Chapter 146: Intricate and Complex, Narrowing the Scope

Suddenly, I recalled the person who had been trailing us on the street earlier. Perhaps that person was neither Xuan Yi, nor the one who tried to harm us at the hotel, but rather the perpetrator of the corpse cases. A sudden chill ran down my spine. At that time, I had even left Wang Yazhuo and the little ghost behind to give chase on my own.

Fortunately, the adversary had not used a strategy to lure the tiger away from the mountain. If Wang Yazhuo had fallen into the hands of the opponent, her fate would have been truly grim. This murderer did not know Wang Yazhuo's background, and even if they did, they would not care in the least. Someone who did not even fear the police would certainly not fear Wang Jianming.

Wang Yazhuo had no idea what Fatty Lu and I were looking at. She picked up the little ghost, walked over to us with a beaming smile, and asked what was wrong. Fatty Lu sighed a few times and was about to speak when I smiled, shook my head, and brushed it off with a lighthearted remark. Wang Yazhuo did not look at the photographs; she still did not know that the killer's targets shared common characteristics.

I did not want Wang Yazhuo to find out, otherwise she would undoubtedly be plagued with worry. Given her temperament, it would be a wonder if she did not fly into a rage upon learning that such a depraved killer might have set their sights on her. Fatty Lu cast a strange glance in my direction, but ultimately said nothing. When Fatty Lu and I were alone again, he asked me why I hadn't told Wang Yazhuo.

I replied that even if Wang Yazhuo knew, it would be of no help to the case. Since that was the case, it was better not to burden yet another person with worry. I told Fatty Lu that I would protect Wang Yazhuo well, and as long as I was around, it would be extremely difficult for the killer to lay a hand on her.

While Fatty Lu and I were talking, someone else rushed in. They reported that they had finally managed to extract DNA traces belonging to Qiu Lei from the clothing inside his home. Qiu Lei did not have a permanent residence of his own, but ever since the incident involving Qiu Xiao, Qiu Lei had not returned home to sleep for a long time. The police had searched for a long time before finally discovering DNA traces suspected to be Qiu Lei's.

Qiu Lei had a criminal record, but his previous offenses were petty thefts, so the police at the time had not collected his DNA. To be precise, DNA profiling had not yet come into widespread use back then. The police informed us that the forensic center was currently analyzing Qiu Lei's DNA and would soon be able to compare it with the semen DNA recovered from the crime scenes of several cases.

Prior to this, the police had not compared the DNA from the crime scenes with the DNA traces of Qiu Lei's parents and Qiu Xiao.

Biological traces generally serve only as direct evidence, especially in criminal cases. A direct comparison involves using the DNA of the subject themselves. In this case, Qiu Lei's own DNA should be compared with the semen DNA from the crime scene.

Indirect comparisons are generally not regarded as conclusive results in criminal investigations.

The so-called indirect comparison means comparing the DNA of the subject's relatives rather than the subject themselves with the semen DNA. Due to the laws of probability, individuals without any blood relation, and even humans and certain animals, might share a high degree of DNA similarity. Therefore, indirect comparisons are generally not directly used in the investigation of criminal cases.

Whether comparing the DNA of Qiu Lei's parents or that of Qiu Xiao with the semen DNA from the crime scene, neither could serve directly as evidence and could only play a guiding role. Furthermore, Qiu Xiao had already been sent to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, and the results were out—Qiu Xiao was now legally incapacitated. Extracting his DNA required the consent of his legal guardians.

Currently, Qiu Xiao's only legal guardians were his parents.

However, Qiu Xiao's parents were already grief-stricken to the core, and the police had to expend a great deal of effort before finally succeeding in extracting their DNA. Fortunately, the police had simultaneously managed to extract DNA suspected to be Qiu Lei's, which allowed for a direct comparison to be made.

Fatty Lu and I remained seated. After nightfall, Fatty Lu no longer thought about leaving work to go home. Both of us sat there, waiting for the results from the forensic center. DNA comparisons that could be used as evidence required at least two to three days at the fastest, but preliminary DNA analysis results could come out in as little as one to two hours. Although the accuracy would not be quite as high, it was more than sufficient for preliminary investigative judgments.

