Chapter 107 Serial Killer
In the distance, the murderer's back had melted into the dim alley, like a drop of ink seeping into rice paper, disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye...
Xia Lili looked at the empty alley, frowning, with a sense of unease.
Half an hour later.
Xia Lili received the message on the police information system.
The two patrol police officers failed to catch the murderer and the murderer ran away.
The surveillance in the alleys of the urban village was incomplete, and only the murderer's back was captured.
He was wearing black clothes, black pants, and a mask. He was about 1.7 meters tall.
The previous cases were carefully planned in advance. Although the process was bumpy, the murderer was successfully caught. But now, the murderer escaped before his eyes for the first time!
It's really depressing.
The call was connected, and Li Qihan's deep voice came through the receiver, without a trace of fluctuation: "I received the police report from the Fuyuan Street Police Station. What did you see this time?"
Xia Lili quickly reported the crime scene in her hallucination, her voice getting tighter and tighter as she spoke: "...the criminal escaped right under my nose."
After she finished speaking, she lowered her head, her nails unconsciously scratching the stair railing: "Only ten steps... I can catch him..."
There was silence on the other end of the phone for two seconds.
The rustling sound of a pen writing came from the other end of the receiver. Li Qihan's voice was still calm, but inexplicably reassuring.
"You think you're making a police movie? You're always sure to catch the one who kills you?"
"Five years ago, I led a team on a cross-provincial pursuit of the Rainy Night Butcher, and we lost him three times."
Xia Lili was slightly stunned. This was the first time she heard Li Qihan mention failure.
Noticing Xia Lili's pause, a barely audible chuckle came from the other end of the phone: "Do you think I'm nothing special?"
Xia Lili shook her head subconsciously and was about to deny it when Li Qihan's tone softened a little on the other end of the line: "As long as the person who caused the misfortune is alive, that's fine."
"Don't overthink it."
He said briefly: "Now, go home and sleep."
After hanging up the phone, Xia Lili's anxious mood had calmed down.
The next day at 10:30 am.
Xia Lili received a notice from Leng Xiaohe asking her to go to the bureau for a meeting.
When Xia Lili arrived at the bureau's conference room, the meeting had already begun. She sat down next to Leng Xiaohe and asked in a low voice with a puzzled look on her face, "Isn't the meeting at 10:50?"
Leng Xiaohe lowered her voice and said, "The meeting started at 10:30, but the first twenty minutes were just work summaries.
"Captain Li specifically told you to sleep a little longer because you slept late last night."
She pointed forward and said, "The first twenty minutes were just a summary of the work. You didn't miss any important points."
Xia Lili followed her gaze and looked—
Li Qihan sat diagonally opposite them. The sunlight filtering through the blinds cast alternating stripes of light and dark on his body, outlining the sharp contours of his profile.
He held a black fountain pen between his slender fingers, and his knuckles tapped lightly on the table in time with Commander Gu's speech. The metal cufflinks on his uniform occasionally flashed a cold light under the refraction of light.
As if he noticed someone looking at him, he suddenly raised his eyes, his gaze accurately locked on her across half of the conference room, and then looked away.
The look was so calm that no emotion could be seen, but it made Xia Lili inexplicably think of the words "Don't think too much" on the phone last night.
The tips of her ears felt slightly warm. Xia Lili took a deep breath, tucked her scattered hair behind her ears, and shifted her attention to the content of the meeting.
Commander Gu attended the meeting with a serious expression, his furrowed brow showing the seriousness of the case.
During the meeting, Xia Lili's eyes widened in disbelief as she learned that the brutal murderer last night was actually a serial killer! Her fingers unconsciously clenched the edge of her notebook.
The projector in the conference room was playing the files of the murderer's first three cases. In the dim light, Commander Gu's deputy pushed up his glasses and said in a heavy tone:
"This time the murderer failed in his attempted crime, but based on the murderer's modus operandi in Xiao Xia's hallucinations, he must be a serial killer, committing crimes in multiple provinces."
