Chapter 88: More than What Meets the Eye
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
According to the records, this was what happened on the day of the crime:
The murderer entered Yu Zhigen’s house that night, brutally killed Yu Zhigen, and left his body on the couch. After killing him, the murderer tore a piece of cloth off of the couch and wrote on the wall using the victim’s blood. He splattered blood everywhere and created an extremely bloody scene before shutting the door and disappearing into the stormy night.
The neighbors had not heard anything, yielding three possible explanations: One, the murderer had closed the door; two, the storm outside was very loud; three, Yu Zhigen might have been fatally stabbed the first time and did not make any noise.
The murderer was very cruel, and the scene was bloody; however, the entire process of the crime was extremely meticulous, and there were no fingerprints or shoe prints left at the scene. The murderer had obviously made ample preparations, and it had not been a spur of the moment decision. Additionally, Yu Zhigen was deep in debt and had nothing valuable at home, so the possibility of a robbery-murder was almost zero. If it was not a debt collector, nobody seeking revenge, and not a robbery, then...what else could it be?
The report showed that there was no sign of Yu Zhigen’s house lock being broken. The police suspected that either the victim had opened the door himself, or the murderer had the house key! If it was the former, then the victim and the murderer must have known each other, and this crime had been committed by an acquaintance! The police had compared the handwriting of people linked to the victim to the writing on the wall; however, the writing in blood was sloppy, thus the police could not accurately compare anything.
If it was the latter, the crime would be even more complicated. Why did the murderer have his house key? Did the murderer steal the house key beforehand, or had someone deliberately given them a duplicate? Thinking of this, Zhao Yu could not help but think of the victim’s wife, Lin Meifeng! Only Yu Zhigen and Lin Meifeng had their house key. If the murderer had gotten a key from Lin Meifeng, then was Lin Meifeng connected to the murderer?
The report showed that Lin Meifeng had often been abused by Yu Zhigen, and had suffered a lot. She had asked for a divorce many times, and even ran away, but the overbearing Yu Zhigen had chased her all the way to her parents’ place, and even broke his father-in-law’s leg! He had also threatened to kill Lin Meifeng’s family if she dared to divorce him. Lin Meifeng had no choice but to compromise and endure such humiliation. In the end, the heartless Yu Zhigen beat Lin Meifeng until she miscarried and lost their child! With the kind of hatred that she had, it was plausible that Lin Meifeng would kill her husband; however, even though she had a motive, there was no evidence to support it.
The records showed that Lin Meifeng’s cousin was in labor on the night Yu Zhigen had been killed. Lin Meifeng had been in the hospital that night, and there were many witnesses to confirm it. Lin Meifeng had discovered that her husband had been killed when she returned home the next day. She broke down on the spot terrified, and her neighbors had helped to call the police.
Since that day, Lin Meifeng suffered from serious depression and stayed in a mental hospital for almost half a year until she could not afford to pay the hospital bills. After that, with the help of family members and friends, Lin Meifeng was admitted several times for treatment, and had records of a few suicide attempts in between. Her mental health had always been unstable.
Zhang Jingfeng and Liang Huan had discovered that Lin Meifeng was unemployed and was average looking. She seldom went out, and Yu Zhigen had kept a close eye on her, so it would have been difficult for her to have had an extramarital affair. Moreover, if she had had a lover, she would not have ended up in the mental hospital after Yu Zhigen died. Also, Lin Meifeng was penniless, so it was even more impossible for her to have hired someone to kill her husband.
The police had also investigated another possibility—Lin Meifeng’s relatives. Perhaps one of Lin Meifeng’s relatives had gotten furious after seeing her beaten everyday, and killed Yu Zhigen? However, Lin Meifeng’s parents were very old, and her only younger brother had been in jail at the time. She had little contact with other relatives, so that theory had lead nowhere.
Looking at all of the data, Zhao Yu began thinking again. He took out his notebook and started drawing his own analysis. Although the information was limited, Zhao Yu still followed thoughts and found some leads that had been neglected previously.
Firstly, Zhao Yu had seen many people who had been stabbed with a knife, and the knife wound was usually straight and linear; however, photographs of the victim’s wound showed the shape of an exclamation mark, which was very different from a normal stab wound. After considering it deeply, Zhao Yu finally understood why that was. When the victim was being stabbed, he had probably been below the killer. The downward force from the knife caused the top of the wound to be heavier, and had formed a shape like an exclamation mark.
It could be seen from the photo that there were many fallen wine bottles near the victim. The autopsy showed that the victim had excessive levels of alcohol in his body, which meant that he had drunk a lot that night. He should have been severely intoxicated when he died. Additionally, the victim had more than forty knife wounds, but none on his back. Also, the victim had died on the couch, thus Zhao Yu believed that the murderer had sneaked into the house.
It was highly possible that the murderer had the key to their house and sneaked in, and the murderer saw Yu Zhigen lying drunk on the couch and stabbed him on his frontside. Since the murderer was standing up, the downward force of the knife caused the wounds to look like exclamation points. Although he had found some new clues, the entire case was still shrouded in a mass of fog.
Why did the killer want Yu Zhigen dead? What was his motive?
Why did he stab him so many times and make the scene so bloody?
Why did he write those redundant words on the wall?
Who was the murderer?
Not knowing why, but since the first day he had seen the case information, Zhao Yu thought that there was something wrong with the victim’s wife! Although he did not want Lin Meifeng to be the murderer, and although she had an alibi, Zhao Yu could not let the thought go. Especially after having met her that morning, he felt that there was some dreaded secret lurking behind Lin Meifeng’s gloomy eyes.
At that moment, Zhao Yu suddenly thought of the lyrics sung by the delinquents in the hotpot restaurant, "Go with your feelings…" He thought, "Tsk tsk…’go with your feelings?’ Could this be a hint from the Miracle System? I have to go with my feelings if I wanna solve the case? My feeling is that Lin Meifeng is linked to the case. Don’t tell me that Lin Meifeng is really the killer? Or could it be that there’s more to it than what meets the eye!?"