More detailed records from nineteen years ago had been retrieved.
If Yin Feng wanted to review them, he still needed to check in with Ding Xiongwei.
You Mingxu was in a hurry, so she simply dropped Yin Feng off at Ding Xiongwei's office and left.
Ding Xiongwei looked up at Yin Feng, and Yin Feng returned the gaze. Across the two-meter distance in the room, the atmosphere felt oddly peculiar.
In truth, Yin Feng had always sensed that Ding Xiongwei didn't like him much, though he didn't know why.
Ordinarily, he wouldn't care about the opinions of such insignificant people. But now... this stern, inscrutable middle-aged man was his wife's direct superior, overseeing her daily assignments, promotions, and honors.
Yin Feng sat down in front of the desk and offered a perfectly polite smile. "Captain Ding."
Ding Xiongwei studied him for a moment and said, "I've already granted You Mingxu access. You can log into the archives system using her account. There are also some paper documents—I'll have someone bring them to you later."
Yin Feng's smile remained unchanged. "Thank you."
Ding Xiongwei fell silent for a few seconds, feeling that this intellectual's smile was particularly insincere, and finally asked, "How are things with Mingxu?"
Yin Feng was somewhat flattered and replied, "Extremely well."
Suddenly, Ding Xiongwei didn't want to speak with him anymore. He flipped through the case file in front of him and said with a faint smile, "I have an important guest coming soon. You can go ahead."
Yin Feng stood up and left.
As a psychologist, he quickly deduced Ding Xiongwei's mindset—was he acting like a father marrying off his daughter? Yin Feng chuckled to himself. A grown daughter is no longer one's own—has the old man never heard that saying? Besides, You Mingxu... had always been on his side. Could Ding Xiongwei possibly outmatch him?
From now on, he wouldn't bother holding it against him.
Yin Feng walked to the office where You Mingxu worked. Everyone had already left, leaving it empty and quiet. He simply closed the door, sat down at You Mingxu's desk, and enjoyed the peace.
The killer imitating the methods from a case nineteen years ago must have had some reason. You Mingxu and the others were aware of this. However, given the passage of time, delving deeply into interpersonal relationships would likely require considerable effort. With two bodies already discovered and the possibility of a third, the detectives had no choice but to prioritize the most direct leads, leaving the old case on the back burner.
But Yin Feng was different. He wasn't answerable to anyone, so he took it upon himself to fill this gap for the detectives.
Of course, such noble efforts would naturally require You Mingxu to "personally" compensate him later.
The afternoon was quiet in the office. Yin Feng pored over the files, opened the system, and gradually became absorbed.
Coincidentally, the case from nineteen years ago had also occurred in spring.
The perpetrator, Xu Baping, was an unemployed youth who idled away his days. Coincidentally, his family had some spare money, which led him further astray—gambling, drinking, and indulging in pleasure until he squandered the family's savings. A potential match arranged for him also fell through.
Misfortune never comes alone. One day, while out, Xu Baping was involved in a car accident. Though he didn't lose any limbs, he lay unconscious for three days and nights. After waking up, he frequently complained of headaches, and his temper grew even more volatile. After being discharged from the hospital, he stayed at home, sometimes even resorting to violence against his parents, leaving the elderly couple both furious and terrified. His fair-weather friends gradually distanced themselves from him.
Later, Xu's father went out, accidentally fell into a ditch, and died.
A few months later, Xu's mother hanged herself.Xu Baping became increasingly unsupervised, with no one knowing what he did all day. According to neighbors, he was sometimes seen leaving home only once every few days—disheveled, filthy, and reeking as if he hadn’t bathed in ages. His demeanor was strange and menacing, making everyone too afraid to speak to him.
Thus, when a person loses hope for any reason, if they don’t save themselves, no one else will. Once life begins to spiral downward, others can’t pull them back.
Strangely, however, Xu Baping would later groom himself to be neat and clean before each crime, revealing his gaunt yet well-defined features. It was in this very state that he would assault, torture, and murder his female victims.
Reading this, Yin Feng felt that although Xu Baping was a criminal from twenty years ago with far less sophisticated methods than modern offenders, he was nonetheless a genuine psychopath—a killer blindly pursuing something. In fact, he seemed to possess a stranger individuality compared to the "Apprentice Killer" they were currently pursuing.
Xu Baping’s criminal techniques were truly unsophisticated.
According to notes from the investigating officers at the time, on nights when Xu decided to commit a crime, he would wash up and dress neatly, then lie in wait near several small alleys close to his home. Familiar with his surroundings, he knew which areas were most likely to have lone women returning late from work.
In this regard, the "Apprentice Killer" shared a similar method of selecting targets.
After following a lone woman to a secluded spot, Xu would drag his victim into dark areas like bushes, construction sites, or wastelands. He would rape them, strangle them to death, then cut off both nipples and mutilate their genitals with a 20-centimeter-long knife before fleeing.
Yin Feng picked up other crime scene photos, his dark brows slightly furrowed.
The scenes were messy and chaotic. Besides the injuries described, the victims bore varying degrees of external wounds—some with bruised faces, revealing the perpetrator’s brutality. Blood was everywhere, and the victims’ personal belongings were often scattered about.
Apart leaving behind blood and semen, Xu had also left fingerprints, hair, and even a shoe at the scenes. However, with DNA and fingerprint databases far less advanced back then, the police couldn’t quickly identify him.
Later, he was confirmed as the suspect, leading to a manhunt. You Ruixue’s sacrifice and Xu Baping’s eventual murder and skinning came afterward.
Regarding Xu’s death, based on previous encounters with the Punisher and Xing Jifu—and especially Xing Jifu’s own words—the blame was naturally placed on him. This resolved the final mystery from 19 years ago. Yet, Yin Feng couldn’t shake the feeling that the one who skinned Xu might not have been Xing Jifu. "The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind"—this tactic resembled his brother’s style, suggesting his brother might have been involved in the case back then.
He set this doubt aside for now.
At the end of the file was a Criminal Psychological Profile of Xu Baping compiled by an expert at the time. Yin Feng smiled when he saw the profiler’s name—it was his mentor, Professor Fan Shuhua.
The profile’s content aligned almost perfectly with his own thoughts.Xu Baping was a typical disorganized serial killer. He was not intelligent to begin with, and after suffering a head injury, he became irritable and quick-tempered. As the only child in his family, he had been spoiled since childhood.
His crimes were unplanned, driven entirely by impulse. He would walk to the crime scene, sometimes wearing a pair of work gloves, and other times not even bothering with gloves.
OpenNovel