Chapter 421 Director Sun’s Assistance
"Brother Biao, do you still remember which case led me to join our Third Squadron?"
"Of course I remember. Wasn't it the murder case in Shangyang Lane? Didn't you almost become a suspect back then?"
"Then do you remember that Captain Wu asked you to search for the murder weapon?"
Jiang Biao nodded.
Zhou Yi asked: "Did you find the murder weapon later?"
Jiang Biao shook his head like a rattle: "No, Zhang Xinli didn't throw away the murder weapon at all, where should I go..."
Before Zhou Yi could say anything, Jiang Biao suddenly revealed an epiphany: "Wait... you mean... Xu Liu's bones are the same as Zhang Xinli's murder weapon, and the murderer never dumped the body?"
Zhou Yi nodded slowly. "If you, Brother Biao, have gone to such lengths to snatch bones from a dog's mouth and still can't find a single bone, then it can only mean that the murderer may not have dumped the bones on the body. If they didn't dump the body, then naturally they can't be found."
Jiang Biao nodded, and suddenly said, "That's not right. The body parts and the head were thrown away. Why did the murderer have to keep the bones?"
"The situation with the headcount is rather special." Zhou Yi briefly explained some of the analysis he had done at the previous meeting. Because Brother Biao had been running around outside, except for the general meeting that Director Xie attended on the 8th, he was not called back for subsequent meetings for fear of affecting his work.
So he doesn't know much about a lot of information.
"Oh, is the girl surnamed Lu okay?" Jiang Biao asked happily.
Zhou Yi nodded: "Well, I sent him to Qian Hongxing's house. Their villa area is relatively safe. You can't follow me all the time."
"That's right. Very good, very good. For this girl, it can be considered a disaster. After surviving a disaster, there will be good fortune in the future." Jiang Biao urged, "Come on, continue."
"Okay. Brother Biao, let me ask you, why were the body parts fried?"
"Why ask? It destroys DNA."
"How do you destroy the DNA in the bones?"
Jiang Biao thought for a moment and said, "Deep-frying won't work. There's no fat on the bones, so I can't fry them. If I have fat, I can boil them in water and make bone soup."
"Are you sure boiling water can destroy all the DNA in bones? There's bone marrow inside the bones. How long and to what degree would it take to destroy the DNA? Brother Biao, do you know?"
Jiang Biao grinned. "How would I know? To be honest, if I hadn't heard you talk about DNA, I really wouldn't know about it. Although I still don't understand the principles behind it, it's really powerful anyway."
Zhou Yi spread his hands and said, "Yeah, Brother Biao, you don't understand the principles of DNA either. Do you think the murderer can understand the principles here?"
Jiang Biao said nothing and shook his head.
"The provincial department was able to establish a DNA laboratory because they recruited some of the province's most talented scientific experts. In other words, whether high-temperature cooking can destroy the DNA within bone marrow is a question the only people in the province who can answer."
Zhou Yixin said, let alone you, me and the murderer, in 1997, even if you asked this question to several experts, they might not dare to give you an answer.
Because in scientific research, accurate answers are summarized through repeated experiments and experimental data.
"It's not difficult for the murderer to know about DNA, and it's not difficult to know that DNA can solve crimes. After all, this technology is far more advanced abroad than we are. But unless the murderer is one of the top professionals in this field like those experts, do you think he would dare to take this risk?"
Jiang Biao shook his head repeatedly: "Of course he wouldn't dare. If this doesn't work, then all his efforts would be in vain."
"That's right. We can't figure out the murderer, so naturally we don't dare to take risks easily."
"And if the killer's best-case scenario holds, and we can't tell whether the body parts outside are Xu Liu's or Lu Xiaoshuang's, our police investigation direction and energy will be distracted. The discovery of the bodies and heads in the mine, whether months or years later, could further disrupt our investigation," Zhou Yi lamented. "Perhaps the only thing the killer didn't anticipate was that Lu Xiaoshuang would survive."
Jiang Biao couldn't help but say, "This girl is great."
"And even if the murderer thought of boiling the bones in water, Brother Biao, do you know how long the longest human bone is?"
"I actually know this. I specifically consulted Forensic Doctor Song on the Zhang Hui case. The longest part is the femur. If we consider Xu Liu's height of 1.6 meters, her femur should be 40 centimeters long."
