Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 49 The Ungrateful Wolf 6
After leaving the Lin family villa, Zheng Yan opened his mouth to Tan Jia, then closed it again, unsure of what to say to her.

Seeing that she got into the car as if nothing had happened, I simply pretended that little incident had never occurred, started the car, and immediately headed back.

The case is still the most important.

Officer An sat in the passenger seat, his brows furrowed as he pondered Lin Zhiyue's words.

"If the perpetrator did indeed prefer to torture the victim's head and feet when committing the crime eleven years ago, but this time preferred to torture the victim's mouth and hands, what does that mean?"

Zheng Yan: "This explains what Yu Dong and Zhu Muyang did and said that disgusted the murderer to the point of exceeding his own habits, so he took them away to teach them a lesson. It is very likely that the two children cursed or hit their parents, which made the murderer think of what happened to him."

Officer An slowly shook his head. He was more concerned about the motives behind the crime committed eleven years ago than about the new case.

"The murderer brutally killed at least five people back then. Could it be because those children had all injured their parents with their feet and heads? This commonality is hard to identify, and Lin Zhiyue doesn't fit that description. His parents weren't even around when he was kidnapped. How did the murderer know that a family in Haicheng had a disharmonious parent-child relationship?"

"Another victim's parents also said that their child was usually very filial and obedient, which doesn't fit this description. So I'm more inclined to believe that the murderer indiscriminately chose his victims, and that his twisted mentality led him to treat any child he could come into contact with as someone he wanted to teach a lesson. As for the suspect we found back then, he also hated children because his own mother was killed by his own child."

Zheng Yan followed up on his words: "The fact that the two of them could become collaborators shows that the murderer is similar to him, a parent who has been hurt by his child in the parent-child relationship, rather than the child himself."

Listening from behind, Tan Jia felt that the psychology of murderers was indeed a very complex subject.

She leaned forward, indicating that she wanted to join the discussion as well.

Zheng Yan saw it in the rearview mirror and allowed her to ask, "Go ahead, what bold guess do you have this time?"

"No, no. I was just curious about what Lin Zhiyue said. He said the murderer deliberately let him go back then? Is that true?"

“Not necessarily,” Officer An shook his head. “When he escaped, we had already found the person who made the extortion call and were conducting investigations in the villages near the crime scene. The murderer may have sensed something was wrong, so he was a bit hasty when burying the body and didn’t bury it properly.”

Tan Jia: "Were the other victims buried at the same time?"

"No, they were all buried before him."

"Then he's quite special."

"It was quite special. Only he was worth making the extortion call, and the killer chose to spare him while he was still useful."

Just as he finished speaking, Zheng Yan's phone rang.

Xiao Chen called to say that the surveillance footage near the orchard and recreation area had been retrieved.

"The two children somehow ended up playing in the lotus pond in the southeast corner. Since it's not yet the time for the lotus flowers to bloom, that area is not open to the public, and the surveillance cameras are off."

Zheng Yan: "The murderer knew that the surveillance cameras by the pond were not turned on, and he knew that there was an entrance leading to the back slope in the closed area of ​​the picking garden. He must have been very familiar with that industrial park. Have the investigations yielded any results?"

"Many of the nearby villagers work in the industrial park, and we haven't finished asking them yet. However, the village of Jiuqu, where the suspect was from back then, has become agitated after hearing about this. Several families are relatives of the victims from back then, and several others are families whose children have been missing for many years but whose remains have never been found. They want to inquire about the progress of the investigation, and they even went to Yu Dong and Zhu Muyang's parents to ask for details. They are making a fuss about finding the murderer all over their village."

After eleven years of torment, they thought they would never be able to figure out what happened back then, but unexpectedly the murderer resurfaced. When they found out, they were so emotional that they pointed guns at him and didn't back down.

"As long as nothing bad happens, that's fine. If the murderer is really in that village, we might actually be able to find some clues," Zheng Yan said, then brought up another key point of the investigation, "Have Tan Ming interrogate the parents of the two children, ask them about their usual parent-child relationship, whether the children pushed or beat them before they disappeared, and ask if anyone witnessed the pushing or shoving scene."

Xiao Chen agreed and hung up the phone.

They continued their journey at full speed and quickly returned to Jiujiang. But when they got back to the police station, they found Tan Ming with a handprint on his face.

Tan Jia paused, looking him up and down: "That was a perfect slap. Now it's a face slapped in half."

"..." Tan Ming was so frustrated that he didn't want to talk.

Zheng Yan asked in surprise, "Who hit him? Yu Dong's parents?"

“Yes. We went to ask the child if he was obedient before he died, and if he had hit them before he went missing. Then the child’s mother suddenly slapped me, and the child’s father accused me of victim-blaming and slandering the child.”

He was standing in front and couldn't dodge in time. The loud slap made another colleague who was taking notes grimac as if he felt the pain himself.

Zheng Yan could only pat him twice to comfort him, not forgetting to ask, "So, have you come to a conclusion? You can't get a beating and still not learn anything, right?"

Tan Ming handed him a statement: "Yu Dong is the only son in three generations. He is usually raised by his grandmother. She has a bad temper and often scolds people. Before he went missing, he did have an argument with his mother. He wanted to buy a third identical toy, but his mother refused. So he punched his mother a few times, bit her, and pushed her. His mother wanted to teach him a lesson, but his father stopped her. Finally, he punched his mother directly in the stomach, which made her angry and told the child to go play with his father."

However, he felt that these accounts were exaggerated: "The claim that she was only hit a few times is definitely more serious. I saw that the child's mother's knees looked injured, and she could hardly walk steadily."

Officer An: "It does indeed match the most severe injuries to the body's hands and mouth. This scene must have provoked the killer, and similar incidents have occurred to the killer before."

"Could the murderer be a woman? Yu Dong only hurt his mother," Tan Ming said.

Zheng Yan: "It's more likely that this is the case. After all, in many cases, it's mostly men who harm children, while women are usually very soft-hearted towards children."

Then they asked about Zhu Muyang's parents.

"Did you go to the hospital to ask?"

“I asked, and similar arguments have happened before. However, the child’s father said that he did not hit him, and Zhu Muyang even wrote a letter to apologize to his parents. He was a little stressed, so I didn’t dare to ask any more questions.”

The two testimonies may not be true, and the victim's family may be concealing something. Zheng Yan thought for a moment and said, "Go to the orchard and ask the witnesses from that day to see what the real situation is."

So they went to the orchard for picking.

A heinous murder occurred, and the entire industrial park was placed under guard. Tourists obediently stayed in designated areas to be questioned, holding their children's hands tightly.

Wu Yang and two police officers questioned a family of four, who spoke fluently and their desire to help was evident.

After finally finishing asking the questions, Wu Yang's notebook was filled with several pages of writing.

Wiping her sweat, she quickly reported to Zheng Yan: "It's better to have more people; we can see more than with surveillance cameras. The family said they saw Zhu Muyang talking back to his mother and even cursing at her. He must have learned those curse words from his father or an elderly person. His father heard it but didn't stop him; he just laughed and took the child away."

It sounds like both victims were "bad kids".

But it's not a rare phenomenon.

Tan Jia recalled her experiences with bad kids and asked in confusion, "There are more than just those two annoying kids. The orchard receives so many families every year. There must have been similar disputes before. Why didn't the murderer make a move all these years, but suddenly did it this year?"

Based solely on their experience, the detectives immediately identified a possible scenario—the perpetrator's movements had been restricted over the years, for example, he had been apprehended!
(End of this chapter)