Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 132

Chapter 132: What Does the Victim Represent?

The police came very quickly. Wang Xi led two police officers into the company.

Several regular meetings had been held this morning, all asking about President Liu’s whereabouts. Now, seeing the police come, the employees immediately exploded. In a short while, the news of President Liu’s disappearance had spread throughout Logos.

But Shen Yiyi did not have Wang Xi block the information.

The killer would always know their movements. She even thought that there was still an insider in the company.

Qin Luo explained the detailed situation, saying that there had been too many murder cases around her recently, and that the disappearance of the company’s manager was a major event. She hoped that the police could quickly send people to check the surveillance.

Shen Yiyi naturally would not pin her hopes on the police. The authority of the local police was too small. Her purpose in calling the police was just to stabilize Qin Luo’s emotions.

With the police around, Qin Luo’s emotions would at least have a bottom line.

Qin Luo was giving a statement, and Wang Xi was pulling Sun Yuan to provide evidence for the police on the timeline. The videos they had, and the last movements that had been found out, could save the police a lot of time.

But to find out where Liu Jia was, they first had to lock down where the killer was.

Shen Yiyi looked at her watch. It was already noon. It had been five and a half days since Liu Jia had disappeared. Confirming whether a murder had occurred could better confirm whether Liu Jia still had a chance of survival.

She made a call to the duty room.

“Help me check the duty records. See if we’ve received any cases of a female victim around 35.”

The one on duty today was Little Wang. He heard the urgency in Director Shen’s voice and immediately responded to the task. He checked the ledger, and then flipped through the police dispatch records in the system, confirming that there had been a case.

But the case was a traffic accident. After Little Wang had reported the victim’s name, Shen Yiyi was relieved.

It was highly likely that the person was alive.

The police were questioning everywhere. Shen Yiyi hung up the phone and leaned against the sink in the break room, starting to create a profile of the killer. But no matter how she replayed it, she could not connect Xin Wuzheng’s death with the first two cases.

But speaking of the first two cases, the killer had observed the victim’s lifestyle, had relied on the victim’s habits, had planned the method of death in advance, and had given a fatal blow in a public place.

A planned killer’s modus operandi is often too secretive, and the methods are orderly. They even create an alibi for themselves.

From this point of view, the killer’s personality is calm, steady, and has a high level of intelligence. They are quite confident in their own murder methods and have self-control.

At this thought, Shen Yiyi took out her phone again.

She called Old Piao, wanting to confirm if Shang Yi had had any contact with Liang Wei in the end. And Old Piao’s answer did indeed confirm her thoughts.

“Shang Yi’s last call was indeed to Liang Wei. The reason why we didn’t arrest Liang Wei is because she was in Hainan during that time, and the two hadn’t seen each other in a long time.”

Shen Yiyi said thank you, hung up the phone, and turned to walk toward Qin Luo’s office.

In the testimony, Lu Xi had claimed that Li Peipei had disappeared for a period of time before the incident, and that Shang Yi had then taken the initiative to come to her door and threaten her, telling her not to investigate further to expand the impact of the situation.

And the news that Lin Puping had gotten from Little Sun was that Li Peipei had taken the initiative to have an abortion after she had returned from Chongqing, and that the miscarriage had aroused Shang Yi’s suspicion. Only then had Shang Yi chosen to imprison Li Peipei, which had led to the period of time when Li Peipei had disappeared.

Li Peipei had most likely been unable to contact the outside world during that time.

Therefore, Lu Xi could not find Li Peipei, and the clue had been broken during that time.

If Lu Xi could not find Li Peipei, then Liang Wei also could not contact the other. But Liang Wei did not only have Li Peipei as a lead. She also had You Ning, an old friend, to use.

Liang Wei could directly use You Ning to send a message to Lu Xi. This way, she would not leave any evidence, and it would be safer and more reliable.

But from You Ning’s mouth, Shen Yiyi could tell that Liang Wei was not a person who would do anything for a divorce. All the signs showed that she did not want to drag You Ning into the water completely.

Even for the matter of having Lu Xi be the one to take the fall, Liang Wei had also bypassed Lu Xi and had had the Li Peipei who wanted to gain benefits from her introduce it.

If that were the case, then the email was most likely sent by the killer.

At this thought, Shen Yiyi took out her phone and called Old Piao again.

“Have you investigated Shang Yi’s itinerary after August 23rd?”

“He was supposed to attend, but he was absent.”

“The key is to attend a large-scale summit, or a live stream event, or a public welfare event.”

Two calls in a minute to get to the bottom of it. Old Piao was a little troubled. “Director Shen, you—”

“The boss of Logos is my classmate.” Shen Yiyi did not want to hide it. The other must have already heard that she had been recused from the case. “She’s missing now. If another person dies, what do you think the public opinion will be like?”

Old Piao paused. “…”

“My purpose now is to find my missing friend.” Shen Yiyi did not beat around the bush. “Your purpose is to find the killer. A secretive communication is not good for anyone, especially you.”

Old Piao covered his phone. “Then I’ll call you from another number.”

In less than ten seconds, a call came from a strange number.

This call was used by Old Piao to contact his informants for cases. It was not monitored, to prevent him from being caught by the process, so he was also generous when he spoke.

