Chapter 71: Four cases combined, relentlessly pursued...
Liang Zhiya wailed and screamed in the interrogation room, convinced that she was going to be the murderer's scapegoat. She cried uncontrollably, "I love her! I love her so much! Let me die with her!"
Shen Zhenzhu walked in expressionlessly and stood in front of him. She turned on the desk lamp and shone it directly on Liang Zhiya's tear-streaked face. She crossed her arms and looked at him quietly.
Wu Zhongguo returned from outside with tea. Seeing Chen Zhenzhu come back, he put down his teacup and said, "The milk tea is here. Here, have a cup."
Chen Zhenzhu shook her head and said, "I won't drink anymore." Then she raised her chin and asked, "Do you want some?"
With her hands cuffed to the armrests, Liang Zhiya could only rub her face against her sleeve and ask, "Whose is this?"
Wu Zhongguo closed his eyes.
Sometimes he just doesn't understand young people's love.
Some people clearly like someone but won't say it, while others clearly don't love someone but insist on saying they do. Give them a stage and they'll all start a competition.
The junior cadre, unaware of what the senior was thinking, rubbed his ear, trying to cover Liang Zhiya's mouth: "Sixth Sister's."
Liang Zhiya: "Drink, drink, drink! Add all the toppings, and lots of ice!"
Shen Zhenzhu felt that he was not suitable for Duoduobing, but rather for Duoduoyao.
She brought out milk tea from outside, inserted a straw, and placed it between Liang Zhiya's arms so he could hold it himself. Liang Zhiya took a sip and realized that there wasn't much ice added, and there were only two or three toppings. However, being able to drink Sixth Sister's Hong Kong-style milk tea here made her feel like she was being taken care of by Chen Zhenzhu. Suddenly, she felt that Section Chief Chen wasn't so hateful after all.
Taking advantage of his calming down, Shen Zhenzhu asked him, "Fu Shengnan's death hasn't been confirmed yet, and you're already eager to die with her? You didn't even know she was dead, so did you kill her?"
Liang Zhiya nearly choked on a mouthful of glutinous rice, coughing several times before asking, "She's not dead?"
Shen Zhenzhu said, "It's not certain yet, but we can hear how you want to die with her first."
Liang Zhiya took a big gulp of milk tea, slowly swallowing it to soothe her throat and internal organs. She said comfortably, "In a family like ours, we value the integrity of scholars. Since we're engaged, rather than being dragged out to take the blame, I'd rather confess myself and leave a good reputation. Do you know 'The Butterfly Lovers'? Do you know 'Romeo and Juliet'? Death doesn't mean we're separated forever; it just means we'll be remembered in life and death."
"Stop spouting your fallacies." Wu Zhongguo interrupted him, worried that he would corrupt Shen Zhenzhu's views on relationships, saying, "Simply put it."
Liang Zhiya finished her milk tea in two gulps, leaned back and said, "Don't shoot me in the head when you're executed, shoot me in the heart instead. And don't bury me in the ancestral grave. I find the old folks too nagging. Have Fu Panxia find us a good place to bury us. That way, our two families can be considered to have successfully formed a marriage alliance."
"Are you satisfied with this marriage?" Shen Zhenzhu asked.
She remembered that Fu Panxia had said that Fu Shengnan had mentioned breaking up, probably because she was dissatisfied.
"I'm satisfied. What's there to be dissatisfied with?" Liang Zhiya said. "Shengnan is just a bit strong-willed, but she's still a woman. Apart from loving to wear suits and not being very feminine, she's fair-skinned, beautiful, and has long legs when she's made up. She can also make money, so her genes must be good. She's also helped improve the offspring of our Liang family."
Shen Zhenzhu asked him again, "Why did you ask Fu Panxia to help you find a good place? Wouldn't it be better to ask your master to find a place with auspicious feng shui?"
Liang Zhiya said, "He studied abroad and was exposed to a lot of Western culture. Sometimes he's a bit eccentric, but he's actually quite insightful."
Shen Zhenzhu wrote these words down in her notebook and then asked him, "Did you know that their family also has an old house?"
Liang Zhiya said, "I don't recall that."
Shen Zhenzhu didn't ask him any more questions, but Liang Zhiya hadn't explained the pencil issue yet, so it would continue to be detained.
Ignoring his calls, Shen Zhenzhu went to Gu Yanzheng's office and found him there, just as Gu Yanzheng was looking for her.
"Director Liu just came over and asked about the missing persons case." Gu Yanzheng leaned against his desk and said to Shen Zhenzhu, "Any progress?"
