The End of the Night (13)

October 23, 2024.

Zhao Lei Ting saw Meng Siqi sink into the river with his own eyes. He was heartbroken and arranged a rescue team to salvage and search the river basin under the Sujiang lighthouse overnight, but to no avail.

Zhao Lei Ting did not sleep all night. He returned to the office early the next morning and picked up the letter again. He began to believe what Meng Siqi said about returning to thirty years ago for the fifth time. The little Meng Siqi, Yu Ting and Lu He in the parallel world were not dead.

In this letter, Meng Siqi revealed the truth about the Hong Zhuang serial murder case. Only then did he understand why Meng Siqi had to take a vacation for the last period of time, because she went alone to investigate.

Meng Siqi said that Xu Yizhou was the last victim in the Hongzhuang serial murder case and the granddaughter of Xu Wangtu. The third victim in the Hongqi serial murder case was Xie Wenjuan. Both of them were related to Xu Wangtu, which made her suspect that the identity of the murderer might be closely related to Xu Wangtu.

Fifty-four years ago, in 1970, the first victim of the Red Paint Case was Xin Yameng, a female worker in a paint factory. It was precisely because of her occupation related to the Red Paint Case and the particularity of the first case of the serial case that all investigations that year tended to focus on Xin Yameng.

After Xin Yameng was killed, Bao Xue, a doctor at the health center, Xie Wenjuan, a Chinese teacher at the primary school, and Qiao Jingyun, Lu He's mother, were killed one after another.

However, Meng Siqi believes that Xin Yameng may simply be a cover for the murderer. The murderer and Xin Yameng have no connection at all, which is why the police have not found any useful clues in the past 54 years. What if the murderer made the smoke bomb to confuse the police?

Perhaps he was a master of psychology. He randomly chose the first victim, and the victim was related to the element of red paint. This undoubtedly made the serial murder case confusing. Even if the subsequent three cases might be related to the murderer, it also reduced the police's suspicion.

In 1993 and 1994, the Red Makeup Case, similar to the Red Lacquer Case, occurred. Du Lianxi, Yin Mo, Tan Xiaoshuang, and Zhao Yuting were murdered one after another. The fifth case occurred in 2004, and the victim was Xu Yizhou.

The Red Lacquer Case of 1970 and the Red Makeup Case of 2004 began to overlap, that is, Xie Wenjuan and Xu Yizhou.

Xie Wenjuan is Xu Wangtu's wife, and Xu Zhouyi is Xu Wangtu's granddaughter, so Xu Wangtu must have an inseparable connection with the murderer.

She once speculated that the murderer of the Red Makeup Case might have been a child during the Red Lacquer Case period. Because the child had seen the modus operandi of the Red Lacquer Case, he copied the modus operandi of the Red Makeup Case 24 years later.

Assuming that the murderer of the Hongzhuang case in 1970 was a child, he knew Xu Wangtu and Xie Wenjuan, so he was most likely Xie Wenjuan's student.

And he is most likely Jiang Sheng's classmate. They are both first-year students of Xie Wenjuan at Hope Elementary School.

Jiang Sheng once said that Xu Wangtu had a tendency to molest children when he was young. He may not have seen it with his own eyes, but he must have heard it with his own ears.

Therefore, the murderer of the childhood makeup case was probably also molested and sexually assaulted by Xu Wangtu. And Jiang Sheng might also know something about this.

This was a bold assumption made by Meng Siqi based on all the clues, because she always remembered her master's words, "Make bold guesses and verify carefully."

The murderer of the Childhood Makeup Case was probably only six years old at the time. It was impossible for him to resist, let alone kill Xie Wenjuan. So there was only one possibility: the murderer's close relatives carried out extrajudicial sanctions, and he killed Xie Wenjuan to seek justice for his son or daughter.

This is the third case of the Red Lacquer Case. As for the first case, the death of Xin Yameng, it may have been a random killing to create a "gimmick". The subsequent deaths of health hospital doctor Bao Xue and Lu He's mother Qiao Jingyun may be related. Their relationship may be that they knew the secret that the murderer of the childhood Red Lacquer Case was molested and sexually assaulted, so they all became victims of the Red Lacquer Case.

As for why the real culprit Xu Wangtu did not die at the time, it is possible that the murderer thought that punishing Xu Wangtu would be more satisfying than killing him directly. This also explains why Xu Wangtu's granddaughter Xu Yizhou was punished in the same way, and then Xu Wangtu committed suicide by taking poison and wrote a suicide note confessing his crime.

