Chapter 57.1: Suspect Identified!
Hearing that Jiang Xia wanted to see Chief Xu, the young community police officer instinctively took a step back.
The station chief was already intimidating enough. He really didn’t want to meet someone even higher up the chain!
But the strength gripping his shoulder left him no room to refuse. He was practically dragged out of the office.
Jiang Xia strode forward quickly as she asked, “When did the two children go missing?”
“Just within the past few days.” The young officer sounded helpless. “Comrade, I’ll go with you to see Chief Xu. Could you let go of my shoulder first?”
“Oh, okay.”
Jiang Xia was in a hurry. She was worried that the other person would waste ages talking instead of moving, so she’d kept hold of him even after they left the room. Only after he pointed it out did she finally let go.
The young officer finally straightened himself out. He tugged at the wrinkled fabric around his shoulder and recalled the details.
“The first one who went missing was a girl. It happened on the morning of July 11, on her way to school. Her family all assumed she’d gone to school as usual. It wasn’t until her teacher came looking for her that afternoon that they found out she’d never made it to school.”
“The second one was a boy. He went missing on the evening of July 13. A few children were playing a game of cards at the entrance to an alley. Once kids start playing, they lose all track of time. When it got dark, they all went home, and that’s when the parents realized their son hadn’t come back. They thought he’d gone to a neighbor’s house with his friends, so they searched around for him. Only after they couldn’t find him did they realize he’d disappeared.”
Jiang Xia asked another question. “Are the two families close to each other?”
“Not particularly. In a straight line, they’re nearly two li apart.”
The young officer sighed. “Otherwise, the second family wouldn’t have been so careless. Their child wasn’t with them, and even after hearing that there might be a child snatcher around, they didn’t take it seriously.”
“But to be honest, that kidnapper is pretty brazen too. They came back to abd*ct another child in a place this close? Weren’t they afraid of getting caught and beaten to death?”
“It is pretty strange.”
Jiang Xia nodded slightly.
Normally, a child abd*ctor is extremely afraid of being discovered. They either snatch as many children as possible in the shortest amount of time and then get out immediately, or they abd*ct one child and move to a different location. They generally wouldn’t come back to the same area and abd*ct another child just three days later.
This wasn’t even committing a crime right under everyone’s noses—it was practically dancing on the people’s red line!
Unless the guy had simply lost his mind, there was a good chance he wasn’t just an ordinary child trafficker.
That made him even more suspicious.
Jiang Xia quickly reached the stairwell.
She hadn’t even gone upstairs yet when she looked down the corridor and spotted two criminal police officers standing outside the interrogation room, with Chief Xu mostly obscured behind them.
Jiang Xia hurried over.
“Chief Xu!”
“Hm?”
Hearing someone call him, Xu Changsong immediately looked up. When he saw Jiang Xia, he instinctively asked, “Have you finished the portrait of Chang Guangxin, the fugitive?”
“Uh, yes, I have.”
She hadn’t made the engraving yet, but the portrait itself would already be enough for now. Jiang Xia answered as she approached the interrogation room.
The voice of the killer, Feng Youqiang, came clearly through the bars.
“…The man was going to resist, but when Big Brother and Second Brother put knives against his wife and son’s necks, he didn’t dare move. He even tried to keep the kid from crying.”
“But the guy wasn’t being honest. We didn’t want to kill him. We told him that if he handed over all his money, we’d let the whole family go. But when we searched the place he pointed out, we only found a little over six hundred yuan. That was way too little. Brother Hu thought he was lying to us, so he had Second Brother put a towel under the man’s hand while he smashed it with a hammer. After just two blows, his wife told us everything…”
Jiang Xia’s eyelids twitched as she listened.
She forcibly pulled her thoughts back to the matter at hand and pointed toward the young community police officer behind her.
“Chief Xu, I just heard from him that two six-year-old children went missing in his precinct, one girl on the eleventh and one boy on the thirteenth. And witnesses said the person who abd*cted them was a man with a limp.”
Jiang Xia briefly explained the information they had so far, then immediately continued, “I suspect the kidnapper may be the killer in the Xiao Wang Village human-remains case. His motive may have originated from the superstitious belief in using one part of the body to replenish another.”
“Hm?!”
The words struck like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky.
What they’d been afraid of had actually happened. They had only just discussed this that morning, and now a new case had practically been shoved right in their faces!
Xu Changsong felt a little numb, but he still forced himself to focus and think through the situation Jiang Xia had described. He, too, noticed that there was indeed something suicidal about the kidnapper abd*cting two children from the same area.