Oh, the boss is here to urge us to speed up the progress.
Shen Zhenzhu stood at attention, her face stern, and said, "I feel that Liang Zhiya does not fit the criminal profile of the headless female corpse case. It seems that the two cases can be investigated together, as they cannot be completely unrelated."
"I agree," Gu Yanzheng said. "What about Liang Zhiya?"
Shen Zhenzhu said, "It shouldn't be him. He said he often shared pencils with the children in the village. I suspect that the murderer deliberately framed him."
Gu Yanzheng recalled, "I also saw many pencils at his house, which were indeed consistent with those found at the scene. We still made a bold hypothesis and carefully verified it."
"Yes." At this point, Shen Zhenzhu took out her business card, turned it over, and handed it to Gu Yanzheng, saying, "I'd like to apply to go over there. This is Fu Shengnan's old house; perhaps we can find some clues there."
Gu Yanzheng looked at the address; it was a suburban county town, more than an hour's drive from Tie Si. He hesitated and said, "I have a conference call for the case I'm working on, so I'm afraid I can't come with you. Let Zhao Qiqi drive me there."
"I won't drive your car, I'll borrow one from the team." Chen Zhenzhu said softly, "Zheng-ge's car is his own to drive."
“I have a vehicle transfer slip in my drawer. Write it down and deliver it yourself,” Gu Yanzheng said. “Remember to check the fuel tank. If it’s empty, ask the fleet for a fuel receipt.”
"Yes!" Shen Zhenzhu looked behind Gu Yanzheng and saw Zhao Qiqi peeking out. She waved her hand, and Lu Ye jumped out and said, "The boss doesn't need me, so I'll go with you."
“Okay,” Shen Zhenzhu agreed happily.
Lu Ye may seem carefree, but he's actually quite meticulous when it comes to cases. Zhao Qiqi can learn from him.
Zhuang County is located northeast of Liancheng, far from the coastline. Although it is a prefecture-level county, it used to be home to the city's No. 2 Sewing Machine Factory and a sewing parts factory, and its development was quite good.
In recent years, the factory's performance has been poor, and the county town that developed around the factory area has also declined. There aren't many people walking on the streets during the day; those who are are mostly villagers carrying loads on shoulder poles, heading to town to sell their agricultural products.
The cement road was riddled with potholes from the heavy trucks. Zhao Qiqi, who had learned his driving skills in the army's motor transport unit, drove wildly, and Chen Zhenzhu was nearly shaken to pieces inside the vehicle.
The autumn air is crisp and clear. It's quite interesting to look out the window at the harvested rice paddies along the roadside. It would be even better if I weren't carrying a murder case on my shoulders.
One case has become two, and Shen Zhenzhu needs to stay clear-headed. Before leaving, she asked Wu Zhongguo to continue searching for the files. Fortunately, Zhang Jie was willing to help, saving a lot of effort.
There are vendors selling peaches and cantaloupes by the roadside, as well as white clams that seem to have been caught from some unknown estuary. They sell them next to the cantaloupes, without worrying that eating them might cause diarrhea.
While Zhao Qiqi was refueling, Chen Zhenzhu bought three cantaloupes. The three of them sat in the car and ate them together, filling the car with the sweet aroma of cantaloupes.
"Go up the small path on the left, walk to the end, turn north for 200 meters, then turn south for 50 meters." Several elderly women selling vegetables at the intersection were chatting on the stone bridge pier. They all knew about "Old Fu's family."
Shen Zhenzhu and the other two deliberately went out in plain clothes to avoid gossip. It wouldn't be good if they, who were clearly victims, were portrayed as perpetrators.
"That mentally ill woman has been gone for many years. I heard she went abroad. Who knows if she's alive or dead? If you ask me, it's better if she's dead. Her son was tortured to death by her."
“I also remember beating my child every day in the early years, while cursing and swearing in some foreign language that I couldn’t understand.”
"Once, I almost burned her son to death, saying that the boy... that boy... was possessed by a ghost? It must be that he was possessed by a ghost. Anyway, the old and the young are all quite troublesome. But the eldest daughter is amazing. She left home early, made a lot of money, and took them all away."
"I heard that another young daughter died of illness." The old woman selling dried radishes picked up a piece of dried radish and handed it to Chen Zhenzhu, saying, "What do you want with them?"
"Died of illness?" Shen Zhenzhu didn't answer directly: "How old were you when you died?"
"She was only two or three years old, very young," the old woman said. "After she died, her mother went mad, spreading rumors that her son had given her a poison that killed her, and that her son was the murderer."