The murderer of the Childhood Red Makeup Case must have witnessed the death of Xie Wenjuan. The red paint pattern on Xie Wenjuan's body must have been fresh in his memory. Therefore, 24 years later, he killed five girls in the same way.

As for why these five girls were killed, apart from Xu Yizhou who could be explained, the other four were most likely random killings by the murderer.

After all the mysteries were solved, Meng Siqi naturally knew where to direct his investigation.

Xie Wenjuan took a photo with her students around 1970. Meng Siqi found that photo in the archives. One was a standard photo of teachers and students, and the other was a classroom photo. The students' names were on the back of the photos.

Jiang Sheng was one of them. His name at that time was He Tiansheng. It is not difficult to explain his name because he did not return to the Jiang family at that time and took his mother's surname.

And the other one must be the murderer in the Red Makeup Case. Who is it? Meng Siqi did not find a name that she thought might be familiar.

This incident puzzled her for a long time. On that day, when the memorial service was held at Lu He’s cemetery, many of Lu He’s former friends came to pay their respects. Among them was one person, Liang Ran.

Liang Ran is Lu He's sister, not a biological sibling. That day, Liang Ran attended Lu He's funeral wearing a black cheongsam and sunglasses.

Liang Ran had a tragic life story. Her husband Shen Xiangming died while handling a case, her daughter Shen Lele committed suicide by jumping off a building at school, and she also suffered from mental illness and was hospitalized for treatment.

Meng Siqi felt very sorry for her situation, but that day, when Liang Ran was about to leave the cemetery, she walked gracefully onto the stone path, casually took out a lipstick, and lightly smeared it on her lips. The end of the lipstick was hung with a string of small shell ornaments, and the shells were inlaid with crystal clear diamonds...

Liang Ran walked up to her and Zhao Leiting, and Meng Siqi comforted her sadly: "Sister Liang Ran, don't be sad." She wanted to encourage her because Liang Ran had almost no relatives around her.

Liang Ran also smiled calmly: "Thank you for thinking of me. I haven't seen you for many years. You haven't changed much."

In fact, how could she not have changed? She was old, but Liang Ran was also comforting her. Liang Ran in front of her was wearing sunglasses, so her age could not be seen. Also, because she was wearing sunglasses, it showed that she was very sad and did not want others to see her sadness. But no matter her appearance or face, she was beautiful. Even though she was old, she was still exquisite and beautiful.

Liang Ran didn't say much, and said he was leaving. At that moment, Meng Siqi saw the string of small shell ornaments at the end of her lipstick. It was not a shell at all, but a human nail, which was carefully trimmed and polished by Liang Ran.

Perhaps many people would think that it is a shell or ordinary nail simulation jewelry because it is too rounded and beautifully decorated, and because it is coated with pearl white glue and embellished with pearls and diamonds, it looks extremely precious.

But in Meng Siqi's mind, nails left too deep an impression on her. She pays attention to lipstick and nails in her life almost all the time, as if that is her obsession.

She was almost certain that they were nails. There were five of them in total, and the patterns on each nail were very neat and beautiful.

Her mind was filled with endless shock, like a point that blew up all the clues she had been pursuing for many years and then connected them together again.

She seemed to have found the real suspect in the Red Makeup Case, because the biggest characteristic of the Red Makeup Case was that the nail on the index finger of the female victim's left hand was pulled out, but there was no nail fragment left at the scene, which meant that it was taken away by the murderer.

The five shell ornaments correspond exactly to the five index finger nails of the five dead persons.

But maybe Liang Ran's nails are fake? Is it just a coincidence? Meng Siqi is full of doubts and shock. She must investigate Liang Ran as soon as possible.

Logically, she should report her findings to Zhao Leiting, but Liang Ran's identity was too sensitive, even Meng Siqi herself could not accept it. She was emotionally traumatized when she left the cemetery that day, because if Liang Ran was the murderer, then Lu He must have been in great pain before his death. She did not dare to hand over the inconclusive inference to the police, so she planned to conduct a private investigation.