But… there were plenty of stupid criminals in this world. Some people simply liked to “eat the grass growing close to their nest”—they were familiar with the area, after all. And with a limp making it difficult to travel, the culprit might be even less willing to go far, choosing instead to repeatedly commit crimes within his own precinct.
So why wasn’t Jiang Xia considering that possibility? Why was she so certain it was connected to the Xiao Wang Village human-remains case? And why had hearing the word “cripple” immediately made her think of using one part of the body to replenish another?
She seemed a little too familiar with criminal behavior.
“This person’s behavior is indeed somewhat unusual.”
Xu Changsong was puzzled. First, he asked the young community police officer, “Did your station report this to the branch bureau? Have you investigated suspicious people in your jurisdiction, especially anyone with a limp?”
“We did.”
Facing his superior, the young officer immediately snapped to attention and spoke rapidly.
“Our station and the criminal police officers sent by the branch bureau investigated the entire jurisdiction. There are four people with mobility problems who are still able to walk, but all four were at work at the time. We have eyewitnesses who can confirm that they had no opportunity to commit the crimes.”
An outsider with a limp.
That made Jiang Xia even more confident in her suspicion.
Xu Changsong no longer dared to take the matter lightly. He glanced into the interrogation room.
They couldn’t spare anyone from this case right now.
The suspect’s willingness to confess came in waves. He had confessed two days ago, yet today he was already trying to retract his statement. If they didn’t take advantage of his current agitated state and get everything out of him now, then leaving him alone to calm down might give him another chance to clam up and make things difficult.
“Da Lu, Zhu Weijun, you two come with me.”
Xu Changsong called out the names of the two criminal police officers who had been looking over curiously, then raised his head and motioned for Jiang Xia and the young community officer to follow.
“Let’s hold a discussion first and figure out which direction we should investigate.”
Xu Changsong walked farther ahead, putting some distance between them and the interrogation room. He turned to Jiang Xia, who was walking beside him, and asked, “By the way, Jiang Xia, how did you think of using one part of the body to replenish another?”
“My sister is a cook.”
Since it was all related to food anyway, Jiang Xia simply pinned the explanation on her sister again. She was even secretly rather pleased with herself as she continued:
“Traditional Chinese cuisine emphasizes the idea that food and medicine share the same origin, so it has some connection to traditional Chinese medicine. And a lot of traditional Chinese medical theories are based on the concept of using one part of the body to replenish another. For example, people say brown sugar and red dates can replenish the blood because they’re both red and similar in appearance. It isn’t actually scientific, but I hear my sister talk about this stuff all the time, so it was the first thing that came to mind.”
“Ah, so that’s how it is.”
After hearing her explanation, Xu Changsong couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.
So it had just been a coincidence—and she’d only happened to know this much. She still knew nothing else, meaning she couldn’t predict the criminal’s movements at all.
Sigh. If only she knew more about this stuff. How useful would that be?
Right now, they had absolutely no idea where to start looking. It was giving him a massive headache.
“As for this case…”
At the stairwell, Xu Changsong stopped after making sure they could no longer hear the interrogation room. He quickly explained the entire situation to the two criminal police officers who were still unaware of the details, then continued:
“This lame-legged kidnapper is highly suspicious. And it’s already been seven days since the abd*ction of the child who went missing first. We have to catch him as soon as possible. Think about it—where should we start?”
“A massive search?”
The older Da Lu instinctively pulled out the old standby.
“Being a cripple is a pretty distinctive characteristic. The traffic police stationed at the road checkpoints haven’t withdrawn yet, either. How about we conduct a large-scale screening right now?”
“No, no. We’ve only blocked off a few major traffic routes. The city is huge. Even if we tried to screen everyone, we’d never manage it, and we’d just risk tipping him off.”
Zhu Weijun waved a hand.
“The most important thing right now is figuring out whether those two children are still alive.”
Da Lu curled his lip. “What good does that do? We can’t even find them. How are we supposed to determine whether they’re alive or dead?”
“Didn’t Comrade Jiang say this is related to some kind of feudal superstition? Something like that should have certain requirements regarding the timing and number of victims.”
Zhu Weijun said, “The fact that the criminal abd*cted two children within three days seems to confirm that. So what we need to do now is contact someone knowledgeable and see if they know what day the criminal plans to act. As long as that date hasn’t arrived yet, there’s a good chance the two children are still alive and relatively safe.”