He said bluntly, “I’ve searched the system and checked the testimony. Shang Yi did indeed plan to go to Beijing on the 24th to attend a summit. I’ve searched for the name. This summit is quite influential, and there’s also a TV broadcast.”

“As expected.”

Shen Yiyi stopped, her eyes dark. “This is the reason why we can’t find the main suspect in this case.”

Old Piao’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve suspected Li Peipei, you’ve also suspected Wang Lu, and you’ve even suspected Liang Wei, and a group of internet celebrities. Even I had mistakenly thought that the influence of the hallucinogen was the greatest.”

Old Piao was at a loss and couldn’t keep up with Shen Yiyi’s logic.

In the police’s profile, based on the three inferences of the forensic pathologist, the trace evidence, and the timeline, it was deduced that the killer had a strict plan and had used Shang Yi’s habits and the entertainment factors of the party that night to accurately induce death. But if the three cases were committed by the same person, then for the killer, dying at such a party should not be the punishment that Shang Yi deserved.

Thinking about it this way, her speculation was correct.

“The killer most likely knows Li Peipei and can get in touch with Shang Yi’s health supplements through Li Peipei, and has poisoned them.” Shen Yiyi said quietly, “But he couldn’t be sure if he could succeed in the live stream event, so he wanted to test the dosage and the effect of the drug in advance.”

But the killer also had a blind spot.

The one who had catalyzed Shang Yi’s emotional excitement and had induced a sudden cardiac arrest was not Lu Xi, but Liang Wei.

The killer clearly did not know that Li Peipei and Liang Wei had already colluded.

Those photos were not from Li Peipei, but from Liang Wei.

Only Liang Wei knew about the matter of Shang Yi accidentally killing Teng Chao abroad. Therefore, when Wang Lu had gone to question Shang Yi with the photos, Shang Yi had suddenly realized that it was not just Li Peipei who was causing trouble behind his back by having a miscarriage, but even his wife, who had given birth to his child, was colluding with her lover to get him.

A deep betrayal.

Wang Lu’s threat was not worth mentioning to him, but the call that Shang Yi had made to Liang Wei was the fatal blow to him.

So his own wife wanted to ruin his reputation, and his lover was using her pregnancy to paralyze him. A person who could control everything was being played by two women.

Shang Yi sat on the sofa, listening to the sneer in Liang Wei’s voice on the phone, so angry that he couldn’t even breathe.

And so he had suddenly died.

“The second case died in a live stream.” Shen Yiyi followed this train of thought, and it felt much more reasonable. “The third case is in the center of public opinion.”

There were storms of gazes everywhere.

“There is reproducibility, there is a plan, there is a purpose, and there is a reward mechanism.” Shen Yiyi felt that the profile in her head was gradually becoming clearer. “Every case has the killer’s fixed language. Of course, this language may not be the weapon, or the method, but the victims may all have a certain symbolic meaning or role function.”

At this, Shen Yiyi straightened her back.

She thought of something. If Liu Jia’s revelation post had deconstructed Her Kill, and had thought that the killer was imitating her kill, and had made the imitation of venting anger the focus of public opinion, then it might fit the description of the role function.

“Letting the other die in their most trusted daily life is the core of the murder process of every killer in Her Kill. Letting death seep into daily life, just as they were victimized, with no way to defend themselves.”

“Emotional fluctuation.”

“The third case must have been because the killer had an emotional fluctuation, and there was a new turning point in their cognition.” Shen Yiyi’s voice was cold. “Although the modus operandi of these three cases is very different, they are not completely chaotic. They are functional transformations. But the motive is the same.”

It was the same as what Qin Luo had thought.

Shen Yiyi was extremely certain. “The killer has a persistent faith.”

The killer in the first case had been cautious and had not hesitated to add suspects to test the drug, and had unexpectedly reaped the results. Although the killer was not satisfied with this method of death, it must have been pleasant for the killer.

Therefore, in the second case, the killer had boldly chosen the method of a live stream, letting the victim die in the center of the internet, becoming a national focus.

And in the third case, the focus had been completely elevated to a phenomenal dimension by Liu Jia’s push. The killer was in a period of fluctuation and had gone with the flow.

If poisoning was a low-volume, controlled type, a quiet death with no flaws, the killer would be indulging in the act of “creating death like a god.”

Then a throat-slitting represented a failure of control, a naked expression of “termination” and “dissatisfaction.” This was a kind of catharsis.

Especially the bloodstains that Wang Xi had identified. Shen Yiyi could judge that it was fake blood that had been splashed on.

Clearly, a throat-slitting would not cause a large area of blood spray, but the killer had deliberately created a grand scene to make the scene spectacular and magnificent.

Because in the killer’s perspective, this case was not a part of the “process.”

It was a punitive exception.

“Why did we profile a woman?”

Shen Yiyi looked down. She held her phone tightly. “Because the victims are not random. Women are always calmer than men, will plan, will be altruistic, and it is a reluctant resistance.”

Piao Zheng also realized. “We might have gone in the wrong direction. The victim is not a certain person, but a certain representative, representing a certain type of person that the killer wants to judge or reenact.”

Shen Yiyi nodded. “We shouldn’t be asking who the killer is.”

We should be asking:

What do Shang Yi, Qi Yingjun, Xin Wuzheng, and Liu Jia represent to the killer?