The Devil in the World (16)
Amid the melodious music, Liang Yunfeng suddenly said, "Captain Lu, look, has this window been opened by anyone?"
Lu He looked towards the windowsill and quickly understood what Liang Yunfeng meant. The window bolt was corroded and could not be closed, so the window could be pushed open from the outside.
The window was close to the table, and the items on the table had traces of sliding when the window was pushed open. If someone entered and left through the window, he would not have been able to organize the items, so this showed that someone had entered and left. Since the door was locked, he could only enter and exit through the window.
Lu He walked forward and opened the window, and a breeze blew in from outside. Outside the window was the corridor between the rooms. This was a five-story house, and every window had a short brim. It would not be impossible for someone to climb up.
Liang Yunfeng was good at noticing details, so Lu He immediately said, "Yunfeng, very good. Take another look to see if there are any signs of rummaging in the room."
He expected someone to come here to look for something, but in order to avoid police suspicion, he would definitely restore the room. Sure enough, after a thorough investigation, he found no trace.
In the evening, Lu He returned to his residence. He had his own tape recorder, so he listened to the tape several times to confirm what state Ruan Mengying was in when she said this.
Lu He is a very serious person. He sympathizes with the victims' experiences, which causes him to have emotional fluctuations. Therefore, he sometimes looks naturally sad, with a hint of melancholy hidden in his brows.
But at the same time, he will try to be professional and look at everything as a bystander. This is the quality of criminal investigation work. Therefore, he sometimes looks extremely cold, even icy, and his eyes often have the emotionless and cold temperament of a judge.
He listened to the tape repeatedly to confirm whether Ruan Mengying really committed suicide, and whether the tape was fabricated. The pauses, intensity, speed, and rhythm of the victim's voice could give him information. After listening to it five or six times, he was basically sure that this recording was a voluntary operation by Ruan Mengying without coercion.
In other words, it can be basically confirmed that Ruan Mengying committed suicide, but precisely because of her death, the devil she mentioned became even more confusing.
Ruan Mengying didn't know who the devil was, nor did she know where she was during that long year. She also didn't convey more useful information to Li Muxiao. The only clue Lu He remembered was a man wearing a white mask.
The white mask did not provide more details, which undoubtedly made it difficult to identify the suspect.
But Lu He never gives up and devotes himself to every case, even when any clues are extremely confusing.
He unlocked the lock, opened the drawer, and took out the photo that Ruan Mengying had given him again. Lu He did not hand over this piece of evidence to the Physical Evidence Identification Center because he felt that the time was not yet ripe, mainly because the photo of the victim was too sensitive.
Even if he opened the photo again, he would still feel uneasy. This was a photo of a young girl who had been abused, and it would make people look at it with emotion no matter what. But Lu He had to be extremely calm and abandon all emotions, otherwise the details in the photo would be missed.
At this moment, under the stage light, Lu He's bony fingers placed five photos neatly on the table one by one.
After arranging them, he put his hands on the table, looked at each photo closely with a sharp gaze.
The photos all show naked girls sitting on the ground with their backs against the wall and their thighs stretched out. Lu He discovered that there were differences: the angle of the girls' thighs had changed, and the angle of the girls' heads against the wall had also changed.
He discovered that in the photo where her thighs were spread wider, her head was positioned more upright, as if the photographer had adjusted the girl's sitting position, such as spreading her thighs apart and straightening her head.
The perspective of the photos also changes slightly, such as straight on, left and right, slightly closer, slightly farther away. The photographer seems to be enjoying the shooting process.
After the girl was abused, the photographer continued to enjoy the pleasure after the abuse by recording it. Does this mean that he has a perverted mentality?
This is not like the common antisocial personality. His conditions should be very superior, at least psychologically. He has a strong indifference and hostility towards women. Perhaps he was discriminated against and abused by women in the environment where he grew up.
There is one more important point that cannot be ignored. This photo was left by the devil for Ruan Mengying.
Li Muxiao's testimony said that Ruan Mengying woke up one day and found herself sleeping on a bed in a small hotel. She was naked and these photos were placed on the bed.
Ruan Mengying didn't know when and by whom she was thrown into the bed of the inn in this way. Later, she asked the front desk of the inn and was told that the room she was staying in was registered in the name of "Ruan Mengying" a few days ago, but the front desk didn't remember who registered the room.