"Auntie, don't believe what a madman says. Just give me a pound of dried radish." Chen Zhenzhu got an unexpected clue and grabbed two handfuls of dried radish to buy it.
......
"Fu Panxia's life is really miserable. Her mother went crazy, her sister died, and her older sister went missing. Two hundred meters to the north... and then what?" Zhao Qiqi turned the corner and drove past the narrow rural private house.
"Fifty meters further south." Lu Ye poked his head out to look, clicked his tongue twice, and said, "Why is everyone blocking the road? You take a little, I take a little, no wonder the road into the village is getting narrower and narrower."
Shen Zhenzhu also looked outside. There was a smell of burning straw in the air. Liancheng has a dry climate. Not long after the rice was harvested, the farmers burned the dry rice stalks left in the fields. The rice ash covered the fields. The ash can remove harmful bacteria and insect eggs from the soil and fertilize the land the following year.
In rural areas, people eat two meals a day, and now around 3 p.m., many families start preparing their second meal.
Shen Zhenzhu and her group slowly drove into the village, and then slowly drove to the south of the village, near the foot of the mountain.
"Is this the place?" There were many sharp rocks ahead, and Zhao Qiqi was afraid that there might be stray nails among them, so she dared not continue driving.
Chen Zhenzhu leaned out of the car window, saw the old man herding cattle, and asked in a clear voice, "Grandpa, is Old Fu's house over there?"
The old man driving the cattle, with a pipe between his fingers and his soy-sour old face, looked over and asked, "Who are you people?"
Chen Zhenzhu smiled sweetly and said, "I've come to visit relatives!"
"That's the old Fu family's house over there, but no one has lived there for many years." Seeing the little girl's kind smile, the old man believed her and said, "They've all gone to the city. You should go to the village committee and ask."
"Okay, thank you, sir." Chen Zhenzhu turned back and said to Lu Ye and the others, "Get out of the car."
The Fu family's old house is completely different in style from Liang Zhiya's villa. People who don't know how well they've done in the city would probably mistake them for an ordinary rural family.
It's the same, actually.
The doors and windows of the three tiled houses still had mottled blue paint, but the glass was all broken, and there were scattered swallow droppings on the windowsill.
The red "福" (good fortune) hanging on the lintel was tattered and faded to a pale pink by the rain. There was a thick layer of dust on the threshold, indicating that no one had been here for a long time.
The swallow's nest under the eaves was half broken, and the mud was mixed with feathers and straw left over from who knows when.
The sycamore tree in the middle of the courtyard is now just a stump about the length of a calf, stubbornly stretching out its thin branches.
Lu Ye walked ahead and pushed open the door, with Chen Zhenzhu following behind into the house. An autumn wind swept past them, causing the scattered plastic bags and tattered bed sheets inside to flutter wildly, like banners summoning souls.
"Fourth grade, Fu Congqian. Who is this?" Lu Ye pulled half a sketchbook out of the stove pit, on which the name was written in childish handwriting.
“Fu Panxia, he changed his name.” Shen Zhenzhu covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief, blocking out the heavy, lingering dust.
"This is really good for a fourth-grade student. It's definitely better than mine." Lu Ye, wearing gloves, opened the sketchbook and handed it to Chen Zhenzhu. "The sketch looks just like the real thing."
Shen Zhenzhu looked over and saw Fu Panxia, Fu Shengnan, and her baby sister from their childhood.
"Oh my god, that scared me!" Lu Ye almost threw the sketchbook at Zhao Qiqi.
Zhao Qiqi looked at the monster with distorted features, a blue face, and fangs and asked, "What is this thing?"
Lu Ye, seeing that the monster had female physical characteristics, said, "A ghost?"
Chen Zhenzhu picked up the sketchbook and flipped through the pages, saying, "These are all his drawings of his family. There's a self-portrait, a sketch of Fu Shengnan, and the middle-aged man on the last page is probably his father. The baby with wings should be his sister, and this one should be his mother."
“What a huge psychological trauma this must have left on the child.” Lu Ye sighed. “I can’t believe that Fu Panxia, such a handsome and talented person, has suffered such a childhood trauma.”
Shen Zhenzhu remained silent, deep in thought. She noticed that the murderer's portrait in the Heavenly Eye's retrospective showed a history of being abused by women, a fact that surprisingly matched Fu Panxia's childhood.
However, he clearly relied on Fu Shengnan and mourned his younger sister who died young, which doesn't fit the characteristic of hating women. Fu Panxia's profile is far more complex than the murderer in the Heavenly Eye Retrospective.
