The waitress Xiaomei explained: "We attach great importance to the protection of guests, only the police have the right to view the surveillance video, don't embarrass me." ”

Ren Qiuling mysteriously revealed the two-and-a-half-pound barrel of the gun, "I'm the police, I'm on a secret mission, you have to keep it a secret for me." She put the gun in her bag again.

The waitress Xiaomei felt that she was being taken seriously, and she was so excited that she couldn't speak neatly: "I, I, I must keep it secret, cough cough!" You come with me. ”

When she arrived at the monitoring room, the waitress told the security guard: "She was sent by the police and wanted to see our surveillance video." ”

The security guards were looking at a pair of lovers in a hot kiss, and when they heard this, they quickly made it look like they were working hard, and a security guard wanted to inform the manager. Ren Qiuling used a little trick to calm down the gang, and then she saw the surveillance video she wanted to see.

About half an hour after Ren Qiuling and the others left the hotel, a middle-aged woman in plain clothes went upstairs, saw that there was no one around, took out a piece of charcoal from her pocket and ran to the door of Ren Qiuling's room to write two strokes. Then she looked around again, loaded it with charcoal, and walked away with her hands and feet—it was deliberately disguised with ease, and her hands and feet swayed much more than she normally walked.

Even if the quality of the surveillance video is not so clear, Ren Qiuling can see that the woman is engaged in manual labor - the action of walking, the large joints and other details show this. But between her eyebrows and eyes, she still retains the charm of her youth, and she used to be a beauty. And her face shape is now round, but if she were a little thinner, it would be an oval face.

"Print me a copy of this image, I'll be useful." Ren Qiuling knew that this was a key clue, and it was very likely that this woman knew something.

Soon, the printed photos arrived in Ren Qiuling's hands, such a large hotel, of course, printing equipment is indispensable.

At this time, the woman in the picture is nervously walking on a hillside full of rubble. The slopes are extremely inhospitable and devoid of grass. On the top of the mountain, a round arched stone gate stands tall, and on the white lime of the arch is written in red paint a few large characters: "Safety in production, everyone is responsible." ”

The middle-aged woman walked through the stone archway, where two rusty monorail minecarts were parked on a small railroad track, and a few cement pillars not far from the railroad tracks pointed to the sky like tombstones, and the steel bars on the top of the cement pillars twisted painfully, showing a kind of persistence in the wind.

On the nearby mountain, there are large and small mines, like mouths with silent screams, as if asking the sky, "Why is this happening?" ”

The middle-aged woman approached the mine that was connected by the small railroad tracks.

The light in the mine is faint, and the golden light can be seen on the hard rock, which makes people mistakenly believe that she has come to the treasure cave in the fairy tale. In fact, these flashes are all copper crystals in copper ore, and because the content is not high, there is no mining value.

From time to time there was a dreamy whisper in this abandoned mine, and it was impossible to hear what was being said, but it was a woman who could be heard.

The middle-aged woman coughed, and the mine fell silent.

She walked straight into the depths of the mine. In the deepest part of the mine, a circle of golden light surrounds a black hole that is one and a half meters wide, and through the faint light, it can be seen that this is a huge altar-shaped thing, which is connected to the tall mine up and down, and the diameter is about ten meters.

The whole huge mud jar has a rough appearance and a wavy pattern, because it is made of copper mine soil, and the mud jar is unevenly faceted with a little golden light. However, the mouth of the altar is obviously deliberately decorated with copper ore crystals, so it is particularly bright.

The woman walked under the clay altar and looked up at the golden mouth of the altar with a bright and stubborn gaze.

"You're here." A man's voice came from the mud altar, and because of the echo, the urn sounded angry.

The woman knelt on the ground, "Master, someone has started to investigate the case again." Her name is Ren Qiuling, and she is a disciple of Lan Jin. ”

"Oh-" The man in the mud altar was obviously interested, "The police detectives in the world are useless waste, only Lan Jin I admire the most, she almost caught me back then." But now, it's useless even if Lan Jin comes. As he spoke, a broad palm stretched out from the clay altar, its nails curled like hooks, and its hands were covered with black, sharp warts that were arranged in an orderly manner and glowed with the peculiar light of a beetle.

"Or?" The woman smiled flatteringly, "Turn Ren Qiuling into the next ghost spider?" ”

"Hahaha! Hahaha! The man in the mud altar laughed wildly, "She is indeed a good prey, a good idea, and so she will do it!" ”

Suddenly there was a loud chirping sound in the abandoned mines, and in those dark corners, many lights flashed away, as if something was about to move.

