12
The next afternoon, reporter Yang Chunhui arrived from out of town and met me at the high-speed rail station. I took him to a taxi and headed straight to the Li family's old house.
I arrived at the old house again. Unlike my last visit, every household in the alley had their doors and windows tightly shut, and not a soul was to be seen. The entrance to the first-floor hallway was sealed off, with several lines of yellow plastic tape indicating no trespassing.
I bent down, lifted the plastic tape slightly, and slipped under it. Yang Chunhui, however, stopped at the edge.
"Isn't this a bad idea?" he said hesitantly.
"Don't worry, I have obtained the consent of the owner of the house." I shook the key in my hand.
Yesterday, I met Li Zitong outside the police station and politely declined her invitation to return to Shanghai, saying I had something to do and needed to stay a few more days. I also lied, saying I had left something at my old house and wanted to pick it up sometime.
Li Zitong asked the police for the house key, but was refused. Although the on-site investigation had already concluded, the police wanted to preserve the scene as it was before closing the case. However, after Li Zitong's lawyer called to protest, they still handed over the key.
"Alright." After being told the origin of the key, Yang Chunhui still didn't move. "But before I go in, I want to ask you something clearly. If you really know who the murderer is, why didn't you call the police, but chose to tell me instead?"
"This is the first-hand news you media outlets dream of. You don't want me to call the police first, do you?"
"Of course not. But before doing business, I usually agree on the compensation first. I have no more information to exchange with you. Are you looking to make some extra money?"
"Remuneration and such are irrelevant. I only have one request: no matter how much resistance there is, you must report the truth."
His expression grew serious. "What kind of resistance? From the police?"
"I don't know who my opponent is, nor can I guess who will ultimately step in and block the publication of the report. I only know that there has been no progress in the investigation for so many years, and there must be underlying reasons behind this."
"I feel like I'm on a pirate ship," he said self-deprecatingly, bending down and slipping under the plastic tape. "Never mind. Venture capital always comes with risk, and exclusive reporting always involves risking yourself. After all, this is my line of work."
After entering the house, I turned on the lights in the corridor, stood at the door of the master bedroom, and asked Yang Chunhui to take out a portable camera to film me.
"Next is the moment to reveal the truth. I will restore the cause of Li Xueqiang's death thirteen years ago and prove that he did not commit suicide, because this room is not a secret room at all." I showed the object in my hand to the camera. It was a U-shaped lock with fishing line tied to the lock handle in advance.
Yang Chunhui emerged from behind the camera. "I know that lock. It's the same model as the one used in the Li Xueqiang case. Are you going to demonstrate how to lock the U-shaped lock through the door?"
"That's right. But as a cameraman, you can say whatever you want, right? It's all recorded."
"It's okay. The audio will be taken out separately and re-scored and narrated anyway. You can start now."
"No, wait a minute. Change the camera position and shoot from the inside of the room. Only then can you see the lock's status clearly."
He didn't respond immediately, but took a moment to narrow his eyes. "You want me to stay alone in a room in a haunted house and lock the door?"
"Why, are you nervous?" I forced a smile.
Yang Chunhui scratched his temples, his expression as if trying to figure out what I was saying. After a moment, he smiled in response, "I'm not nervous, I'm just scared."
I opened the door, and he moved the camera's angle of view inside. He took two steps before stopping. I knew he had already seen the cardboard boxes through the viewfinder. There were five stacks of cardboard boxes in the room: one on the desk, three in the corner by the east window, and one by the bed. Each of the five stacks was 42 centimeters high, consisting of 21 boxes of the same size. Yang Chunhui seemed stunned, and I took the opportunity to drop the U-lock, close the door, and wed the fishing line in the crack.
"Please keep the camera lens facing the lock at all times." I reminded him, and Yang Chunhui responded briefly.
Everything was going smoothly. Next, I dropped my fishing line, quickly left the house, slipped under the caution tape again, and walked to the master bedroom window, where I stepped onto the high chair I had prepared in the corner.
In the room, Yang Chunhui wasn't filming. The camera was casually placed on the bed. He was leaning against the door, his ear pressed against it, listening intently for any noise outside.
"You are not doing your job as a cameraman." I said to his back.
