Chapter 349: Settlement

In addition to the wild boar murder case, there are other seemingly bizarre cases.

For example, this one is about a ghost incident in an abandoned factory.

It is said that there was a bachelor who picked up rags. His family lived in a tin house and was very poor. But he also likes to drink and eat meat. I usually collect rags and sell them for money, but I would rather skip meals and buy some loose wine to drink.

For a while, the surrounding residents suddenly discovered that this bachelor had become rich. Not only did he start buying roast duck, roasted goose and pig heads, but he also stopped drinking loose wine and started buying whole bottles of wine. People became curious, and someone followed him secretly, only to discover that he had started stealing scrap metal to sell in the abandoned factory in the suburbs.

The factory was abandoned because of a fire. I heard that the fire killed more than a dozen people. Villagers nearby all heard rumors that the abandoned factory was haunted. Many people said with certainty that when they passed by there at night, they could hear faint cries coming from inside, as well as calls for help.

Residents nearby will definitely not go there if they are fine. The children in the village were also warned repeatedly not to play there.

There is an old man guarding the gate during the day, but the old man is not there at night and is left unattended. But after all this time, the contents inside have never been lost.

No one dares to steal anything there.

Now this bachelor who picked up rags dared to take the contents.

The kind-hearted neighbor advised him that the things inside were unlucky, so if he took the things there, he would be careful not to be retaliated by ghosts.

The bachelor was still anxious and concluded that he had never been there.

When the neighbors saw that he would not listen to his advice, they had no choice but to let it go.

Later, some time later, one morning, the old man watching the gate suddenly rolled and crawled, crying and screaming, and fled back to the village. After asking, I found out that the old man went to work today. When he opened the door, he saw the bachelor hanging upright on the steel beam in front of him. He had died long ago.

A group of villagers banded together, emboldened themselves with weapons in hand, and went to the factory together, where they finally got the bachelor's body down.

Later, the police were called, and after the security officer checked, he still concluded that he had committed suicide.

The bachelor was hastily buried, and the person who had advised him before sighed and said, I had advised him not to take the things there, but he didn't listen, and now something happened.

The rest of the villagers suddenly realized that this bachelor had been stealing things inside.

In the current situation, it goes without saying that the ghost must have taken his life and went there to hang himself.

After that, the story of the haunting in the abandoned factory spread like wildfire, spreading all over the country. It even spreads to this day, decades later, and some people still remember it.

In Lu Ming's view, this is also an abnormal suicide case and deserves attention.

Lu Ming and Zhang Dingshan distinguished many cases that were suspected of involving abnormal suicides, such as the murder case of a wild boar or the case of a ghost in an abandoned factory.

These cases span a wide range of years, with the oldest being as far back as 90 years ago, and the most recent being traced back to before Wang Quan mastered the cursed killing ability, which was fourteen years ago.

A total of 189 cases were initially screened out. Among these 189, the Public Security Bureau has records of 101. The rest of the information may have been lost because it was too old, or the neighbors and relatives did not report the crime at all at the time, or it was simply a matter of spreading rumors. In short, there is no record at all.

The screening focus of the second operation team is the 101 cases recorded by the Public Security Bureau.

"If there were people with this kind of ability before Wang Quan and after the master who built the Zhou family archway, then I think the distribution of the dead killed by him should be clustered."

Just like those killed by Wang Quan, there was a gathering with Nanlin Street as the core.

This is also based on the same principle: if the perpetrator wants to kill the victim, he must at least have contact with the victim, and at least know the victim's existence.

A few decades ago, a business model like Nanlin Street was just getting started, and the turnover of people was much less than it is now. Judging from the crime pattern, the area around the perpetrator should be a high-incidence point for abnormal suicide cases.

In this way, as long as it is confirmed which area is the high incidence point of abnormal suicide cases, the approximate location of the perpetrator can be located.

