Chapter 366: Die with Unclosed Eyes (Memory)

On the morning of May 7, 1997, Zhou Yi arrived at the Nanhu Subdistrict Police Station and felt that the atmosphere was not right.

"Zhou Yi, hurry up, the director has called a meeting." Zhang Ning shouted hurriedly when he saw him.

Zhou Yi took a few quick steps to catch up with his master and asked nervously, "Master, what's going on?"

"I don't know. I'll wait and see what the director says."

In the police station's simple meeting room, police officers walked in one after another. Jin Lei, who was sitting at the front, had a serious expression on his face.

He looked up and asked, "Is everyone here?"

Just five minutes later, Zhou Yi followed his colleagues out, but his face was full of confusion.

He whispered to Zhang Ning, "Master, the director just told us to search the area, but he didn't specify what to search for."

The old policeman who was about the same age as Zhang Ning smiled bitterly and shook his head.

Zhang Ning whispered, "The director said to focus on checking trash cans and garbage dumps, and those corners where no one goes. I guess they're probably looking for body parts."

Zhou Yi was shocked. He had been working for more than half a year and had never seen a dead body. This time he was actually going to look for body parts directly?

"Keep your mouth shut and don't tell your family about this. Jin didn't say it directly because he was afraid that the news would leak out. Just follow me. If you find anything, don't react too strongly." Zhang Ning warned.

Zhou Yi nodded repeatedly, his face full of the nervousness and unfamiliarity of a new policeman dealing with a major case.

…

On May 6, an old gray travel bag containing body parts weighing 13 kilograms was salvaged from the eastern section of Nansha River in Nanming District.

On May 7, all grassroots police stations in Nanming District received a notice requiring them to deploy all police forces to thoroughly search their respective areas. The Municipal Bureau Command Center issued clear instructions to strictly maintain confidentiality and prohibit the leakage of information in order to avoid causing social panic.

Between May 7th and 8th, police discovered body parts in nine locations, including a construction site on Huahe Road, Xiaohong Bridge, the Hongqi Road bus stop, and the bushes at the side door of the Pinghe Road Hospital.

The body parts found at seven locations were packed in black garbage bags and abandoned in trash cans or garbage dumps. The lightest weighed only 1.2 jin, and the heaviest weighed only 2.6 jin.

The body parts found in the abandoned well at the Huahe Road construction site were similar to those salvaged from the Nansha River. They were also an old travel bag, but slightly smaller. They were navy blue in color with a faded red five-pointed star pattern on them and weighed nine kilograms.

In addition, a snakeskin bag weighing 15 kilograms was found in the grass at the side door of Pinghe Road Hospital. It was neatly filled with a large number of human bones and some internal organs.

Including the first bag of body parts found, there are ten bags in total.

According to the forensic inventory, the ten bags of body parts contained human tissues, internal organs and bones, and the head and clothes of the deceased have not been found yet.

As of May 8, a total of 359 body parts had been found.

Song Yiming and Xu Nian spent a whole day and night in the forensic room before they were able to piece together the body.

This case of dismembering a body into more than 300 pieces directly shocked the public security, procuratorial and judicial systems throughout the province, because such a serious dismemberment case had never occurred in the province before.

There have been cases of dismemberment before, but they usually involve cutting the body into about ten pieces in order to reduce the size and make it easier to carry and dispose of.

More than three hundred yuan is already unbelievable.

The forensic autopsy found that, except for the palms and soles of the feet, the body parts were cut relatively evenly into human tissues of about four to six centimeters. In other words, most of the body parts were only the size of an apple or even smaller.

The internal organs were basically not cut and remained relatively intact.

In the snakeskin bag found in the bushes at the side door of the hospital, an almost complete human skeleton was discovered, except for the head, hands and feet. The sacrum and hip bones were the most relatively intact, and there were obvious female human tissues remaining in them.

Xu Nian's working hours were short, and even as a professional forensic doctor, he couldn't help but rush out of the forensic room to take a deep breath several times.

Only Song Yiming completed the autopsy with a frown on his face.

However, since the deceased's fingerprints were destroyed and the fingerprints on the surface of his ten fingers were deliberately cut off, the forensic autopsy did not provide much useful information.

Moreover, due to the severe dismemberment, the forensic doctor was unable to determine the exact time of death from the body parts. He could only judge that the deceased had been dead for more than 24 hours based on the degree of decay of the body parts.

The cause of death could not be determined.

On May 10, a sewer in Daguan Street, Nanming District was blocked and sewage overflowed onto the road. After receiving a repair call, the maintenance company sent people to clear the pipe.

As a result, two plumbers fished out a human head from the sewer and immediately called the police.

Wu Yongcheng and his men arrived at the scene and after cordoning off the scene, they discovered that this sewer pipe was interconnected and connected to seven or eight nearby sewer outlets. It was only when it reached here that it got stuck in the pipe along with other garbage, causing a blockage. It was impossible to confirm the actual location where the body was dumped.

Although the head that was pulled out of the sewer had begun to rot, the face was not damaged, and it was clearly visible that the deceased was a young woman with good looks.

