Le tombeau de Qin Shi Huang

Chapitre 4

"Investigation begins!"

The officers, each carrying out their assigned tasks, dispersed to each cubicle to conduct their investigations. The orange-yellow beams of their flashlights danced like fireflies in the hollow cube. One officer groped along the wall beside the door, trying to find the fluorescent light switch directly above the entrance.

Jian rushed to the bedroom and was shocked to find that the bedroom door had been severely damaged. The core of the door panel was broken and exposed, the hinges on the door frame were twisted and deformed, and the television and desk that should have been in the living room were overturned next to the door. The screen's picture tube glass was shattered, as if the television and desk had originally blocked the door, but were forcibly broken in by a powerful force.

The scene was as if a mini typhoon had swept through the bedroom. At the same time, Jian Xiang faintly smelled a chilling stench of decay; he knew the body must be here.

In the far corner of the bedroom stood a wardrobe with its door slightly ajar. Next to it was a single bed, and the pillows on the bed had been slashed with a sharp blade, their stuffing spilling out and scattering across the surface.

A royal blue sheet was haphazardly stuffed under the bed, with a fruit knife lying beside it. Jian Xiang crouched down to examine the knife, only then noticing the bloodstains on the bedroom floor and the sheet, and the dried blood covering the blade and handle.

---hqszs

Reply [31]: Jian Xiang's chest pounded, and he slowly reached out to pull at the sheet. Under the flashlight, Jian Xiang saw that the blood clots on the sheet were getting bigger and bigger, and were emitting a foul smell.

Could it be that Zhong Sizao's body was wrapped in a bed sheet?

As the entire sheet was gradually pulled out, Jian Xiang's tension increased. However, his expectations were slowly dashed, because he did not feel the weight of the corpse.

To everyone's surprise, a wrist covered in white maggots was stuck to the bed sheet!

Jian Xiang couldn't help but let out a silent cry, but he quickly forced himself to remain calm. Suppressing his nausea, he looked closely and saw that it was a right wrist, with maggots writhing vigorously in the rotting flesh. The decaying flesh, like damp clay, was about to peel off the bones of the hand, and the bones of the index and ring fingers were clearly visible.

Clearly, the fruit knife was the murder weapon that severed this right hand, but the end of the wrist was so badly decayed that the cut was impossible to identify.

What shocked Jian Xiang even more was that the end of the bed sheet was stuck in the adjacent wardrobe door. The wardrobe door was pulled open quickly by the bed sheet, and a human corpse with its knees bent and curled up suddenly sprang out from inside and fell onto the headboard.

The corpse was covered in fat maggots, and a large rat poked its head out, gnawing at the few remaining bits of rotten flesh while staring intently at the strange creature before it. Unlike the giant rat that he had drowned that morning, this rat was much larger and showed no sign of fear.

Upon seeing the rotting corpse, Jian Xiang suddenly understood—first, the two large rats had been fighting over the carcass in the room, having already devoured almost all the edible muscle and organs, including the eyeballs and brainstem. The smaller rat, driven out of the bedroom and starving, had no choice but to escape through the drain. In fact, that rat's body was already the limit of what the kitchen drain could hold; if it were the giant rat before him, it would have no food left after finishing the corpse.

In other words, the second point—the reason why the giant rat in front of us is not afraid of humans and keeps looking at Jian Xiang is because it has finally discovered a new food source.

Chapter Two: Hungry Devi

At 8:30 p.m. on March 27, Zheng Shaode said goodbye to his colleagues and walked out of the Sanmin Precinct. He couldn't help but stretch, feeling very tired after just finishing a search meeting that lasted more than two hours without a break.

After getting on his motorcycle, Shaode didn't plan to go straight home to sleep. He had made an appointment with Jianxiang to come to the hospital to see him as soon as the investigation meeting ended.

The hospital where Jian Xiang was placed for observation was on Zhonghua Road, not far from the branch office. Shao De could reach it in less than twenty minutes by motorcycle.

Two days ago, Jian Xiang was attacked by a ghoul rat after entering Zhong Sizhao's sealed apartment. When the police officers in other rooms heard the fierce fighting and rushed to the scene in the master bedroom, the rat was already torn and dying, while Jian Xiang sat blankly to the side, holding a police baton covered in blood and fur.