Zhou Yi nodded and said, "That's right, that's just the length. Considering the human hip bone, the width must be around 26 centimeters. Under normal circumstances, a pot of this size would be needed to hold all of this and simmer it for a long time. Pots of this size can only be found in specific places like restaurants and food processing plants. Normal environments don't have this capability."
Jiang Biao nodded repeatedly, "That makes sense! That makes sense! Besides, bones are incredibly hard and can't be handled under normal circumstances. Breaking them violently would inevitably be accompanied by a continuous pounding noise, which would be too risky for the murderer."
"That's right, it has to be Brother Biao, what he said makes sense."
Jiang Biao touched his head, feeling a little confused. Why was Zhou Yi praising him just like Captain Wu?
"According to what you said, it's really possible that the murderer didn't even dump the body. Then wouldn't all my hard work be in vain?"
"That's not the case. Brother Biao, if you don't investigate thoroughly, you can't confirm this matter. I'm just speculating the possibility, but you are verifying it."
The most important point of this sentence is that it does not deny the efforts of Jiang Biao and a large number of peripheral police officers, and does not judge the price by the results, which makes Jiang Biao feel very comfortable.
He stood up suddenly and said, "No, I have to go to Liang Detachment to report this."
Zhou Yi grabbed him and asked him to sit down first.
"Brother Biao, there's no rush. It's fine for you to report to your superiors, but you have to think about how to adjust the situation next and how to deploy police forces. You can't just give a conclusion without providing a solution to your superiors. Do you really expect them to think about what to do next?"
"After all, other leaders are not Captain Wu."
Upon hearing the last sentence, the iron-tower-like man nodded like a chick pecking at rice, and kept saying that it made sense.
"Brother Biao, how is the rapeseed oil inspection going?" Zhou Yi asked.
"Oh, it's also a headache." Jiang Biao said distressedly.
Regarding the oil used to fry the corpse, testing has confirmed that it was rapeseed oil.
This oil was the most commonly used vegetable oil in daily life in the 1990s.
At that time, bottled brand oils, such as King Dragon Fish and Fortune, often appeared in TV commercials. The prices were generally high and most people would not buy them.
In the early days, oil and rice were still under state-controlled conditions, and to buy oil and rice, one had to go to a state-owned grain store with oil and grain coupons.
But after 1995, oil and grain coupons were basically no longer used in cities, and instead turned to marketization.
Apart from the state-owned grain and oil stores in the city and grain stations in the suburbs, many people buy oil directly from farmers' markets, taking buckets to get as much as they want.
The task force analyzed that the reason why the murderer used rapeseed oil was definitely not because it was cheap, but because more people bought rapeseed oil, the environment was more complicated, and it was not easy to remember.
On the contrary, the sales channels for bottled brand oils are basically supermarkets.
In the late 1990s, supermarkets were still considered relatively upscale consumption places. Although there was a lot of customer flow, the overall number of supermarkets in the city was not large. In addition, the specific behavior of buying barrels of oil made it much more likely to be remembered.
So when Jiang Biao was investigating, he mainly checked the oil dealers in the farmers' market, and then checked the grain and oil stores and grain stations, and paid special attention to those who bought more than five kilograms at a time.
However, the farmers' market has a huge flow of people, and there is no need to register to buy oil. In addition, it is actually impossible to determine the specific date of purchase of oil.
If the murderer had planned to kill and fry the body parts, he would have prepared the items needed to commit the crime in advance.
This invisibly increased the difficulty of Jiang Biao's investigation.
So far, no effective clues have been found.
"Not even one?" Zhou Yi couldn't help but ask.
"Hey, I just bought some oil, paid and left. You can't be suspicious just because I'm not a regular customer." Jiang Biao scratched his tangled hair. "Oh, I remember, there's something I want to ask you. I don't know if it's helpful. Can you help me analyze it?"
"Brother Biao, you say."
"An oil vendor at a farmers' market in Qingshan District said that on the morning of the 29th, an old man came to buy oil, saying he wanted three pounds. But the old man came empty-handed, so the vendor asked him where his bucket was. He was visibly stunned when he heard this, then said he had forgotten about it in a hurry and would go home to get it."
When Zhou Yi was a child, he went to buy oil with his parents, and usually brought his own empty barrels.
Of course, you can also buy barrels separately at the grain and oil store, but if it is not the first time to buy oil, people generally don’t want to spend money to buy a barrel and will choose to go home to get it.
