Chapter 65: The Case of the Missing Sister (10) Serial Killer...
In 1972, the school in Tianye Village collapsed and Zhou Yueyue died in the accident. In the same year, Zhou Kailong's wife Yuan Xiaoyu passed away. Zhou Kailong became Zhao Aiguo's apprentice and formally began to learn the craft of blowing sugar figures.
In 1975, Zhou Kailong entered the market in Tianye Village and competed head-on with Zhao Aiguo for business. A conflict broke out between the two families. Zhou Kailong was talked about and moved from Tianye Village to Huaishu Village. In the same year, his next-door neighbor Chen Xiujuan disappeared.
In 1978, Sang Ruo from Houtu Village disappeared.
In 1984, Wang Huahua from Daliushu Village disappeared.
In 1990, Li Mei from Chendong Village disappeared.
Looking at the timeline on the paper, Sang Luo's thoughts became clearer and clearer, as if there was an invisible thread connecting everything together, and she had guessed the truth.
What is needed now is evidence.
After dinner, Sang Luo returned to the room and called Ruan Yu:
"I'll meet you at Daliushu Village tomorrow."
Ruan Yu was surprised and delighted: "So soon? Have you finished your investigation over there? Any new discoveries?"
"I found quite a lot," Sang Luo thought for a moment and decided to start from the beginning. "I went to the back hill of Tianye Village and saw Zhou Yueyue's grave. It was obvious that no one had worshipped her for many years. But Chen Xiujuan's mother said that Zhou Kailong attached great importance to his daughter's grave and sometimes even went there several times a day. This statement is obviously contrary to reality."
"Zhou Kailong never remarried, nor did he have any other children. He mentioned Yueyue repeatedly when he was chatting with us, which shows that he still cares about this daughter very much. Combining this information, I have a guess in my mind -"
"Zhou Kailong values his daughter very much, but he never visits her grave. There is only one possibility -"
"Her daughter wasn't in that grave at all."
"It's an empty tomb."
"Empty tomb?" Ruan Yu was very surprised.
Sang Luo nodded and continued, "I boldly guess that after the accident, Zhou Kailong did follow the villagers to bury his daughter in the back mountain, but after the storm passed, he secretly dug out his daughter's body and moved it to another place. Now, there is probably only an empty coffin buried in the grave in the back mountain."
"In order to confirm this guess, I asked you to hire someone to pretend to act in front of him. When he heard the news that the mountain behind was on fire, he had no reaction. I knew that my guess was right."
Ruan Yu frowned: "Why did he move his daughter's body? Isn't that the designated burial place in their village?"
"That's why he wants to move his daughter away," Sang Luo analyzed. "Villagers visit graves on the following days: Qingming Festival, Zhongyuan Festival, Spring Festival, the death anniversary or birthday of the deceased. Tianye Village is used to burying all the dead in the back mountain. In addition, there are several days that require worship, and there are often people walking around in the back mountain. This may be what makes Zhou Kailong feel inconvenient."
Ruan Yu was even more confused: "You mean, Zhou Kailong wants to do something to his daughter's grave that is inconvenient for others to see?"
Sang Luo: "That's right. The village attaches great importance to burying the dead. Generally, the dead will not be easily dug up again after being buried. Unless it is for adjusting Feng Shui, or the dead have a dream, otherwise they will not do such a costly and labor-intensive thing. Zhou Kailong is not a wealthy family. He must have some ulterior motive for spending extra money on this."
"Wait," Ruan Yu asked, "What if he just wanted to find a good place for his daughter, or his daughter came to him in a dream?"
Sang Luo shook his head. "If that's the case, he could have told the villagers and asked them to help. Besides, officially moving the grave is a big project. Usually, a Feng Shui master would be asked to locate the grave first, and then an auspicious day would be chosen for the reburial. If Zhou Kailong did that, then there would be no suspicion. But he secretly moved his daughter's grave without telling anyone."
"Chen Xiujuan's mother lives next door to Zhou Kailong. She knows a lot about Zhou Kailong, but even she didn't know that Zhou Kailong moved her daughter's grave. This shows that Zhou Kailong acted secretly. Not only did he not want the villagers to know that he moved the grave, he also didn't want the villagers to know where he moved his daughter's grave to."
"Mother Chen once said that Zhou Kailong would go to the back mountain several times a day. Zhou Kailong should have moved his daughter's grave alone at that time."
"He wanted to bury his daughter in a place only he knew and then do something to her grave."
“This place needs to be very remote, very quiet, with very few people coming and going.”
Ruan Yu took a deep breath and said, "What on earth is he going to do with his daughter's body? He wouldn't..."
Sang Luo understood what Ruan Yu meant. She had tried to think about it this way before. There had been such examples abroad where some family members could not accept the departure of the deceased and would keep the deceased's body at home and fall asleep with the body in their arms every day. Zhou Kailong had deep feelings for his daughter and he might do such a thing.
But the prerequisite for doing so is to have a large space to ensure that nearby neighbors will not notice. The parties in related cases abroad lived in a large detached villa, so the incident was not discovered until many years later. Zhou Kailong obviously does not have such conditions. He lives in a bungalow in the countryside, and any movement will be heard by his neighbors.