After returning to the police station, she went back to the archives again and found the photo of Hope Elementary School. She had always targeted boys before, but this time she targeted several girls. By chance, she found a teardrop mole on the face of one of the very beautiful girls. The photo was too old, but it was well preserved. Because it was a black and white photo, the teardrop mole looked like a fuzzy dot. If you didn't look carefully, you would think it was a problem with the photo pixels.

She clearly remembered that she had seen Liang Ran once without sunglasses, and she also had the same tear mole.

This couldn't be a coincidence, she turned the photo to the back and found that her name was Leung Lok-sum.

Le, Lele, Shen Lele, all have the word "Le" in their names. She seemed to have found the shadow of the murderer. At that moment, Meng Siqi's eyes were filled with tears. She must investigate Liang Ran in more depth.

In order to investigate Jiang Sheng, Lu He traced back all the students in this grade. Next to the photo was a report of Lu He's investigation, which stated where each student went when they grew up.

For example, Jiang Sheng's information, when he was a child, he was called He Tiansheng, from a single-parent family, his mother was He Man, and Jiang Sheng's information was lost after he was adopted. Because of the special reasons of that era, many students' information was lost, and it was very difficult to check.

Lu He also investigated Liang Lexin, who transferred to another school at the age of six and a half, and her information was later lost. However, in her parents' name column, her name was not Liang Chenghao. It is very likely that Liang Chenghao later used some kind of relationship to modify the information about Liang Lexin's attendance at this elementary school.

The next day she went to the province and found the magazine publisher where Liang Ran once worked. Fortunately, she got an old magazine from 1993 to 1994. She opened it one by one and found all the articles written by Liang Ran.

A huge accident happened. The dates of four reports written by Liang Ran were closely related to the dates of four red makeup cases in Jinyang City. In other words, Liang Ran went to Jinyang City on business four times, and killed four girls in the name of collecting folk songs. Then she returned to the magazine and wrote four reports, and these four reports were all related to Jinyang City, and the contents of all four reports mentioned rainy days.

This proves that Liang Ran was present at all four cases.

Meng Siqi also remembered that when he first met Liang Ran's daughter Shen Lele, Lele said to Lu He, "Uncle He, I actually don't like it here. It always rains here..."

In fact, it was cloudy those days, which means that Shen Lele often stayed in Jinyang on rainy days and was taken care of by someone, which also became a cover for Liang Ran's crime.

All the evidence seemed to point to Liang Ran.

She then visited the cause of death of Liang Ran's daughter Shen Lele. Shen Lele's former college roommate said that Shen Lele had suicidal tendencies before her father's death, and she seemed mentally unhealthy. However, Meng Siqi had seen Shen Lele when she was six years old, and she was very cute. Is it possible that Liang Ran "set up" Shen Lele, and she might also want her daughter to follow her path.

Liang Ran was also six years old in 1970. What exactly did she go through? Perhaps she herself can give the answer. Meng Siqi reasonably suspected that the murderer of the four red paint cases in 1970 was Liang Ran's father Liang Chenghao. Liang Chenghao was a criminal psychologist who assisted in the investigation of the red paint case at the time. Who would have thought that he was the real murderer.

As a psychologist, he must have known how to design a serial murder case, so for the first case, he chose a victim who had nothing to do with him and his daughter, and he helped the police solve the case at the time. He used what he called psychological profiling, which was similar to the "flame theory", to confuse the police.

And flame means burning, the burning of Liangran!

Sadly, Lu He's mother Qiao Jingyun was persecuted by Liang Chenghao, and in the end Liang Chenghao actually adopted Lu He. This is a huge irony. She doesn't know whether Lu He knew all this before he died. She feels very sad for Lu He.

Unfortunately, Liang Chenghao is already dead, so Liang Ran is the only person who "witnessed" the red lacquer case and the red makeup case.

Meng Siqi believes that Liang Ran is not only related to these two cases, she is very likely the mastermind behind the Seattle club. She is the real white-faced man, and Jiang Sheng may just be her pawn.

Liang Ran's father is a well-known figure in the political and legal circles, and her husband is a cadre of the Public Security Department. Liang Ran's background and resources have determined that she is like a fish in water in Haijiang Province. She and Jiang Sheng were classmates when they were young, and the two may still keep in touch after growing up.

Lu He once told her that Shen Lele was not Liang Ran's biological daughter, but was adopted by Liang Ran when she was one year old. After that, Liang Ran and Shen Xiangming did not have any more children. Meng Siqi always likes to doubt and likes to make bold assumptions. Is it possible that Shen Lele and Jiang Sheng have some kind of relationship?