The giant rat lay on the floor, its body twisted into a ball like a carelessly discarded blanket, revealing multiple fractures and bleeding inside its body. Its bizarre, dying posture was particularly shocking.

Jian Xiang was likely in a state of extreme shock and hadn't slept for a long time due to work, so his consciousness was quite blurred at the time. His clothes were torn by the giant rat, and he had multiple rat scratches and bite marks on his body. There was a deep and long wound on the inside of his left forearm, from which blood was gushing out.

Seeing this, his colleagues quickly worked together to carry Jianxiang out of the bedroom, and an experienced police officer immediately bandaged his wound with a clean cloth. After Jianxiang was taken to the fourth-floor corridor, Team Leader Gao immediately called an ambulance so that Jianxiang could receive treatment as quickly as possible.

Jianxiang remained unconscious after arriving at the hospital in the ambulance. The emergency room disinfected and stopped the bleeding from his wounds and administered serum. Considering that the giant rats might be carriers of various infectious diseases, the doctor decided to keep Jianxiang in the hospital for observation and further examination. He could only be discharged after it was confirmed that he was not infected.

The doctor also informed Jian Xiang that he had not slept for more than 20 hours and had been conducting a long search, which had exhausted his physical strength. He should stay in the hospital for more than two days to allow his strength to fully recover.

During the two days that Jianxiang was hospitalized, the Sanmin Precinct's Criminal Investigation Division launched a full-scale investigation into the "Zhong Sizao murder case." Shaode knew that since Jianxiang had discovered the body in Room 401 through deduction, he must be very concerned about the subsequent developments of the case, so he also wanted to take the opportunity of visiting him to report on the progress of the investigation to his senior.

"Shaode, you've come!"

When Jian Xiang saw Shao De open the door and enter the room, he raised his uninjured right hand to greet him.

"Senior, are you alright?"

"It's nothing," Jian Xiang replied. "The doctor should allow me to be discharged tomorrow."

“Great, then you can help us catch the murderer starting tomorrow.” Shao De said, pulling up a chair from the wall and sitting down. He looked up at the quiet ward and sensed that Jian Xiang’s recovery here must be going very well.

"...Has it been confirmed as a murder case?" Jian asked.

---hqszs

Reply [32]: "Yes. The right hand wrapped in the sheet at the scene, although it was almost completely rotten, was identified by the forensic doctor as belonging to the deceased in the wardrobe."

"Furthermore, the fracture at the joint still reveals that it was severed with a sharp blade using tremendous force. The fruit knife found at the scene had many notches on its blade, which match the fracture of the hand bone. Most importantly, judging from the direction of the cut, the perpetrator can be identified as left-handed. Therefore, considering both the angle and the force, the possibility of the victim severing their right hand is extremely low." However, regardless of the perpetrator's dominant hand, this cannot change a fundamental logical contradiction: the crime scene was sealed from the inside. Besides the iron door of room 401 being completely blocked by a cabinet, all the windows in the rooms were heavily reinforced with wooden strips, making it impossible for the perpetrator to escape.

"So...this is a locked-room murder?"

“That’s right.” Shaode nodded.

"I thought I would never encounter a murder case like this in my entire life."

“Me too,” Shaode continued, “but the investigation team also reconstructed the crime scene, and the results showed that as long as it was outdoors, it was impossible to create the enclosed state we found in any way. Moreover, you also checked the surveillance footage from the fourth-floor corridor. In the six days before the murder was discovered, no one entered room 401 with Zhong Sizhao, and no one secretly left.”

"Although I believe there must be some reasonable explanation for such a strange event, it's just too difficult! I can't figure it out no matter how hard I try! Senior, you showed off your brilliant reasoning that day, solving the mystery of why there were rats in Mrs. Goh's house. So what are your thoughts on this locked room mystery?"

"Actually..." Jian Xiang forced a light laugh, "I'm still in the hospital, do you want to make my head even more tired so I can't get out?"