He shuddered and turned around, his face filled with panic. But that expression only lasted a second or two. He quickly regained his composure and complained to me, "I knocked on the door for a while, but there was no movement. I called you through the door, but you didn't respond. And then you actually came around to the back window. Did you want to scare me to death?"
"Sorry, sorry, I forgot to tell you in advance. If I want to demonstrate the murderer's method, I have to stand outside the window."
Yang Chunhui's nose and mouth wrinkled. "Didn't you just say you wanted to demonstrate how to lock the door? Are you kidding me?"
"That was just a prelude. Thirteen years ago, a friend and I tried countless methods to lock the door with a U-shaped lock, but we failed without exception. So I want you to record this set of scenes first, and then edit it into the video to show the audience as a lesson from failure, so that they can realize how hard it is to get the truth. In fact, it was Li Xueqiang who locked the U-shaped lock himself."
"Don't tell me how to report as an outsider." He finally looked angry.
"Okay, it's my fault, don't be angry. Pick up the camera and let's continue filming."
He didn't follow my instructions, not even moving a finger, and said, "No more filming."
"Hey, you don't want to film the truth and make an exclusive report?"
"There's nothing to film. Open your eyes and take a good look at the iron fence in front of you. It's been thirteen years, and it's still as strong and sturdy as ever. The gap is so small that a mouse would get stuck if it tried to get in. Even if the window was open, the murderer couldn't have entered the room through that."
"Who said he went in? The murderer never set foot in the room from beginning to end. He completed his murder plan outside the secret room."
"Then I guess what you're thinking. The same old cliché." A palpable wave of emotion crossed his face, a mixture of embarrassment, resignation, and annoyance. "You're thinking the murderer tied a knife to a stick and thrust it through the window, right? That couldn't have been possible. The murder weapon was a one-piece boning knife, and its thickness couldn't have penetrated the bars."
"But the murder weapon is very special."
"How is that possible? This is a homicide case. The police must have examined that boning knife countless times. If there really was a mechanism hidden or signs of disassembly of the handle, they would have discovered it thirteen years ago."
"I'm not saying that the boning knife is special, I'm saying that the murder weapon is special. That knife is indeed the murder weapon, but the murder weapon is not exactly that knife."
"Are you imitating the old monk's chanting?" he sneered.
"That's right, we can't just rely on words. Hold up the camera, and I'll show you what the murder weapon actually looks like."
Facing the dark camera, I felt like I was back in my childhood, back in the days of filming with Li Zitong. Let the show begin. I took a deep breath and waved my hands.
The white cardboard boxes stacked against the wall of the room emptied one by one, like a truck entering a square, startled pigeons taking flight. Following the movements of my hands, the boxes moved rhythmically in the air.
Yang Chunhui poked his head out from behind the camera, his face filled with shock. "How did you do that? Oh, your hand..."
The lens's limited light allowed him to see the transparent fishing line I was holding. I'd prepared these last night: two highly elastic pieces, each ten meters long. I'd bought the cardboard boxes at a high price from a nearby recycling station, one hundred and eight in total.
I barely slept last night, I was incredibly busy. To reconstruct the scene, I needed to use a needle to poke two symmetrical holes in each cardboard box. I'd first thread a fishing line through the left hole of each box, then through the right hole, ensuring all the boxes were hooked onto the same U-shaped noose.
Next, I took out a plastic dagger from a toy store and threaded another length of fishing line through the hole in the handle. I then folded the remaining line in half, stretched it to equal lengths, and threaded it through the holes on the right side of each cardboard box. In this way, the 108 cardboard boxes and daggers were strung together by the fishing line to form a centipede. The head of the centipede was the dagger, and the tail was the last cardboard box, with four ends of the line sticking out.
The next step is to process the three cardboard boxes at the head. Enlarge the three pinholes on the right side, shaping them into rectangular blocks of suitable size, just large enough for the dagger's handle to fit inside. Once completed, toss the dagger and three cardboard boxes together under the bed. Unwind the fishing line, spacing the boxes apart. The remaining 105 cardboard boxes are divided into five stacks and stacked at the head of the bed, against the wall by the window, and on the desk.
The final preparation involves tying the four ends of the centipede's tail to the iron bars outside the window. The remaining fishing line, not covered by the cardboard box, is taped to the wall with scotch tape to prevent it from being seen.