Of course, there are some loopholes in this. For example, if the perpetrator commits the crime on the move, there will be no agglomeration. Or maybe the perpetrators have no fixed residence at all and move around like fellow traders, so there will be no gathering.

In short, let's first see if there is any aggregation. If not, consider the remaining possibilities.

Based on the crime locations of these 101 cases, Lu Ming took out the map of Blue Lake City and marked the crime locations on the map one by one.

This time, the two people immediately discovered the clues.

Sure enough, there is aggregation. And the aggregation is quite obvious.

Among the 101 cases dating back to 90 years ago, a total of three convergence points emerged.

The first gathering point is Niuzhuang Village on the eastern outskirts of Blue Lake City. With it as the core, there are a total of 21 cases in the surrounding 5 kilometers, totaling about 70 square kilometers.

The second gathering point is located in the southwest urban area of ​​Blue Lake City.

The population density in urban areas is higher, and the agglomeration here is more obvious.

With the intersection of Fenglin Street and Nanxing Road as the core, a total of 23 cases occurred within a 1 kilometer surrounding area, totaling approximately 3 square kilometers.

The third gathering point is near the mountainous area in the south of Blue Lake City, with Sanli Village as the core and a surrounding area of ​​4 kilometers, totaling about 50 square kilometers, with a total of 16 cases.

The remaining 41 cases are scattered in various areas of Blue Lake City, with no obvious distribution pattern.

These three gathering points attracted Lu Ming's attention.

After analyzing these cases more carefully, Lu Ming discovered a new clue.

"These cases...are not only clustered geographically, but also clustered in time."

Zhang Dingshan looked at the time of the crime and immediately came to the same conclusion.

For example, the first gathering point is here in Niuzhuang Village. Of the 21 cases here, 18 occurred in the past 20 years from 70 years ago to 50 years ago.

The dates of the remaining three cases either cannot be determined or deviate greatly from this time period.

At the second gathering point, 20 of the 23 cases at the intersection of Fenglin Street and Nanxing Road were gathered in the 16 years from 52 years ago to 36 years ago.

The third gathering point is the 16 cases around Sanli Village, 14 of which occurred in the 18 years from 32 years ago to 14 years ago.

"Um?"

Zhang Dingshan frowned slightly and his eyes became sharp.

"Not only are there regional and time agglomerations, but there are also obvious inheritance relationships between different time periods?"

In particular, the time when these cases broke out around Sanli Village was from 32 years ago to 14 years ago. And what happened 14 years ago?

14 years ago, the Zhoujia Archway was demolished. Wang Quan, a madman living on Nanlin Street, inexplicably possesses the ability to curse people to death. That year, he took action for the first time and killed Wu Biao's entire family.

What this means is already obvious.

"Perhaps...this ability also has an inheritance relationship? The previous ability user must lose this ability before it can be inherited by the next person? If so, what is the relationship between these ability users? Blood inheritance relationship ?Master-disciple relationship? What do these ability users have in common? What caused this ability to appear in them?"

This requires further detailed investigation to determine. But at least, now we have a clearer direction of investigation.

The focus of the current investigation is to find those people with abilities who may have existed in the past era.

"Recall He Wei first."

Zhang Dingshan made a decision.

Lu Ming called, and half an hour later, He Wei, who looked slightly tired, came to the conference room.

"The investigation is not going well?"

He Wei nodded, seeming a little irritated: "I checked those cases over and over, but nothing was found. At present, most cases still cannot confirm the existence of abnormalities, nor can they be 100% confirmed to be normal."

"No one confirmed that there is an abnormality?"

"No."

Zhang Dingshan nodded: "This can already show some information. Let's end the investigation in this direction."

He Wei was a little surprised.

Lu Ming explained: "The captain and I have made new progress."

He took out the map of Blue Lake City and marked the location and time of the crime.

He Wei looked carefully for a moment and saw the abnormality.

"There is aggregation in space, aggregation in time, and there is also a sequence between times..."