"No, no! Right, right, I'm actually here to report on the progress of the search, not to ask questions." Shao De smiled sheepishly. "Besides, the deceased's identity has been confirmed as Zhong Sizao himself, based on his physical examination data."

"The landlord's rental agreement included a copy of his ID card with Zhong Sizao's registered address. Based on that address, I traced him back to his hometown in Fengshan City. His parents had both passed away, and his only relative was his aunt, who was very willing to assist the police investigation. It took her quite some time to find Zhong Sizao's dental records from when he was around eighteen years old. According to these records, it can be seen that Zhong Sizao's left lower first molar was a denture made of silver-palladium material, which matches the body found in Room 401."

"In addition, the gender and height of the body are also completely accurate, so it can be confirmed that the deceased is Zhong Sizao."

"Then, can we determine the timeframe of Zhong Sizao's death?"

"Under the persistent questioning of Team Leader Gao, the forensic doctor finally concluded that the incident occurred between March 19th and 22nd, which is three days from the day Zhong Sizao last appeared on the building's surveillance cameras."

"Since the deceased's vital organs had been completely consumed by those two disgusting rats, the forensic pathologist could not determine the time of death from the food in the stomach and intestines, and could only guess from the right arm wrapped in the sheet. However, because the right hand was wrapped in the sheet, the heat generated by the decomposition accelerated the decay of the arm flesh, greatly affecting the scope of the judgment."

"We found a large pile of canned meat and several large garbage bags in the kitchen of Room 401, filled with empty cans and discarded plastic bags from ready-made rice, noodles, and other instant food packets. Judging from the amount of garbage, Zhong Sizao had been staying in Room 401 for about three weeks without leaving the room. We also found a stack of post office withdrawal slips and uniform invoices in the bedroom—during this period, he used his remaining post office savings to purchase large quantities of food, household woodworking materials and tools, etc., building a completely enclosed space all by himself. We don't know what his purpose was."

"Furthermore, we also found the address of the audio-visual equipment store where he used to work on the packaging of a camera in the locker in the living room of Room 401. However, the results of our investigation were unexpected—although the audio-visual equipment store was indeed located on Sanduo Road, the owner claimed that Zhong Sizao started working there last October and stole an expensive camera from the store after only one week. Although the owner immediately reported the theft to the police, the police found that all the personal information he had registered in the store was fake."

"Is that so?"

"In other words, when Zhong Sizao moved into room 401, he had already stopped working at the audio-visual equipment store. The landlord or manager probably asked him about his occupation, and he pretended that he had just found a job! When we asked Zhong Sizao about his social life, the boss said he knew nothing."

"I suppose he didn't get anything out of his aunt either?"

“Exactly. Zhong Sizao was a real troublemaker among the dead. If he hadn’t occasionally shown honesty to the landlord, we probably wouldn’t have been able to find his registered address on the rental agreement…” “Did you find any address book or phone book in room 401?”

"No."

"I knew it."

---hqszs

Reply [33]: "In addition to an expensive DV digital camera, there was a video recorder and a box of more than twenty unsealed and unlabeled videotapes in the living room cabinet. Liwei and I checked the contents of these videotapes, but they were full of noise... Liwei said that he believed that these were not brand new blank tapes that had not been used, but that someone had erased the contents of the videotapes."

“Zhong Si-zao’s actions were not only very mysterious, but he also deliberately kept his social life a secret. What’s even more bizarre is that before his death, he even hid or destroyed his personal contact list, and the contents of the videotapes were very likely wiped clean by himself. To the police, this is simply a deliberate attempt to create a headless case!”

“That’s really strange.” Jian Xiang pondered for a moment. “By the way, Shaode, according to the administrator, Zhong Sizao had a girlfriend who would occasionally visit his residence. Is it possible to find her?”

"This is one of the two directions for future investigation decided by the team leader tonight. However, we searched the entire 401 room and found no photos. Although some colleagues went to ask the residents to draw sketches of the woman, there were big discrepancies in the witnesses' accounts, probably due to their vague impressions. At present, all we can confirm is that the girl was around 20 years old, had long hair, big eyes, and a slender figure. Her height was between 155 and 160 centimeters, and she often wore a white suit."

