I finally got it, and I could be sure that Xiao Liu’s direction was wrong. The killer worked alone and not in a team. Like actors who got too stuck into their roles, whenever the killer wrote the story, they would see themselves as the victims. To be able to do something like that, the person had to be a perfect actor or a perfect mental patient, a patient of multiple personality disorder.
The patient of MPD couldn’t converse using 2 identities at the same time. For example, when I was in the sewer, I did hear multiple voices, but they never talked at the same time. When the man spoke, the girl stopped crying. This also proved that the killer was already at a late stage of their illness. From what I noticed, there were at least 4 personalities inside the killer. A young man, a girl, a young woman, and a man called Yama. The pathology of MPD was heavily related to one’s childhood and environment. When one couldn’t solve the problem, and no one could help, someone would come out to say, “Don’t worry, I’m here.”
And the speaker was none other than yourself. If no one could help you, then you create someone who could.
I turned to ask Gu Chen. “Even though Xiao Liu didn’t tell us the connection between the victims, he found them from the bowls. What do you think Xiao Liu could have derived from those bowls? What did you see from those pieces?”
Gu Chen leaned against the rails and rubbed his temples. “Other than being old and worn, I can’t really see what’s so special about them.”
“Perhaps that’s it.” I turned around to lean on the rail. I mumbled to myself, “Old and worn.” Suddenly a key point came to me. I rushed to Mary’s bedroom and knocked on her door. When I was about to knock for the 10th time, the door opened. Mary stood there angrily, “What do you think you’re doing? Do you know what time it is?”
I took in her tussled hair and said seriously, “I need your help to save people. Help me check the victims’ background. If I’m not mistaken, these people all lived near each other in the past.”
Mary glared at me and yawned. “You better hope you’re right, or else I’ll smash your head in!” Then Mary signaled for Gu Chen and me to enter her room. Mary picked up the laptop that she left on the ground and started working.
I gasped, “The laptop was given to you by the government, right? Isn’t it extremely rare? Aren’t you afraid that it might get broken?”
As Mary worked, she explained, “If it’s so easily broken, then it’s not good for me anyway. The laptop will still work even after being dropped from the 6th floor. Plus, it is resistant to fire and water. It can be used in both high and low-temperature environments.”
Mary finished compiling the info on all the victims and set up a comparison chart. I looked at the data that flew across the monitor. Soon they formed a 3d map.
In the first story, the victims were 2 Ols; in the second story, the victim was a family of 3; in the third story, the victims were 3 tenants from Happiness Neighbourhood. They came from all parts of Dong Xing City, and there didn’t seem to be a connection between them. Soon, 3 dots appeared on the map. We understood these were where the victims lived in the past.
Mary said, “Even though they were all residents of Dong Xing City, they didn’t live close to each other. On the map, they might look close, but actually, the distance is large. Plus, several years ago, Dong Xing City was still developing, and there weren’t that many people who had cars. If they had to walk, they had to walk for at least 3 hours to reach each other.” Then Mary stood up and told me gloomily, “So Wu Meng, don’t wake people up in the middle of the night with just a hypothesis, don’t you know we girls need our beauty sleep? Get out.” The door slammed in our faces.
Gu Chen looked at me and scratched his head. “So, what did you find?”
I pulled on my hair and paced around. “At least we know they all come from Dong Xing City. But if they were here several years ago, with how much the city has developed, they should be rich already. However, none of the victims is rich.”
Gu Chen tapped his forehead and said, “Right, in the 3rd story, the killer did mention something about that. Even though the tenants of Happiness Neighbourhood wanted to move, no one was interested in their piece of land. The old city was far from the city center. People at the old city had become disconnected from the development of Dong Xing City.”
I frowned. With the reminder from Gu Chen, I realized that was true. The tenants at Happiness Neighbourhood were waiting for the government to use their land so they could be paid handsomely in compensation. However, that didn’t happen. The government said that it was to preserve the city’s history, but in reality, it was because the old city was not near the sea or river, so it wasn’t prime real estate. So even though the old city was also called Dong Xing City, it was actually the metropolis’ countryside.
So was the connection between the victims? Several years ago, the killer must have interacted with the victims somehow.
But the victim in the 2nd case and 3rd case had children. The killer was already 20 plus, so why would the killer target these children?
I knocked on Mary’s door again. The door opened, and a pillow flew out. The pillow aimed at my face but at the last moment, a hand plucked the pillow from the air. I turned around, and Gu Chen was smiling at me smugly. “Impressive, Master Gu,” I said.
Gu Chen laughed. “There’s nothing in this world that I can’t catch.”
“Are you two done?” Mary demanded. I poked my head out from behind the pillow. “Can you show me a picture of the old city?”
Mary shook her fist at me and said, “if there’s a next time, it won’t be a pillow anymore.” Then she grabbed the pillow back from Gu Chen. Soon the map of the old city appeared before us. This time, the 3 red dots all existed inside the old city. This was the connection!
“Here!” I pointed at a spot. The two looked and asked in unison, “The old city’s cultural center? What about it?”
I turned to the two and shared my thought. “We all know that the government played a huge role in developing Dong Xing City. Even though we’re not as developed as Beijing, we’re considered one of the largest cities in China.”
“That’s right.” Mary said, “I was here 7 years ago. At the time, this place was still a village.”
I said, “So back then, the only place for the people to find entertainment was probably this so-called cultural center. The victims’ family background, age, sex, work had no connection, so this might be the only connection.”
“But what could have happened there?” Gu Chen turned back to ask me. “Plus, the chance of this is so low.”
I nodded seriously, “After you eliminate all the possibilities, the last one is the truth, no matter how impossible it is. I believe even the victims had no idea why they had to die, but for a person with MPD, they are very suspicious of others. They are also easily-angered, vengeful, sensitive, and have low self-esteem.”
“But what could have happened that the killer would remember for so many years and even kill the children who would have been mere babies back then?” Gu Chen asked.
I was silent and then said, “I believe it has to be the reason why the killer can sometimes be male and then female. It is his deepest secret. As he grew older, he became more sensitive and resentful. He needed to kill everyone who once knew this secret, even though they might have already forgotten all about it.”
I looked at them and shared my thought. “He, or she, is a real hermaphrodite.”
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