In other words, someone booked a hotel room in Ruan Mengying's name in advance and paid for at least five days. Later, someone carried Ruan Mengying into the room, took away her clothes, and left her photos.
This is the scene of Ruan Mengying's "escape" after being under house arrest for a year. She did not really escape, but was "abandoned".
Lu He didn't know why the White-Faced Devil abandoned her and put her nude photos next to her. Was the nude photos a warning to her? A warning that she had already been freed, so she shouldn't choose to call the police?
Obviously, the beating of Ruan Mengying's younger brother Sun Mengshu was a warning to Ruan Mengying, but that was probably not the first time. The photo might have been the first warning.
The White-Faced Devil let her go, and then used photos and the beating of her brother to warn her. This reminded him of the phrase "playing hard to get". The White-Faced Devil was like playing a game. If Ruan Mengying was his prey, then he imprisoned her and then let the prey go. In this "hunting" game, he constantly made the prey feel fear.
Ruan Mengying undoubtedly lived in pain and despair, so she made the cruel decision to cut herself into pieces. Only when despair reaches the point of suffocation will people make such a cruel decision to themselves.
Lu He looked at the photos and tried to profile the psychology of the suspect and the victim, and the criminal psychology of this "hunting" game, because he knew that the only bond that kept the suspect and the victim closest to each other was the photo.
This set of photos means that the suspect and the victim were once in the same space, and the camera recorded the status of the two. Although the suspect did not show his face, the details when he took the photos will make people think about what kind of person he is.
He is young, rich, eccentric and a bit of a psychopath. He takes abusing women as a form of fun and enjoys the process. He treats his "work" with aloofness. He knows that the women do him no harm, so he appears to be laughing maniacally while filming, and the pleasure in his body swells rapidly. He thinks it might be more exciting to let the women go.
Lu He tried to put himself in that kind of mentality. In order to make a more accurate psychological profile, he had to take the risk to do such a thing. Even though it was dangerous and might backfire on himself, Lu He had to take the risk.
His forehead was covered with tiny beads of sweat, the whites of his eyes were dilating, and he gradually entered a state of meditation.
However, his eyes were still bright, and before he completely entered into meditation, he noticed a detail: Ruan Mengying was wearing makeup, and it was red makeup. It was only because her hair was messy and the light in the photo was dim that Lu He did not notice it at first.
When he noticed this detail, his eyes involuntarily looked at her sensitive parts. He suddenly found that Ruan Mengying's areola and lower body were also painted with red makeup, but the color was very light, as if someone had just casually drawn a few strokes.
Because he had intentionally blocked these parts before, he did not notice these tiny details.
He was suddenly startled, as the red makeup reminded him of the red makeup serial murder case for which no clues had been found yet.
He once thought that the suspect might have put the makeup on the dead victims, but this photo made him realize that the suspect might feel more accomplished if he put makeup on a living person.
Could the suspect in this case be the murderer of the Hongzhuang serial murder case? After Lu He had this realization, he had an impulse to grasp the truth.
His attention was focused again, because in one photo, Ruan Mengying's lipstick was darker, and he realized that the White-Faced Devil had touched up Ruan Mengying's makeup during the filming.
After realizing this, he began to look for more details, and suddenly, behind the heel of one of Ruan Mengying's high-heeled shoes, a small tip of the lipstick was revealed.
After the white-faced devil touched up her makeup, he threw away the lipstick, which fell next to the sole of her high-heeled shoe.
While trying to profile, Lu He's eyes stayed on Ruan Mengying's red lips for a long time. The bright red color was like a signal of danger, and also like blood, foreshadowing death. The whites of his eyes gradually enlarged, and suddenly, he fell into a hallucination.
Lu He found that he had returned to that dream again, a scene that had appeared in his dreams countless times since he was a child.
The place is filled with thick fog, the air is very cold, and it feels like a void all around, with no end in sight.
Every time he sat on the wet ground, he was not an adult crane, but a little boy of six or seven years old. He could not stand up or walk, as if his hands and feet were trapped by something heavy, but he could not find the thing that trapped his hands and feet. So he had to spend a lot of effort to climb a short distance.
Every time at this time, a hideous demon would emerge from the mist.
Lu He had seen his face before, with purple-red veins crisscrossing across it, like countless leeches bursting with blood crawling all over his face.
Each time, he held a long scalpel in his hand, at least twice as long as a doctor's scalpel and extremely sharp. He slowly leaned over and slashed the scalpel into a woman's face.
