A few hours after Guan Zhenglin was captured, the killer released the 4th story online. “Wu Meng, even though I have no idea what happened at Xing Dong Village but the killer has made a request through the story. He wants us to return the bowls or else he will kill the hostage, and the hostage is a female coroner called Guan Zhenglin… Guan Zhenglin, is she…”
I answered, “Since the killer has made a request, then he won’t kill Guan Zhenglin before he gets the bowl. In other words, we don’t need to worry about her safety until then. This means that we have more time.”
Mary sighed helplessly. “Okay then, I’ll send you the story, and you arrange what to do next. By the way, Xiao Liu has mobilized most of the people. Have you contacted him?”
“I have. Xiao Liu is investigating Guan Zhenglin’s kidnapping. By the way, Sister Mary, I need you to help me look more into the bowls. I believe the killer has left behind the info related to the bowls. Also, have the local stations look into the previous murders and see if the victims have lost any bowls.”
“Understood.” Mary hung up. Soon Mary sent the 4th story to my phone. Gu Chen and I read the story together. It was written from the 1st person perspective.
Night has fallen, everyone has fallen asleep, but a kind of people wakes up in this darkness. He has been unearthed like the returning dead. He carries the scent of death with him. The selected one will face the threat of death.
The selected one this time is a young coroner. I wanted to be a coroner when I was small, but I didn’t want to help return justice to the dead. Instead, I wanted to cut the dead into pieces and hollow out their internal organs.
They will be like beautiful art, just like this young coroner.
I know this young coroner has done many autopsies, and she is very familiar with human anatomy. I wonder if someone can perform an autopsy on themselves. Think about it. When a person holds a scalpel to cut through themselves, it will be a beautiful moment.
I am impressed with myself for coming up with this fabulous idea. Therefore, I tied her to a bed. I had her lean on the headboard, holding a scalpel in her hand. In the next few hours, you will receive my orders. If you can’t complete them on time, then this little coroner will perform an autopsy on herself. It depends on you whether she can be saved or not. Whether she can return in one piece depends on how fast you are.
Actually, I don’t want to do this, but my little sister is crying for those bowls. I know the bowls were shattered when they were in the sewer. This is all your fault. If not for you, he wouldn’t have let the bowls slip and lost them afterward.
So the first thing I need you to do is to glue the bowls back for me, and my little sister can’t notice any problem with them. And you have 2 hours to do that.
It is now 1 am. I will come to check on your progress at 3 am.
Lastly, I’ll let you see your cute coroner, see how cute she is. Then, have a good night. Love you.
The story ended then. Gu Chen and I frowned as we read the story. At the end of the story, there was a picture. A woman was in the picture. The woman was naked and tied to a bed. The bed was the kind that could be raised, the kind from the hospital.
The woman was none other than Guan Zhenglin. The picture was taken from the side. We could see two scalpels tied to Guan Zhenglin’s hands. Her legs were raised to her hand level. Her hands and legs were parallel. In other words, when Guan Zhenglin’s hands moved, she would slice open her own legs.
The killer said that he would make Guan Zhenglin cut open herself if we couldn’t piece back the bowls. The angle of the bed could be adjusted, so it was totally possible for the killer to keep his promise.
I tapped on my chin to help myself calm down. Even though Guan Zhenglin was naked, my mind was on how to save her. The killer was truly psychopathic to come up with the idea of having Guan Zhenglin perform an autopsy on herself. Through the picture, we could see Guan Zhenglin’s profile. It was enough for me to sense her sadness and fear. It was like she had seen the scariest thing in the world. It was a real fear, and I had not seen that expression on Guan Zhenglin before. I knew that Guan Zhenglin was at the edge of a mental breakdown. If we wasted too much time, she would crumble under pressure.
If the killer didn’t capture Guan Zhenglin, then we could take things slow with the killer, but we were given a time limit. One that was just enough for us to focus on the task he had given us so we wouldn’t have to focus on him. The killer had the upper hand. To come up with such an arrangement, the killer must have a very high IQ. The killer must have studied psychology.
Since Mary didn’t tell me anything about the bowls, then I knew that she must have arranged for people to do that already. The killer only gave us two hours, and we needed to use these two hours to do something else.
Time ticked by, and trapped at Xing Dong Village, I couldn’t do anything but wait for results from Xiao Liu and Mary.
Gu Chen looked at me, “What should we do here?”
I looked at Gu Chen and then at the flashlights up the mountain. I asked, “Don’t you think there’s something wrong with the story?”
“Something wrong?” Gu Chen scratched his head and said, “I did notice something weird, but I don’t know if it’s wrong or not.”
“Tell me.” I turned to him.
Gu Chen nodded. “The killer wrote this killer using his own perspective, so the killer has exposed himself. We can know more about the killer from the story. For example, the killer sounds old but based on known witness testimonies, the killer should be around 20.”
I nodded.
Gu Chen continued, “So if this is the case, then I speculate that the person who wrote the story is the older persona of the killer. Plus, this person seems to be familiar with human anatomy. Do you think is it possible for us to lure out the killer’s other persona and for them to release Guan Zhenglin?”
I nodded. Gu Chen’s words brought me hope. That was possible. For example, the crying little girl persona, if we could make her the dominant persona, I doubt the little girl would hurt Guan Zhenglin. I tapped Gu Chen on his shoulder. “That’s brilliant.”
Gu Chen shook his head. “But that is based on the premise that the killer is alone and has a dissociative personality disorder. But until now, I still can’t tell whether the killer is singular or plural. I agreed with you initially that the killer might be alone but now…” Gu Chen looked at me seriously. “When you were on the phone with Xiao Liu earlier, I heard everything. Wu Xiufen and Wu Xiufang’s husbands and children are still alive. It is possible that they have worked together to kill all these people. Their ages, genders, and the other properties match, but if that’s the case, I can’t imagine why they have decided to work together.”
I shook my head. “The killer is singular. If there are multiple killers, they won’t threaten us like this. If there are multiple killers, they don’t need to do so much.
“Plus, did you notice that this story is unusually short? I believe the killer wrote it in a hurry.” I continued, “The story doesn’t even have the same literary merit as the other stories. He has openly dealt with the police. The killer must still be nearby, or else he would have used more time to come up with his story.”
Gu Chen nodded. “It has only been two hours since Guan Zhenglin was captured, and the killer won’t have enough time to reach Dong Xing City.”
I frowned. “Perhaps the killer is still at Xing Dong Village.”
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