Chapter 165

"The first Picture Album Project included six unsolved cases and one additional case of an incompetent killer, seven 'unsatisfactory' cases altogether. The major suspects died under unusual circumstances one after another. The seventh case, the killing of Zhu Feng's husband Yu Bin, was rather special." Luo Wenzhou took an old file from Xiao Haiyang. He and Fei Du had only been alone together during the short span on the road. The house had been turned into a stronghold outside of the City Bureau; there were cigarette butts and half-drunk soft drink cans everywhere.

Luo Wenzhou said, "Zhu Feng persists in thinking that the man sent to the mental hospital was swapped out because his physical characteristics didn't match the killer she encountered at the scene of the crime."

"The name of this killer who committed murder in broad daylight is Qian Cheng. He lived near the scene of the crime. All the neighbors knew him. Because of his mental impediment, Qian Cheng was unable to live alone. He was still living with his father in his forties. When his father died, he was entrusted to a relative. The relative accepted the money but was very sloppy about taking care of him, only coming to see him once a week, allowing him to wander around everywhere, going through trash when he was hungry. But while he was crazy, the neighbors all said he didn't spontaneously bother others, and his temper was rather mild. He wasn't very aggressive. At first, when they heard he'd killed someone, no one believed it.—The person in these photographs is Qian Cheng."

Xiao Haiyang pointed to the photographs in the old file. One was a photograph from when he'd just been arrested, the man and his ragged clothes both filthy, not looking human at all, like a walking mop. The second, however, was much tidier. He'd been cleaned up, had his head shaved, and been put into a prison uniform. In this one you could see his face. He looked like a middle-aged man with rather regular features, his expression somewhat strange, not like a normal clear-headed person.

"There are rigorous procedures for a judicial determination that a mental disability makes someone incompetent. Even though the supervision wasn't so comprehensive over a decade ago, faking it still wouldn't have been as easy as outsiders imagine. And if someone had disagreed with the outcome of the determination, they could have applied with the court to have another institution issue a view," Luo Wenzhou said. "This person was established locally, everyone in the area knew him, and they all knew he was crazy. It's not likely to have been faked."

"And this was a mental patient who ate garbage," said another criminal policeman. "He had no money, no backing, not even his relatives minded him. This won't sound good, but he was a burden. Who would go to the trouble of undertaking such a risk to fake it? I think Zhu Feng is untrustworthy."

Fei Du quickly read through the description of the case details in the old file—

The killer escaped after the killing…police were dispatched at once…with the help of the warm-hearted crowd…stopped in a little alley…the weapon…bloodstains…

His eyebrows raised, and he suddenly looked at the two photographs Xiao Haiyang had taken out.

"You're right. The relative treated him as a burden, kept him out of sight and out of mind, wishing he'd disappear. If he went missing, no one would have looked for him," Fei Du said quietly. "Is there a map from the time of the area where the crime occurred?"

"Yes!" Xiao Haiyang did his work very attentively. Hearing these words, he at once took out an old map densely strewn with marks.

"The crime occurred in a spontaneously-developing little market street. I reviewed the eyewitness testimony. The victim Yu Bin would have been here—he had an altercation with the killer in front of a meat stand at the intersection. Then the dispute escalated. The killer suddenly picked up a knife from the meat stand and stabbed the victim, then fled across the intersection. And by the road, he bumped into Zhu Feng, who'd come back for her keys. After he got up, he kept running, waving the bloody weapon, and crossed the road. A few minutes later, the police and security guards arrived, and a few brave people from the crowd were instructed to help search. About ten to twenty minutes later—that's what's written in the eyewitness accounts, there are some differences—the police caught Qian Cheng in a little alley."

Fei Du said, "Approximately where was he caught?"

Xiao Haiyang looked closely and drew a circle on the map. "It should be here, across from a shantytown about to be torn down."

Luo Wenzhou said, "What, is there a problem?"

"I think there are two rather reasonable conjectures," Fei Du said. "First, the substitution of the killer is entirely made up, Zhu Feng's own nonsense…

"Second, the killer really was switched out, not during the course of the arrest and trial, but before he was arrested."