Right in front of the devil, there was a table the size of an operating table, and a woman was lying on it, seemingly sleeping soundly.
Every time, the devil used a scalpel to cut the woman's face and body wantonly, and he seemed to enjoy the process of cutting her skin.
Occasionally he would bring a blood-soaked scalpel to his mouth and lick the fresh blood off the blade with his tongue.
After licking it, it would smile, with its teeth bared, and the space between its teeth would be filled with dark black dirt, like sin precipitated in blood.
Each time, the woman looked different, but each time her cheeks and body were covered in blood.
The devil stopped and he raised his head with satisfaction, but a vicious look came towards him.
Lu He once again faced his gaze. He had looked into those eyes time and time again. He had wanted to see something in those eyes countless times.
But every time, he saw only evil, bloodthirstiness and greed...
Lu He must find out the truth in his eyes and why he keeps rooting in his heart. He must insist on looking the devil in the eye.
But every time, when the devil came towards him, he would get nervous. The devil walked towards him step by step, the scalpel in his hand was dripping with blood, and there was a ticking sound on the ground!
Sweat dripped down Lu He's forehead, his breathing became extremely rapid, and he even suffocated.
The sound of heavy rain rang in his ears again, the rustling of the rain mixed with the sound of the devil's leather boots stepping on the ground.
The sound of the leather boots was like the beat of a drum that broke my heart.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The devil was already standing in front of Lu He.
He swung the scalpel violently, and the sharp blade slashed across the crane's throat...
"Boom!" A loud thunder sounded!
Lu He woke up from his hallucination. Everything in front of his eyes was pitch black, with only a tiny vertical strip of light. Muffled sounds were in his ears, the sound of rain and thunder. He knew it was raining heavily again.
He once again appeared in the closet in the bedroom. This closet had been with him for many years. He wanted to throw it away, but he couldn't bear to.
On every night of violent storms, thunder and lightning, he would have hallucinations in his sleep, and the hallucinations would take him to a new "world".
Every time he wakes up, he appears in this closet.
It was very quiet here, like an isolated and empty world, cut off from the rest of the world. He was the only one there, and he didn't know whether he was escaping from the devil or from the fear in his heart.
Lu He knew that if he couldn't see through the devil's eyes, he would be trapped in this closet forever.
He pushed open the cabinet door and found that the window was not closed and rain was pouring in. He quickly got up and tried to grab the photo on the table.
A few drops of rain were on the five photos. Lu He quickly closed the window, found a clean towel, and gently wiped the photos with the soft side to wipe off the water droplets on Ruan Mengying's "body".
Lu He knew that if he could not see through the devil's eyes, he would never be able to profile the criminal's true heart in the most perfect way. His heart was like being separated by a barrier. As long as he explored the edge of the murderer's heart, he would fall into the illusion that the devil had trapped him.
He wiped it gently with a towel, fearing that the photo would get damp again, and he would be unworthy of Ruan Mengying's entrustment. After being invaded by the devil, his hands still trembled slightly, as if they were out of control.
He insisted on wiping off the water droplets on the photo. Suddenly, he remembered something. It was with this towel that he wiped Meng Siqi's wet hair and feet last time. He later realized that Meng Siqi should have been on guard against him at that time. He was indeed a little anxious. He thought he would never be so reckless next time.
Thinking of this incident gave him an illusion that his inner uneasiness was disappearing and he became calm, as if thinking of Meng Siqi would make him tend to be calm, as if she was an energy switch that could control his emotions and alleviate the lingering fear in his heart after being trapped by the devil.
Lu He gradually calmed down, and the image of Meng Siqi appeared in his mind, with that simple and fair face, bright and pure eyes, and always with a pleasant smile.
The soft towel in his hand was tightly held by his slender fingers, as if the scent of Meng Siqi was still lingering on it.
Lu He had never been so calm before, with a slight curve at the corners of his mouth. He felt that Meng Siqi might be the person who could help him out of his predicament when he was most confused.
At this moment, his eyes had never been so calm on a photo, and every detail in the photo was revealed like a pore.
He accidentally discovered a detail that might lead to key evidence. He quickly picked up five photos and checked them over and over again. It seemed as if his eyes penetrated the details and saw through the truth.
He quickly wrapped up the photos, grabbed an umbrella, and rushed into the rainy night.