So this doesn't sound strange at all. After all, my father did this and was scolded by my mother.
But Jiang Biao added, "In the end, the old man never came back."
"Didn't you come to buy later?" Zhou Yi asked hurriedly, catching a hint of something unusual.
"I don't think so. I was the one who went to this farmers' market, so I have some impression of it." Jiang Biao asked expectantly, "How is it? Is there anything wrong?"
If you say no, it is indeed a very trivial matter and does not sound suspicious.
But if things continue to be abnormal, then there may be a problem.
It's normal to not bring a bucket to buy oil. You may be forgetful, or you may have come to the market to buy something else and remembered it when you saw the oil seller, but you didn't bring a bucket with you.
But he said he would go back to get it, but in the end he didn't come to buy it. This is called continuous anomaly. It means that something continues to happen in a way that does not conform to the normal development logic. There must be a reason behind it.
"Brother Biao, how many oil vendors are there in this farmers' market?"
"Two, one at the east end and one at the west end."
"Does the other one have any impression of this old man?"
Jiang Biao thought for a moment and said, "The other one hasn't been mentioned yet. Do you want to ask again?"
Zhou Yi nodded. "It's best to ask if the old man behind here has come to buy oil to eliminate any suspicion. There are also small oil shops around the farmers' market. Because usually when they buy oil, it means their family is almost out of it. In theory, even if something happened that day and he didn't come to buy it, he would buy it in a couple of days. Also, the old man asked for three pounds of oil at once. Although it's not heavy, it's not light either. Under normal circumstances, he must be a resident nearby. Even if he didn't buy it from this store, he would buy it from another one."
"Okay, I'll be there in a minute."
"By the way, oil dealer, do you remember this old man's height, build, and appearance?"
Jiang Biao shook his head. "I remember, but the information the oil dealer gave was too vague. He was about sixty years old, between 1.7 and 1.75 meters tall, neither fat nor thin, and wore a khaki baseball cap."
"Wearing a hat?"
"Yes, the oil dealer was very sure. He said it was wearing a hat, and there was a black label in English on the hat."
"What is written?" Zhou Yi asked hurriedly.
"I asked the oil seller, and he said he couldn't even recognize all the Chinese characters, let alone English..."
"Okay, no matter what, it's a clue, which is better than nothing." In fact, Zhou Yi himself was also wondering in his heart, thinking that the value of this clue might not be very great.
After all, up to now, the direction of the murderer is still very vague.
Although Xiao Bing is on the run, he is now identified as "one of the murderers" or "an associated person who knows the murderer's identity."
Because it has been clearly confirmed from Lu Xiaoshuang's confession that the murderer is strong and powerful, and has the physical strength to completely suppress her; the murderer has a car, which allows him to move quickly and transport hidden items involved in the case.
Just based on these two points, Xiao Bing does not meet the requirements.
So even though the clue of the old man buying oil was unusual, Zhou Yi didn't actually hold much hope.
Because it is still difficult for a sixty-year-old man who is just over 1.7 meters tall to suppress the nineteen-year-old Lu Xiaoshuang physically.
Unless, besides Xiao Bing and the old man, there is another murderer in this case.
But it is not impossible for gangs to commit crimes. The more people there are in a gang, the easier it is to be exposed and cause problems.
Especially since the task force in the previous life investigated Hongda for a full three months before withdrawing. If it was a gang of multiple people who committed the crime, it would be impossible for them to leave no loopholes at all.
No matter how strong the relationship between the murderers is, whether it is between husband and wife, father and son, or brothers, cracks will appear under the high pressure of the law and the suspicion of human nature.
So even if there is the possibility of a gang committing the crime, it is almost impossible for there to be more than three murderers in such a case.
However, for Jiang Biao, who has now lost all confidence, having clues is better than him and so many people acting like headless flies.
After all, if Jiang Biao falls, no one else will be able to bear the pressure of this matter.
"Brother Biao, don't be anxious. This case is not Long Zhiqiang's case. There is no need to rush it."
Jiang Biao nodded: "I understand. After talking to you, I feel much better. Otherwise, I don't know who to talk to about the frustration in my heart."
"No progress at the first crime scene?" Zhou Yi asked.
Jiang Biao shook his head. "We've thoroughly checked all the restaurants and food processing factories around Hongda, but nothing suspicious has been found. We've checked the entire Nanming District thoroughly, and now we're checking Qingshan District. If there's nothing there, we'll have to check the suburban counties."