After Song Yiming brought the head back, he compared the incisions with those of the pieced-together body parts and found that they were basically consistent. He could confirm that the head belonged to the victim of the five or six dismemberment cases.

After the incident, Wu Yongcheng and the Third Brigade were busy. They sorted out the city's missing persons report records, but they still couldn't find a matching missing person.

It was not until the head was discovered on May 10th that the target was identified as Hongcheng University based on the age, height and weight of the deceased.

The reason for targeting Hongda is that at least 70% of the eleven locations where body parts have been found are close to Hongda.

Like Huahe Road and Hongqi Road, one is on the west side of Hongda and the other is on the north side, and the straight-line distance between them is no more than 100 meters.

After the school's investigation, a highly suspicious target was quickly identified.

Lu Xiaoshuang, a 19-year-old student of the Class of 1996, majoring in financial management at Hongda Accounting College.

According to Lu Xiaoshuang's roommate, Lu Xiaoshuang left school after class on the afternoon of May 3rd, which was Friday, and has not returned since.

Wu Yongcheng quickly retrieved Lu Xiaoshuang's household registration information and discovered that her parents were educated youth and lived far away in the northwest. She was staying with relatives in Hongcheng.

He immediately rushed to the Lu family to find out what was going on and learned that Lu Xiaoshuang rarely came home since she went to college, and basically spent her spare time working outside to earn money.

Her second uncle even said in front of the police that his niece was ungrateful and did not know how to respect their elders after making money outside.

But as the investigation into Lu Xiaoshuang deepened, the Third Brigade learned that the reason Lu Xiaoshuang spent all her spare time working was to earn money for her tuition.

Her classmates said that Lu Xiaoshuang was a very frugal person. She ate pickled vegetables and steamed buns all year round, and she was rarely seen eating meat.

Due to long hours of working, Lu Xiaoshuang is not very familiar with her classmates and roommates. Almost everyone describes her personality as introvert, unsociable, quiet, and unsociable.

It's like someone who is missing and no one would care or pay attention to him.

Due to the backward conditions in the Northwest where Lu Xiaoshuang's parents live, the Lu family said that there are no telephones, and Lu Xiaoshuang usually communicates with her parents mainly through letters.

Therefore, in order to quickly confirm the identity of the deceased, the obligation to identify the body fell on the school.

The school arranged for a teacher and two of Lu Xiaoshuang's roommates to identify the body. One of them was Mo Youyou, who slept on the upper bunk of Lu Xiaoshuang.

Soon, the three confirmed that the deceased was Hong University student Lu Xiaoshuang.

On that day, the Hongcheng City Bureau found ways to contact Lu Xiaoshuang's parents who were far away in the northwest. On May 12, Lu Xiaoshuang's parents traveled thousands of miles to Hongcheng.

Her father, Lu Guohua, had his hair turned white overnight and looked prematurely old. He wore a pair of broken glasses held together with white tape and was trembling all over.

This intellectual youth, who was full of vigor and vitality when he left Hongcheng and went to the Northwest, finally returned to his hometown after more than 20 years, but it was to collect the body of his 19-year-old daughter.

There is nothing more despairing in this world than this!

On the day the deceased's identity was confirmed, due to the severity of the case, the subsequent social panic it would cause, and the uniqueness of Hongda as a representative of Hongcheng's educational resources, the provincial department approved the establishment of a special task force for the May 6th dismemberment case and dispatched additional criminal investigation and technical experts to Hongcheng to assist in solving the case.

The task force entered Hongda that day and launched a comprehensive investigation.

As the case's influence continued to spread, and the task force's investigation became broader and deeper, the entire Hongcheng was shrouded in a bloody terror.

For a long time, Hongcheng became deserted at night, and the streets were dead silent. Even hospitals and factories, which had previously operated three-shift systems, were forced by higher authorities to cancel their mid-night shifts and switch to a two-shift system, day and night, to prevent employees from walking at night.

Over a three-month period, the task force initially started with Lu Xiaoshuang's social connections, gradually expanded the scope of the investigation, and ultimately investigated nearly three thousand people.

They include Lu Xiaoshuang's family, university teachers and classmates, junior high and high school teachers and classmates, colleagues she came into contact with during her work, residents near the eleven body dumping sites, migrant workers and released prisoners, as well as butchers, doctors and professional dissectors with professional dismemberment techniques and abilities.

Despite such a large-scale investigation, there were no clues or leads, but many other problems, big and small, were discovered.

As the case has not made any progress, rumors and all kinds of groundless speculations are spreading in society, causing panic among the people.

The Hongcheng police were under tremendous pressure.

Three months after the incident, the provincial department disbanded the task force and withdrew from Hongda on the grounds that there had been no progress in the case.

Wu Yongcheng led the members of the Third Brigade and fought hard for another three months. However, the city leaders suspended the investigation of the case on the grounds that it would cause adverse social impact.

On May 6, 1998, one year after the Hongda case occurred, there was still no progress in the case.

On the anniversary of Lu Xiaoshuang's death.

His father Lu Guohua and his mother Su Xiuying both committed suicide by drinking pesticide in front of Lu Xiaoshuang's grave.

He left four bloody words on his daughter's tombstone: Die with eyes open!