"Sister Pearl, over here." Zhao Qiqi pushed open the old, dilapidated wooden door and found that there was another locked wooden door inside.
Lu Ye perked up and pulled Zhao Qiqi aside, saying, "Leave it, I'll do it. Sister Pearl?"
"Open it," Chen Zhenzhu ordered.
Thump!
Lu Ye raised his foot and kicked it open, and the intact inner door opened with a click.
"Hey, how come it opened so easily? We didn't break it." Lu Ye pretended to be nonchalant, stepped inside to take a look around, and waved for Chen Zhenzhu and Zhao Qiqi to come in as well.
"It's so clean here, someone has cleaned it specially." Shen Zhenzhu put on her gloves, turned her head and saw that the three walls were covered with photos of various human torsos. Even she was stunned for a moment.
"My God, what are all these things!" Lu Ye quickly walked to the wall.
Zhao Qiqi, with a camera hanging around her neck, stared wide-eyed at everything in front of her.
Next to the photo were newspaper clippings and sets of coded numbers, making the already shrouded case even more perplexing.
"Is this a math problem?" The room had been set up like a secret room, with three of the four walls covered with all sorts of photos. On the simple desk was a thick notebook with calculations of Ф≈1.618 (1/Ф≈0.618) and various proportions.
"A circle and a vertical line, what does that mean?" Lu Ye looked at Zhao Qiqi with a blank expression, and Zhao Qiqi also looked at Chen Zhenzhu with a blank expression.
Shen Zhenzhu said, "This is the symbol Ф (Fai) for the 'golden ratio,' which is not only a mathematical symbol but also a synonym for art and beauty."
She walked toward the photo wall and saw that next to each photo were the torso measurements calculated according to the golden ratio. Some of the numbers were of unknown origin, but they were all derived from fixed mathematical formulas.
"In the human body, the closer certain proportions are to 1.618, the more aesthetically pleasing they are. These include proportions such as the distance from the top of the head to the navel, the distance from the elbow to the fingertips, the proportions of the three sections and five eyes of the face, or the proportions of the whole body. If the ratio of height (H) to navel height (N) is close to 1.618, then it conforms to the golden ratio."
Zhao Qiqi suddenly realized, walked to Shen Zhenzhu's side and stared at the numbers on the photo wall, and also understood.
Chen Zhenzhu didn't see Lu Ye coming over, so she turned around and saw him scanning her. She squinted her almond-shaped eyes and asked, "What's wrong?"
Lu Ye gestured with his hand and said, "To achieve the golden ratio, you'd have to have your belly button on your chest, right?"
Zhao Qiqi quickly said, "Brother Aye, don't talk about Sister Pearl like that. She's short-legged but fast, which is also amazing!"
"Thank you, but please don't argue for me." Chen Zhenzhu closed her eyes, tightening and loosening the small hammer repeatedly, grinding her gleaming white teeth as she spoke:
"Comrade Lu Ye, you must understand that the golden ratio is merely an idealized standard. The actual proportions of the human body vary from person to person, and different cultures may have different definitions of aesthetics. The golden ratio is not the only standard. Health, confidence, and individuality are more important factors of charm!"
Lu Ye's ears hurt from her shouting: "You're healthy, you're confident, you have personality! Sister Pearl, even if your belly button isn't on your chest, you're still the most charming!"
Pooh.
Shen Zhenzhu turned her head away and ignored him.
I plan to go home and tell Zheng Ge on me.
“This looks like Fu Shengnan’s handwriting.” Shen Zhenzhu, forgiving of petty people, flipped through the notebook to the date and recalled Fu Shengnan’s handwriting in the office, saying, “The number ‘7’ has a horizontal line above it; that’s how she usually writes it. The other handwriting is similar… This is her secret base.”
"Is that her in this photo too?" Lu Ye's playful smile vanished; though he joked, his eyes were sharp. He picked up a full-body photo of Fu Shengnan standing upright from the wall, and seeing the numbers marked on it, said, "Is she thinking of getting plastic surgery?"
"Wait a minute." Chen Zhenzhu tore a page from the notebook's spiral binding, quickly calculating, and said, "The numbers on top are her leg proportions, but the sets of numbers next to it are another set. She's calculating the golden ratio between her own body and other people's..."
"Why calculate your proportions to others? Your legs are your own body." Zhao Qiqi swallowed hard and said, "Could her disappearance be a hoax? Maybe they're investigating this?"
Shen Zhenzhu nodded and said, "Yes, she is investigating the reasons for the disappearance of women. Look at the clippings of women who have gone missing in the province in recent years. Although I don't know from which special channel she learned their body proportions, it can be seen that she has been calculating whether a certain part of their torso can form the golden ratio."