The middle-aged woman's eyes flashed with a vigilant gaze, and this image was fixed in the photo, which was lying calmly in front of Ren Qiuling's table. Tomorrow, Wei Lao Xu will come, let them see this photo should be able to find out who she is, this matter is not in a hurry. Ren Qiuling looked up another clue on the computer: according to the current information, the number of knife wounds left on the murderer's several corpses is very auspicious, and he may have some kind of superstition about numbers. All the victims have a lot in common, which shows that he carefully selected the victims.

So, is there some correlation between the date of his crime? Do you only commit a crime on a specific day?

Considering that his method of entering the victim's room was a sliding door, that is, as long as the door was locked, he would not force his way in, which gave him a certain degree of randomness. So, this correlation should be around certain specific days.

What is known so far is that the murderer only committed crimes in the three seasons of summer, autumn and winter, and the dates of his crimes are usually Monday to Friday. In the peculiar environment of Copper—the whole city is a single company, with a strict routine—he usually commits crimes when people are commuting to work, and while most people are at work, he looks for women who are alone at home.

Ren Qiuling checked all the dates on the computer, and the conclusion came out quickly: the murderer usually committed crimes before and after major holidays: two of them committed crimes before Children's Day; together before Army Day; committed two crimes a few years ago; two crimes around Thanksgiving; A crime was committed before the Spring Festival.

"Being alone in a foreign land as a stranger, thinking of relatives every festive season." These two poems of the ancients are a true portrayal of the murderer's mood. He should have come to Zitong City alone, unaccompanied, alone, and when some major festivals arrived, he felt desolate. Then he blamed all his misery on a woman in red, and he wanted revenge, so he killed someone.

Ren Qiuling felt that she had made a major discovery, so she called Teacher Lan Jin, firstly, to report the good news to her, and secondly, to thank her for her support by the way.

The phone rang, "Teacher, I have made a new discovery about the copper murder case!" Ren Qiuling said excitedly.

On the other end of the phone, there was the voice of Teacher Lan Jin sobbing.

"Teacher? Are you alright? ”

"Well, you say."

"I found that the murderer of the Purple Copper Serial Case committed a certain pattern, and he basically committed the crime before and after major festivals."

"Uh-huh. You're going down my old path, and it's not going to work. There are many major festivals in China, and you can pick a random day to come out, and it is also before and after major festivals, which is one of them; The case on May 22, 2001, which was the ninth day after Mother's Day and eleven days before Children's Day, was not in the village or in the store, and it was not so close to any major day, which did not conform to the profile, which was the second one; He did two cases before and after Thanksgiving, but you have to consider that very few people in Chinese society at that time would celebrate Thanksgiving, and even today no one celebrates Thanksgiving, which is the third. ”

Ren Qiuling felt like she had been slapped in the head, and she tried to justify: "You know, the way he entered the victim's room was by sliding the door, that is, he had followed the victim." Maybe on May 22, 2001, he just started following the case, and then he found an opportunity to commit the crime. ”

Lan Jin's emotions calmed down, and he asked his disciple, "Okay, this can barely explain that case." And what about the two cases around Thanksgiving? How do you explain that? ”

Ren Qiuling said: "Before the two cases around Thanksgiving, it was the 730 case in '98, and he killed the only little girl among all the victims. That case was the only one in which he showed shame, and he hid the little girl's body in a closet - the only time he disguised the scene. And covering up the corpse is usually a sign of shame. I believe that the police chased him very closely that time, and they passed him by, and he was able to escape arrest with the help of others. Since then, he has been celebrating Thanksgiving. In fact, Ren Qiuling knew that these were reasonable imaginations, and in the eyes of the stern teacher Lan Jin, these imaginations could not withstand refutation at all.

But Lan Jin was silent for a while, and then said: "I participated in the detection of the 730 case in 98, which is similar to what you think, at that time, the police chased very closely, and carried out fingerprint collection and blood sample collection throughout the city. At that time, funds were very tight, but the police had to solve the case, and all the blood samples were tested for DNA, and as long as he had a relative in Zitong, we could find him out through DNA. If you think about it, how much does a DNA test cost, even today, the amount of money required for more than 400,000 DNA tests is astronomical anyway. But: no result. ”

Ren Qiuling silently calculated, the internal price of a DNA test is about 1,000 yuan, and the funds required for 400,000 DNA tests are at least 400 million or 500 million.

"Acts of State?" She asked.

"Acts of State." Lan Jin said.