Zhou Yi waved his hand: "Brother Biao, I think that although the restaurant and the food processing factory have the conditions for committing the crime, they are not related to the victim."
"Think about it, if Xu Liu was the only victim in this case, then we can't rule out the possibility of a roving or impromptu crime. For example, a chef or restaurant owner saw Xu Liu's youth and beauty and suddenly had evil thoughts about her. In the end, they killed her during an argument and then took the body back to dispose of it."
What Zhou Yi said was an investigation direction proposed by the task force in the previous life, because there was only one victim, Lu Xiaoshuang, in the previous life. Although Lu Xiaoshuang was not raped, it cannot be ruled out that the murderer intended to rape her, but accidentally killed her during the dispute. In the end, he was so scared that he only wanted to dispose of the body quickly.
After all, if someone is still thinking about ** after killing someone, it is considered extremely abnormal even among murderers.
"But now Xu Liu isn't the only victim. Lu Xiaoshuang also nearly died in the mines. So it's almost certain the murderer is inside Hongda, and it's someone who has some connection to both of them."
"Besides, places like restaurants and food processing plants are crowded with people and eyes. It's possible to do some small things covertly, but the risk of being exposed if you want to pull off such a complex crime is too great. So I suggest that we divert some of the police force away from investigating restaurants and food processing plants."
Jiang Biao nodded and said, "I am now conveying information to the neighborhood committees of each street through the grassroots police stations, mobilizing the masses, and looking for abnormalities."
Hongcheng has a permanent population of two million, of which more than 70% live in the urban area. It is definitely unrealistic to check every household in the residential areas. This spider-web-like mobilization of the masses is the best choice. After all, this was an era without surveillance.
However, this survey has two obvious flaws.
The first is slowness. The longer it takes, the more time the murderer has to clean up the scene and remove all traces of the crime.
Second, not all the people are highly conscious. During normal investigations, we will encounter all kinds of people who are uncooperative, hostile to the police, and venting their dissatisfaction with life everywhere, not to mention those who hope to actively provide clues.
Therefore, this method is a helpless move. After all, there is no clear scope of investigation. As long as someone can circle a circle on the map for Jiang Biao, Zhou Yi knows that Jiang Biao will definitely dig deep into the circle.
After all, I had worked as a criminal policeman for most of my life in my previous life, and I had never seen a policeman who could snatch bones from a dog's mouth for investigation.
"Zhou Yi, actually I have a question here. I originally wanted to tell Captain Wu, but Captain Wu was reported by some bastard." Jiang Biao was still furious when he thought of Wu Yongcheng being reported.
Zhou Yi quickly said, "Brother Biao, let's not curse for now."
I wonder if Wu Yongcheng’s eyelids are twitching at home.
"Tell me your question first."
"Well, last time, Chen Yan and I escorted Meng Dahai and the others to the provincial capital. While we were there, we attended a number of meetings with Captain Wu. One of them was about exchanging and analyzing some major dismemberment cases that had been solved. Then someone summarized some rules for disposing of body parts, called 'discard far away and bury close by,' and...head...head..."
Seeing that he was stuck in his words, Zhou Yi continued, "Throw far and bury close, head far and body close, small near and large far, and throw more bodies?"
"Yes, yes, that's right. Hey, I remembered you didn't go."
Zhou Yi said perfunctorily: "I read it in a book."
Professionally, this is called the five principles and one rule of dismemberment cases, among which throwing far away and burying close by is the most famous.
What Jiang Biao heard was actually not complete, because he missed a principle and a rule.
Zhou Yi remembers that these theories were first gradually summarized through the investigation of cases during grassroots criminal investigation work in the 1990s.
Not every dismemberment case conforms to these five principles and one rule, but at least these six points are definitely the most common among all dismemberment cases.
However, in the 1990s, many criminal investigations were not systematically theorized, and most of them were summarized by front-line police based on their experience.
This theory of dismemberment and disposal of corpses did not become a systematic theory in the field of criminal profiling until around 2010, because these principles were derived through analyzing the criminal psychology of the murderer.
In this day and age, to put it nicely it can be called the crystallization of wisdom, but to put it more down-to-earth it is just folk methods and old experiences.
"Brother Biao, in addition to the four points you mentioned, there is also the crime scene selection principle and the law of common center of the circle."