"Before this, there had been three serious incidents of people being injured and robbed through the peephole on the door."
"Of the three victims, two died, and one survived but suffered brain damage and became a vegetative state."
Commander Gu rubbed his temples and said tiredly, "Because the three cases occurred in different provinces, the three cases were only investigated together yesterday. The police stations in the other two provinces only passed the case files to us. We still have a lot of information to synchronize."
When Xia Lili saw the three cases on the projector, she gasped and her scalp went numb.
Her face turned pale in an instant.
The scene was extremely bloody.
At this time, Officer Luo Xiao stood up and reported, "We took a statement from Ji Xinci, a resident of Room 404, Building A, Unit 5, Fuyuan Village, this morning."
"Three days ago, she went to Jianshang Bank and withdrew 200,000 yuan in cash. It was the dowry her parents had prepared for her."
In many places, the custom of marriage is to pack the dowry into boxes of cash, which makes the marriage proposal particularly prestigious.
Li Qihan crossed his hands and placed them under his chin, his eyes sharp. "We analyzed that Ji Xinci was targeted by the murderer when she was withdrawing money from the bank."
"The victims of the first three cases were also targeted by the murderer when they were withdrawing money from the bank."
Leng Xiaohe added: "The murderer was not only vicious but also cunning and unethical. Not only did he steal cash, but he also borrowed money online through the victim's phone and then transferred the money to overseas accounts to launder the money. The money was gone in an instant."
Luo Xiao nodded: "He should have relatives or friends who are involved in overseas fraud groups."
The veteran detective frowned and asked doubtfully, "There's a suspicious point here. After the Lincheng case broke out, the Lincheng General Administration dispatched a large number of police officers to investigate. This serial killer has never appeared near the train station, high-speed rail station, or even the bus station."
“How did he manage to travel across multiple provinces and commit crimes?”
At this time, Li Qihan stood up calmly and pointed with a red dot pen at the topographic structure diagram of the three provinces on the big screen. The three provinces of Dongnan, Xiaoxiang and Jianglan were connected by mountains and rivers.
He analyzed calmly: "I infer that the murderer must have taken the mountain road and the waterway."
“There’s a 78-kilometer uninhabited area at the junction of the three provinces, and it only takes five days to cross it on foot.”
There was an uproar in the conference room.
Luo Xiao opened his mouth in surprise. "Climbing a mountain with just a pair of legs! Your legs will break, right?"
Li Qihan's expression remained unchanged as he continued, "I suspect the murderer is extremely physically fit and can adapt to harsh living conditions."
Luo Xiao scratched his head and asked in confusion: "Where does he live? He doesn't live in a hotel? He doesn't live in the mountains, does he?"
Leng Xiaohe crossed her arms, thoughtfully: "When he was on the road, he must have taken some dry food and stayed in the mountains, but what about when he was stalking the victim? Didn't he stay in a hotel?"
"It's impossible to live in the park or on the street."
Commander Gu's eyes were heavy and his voice was low: "I wonder if he will commit crimes again."
"The first three cases have already been reported online and are trending. This brutal murderer has caused public panic."
"We have created a psychological portrait of the murderer: a male, from a poor family, with rich social experience, and strong psychological and physical qualities."
The conference room fell into silence for a moment.
Everyone looked solemn.
This serial killer is very professional. He didn't leave any fingerprints or footprints. It's very tricky.
Commander Gu showed a picture of a pair of rubber shoes. "The surveillance footage near the bank only captured his back. He was wearing a pair of army green safety shoes, the same kind many migrant workers wear."
Xia Lili stared at the topographic map that Li Qiuhan showed her, which showed the murderer's movement route.
The densely packed hills on the topographic map indicate that we are in the Qingshan area.
There was a flicker of uneasiness in her eyes.
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