My Dearest General: It Has Always Been You

Chapter 31 - Inexperienced Butcher

Tang Wei raised his hands like an honor student, full of learning enthusiasm. "Me, me!"

"Yes, comrade Tang." Ru Meiqi nodded.

"How do you guess that he's 20-25 years old with height of 1.7 to 1.8 meters?"

"It's simple," she elaborated. "It is the average height of adult male teenagers. The victims were all around eighteen to twenty two years old and from the twelve deceased, ten were women. We have no surveillance record of the kidnapping, which means that he lured the victims to a place without CCTV. For women, what are the traits that will make them lower their guard? It is precisely someone like you." She pointed at Wang Chengbing, making the poor boy's soul almost fly out of his body.

"M—M—Me??!" He pointed at his own nose in disbelief.

"Of course. I am not saying that it's you. It's someone like you but weighs fifty kilograms lighter. Someone harmless, a man at their age, preferably good looking, so when he asked a simple question like, "May I ask you out for a cup of coffee?" The women would have no resistance and agreed."

Wang Chengbing didn't know whether he should be flattered or offended. He could only look on blankly as Xu Binchen pushed his water bottle to his hands which he downed in large gulps like wine.

"But what about the men?"

"Men. It's far simpler. Some questions like, "Sorry, I have a stomachache, can you please tell me where the nearest public bathroom is?" or "My car's tire is stuck. Can you please help me out a bit? I will pay you generously." Men have lower guards toward their own gender and such a simple request is easy to follow. Of course, it wasn't impossible for the suspect to have another partner, if so, there is an 80% possibility of it being a female but for now, we will eliminate that possibility and focus on the suspect. He only needs to have them follow him and voila, he can lure them into a deserted place and knock them out."

The criminal investigators got chills running down their spine. It wasn't uncommon for them to meet some people who seek help like this along the streets. But never did they expect that it could be used to conduct crime.

"T—Then, how can you guess that he's the local resident of City S?"

Ru Meiqi's face turned grave and solemn. "It's from the first crime."

"The first crime?" The detective thought a bit and found that indeed, the first crime happened in City S. "But what about it?"

Ru Meiqi pressed on the navigator and the slide on the screen changed to photos of body parts—to be exact, legs—that belonged to the victims. Below it, there were names and months of the time they were found, arranged by sequence.

"Look at these legs. What can you see?"

Ru Meiqi's questions stumped everyone. What could they see from the victims' legs? It was…just legs and blood, okay?!

She turned toward the detectives and scanned their faces one by one, but because her eyes always remained unfocused, it looked like she was daydreaming instead. "I see his pleasure brought by killing, his thoughts and his motives. I can even imagine how he cut them off, limbs by limbs, it was just like a gentleman who holds a dining knife and uses it to slice his steak slowly, precisely…"

Jin Renguang cleared his throat. "Miss Ru."

Ru Meiqi snapped out of her reverie. "I'm sorry. I am quite taken in by my imaginations."

Holy—!

Imagining how the criminal cut people's flesh just like how he cut steak gave them goosebumps! So scary! To be honest, Ru Meiqi gave off the feeling of a weak rabbit in need of protection from the first impression but now no one could ever associate her with rabbits ever again.

What rabbit? This was clearly a wolf okay?!

"Let's continue." Jin Renguang led the topic back. "Can you elaborate on your thoughts, please?"

Ru Meiqi gave him a perplexed glance but didn't point out his strange politeness and continued instead, "Generally, the criminals who committed continuous murders like this are considered psychopaths. Psychopaths aren't born, their ruthless thoughts are formed from a tender age. However, only with a strong simulation can they germinate and bloom completely."

The detectives: "…"

Germinate…and bloom? Do you think that psychopaths are flowers in a greenhouse?!

Captain Jin cleared his throat and once again led the topic back to prevent his brothers' mind from crumbling. "So, you said that there's something huge happening that made him do his first kill?"

"Yes." Ru Meiqi nodded. "There's a new study in the FBI which stated that when psychopaths commit a homicide, their killing likely will be planned and purposeful—that is, organized and not committed in the heat of passion. It's clearly shown by the behavior of our suspect. Meticulous behavior, strong anti-reconnaissance, comprehensive planning, all of it showed the characteristics of a high IQ and EQ. This kind of person is the most dangerous because he knows clearly that he breaks the law but he doesn't care. And for God's sake, he has the ability not to care."

"Now, please look at the picture of these legs we've found." Ru Meiqi pointed at the leg at the upper left of the screen. Below it showed; Gong Shu'er (20).

There were two sides of the photo, first was the top side and second the front side where the clean cut of the leg was seen, even the bones and flesh were clearly distinguished. If they didn't know it was a human leg, then they would have thought that it was a high quality…beef.

No! They shook their heads in panic. How could they associate humans with beef?! This woman was truly poisonous ah! They had been affected!

Ru Meiqi took no notice of their inner turmoil and scrutinized the picture. "Can you spot the difference between this picture and the next one beside it?"

The detectives: "…" Now they're playing 'spot the difference'?!

Seeing their dumbfounded faces, Ru Meiqi's brows knitted. She hated slow minded people, but she couldn't blame them either because the practice of criminal profiling had just been popular recently in the United States due to the success in cracking the terrorist case but here, it was just like prophecy and psychic.

Fortunately, before the criminal psychologist could turn into Yama[1], Xu Binchen's voice rang out, deep, clear and concise. "The cut. It's different. The cut on the first victim's leg looks jagged, like an...inexperienced butcher."

Wang Chengbing choked on his water, spraying it all over the laptop screen. "B—Butcher?!"

"It's just an analogy," he deadpanned.

"Yes, you're right, comrade Xu." Ru Meiqi's face eased. "I need some help from our comrade in forensic, please. Now, I will explain why I draw the conclusion that the suspect came from City S as well as his mental illness."

[1] Buddhist deity of death or in some references, King of Hell