Jiang Biao said, "Wait a minute, I'll take some notes. I wasn't listening carefully at the time and was sleepy. Now I understand what it means to regret not having read enough when you need it."
Zhou Yi waited for him to take out a pen and paper before he began to explain, not for anything else but in the hope of helping Brother Biao.
The first is the crime scene selection principle: in order to ensure that the crime is not discovered, the murderer usually chooses an undisturbed place as the crime scene.
Zhou Yi told Jiang Biao that this was also the reason why he had said earlier that although restaurants and food processing plants had the conditions, they might not be a match.
The more people can enter an environment, the less safe it is for the murderer.
Because in principle, the murderer also doesn't know how long it will take him to deal with the body.
Even a professional forensic doctor like Song Yiming has to conduct repeated experiments on pork before he can provide reference data. When giving the data, he also emphasizes the differences between humans and animals, so there will still be deviations in the data.
What's more, the murderer is under great psychological tension when committing the crime, which consumes even more physical energy.
Therefore, the more independent and private the place, the easier it is to carry out such complex criminal methods.
This is also why when Zhou Yi saw that Xiao Bing's house was not adjacent to the front and back, his first reaction was that it was very suitable for handling corpses.
The second is the famous principle of throwing the body far away and burying it close. This principle mainly analyzes the distance between the body disposal scene and the crime scene.
Simply put, there are two ways the murderer would choose to deal with the body after dismembering it: one is to bury it, and the other is to discard it.
Of course, there is another possibility, which is to freeze the body and not throw it away.
There were quite a few such cases in the previous life, including wives, husbands, and mothers who were all frozen directly in the freezer after the murders.
The reason why it is said to be later is because this treatment method requires the necessary conditions provided by technological development.
In 1997, only about half of the families could afford to buy a refrigerator, and those were family-style upright refrigerators with a very small freezer capacity. Not even half a person could fit in, let alone one person.
Of course, freezers were not unavailable in 1997, but freezers were mainly used for commercial purposes at that time, and less than 10% of ordinary households had freezers.
Buying a freezer at a high price to avoid disposing of the body is very likely to arouse suspicion from people around you.
This is also the reason why the Hongda case chose to dispose of the body. The conditions at the time of the murderer did not allow the body to be frozen for long-term preservation.
Burying the body and disposing of the body are the results of the murderer's two psychological states.
Burying a body usually involves burying it close to one's home, workplace, or other familiar, controlled area. This makes it easier to hide, observe, or handle the body later. More importantly, it meets the criminal's psychological need for a sense of security and control.
In the case of body disposal, the perpetrator will choose to toss or discard the body far from the crime scene or their activity center. The purpose is to disrupt the investigation, divert police attention, and make it more difficult to find physical evidence and link it to the perpetrator. Essentially, like burying a body, this is also motivated by a sense of psychological security.
After listening to this, Jiang Biao said, "So isn't this a bit contradictory? Look, you just said that the murderer was most likely someone from Hongda, but almost half of the body parts were within a five-kilometer radius of Hongda, and the closest was even less than 500 meters. But the characteristic of disposing of bodies is that they have to be far away. The farther away, the safer it is psychologically. Isn't that a contradiction?"
Zhou Yi had never thought of this logic, perhaps because he had never sat down like this before to calmly organize his thoughts and analyze the problem.
He frowned, thinking hard.
After a minute, he suddenly said, "Brother Biao, what if..."
"What?"
"What if the murderer's psychology is consistent with both distant throwing and nearby burial?"
Jiang Biao didn't understand: "How can it be both long throw and close burial? I can't figure it out."
"Let me ask you a question first. What do you think the likelihood of a body being buried in an urban area is?"
Jiang Biao shook his head and said, "It shouldn't be that big. There's too much concrete in the city to bury a body. Green belts and other places are regularly maintained, so the chances of it being discovered are very high, unless there happens to be a piece of wasteland like this."
Zhou Yi asked again, "Then what do you think, if we don't consider the method of dismemberment first, is it easier to bury the body or to dispose of it?"
"Of course, disposing of a body is easy. You can just throw it in the air as you pass by and walk away. Burying a body requires digging a hole and staying at the burial site for a long time." Jiang Biao thought for a moment and added, "And you need the right tools to bury a body."
