Seeing our somewhat annoyed expressions, a security guard with short hair anxiously said, "Please don't tell the manager, or we'll lose our jobs."
"You handle it yourselves. Don't do this again!" I admonished and turned away from the duty room. If the security guards had gone to investigate at that moment, perhaps the matter would have been exposed, but it was also possible that these guards would have been attacked.
Those people were definitely ruthless killers. If someone tried to stop their plan, it might only lead to more people getting hurt.
I had originally thought there would be a breakthrough at the knitting factory, but in the end, all efforts were in vain. I was truly disappointed, and we had no choice but to return to the provincial department, weary.
Those people were so cautious even at the knitting factory, proving they had anticipated our investigation there. This was definitely a strategy devised by several people.
Days passed, and we couldn't even determine the identity of the victims. We had inquired with the Missing Persons Investigation Department several times. They had recently found many missing persons, and we didn't know which one was the deceased.
We were held up by this case. If the delay continued, Liu Yuning would consider shelving it again. However, that very night, a piece of terrible news struck like a typhoon.
When we received the notification, everyone was resting, so we were all groggy at first. I gathered my spirits, left the police dormitory, and drove straight to the crime scene, Haotao Village. It was the first time I had heard of this village, but it wasn't very far from our provincial department, being an urban village.
Upon arrival, I learned that the body parts had been discovered inside a long-abandoned house in the village. The walls of this house were already half-ruined and mostly uneven. Some villagers told us that it had been burned down before.
The entire family had not escaped. This incident had happened over ten years ago.
This time, the body parts were not hidden in dolls, nor in the soil, nor in plastic bags, nor suitcases. They were all embedded in the walls as if they were decorations.
This time, it was different from the novel written by Deng Yuanwu. To be precise, there was no longer any connection. It seemed the killer had grown tired of this method of killing according to a script.
I also noticed that the body parts had been painted in various colors. From afar, they looked like colorful building blocks decorating the wall, but up close, seeing the bloodstains and the contours of the body parts on the wall, one would realize it was human flesh.
The report came from a cowherd from a neighboring village. He wouldn't have come here normally, but because his cow had suddenly broken free from its tether and run off, he followed it here and discovered the body parts.
Zhang Keying and I slowly pried the body parts from the wall. The process was much like picking pieces of stone from a wall. Our palms were slightly injured from the friction.
Zhang Keying handed me a bottle of disinfectant, and after spraying it, my fingers felt a little less painful. After removing all the body parts from the wall and piecing them together, it was fortunate that the head was present this time. Otherwise, determining the victim's identity would have been difficult again.
Even though the facial features of the head were fragmented, as long as there was a part of the structure, the reconstruction technique could be used.
After Xie Chuchu arrived, she and Zhang Keying examined some aspects of the body parts and immediately concluded that the person had likely been dead for about 12 hours. There were signs of burning, soot particles in the trachea, and multiple clear cutting wounds, consistent with previous murder methods. However, this time, a large hole had been ripped open in the victim's chest, which at first glance seemed to resemble a certain shape.
I observed carefully and suddenly thought of something: "Isn't this Gemini from the twelve zodiac signs?"
"Gemini??" Xie Chuchu exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes, it's too bizarre. Why would they leave such a zodiac sign on the victim? Could it be that the previous bodies also..."
Back at the provincial department's autopsy mortuary, we meticulously examined the bodies from the previous two cases. Connecting them, we discovered that they indeed had zodiac sign markings, though they were not very obvious at the time.
The first was a small gap on the neck, and the second was on the abdomen. The signs were Aries and Taurus, respectively.
"It seems they are constructing the symbols of the twelve zodiac signs. How bizarre, why would they do this?" Zhang Keying said, looking at the comparative photos, both confused and excited.
I said, "We hadn't found any related information before. This time, we've finally found something. Perhaps it's not a bad thing."
"You're always so optimistic. If this is the sequence, then the killer won't leave the outline of Cancer on the victim next time, will they?" Xie Chuchu replied.
I shook my head, "Don't overthink it. I'll go check on He Xin's findings first. Chuchu, Keying, use the reconstruction technique to restore the victim's facial features and quickly determine their identity!"
I originally thought the focus was on Eligos in that novel, but now it seems their true intention is the twelve zodiac signs. That novel was likely just to mislead us.
"Understood, team leader!" the two replied and began to busy themselves. As for the autopsy, I entrusted it to them. I was now eager to know the results of the on-site investigation. Upon finding Gao Mingqiang, he told me, "We found a pair of identical footprints at the scene that we previously found in the knitting factory warehouse. This time, we can confirm that this person not only went to the knitting factory but also to Haotao Village. This means this person is very likely one of the group members."
Now we had some clues, but if we couldn't find the suspect, a single footprint was meaningless.
However, there was a rather cumbersome method: to canvass all shoe stores within the psychological safety zone of the crime scene and check recent buyers of this shoe size. Because when I saw the footprint, analyzing the friction, I found that the shoe was a newly purchased Anta leather shoe, and the size was 39. If it were an old shoe, it would have been even more troublesome.
Gao Mingqiang and Xiao Yuande and others began visiting shoe stores in the vicinity. They screened everyone who had recently purchased Anta athletic shoes in size 39. As a result, we found dozens of people. Looking at the list they brought back, I felt a headache coming on. This model of shoe seemed to be quite popular. However, dozens of people was manageable. The worst case was thousands or even tens of thousands of people, which would be truly difficult.
After bringing all the people back, they were successively arranged for interrogation, but they all pleaded innocent and claimed to know nothing, until I observed a male, approximately 30 years old, in the observation room. His demeanor made me uncontrollably suspicious of him.