Zhao Qiqi scratched his head vigorously, paced back and forth in the room, and finally realized: "She thinks she'll be the next person to disappear!"
"Take photos as evidence, and then bring back the photo clippings and all the calculation drafts." Shen Zhenzhu had gained a lot, and she was full of fighting spirit and energy.
"Yes, Sister Pearl." Lu Ye returned to the car to get the file bag. Seeing Chen Zhenzhu's spirited little face, he immediately agreed with her praise.
Of course, health and confidence will shine through.
Ring ring—
Ring ring.
Shen Zhenzhu received a call from her mobile phone, and Wu Zhongguo's voice came through: "Sister Zhenzhu, we've found the identity of the headless female corpse. Are you free?"
"I'm in the car, I'll be back in an hour." Shen Zhenzhu, with her mobile phone tucked between her cheek and shoulder, sat in the back seat with Lu Ye, still organizing the photos and drafts she had taken out of the house.
"Okay, then I'll order your boxed meals too."
"Please tell my sixth sister that I'm working overtime today."
Okay.
***
"The cases have been merged." The first thing Shen Zhenzhu did upon returning was to report her findings in the old house to Gu Yanzheng.
"The case is gradually taking a crazy turn." Lu Ye muttered, shoveling food into his lunchbox, "What's with the golden ratio? Didn't your mother and father raise you well?"
"You mean Fu Shengnan realized that her legs met the killer's requirement for the 'golden ratio,' and thought she might be in danger, so she started investigating ahead of time?"
Gu Yanzheng felt full before even starting to eat, his lunchbox sitting on his desk: "What was the killer's motive? What outcome did they hope to achieve?"
Shen Zhenzhu laid out the organized photos one by one on Gu Yanzheng's desk: "She marked the torso, upper limbs, and her own lower limbs here. In addition, the missing woman's head was marked. We can first try to see if the one marked with the head is the headless female corpse. If so, then it is probably consistent with her investigation. This is not only a missing person case, but also a serial murder case!"
A deafening roar came from outside the window, and the muffled thunder struck the hearts of everyone in the four teams like a heavy blow.
The missing person case has been elevated to the top of the eight major cases. Gu Yanzheng's temples throbbed, and he said sharply, "Investigate immediately."
"Yes." Shen Zhenzhu immediately took action, throwing her brother Zheng's nonsense about "food being the most important thing in the world" to the back of her mind.
The other people in the four teams who were eating also put down their chopsticks. Faced with such a serious and heinous crime, how could they have time to eat!
Gu Yanzheng picked up the phone and first informed Director Liu, asking him to prepare a report to the provincial department.
"The missing person listed in the missing persons clipping is a model named Cui Xiaofei, 18 years old, 172 cm tall, from Harbin. She has Xinjiang ancestry and has outstanding facial features."
Zhou Chuanxi wrote on the blackboard: "I contacted the Harbin Public Security Bureau, and the missing person file they provided stated that she went to Liancheng in March, June, and November of last year to take swimsuit photos at the beach. She disappeared during the third photo shoot in November. After her disappearance, her family changed her personal height to 168 centimeters."
Shen Zhenzhu asked the photo studio to enlarge her photo and measure the proportions of her facial features with a ruler: "Her face conforms to the golden ratio, and her legs before the change also conform, but her legs after the change do not."
Zhou Chuanxi added, "According to Fu Shengnan's newspaper clipping, the missing woman whose torso was marked is Li Qiuting, a star saleswoman at the Lian Shang lingerie counter. Because of her good figure, she often wore lingerie to show to female customers in order to promote the products."
The fourth missing person, whose influence surpasses the previous three, is Du Jun, a national-level badminton player with well-defined arms and muscular physique.
"Head - Cui Xiaofei, Torso - Li Qiuting, Upper Limbs - Du Jun." Chen Zhenzhu walked to the blackboard and wrote "Lower Limbs - Fu Shengnan."
"Good heavens, four cases combined." Lu Ye rubbed his shoulders and said with a heavy expression, "If we use all of these, we can piece together a whole person."
"She's a woman with perfect aesthetics. She has the exquisite and beautiful face of an 18-year-old, an proud and upright physique, strong shoulders and elbows, and long and straight legs." Shen Zhenzhu looked at Gu Yanzheng: "Brother Zheng, we can start the case meeting now. I have an idea."
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Author's Note: Pearl: Don't blindly believe in the golden ratio; health and confidence will make you shine!
***
See you tomorrow, there's a red envelope coming! [Let me see]
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