"What's another direction for the investigation?"

"Zhong Sizao's sources of income."

"The team leader is indeed astute!" Jian Xiang said, "Where does Zhong Sizao, who has been out of work for a long time, get his living expenses? This is a very valuable direction for investigation."

“I think so too,” said Chief of the Criminal Investigation Division, Kao Chin-fu, who had always been a mentor to Chien-hsiang and Shao-te. Although nearing retirement, he was highly experienced in handling cases, and while he lacked the ingenious ideas of younger people, his approach to investigations was often highly insightful. “Chief Kao said that we need to check all the uniform invoices and post office withdrawal slips at the scene, and verify the dates and amounts. Only in this way can we determine the area where Chung Szu-tsao was active before his death. In addition, we must also visit the stores he had shopped at.”

"I can join everyone as soon as I'm discharged from the hospital."

“But…” Shaode said in a low voice, “After the investigation meeting, the team leader told me privately that there is actually a third direction of investigation—a strange direction of investigation…” Jian Xiang looked puzzled.

“Hong Zechen, the serial killer who has been sentenced to death, known as the ‘Bone-Eating Demon’.”

On August 7, 1888, the Whitechapel massacre occurred in London's East End, where a prostitute was brutally murdered with her throat slit and 39 stab wounds all over her body. In the following two months, a series of similarly brutal murders targeting prostitutes continued to occur in the East End, causing widespread fear and anxiety among the local residents and greatly alarming the Scotland Yard.

At the time, London's East End was a mixed bag, a place where the poor, thugs and prostitutes lived together, and the security situation had been bad for a long time. The London police were also heavily criticized for having no clue about this series of murders.

The key to the case's dramatic turn came at the end of September of the same year, when a newspaper received a letter signed "Jack the Ripper," written in red ink, clearly stating that he was the real killer of the serial murders since Whitechapel. The letter was stamped with his fingerprint. A second letter arrived in early October, and judging from the non-lower class language used in the letter, it was clearly written by the same person and was full of provocation.

---hqszs

Reply [34]: Thus, through extensive media coverage, Jack the Ripper became a mysterious and feared figure throughout Britain. In foggy London, a elusive and bloodthirsty killer was lurking.

Jack the Ripper's killing spree didn't stop there; he went on to commit his final, horrific crime—the murder of Mary Kelly. Mary Kelly was found dismembered in her rented room on November 9th by her landlord. Not only was her uterus removed, but the killer also cut off her ears and nose, removed her breasts, and arranged these organs to resemble a human face.

Police determined that Mary was tortured for more than three hours before her death. However, just when the police thought Jack the Ripper was planning an even more brutal and large-scale murder, his actions were abruptly halted, and he disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only endless speculation.

The history of serial killers dates back to the late 19th century, approximately 120 years ago. From a social perspective, this can be attributed to the excessive indifference and alienation in interpersonal relationships caused by the rapid pace of development in industrial and commercial cities. Furthermore, the blurring and complication of values have led to the questioning and disregard for morality.

The rise of diverse media has led to abnormal mental states, distorted mental development, and the expansion of subjective consciousness, ultimately triggering violent conflicts between strangers.

Following Jack the Ripper, serial killers have swept across the globe like a fashion trend. From Jessie Parmorrow of Boston in the 1880s, who murdered 27 children; to the French "shaving maniac" Fahl, who committed 11 brutal murders in 1890; to Fritz Harman of Germany, the perpetrator of 24 murders; to Peter Cotton, known as the "Düsseldorf Vampire"; David Pokwitz, "Son of Sam"; Tsutomu Miyazaki of Japan; and Liu Shubao of mainland China… these bloodthirsty devils all employed extremely perverse methods of killing, hiding among the masses as ordinary, unassuming individuals, evading the loopholes in the vast network of the law enforcement system.

Kaohsiung City can be considered Taiwan's "most dangerous city," perhaps because its people are known for their fierce and unrestrained nature, and its hot and dry climate easily arouses people's impulsive and excited side, resulting in a multitude of criminal cases, both major and minor, making it the city with the worst public security in the minds of Taiwanese people.