"Snap!" Zhou Yi snapped his fingers and said, "Brother Biao, you hit the point. You mentioned why the murderer chose to dump the body instead of burying it!"
"Will you stay long?" Jiang Biao asked doubtfully.
Zhou Yi shook his head and said, "No, it's a handy tool!"
"Think about the tools involved in dismembering a body. Knives, pots, oil—all of these are readily available. Even if there's not enough oil, the sheer volume of people buying it makes it difficult to notice. But to bury a body, you have to dig a hole, so you'd need a shovel, at least. How many ordinary urban households have a shovel? The number of people buying shovels is far less than the number of people buying oil. If the body is discovered, then the risk of exposing the murderer is much higher through the tools themselves."
"Yeah, yeah, that's the logic. So it's definitely easier to dump a body than to bury it. But how can it be both far away and buried nearby? I still don't understand."
"Whether the murderer dumped or buried the body, their core purpose was to dispose of it as quickly as possible to prevent it from being discovered due to decomposition and leading to their arrest. There's also a normal human mentality at play here: whether dumping or burying the body, deep down, the murderer must have hoped not to be discovered, as this would be in their best interest."
"Whether throwing the body far away or burying it nearby, the murderer was seeking a sense of security."
"Brother Biao, lend me your pen."
Jiang Biao handed the pen and notebook to Zhou Yi.
Zhou Yi wrote two letters AB on a piece of paper, which were far apart.
"Assume that point A is large and is the range of the murderer's main daily activities. Since it is impossible to bury the body, burying it nearby becomes throwing it nearby. The essence is the same. The murderer hopes to observe and confirm whether the body parts are found by the police." Zhou Yi said, drawing a circle on the letter A.
"Then there's point B. If this point B is the original crime scene," Zhou Yi said, drawing a circle around the letter B and then connecting the two circles with a line. "Then as long as the distance from B to A is far enough, wouldn't it fit the logic of long throw?"
Zhou Yi looked up and said, "So this is it, it fits both the logic of long throw and close burial."
Jiang Biao was shocked. "Oh my god, now you put it that way, it's true. It seems like our thinking was previously constrained by grandeur. Now you're right."
Jiang Biao pointed to point B and said, "The murderer dumped the body far away from the primary crime scene. He was also concerned about not being able to confirm whether the body parts were exposed, so he dumped some within his daily activities. Because of the deceased's identity and the location of the body, we instinctively focused on Hongda as the primary crime scene."
Jiang Biao poked the line between point A and point B and said, "But in fact, the first crime scene is far away from Hongda. The murderer is deliberately confusing us!"
After this analysis, not only Jiang Biao, but also Zhou Yi himself felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.
Jiang Biao patted Zhou Yi on the shoulder and said, "It has to be you, kid! If you ask me, the stupidest thing Director Xie did before was kicking you out of the task force."
Zhou Yi quickly reminded Jiang Biao that this was in the bureau after all.
Jiang Biao wanted to complain, but Zhou Yi quickly changed the subject.
He then explained three other principles and the law of common center of circles, bringing the topic back to the case itself.
The point that the head was far away and the body was close by is highly consistent with this case, because the head was indeed thrown very far away. However, the role of the head in this case has become more complicated, and it is not simply for hiding the identity of the victim.
After this discussion with Zhou Yi, Jiang Biao's spirits were obviously much better.
He was not without physical fatigue, but it was definitely the least. After all, he was a member of the armed police force, and his physical fitness was unmatched in the world.
It is mainly the mental decadence and fatigue that have a greater impact.
Jiang Biao stood up, stretched, and said to Zhou Yi while stretching his arms and legs, "Your suggestions are great. They really help me open up my mind. I'll figure out how to adjust things next and then report to Team Liang."
"Brother Biao, if you have any questions or doubts, you can always come to me. Maybe I can help you clear your mind."
Jiang Biao waved his hand and said, "Of course, you have to be smart."
Jiang Biao patted Zhou Yi and said, "After this case is over, we should have a good drink."
Zhou Yi smiled and said, "Okay, once this case is solved, I'll go all out and stay with you, Brother Biao, until you're drunk!"
Jiang Biao laughed: "That's great!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the cell phone in Zhou Yi's pocket rang.
It was Qiao Jiali calling. Zhou Yi thought, could it be that she found Lulu's file?
"Sister Qiao."
"Zhou Yi, you're not in the task force?"
