After receiving this confirmation, Xie Yixiang and Yang Zhutou couldn't help but glance at each other and didn't speak for a long time. After half a ring, Yang Zhutou asked: "The so-called serial homicide must be committed by the same murderer more than three times in a row to be defined as such." And this 'human kitchen case' is recorded in only three murders, which is not enough to determine the murderer's behavior. However, it is a strange thing that the three families who were killed were husband and wife with a daughter between the ages of five and seven, and that the daughters of the three families, Zhu Yuanwai's family in Haozhou and the Li butcher's family in Yinshan Village, happened to be adopted. Therefore, although it is impossible to prove whether the family of the man surnamed Liu who was killed in Zhenjiang is also an adopted daughter, there are two strange things that can reasonably explain the murderer's motive for committing the crime. ”

Xie Yixiang nodded slowly, and combed the entire case in his mind again, except for this clue, there is indeed no other direction to start now. Yang Zhutou already trusted Xie Yixiang at this time, and immediately asked, "What should we do next?"

Xie Yixiang pondered for a while, remembering that before leaving, Sister Yue had given her advice, saying that she could start with a family of three with girls between five and seven years old to see if she could lock down the target of the murderer's next murder. Now that it has been inferred that the murderer was targeting a family of three who had adopted a girl between the ages of five and seven, the scope could be greatly narrowed. At that moment, she asked Yang Zhutou to send all the manpower in the yamen of Shaoxing Mansion to thoroughly investigate every household with Shaoxing City as the center, screen out the families of the girls who adopted girls between the ages of five and seven, report them one by one, and then send people to closely monitor and protect them.

Yang Zhutou was a little suspicious and asked: "This 'human chef' has only left three criminal records in the past six years, even if there are more in private, the frequency of his crimes is by no means high. Since he had already committed a crime in Yinshan Village in the eastern suburbs a few days ago, I am afraid that there will be no more movement in the short term, and it is not known that he has even left the boundary of Shaoxing Mansion. Like this, the whole city is checked, is it ...... Did some of the many moves make the whole Shaoxing City panic?"

Xie Yixiang shook his head slowly, and said: "Regardless of the motive of this 'human chef', every time he commits murder and eats people, although he eats the hearts of the husband and wife first, what he really wants to eat should be the broth stewed by the girl; otherwise, why would the murderer only pick a family of three with girls between the ages of five and seven? In addition, the case in Yinshan Village a few days ago was discovered by the descendants of the village in time, so the murderer had to flee in a hurry, and he had not had time to eat the pot of broth stewed by the girl. I always had a strange premonition about this, and I always felt that this 'human chef' would be unwilling to eat the girl's meat this time, and it was very likely that he would commit the crime again, so as to make up for the loss a few days ago. Counting the time he spent searching for the target of the murder and secretly stepping on the investigation, if the murderer wanted to do it for the second time in a short period of time, the selected target should still be in the Shaoxing area. ”

After that, she added: "I hope that I am too careful, and after the Yinshan Village case, this 'human chef' may disappear for many years." However, despite this, using the power of the government to conduct a city-wide investigation can at least make the local people take precautions and know the murderer's target, and at the same time, the murderer will have some scruples and dare not take action lightly. After all, compared to solving the case and arresting the murderer, it is more important to protect the peace of the people on one side. ”

At that moment, Yang Zhutou did what Xie Yixiang wanted, and sent the officials in the yamen out overnight to check the homes of people who adopted girls between the ages of five and seven from house to house. In this blink of an eye, two days have passed, but the progress is extremely slow, and in the evening of the second day, the news obtained is not optimistic, in this huge Shaoxing city, there are only two families who meet this condition, and under interrogation, they have not been able to find any useful information. The official who received the order was afraid of being scolded by Yang Zhutou, and expanded the scope of the investigation to the entire Shaoxing territory, and is still busy in the suburbs of Shaoxing City.

Xie Yixiang and Yang Zhutou put it together slightly, and immediately figured out the key. In addition, when a child is adopted, the family usually raises them as if they were their own biological children, and very few families tell the truth and let their children know that they have been adopted. Therefore, even in the face of the interrogation of the officials, most of them refused to admit it.

Yang Zhutou was also helpless in this regard, so he asked Xie Yixiang if he wanted to expand the scope of the investigation, as long as there were five to seven year-old girls in the family, they would all have to be checked. Xie Yixiang said that it was not necessary for the time being, and decided to personally go to interrogate the two families that had been screened out, and then make a decision according to the situation. Before the two of them had time to step out of the hall, they hurriedly ran to pray, with a look of horror on their faces, and said loudly: "It's not a good thing...... A murder has just occurred in Zhuji, southwest of Shaoxing City, in which a young couple in their twenties were killed in their home. And...... And the hearts of the husband and wife were dug out alive, and a plate of stir-fried heart slices was made in the kitchen with ginger, onions, garlic and pepper!"

Hearing this, Xie Yixiang and Yang Zhutou immediately stood on the spot, and Yang Zhutou even confirmed: "The deceased is only a husband and wife, is there no child in the family?" The man nodded again and again, and then shook his head and said: "It is true that only the husband and wife were killed, and there are no children." Xie Yixiang and Yang Zhutou were both suspicious in their hearts, digging out people's hearts to cook like this, it was obviously the means of "human cooking", but this time the deceased's family had no children at all, could it be that the previous inference was wrong from beginning to end, and this "human kitchen case" had nothing to do with the adoption of a girl? For a while, the two did not dare to delay more, Yang Zhutou hurriedly gathered people and rushed to Zhuji in the southwest of Shaoxing City.

It is said that Zhuji originally belonged to the boundary of Shaoxing, and it was about more than 100 miles away from Shaoxing City. At this time, the night was dark, and everyone rushed to Zhuji in the starry night, and it was already around the hour. Under the leadership of the local commissioner, Xie Yixiang and Yang Zhutou came to a secluded alley, although it was the middle of the night, there were still many people around the alley, pointing at a house in the alley, but they were attracted by the murder here, and came to see the lively people.

Yang Zhutou hurriedly dispersed the crowd, and entered a house in the alley with Xie Yixiang, and suddenly the smell of blood came to his nose. Then I followed the smell of blood into the kitchen, and saw two corpses of a man and a woman lying in a pool of blood, whose chests had been thrown away by sharp blades, flowing blood all over the ground, but a heart had disappeared. On the stove next to it, there is clearly a large plate of fried heart slices, although it has long been cooled, but under the embellishment of green onions, ginger, garlic and peppers, it still looks particularly attractive and makes people have a great appetite.