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墨書 Inktalez
Thinking of this, I immediately said to the Old Village Chief, "Old Village Chief, if what the second person said is true, then the Murderer should still be in the village right now, not just nearby. This means that it’s highly likely the Murderer is one of our villagers. Has anyone gone missing recently?"
The Old Village Chief warmed his hands by the fire and slowly replied, "You see, our village has only about two or three hundred people; it's really not a large number. If someone went missing or if a neighbor disappeared, they would definitely report it to the Village Committee. But so far, no one has come to say that someone is missing."
Then the Old Village Chief added, "How about this? Since I see that time is running out today and it will be dark soon, let’s wait until tomorrow morning. I’ll have Old Xia gather all the villagers to see if anyone is unaccounted for. Does that sound good? If not, we can investigate house by house. If the Murderer is a villager, the body must still be here."
I shook my finger and said, "That method won't work. With this heavy snow, if the Murderer buried the body in a snow pile in their yard, we would never find it. We can't just shovel snow from every house; it would be better to wait until spring when the snow melts."
"And," I continued, "to suspect others without reason isn't something the police should do; it would tarnish their reputation. After all, even you and I would be unhappy if we were suspected without cause."
"What should we do then?" The Old Village Chief nodded and asked me.
I spoke up, "The Murderer only inserted that arm into the snow pile around noon today; they definitely haven't left the village yet. What we need to do now is to guard both ends of the village. If anyone tries to leave, they should notify us immediately. With the heavy snow blocking the roads, they can't get far without being noticed."
The Old Village Chief took a sip of hot water and let out a comfortable sigh before saying, "That works too. You keep an eye on the eastern entrance of the village. If anyone tries to escape via National Highway, contact me immediately. They are all villagers; as long as we can see their faces clearly, there’s no way they can get far."
The second person didn’t quite understand what we were discussing before, but at this moment he grasped the general idea and hurriedly said, "This job sounds great! It’s just like those informants in TV shows! Awesome! Leave this matter to me; I’m just bored out of my mind anyway."
I wasn’t sure how reliable he was, but seeing his confident demeanor made me hesitant to say anything more. If there was indeed an outsider hiding in our village, they would likely be discovered soon enough; then it would confirm that the Murderer was indeed one of us.
Could it really be Old Xia who resembled a butcher?
I felt a vague sense of unease in my heart; some things just didn’t add up.
However, since the Murderer was hidden among these three hundred people, my chances of finding them were only one in three hundred. Even without any clues, locating this person shouldn’t be too difficult. With that thought in mind, I felt a bit calmer inside and just waited for tomorrow when everyone would gather so I could use my profiling to identify this person.
After several refusals from the second person, Gu Chen still tossed fifty yuan onto the counter. We put on new gloves; our hands finally wouldn’t feel so cold.
Next, we had to return to the village.
As we walked back, Captain Zhou said, "If that's the case, then the Murderer must be one of our villagers. But these villagers don’t seem like people who could commit such acts; who could be so cruel? You can’t tell from their appearance that any of them have it in them to kill and dismember."
I shook my head and replied to Captain Zhou, "People are never as simple as they appear on the surface; you never know who might walk past you at any moment. There was a teacher who stabbed a child on the street without anyone expecting him to be capable of such a thing; his colleagues couldn’t believe it."
"Homicide is quite a ridiculous reason," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "He was under too much pressure himself, so he ended up stabbing that child."
Captain Zhou pondered for a moment and then asked, "Wu Meng, you studied psychology. What do you think? If a person is dead and the murderer still dismembers the body, what could be the reason? And why use a dog to bite?"
I tugged at my hair and slowly replied to Captain Zhou, "From the current situation, my criminal profiling depicts a murderous butcher. He has suffered psychological trauma, so he enjoys killing living beings to satisfy his urges. This type of murderer derives pleasure from the thrill of killing."
Seeing Captain Zhou's somewhat confused expression, I continued, "In criminal psychology, there is a professional term called 'hedonistic murder,' also known as 'paraphilic homicide.' It refers to killing for the sake of obtaining certain pleasures or seeking psychological satisfaction and compensation. Of course, some individuals can also achieve sexual gratification through murder."