A few minutes earlier, as I stepped onto the high chair, I had untied four strings from the window and tied them to my hands. As soon as Yang Chunhui began filming, I waved my hands, desperately pulling at the four strings. Five stacks of cardboard boxes were pulled down one by one, moving closer and closer together until they all fit together, hanging tightly against the inside of the iron fence, forming a cylindrical rectangular block.
I pulled the four ends of the string together, tied a knot, and tied it to the iron fence. With my hands free, I leaned over to peer inside. The result was quite satisfying: the column was two meters and a half long. At the very tip was the plastic dagger, and the rest was the 108 cardboard boxes. The distance between the bed and the window, the thickness and number of the boxes, and the placement of the string outside the window were all calculated in advance. The blade of the dagger rested perfectly on the pillow at the head of the bed.
"That should be self-explanatory," I explained. "This is the real, complete murder weapon. Although the dagger is pressed against the pillow, if someone was lying there, it would be pressed against the neck."
Yang Chunhui was still in shock, his gaze fixed on the dagger on the pillow, as if he didn't know what to do. But this didn't stop me from explaining the killer's next move. "Because of the high-elasticity fishing line used, the weapon was able to move forward and backward."
I poked my index finger into the gap in the iron fence and pushed against the cardboard box at the end, causing the blade to advance a few centimeters. As soon as I pulled my hand away, the knife retracted.
"If he could move those few centimeters back and forth, coupled with the weight of the cardboard box, the blade would have been able to press against the neck and sever the aorta. Of course, due to the angle, it might have taken a few tries. But that's okay, it creates what's known as a 'hesitation wound.' This term refers to the scars inflicted by repeated tentative stabbings or cuts due to psychological factors like pain, hesitation, and fear. It's a crucial basis for forensic doctors to infer suicide."
I pulled a pair of scissors from my pocket and snipped off two of the four ends of the fishing line. The line, stretched to near its limit, instantly snapped back, sending the cardboard box scattering, most landing on the floor, a few on the bed and desk. It was impossible to tell they were originally strung together.
The dagger also bounced and fell to the wall.
"I used a plastic dagger instead of a real knife, so the effect would be slightly different from the real thing. The metal boning knife is heavier and less likely to be deflected, so it would land neatly next to the corpse's hand, creating a perfect fictional suicide scene. The killer's final action was to untie the two cut ends of the thread and pull the two intact ends out the window, taking them away together. This way, no one would be able to associate the murder weapon with it."
"But there was no cardboard box at the scene..." Before he finished speaking, he looked at the place where the cardboard boxes were scattered and said "Oh".
"Yes, just as you understand. These cardboard boxes are replacements for videotapes. Blu-ray discs are almost obsolete these days, and I really can't buy any videotapes, even just one," I explained. "It's a shame that it's difficult to perfectly reconstruct the scene. After all, the videotapes are the essence of the murderer's method. The murderer selected over a hundred videotapes, strung together with thread like I did beforehand, and mixed them with other videotapes. These videotapes were stored in the room before the crime. After all, the police didn't suspect the holes and punctures on a few of the tapes. After all, there are over a thousand tapes in total, and they're not in good condition, so it's normal for some to be damaged."
Yang Chunhui finally came back to his senses from his shock, shaking his head repeatedly with an expression of disbelief.
"Your hypothesis is quite weak and naive. To call it bold is an understatement; it's more like a fantasy. According to you, the videotape and knife were hidden in the house in advance, and the line was also taped to the wall. But Li Xueqiang's actions after returning to the house were unpredictable and uncontrollable by the murderer. What if he suddenly wanted to pull out a videotape and happened to pull out the one strung on the fishing line? Wouldn't that expose his murderous plan?"
"This method wouldn't work for murdering anyone else, but it was perfect for Li Xueqiang. After all, he wouldn't go home until he was completely drunk. That night, he returned to his room and locked the door by muscle memory, not caring about the details of the room. When I saw the scene the next day, the body was still wearing its coat, indicating that he had indeed been quite drunk the night before."
Yang Chunhui looked at me with pity, as if I were an idiot. "It's speculation again. I seriously doubt your current mental state. You have absolutely no evidence to support your hypothesis."
"No, there is evidence."
