The "they" in Tang Hui's mouth probably refer to the local police, since Lei Qishan has already thought of looking for Qiao Wei, it means that there must be some strange phenomena in this case that cannot be explained by common sense - the skull-faced flame man may be just one of all kinds of strange phenomena.

Our conversation was heard by the bearded driver, who was utterly astonished and speechless.

Then Tang Hui asked the bearded man some questions, such as whether he saw the fire man jump from the car after the bus burned, whether any of the passengers in the car showed particularly strange behavior, and so on.

The bearded man replied that he didn't see anyone or anything jumping out of the car, and that he hadn't noticed any strange behavior on the part of the passengers, but that everything was normal, except for the sudden fire and the skull with the axe.

After the conversation with the bearded man was over, I asked Tang Hui where he planned to check next. Tang Hui said that his current task is to understand the situation from the hospitalized drivers and passengers, and now that he has understood everything he should know, it is time to go back to the bureau to report the situation.

This is not Lei Qishan's territory, and I, the advisor of the criminal police team, am not qualified to participate in the police meeting here. I told Tang Hui that I should stay here for three or four days, and let him tell me if he made any new discoveries, and Tang Hui nodded and agreed.

After saying goodbye to Tang Hui, I returned to the fire brigade with Ma Jun.

According to Tang Hui, there was a serial murder case thirty years ago, when a total of thirty-eight people were hacked to death. According to Ma Jun, thirty-six beheaded corpses also appeared in the legend of the Fire Man ten years ago, although there is a difference of two in the number, but I still think that the two things seem to be related.

When I arrived at Ma Jun's office, I asked him to help him find the firefighter who had seen the fire man with his own eyes ten years ago.

Ma Jun made a series of phone calls and finally found the contact information of one of the people, whose surname was Dong, and he no longer worked in the fire brigade.

I dialed the other party's number according to the number, and soon a vicissitudes of life voice came out of the phone.

I asked if the other party's surname was Dong, and if he had seen a strange man with an axe in the warehouse when he was working in the fire brigade before.

The other party was stunned for a while before replying, "Yes, I have seen it, what is the matter with you?" ”

"I want to ask Brother Dong, what kind of fire man did you see at that time?"

"Why do you ask this?"

"Actually, a passenger car caught fire on the highway during the day today, and the fire man with the axe appeared again and hacked six ...... to death."

"I've told the police what I saw! Don't bother me!! ”

Before I could finish my sentence, the other party interrupted me in a rude tone and hung up the phone.

I quickly dialed the phone again, and this time he answered it faster, and immediately said, "If you want to ask, go to the police, don't bother me!" ”

"I'm a police officer, but I don't believe in serial murderers or anything like that, I think that fire man might be a ghost!"

I simply lied to him and made my position clear. And this trick really worked, and after the other party was silent for a moment, his tone finally softened and said, "What did you say?" Ghosts, you say? ”

"That's right! I don't think the things in the fire are alive, so I wanted to ask you to see what you see. ”

The other party fell silent again, and after a long moment he said, "I will never forget what I saw in that warehouse in my life, and I still have nightmares because of that thing!" None of the three of us who went in with us were able to work in the fire brigade anymore, and they were all like me, and they were scared when they saw a fire. It was absolutely impossible for someone in the warehouse that day to be alive, it was a charred skull! I've told a lot of people what I saw, but no one believed me, they said the three of us were scared stupid, I ...... Hey, forget it, I don't want to talk about the past! What more do you ask? ”

"Is that skeleton's axe the Black Iron Twin Moon Battle Axe?" I asked.

"I don't know if it's a tomahawk, but it's big anyway, it's really black."

With these two answers was enough, I thanked this big brother Dong, and then told him that I believed that what he saw was true.

After the call, I sat on the couch and let out a long breath.

Obviously, the legend of the fire man who circulated in the fire brigade ten years ago is the same guy who caused the decapitation of the bus today, and this guy is most likely the same serial killer thirty years ago.

What about '83, '03, '13, and '93 in between?

Thinking of this, I immediately asked Ma Jun if there was also a decapitation incident in 93.

Ma Jun shook his head and said that he had only heard of the legend of the Fire Man in 03, and he didn't know or hear about it before. Then he called the veteran of the fire brigade and asked if there was a legend like the fire man in 93, but the answer was "no".

The strange incident of the decapitated fire man started ten years ago, what is the special significance of this point in time? Something special must have happened in the twenty years from '83 to '03, and it was this incident that led to the appearance of the fire man.

If the serial killer died in '03, this may explain the cause of the decapitated fire man, and it can also explain the similarities between the decapitation case at the Weishenme fire site and the homicide case thirty years ago. If I guess correctly, then I will be in line with the direction of the police investigation - to find the serial killer who beheaded and killed people 30 years ago.

In the evening, I called Tang Hui to ask him how the investigation was going. Tang Hui said that Lei Qishan also wanted to meet me, so we made an appointment to meet at a dog meat restaurant near the Municipal Public Security Bureau an hour later.

Ma Jun had to be on duty at night and couldn't go with me, so I went to the hotel at the agreed time and met Lei Qishan and Tang Hui. With them was a strange old man in his sixties.

After I passed, Tang Hui immediately introduced me and the old man to each other.

The old man, surnamed Huang, is a retired police officer, he participated in the investigation of the serial murder case 30 years ago, and once locked up the suspect, but unfortunately the case was not solved in the end.

His presence was definitely an unexpected surprise to me, and then we ate and chatted at the dinner table, and I also learned from Old Man Huang about the serial murder case 30 years ago.

The murder first occurred in an ordinary family, a case of killing a family of six.

At the time of the incident, there were two elderly people in the family, two adult men, a woman, and a 10-year-old child. All six of them were beheaded, but they had multiple stab wounds on their bodies, which can be determined that they had died from stab wounds before they were beheaded, and the killer vented his anger at the corpse by beheading them after the killing.

The police determined that the murder weapon used by the murderer was the kitchen knife of the deceased's house, the murder began in the kitchen, and the first to be killed were the eldest son and his wife in the family, so the murderer is likely to know the victim, and the victim invited the murderer into the house, and then the murderer started to act because of an argument with the victim, and finally killed the victim's family in anger.

Initially, the police focused their investigation on the two adult male brothers in the deceased's family. They believe that the murderer is very likely to know the two brothers, perhaps colleagues, or former neighbors and classmates. And when the police investigated according to this clue, another murder case occurred, this time it was a family of three who were killed, and they were also hacked to death first, and then beheaded by the murderer, but this time the murder weapon was not a kitchen knife, and the police judged that it was a large sharp weapon, such as an axe.