No matter how much he tried to avoid saying it outright, Zhu Weijun knew perfectly well that this really did involve eating children. The thought made him both disgusted and sent chills down his spine. After composing himself, he continued:
“However, I’m worried that two children might not be enough. It’s possible this criminal has abd*cted more than these two, but the cases simply haven’t been reported to us yet.”
“I agree.”
Jiang Xia added, “This kind of ritual would have requirements regarding the time, location, and even the victims. As long as we can determine the theory behind what this person is doing, there’s a very good chance we can work backward from it and find him directly.”
“Then we’ll do that first. Our first priority is confirming whether the children are safe.”
The safety of the hostages had to come first. Xu Changsong also felt they couldn’t afford to alert the suspect, so he immediately began assigning tasks.
“Da Lu, take someone with you and call the various police stations. Find out whether any children have gone missing recently. Go now.”
“Understood, Chief Xu.”
Da Lu grabbed two community police officers and hurried upstairs to start making calls.
“Zhu Weijun, you go find a sh—”
Xu Changsong looked at Zhu Weijun, but halfway through his sentence, he stopped.
“Forget it. I’m familiar with this. I’ll go myself.”
Back when they had been carrying out the campaign to eliminate the “Four Olds” and arresting fortunetellers and spirit mediums, Zhu Weijun hadn’t even joined the force yet.
Fortunately, Xu Changsong still remembered who those people were and where they could be found.
As he thought about how he should ask them about it, Jiang Xia suddenly spoke up.
“Chief Xu, I know a little about landscape painting too.”
“I wonder if anyone still remembers what the area around the Xiao Wang Village wasteland looked like back then. If they could describe it to me, I could draw a picture of the scene.”
Zhu Weijun slapped his thigh. “I remember that! It was just a wasteland. Nothing was growing there. The terrain was higher in the northwest, with little mounds and uneven ground, while the southeast was lower. I think the remains were buried somewhere toward the northern side.”
“That’ll work.”
Descriptions could never be completely accurate, but Xiao Wang Village was too far away. By the time they made the trip there, it would already be dark, which would waste too much time. Having a drawing to look at would be ideal. The only problem was that they’d need to bring the right person here.
Xu Changsong thought about which of the fortune-tellers and spirit mediums arrested by the city back then had been the most well-known, then casually said, “Jiang Xia, you start drawing. I’ll have someone find one of those frauds and bring them here.”
With that, Xu Changsong didn’t even bother going upstairs. He went straight to the side of the office area, got the phone numbers of the various police stations from a clerk, found the ones he wanted, and began dialing.
“Hello, Wang Changgou? If I remember correctly, you had a fortune-teller surnamed Yin over there? Is she still alive? You say she’s been reformed and doesn’t deceive people anymore? That’s not what I’m asking. Hurry up and have someone bring her over. We have a major matter that requires her assistance with an investigation. Don’t use a bicycle, it’ll be too slow! Use your station’s motorcycle with a sidecar. Don’t worry, the bureau will reimburse the fuel. Whatever you use, we’ll cover!”
“Hello… Old Cao? You had someone who used to perform spirit-medium rituals… She’s dead? All right, never mind.”
“Hello…”
While Xu Changsong made his calls, Jiang Xia called Zhu Weijun back into the conference room and began drawing a rough layout of the wasteland at Xiao Wang Village, sketching it from multiple angles and distances.
More than thirty minutes later, the young community police officer who had wanted Jiang Xia to draw the portrait came rushing downstairs first.
“Chief Xu, we’ve got a problem. There really is another abd*cted child! It’s in the jurisdiction of Xianghe Police Station, and the child went missing yesterday. But this child is only five years old, and we haven’t found anyone who saw what happened yet.”
Xu Changsong’s face immediately hardened into a grim square, though he couldn’t help feeling a little relieved inside.
Another child had been abd*cted. Most likely, it was the same culprit.
That was certainly bad news—but in another sense, it was also good news.
If that was the case, it meant the killer clearly still didn’t have enough “sacrifices.” There was a good chance he hadn’t performed the ritual yet, which meant all three children were very likely still alive.
As long as they could get to them before the ritual, they still had a chance to rescue all of them!
With that thought in mind, Xu Changsong said to the young community police officer, “Go back and ask again. Check with every police station in the entire city. Don’t leave a single one out!”
“Right!”
The young officer nodded and hurried upstairs.
“Hey, Comrade!”
Hearing the commotion, Jiang Xia quickly poked her head out of the conference room.
“Make sure you ask for the children’s dates of birth—especially the exact times they were born!”
Based on her knowledge from her previous life, this would absolutely be a crucial detail.
The young officer’s voice floated back from a distance.
“Got it—!”
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