In fact, there was once a serial killer in Kaohsiung who shocked the Chinese world. He was Hung Tse-chen, nicknamed "The Bone-Eating Demon," who was executed in 1995.

In the summer of 1994, a series of twelve brutal and similarly committed murders occurred within three months, primarily in Kaohsiung's Xinxing District and extending to neighboring Sanmin and Qianjin Districts. The main difference between this case and most serial killer cases abroad was that the victims were not young children or women, but rather all elderly people.

These elderly people had in common that they lived alone, were all over seventy years old, and had a fairly good standard of living and level of education. They lived carefree lives on the interest from their pensions and remittances from their wealthy children, but they never expected to be brutally murdered.

All the murders occurred at midnight. What's even more chilling is that in these weekly cases of elderly people being brutally murdered, the killer spent considerable time dismembering the bodies. In addition to slitting the victims' throats with a sharp blade, he also severed their limbs, scraped away the flesh with a razor blade, and left bite marks on the exposed bones.

The act of cutting off flesh and gnawing on bones after murdering someone was so horrific that Kaohsiung City was completely shrouded in a terrifying atmosphere of bloodshed.

The murderer also used the victim's blood to write vulgar and obscene swear words and challenging statements to the police on the walls of the crime scene.

"I know, there are elderly police officers too! They'll be next! Haha!"

However, just when the Kaohsiung City Police Department was at a loss, a letter providing a crucial clue to the murder case changed the police's predicament. This letter was sent by Li Gantang, a psychiatrist who had returned to Taiwan from the United States at the time.

The long letter clearly states that the murderer is a typical mental patient, frequently in and out of hospitals, and possesses a very strong antisocial personality. He is between twenty-five and thirty years old, was abused by adults in his childhood, received higher education, lives alone, has no stable or long-term job, performs poorly at work, and is full of frustration.

His work is closely related to the elderly, yet he views them as a monster. Although his methods of murder are inhumane, each crime is meticulously planned.

The contents of the letter greatly shocked the Kaohsiung City Police Department, and the Director-General of the City Police Department immediately visited Dr. Li Gantang. Dr. Li Gantang had lived in the United States for many years, studying advanced criminal profiling techniques with local criminologists, and was very willing to assist the police in their investigations.

For the Taiwanese police force at the time, criminal profiling was a novel and unfamiliar investigative method. Many people found its effectiveness hard to believe, but it was the only way in the world to deal with such unidentified serial killers.

---hqszs

Reply [35]: It turns out that after checking the patient records of psychiatric departments in various hospitals in Kaohsiung, the police finally narrowed down the suspects and arrested Hong Zechen, a 29-year-old youth who had attended university, worked as a volunteer at a senior center, and was often hired by wealthy elderly people for temporary care.

Hong Zechen was tall and slender, with delicate features and polite manners, completely different from the stereotypical image of a disfigured serial killer with a menacing look in his eyes. However, both the comparison of dental molds and the simulation of the crime scene pointed to him as the only suspect.

In several interviews with psychiatrist Li Gandang, Hong Zechen confessed to committing these twelve bloody crimes. He claimed that he lost both his parents when he was young and had been sexually assaulted by an elderly person. He said that he had always hated this age group that had no productive capacity but consumed social resources.

After entering university, his interpersonal relationships became difficult due to the shadows of his childhood. Hong Zechen had no like-minded friends, and he was unwilling to change himself to fit in. Instead, he became obsessed with the trauma of his childhood, unable to resist associating with the elderly, and developed a subtle and painful self-destructive complex.

As this twisted emotion grew and spread like cancer cells, Hong Zechen finally began to go mad. He selected suitable targets based on information stolen from various elderly care facilities, and broke into the victims' homes at midnight to carry out brutal killings.

Regarding his perverse act of cutting off flesh and gnawing on bones, Hong Zechen told Dr. Li that only in this way could he relieve his nausea at seeing elderly people. However, Dr. Li pointed out that this was actually a combination of violent venting and sexual activity.

What he longed for was national attention and praise for his righteous act of cleaning up the dregs of society, but the national response was clearly different from his expectations, which was another motivation for him to continue committing crimes.