Case Files 013

Chapter 141: Dismemberment

Er Xiao studied the burning fire poker and said softly, "So you mean it was us who killed Luo Sumei?"

I hugged the bottle of the soft drink and nodded, "I should have believed in myself. When you have eliminated the impossibles, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." I pointed at Ol' Xia. "Ol' Xia is the butcher, my earlier suspicion of you was correct. You used a dull blade to chop off Luo Sumei's left leg and then you dumped it outside the village. You informed Lee Danan and had him call the police, just like that the first body dump began."

Then I pointed at Er Xiao, "You are the hunter and you worked together with Ol' Xia. When the victim was dying, Ol' Xia chopped off her left leg while you had your dog bite off her right arm. Even though we haven't seen your german shepherd in person, we've seen its picture." I said as I thought back to it, "Your dog has black fur but patches of brown around its neck. We found brown fur on the victim's body part. Even though we're still waiting for the results, I believe it should have come from your dog."

Er Xiao thought about it and answered, "That's not a bad guess."

I shook my head, "I heard from the village head that the dog has been with you for a long time already. Such a loyal company, I believe it must have broken your heart to have to kill it." Er Xiao was such a chatterbox but at that moment, he was silent. I continued, "But I was still too nave, I thought there were only 2 killers but I have lost count of so much more. After all, if there are already more than 1 killer, the actual number doesn't really matter anymore."

"Hmm?" Er Xiao became more reticent as I carried on. I cleared my throat. "One of you guarded the west village entrance and the other at this convenience store, neither of you have the time to mince the meat and make them into dumplings. It was why my suspicion of you lowered. I can't believe I allowed 2 murderers to join the mission of capturing the murderer. Oh, the irony of it all" I shook my head before turning to level my eyes at them. "So you used our plan against us and lured us to this place." With a shrug, I continued, "But there is one more thing that I wish to know, who is the third person who dealt with the body? If my guess is not wrong, it should be Uncle Lee from the eastern village entrance. He's blind and I haven't met him in person but I know that he has great cooking skills and a lot of time."

Er Xiao's brows burrowed. Seeing that, I knew my guess was mostly correct, "Since he's blind, when the meat was placed on the chopping block, it didn't matter what kind of meat it was since he couldn't see it anyway. I heard from Sun Kangning that Uncle Lee is a very good cook." I sighed and uttered, "Actually none of you are psychopaths and never intended to torture the victim. In your lives, perhaps you haven't even butchered a dog, cow or even a chicken. To ask you to murder a living human, that must have been hard."

I looked at the trio and their expressions finally shifted, but still none of them spoke. Blood still hung on Lee Danan's lips and blood trickled to the ground. I looked out the window and saw heavy snow outside. The coal stove warmed the room but our conversation made the place feel chillier than it should be.

Killing a person was never easy. In tv dramas, they often were depicted as the killer waving the murder weapon about or pulling the trigger. However, it was much more complicated in real life. After all, you would be claiming a living person's life, a person with ghastly wounds and horrid smell of blood. Death was never pretty.

"To mince human meat and make it into dumplings." I shook my head, "I doubt anyone of us here can manage something like that or rather we can't after knowing what we have seen." I questioned, "I wonder if you have heard of this proverb before or not, So is the superior man affected towards animals, that, having seen them alive, he cannot bear to see them die; having heard their dying cries, he cannot bear to eat their flesh,' therefore, this job is perfect for Uncle Lee since he's blind. And since we're talking about Uncle Lee, we have to bring in Uncle Lee's good friend, Sun Kangning's father." I concluded, "It was the 5 of you who came up with this whole plan without telling the rest of the village, wasn't it?" After that, I waited in silence.

After a temporary pause, the trio looked at each other and in the end, it was Er Xiao who spoke, "Wu Meng, now that is just a rude accusation. The idea is not bad but do you have any evidence to back it up?"

I smiled, "I don't have any evidence but you've already abandoned Lee Danan, do I still need evidence? You said Chief Zhou and Gu Chen have run down the highway? But when I arrived, I didn't notice any footprints other than the ones in front of this convenience store. Or you're going to tell me that they have flown away?" I chuckled mirthlessly, "I've already fallen into your hands, why the need to lie some more?"

Silence.