Captain Zhou scratched his head and looked at me with a curious expression before saying, "This is the first time I've heard of that term. Why don't you explain it to me in detail? We have some time on the road anyway."
With that, everyone else turned their attention to me as well, seemingly eager to listen.
I cleared my throat and began, "We all know that human needs are actually hierarchical. For example, Maslow's hierarchy of needs categorizes human needs into five levels arranged in a pyramid shape, starting from the lowest level and moving upward."
The others nodded in agreement.
I continued slowly, "We can rank the three basic primal urges: sleep, appetite, and sexual desire. When these needs are unmet, criminals typically kill for three reasons: passionate murder occurs when someone acts irrationally due to mental fatigue and later regrets their actions; murder for appetite is a general term that includes robbery for items like an iPhone; and rape and murder are committed to satisfy one's sexual desires."
"Yes, I understand that," Captain Zhou nodded.
I held up three fingers and then retracted them one by one. "Once sleep, appetite, and sexual desire are satisfied, it doesn't mean there are no more murderers in the world. For instance, hedonistic murder does not fall into any of those three categories because these murderers often kill simply to fill their empty souls; thus, their victims are chosen randomly."
Pausing for a moment, I continued, "Because of this, the key point in solving cases lies in understanding the murderer's motives and their interpersonal relationship with the victim. It's nearly impossible for us to find this out. This creates a paradox: we often wish for murderers not to continue killing; however, the more they kill, the easier it becomes for us to catch them and prevent further deaths. But by that time, the murderer has already taken many lives."
Captain Zhou responded thoughtfully, "That's true; sometimes I just can't understand why some people kill without any grievance against the victim."
I nodded in agreement. "Such murderers are often extremely vicious; dismemberment is one of their favorite pastimes. Just like the recent case solved by the Ministry of Public Security involving a serial killer in Silver City—Murderer Gao is a typical hedonistic killer. He has high intelligence and comes from a good family background with strong counter-surveillance skills; he has long been regarded as one of China's top ten unsolved cases. In this case, Gao had a penchant for dismemberment; rape was merely part of it."
"The main point," I asserted firmly, "is that he derives pleasure from killing itself rather than from sexual gratification."
Gu Chen scoffed lightly. "No matter who they are or how long they've been on the run, killing is killing. The police will never give up on pursuing them; sooner or later they will catch the murderer. They say there are China's Ten Major Unsolved Cases; I believe the other nine will be solved soon as well."
I nodded again. "That murderer is nearly sixty years old now; it's been almost twenty years since 1988. If we manage to catch him this time, those wronged souls can finally rest in peace."
"Turns out there are still people like this," Captain Zhou remarked with some emotion.
I sighed and replied, "Yeah, the world is so vast that there are all kinds of people. Criminal profiling emerged in the United States precisely to deal with cases like this. A criminal profiler must put themselves in the shoes of the criminal, sketching out a picture of what a criminal looks like, especially when there are few clues."
"Can this kind of criminal profiling go wrong?" Captain Zhou asked seriously, looking at me intently.
I looked back at Captain Zhou, who furrowed his brow as if deep in thought.
I nodded and said earnestly, "Of course it can go wrong. If criminal profiling were infallible, catching a murderer would be a piece of cake, wouldn't it? In reality, criminal profiling is largely based on big data analysis—what kind of appearance and behavior patterns correlate with certain childhood experiences or psychological traits that might lead someone to commit murder."
"But in practice," I continued, "just because someone looks like a butcher doesn't mean they are one. Criminal profiling can only guide us as closely as possible into the mindset of the offender; it’s not 100% accurate. For instance, I already have this vague feeling."
"What feeling?" everyone asked.
I tugged at my hair lightly and said, "I'm starting to doubt whether my criminal profiling is correct. Because if all the characteristics of a criminal are concentrated in one person, that person seems off. It's like someone being an elite basketball player, an elite soccer player, and also an elite pool player all at once."
"Such people rarely exist in our real world," I said to everyone. "They might only exist in fantasies, and the same goes for criminals. There's no reason for one person to embody so many twisted core elements."
"The murderer might not be a butcher?" Captain Zhou asked again.
I nodded and then shook my head. "It's too early to say. I think we need to find more clues first."
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