More detailed records from nineteen years ago had finally arrived.

Yin Feng wanted to review them, but he needed to check with Ding Xiongwei first.

You Mingxu was in a hurry and simply dropped Yin Feng off at Ding Xiongwei’s office before leaving.

Ding Xiongwei looked up at Yin Feng, and Yin Feng looked back at him. Separated by two meters of office space, the atmosphere grew peculiarly awkward.

In truth, Yin Feng had always sensed that Ding Xiongwei didn’t particularly like him, though he never knew why.

Usually, he wouldn’t care about the opinions of such insignificant people. However, now… this stern-faced, inscrutable middle-aged man before him was his wife’s direct superior, controlling her daily assignments, promotions, and honors.

Yin Feng sat down at the desk, displaying a perfect, proper smile. “Captain Ding.”

After examining him for a moment, Ding Xiongwei said, “I’ve already granted You Mingxu the necessary permissions. You can use her account to access the archives system. There are also some paper documents; I’ll have someone bring them to you shortly.”

Yin Feng maintained his smile. “Thank you.”

Ding Xiongwei paused for a few seconds, finding this intellectual’s smile particularly artificial, but still asked, “How are things going with Mingxu?”

Yin Feng seemed pleasantly surprised and replied, “Very well.”

Suddenly, Ding Xiongwei lost interest in continuing the conversation. He flipped through the files before him and said with a smile, “I have important guests coming soon. You should go ahead with your work.”

Yin Feng stood and left.

As a psychologist, he quickly grasped Ding Xiongwei’s mindset—was he acting like he was marrying off his daughter? Yin Feng smiled to himself. Hadn’t the old man heard that you can’t hold onto grown daughters? Besides, You Mingxu… had always only protected herself. How could Ding Xiongwei compete with him?

He decided not to mind him anymore.

Yin Feng walked to You Mingxu’s office, which was empty. He closed the door, sat at her desk, and enjoyed the peace.

The killer was mimicking the methods of a case from nineteen years ago—there had to be a reason. You Mingxu and her team knew this too. But with the case being so old, investigating personal connections in detail would take considerable effort. With two bodies already and the possibility of a third, the detectives had to prioritize the most direct leads, pushing the old case to the back burner.

But Yin Feng was different. He wasn’t answerable to anyone, so he could fill this gap for the detectives.

Of course, such a righteous contribution would naturally require You Mingxu to “personally” make it up to him later.

In the quiet afternoon office, Yin Feng became absorbed in reviewing the case files and system records.

Coincidentally, the case from nineteen years ago had also occurred in spring.

The perpetrator, Xu Baping, was an unemployed young man who spent his days in idleness. Despite having some family money, he only grew more wayward, gambling and living a life of pleasure until he had squandered everything. Even his arranged marriage prospect had fallen through.

When it rains, it pours. One day, Xu Baping was involved in a traffic accident. Though he didn’t lose any limbs, he remained unconscious for three days and nights. After waking, he frequently complained of headaches and became increasingly volatile. After leaving the hospital, he confined himself at home, sometimes even becoming violent with his parents, leaving the elderly couple both angry and frightened. His fair-weather friends gradually distanced themselves.

Later, Xu’s father died after falling into a ditch while out.

A few months after that, Xu’s mother hanged herself.

With no one left to restrain him, Xu Baping became increasingly uncontrolled, and no one knew what he did all day. According to neighbors, he would sometimes only be seen leaving his house once every few days, disheveled and reeking, clearly having gone long periods without bathing. He appeared strange and fierce-looking. No one dared speak to him.

It showed how once a person loses hope, regardless of the reason, failure to save oneself leads to a state where no one can help. The descent becomes unstoppable.

Yet for some unknown reason, before each crime, Xu Baping would clean himself up meticulously, revealing gaunt but proper features. This was how he would appear when assaulting, torturing, and killing those women.

Reading this, Yin Feng felt that although Xu Baping was from twenty years ago and his methods were far less sophisticated than modern criminals, he was genuinely psychopathic—a killer pursuing something in his confusion. This gave him a more distinct character than their current “apprentice killer.”

Xu Baping’s criminal methods were truly unsophisticated.

According to the detective’s notes from the time, on nights Xu Baping decided to act, he would groom himself immaculately and lurk along several small roads near his home. He knew the surrounding environment well and understood which locations were most likely to have lone women returning from work late at night.

From this perspective, the “apprentice killer’s” method of choosing targets was quite similar.

After following a lone woman, once they reached an isolated area, Xu Baping would strike, dragging the victim into bushes, construction sites, or wasteland to rape them before strangling them to death. Afterward, he would cut off the victim’s nipples and use a 20-centimeter dagger to mutilate their genitals before fleeing.

Yin Feng picked up other crime scene photos to examine, his dark eyebrows slightly furrowed.

These were messy, dirty crime scenes. Besides the injuries mentioned above, all victims had various degrees of external wounds. Some had bruised faces, displaying the killer’s brutality. Blood was everywhere, and victims’ personal belongings were often scattered about.

Xu Baping had left behind blood and bodily fluids at the scenes, as well as several fingerprints, hairs, and even a shoe. However, the DNA and fingerprint databases back then were far less comprehensive than now, so the police couldn’t quickly identify him.

Eventually, they did confirm his identity, leading to pursuit and manhunt, Yu Ruixue’s sacrifice, and Xu Baping’s death by skinning—but that was another story.

Speaking of Xu Baping’s death, after the recent confrontation with the Punisher and Xing Jifu, and given Xing’s own words, this death was naturally attributed to him, finally resolving the last mystery from 19 years ago. However, Yin Feng somehow felt that the person who did the skinning might not have been Xing Jifu. Like the praying mantis hunting the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind—that seemed more like his brother’s style. This suggested his brother might indeed have been connected to the case back then.

He set this doubt aside for now.

At the end of the file was a criminal psychological profile of Xu Baping created by an expert at the time. Yin Feng smiled when he saw the expert’s name—it was his mentor, Professor Fan Shuhua.

Reading the profile’s contents, aligned almost perfectly with his thoughts.

Xu Baping was a typical disorganized psychopathic killer. He wasn’t particularly intelligent, to begin with, and after his head injury, he became more irritable and prone to anger. As an only child, he had been spoiled from childhood.

His crimes were unplanned, purely impulsive. He would walk to the crime scenes, sometimes wearing work gloves, sometimes not even bothering with gloves.