“According to the materials Captain Jiang sent me, both Wang Wei, who was killed in B City on July 8th this year and Wang Qianqian, who was killed on November 28th, had logged into a website called Winter Solstice before their deaths. And Ding Jing, killed on December 3rd, was the founder of this website eight years ago,” Yu Zheng said as he stood up and walked to the bulletin board, turning on the small LED light and writing the characters for ‘Winter Solstice’ in the center with a black marker.
“Correct,” Old Qin continued, “After this website was established, it never underwent maintenance or technical upgrades, leaving major security vulnerabilities. Moreover, the hacker used expensive technology purchased from Country X. After the last intrusion into the website’s database in September, there were no more traces of infiltration. The perpetrator’s cunning has undoubtedly made our investigation more difficult.”
“Excellent,” Yu Zheng excitedly rubbed his hands together. “Among the four known victims, only Li Liwei, who was killed on September 22nd, 2014, couldn’t be immediately confirmed to have accessed the website because the investigating officers didn’t check her internet activity right away.”
He wrote down the names of Ding Jing, Wang Wei, Wang Qianqian, and Li Liwei, connecting them to ‘Winter Solstice’ in the center with four straight lines, then added a question mark after Li Liwei’s name.
Jiang Chengyi had Little Zhou hand over newly printed materials to Yu Zheng, saying, “We found Li Liwei’s information in the website’s user database last night, but didn’t have time to send it to Dr. Yu this morning.”
“So Li Liwei had also logged into the website.” Yu Zheng took the materials and noticed that besides Li Liwei, the name ‘Deng Man’ had been temporarily added to the list.
He looked back up, erased the question mark after Li Liwei’s name, and continued, “In the statements Captain Jiang gave me, there’s crucial information from Wang Qianqian’s colleague, Li Yunjuan.”
Jiang Chengyi nodded, placing the documents back on the table.
That day when Lu Yan was working the night shift, she had accidentally overheard two colleagues chatting about Wang Qianqian’s case. Because it concerned Wang Qianqian, Lu Yan wanted to help solve the case and told him about it after her shift. He then had Little Zhou make a trip to First Affiliated Hospital to take Li Yunjuan’s statement.
Yu Zheng demonstrated his remarkable memory: “I recall this nurse Li Yunjuan saying that Wang Qianqian learned about this website after meeting her classmate Wang Wei from B City. Wang Wei must have told Wang Qianqian something that made her particularly believe in this wish-granting website. Later, in Wang Qianqian’s call records, we indeed found three calls to Wang Wei in B City. Coincidentally, Wang Wei was killed not long after, and four months later, it was Wang Qianqian’s turn.”
He put down his pen and turned to face Jiang Chengyi: “However, this is just one commonality among these four cases. This point alone cannot prove that these deaths are directly connected to logging into the website. Captain Jiang, collecting and organizing clues is your team’s strength. I’m more interested in studying and profiling criminal psychology. Next, let’s look at the dump sites of the four victims.”
He asked Old Qin to reopen the slideshow, clicked his pen, and wrote:
Li Liwei dump site — Peach Blossom Park artificial lake
Wang Wei from B City dump site — Paoma Lake in B City suburbs
Wang Qianqian — South Rock Park artificial lake (closed for over a year due to government renovation plans)
Ding Jing — Yanping Lake in the suburbs
Finally, he wrote a large character for “Water” in the upper left corner, adding “Common Point” beside it.
Little Zhou showed a surprised expression, not expecting Yu Zheng to completely ignore other aspects and directly list “Water” as the first commonality.
“All four victims were strangled to death before being dumped, and three of the bodies were wrapped in white inflatable waterproof material by the perpetrator, floating on the water’s surface. From the later dump sites, we can see the perpetrator has gradually been able to arrange perfect crime scenes according to their vision. If Li Liwei’s case was committed by the same person, she was an unsuccessful attempt.”
Someone asked in confusion: “Is it because only Li Liwei’s body sank to the bottom of the lake?”
“Although the perpetrator also wrapped Li Liwei’s body in inflatable waterproof material, because the material was of inferior quality, it developed a leak, and the body quickly sank to the bottom of the lake. It didn’t achieve the perpetrator’s intended effect of letting witnesses immediately appreciate their work.”
At this point, Yu Zheng smiled, his chubby cheeks gleaming slightly: “I believe the perpetrator must have closely monitored the discovery of Li Liwei’s body after the crime, but several days passed without anyone discovering their work because the body had sunk. One can imagine how frustrated the perpetrator must have been. For the perpetrator, Li Liwei was an early work, inevitably having immature aspects, but in subsequent crimes, the perpetrator avoided making the same mistakes, showing their improvement over these years.”
“Looking at the supplementary materials Captain Jiang provided yesterday: First, Li Liwei was killed three years ago, but before last year’s winter solstice, witnesses saw someone dressed exactly like Li Liwei, with not just identical clothes but highly similar walking mannerisms. The witness thought they’d seen a ghost and called a radio show called ‘Gossip at 7:30’ to share it as a ghost story.”
“Then looking at Wang Wei’s case in B City, before her death, Wang Wei had complained to colleagues about a theft in her dormitory, specifically the loss of a dress she often wore, a pair of high heels, and a hair clip. Because these weren’t valuable items, Wang Wei ultimately didn’t report it to the police.”
“Third point, I just noticed the name ‘Deng Man’ in the database. Captain Jiang, has this been confirmed?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because the witness hasn’t come to the police station to make a statement yet, Captain Jiang only briefed me about this Deng Man case over the phone yesterday. Eight years ago, an eighteen-year-old female who committed suicide by jumping into the Sanming River in the suburbs was named Deng Man. On the night of Wang Qianqian’s recent murder, one of Deng Man’s close friends encountered someone who closely resembled Deng Man near First Affiliated Hospital. Because the witness was familiar with Deng Man, they recognized her walking style and fashion choices well and were surprised to see this person not only imitating Deng Man’s clothes and walking manner but also wearing a hair clip Deng Man used to wear. However, since the possibility of Deng Man being murdered was low, Captain Jiang didn’t include it in the other cases. Coincidentally, Deng Man was also a user of the Winter Solstice website back then, and her method of suicide was drowning.”
He added Deng Man’s name to the whiteboard with a large question mark and drew a line under the character for “Water.”
“From the information we currently have, among the four victims, Wang Wei had lost clothing items before her death, Li Liwei’s appearance was imitated (though questionable), while the other two victims — Wang Qianqian and Ding Jing — haven’t shown similar patterns yet.”
He wrote down “Female” and added “Second Common Point” beside it.