"I'm in the office of our Third Brigade. I just came back to the bureau to check some information and ran into Brother Biao. We chatted for a while. Did you find the information on this Lulu?"
Qiao Jiali said, "We haven't found the information, but we just contacted Director Sun Hao of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Third Municipal Hospital. After seeing the faxed photos, Director Sun confirmed that he knew Xiao Bing. He has something else to do and will call us in about twenty minutes."
Zhou Yi immediately said: "Okay, I'll be back now!"
…
Zhou Yi had just parked the car when Qiao Jiali waved at her from the balcony of an office on the second floor.
Zhou Yi immediately ran upstairs and came to the second floor, where Qiao Jiali, Xiang Jie and Chen Yan were.
The call has been connected and Xiang Jie is communicating with the other party.
Zhou Yi quickly asked Qiao Jiali in a low voice: "Has it started?"
Qiao Jiali replied in a low voice: "Just at the beginning."
A slightly hoarse voice said on the other end of the phone: "Officer Xiang, Officer Qiao, I've read the fax you sent."
Zhou Yi had never met Director Sun, but judging from his voice, he seemed to be a man in his fifties, who spoke slowly and steadily.
"I didn't know the name of the man in the photo before. This is the first time I know his name is Xiao Bing, because he wasn't the one treating the patient; he was a family member."
"What?" The four of them were suddenly shocked.
Among them, Zhou Yi was the least surprised. In fact, this was after Chen Yan reminded him that Xiao Bing might have kidnapped "Lulu" for a long time and that this woman might be suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Zhou Yi thought that maybe Xiao Bing really didn't lie to him when he first met her.
The medicine prescribed by Xiao Bing might really be prescribed for "family members" and it was indeed an "old illness".
He just didn't specify that this "family member" was the one who had hurt him and was eventually tied up and imprisoned at home.
Qiao Jiali hurriedly asked, "Director Sun, who is the patient?"
Director Sun said on the phone, "The patient's name is Dong Lu, Dong as in chairman, Lu as in dew. I believe she was born in 1966, so she should be 31 this year."
"Dong Lu?" The four of them looked at each other excitedly. It seemed that the previous clues were correct.
Fortunately, Director Sun has a clearer clue.
"Please tell us about Dong Lu's specific situation. The more detailed the better, such as Dong Lu's height, weight, facial features, etc." Xiang Jie said.
"Hiss... How should I put it..." Director Sun's next words startled the four people on the other end of the phone.
"This Dong Lu, she's a severely burned patient, with over 80% of her body burned. So, I'm sorry, I really can't describe her appearance."
This time, Zhou Yi was also shocked, because before this, there had never been any clues or signs related to severe burns.
Chen Yan couldn't help but look at Zhou Yi, and they both suddenly understood at the same time what was going on with the frequently appearing man in black.
Wearing long sleeves and long pants, a hat, a mask, and glasses, and wrapping the whole body tightly, doesn’t this just meet the characteristics of severe burns?
When Zhou Yi was a child, he had seen someone with severe burns. She was a female worker at Ergang. It seemed that she had a safety accident at work and her whole body was on fire. Although the fire was extinguished in time, she still suffered burns covering more than 50% of her body.
Even if he was saved, the scars on his body could not be healed.
Although the skin grafting and repair technology for burns in domestic hospitals began to mature in the 1980s and 1990s, the high price made it prohibitive for most patients.
For example, this female worker had her burn treatment paid for by the factory, and also received a sum of compensation. But if she wanted skin grafting repair, she had to go to a first-tier city, and an ordinary family might not be able to afford it even if they emptied their savings.
When Zhou Yi was a child, he had seen the appearance of this female worker after she was burned. Most of her face was uneven and wrinkled, which was very creepy. Her body was also full of pits and large patches of ugly mottled skin.
The first time I saw him on the street as a child, Zhou Yi was traumatized.
However, the mother, Zhang Qiuxia, was very calm and greeted and chatted with the other party as if nothing had happened.
Afterwards, Zhou Yi asked his mother what happened to him and why he became like this. Zhang Qiuxia then told him what happened and taught him not to laugh at others because of their suffering.
Although I am a talkative and gossipy mother, I am a person with positive values at heart.
But poor female worker, her family did not show her the same understanding as Zhang Qiuxia, an outsider.
Her husband disliked her because of her appearance, and later used the compensation given to her by the factory to have an affair with other women.