She slapped the table and stood up suddenly: "Let's go."

Lu Ming originally wanted to do some more preparations, conduct some peripheral investigations, collect information, etc. But under He Wei's urging, he could only hurry up and immediately led the security guards to the first gathering point of the case. They visited the elderly in the village and the descendants of those who committed suicide to collect relevant information and records in the village.

Lu Ming, Zhang Dingshan, and He Wei all agreed that if there was a person with abilities other than Wang Quan, he would be a lunatic or a fool, and the possibility of not following common sense when choosing a crime target was relatively small.

So, if you are a normal person, you will definitely have a reason when you choose the target of the crime.

Maybe this person has a grudge against me, or this person has a conflict of interest with me, or this person's death can bring some benefits to me, or maybe he simply doesn't like it and kills people in the name of justice. There will always be a reason.

In this case, when almost a dozen deceased people have been confirmed, by investigating their social relationships, interest relationships, etc., there is great hope to lock in the ability user, and there will not be a social investigation like Wang Quan. A situation where nothing comes of the relationship.

Normal people are sometimes easier to deal with than fools and lunatics.

However, during this investigation, three people from the second operation team and many security officers collected all the data they could, but still could not find any clues in terms of social relations.

The deceased were neither relatives nor friends, did not live in the same village, and most of them did not know each other. Besides, this happened decades ago. There are very few people who still remember these things, and the information they can provide is also very limited.

With the support of this limited information, the second action team was unable to make the next step of judgment.

but……

"I noticed that the families of these deceased people are generally relatively wealthy. Not to mention the richest man in the village, the richest man in the township, etc., but at least they are in the upper reaches of their respective villages. Maybe someone in the family is an official, or the family has a business. "

"What does this mean?"

He Wei asked back: "You mean, the perpetrator is jealous? Jealous of them? Jealous of rich people?"

It's unlikely to be hatred. After all, these people are too scattered. It is understandable to have a feud with one family, but how can it be possible to have a feud with so many families.

There should be no conflict of interest. Same reason as above.

Lu Ming thought about it: "Is it possible that...the perpetrator used the same method as the master who built the Zhou family archway? It's just that the master still had integrity and a bottom line, and created these cases. That ability user... just for money?"

He Wei's expression immediately became serious.

This is indeed possible.

To put it simply, it is a trap.

The person with abilities specially selected wealthy people in the family and killed someone in the family through curses. He also used rumors and legends to create the illusion of "hitting an evil person" or "provoking a ghost". After that, he Then come forward as a "master" to settle these matters for this family.

Families in which a relative commits suicide for no apparent reason will definitely feel panic-stricken. Under fear, there is a high probability that people will look for people like masters to come and see what is going on, to pray for blessings from disasters, to exorcise ghosts and catch ghosts, etc.

If this ability user is found, the ability person can collect money to do things. From then on, the family will no longer have strange things happen, thus gaining fame and money.

If another master is hired to check it out, the person with this ability may still be able to continue to cause trouble secretly. When the time comes, when the family sees strange things happening again, they will naturally think that the master they hired before is ineffective, and will find someone else instead. He would not stop until he found this ability user and collected the money.

Fame and money are there.

Lu Ming said: "I have been thinking for a long time about how I would realize it if I had this ability. I found that in addition to having a certain status, such as competing with another person for a big business, I can use this method In addition to gaining huge benefits by cursing the opponent to death, it is actually not easy for an ordinary person to realize this ability."

Even if ordinary people can kill without consequences, so what? If you kill someone, you should still have no money. Even if the person dies, the money will not be in his hands.

Perhaps the only practical, simple and convenient way to monetize is to pretend to be a master and make things easier for others.

"So... I think that if these cases are really all about people with abilities killing people through curses, then his identity... is most likely a master. And he is also a master with a certain reputation."

Take a day off tomorrow. . . Updates will resume the day after tomorrow