Murder Call

Gu Yuan put on his mask and rubber gloves, then opened the red woven bag. A strong smell of blood assaulted his senses. He was very familiar with this scent; he could tell just by smelling it that the person had not been dead for long.

The deceased in the bag looked like an abandoned Barbie doll, with a slender and well-proportioned figure. Every inch of her skin told those around her how young and attractive she had been when alive.

However, now her body was messily curled up in the bag, her posture narrating the horrific ordeal she had endured, waiting for someone to find her and seek justice.

Gu Yuan noticed the body was curled up in a strange position inside the plastic woven bag, clearly forced in. Her hair was matted with semi-coagulated blood, the ends tangled around her neck. If her facial features hadn’t been destroyed, she would likely have died with her eyes open.

Gu Yuan gently lifted the head of the deceased. As he did, the skin and flesh of the neck lifted with the movement. Due to the skin being pulled, some of the flesh detached from the neck but didn’t completely fall off, hanging on the damaged skin like a broken lotus root. Beneath the skin, the white trachea and bones were exposed, resembling a duck at the market with its neck not completely severed, the skin and flesh separated but the bones still connected.

Behind him, there were gasps of disbelief. The young newcomer, Zheng Mao, originally wanted to be closer to his idol, Teacher Mo, but after accidentally seeing this scene, he didn’t dare to take another step forward. It was more horrifying than any ghost with special effects in movies.

Although most of the criminal police had already seen photos of the deceased before arriving, witnessing the scene still gave them a shock. The weapon had pierced deeply, the outline of the bones clearly visible. No one knew how many times the victim had been stabbed before her death.

Gu Yuan noticed that the wounds on the face showed no signs of life reaction (1), which made him breathe a sigh of relief. This indicated that the facial wounds were inflicted post-mortem. It was certain that the killer had damaged the victim’s face after her death.

Gu Yuan observed that the neck wound and the subcutaneous carotid artery were both severed, with slight signs of life reaction around them. He preliminarily judged that this wound was the fatal one. Combined with the signs of blood loss on the victim’s skin, Gu Yuan had determined the cause of death.

Gu Yuan: “The cause of death is hemorrhagic shock due to the rupture of the carotid artery. The facial wounds were inflicted post-mortem.”

Mo Lin stood behind Gu Yuan, arms crossed, looking at the body in front of him, lost in immersive thought. The victim had restraint injuries, not typical of a crime of passion (2). This method of killing would make one immediately think of a vendetta or a personality-driven psychopathic murder.

Mo Lin recalled his conversation with the killer. He could clearly sense that the killer was rational, with a clear mind, not like someone with a psychopathic personality or mental illness. Therefore, the possibility of a vendetta was higher.

Amidst everyone’s discussions, Gu Yuan carefully examined the facial wounds of the deceased. These wounds were very deep, and strangely, almost every stab overlapped, like stacked “米” characters. The wounds intersected, as if the killer did it deliberately, making it hard to find parallel wounds.

But it was certain that the fatal neck wound and the post-mortem facial wounds were inflicted with the same weapon. The length of these wounds was consistent, about three centimeters long, but the depth varied, some deep, some shallow.

Overall, the facial wounds were quite chaotic, even the eyeballs were punctured, the mucus and blood from the eye sockets merging into a horrific sight. Gu Yuan had to give up looking for densely packed wounds and focused on the sparsely wounded areas.

The area where the jawbone connected to the neck had fewer wounds, so it was clearer. Gu Yuan noticed these wounds looked quite special.

Li Meng was holding a flashlight to help Gu Yuan see better. The two were very close, and Mo Lin felt he had to interrupt them, so he spoke up:

“Officer Li, have you found anything?”

His light eyes carried a faint smile, which was out of place with the serious atmosphere at the scene.

Li Meng handed the flashlight to the person beside him, walked over to Mo Lin, and chatted:

“I can’t see anything special. I thought Gu Yuan was looking so seriously, maybe he found something!”

Gu Yuan was still examining the body, his masked face showing no extra expression, as serious as ever:

“You two are disturbing my thoughts.”

The two people who were called out looked at each other and stopped talking, turning their attention back to Gu Yuan.

Gu Yuan focused on a wound on the woman’s neck. This wound was very special, like petals stacked on the skin, each petal’s outline clearly visible. He rarely saw such wounds, shaped like a capital “Y”, probably because when the weapon was withdrawn, the flesh was dragged outward, forming a shape resembling a flower bud.

Gu Yuan simulated the shape of this weapon in his mind:

“The weapon is a triangular bayonet.”

“Triangular bayonet?” Yan Ji from the trace inspection team immediately became alert. “I’ve seen it in the army. The triangular bayonet is a controlled knife, you can’t find it on the market!”

