When A Snail Falls In Love

Chapter 58.1

While calling Ji Bai, Xu Xu had already caught a cab and reached the station. The sky was dim, the air was clear, and her entire body felt as if it were enveloped in sombre coolness. She walked up the station staircase step by step, and caught sight of Ji Bai at the top, holding his phone.

"Let's talk inside." Ji Bai considered her frail yet energetic figure and felt a sudden ache. He grabbed her in an embrace.

Currently, Lin City's entire force of criminal investigators and police officers was out on patrol, and on high alert. When Ji Bai returned to the office, he would have to give the evening progress report to the department head, who was even now at home catching up on sleep. The criminal investigators' big office was empty. Ji Bai pulled Xu Xu by the hand to the sofa, and poured her a glass of warm water. Holding her hand, he said: "Tell me."

Where solving cases was concerned, Xu Xu was nowhere close to Ji Bai's wealth of experience. In particular, with regards to the most crucial aspect of a case – examining the crime scene – whether it was in terms of astuteness of observation, or logic, Ji Bai was better than she was by far. However, in this current case, there were very few traces left behind at the crime scene. Moreover, the killer seemed to have committed the crime randomly. In such a situation, the standard methods of criminal investigation would not be effective. On the other hand, Xu Xu's knowledge and use of psychological reasoning would be unaffected and unfettered.

Xu Xu said slowly: "These few days, I've been trying to imagine myself as an abnormal killer, to try to figure out his psychology, and I've come up with some penetrating ideas..."

After she had spoken, Ji Bai could not help lifting his eyes to look at her face, then subconsciously dropped them to glance at her belly. She did not notice, but took up pen and paper, and quickly jotted down her thoughts as she spoke.

"Firstly, in the past three months, the killer's body must have undergone a major, unforeseen change.

This is because we have looked through the cases of the past several years, and no one with a similar profile has gone missing. This proves that Bai AnAn is the killer's first victim.

People always have a reason for their choices. Even if there are no clearly expressed reasons, there will be subconscious ones. If the killer chose to start committing crimes at this time, it must be because something has changed in his life situation.

There are many possibilities for this change: love, health, career, accident... no matter what it is, we can discover the answer from his behaviour and actions."

Ji Bai silently nodded, and Xu Xu continued: "We had previously concluded that the killer had a strong desire to establish an intimate relationship with the victim. But, why does he like the victims who fit this profile?

If one craves something, it must be because one lacks something. What did both victims have that would attract him so intensely?

Beauty and youth? Because the killer feels inferior as he is ageing and ugly? No. If these were the reasons, he could have selected easier victims, such as even younger students. Relatively speaking, they would be easier to lure than white-collar workers.

The victims have two even more outstanding distinguishing features: Firstly, they had just graduated or were close to graduation, had excellent qualifications, a promising future, a wonderful career and life that had just started. Their being on the cusp of life is clearly evident. Secondly, take a look..."

Xu Xu spread out the pictures of the victims from the case file: "Don't you feel that they look more dynamic and vibrant than most other people?"

Ji Bai trained his glance on the pictures, and saw that the girls' expressions were tender and charming, their smiles as beautiful as flowers, their every captured movement seemed to resonate with vitality, so much so that their vitality of life virtually leaped off the paper.

Xu Xu looked at him: "Thus, I believe these two possibilities are highly probable: First, the killer has recently suffered a major setback in an undertaking; second, the killer's health has been threatened by a foul disease, it may be terminal, or very difficult to cure, which is why he is highly attracted by this kind of 'vitality'.

Whatever the case, the significance and symbolism of the killer's choice is manifestly obvious. He hopes that his own life could be like theirs, he wants to overturn his life and start afresh.

Additionally, as a psychopath, his method of fulfilling his hope, is to prey on their bodies and life. He is already addicted (to this method)."

Ji Bai remained silent for a moment, before replying: "Continue."

Xu Xu nodded: "Next, the 'Angel Killer' case back then was not made public on the mainland. According to Senior Brother Sun Qinglin, photographs were shared only on a few mainstream BBS forums. After they were uploaded at midnight, they were all deleted within the space of a few hours, and there were no further transmissions. Therefore, not many people could have known about the case. For the killer to be so familiar with the case, there can only be two possibilities: One, he has work or life history in Hong Kong; two, he was active on Internet forums that year, and this type of people tend to be university students, or young white-collar workers.

Thirdly, the location of the corpses shows clearly that the killer is very familiar with the forest region. In these past few months, he must have frequently gone in and out of the forest. Although there are no CCTV cameras monitoring the roads inside the forest, the roads from Lin City to the forest region are all monitored. We can sift through the Transport Department's videos, and conduct a statistical analysis.

Fourthly, as you've mentioned previously, the killer must have a house in a secluded area, and his work hours must be flexible so that he is able to follow his victims. This would be one of the filters in our investigation."

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It was a crisp autumn morning, and the office was warm and quiet. After hearing what Xu Xu had to say, Ji Bai did not immediately voice his opinion, but ruminated silently for a while, before replying: "Your conclusions are all speculative, without supporting evidence. Moreover, some of the factors you've suggested are impossible to investigate. Others, even if we could run a search according to them, there would be a large number of people meeting the conditions. We can only run this as a supplementary investigation... I'll only be able to assign you, at most, two criminal investigators."