I recounted the experiences of Zheng Kun and his son, and Besie's last words, and he grew impatient mid-sentence, wanting to interrupt me several times, but ultimately restrained himself.
"It's an interesting story, directly related to a popular case, and could be the basis for an in-depth report. I want to thank you for that." His tone was filled with undisguised anxiety. "But I really don't see any evidence in the story that could lead to a conviction."
"That means you weren't listening carefully enough. Did you notice this detail? When Beazi observed the scene from the window on the night of the crime, he didn't see the videotapes scattered all over the floor. Instead, they were neatly piled against the wall. This is completely inconsistent with the final scene."
"He knocked over the videotape pile when he opened the window."
"He only opened the window. At most, he would have knocked over the videotapes on the desk. Why did all the videotapes end up scattered throughout the room? Besides, the situation was tense at the time. Beguiled's movement in opening the window certainly wasn't large. How could he have knocked the videotapes so far, landing on the bed and onto Li Xueqiang?"
"What's so strange about that?" He sneered disdainfully. "Li Xueqiang was probably still alive when Beasley arrived at the scene. He was probably lying in bed, mulling over whether to commit suicide. The videotape must have been kicked over and messed up when he was trying to commit suicide."
"If you think about it carefully, you know it's impossible. Besie accidentally made a lot of noise at the scene, so he was forced to flee in a hurry. Even the neighbors were awakened and turned on the lights. If Li Xueqiang was still alive and conscious, how could he not turn on the lights to check? He was already paranoid because of his wife's strange death."
"That means Li Xueqiang was too drunk to hear..."
"He was so drunk, and yet he managed to get out of bed and complete his suicide plan that night? You're kidding me. The only explanation for this whole thing is that when Besie left, Li Xueqiang wasn't dead, but simply too drunk to be conscious. Then the murderer arrived and killed Li Xueqiang with a fishing line trap, which caused the videotapes to be scattered so thoroughly. Have you ever wondered why Besie made such a loud noise when he carefully opened the window? It was because the light was too dim, and he didn't notice the transparent fishing line trap tied to the iron fence. The wooden stick just happened to poke the fishing line, pulling down the pile of videotapes on the desk at the end of the fishing line."
Yang Chunhui looked at me, took a deep breath, and seemed about to open his mouth to correct the omission in my words, but stopped himself. He closed the viewfinder of the video recorder and pressed the power button.
"You can reason all you want. I'm too lazy to argue. Your witness has been dead for two years, and the will was relayed by the suspect. It can't be used as evidence at all. It has no legal effect."
I didn't say anything, this point was indeed irrefutable.
"What? You have nothing to say?" He put the camera into his backpack.
"No, there's one thing I haven't mentioned yet: the murderer's true identity. After all, the murderer already had the means to sneak into the bedroom and lay out a plan ahead of time, so why go through with such a complicated trap? The more complex the trap, the more likely it is to go wrong. Wouldn't he have just killed the drunken Li Xueqiang with a single blow and then gotten away with it?" I paused. "There's only one possible reason: he couldn't have done that. So, the murderer's true identity is immediately clear."
"who?"
"Li Tianci."
In the days leading up to Li Xueqiang's murder, Xu Lan had died and Li Zitong had run away, leaving the two of them alone at home. If Li Xueqiang had died inexplicably at home, with no signs of intrusion (Beisi's late-night visit was surely unexpected for Li Tianci), the police would have labeled him the prime suspect, no matter how young he was.
Unless the murder scene can be faked to look like a suicide scene.
Another point is that the timing of Beavis's visit and the murders overlapped almost perfectly, which seemed too much of a coincidence. It's likely that Li Tianci saw through Beavis's intentions during his disguised visit during the day and discovered the fake work ID he left behind. This is why Li Tianci decided to act that night, hoping that if the police discovered the secret room's true identity, he could make Beavis and his son scapegoats once again.
Yang Chunhui was stunned at first, then burst into laughter.
"Do you know how old Li Tianci was at the time? Would anyone believe that a child that young murdered his own father?"
I put my hand on my chin, pretending to be in deep thought. "Yeah, actually, I can't figure it out either. Why do you think he killed people?"
"How would I know?" His tone was calm, but contained a hint of contempt.
I sighed. "We've come this far, and you're still not willing to reveal your true colors? Reporter Yang, no, Mr. Li Tianci."
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