How You Can Sue Me for My Crimes in Dreams

The crime scene wasn’t far from Xu Huo’s home. Three hundred meters to the right of his building was a breakfast stall, and another hundred meters or so past that was the intersection.

DRUM...

The rain was still falling, the drops now a little more dense, and Li Jianye felt increasingly helpless.

CLICK—

Pushing the car door open, Xu Huo stepped out, ignoring the raindrops as he scanned his surroundings.

The sky was overcast. Police cars, onlookers, caution tape, flashing lights, and...

...the four bodies kneeling on the ground.

He couldn’t help but click his tongue.

’Everything was here... except for surveillance cameras.’

Even in this day and age, surveillance cameras were a rarity, even in the Capital City, the heart of the Eastern Country.

”Put on your raincoat!”

Chu Xi sounded quite displeased. She pulled a black raincoat from the back seat and draped it over Xu Huo.

”What’s the status of the victims’ identification?”

Xu Huo asked as he put on the coat, looking toward Li Jianye.

”Give me a quick rundown: the victims’ identities, their relationships, information from your canvassing, where they disappeared from, and the contents of the report.”

Li Jianye nodded. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking.

”According to our investigation,”

”The four victims are all incoming university freshmen who hadn’t yet started their classes.”

”The four of them went to junior high and high school together. You could say they were childhood friends.”

”Based on our initial interviews, the four of them had a decent reputation. People around them described them as ’honest’ or ’well-behaved.’ They had no known enemies, no obvious conflicts with anyone, and a very small social circle.”

”They disappeared on the evening of August thirty-first, destination unknown. They reappeared at 5:30 in the morning on September first, all four of them dead.”

”As for the report...”

Li Jianye paused, retrieving a file from a nearby tent.

He also handed over several photographs.

”The report shows traces of alcohol in their systems. Their bodies are covered in fatal wounds, but judging by the victims’ expressions, most of those wounds were inflicted after death. In other words...”

Xu Huo flipped through the photos. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow and looked at Li Jianye.

”Mutilating the corpses?”

Li Jianye nodded. ”That’s right. After killing the four of them, the murderer didn’t stop. He just kept using the weapon to mutilate the bodies!”

A silence fell over the surrounding officers at his words.

It wasn’t enough to just kill them; he had to mutilate the bodies, leaving them in this state—riddled with wounds, not a single part of them left intact, just a mass of bloody gashes...

And even that wasn’t enough.

Xu Huo looked down at the four bodies kneeling on the ground.

After mutilating them, the killer found wooden planks, nailed each victim to a cross, then dragged them to the intersection and set them up to kneel on the ground!

As for the mechanics... the bodies were kneeling and leaning back, propped up by the bottom end of the cross behind them, forming a triangular structure.

Xu Huo crouched down, leaning in to look closely at their hands.

A nail had been driven through the center of each palm. A glance behind the cross revealed the sharp tip of the nail sticking out through the wood.

”Do you have any theories?”

Xu Huo looked up. After pulling on a pair of gloves, he pried open one of the corpse’s eyelids and looked at the whites of its eyes.

”Right now, the evidence at the scene strongly suggests some kind of cult ritual.”

Li Jianye replied.

Xu Huo nodded.

’True enough. Crosses, Jesus, mutilation of the bodies, group death, the four cardinal directions...’

’It looks a lot like a cult. It’s even highly probable that’s exactly what it is!’

However...

”Wrong.”

Xu Huo kept his head down, examining the tattered clothing and the stomachs of the four bodies.

’The wounds are random and messy. Not all of them had their stomachs slashed open.’

”Wrong?” Li Jianye paused.

”How is it wrong?”

Xu Huo paused, then turned his head to look at Chu Xi, who was standing blankly to one side.

”I’ll talk, you take notes.”

At his words, Chu Xi snapped out of her daze and nodded quickly, pulling a notebook and a ballpoint pen from her bag.

”I’m ready!”

”First, let’s build our reasoning around the objective evidence.”

”Is there anything under their fingernails?”

Xu Huo stood up, looking down at the four bodies.

Li Jianye shook his head immediately. ”No. The police already checked. There’s nothing.”

The area under the fingernails is a routine spot for police to check, as it’s highly likely to contain traces of the killer’s skin or blood—a crucial piece of evidence.

The Jiangdong District police had checked, but unfortunately, they found nothing.

What if the killer had deliberately cleaned them? Luminol reagent would have revealed that.

Did the killer cut their nails? But why would you cut them if there was no evidence to begin with? Thinking about it in reverse, if the nails were cut, it’s *because* there was evidence. That would mean the victims struggled with the killer, the killer may have been injured, and the police could follow that lead. There are ways to approach it from either side.

But the victims...

”That’s right. No evidence. Nothing at all under their fingernails.”

Xu Huo nodded, not refuting the point. He turned his head to Chu Xi. ”Do you remember the formulas for deduction I told you about three years ago?”

’Formulas for deduction?’

”Yes, yes, I remember.”

Chu Xi immediately nodded like a chicken pecking at grain. ”You mean the formulas for symmetric inference and all that!?”

”What kind of formulas?” Li Jianye asked, dumbfounded.

