Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 28 Ghost Hotline - Serial Murder Case 8
College students are more likely to join in the fun than listless office workers. In less than three hours, news of Xue Jing's death had spread to every corner of the school, and videos were being circulated everywhere.

This simply cannot be stopped.

When Xiao Chen looked at the computer in front of the technical team, he almost fainted.

"The number of related posts online has exploded exponentially, and posts that were previously suppressed have resurfaced."

Moreover, more and more people are putting the three cases together and calling it the Jiujiang Serial Murder Case. Netizens who like to play detectives quickly created thousands of replies.

[I've seen the photos of the woman who jumped from the building in Cross Garden. It's so tragic. A blogger saw the whole process of her jumping and dying on her way to work and was so scared that she had nightmares for two days.]

[The methods are all so similar: jumping off a building, hanging, wrist-cutting—they all look like suicide. Will it really end up being a suicide case? The hanging one clearly couldn't have been suicide.]

One murder a day? This killer is too brazen! Haven't they found out who it is yet?

[I heard that all three victims suffered from depression. Could the killer be mentally unstable and have a particular hatred for the vulnerable?]

Chen Yingying was my high school classmate! She became depressed because she was sexually assaulted, which was already tragic enough, and yet someone still wanted to kill her.

[Xue Jing had already dropped out of school and didn't interact with many people. Why would the murderer target her? Was it because she was pretty?]

[It's said that all three victims were very beautiful... Could the murderer be a man who had been rejected by beautiful women? Some men with erectile dysfunction like to kill beautiful women to get the same pleasure.]

I find it a bit strange. How did the killer manage to commit three murders? All in crowded places, didn't anyone see them?

[Breaking news: It's rumored that the killer even called the police to announce his next target.]

[Oh my god, that's my classmate, Xue Jing. It seems like something happened to her in her final year of junior high. She didn't do well on her high school entrance exams. With her grades, getting into a good university shouldn't have been a problem.]

[Were all the deceased former victims? Holy crap, those people must still be after them.]

Some of the speculations became increasingly outrageous, giving readers a headache, so they quickly asked the technical team to apply for keyword blocking.

But public opinion was already at a boiling point, with many people rushing to the Jiujiang Public Security Bureau's official account to question and urge them to act.

The criminal investigation team was practically being pushed along by countless hands.

Xiao Chen and his team went to Xue Jing's hometown to investigate further, guessing that Xue Jing must have been sexually assaulted or bullied at school back then, and that the perpetrator might have disappeared like Peng Siyan and Feng Yang.

Zheng Yan had the crime scene sealed off, asked the forensic team to try to reconstruct what Xue Jing had written before her death, and then headed straight for the courier station.

Thanks to the regulations in the express delivery industry, which require individuals to use their real names when sending packages, they were able to quickly locate the package Xue Jing sent yesterday morning.

"It was a letter," the courier recalled. "The girl had her head down and only said one sentence: 'We need to send it out as soon as possible,' saying it was something very important."

The sender's address is a residential area in the city center. Since it's within the same city, the package was sent yesterday afternoon, and the tracking information shows that the recipient signed for it at 9 PM last night.

Zheng Yan looked at the content on the computer screen: "The recipient's name is 'Jingjing,' and the phone number is..."

He dialed the number on his own phone, but it was hung up after three rings.

“This person is very suspicious,” he said with certainty.

Tan Jia didn't agree. She pointed to a photo on the computer screen that had been taken before the package was sent and asked someone to zoom in: "That letter looks very thick. The notebook found during the forensic examination only had two or three torn pages. It couldn't possibly be this thick."

So there were other things in the envelope.

Zheng Yan gave her an approving look, copied the information, and then took her to check Xue Jing's student records and the surveillance video from the teachers' apartment. They then discovered an important clue in the student records—Xue Jing and the first victim, Qu Li, had attended the same junior high school.

The victim has finally made social connections!
Everyone cheered.

As long as there's a connection, the murderer must be part of this chain of relationships, and they're not far from finding the murderer.

Zheng Yan had a premonition that the murderer was very likely related to the recipient of that letter, or even the murderer himself. He planned to go to the address where the letter was sent to check on "Jingjing". There must be a video of her receiving the letter at the courier station.

However, before setting off, they received news from the forensic experts and trace evidence specialists.

"Xue Jing's body is different from the previous two victims," ​​Old Li said, sounding puzzled.

“Aside from the fatal wrist-cutting wound, she had no signs of self-harm or abuse, and she had never had sexual intercourse, her hymen was intact, but she was severely anemic.”

They had previously deduced that the killer specifically targeted patients with depression who had a history of sexual assault, but Xue Jing did not fit that description.

But that's not the most important thing. Zheng Yan quickly asked, "Can you confirm that the wound on her hand was caused by someone else?"

"No, the wounds are consistent with suicide. But pharmacological tests revealed that, like the previous two victims, she had gamma-hydroxybutyric acid in her body."

The murderer did not enter or leave Xue Jing's room to commit the crime himself, but he fed Xue Jing a "doing-obedience" drink.
This would increase the likelihood of induced suicide, which could be problematic for the perpetrator's sentencing.

“The killer was very cautious,” he said heavily.

This means that the recipient is most likely not the murderer; this clue is too obvious.

The forensic investigators then said, "We found a two-year-old online novel contract in Xue Jing's file folder. The emergency contact person in the contract is named Bian Jing, and the phone number is the same as the recipient's."

The "Jing" in the name may be taken from Xue Jing's own name, but the surname Bian is very rare, so it is highly likely that the person's original surname was Bian.

This Bian was highly trusted by the deceased Xue Jing.

This aligns with their speculation that "the murderer and the victim must have known each other."

But Tan Jia, listening from the side, felt a contradiction: the murderer was contradictory, and the deceased was also contradictory.

Before she could think too much about it, the technical team called again to inform her of two crucial pieces of information.

“We found a mini-program on Xue Jing’s phone called ‘Undying Radio’. It’s full of people with tragic experiences, exchanging secrets and encouraging each other not to do anything rash. Xue Jing comforted many people and encouraged them to try to live on. The latest message she sent was yesterday.”

“She was saving others, but in the end she died herself. The possibility of someone with such a strong sense of saving others committing suicide is not high,” Zheng Yan said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed. He then asked, “Do the chat logs mention the first two victims? Or someone who is suspected of being the murderer?”

"The information inside is anonymous. We can only barely confirm it through the address. Qu Li and Chen Yingying should be involved, but there is no suspected murderer. Xue Jing is the only one acting as the savior. We need to recover some of the deleted chat logs to find out more."

Compared to the previous two days, there are already enough clues found on Xue Jing.

But after Zheng Yan hung up the phone, he and Tan Jia stood there for a long time without moving.

"Do you know what I'm thinking?"

"So many clues." She squinted and looked towards the direction of the teachers' apartments, holding up her jujube dough sculpture to admire it from all angles.

“Yes,” Zheng Yan murmured, “It went too smoothly, it was too different. It felt like Xue Jing’s death was a turning point, and the murderer wanted us to follow in her footsteps.”

(End of this chapter)