This at least explains why Jiang Sheng never revealed Liang Ran to the police after he was arrested.

Shen Xiangming died while investigating the Seattle club case. It is very likely that he finally found out that Liang Ran was the mastermind, but before he could reveal the truth, he was silenced by Liang Ran.

In order to confirm this speculation, Meng Siqi visited the police station where Shen Lele committed suicide by jumping off the building. Fortunately, he obtained the blood DNA sample left by Shen Lele.

Jiang Sheng was arrested in 2005 for the Seattle club case and executed in 2006. His DNA sample was also preserved.

She quickly went to the relevant agency for a DNA test.

After comparison, the DNA similarity between Jiang Sheng and Shen Lele was as high as 99.9%, which basically confirmed that they were father and daughter. In other words, the child Liang Ran adopted was actually Jiang Sheng's daughter.

This is enough to prove that the relationship between Liang Ran and Jiang Sheng is unusual. Liang Ran is the culprit of the Seattle Club and the real white-faced man.

In addition, Meng Siqi made a speculation about another member of the Bingdi criminal group. She believed it was Lu He's cousin Qiao Shijie. She had met Qiao Shijie once. He had a burn on the back of his right hand, leaving a charred scar. Zhao Yuting's testimony at the time said that the suspect had a scar on his right wrist, which was by no means a coincidence.

Meng Siqi finally said in the letter, Zhao Leiting, you must return Liang Ran's lipstick. She suspected that there was a pair of scissors hidden in Liang Ran's lipstick, which were the scissors used to cut open the victim girl's clothes.

Moreover, the small shell hanging on the end of the lipstick must be the nails of Du Lianxi, Yin Mo, Tan Xiaoshuang, Zhao Yuting and Xu Yizhou. She hopes to conduct DNA testing as soon as possible to bring the murderer to justice.

This is the entire content of Meng Siqi's letter. Zhao Leiting read it all. It has been thirty years, or fifty-four years to be exact. The mystery that has puzzled everyone has finally been solved. He believes Meng Siqi. This is the final answer. Whether it is the motive of the crime, the clues of the crime or the evidence of the crime, they are all very clear.

After reading the letter, he was already in tears. He deeply understood why this case took so long, even decades, to be solved. It was because the following conditions were almost all indispensable.

The first is the completeness of the clues. Thirty years ago, the clues were not complete. Meng Siqi must have remembered every clue from the past fifty-four years, but none of them were the most clear. It was not until Xu Yizhou was murdered in 2004 that the clues began to progress, so Meng Siqi focused the clues on Xu Wangtu.

The second is the limitation of science and technology. Thirty years ago, even if the murderer was inferred to be Liang Ran, he could not be brought to justice because there was no DNA technology to prove that Shen Lele was Jiang Sheng's illegitimate daughter, and there was no DNA technology to prove that the nails belonged to the victim. This is the power brought by scientific and technological progress.

The third is the perseverance of the people's police. Thirty years ago, the murderer would never arrogantly bring the "trophies", the nails of the victims, to public places, but thirty years have passed and the murderer has already relaxed his vigilance. But she would never have thought that in the past thirty years, there is such a person in this world who has lost everything and dedicated her life to the pursuit of the truth.

This is also what Zhao Leiting admires most about Meng Siqi in his life. From the day he met her, he was proud of her. For the past thirty years, Siqi has been his guiding light.

Zhao Leiting immediately rushed to the police car with the letter. He wanted to go to the provincial department in person, explain everything to Liang Yunfeng, and arrest Liang Ran who lived in the province together.

That afternoon, the provincial department dispatched more than a dozen police cars, sirens blaring in the sky of Haijiang Province, and they all rushed to Liang Ran's residence.

Police cars quickly surrounded the villa. Liang Ran, wearing an elegant cheongsam, was watering the flowers in the garden in front of the door. The flowers in the garden were taken care of by her very delicately. Every flower seemed to be carefully designed by her. The flowers were of the same size and color, because she pinched the ones that did not grow well.

However, when the sirens sounded outside the garden, Liang Ran slowly raised her head, her eyebrows furrowed, and her wrinkles gradually became sharper.

The spoon in her hand fell to the ground. She had spent her entire life scheming and scheming, but she would never have thought that she would still not be able to escape the punishment of the law even in her old age!