Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The Beiqian police impressed Zhao Yu. Right after Zhao Yu gave them the order, they immediately summoned their people from their other branch offices, gathering hundreds to come and help with the efforts.
Zhao Yu divided them into ten groups, nine of which were responsible for one-on-one investigation of the victims from the Devil Case. Zhao Yu demanded that they all do their best.
He needed a thorough investigation of the victims’ situations before their deaths. The nine groups were instructed not to miss any details and to collect all of the information that was accessible.
The remaining group was mainly responsible for investigating what Han Kuan did that year, while making a detailed and careful report of Han Kuan’s activities when he was in Beiqian. After Zhao Yu’s had given everyone tasks, Deputy Bureau Chief Xu emphasized how important self-discipline would be during these tasked.
She then shared how she was requiring each person to perform his duty perfectly and to complete his tasks as soon as possible. Those who could find important clues would be rewarded, while those who were caught not working hard enough would be punished severely. Needless to say, all of the police officers worked extremely hard after hearing their bureau chief give this order!
After that, Zhao Yu had Wu Xiumin ask the Gold City Police Station to re-investigate Han Kuan, leaving no stone unturned. Zhao Yu also called the Yaoming police force and made Officer Wang in charge of the investigation there. In this way, Zhao Yu had successfully started a joint-investigation across three cities at the same time!
Although the influence of the Devil Case was not as broad as the Headless Female Corpses Case, it was one of the five unsolved cases in China. When the local police knew that they were going to participate in investigating the famous Devil Case, they worked extremely hard.
In the next few days, all kinds of new materials were sent to the special investigation group’s office. Piles of files now looked like a mountain in the office, and Zhao Yu insisted on going through everything in detail personally.
In the following days, Zhao Yu approached the case like he was at war. He didn’t’ change his clothes, and he spent all of his time in the office. He carefully read every piece of information, not missing a single detail.
His hard-working attitude surprised his teammates, as well as the local police. Although his teammates knew that Zhao Yu was stubborn when it came to solving a case, they had never seen him quite so devoted to a single case.
In particular, Miao Ying, who had been with Zhao Yu all the way through his transformation, was so surprised at Zhao Yu’s change that she could hardly describe her excitement in words. She had never expected that an arrogant hooligan could turn into such a persistent and tough criminal police officer!
Upon seeing that Zhao Yu wouldn’t give up easily, it convinced Miao Ying that she had made the right choice in investing in him! Zhao Yu’s pro-active attitude bolstered his team’s morale as well, and for the following few days, they consulted tons of documents and analyzed many related clues. Although no conclusive evidence had been found yet, their suspicions about Han Kuan were growing.
Sometimes, solving a case was like poking through a piece of paper. Once the key clue was found, they could see what was behind the other side of the paper. So, they knew that they just had to stay determined and keep poking!
During his investigation, Zhao Yu carefully read Han Kuan’s novels in chronological order. It was surprising to him that the answer that he had been looking for was already in Han Kuan’s books!
Although Han Kuan’s novels were not very popular, Zhao Yu found that he had an impeccable logic in his prose. Particularly, in his later novels, he was very good at describing psychological activities.
He was accurate and precise about the psychological state of every character, whether the character was a criminal or a law enforcer. So, when Zhao Yu had finished reading Han Kuan’s books, he realized a shocking fact… Han Kuan had grown up to be an amazing psychologist by creating his crime fiction novels! This explained how he was able to deceive the police and even mislead Zhao Yu!
In addition to the novels, Zeng Ke also found a major problem in a video that he uncovered. It was an earlier interrogation video in which Han Kuan cried bitterly over his wife’s death. His words are what had specifically caught Zeng Ke’s attention.
During the interrogation at that time, Han Kuan had said with tears in his eyes, “You say that you know how I feel, but who knows how it feels to lie in my wife’s blood?”
This did not sound important at first, but after Zhao Yu thought about it more carefully, the more strange it sounded to him. Then, Zeng Ke asked Ba Chen about this, and according to what he could remember, he also felt that it was strange for Han Kuan to say such a thing.
This was because, when the police arrived at the scene of Zhang Jingru’s death, the unconscious Han Kuan had a knife in his hand. At first, the police thought that he wanted to kill himself, so they sent him to the hospital immediately.
At that time, Han Kuan’s clothes were covered with blood, so a nurse had to take off his clothes, clean them up, then change him into hospital clothes. The bloody clothes were collected as evidence by the police and sent to the Forensics Department for further examination.
According to the doctor’s test results, Han Kuan was in a severe coma at that time. He didn’t wake up until eight o’clock in the morning. So, he couldn’t have known what had happened during the night!
Moreover, Ba Chen remembered clearly that until the police took Han Kuan from the hospital to the police station as a suspect in killing his wife, he did not even know that Zhang Jingru had died! Although the police showed him photos of the crime scene later during the interrogation, his words still didn’t sound reasonable.
After all, even if he knew that he had been lying in his wife’s blood, how could he feel that? This obviously proved that he was the murderer who killed Zhang Jingru! He was conscious when he was in Zhang Jingru’s blood!
In addition to the above two things, they also had a new finding as they investigating the Devil Case’s victims. An investigation team that was responsible for investigating the 60-year-old lady found the old lady’s neighbors.
According to one of her neighbors, it was rumored that the old lady used to kill and abuse small animals before she died. The neighbor was quite sure that the rumor came from the Internet.
After hearing this, the police immediately launched an investigation of the rumor and finally found the Internet source. In fact, in the year of the Devil Case, chat software, such as QQ, had not been widely used yet.
Instead, local young people chatted online in a chat forum called Friend. It was an open platform that was similar to today’s chat groups. People could talk with strangers and make friends in this way.
It was very popular at that time. However, this kind of chat platform had only regional popularity.
The rumor about the old lady killing small animals came from this chat platform, which explained how the old lady had attracted the attention of the murderer. It was because he found her through this platform!
Therefore, Zhao Yu and the others finally understand why Han Kuan was able to get information so quickly about his target! He must have gotten it through this platform!
At that time, the forum didn’t require real names in order for someone to register. It was also very poorly managed, with little security features. So, it would have been easy for him to find a way to have people online provide him with the information that he desired!
But now, times have changed. After so many years have passed, the team knew that it would not likely be able to find his chat records. Moreover, even if they could find Han Kuan’s chat records, it wouldn’t be convincing enough evidence.
Therefore, although they found this forum, they still didn’t find any solid evidence. In order to prove Han Kuan’s guilt, they must find more conclusive evidence.
But, Zhao Yu hadn’t opened any Gen hexagrams for several days now, and he was worried that this might be a sign that he was doomed to fail.
No! Zhao Yu shouted in his heart. He would definitely not accept this!
Now, Zhao Yu had a deeper understanding of Han Kuan. He was convinced that, although Han Kuan was clever, the Devil Case was not a perfect crime! He was determined that he would find some loopholes!
