At 2: 45 am, the television screen suddenly lit up on its own.
The cold light illuminated the darkened living room. Amid the flickering black and white snow, Han Fei could make out several human faces.
Han Fei sighed in relief. His palms and back were soaked with sweat. When the hair peeked through the gap in the blanket, he was really spooked.
'There's only 20 minutes left.'
The hellish time was almost over. Han Fei had no idea how he managed to endure it. He saw a glimmer of hope in the endless darkness.
Sitting on the living room sofa, 5 figures were facing away from the bedroom. They all stared at the old square box television as if there was something captivating inside the flickering screen.
Tick tock, tick tock …
The ticking of the clock mixed with Han Fei's heartbeat. He tried his best to remain calm. They were already at the final moment, he could not afford to make any mistakes.
Han Fei's eyes scanned the figures on the sofa before his gaze finally landed on the television screen.
Amidst the static, there was a man's voice. It was muffled, it sounded like the mumbling of a madman.
Han Fei focused. The man seemed to say words like dismantling, metamorphosis, release and beauty.
'1044 is a haunted house, it houses the victims from the human jigsaw case. I've seen Wei Youfu and Ah Mei here before. But the tone of the man in the television does not sound like a victim, if anything, he sounds more like a killer. '
The victims in the human jigsaw case were all normal people. Han Fei had seen all their pictures before they died. Every picture was filled with despair and pain. They would not say such meaningless things at the brink of death.
To solve the case, Han Fei memorized everything that the man in the television said.
'The killer's state of mind is quite strange when he kills the victims, it's like he's performing some kind of ritual.' Han Fei thought back to the information he had on the human jigsaw case.
The police placed great importance on this case. Even after 10 years, Xin Lu Police were still investigating the case. All the evidence had been preserved and they offered an unlimited reward for any leads.
Han Fei managed to glean some inside information from the police.
Generally speaking, serial killers could be categorized into 4 main categories, hallucinatory, mission, pleasure and control. Xin Lu Police categorized the human jigsaw killer as either a mission or an extreme violence control type.
Most of the victims of the human jigsaw case were women and children. Therefore, most people believed the killer was not that large. His physical strength determined that his targets would be those weaker than him.
He wanted to obtain something from those who were weaker than him in order to satisfy his twisted heart.
Of course, before the case was solved, the police would not release all the information to the public. Some of the information that Han Fei found was gathered from the internet, it might not be accurate, but at most, it provided him with a direction.
That was what he thought at first, but after hearing what the man on the TV said, he realized that the murderer's motive was not simple. Perhaps there was a deeper reason.
"Pupation? Butterfly? "
Han Fei obtained a piece of information from the game that the police did not. The suspect of the frozen body case, Meng Changan, had once predicted the appearance of the human jigsaw case.
Meng Changan was not a normal person. When he committed the first murder, he told his family that he was lured by some kind of influence. He did something crazy to get a better look at the butterfly in his mind.
'The frozen body case and the human jigsaw case are both related to the butterfly. What does the butterfly symbolize?'
Meng Changan was once lured by the butterfly. Based on the man's voice, the human jigsaw killer appeared to be lured by the butterfly as well.
'Just from the crime scene, one would think the human jigsaw killer is more of a mission killer. But based on his cruel voice, this madman appears to have fallen into some kind of hallucination. His motive for killing is very complicated.'
Han Fei was not a professional detective. Just a few days ago, he was still trying to figure out how to make the audience laugh. Logic and analysis were new courses that he had started to learn.
Han Fei's eyes moved to the figures on the sofa. As he studied the five blurry figures, the information of the human jigsaw case's victims appeared in his mind.
'Based on the order of the victims' deaths, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference but based on the victims' ages … '
At 12.14 pm, the child who first appeared in the room looked very similar to the youngest victim in the human jigsaw case.
'Chui Tianci, 12 years old, used to be a children's clothing model. Time of death is between 11 pm and 1 am.'
Then Han Fei turned to the second ghost on the sofa. The long-haired woman had walked past Han Fei's bedroom door at 12.44 pm.
'Chui Caiyi, Chui Tianci's older sister, 18 years old. She has a pair of very pure and beautiful eyes. She is an eye model who has taken pictures for many eye beauty shops.'
His eyes slowly moved to the short-haired woman who held the fruit knife. Han Fei thought back to the pictures of the victims in his mind. 'Xiao Qing, 20 years old. She was a part-time home tutor during her university years. She excelled in her studies and had a great personality. She was also a leg model in private. Other than the money she earned, she used it to pay for her family's medical bills.'
Sitting next to the short-haired woman was a small woman. She was wearing high heels and had pale skin.
'Zhang Lingfan, 23 years old. She is an unknown female streamer. Her hands are fair and beautiful. She often takes on nail commercials. She is a hand model. Her time of death is around 1 am, it matches the time she appeared at the scene earlier. '
"Based on age, the next victim would be Ah Mei, who was 25 years old. She had left behind lipstick trial photos on the online shopping platform and there were many lipstick photos on social media. Many people wanted to hire her as a lip model."
'The closest to Ah Mei is Wei Youfu, 26 years old. Time of death is around 3 am. He is also the only victim who did not have any physical features. The police concluded that Wei Youfu was murdered because he accidentally wandered into the crime scene. Furthermore, it was the killer's first time at the crime scene.
"Other than Wei Youfu, there was another male victim. This male was also the oldest of all the victims. His name was Gu Ye, 29 years old, and he used to be a model. The time of death was between three and four in the morning.
There were 8 victims in the human jigsaw case. Other than the missing 8th victim, the time of death of the remaining 7 victims was related to their age.
The older the victim, the later the time of death.
From midnight to 4 am, from the deepest part of the night to dawn.
From 12 years old, the human body entered puberty. At 30 years old, the human body's stamina started to decline.
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