Finally, at eight o'clock in the evening, personnel from the forensic center arrived at the police station with the comparison results. Before Fatty Lu even opened the file, the forensic specialist informed us that, based on the preliminary comparison, Qiu Lei's DNA did not match the semen found at the crime scene.

Generally speaking, establishing a match is quite difficult. Much like fingerprint comparison, a conclusion of a match usually requires multiple or even dozens of local and overall characteristics to be identical. Conversely, a conclusion of a mismatch can be reached by finding just one or two absolutely distinct characteristics.

Fatty Lu frowned. "Didn't they also send over the DNA of Qiu Lei's parents? Have they been compared together? What if the DNA extracted and suspected to be Qiu Lei's isn't actually his at all?"

The forensic specialist told Fatty Lu not to be impatient and to open the test results to see for himself. Composing himself, Fatty Lu opened the appraisal report, uttered an oath, and then handed the report over to me.

As it turned out, the forensic personnel had also compared the DNA of Qiu Lei's parents with the DNA suspected to be Qiu Lei's, and had preliminarily established a genetic relationship. In other words, it could be basically confirmed that the DNA extracted by the police did indeed belong to Qiu Lei.

With this development, the possibility that Qiu Lei was the killer behind these multiple murders was essentially ruled out.

After Fatty Lu shooed everyone else out of the room, he asked for my opinion.

I thought for a moment and told Fatty Lu that there were multiple possible reasons for Qiu Lei's flight; it was not solely because he was the murderer of these cases that he chose to run away.

Up to this point, we had formulated numerous hypotheses, none of which had direct evidence to prove them true or direct evidence to refute them. The theory that the killer of Hu Yufang, the person Qiu Xiao helped by stalling for time at the morgue, and the murderer in the series of corpse cases were all the same individual was merely the hypothesis supported by the most clues and carrying the highest probability.

However, none of us could guarantee that this hypothesis was one hundred percent correct.

"As I mentioned before, there could be two killers, with one coercing the other into desecrating corpses and engaging in necrophagia. Qiu Lei might have fled because he was the mastermind who forced the other person to commit the crimes. In that case, a comparison between his DNA and the semen DNA would naturally yield a mismatch," I said to Fatty Lu. "This is the first possibility."

The second possibility is that my hypothesis is wrong, and the person who killed Hu Yufang and the murderer of the corpse cases are not the same person at all. Qiu Lei was not the killer in the corpse cases, but he was indeed the one who murdered Hu Yufang. Because the police had not closed the case, he grew frightened and fled.

Fatty Lu's frown deepened upon hearing this. These cases had grown increasingly complex, not only because of the individual cases themselves, but also because of the intertwining relationships between them.

I paced back and forth a couple of times before turning to face Fatty Lu. "There is a third possibility."

Fatty Lu was slightly startled, but immediately broke into a smile. "I've thought of that too. Let's hear it."

Without wasting any more breath, I told Fatty Lu, "Qiu Lei didn't kill anyone, nor is he the perpetrator of any of the cases. Someone might have said something to him, causing him to fear being inexplicably arrested by the police, so he ran away."

In other words, Qiu Lei was likely deceived.

Having served a year in prison before, Qiu Lei naturally wanted to avoid any further incarceration.

The police had already captured Qiu Xiao, yet the case of Hu Yufang's murderer remained unresolved. Moreover, prior to Hu Yufang's death, Qiu Lei had gone to the medical university and launched a violent assault on her. If, at that moment, someone whom Qiu Lei deeply trusted misled him with various pretexts, telling him that the police already suspected him, Qiu Lei would very well have fled.

Furthermore, the police had been visiting Qiu Lei's parents' home to look for him time and time again.

If this person was someone Qiu Lei trusted implicitly, it would be entirely possible for them to smear the police and urge Qiu Lei to run away to avoid becoming a scapegoat. And perhaps Qiu Xiao also knew this person whom Qiu Lei trusted so deeply. This would align with the hypothesis that the killer was someone of vital importance to Qiu Xiao.

Fatty Lu snapped his fingers. "Exactly. That way, the scope of suspects can be narrowed down further."

Fatty Lu instructed several police officers to begin investigating immediately, and strictly demanded that they track down every single mutual acquaintance of Qiu Lei and Qiu Xiao before nightfall tomorrow. Fatty Lu believed that the real killer was among that group of people.

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