Artistic reproduction.
When a serial killer replicates famous crime scenes in the name of "art," the only one who can see through the truth is the chief medical examiner who has personally dissected all the original cases.
In the conference room of the Municipal Public Security Bureau's Criminal Investigation Team, the air conditioner hummed, and tiny dust particles floated in the beam of light from the projector.
Yu Yan pounded on the table in frustration: "Two corpses in three days, what kind of performance art is the killer playing?"
The door was suddenly pushed open, and a short-haired woman strode in, three silver earrings in her right ear gleaming in the light. She casually tossed a stack of documents onto the table, her voice crisp and decisive:
"It's not performance art, it's a perfect replica."
All the police officers in the room looked up in unison.
"Li Weimian, Special Consultant in Criminal Psychology." She put one hand in her pocket and tapped the tablet with the other.
"The first victim—with a cruciate lumbar incision and the order of organ removal—is exactly the same as the fifth victim of Jack the Ripper in 1888; the second victim—the angle of limb cutting and the method of skin removal—perfectly replicate the Black Dahlia murder of 1947."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over everyone before finally settling on Fan Jinci: "The murderer didn't just randomly imitate; he was paying homage to someone who had seen the original autopsy report."
The meeting room was deathly silent.
Fan Jinci sat in the corner, his gray-blue eyes slightly narrowed. He twirled a scalpel in his hand, the tip drawing a cold arc between his fingers.
"How do you know these details?" Yu Yan narrowed his eyes. "Some of the information is classified."
Li Weimian smiled: "Because I've read forensic expert Fan's 'Comparative Analysis of Transnational Serial Murder Cases'—page 217, where the error rate for the organ removal order in the Jack the Ripper case is only 0.3%."
Fan Jinci finally looked up: "You stole the files?"
"No, I applied for academic access." She tilted her head. "By the way, I cited the conclusions of your paper from three years ago, 'Traumatic Memory and Criminal Behavior,' in my doctoral dissertation."
Yu Yan's brush snapped with a "crack".
—This woman knows more about Fan Jinci than he, the official captain, does.
In the abandoned church in the south of the city, fragments of stained glass windows are scattered all over the ground.
The body was nailed to a cross, arms outstretched, skin covered with countless Latin prayers. But most striking was the deceased's slightly open right hand—in the palm lay a fragmented specimen of a blue morpho butterfly, its wings broken, yet the stitches were exquisitely precise.
"Another copy?" Jiang Zhaoyan frowned. "What kind of case is this?"
“It’s not a historical mystery,” Li Weimian said, crouching down. “This is a custom-made item.”
Fan Jinci put on gloves and gently picked up the butterfly specimen. Under the magnifying glass, there were fine chemical burn marks on the edges of the butterfly wings.
"The murderer was trying some kind of preservation technique..." He suddenly stopped, turning the specimen over—below the tip of the needle, were tiny numbers: M-09.
Li Weimian suddenly looked up: "Dr. Fan, the scar on your wrist..."
Yu Yan grabbed Fan Jinci's left hand, and the sleeve slipped down, revealing the old, butterfly-shaped scars.
The entire room fell silent.
"It's not a coincidence." Li Weimian's voice tightened. "The killer was marking the bodies—where are the first eight bodies?"
Late at night, at the forensic center.
Fan Jinci was checking the evidence alone when suddenly, with a "pop," the power went out.
The moment the emergency light came on, an envelope appeared on the dissection table. Inside was an old photograph: a military medical university laboratory, where a young Fan Jinci stood in a corner with electrodes attached to his wrists, while Zhou Lin in the center of the picture smiled and held up a syringe.
The words written in blood on the back of the photo are:
You can't save them, just like you can't save yourself.
The scalpel slammed into the table with a clang. For the first time, Fan Jinci's breathing became erratic.
The door was suddenly kicked open, and Yu Yan rushed in, gun raised: "Someone has hacked the surveillance system—"
His words stuck in his throat.
Under the moonlight, a smudged bloodstain, as if cut by the edge of a photograph, marked Fan Jinci's pale face. His right hand was pressed tightly against a scar on his left wrist, his knuckles turning blue.
Yu Yan had never seen such a magnificent landscape before—it was as if a crack had opened in a glacier, revealing the scorching magma beneath.
"...Get out." Fan Jinci's voice was hoarse.
Instead, Yu Yan strode forward and pulled him into his arms: "Impossible."
The scalpel was immediately pressed against his throat, but this time, Yu Yan did not let go.
"The killer has his eye on you." He lowered his head under the blade, his forehead pressed against Fan Jinci's. "You can only make me let go if you dissect my heart."
The tip of the knife trembled.
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