Her son was also ashamed of her and would stay away from her when he saw her on the street.
In the end, the woman chose to commit suicide by jumping into the river. Her body was stuck in a drain and was not discovered until five days later.
However, the first thing her family thought of was to carry her body, which had been soaked to the point of stinking and deforming, to the factory to ask for money.
In the end, they really extorted some money from me, and then I moved away quickly after the funeral.
As for the funeral, Zhou Yi also went with his parents to offer gifts and burn incense.
The body was not seen. It was said that it was too unbearable to look at, so it was burned as soon as it was brought back from the factory.
But at that time Zhou Yi saw the woman's portrait. The photo was taken before the accident. The woman in the portrait was delicate and beautiful.
Zhou Yi couldn't connect the scene with what he saw that time at all.
A few years later, Zhou Yi learned about the subsequent events of the female worker's husband and son from her gossipy mother.
After her husband was cheated of all his money by his mistress, he became penniless. He also contracted a serious illness due to excessive indulgence in sex and debauchery. He had no money to treat it and finally committed suicide by jumping into the river.
Her son dropped out of junior high school because his father was busy fooling around and ignored him. He started to hang out in society and tried to help others settle a dispute at a young age. As a result, he had both legs broken and now no one knows whether he is dead or alive.
They all said that God had opened his eyes and avenged her.
Fifty percent burns are already this level. Director Sun said that Dong Lu suffered more than eighty percent severe burns, which means there is not a single piece of healthy flesh on his body.
Zhou Yi couldn't help but lean over to the phone and ask, "Director Sun, do you know how Dong Lu got burned? Was she treated at your city's Third Hospital?"
"I'm not sure about that. Although I asked about it during the initial treatment, Dong Lu's family—oh, that's Xiao Bing you're talking about—all told me it was an accident. As for whether the burns were treated at our Third City Hospital, you can check the patient's information. I'll call the department later and have them get the patient's medical records for you."
"Okay, thank you Director Sun, please continue."
Director Sun said, "Dong Lu didn't come to the psychiatric department while she was burned. I remember she was first brought in in 1991, six years ago. Judging from her physical condition at the time, it was clear that the burns had occurred a long time ago, and it didn't look like a recent injury."
"I remember very clearly that when the young man brought her in, she was wrapped up tightly, with only her two eyes showing. I felt something was wrong at the time because it didn't look like a sign of mental illness. Then I learned that the patient had severe burns."
Director Sun then said that he had actually been trying to understand the causes and consequences behind Dong Lu's burns, because for mental illnesses, drug treatment alone is not enough. Drugs can only control the condition and can only be regarded as indicators.
To cure the root cause, psychotherapy is still necessary. We have to get into the patient's heart and find the root cause of the problem.
To this end, during the treatment process, he tried to establish emotional resonance with the patient and explore her inner thoughts, but his attempts failed many times.
The patient himself is very resistant to psychotherapy, and once stimulated, his emotions will get out of control.
The entire treatment process lasted about six months, but with no significant progress, the patient began to resist and her visits gradually decreased. More often, her family member, Xiao Bing, would come to get her medication regularly to keep her condition under control.
Director Sun said that he had actually tried to learn about the patient's previous condition through Xiao Bing several times when he came alone to get the medicine.
After all, the biggest cause of the patient's mental illness may be her burns.
But what is strange is that Xiao Bing, a family member, also has an almost secretive attitude towards this matter. When faced with inquiries, he only said that it was caused by an accident.
Director Sun said that the last time he saw patient Dong Lu was about half a year ago.
This is because he has made it mandatory that patients must come in person for an examination at least every six months, otherwise he will not prescribe any medicine.
But at least over the years, the patient's condition has been relatively stable, and the medication has been effective in controlling the disease.
When Director Sun explained Dong Lu's specific condition, the four of them were shocked because it was the first time they had heard of such a complicated mental illness.
"To be honest, I had some selfish motives in accepting this patient and prescribing her medication for a long time," Director Sun said. "Dong Lu suffers from schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder."
"Her original personality was suffering from schizophrenia, and she would periodically experience symptoms such as hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, mental dissociation, and mania."
"Then, in order to escape the onset of schizophrenia and the reality of being burned, she separated out an escapist personality in her subconscious."
"To be honest, in all my years of medical practice, this is the first time I've encountered such a bizarre disease."
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