Although Miao Ying called a group of policemen to the scene, she did not ask them to take Xie Tongguo’s uncle to the police station. Instead, she just asked him for more detailed information about Xie Tongguo.
After that, the police searched the house. Although the house had not been renovated since the sale, none of Xie Tongguo’s personal belongings had been found. It seemed that Xie Tongguo must have thought of all of this in advance, eliminating any trace of himself or his belongings.
As such, they assumed that he had done the same thing in his basement. And, just as they thought, when they searched the dusty basement, they found nothing important, only old, useless stuff.
For this reason, Cui Lizhu was seriously annoyed at Zhao Yu. She felt like the search had been an unnecessary waste of her time and skills!
After they decided that Xie Tongguo’s house would not provide them with any more clues, Zhao Yu, Miao Ying, and Cui Lizhu returned to the Golden City Police Station to continue their investigation.
When they returned to the police station, they received news from Ran Tao that confirmed their suspicions about Xie Tongguo. As Ran Tao was thinking about the case, he realized that the real estate agency could be a key point in their case. So, he asked the manager to call in several employees during the night.
These employees had all worked with Xie Tongguo before, and they told Zeng Ke everything they knew about Xie Tongguo. They each confirmed that it was Xie Tongguo who had signed the contract with Hao Lili.
They also confirmed that the contract would have brought Xie Tongguo a generous commission. However, Hao Lili broke the contract when he went to buy a house from another seller.
Because of this, Xie Tongguo had an argument with the manager at that time. Xie Tongguo was upset Hao Lili’s behavior and wanted to sue. Of course, the managers didn’t agree with that course of action, as according to the contract, the property owner should be the one who decides whether to sue or not, not the agency.
But, Xie Tongguo was stubborn, and he went to the homeowner to argue about Hao Lili’s breach of contract. But, as the homeowner didn’t lose anything, but actually gained a deposit from Hao Lili, he was naturally unwilling to get involved in any dispute.
So, in the end, Xie Tongguo was the only loser in the deal. In fact, this kind of breach of contract was quite common in the real estate industry. As such, the agency rarely sued.
However, this sale was extraordinarily important for Xie Tongguo. After all, Xie Tongguo lost his mother when he was young, and his father was seriously ill.
He needed this job’s income to pay for his father’s treatment. Also, he could only stay with the company if he had a good sales record. Needless to say, Hao Lili’s contract was extremely important to him.
After they explained to the police about Hao Lili’s contract, Xie Tongguo’s colleagues also told the police a few other things about Xie Tongguo. According to an elderly female co-worker, when Xie Tongguo first came to the agency, a complaint was filed against him within the first 30 days of his employment.
The complaint said that he had a bad attitude and had deceived customers. For this reason, Xie Tongguo was almost dismissed from the company.
As other employees got to know him better, they gradually discovered that Xie Tongguo had to drive a passenger tricycle every evening to help make ends meet. One night, he had got into an argument with another tricycle driver who also transported goods.
They had a nasty quarrel, and even fought each other physically. Xie Tongguo didn’t win against the other driver, as the other driver was much stronger.
After that, the driver held a grudge. When he learned that Xie Tongguo was employed by the real estate agency, he came to Xie Tongguo’s company and pretended that he wanted to buy a house.
He was trying to embarrass Xie Tongguo by fooling Xie Tongguo into showing him properties for a whole day, only to later complain about Xie Tongguo to the agency.
When he discovered that he had been fooled in such a way, Xie Tongguo was filled with hatred for this man. Although the employees didn’t know the man’s name, Zhao Yu and the others guessed that the man must be Zhan Jiankang. Therefore, if Xie Tongguo was really the murderer, then it was totally reasonable that he had killed Zhan Jiankang first, making him the initial victim of his revenge murders!
The agency employees also explained to them the relationship between Sun Peibin, the third victim, and Xie Tongguo. According to them, Sun Peibin was a well-known customer at the agency. The reason for this was not because he often bought houses from the agency, but because he liked to show off at the agency.
Sun Peibin was a pig farmer. He was poor, but pretended to be rich in order to get women’s attention. He often brought different women to the agency and pretended that he was going to buy a house, especially wanting to go and see the most expensive ones.
All of the employees knew about his antics, so they usually just ignored him. But, because Xie Tongguo was a relatively new employee, he didn’t yet know about him. So, when he came in, Xie Tonggguo thought that he really wanted to buy a house, and he always tried his best to sell one to him.
Sun Peibin knew this, so every time that he came to the agency, he would ask specifically to be helped by Xie Tongguo. Later, when Xie Tongguo learned what was going on, he also started ignoring Sun Peibin.
After this, the shameless Sun Peibin got angry. He even cursed Xie Tongguo in public and made a big scene!
The fourth victim was Pei Zhi. The agency employees also revealed his history with Xie Tongguo.
It turns out that Pei Zhi had signed a contract with Xie Tongguo to buy a old, somewhat cheap house. But, in the end, just like Hao Lili, he had violated the contract and bought the house directly from the property owner.
Then, an employee gave the team another important piece of news. Apparently, when Xie Tongguo was fired from the company, he was in charge of housing resources in the whole Xianghe Home area. And, after his dismissal, the company found several of its keys missing.
However, there was no conclusive evidence that could prove that he took the keys. Also, because they thought that the missing keys were not that important, nobody paid much attention to it at the time. From this point of view, it was possible that Xie Tongguo had already been planning all of these serial murders!
All of this information basically confirmed to Zhao Yu and the others that Xie Tongguo was indeed the murderer behind the serial murders case! Thus, their current task was to arrest Xie Tongguo!
Zhao Yu didn’t want to issue a citywide arrest warrant, as he did not want to risk alerting Xie Tongguo that they were after him. Instead, he and Miao Ying believed that they should set up checkpoints in crucial places, such as train and bus stations and main highway junctions.
After Zhao Yu had assigned these tasks, Cui Lizhu voiced an opinion, “Since Xie Tongguo may have kept the keys from the agency, then… Could he be hiding in one of the houses… Like the house where the electrocution case occurred?”
“That’s a great idea!” Zhao Yu nodded. He then immediately called Ran Tao and asked him to send some officers to check the houses that had keys that were missing.
Zeng Ke hesitated a moment on the phone, then suggested, “How about we send someone to search the Xianghe Home neighborhood again. It’s hard to believe that Xie Tongguo would still be hiding in a house! After all, it is so close to the murder scene!”
Miao Ying immediately disagreed with this course of action, “No. Such a large scale search will definitely attract attention!”
She then waved at Wu Xiumin and said, “Send a group of people to wait at the Xianghe Home. This way, we won’t be that noticeable.”
Wu Xiumin nodded and was just leaving to make the call, when Zhao Yu suddenly asked Wu Xiumin, “Wu, according to the plot in Han Kuan’s 11 Kills, how did the next victim die? More specifically, where did he die?”
“He drowned!” Wu Xiumin said. “The victim was drowned in an abandoned swimming pool! The killer manipulated the crime scene to make it look like the victim had drowned after he fell into the pool by accident.”
After hearing this, Zhao Yu seemed deeply confused. He frowned as he repeated, “An abandoned swimming pool…”
“Oh…” Cui Lizhu realized something and said loudly, “Boss, if Xie Tongguo wants to complete his killings according to the plot of 11 Kills, that must mean that he is planning his fifth kill right now!”