Luo Wenzhou stared, then immediately came around. "You're saying that the person who committed the murder in the street and Qian Cheng, who the police caught at the scene, weren't the same person?"

"The killer, when he committed the crime, and Qian Cheng, when he was arrested, were both covered in blood, dressed up like typical tramps, their features indistinct. As long as their physical characteristics were similar, in an emergency like that, it would be normal for passersby who weren't friends with him not to spot the difference."

Xiao Haiyang said, "Qian Cheng was a mental patient with no one to lookafter him. He had no friends."

Fei Du went on, "And at the time, apart from the eyewitness testimony, there was also the conclusive evidence of the bloody clothes and the weapon. If, as Haiyang says, there was a time lapse between the killer fleeing and finally being caught, it wouldn't have been hard to play a trick in between.—He'd need to find a place to stay ahead of time in the shantytown about to be torn down, tie up the scapegoat Qian Cheng, furiously flee everyone's field of vision after the killing, run into the shantytown, wipe his own fingerprints, and give the bloody clothes and murder weapon to Qian Cheng.

"A tramp appears wearing the bloody clothes and holding the murder weapon. If someone yells out, 'There's the killer!' the people pursuing the killer will immediately subconsciously chase him, and they'll think they've caught the killer. Anyway, the lunatic couldn't even talk. He wouldn't be able to work out clearly what was happening, never mind explaining himself." Fei Du paused. "To kill someone in public without leaving a trace, you only need to plan an appropriate escape route. If nothing goes wrong, it's much more workable than buying off all the public security organs."

Xiao Haiyang shuddered at his words.

"All of Qian Cheng's neighbors said that while he was abnormal, his nature was gentle, and Zhu Feng said in her confession that Yu Bin wasn't of a disposition to get into altercations. Neither seems like the sort of person to start fighting in the street over a trifle," Fei Du said quietly. "It was premeditated murder."

"But…why would someone want to kill an ordinary art teacher?"

"That's a crucial question." Fei Du looked up at Luo Wenzhou. "Also, who was the person killed in the mental hospital? Was it the real killer? Or was it the unfortunate scapegoat Qian Cheng?"

"It was Qian Cheng," Xiao Haiyang said. "Qian Cheng's basic information was recorded when he was arrested, and of course there would need to be an autopsy to confirm the identity of the corpse. If he'd been switched for someone else, it would have come out long ago. And Zhu Feng says that her husband's killer got away. She won't acknowledge that the person who died in the mental hospital was Yu Bin's real killer—what's the problem with that?"

Fei Du said, "If the above conjectures are correct, then it must not have been The Reciter who killed Qian Cheng, because he was innocent."

"You think The Reciter doesn't kill innocent people?" Luo Wenzhou's expression was somewhat grim. "So Chen Zhen, Feng Bin, and Xiao…"

"No," Fei Du interrupted him, "The Reciter wouldn't use this ceremonial method to kill an innocent person."

As he spoke, he stood up and walked up to the balcony connected to the living room. Fragmentary sounds of fireworks rose far off. The city center wasn't being strictly managed this year, and quite a few people were furtively letting off fireworks ahead of time, filling the sky, which had cleared up briefly, with curling smoke.

"I can now roughly give a simple psychological profile of The Reciter."

Fei Du closed his eyes slightly. In the depths of his memory, the man who had appeared like a specter in Fei Chengyu's basement displayed a secretive smile. He was tall and sturdy, his eye sockets deep, with thick, indissoluble shadows in his eyes… They were sharp, cold, and resentful.

"The Reciter was once a mutual aid organization composed of victims. Over long periods, trauma that doesn't receive proper treatment harms a person's sense of trust, sometimes followed by hyper-vigilance and aggression. It can change a person's character, make them alienated, unsociable, increasingly separated from the rest of society. Only facing a crowd of people who have encountered similar things will they feel a sense of belonging—that's why a mutual aid organization is beneficial.

"But ordinary mutual aid organizations create a comparatively comfortable environment where traumatized people can lessen their stress, accept reality, and slowly leave their small social circle and return to ordinary life with the guidance of professionals and mutual positive reinforcement. They aren't for steeping in others' negative reinforcement, aggravating their own separation from the outside world, finally developing into a sealed off, isolated group that has wiped out individual awareness.