The triangular bayonet, as a type of military knife, is not available on the market. This bayonet is extremely hard and can penetrate ordinary stab-proof vests. It has long been banned by the state, with strict prohibitions on illegal manufacturing, sale, and trafficking. How could someone still be using a triangular bayonet?

Gu Yuan: “The rigor mortis is still forming. The victim lost a lot of blood, and no visible livor mortis was found. Preliminary judgment is that the time of death is less than three hours.”

“Less than three hours?” Li Meng glanced at his watch. “It’s only 1:38 now. Didn’t Teacher Mo receive the murder call at 11 last night?”

“So, the time of death is very close to the time the call was made to the radio station. The killer called Teacher Mo shortly after committing the murder…” Wang Yue said this with a chill running down his spine.

“In addition to the sharp injuries on the face and the restraint injuries on the girl’s hands and feet, there are also multiple soft tissue contusions on the knees and elbows. The contusions are red and slightly bleeding, all of which are defensive wounds inflicted before death, likely during a struggle with the killer. The victim’s shorts were pulled down to her calves, so the possibility of sexual assault cannot be ruled out.”

As Gu Yuan spoke, he checked the bottom of the woven bag and found obvious wear marks, covered with fresh soil and grass.

“From the traces found along the way, the killer had to rest every few steps, and there were drag marks all the way, indicating the killer wasn’t very strong.”

Gu Yuan stood up:

“Let’s go check out the first crime scene.”

Gu Yuan followed Wang Yue to the first crime scene. There were large patches of dark red blood on the road, and outside the bloodstains were two large red footprints. Tang Xiaoliu from the trace inspection team was investigating and photographing the first crime scene.

Tang Xiaoliu squatted on the ground, taking pictures of a black spot on the bloodstain:

“This should be cigarette ash… Quickly check if there are any fresh cigarette butts nearby.”

Meanwhile, another colleague made a new discovery:

“Two fresh brake marks were found ahead, judging by the tire marks, it should be an off-road vehicle!”

Wang Yue immediately called the nearby traffic police, notifying them to focus on checking off-road vehicles.

“The killer has a vehicle, and it’s one that can transport a body,” Mo Lin chuckled. “This makes it interesting. The whole scene is full of contradictions. It seems this case is a bit complex.”

Hearing Mo Lin say this, Wang Yue became even more anxious because Mo Lin rarely used the word “complex” lightly.

“Found a cigarette butt!” A criminal police officer squatting beside the tire marks excitedly picked up a fresh cigarette butt from the grass.

Wang Yue seemed to see a glimmer of hope for solving the case and immediately leaned in to look:

“Great, maybe we can extract the killer’s DNA!”

“The killer is smarter than you think,” Mo Lin said. “I don’t think he would make such a low-level mistake.”

When Mo Lin said “low-level mistake,” he resembled a seasoned criminal, his eyes emitting a dark light.

Gu Yuan suddenly remembered Mo Lin’s “hide-and-seek game” mentioned in the car. Mo Lin had said that the person being sought actually hoped to be found.

Is this why the killer left evidence?

Even an illiterate murderer knows that some evidence shouldn’t be left at the crime scene, like footprints or smoked cigarette butts. Once the police find this evidence, they can narrow down the target, or even extract the killer’s DNA from a cigarette butt.

Is the killer really stupid enough to leave such evidence at the scene?

But if you think about it differently, the killer actually hopes to be caught, so he deliberately left evidence at the scene.

Thinking this way makes sense, but Gu Yuan still felt something was off. As he observed, several doubts arose in his mind.

The first doubt: The victim was wearing a tight-fitting summer sports outfit. The weather had already turned cooler, and even men needed to wear two layers when going out. Gu Yuan thought it was unusual to wear so little at this time.

The second doubt: The crime scene was very close to where the body was dumped. The killer had a vehicle, and generally, they would choose to dump the body far from the crime scene to avoid detection. Even if the police discovered the crime scene or the body, the geographical distance between the two would make subsequent investigations more difficult.

The killer chose to dump the body but left it in a field close to the crime scene, which seemed redundant. Moreover, the field was at a lower elevation, making it easy for someone standing higher up to spot something unusual in the grass, especially a large red woven bag!

The third doubt: The killer dared to call the radio station, indicating he had no intention of hiding the body, so there was no need to dump it. He could have left the body at the first crime scene, waiting for the police to collect it.

The fourth doubt: The killer left a phone that wasn’t turned off at the crime scene, clearly guiding the police to find the body through its location.

The killer’s actions were too bizarre, and his motives unclear.

It indeed seemed like a complex case.

[Author’s Note]

(1) Life reaction: The body’s response to various pathogens and injuries, including morphological changes and functional alterations.

(2) Crime of passion: In legal theory, a type of crime committed in the heat of the moment, as opposed to premeditated murder. It occurs when a person loses control and kills someone due to provocation or agitation by the victim.