it was interwoven within the protection of countless metal bars. And the only person that could remove her defense and reveal her softness inside—her widely-opened door, was like… she was antic.i.p.ating a certain someone.
Shen Yexi said in a low, solemn voice, "Notify Sheng Yao and Junzi immediately. Quick."
An Yining didn"t need him to say it, already doing it. She put down the phone, face even more unpleasant. "Head Shen, Su-ge won"t pick up the phone."
"Call him again. It"s fine. Don"t panic. Sheng Yao is already on the way. Move the people. We"ll go over immediately too!"
On the other end, Sheng Yao had already picked up. Yang Man informed him about things in a succinct few words. Sheng Yao"s speed in acceptance seemed to be much faster than hers. He didn"t interrupt her and listened quietly the whole time, abnormally silent. Then he said, "I got it. I"m almost there." Then, he hung up.
Yang Man"s one sentence—"Wait for us to reach before making any move, don"t act indepen…"—was just cut off in her throat like this. She suddenly felt that to inform Sheng Yao when he was alone was absolutely a mistake.
Sheng Yao already understood what Yang Man meant when she was halfway through her words. His feet stepped on the gas pedal all the way. If someone was beside him, they can probably experience that was called speeding through the dark night.
That odd feeling that he couldn"t make sense of in his heart finally surfaced to a degree in his consciousness that he could touch. At that time, Jin Qiu said that "I was like those girls"—everyone knew that the Amber Killer did not avoid men or women. That little reporter, who didn"t even see the corpses before spouting nonsense, wasn"t aware at all that all the deceased victims this time were women. Then, how did she know?
The constant smile on Sheng Yao"s face had completely vanished. His face was a little pale. Junzi—
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