Chapter 42: Scars

Chapter 42: The Scar

That raincoat, identical... Su晨 watched the retreating back and stepped aside.

Bai Su's psychological profiling not only described specific physical traits but also pointed out several contradictory elements.

The person it outlined carried an indescribable sense of dissonance.

Su晨 walked straight past the man and sat down on the sofa opposite him.

Beneath the brim of his police cap, a pair of eyes swept across the room with a scrutinizing gaze.

"It seems I've come to the right place."

Su晨 said coldly.

"Why did you kill that girl?"

Upon hearing Su晨's voice, the man's body stiffened. He wiped his face, revealing a sharp, square-jawed countenance.

Small eyes, high cheekbones, and unkempt stubble along his chin.

His features were not ferocious at all, but rather utterly ordinary—the kind of face that would vanish entirely if thrown into a crowd.

After Su晨 finished speaking, the man did not react immediately.

Instead, he meticulously smoothed out the raincoat, his movements microscopic and tinged with a neurotic restlessness.

Only then did he respond in a muffled voice:

"Yes, I did it. I confess..."

Su晨 suddenly let out a cold laugh.

"I wasn't talking to you."

He turned his head away, his gaze fixed on a specific spot.

Right beside the living room sofa, a small wooden door stood ajar—presumably the entrance to the bedroom.

Su晨's gaze landed squarely behind that door.

"Stop hiding."

He said flatly:

"A crime committed can never truly be hidden away."

"Hahahaha..."

Just as Su晨's voice trailed off, a string of silver-bell-like laughter echoed from behind the door.

Then, the small door was gently pushed open, and a young woman stepped out.

She appeared to have just finished bathing, draped in a bath towel, with damp black hair cascading over her shoulders and shedding tiny, crystalline droplets of water.

Her face was delicate, and her cheeks bore an unhealthy flush.

The tall, robust man standing in the middle of the room shuddered imperceptibly upon seeing the young woman.

He then muttered submissively:

"Master."

"Tsk."

The woman narrowed her eyes, stood on tiptoe, and patted the man's head twice as a reward.

Afterward, she left the man behind, walked over to sit in front of Su晨, and crossed her legs.

As for the tall man, after a brief surge of excitement, he obediently retreated to the corner.

"Unexpected. Truly unexpected."

Su晨 twitched the corner of his mouth, locking his gaze onto the woman.

He did not step forward to subdue her, because this was not reality, but a scene constructed within his own deductive reasoning.

The dialogue between the two was, in truth, an organization of his own train of thought.

"If not for the psychological profile Bai Su gave me, I'm afraid I wouldn't have been able to recognize the true nature of this case in such a short time."

At that moment, Su晨 finally understood.

Why there were so many contradictions within that psychological profile.

According to the profile's conclusions:

The killer would be a meticulous butcher.

Thirty years of age, yet fond of the heavy metal music favored by rebellious twenty-somethings.

Furthermore, this butcher engaged in a blue-collar profession possessed anti-reconnaissance capabilities comparable to top-tier criminal investigators!

He knew how to eliminate fingerprints, how to clean up bloodstains, and how to destroy information left on the corpse...

These details did not inherently clash, but they created a subtle displacement that felt deeply unsettling.

At the same time, Su晨 understood.

Why the peripheral trait of "chaos" accounted for twenty-one percent of the personality evaluation results!

It was not because the killer was insane or suffering from dissociative identity disorder.

Rather, it was because the mastermind and the person who actually carried out the deed were two completely different individuals.

One was a paranoid butcher responsible for killing, dismemberment, and body disposal.

The other was a meticulous female college student responsible for planning and engineering the anti-reconnaissance measures.

Throughout twenty years of investigation, the police had always assumed the perpetrator of the Nanjing University dismemberment case was a single person because the relationship between these two was deeply bizarre.

The butcher had essentially handed over complete control of his body and mind to the female student. He was incapable of independent thought, obeying her commands entirely, and held an absolute, blind trust in her.

Consequently, the female student held absolute dominance in their dynamic. The butcher acted like an extension of her own body, devoid of autonomy and entirely at her command.

The 1996 psychology monograph *Intimate Relationships* termed this extreme interpersonal dynamic a D-s relationship.

It referred to a dynamic where one party completely submits to the other physically and psychologically, willingly placing themselves under control.

