Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Jin’an was a district located in the middle of a big province. It had a large population, rich resources, and its GNP was always among the top nationally.
Jingbian was a huge city in the southeast of Jin’an. Although it wasn’t a provincial capital, regardless of its population area and its level of economic development, it was above the standard of the provincial capital.
Twenty-four years ago, the first Headless Female Corpse Case happened in this city.
One clammy morning, an old man was fishing at the lake, but he snuck into the jungle by the lake to relieve himself. However, he saw a terrifying scene, while he was peeing under a pine tree. He saw a headless female corpse!
According to the police report, the corpse was naked, and had been posed, leaning against the pine tree. Although it didn’t have its head, the corpse had still looked very lively and creepy!
But, that was merely the start of everything. During the five years since that initial discovery, places near Jingbian, such as Linfu and Leping, also began having Female Headless Corpse Cases pop up, one after another. Hence, the news of these serial cases shocked the nation.
In fact, a total of six corpses were discovered within those five years! Such a string of major crimes naturally attracted the attention of the higher ups. So, they sent a huge task-force, along with plenty of material resources to investigate the matter. But, even after several years, they still never found the murderer. Hence, the case became a pending case!
Later on, when Jin Zhenbang became a central special investigator, he got acquainted with the case. According to the record in the yellow notebook, Jin Zhengang had been looking for a breaking point in the case between 2003 and 2005. Unfortunately, he never could resolve it. This failure actually became one of his biggest regrets.
The reason that Zhao Yu decided to take on that as his team’s first case was because it had been nineteen years since the very last headless female corpse had appeared! Ever since 1998, there hadn’t been any similar headless female corpse cases. For nineteen years, the murderer had yet to commit any crime, which made everyone was wonder if the cruel murderer had already passed away.
So, when Zhao Yu reopened the case, he obviously felt a lot of pressure! At first, Chen Zhuo wanted to let Zhao Yu test the waters with some minor pending cases, which were easier, which would allow him to earn some merit first!
But, Zhao Yu had already declared his wishes, declaring officially in the application form, which set forth the plan he had for the case. Furthermore, he had already gotten the approval to proceed from the higher ups.
Plus, the exact reason that Zhao Yu had interviewed for special investigator was so that he could investigate the cases in the yellow notebook. Before that, he had discussed many investigative approaches for the Headless Female Corpse Case with Miao Ying, which had already aroused his interest towards the case! Hence, he insisted on investigating the case first.
Originally, Zhao Yu thought that his team members would object to his choice of case, thinking that the case was too difficult. However, after his task delegation, none of the three members objected. Such willingness was beyond Zhao Yu’s expectations!
However, he understood in the end that the reason why the three members didn’t go against his well wasn’t because they were confident in solving the case, but rather that they thought that Zhao Yu had the division chief as his backer. So, they felt reassured that, even if they couldn’t solve the case, they wouldn’t be dismissed!
So, between the members of his team being so vastly different from one another and the nearly impossible Headless Female Corpse Case, the future remained very unknown to Zhao Yu. But still, Zhao Yu didn’t change his mind one bit. Regardless of the outcome, he would put in all of his effort!
Just when Zhao Yu was driving the three other team members to Jingbian, he realized the reason why everyone wanted to be a special investigator! When they arrived at the place, they were treated like higher ups!
The Bureau Chief of Jingbian Police Station led his troop to welcome them personally. It was a spectacular scene. Not only did they prepare a sumptuous welcome dinner for them, they also arranged for them to stay at a luxurious local hotel.
In order to cooperate with the Special Investigation Group, the Jingbian police force acted immediately, emptying out a luxurious yet fully equipped office space in the police station building for Zhao Yu and his team work within. Added to this, the Bureau Chief called upon the local higher ups, who were in charge of criminal investigation, to introduce themselves to Zhao Yu. They also clarified that they would be ready to accept any assignment, whenever they were needed.
Zhao Yu and his team were all ordinary policemen that worked on the frontlines. None of them had ever been treated with such high regard! They were overwhelmed by the local police station, who was being so supportive of their work.
As they had no worries, they only had to roll up their sleeves and get to work. In the afternoon on the next day, when all the preparation work was done, the job of the Special Investigation Group finally began.
Dealing with an entirely new working environment and new colleagues, Zhao Yu didn’t give any encouraging speech, but instead simply said, “Let’s get to work!”
As they were dealing with an old case, the first step that the team needed to take was to organize the information. Although there was a professional touchscreen in the temporary office, Zhao Yu, who was used to writing information on his hand, called on several people to send over a few old-fashioned whiteboards.
In his opinion, only the information that he wrote with his own hands would leave an impression in his heart. However, the Headless Female Corpse Case was a national level one major case after all. Plus, there were multiple victims. When all of the information was gathered, it wasn’t something that could be sifted through very quickly.
Furthermore, the six homicide cases happened in different cities. When the investigation started, it would require them to run around to the various cities, which would be very troublesome.
“Actually, the biggest difficulty of the case back then was that the victims couldn’t be verified!” As he was adding to the information, Zhao Yu seized the opportunity to express his thoughts and opinions to his team members. “The fingerprint on the deceased’s hand was cut off by the murderer. Plus, there wasn’t any head. So, during the time when there weren’t any high tech tools of investigation, it became a difficult task to identify the victims!”
“That’s true. It would be difficult to start investigating, not yet knowing who the victim was!” Ran Tao supported.
“I remember that, besides the victim in Linfu, the other victims had their identities confirmed, right?” Zeng Ke said, while he looked at his monitor.
“That happened later on!” Zhao Yu said. “Back then, due to the fact that the corpses had remained unclaimed and left there for too long, the police had to follow the rules, which was to keep partial evidence, then cremate whatever was left of the dead body! That was until the technology of DNA became more common, as then the police could better verify the identities of the victims!”
“It’s too late!” Ran Tao looked at the whiteboard and shook his head. “After so many years, even if they found out who the victims were, it wouldn’t be easy to find out what the actual situation way back then! The murderer… Was so cunning…”
“Not only was he cunning, he was brave, too!” Zhao Yu pointed at the whiteboard and said, “Look, when they certified the identities of the victims, the police were surprised that the victims were not people from the location of the case! They didn’t live there, nor did they work there! That means the murderer kidnapped them, then transported them to the crime scene from other cities!”
“That’s amazing!” Ran Tao slapped his thighs. “Then, it would be even more difficult for the police to find out the identity of the victims! Who would have thought that a missing person would die in another city that had nothing to do with them. The murderer… I really want to find out who it is, just to see what kind of a person would be so conniving!”
