My Healing Games

Chapter 34 Puzzle Patterns

At 2:45 a.m., the television screen suddenly lit up by itself.

The dim, cold light illuminated the dark living room, and several faces could be vaguely seen amidst the constantly flickering black and white static.

Han Fei breathed a slight sigh of relief. His palms and back were soaked with sweat. He had been really scared when his hair appeared in the gap of the blanket.

"Only twenty minutes left."

This hellish time is finally coming to an end. Han Fei doesn't even know how he endured it. He saw a glimmer of hope in the long, dark night.

On the living room sofa, five figures stood with their backs to the bedroom, all staring intently at the old, boxy television, as if there was something incredibly captivating in the flickering static on the screen.

Tick ​​tock, tick tock...

The ticking of the digital clock mingled with Han Fei's own heartbeat. He tried his best to remain calm; the final moment had arrived, and he absolutely could not afford any mistakes.

His gaze swept over the figure on the sofa before finally settling on the television screen.

Amidst the crackling of electricity, a man's voice could be heard, but it was hard to make out; it sounded like a madman muttering to himself.

Han Fei focused his attention, and the man seemed to vaguely utter words such as dismantle, metamorphosis, liberation, and beauty.

“1044 is a haunted house. It contains the bodies of the deceased, which are depicted in a jigsaw puzzle. I saw Wei Youfu and Amei here with my own eyes. But the tone of the man on the TV didn’t sound like that of a victim; it sounded more like that of a murderer.”

The deceased in the human body mosaic were all ordinary people. Han Fei had seen all of their photos before they died, and every photo was filled with despair and pain. They would never have said such meaningless words at the critical moment of life and death.

In order to solve the case, Han Fei memorized everything the man on the television said.

"The killer's state of mind when committing the murder was a bit strange, as if he was performing some kind of ritual." Han Fei recalled the information about human body puzzle patterns in his mind.

The police attach great importance to this case. Even though ten years have passed, the Shanghai police are still investigating. All evidence has been preserved, and the police are offering a reward to the public for clues indefinitely.

Han Fei also learned some inside information through the information released by the police.

Generally speaking, serial killers can be roughly divided into four categories: hallucination-based, mission-based, hedonistic, and control-based. The Shanghai police have identified the killer who created the human body puzzle as mission-based and extremely violent control-based.

The victims of the human body puzzle are mostly women and children, so most people think that the perpetrator is probably not tall, and his physical strength determines that his targets will be people who are weaker than him.

He wanted to obtain something from those weaker than himself to satisfy his twisted inner self.

Of course, the police cannot disclose all information before solving the case. Some of the information that Han Fei found was compiled by himself on the Internet and may not be accurate. It can only be said that it provides him with a direction.

He initially thought in that direction as well, but after hearing the man's words on the television, he realized that the killer's motives were not simple and there might be deeper reasons.

"Pupa? Butterfly?"

Han Fei obtained information in the game that the police did not know: Meng Chang'an, the suspect in the case of the corpse hidden in the refrigerator, had predicted the pattern of the human body.

Meng Chang'an was not a normal person. When he killed someone for the first time, he told his family that he was under some kind of guidance and did such a crazy thing in order to see the butterfly in his mind.

"The case of the corpse hidden in the refrigerator and the human body mosaic are both related to butterflies. What exactly does this butterfly symbolize?"

Meng Chang'an was once lured by butterflies. Listening to the man's voice on TV, it seems that the murderer who created the human body puzzle was also lured by butterflies.

"Just looking at the murder scene, one might think the killer, who pieced together human figures, was a mission-driven serial killer. But hearing his chilling and cruel voice, it seems that this madman was trapped in some kind of hallucination. His motives for killing were very complex."

Han Fei is not a professional detective. Just a few days ago, he was racking his brains about how to make the audience laugh. Reasoning and analysis are courses he has only recently started learning.

His gaze shifted to the figures on the sofa. Looking at the five blurry figures, Han Fei recalled the information about the human body jigsaw puzzle test subjects in his mind.

"Looking at the order in which they were killed, it doesn't seem to reveal anything, but if we look at the order of the victims' ages..."

At 12:14, the child who first appeared in the house looked very similar to the youngest deceased person in the human body mosaic.

"Cui Tianci, 12 years old, used to be a child clothing model, died between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.

Then Han Fei looked at the second ghost that appeared on the sofa. The long-haired woman had passed by Han Fei's bedroom door at 12:44.

"Cui Caiyi, Cui Tianci's older sister, is 18 years old. She has a pair of very pure and beautiful eyes and is a contact lens model. She has taken photos for many contact lens shops."

Han Fei's gaze slowly shifted to the short-haired woman holding the fruit knife. He recalled the photo of the deceased in his mind: "Xiao Qing, 20 years old, a female student who worked part-time as a tutor during her university years. She was excellent in both character and academics, had a great personality, and was also a leg model in private. In addition to supporting her own studies, she also sent part of the money she earned home to help her relatives with their medical treatment."

Sitting next to the short-haired woman was a short woman wearing high heels with pale skin.

"Zhang Lingfan, 23 years old, a relatively unknown female anchor, with fair and beautiful hands, often did nail salon advertisements, and was a hand model. Her time of death was around 1 a.m., which coincides with the time she just appeared."

"Based on age, the next victim would be 25-year-old Amei. She had left photos of herself trying out lipsticks on shopping platforms and had many lip photos on social media. Many people wanted to invite her to be a lip model."

"The person closest to Amei in age was Wei Youfu, 26 years old. He died around 3 a.m. He was also the only one among all the victims who had no outstanding physical appearance. The police determined that Wei Youfu was killed because he accidentally entered the murder scene. In addition, it was the killer's first crime. All these factors combined led to his death."

"Besides Wei Youfu, there was another male victim. This man was the oldest among all the victims. His name was Gu Ye, 29 years old. He used to be a print model. He died between 3 and 4 a.m.

There are eight victims in the human body puzzle. Apart from the eighth victim whose information has not yet been found, the time of death of the remaining seven victims is related to their age.

The older a person is, the later they tend to die.

From midnight to 4 a.m., from the deepest night to the approaching dawn.

From the age of twelve, when the human body officially enters puberty, to the age of thirty, physical fitness begins to decline slightly.

Each victim in the human body mosaic appears to have been carefully selected; this is not random killing, but a premeditated crime.

(End of this chapter)