"Zhao Xiaoyue, female, twenty-two years old, native of Suishan in Heyue Province, an only child from a single-parent family, majoring in psychology at Nanjing University, with stellar academic performance and a GPA ranking in the top ten of her department."

"She possesses a strong passion for criminal investigation, has read numerous books on the subject, and is additionally a heavy metal music enthusiast."

Su晨 straightened up from the sofa, folding his arms across his chest. With a calm expression, he rattled off all the girl's personal details with pinpoint precision while observing her reaction.

The interrogation tactics of veteran investigators were largely similar.

This time, Su晨 was employing the very same method Duan Yu had once used—stating the subject's detailed background upfront to achieve a deterrent effect.

The only difference was that, unlike Duan Yu, he held substantive, critical evidence against her.

Yet, after Su晨 calmly delivered this lengthy exposition, the girl opposite him showed no trace of surprise. Instead, she offered a sweet smile:

"Officer, you've done your research thoroughly, but you can skip the psychological warfare."

"I am a psychology major; I am immune to psychological tactics."

"And precisely because you are a psychology student at a top-tier university," Su晨 added, "you were able to domesticate, control, and play a butcher thirty years your senior in the palm of your hand, utilizing him to execute your murder."

"Twenty years ago, during an era when college students were still a rarity, you held a massive knowledge advantage over the police. You were undoubtedly one of the most difficult criminals to deal with."

Hearing this, Zhao Xiaoyue gave Su晨 a slight nod of acknowledgment, as if accepting the compliment.

"After studying psychology, I discovered that human beings are fascinating creatures. Everyone has psychological vulnerabilities. As long as you can seize upon those vulnerabilities, it's very easy to breach their mental defenses and reshape them at will."

Seeing the girl's reaction, Su晨's mouth twitched slightly.

Despite being a professional in psychology, this person's mind was profoundly abnormal. She was not a standard murderer, but rather belonged in the category of a sadistic or psychopathic killer.

Across the world, psychopathic killers skilled in psychological manipulation were invariably the hardest to handle.

"So, you used your professional knowledge to domesticate this butcher."

"From him, you obtained the two most crucial elements for this murder: professional slaughtering skills and a strong male physique capable of dismembering a body and disposing of the parts overnight."

Su晨 analyzed:

"In fact, I might as well make a bolder assumption: you domesticated this butcher into a tool perfectly tailored for executing murders."

"When I first entered the room, I noticed he consciously avoided letting the water from his raincoat drip onto the floor. That must be a habit you deliberately cultivated in him, ensuring he left as few traces as possible in everything he did."

"And in Bai Su's psychological analysis report, the paranoia that accounted for seventy percent of his personality stemmed entirely from this deliberate cultivation of yours."

When the tragedy first occurred and police discovered the crime scene, they had immediately sensed something.

The scene was far too clean.

Almost no traces had been left behind.

Thinking back now, no matter how meticulous a person might be, it was impossible to clean up a murder scene so thoroughly on the spur of the moment.

Unless it was the result of long-term conditioning that had formed a series of subconscious habits.

Yet, after Su晨 finished speaking, the woman not only failed to display the annoyance or anger of someone whose facade had been stripped away;

Instead, a sudden flash appeared in her eyes.

Joy flickered across her face, as though she had finally met her match!

Much like many notorious criminals who felt immense pride and narcissism in their own *modus operandi*, craving nothing more than to be unmasked.

Su晨 observed all these reactions, his brow furrowing deeper still.

He realized that this girl's psyche seemed twisted far beyond normalcy.

Thus, he was filled with doubt. Just as the girl had said, someone trained in psychology would not be easily swayed by psychological warfare.

What, then, had caused this person to become so warped?!

"Why?"

Su晨 finally spoke, asking the most critical question of all.

"Why did you kill that girl? You should have been schoolmates, and there was no apparent conflict between you."

It was as though Zhao Xiaoyue's innermost secret had finally been touched.

Su晨 watched as, the moment he asked the question, the girl's pupils abruptly constricted!

"Consider it... a tribute. An act of worship toward that person."

As the girl spoke, the flush on her cheeks deepened, and her voice trembled slightly.

A tribute?!

An ominous premonition instantly rose in Su晨's heart.

Could this Zhao Xiaoyue be a copycat killer?!

Just as he was pondering this,

he saw the girl opposite him brush her hair aside and lift her delicate chin.

There, across her porcelain-white neck,

a scar spanning the entire length of her throat lay starkly exposed!