"The materials studying group psychology are numerous. The famous September Massacres in Paris and the Rwandan Genocide are both typical cases, and The Reciter's originator is an expert in the field. The group he has successfully created is like this.—They believe themselves to be persecuted, to be righteous. Their hyper-vigilance is constantly being strengthened. Their initial hatred towards those who harmed them has overflown like a bowl filled to the brim with water, spreading to everyone in the outside world.—They feel that injustice is society's fault, the fault of each person in that society. And as for the police, who ought to uphold justice, they're useless, neglectful of their duty, committing unforgivable sins.

"In the end, the people outside the group are objectified and can easily become the props of revenge. Even harming the innocent will be regarded as a necessary sacrifice on the road to revenge and justice." Fei Du's gaze swept over all the police officers containing their anger. "But a 'prop of revenge' and a 'target of revenge' are different. To increase the group's cohesiveness, they have to have a certain faith. Fostering faith like that requires a sense of ceremony—for example, acting out 'a tooth for a tooth' on the criminals, making them die in the manner of their crime."

"You mean that the originator of The Reciter, Fan Siyuan, was already planning this group starting from the first person he killed during the first Picture Album Project," Luo Wenzhou said. "Killing was part of his plan. He didn't lose his mind out of 'gazing into the abyss.'"

"No," Fei Du said. "This group has a stable structure. Its members are few, cohesive, very loyal. This was consciously planned and cultivated by Fan Siyuan. In the beginning, when he killed unpunished suspects acting as a 'vigilante,' it wasn't out of a sense of righteous indignation. If Fan Siyuan had early contact with Zhu Feng, he must have realized that the person in the mental hospital wasn't the real killer, and there would be no point in killing him."

"The time when Zhu Feng broke into the mental hospital is very close to the time when Qian Cheng was killed in the end." Luo Wenzhou muttered to himself for a moment, then said, "Could it have been like this? The real killer heard Zhu Feng's accusation and realized that his substitution hadn't been so seamless. Things had just started going wrong with the Picture Album Project then, so he used that case for his own advantage—giving the unconscious impression that since Qian Cheng had been killed for revenge, he was the real killer. First impressions are the strongest, and no one would look into it more closely later."

Xiao Haiyang swiftly jumped up. "So the murder of Zhu Feng's husband Yu Bin was arranged by the mole in the City Bureau!"

Luo Wenzhou said, "Go investigate Yu Bin's social contacts when he was alive, the school, the students he taught, where he went."

Xiao Haiyang hopped to it.

Then another criminal police officer asked, "Captain Luo, is there someone we suspect of being the mole? Should we go keep an eye on him?"

Before Luo Wenzhou could speak, Fei Du looked at the time.

"There's no need now," Fei Du said. "It's nearly time. Someone will get to it."

After seeing Fei Du off, the investigator who had been responsible for him couldn't resist going back to carefully review the surveillance record of Fei Du.—It was very long, several hours of chat with different people, the information confused and disorderly. First he found the part concerned with Pan Yunteng and went through it from beginning to end. Just as Fei Du had said, it was all bewildered students asking about him and sending their regards; there was nothing of value. The investigator was somewhat disappointed and was planning to abandon it when he faintly thought there was something sticking like a fishbone in his throat.

While combing through it once more from beginning to end, he suddenly noticed something and hit pause and replay.

On the screen, a rather delicate expression flashed over Fei Du's face. Then, seeming deliberately calm, he replied with a voice message: "I haven't. What problem could there be?"

The investigator paused. Then he replayed Fei Du's whole conversation with this "Philosopher" from the beginning once more. Then he called a technician—Fei Du hadn't put on headphones, and he hadn't pressed the phone close to his ear when listening to the voice messages. Over the listening device, you could faintly hear a male voice. When the technician had increased the volume, the voice messages "The Philosopher" had sent Fei Du became very clear.

The key term "Zhang Ting" made the investigator give a start.

Meanwhile, Zhou Huaijin, who had quietly returned to the old Zhou family house, was after all the only heir of the Zhou family. Very efficiently, he had already found where a former assistant of Zhou Yahou's from thirty-eight years ago had ended up.