Chapter 73: The sun can’t dry up this small town, and the town becomes more and more prosperous over time…
The sun couldn't dry up the dampness that had accumulated over time in this small town. What Mu Ci thought was the end of the rain turned out to be the death countdown set by Jiang Hao for himself.
Mu Ci deduced that the murderer must be very familiar with the victim and killed her when she was defenseless. She must be a female, around 20 years old, thin, with strong hands, and she has a strong hatred for the victim.
A person suddenly came to my mind, and everything matched him except the last point.
Except... the last point.
What if this last point is correct?
It was another rainy day when Mu Ci arrived at Jiang Hao's house. The rain was heavy and the thunder was loud. Mu Ci watched as lightning illuminated the sky. A streak of lightning struck the willow tree in front of Jiang Hao's house, leaving a charred mark. Mu Ci was startled by the scene and hesitantly asked Jiang Hao, "Can I stay at your house for one night?"
She thought that after spending so much time together, they should be friends, and Jiang Hao shouldn't refuse... right?
Unexpectedly, Jiang Hao clutched the hem of his clothes and shook his head firmly. "No!" Perhaps realizing his tone was too direct, Jiang Hao's voice trembled and he slowed down. "You... you should wait until the rain subsides before leaving."
Mu Ci walked over to her and gently pried open her clenched fists. "Okay, okay. If you have the chance, come stay at my place for a night."
Mu Ci looked at Jiang Hao sincerely, "We are friends, right?"
Jiang Hao nodded vigorously, "Yes, we are friends."
Not long after, the rain stopped. Mu Ci walked out of Jiang Hao's house and vaguely heard someone say, "It's so dirty..." from behind. Mu Ci looked down at the yellow mud under his feet. He didn't know who had passed by with a cart, leaving behind yellow mud wheel marks. He muttered softly, "It's really dirty."
Mu Ci turned around and looked at Jiang Hao behind the door, "Go in quickly, Yu Piao will be on you soon."
As he walked out of the street, a drunk man bumped into Mu Ci. His umbrella fell to the ground and three ribs were broken. The man kept saying sorry with a humble attitude. Mu Ci sighed, waved his hand and said it was okay. He picked up the broken umbrella and held it over his head and went back to his residence.
After walking for a while, Mu Ci wanted to call Jiang Hao. Thinking of the lightning just now, he hesitated for a moment, hurried home, and immediately called Jiang Hao. Jiang Hao picked up the phone and asked in a puzzled tone, "Did you forget something?"
Mu Ci felt like she was suffering from paranoia, thinking that every man was a bad person. Suppressing her inexplicable worry about Jiang Hao, she told her, "Lock the door at home at night, keep the electric baton by your side, don't answer if someone knocks on the door, and call me if something is wrong."
"I know, I know. I've always remembered what you said."
After hanging up the phone, Mu Ci went to take a shower. Halfway through, he called Jiang Hao again. The phone beeped a few times before it was picked up. Before Jiang Hao's voice came, there was the sound of something heavy falling to the ground. Mu Ci asked nervously, "Did you fall?"
"...Yeah, it's okay. I was trying to bring the flower pots in and I slipped. Don't worry, I got up on my own."
"I'll come over to see if you fell hard."
"No, it's raining heavily. Don't come over. I can handle myself." Jiang Hao knew Mu Ci too well. She deliberately poked at Mu Ci's soft spot and said, "I'm already disabled. I don't want to embarrass myself in front of you."
When Mu Ci heard this, he felt the air in his chest sink, and his tone sank with it. "Have you forgotten what I promised you? After I finish my work here, I will take you to treatment, and you will be able to walk again. Don't you want to eat Miansha Tuanzi? Let's eat it first when we get to Xincheng."
"Sounds like a bright future."
"That day will come soon. It's almost here. This case will be over soon."
"...Okay, I'll wait for it to end."
Mu Ci said so confidently that it was almost over because he had found new clues, which brought him one step closer to solving the case.
——We’ll be able to leave here soon.