In addition, it was the 1990s and Zhou Kailong did not have the conditions to deal with corpses. He had no way of preventing the corpses from decomposing. Not to mention the corpses, even if there was a jar of rotten eggs in his house, people would be able to smell it. How could he possibly hide it?
Sang Luo said: "I don't think he hid his daughter's body at home. He should have buried her on a mountain or in a field."
Ruan Yu found it unbelievable: "What on earth is he going to do to his daughter?"
Sang Luo opened her mouth and felt her throat was a little dry. It was difficult to say the following words, but she had to face it:
"I guess... it's very likely... he was buried with the dead!"
"Buried with the deceased?" Ruan Yu was not able to react for a moment. "Do you mean he put the money in to be buried with the deceased, or did he want to put some burial objects in his daughter's grave?"
Sang Luo took a sip of water and said, "Neither. He most likely wants to... find a girl of the same age to be buried with his daughter."
"What?" Ruan Yu jumped up in shock. "Is there such a thing? Burial with the dead? Isn't that something that only happened in the feudal era? What era is this now..."
Sang Luo continued calmly, "This is just my guess. There is no evidence at the moment, but I think he abducted those girls most likely to bury them with the deceased. Generally, in rural areas, a complete set of paper tools will be burned for the deceased during burial, including paper figures, paper horses, and paper maids. Zhou Kailong replaced the paper figures with real little girls."
Ruan Yu was a little mad: "How is this possible? Is this something a human can do? If this is true, then he deserves to die. He should be cut into pieces!"
Sang Luo: "Of course a normal person wouldn't do such a thing, but Zhou Kailong has suffered a severe mental blow. He is very likely to be mentally ill and his brain circuits are different from those of ordinary people. We can't understand the thinking of a criminal. Everything will have to wait until he is arrested and he explains himself."
Ruan Yu scratched her hair, trying to change her angle to comfort Sang Luo:
"In the final analysis, this is just your subjective speculation. Maybe things are not like this. At present, it is certain that Zhou Kailong kidnapped Sang Ruo. He may not be a murderer, but just a middleman. He sold the children to other people's homes. Maybe those children are still alive in their adoptive parents' homes. He may also be a perverted sex maniac who imprisoned the girls. In short, the girls may still be alive. They may not be dead!"
Sang Luo knew that Ruan Yu had good intentions, but she still said coldly: "I can be sure that Ruoruo is dead. I have a definite source of information. These cases of missing girls are very similar. If this is really a serial disappearance case, then I think the other missing girls are probably dead too. We have to face reality."
Ruan Yu was a little speechless for a moment. In the face of cruel reality, any language was so powerless. After a moment of silence, he had to admit that Sang Luo was right:
"Okay, let's assume that the four girls are dead. How can you be sure that Zhou Kailong is the murderer? What if he just sold the girls and the real murderer is someone else?"
"Because of time," Sang Luo said slowly, "the intervals between the disappearances of these girls were three years, six years, and six years, all multiples of three. The first victim, Chen Xiujuan, disappeared in 1975, exactly three years after the collapse. There is a folk saying that the third year after the death of the deceased is a grand sacrifice, and a grand ceremony must be held."
Ruan Yu took over the conversation: "So, Chen Xiujuan is the sacrifice Zhou Kailong used to sacrifice his daughter?"
Sang Luo: "Yes, in order to let his daughter celebrate a grand third anniversary, he stuffed a living sacrifice into his daughter's body and asked Chen Xiujuan to be buried with his daughter."
Ruan Yu kept breathing in and out: "Hiss, I have goose bumps all over my body now. Is there really such a thing in the world?"
Sang Luo sighed: "I also hope that I am wrong."
Ruan Yu raised another question: "Zhou Yueyue died in July, but Chen Xiujuan disappeared in April. Why did Zhou Kailong take action so early? Where could he hide Chen Xiujuan in the three months in between?"
Sang Luo: "He didn't hide, nor did he need to hide. He probably killed Chen Xiujuan soon after catching her. Zhou Kailong celebrated his daughter's death anniversary not based on the date of her death, but on her birthday."
"If he performed the sacrifice according to Zhou Yueyue's actual death date, it would be too easy for people to find out. His daughter died in July, and then these four girls all disappeared in July. This is too much of a coincidence."
Ruan Yu listened quietly on the other end of the phone. Sang Luo took a deep breath and said:
"It is because of these years and months that I am sure that Zhou Kailong is not a simple human trafficker. Human traffickers pursue money. Professional human traffickers have a higher frequency of crime and no regularity in the time, unlike him."
Ruan Yu understood what Sang Luo meant. Human traffickers would commit crimes many times in a year for money. They would not wait several years to do it once like Zhou Kailong did. Moreover, Zhou Kailong's current life was very difficult and it didn't look like he had any extra income.
"Three years, six years, four months, following a specific pattern to commit crimes is often one of the habits of serial killers." Sang Luo concluded.
"Zhou Kailong is the serial killer who killed those four girls."
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