”Symmetric property of inference, like if 1 meter = 100 centimeters, then 100 centimeters = 1 meter. Antisymmetric property, if a is greater than b, then b is less than a. Transitive property, if a > b and b > c, then a > c. Analyzing things using those three properties.”

Xu Huo nodded. ”They’re just logical inference formulas from mathematics. Very useful.”

With that, showing no intention of explaining further, he looked down at the file in his hands.

”According to the witness interviews...”

”Around four in the morning, an employee at a breakfast stall that was just opening saw a figure in the middle of the intersection. It was too dark, so they could only make out a dark shadow moving something on a tricycle. They didn’t think much of it, chalking it up to something that probably made sense, and ignored it.”

”Looking back now, that shadow was most likely the killer, and what they were moving were the victims.”

Li Jianye nodded. The weather that day was overcast, and to save electricity, the streetlights in this area start shutting off around 10 PM. You couldn’t expect any light at four in the morning; it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

”How many figures?” Xu Huo shot him a glance.

”According to the witness, just one.”

A nearby police officer chimed in first.

”And how many victims?” Xu Huo asked again.

”Four. It’s obvious,” the officer said, pointing to the bodies on the ground.

”Now, say that all together.”

”One killer, four vict—”

The officer trailed off mid-sentence. The realization hit him, and he froze on the spot.

”That’s right. One killer, no accomplices. Judging from the force indicated by the wounds, the weapon used, and the witness statements, there was indeed only one killer.”

Xu Huo nodded. This was normal; most murder cases only involve a single perpetrator.

But...

”The four victims were all around eighteen or nineteen, in their physical prime. Even if their strength wasn’t at its absolute peak, why...”

Xu Huo pointed to the clean space under the four victims’ fingernails.

”...did they not leave behind a single shred of evidence from the killer?”

”Four against one, and they couldn’t even land a scratch on him? Did all four of them just stretch out their necks and wait to be slaughtered?”

Several of the younger police officers, around Xu Huo’s age, stopped in their tracks.

’Waiting to be killed... is that possible?’

’It’s possible. Some cases are like that. But... the terrified expressions on these four bodies meant it was absolutely impossible in this case!’

”The victims wouldn’t have just let themselves be slaughtered, but the scene contradicts that.”

”Remember that. Now, apply the transitive property of inference: if a > b, and b > c, then a > c.”

Xu Huo continued, guiding their line of thought.

”Meaning, the victims couldn’t have *not* resisted, yet there are no signs of a struggle at the scene. So, for the scene to end up like this, there must be a reasonable intervening action.”

”To put it another way, something—or some event—must have made it impossible for the victims to fight back!”

What could that be?

”Alcohol!” Li Jianye said, recalling the report that had been prepared by a doctor, not a forensic examiner.

”Right, alcohol. But besides alcohol, there’s also this...”

Xu Huo bent down and lifted one of the bodies so its head rested limply on his shoulder. Paying it no mind, he pointed to a wound on the victim’s lower back.

”Alcohol plus an injury to the back.”

The alcohol was self-explanatory, but the back injury...

Li Jianye’s mind raced. ”The killer was an acquaintance!?”

An attack from behind almost always implies the killer was someone they knew, but...

”No, that’s not right,” he said. ”Based on what we’ve gathered, the victims barely knew anyone. It’s impossible they had a friend the police don’t know about...”

”Keep that in mind, but let’s set it aside for now.”

”Let’s focus on the alcohol.”

Xu Huo continued, ”The alcohol. I’m ninety-five percent certain the victims drank it willingly. They weren’t threatened. If the killer had the ability to forcibly get all four of them drunk, he wouldn’t have needed the alcohol to subdue them in the first place.”

”Besides, if he had threatened them, there wouldn’t be an injury on the back.”

”Judging from the analysis, they were most likely killed between midnight and 4:00 AM on September first. They were drinking during that window.”

”The victims were out at the time... so where could they have gone to drink heavily?”

A September night, a group of friends, drinking out on the town...

”Based on the victims’ stomach contents, we investigated nearby barbecue joints and other late-night restaurants, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find any record of the victims being at any of them,”

Li Jianye said, shaking his head.

”Is that so?”

Xu Huo shook his head. He pried open one of the corpse’s mouths, and a faint, lingering smell of alcohol drifted out.

’The victim drank a lot. With no metabolic process after death and no chance to rinse his mouth, the smell of alcohol still lingered, even now, some thirty hours later...’

”You guys should have gotten a sommelier to take a whiff.”

A smile touched Xu Huo’s lips. ”This smell is...”

”...a cocktail.”

A cocktail?

Li Jianye was stunned, then his brow furrowed. ”That’s... what kind of drink is that?”

He didn’t quite get it. A man in his forties, he knew his baijiu, his red wines, but this was the first time he’d ever heard of a so-called ”cocktail.”

”A cocktail. Your investigation was pointed in the wrong direction. You shouldn’t have been looking at restaurants.”

”You should have been looking at...”

Looking down at the investigation file in his hand, the smile on Xu Huo’s face widened.

”Bars. Nightclubs.”

”Tch. So much for ’honest’ kids...”

”Captain Li, it looks like...”

Xu Huo looked up at Li Jianye, a playful, mocking tone in his voice.

”The authenticity of your investigation report... is rather questionable.”