Mu Ci thought with relief.
At six o'clock the next morning, Mu Ci was still asleep when he received a phone call. A new victim appeared in the town, and the modus operandi was the same as that of the previous serial killer.
Mu Ci went to the crime scene and discovered a shocking fact - the deceased was the drunk man Mu Ci met yesterday.
In the autopsy report, Mu Ci discovered a faint yellow mud mark on the deceased's trouser leg, which shocked him.
If that doesn't explain anything.
What about this next one? When Mu Ci followed Officer Xiao Liu to visit the deceased's family, he heard the deceased's wife cursing, "I guess she's gone to see that vixen again. Damn it, she never comes home even when I call her every day. Her heart is always on someone else's. She's a childless bastard who will never have a good death..."
The town wasn't big, and everyone knew each other. Xiao Liu, who had come to inquire about the situation, obviously knew the deceased and his wife. Hearing her cursing, he quickly advised, "Uncle Lin is gone, so Sister Lin, please stop talking about him. Who is this 'vixen' you're talking about?"
Mrs. Lin suddenly stopped cursing and gave them a strange look. "What did I say? Didn't he just go out for a drink?"
Next, the two men witnessed the unreasonable behavior of an ignorant woman, and they were unable to get anything out of her.
Mu Ci asked Xiao Liu if he had any channels to know or hear anything since he had lived in the town for so long.
Xiao Liu said, "I was studying in another city and only recently passed the exam to join our town's police station. I don't know either."
The two focused on the "vixen" and decided to ask the families of other victims of the serial murder case to see if there were any clues.
The next house that Mu Ci and Xiao Liu decided to visit happened to pass by Jiang Hao's house. The door of Jiang Hao's house was open. Jiang Hao was sitting on the threshold, with raindrops dripping on the toes of her shoes. She was turning a long, flexible willow branch in her hand. When she saw Mu Ci, she smiled happily and waved to her.
Mu Ci nodded in response, and subconsciously wanted to walk into Jiang Hao's house. An inexplicable thought in her mind made her pause, and she hurried past the door of Jiang Hao's house, "I'll come to see you tonight."
Jiang Hao watched her leave.
After walking for a while, Mu Ci looked back and saw that the figure at the door was gone, only the green willow branches remained.
The second victim's family member that Mu Ci and Xiao Liu found was a cowardly woman. Under the two men's prepared questioning, the woman named Sister Wang cried and told the truth.
Xiao Liu didn't expect that there were so many undercurrents under this seemingly peaceful town. The neighbor who looked kind on weekdays was actually a beast behind the scenes.
"You're worse than an animal!" Xiao Liu cursed angrily, and asked angrily, "Why didn't you tell me when the police came to ask about the situation?"
The woman's answer fully revealed the ignorance of this closed town.
"Oh my God! How can I say this out loud? If I tell anyone, I won't be able to hold my head up in front of others. My man will beat me when he comes back! I... I have no choice~"
The woman covered her face and cried. She was obviously a different person from the deceased's family member, but she said the same thing, "It's all that vixen's fault. If it weren't for her, how could my man make such a mistake? He's usually quite nice when he's not hitting me."
"You have no idea how many men that vixen has seduced. I guess one of her lovers killed him."
The woman sat on the ground and cried, "How can I have the nerve to tell anyone? Blame me for not being able to keep a close eye on my man. I'll have a lot to deal with after I die. If I tell anyone, won't they all laugh at my man and me? I still have to live here..."
——Is this something you can hear in the 21st century?!
Xiao Liu suppressed his anger and continued to ask, "If you don't tell me, aren't you afraid there will be another victim?"
"They are not my men, what does it have to do with me..."
The indifference of human nature was fully displayed at this moment.
Because it was too outrageous, Xiao Liu's mind went blank and he couldn't believe it was true.
Xiao Liu was at a loss and subconsciously wanted to ask Mu Ci, but Mu Ci had disappeared without a trace.