Suddenly, Er Xiao kicked the shelf down. The tumbling shelf thundered and I had to hold my hands over my ears. Er Xiao growled with a red face, "Wu Meng, we've already handed everything to you on a silver platter, why must you do this to us? You can get what you want and we get what we want, what's wrong with that? You will return to be hailed as a hero and we will continue our normal lives at this village, is that too much to ask?" Then I could hear his voice breaking, "I was planning to sell this place 2 years ago but I stayed until now, why? I am so dumb, I've already bought a house at Dong Xing City, why have I decided to stay?" Er Xiao then burst into tears. He crumbled to the ground and cried inconsolably.

Ol' Xia cursed, "Fuck." His volume was still pretty high and it echoed inside the small store. Then Ol' Xia undid the rope around Lee Danan. Lee Danan sighed, wiped away the blood on his face and then sat back in the chair. He returned to his shy and anxious self, it made me confused, was this introverted Lee Danan or the ruthless Lee Danan earlier the real Lee Danan. Perhaps they both were or they both weren't. Sometimes, one wouldn't be able to recognize oneself, much less others. We continued like that in the convenience store.

Er Xiao eventually stopped crying; Ol' Xia leaned against the shelf wordlessly; Lee Danan sat across from me, completely silent. None of them planned to hurt me, perhaps I was overly worried. I picked up the bag of chips, the packaging was highly flammable, it could be a good weapon. Pickled plums were round and could trip someone over. And a shaken bottle of soft drink could produce a jet of stream to short-circuit the fuse nearby.

I sighed. "I've already noticed that the ground underneath us is hollow, there should be a basement. I believe that Uncle Lee and Sun Kangning's father are down there guarding over Chief Zhou and Gu Chen."

To prove me right, Er Xiao knocked on the shelf next to him with a special code. Soon 4 people came into the convenience store, or more precisely 2 people were dragging along 2 others. The 2 walking were Sun Kangning's father and Uncle Lee. Gu Chen and Chief Zhou were unconscious, perhaps they were dosed with sedative or a hit to the head did the trick.

Uncle Lee might be blind but he was familiar with the layout of this shop. Blindness didn't hinder his movement at all. This proved the closeness of their relationship. When Sun Kangning's father saw me, he smiled at me, it was a bitter smile.

Er Xiao wiped away his tears and said, "That's right, you're right. That day, I came back from the city after another inventory restock. I discovered Luo Sumei on her way to the village. She appeared to be abandoned by the roadside, she was helpless standing there in the snow. Perhaps I had been alone for too long, I couldn't control my urge and raped her. After that," Er Xiao explained, "Luo Sumei was crying so hard. Even though there was no one else on the road due to the weather, I was so afraid. The only way I could think of to silence her was to kill her but I didn't know how to do that. I locked her in the trunk of my van until I could figure out the exact method." Er Xiao's tears started to flow again. "That happened around 1 pm, and I arrived at the village's eastern entrance around 1.30 pm. I thought about it and realized if I let Luo Sumei go, my whole life would be ruined. So I had to give my best friends in the village a call."

Er Xiao looked around and announced, "And here they are. I rarely interact with the villagers but I am best friends with these four. We've been friends for more than 10 years already. They also believe that if I let Luo Sumei go, it would not be good for any of us." Er Xiao chuckled sadly, "But we didn't know how to kill. You are right, some of us haven't even killed a chicken in our lives, how were we supposed to kill a person?"

Lee Danan offered shyly, "It was then that I remembered the article I read back in my toilet, it offered some murder methods. Therefore, I ran home to pull down half of the article. Each of us chose a method. 4 limbs and a head, 5 people in total." Uncle Lee added, "So all five of us are murderers and no one will be able to escape from the crime."

Er Xiao admitted, "I ordered my Bei Bei to bite off her arm while Ol' Xiao found a dull blade to chop off her leg."

Uncle Lee raised his hand. "I shaved off the meat from her other leg and made them into dumplings. I purposely left a nipple in one of them for you to discover it."

Lee Danan proclaimed, "I used the saw to cut off her other arms."

Sun Kangning's father looked at me. "I haven't gotten my chance yet"

Er Xiao pointed underground, "Come on, the evidence you want is all in the basement. We did the dismemberment here."