Mu Ci couldn't find Jiang Hao at her house, so he rushed out and looked around aimlessly.
The words “dirty…”, “very dirty…”, “really dirty…” kept ringing in my ears.
Mu Ci finally understood the meaning behind these words. It turned out that Jiang Hao thought this house was dirty everywhere, so she never let Mu Ci stay overnight.
Mu Ci couldn't find Jiang Hao.
Mu Ci met Jiang Hao the next day. The cause of death was drowning in a small river that was as high as an adult's calf.
——A depth where anyone who wants to live can survive by struggling.
Combining the forensic autopsy report and Jiang Hao's suicide note, it was concluded that Jiang Hao was able to stand up and walk before committing his first murder.
The continuous rain in the small town can wash away a lot of criminal evidence; the backward and isolated town has a lagging police force; the victim's shock at seeing Jiang Hao suddenly able to stand up before his death; the strong hand strength developed due to the weakness of his legs; the contempt of Jiang Hao by the deceased's family and those who knew the truth...
These are all part of Jiang Hao's killing, and these constitute the process of Jiang Hao's killing.
Jiang Hao's bed sheets and quilt covers are evidence of being bullied.
In his suicide note, Jiang Hao wrote, "...I said at the time that I would rather die confused and relieved than live clearly and painfully like I do now."
"Now I die soberly."
Jiang Hao also said that Mu Ci's appearance was like a ray of light in her life, but it was a pity that this light appeared too late. If it could have appeared earlier, before she killed her first person, perhaps she really could... but it was too late.
At the end of his suicide note, Jiang Hao wrote: "Perhaps, I should be patient until you come to seek justice for me."
——The kind person was bullied and felt guilty even at the last moment of her life. I wonder if the person who deserved to die the most regretted having treated her like this before he died.
——You do regret it, but you only regret not killing the man with the knife earlier and breaking her legs completely. All that talk of sudden enlightenment and becoming a Buddha by putting down the butcher knife is a lie.
——They only regretted the loss of their own lives and never felt ashamed of the harm they had done to her.
Mu Ci murmured to herself with tears in her eyes, "I will seek justice for you..."
At least, you can't live with other people's dirty words.
Why does Jiang Hao always say "If it doesn't rain tomorrow..."? Because on sunny days, those people, as the main labor force in the family, need to go out to work and will not come to Jiang Hao's house.
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The author has something to say: There are more outrageous things happening in the world every day. The saying "He was fine when he didn't hit me" is real. When I saw it, my face was full of [question mark][question mark][question mark]. This kind of person is ignorant, ridiculous and pitiful, because she is the product of the discipline of a patriarchal society, and her thinking has been solidified. She has concepts such as "don't air your dirty laundry in public", "face is more important than anything else", "the most important thing in life is reputation", etc. These concepts seem incredible to us, but they are what they are accustomed to. The concepts we are accustomed to seem incredible to them. I have no right to blame them, because if they have a normal environment - a normal environment for us, they may not become like that. I can only say that if you meet such people, stay away from them and don't let them "pollute" you. If you can still help them under the conditions of sufficient self-protection, you can do it if you want to, and it doesn't matter if you don't want to. Don't be morally kidnapped, "self" is the most important!
If you have any questions about the article, please feel free to ask in the comment section and I will answer them. You are also welcome to correct any bugs.
One more sentence - willows symbolize farewell
One more aside - I don't like novels where the protagonist doesn't care about the couple when they're together, but chases the wife to the crematorium after breaking up, and finally has a happy ending. The reason is that the hurt is real. Even if the protagonist has a happy ending, those nights of hurt and tears are still there. Happiness can't cover up the pain. In the dream, the hurt self will ask the happy self now, have you forgotten the determination you made when you broke up with him/her and never looked back? The sweetness now is sugar-coated. Whenever I think about the past, it feels like a lump in my throat. (This paragraph only represents my personal opinion. I don't mean to say that this kind of writing is bad. Existence is reasonable. I just don't like it. If you want to scold me, please be gentle.)
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