Chapter 386: An Important Clue Surfaces

There’s only one type of person in this world who doesn’t need a reason to kill.

A psychopath.

Even someone with a psychological disorder has a reason.

But is the killer a psychopath?

Or… a psychopath disguised as a normal person?

“Do you think it’s possible,” Li Jianye began, standing in the frigid wind, “that this person is some kind of extreme psychopath? Someone who can pretend to be normal, carry on a conversation, but then suddenly stab you out of nowhere?”

He mulled it over for a moment before speaking.

Do such psychopaths exist?

They do. They might gut you with a smile or kill you for no reason at all.

But…

“But their extreme sense of purpose doesn’t fit that profile.”

Xu Huo shook his head, then paused before adding,

“Of course, some psychopaths do have a sense of purpose, but… remember the profile of the killer’s appearance?”

Li Jianye froze, then understanding dawned on him.

The killer was profiled as a woman, five-foot-three, one hundred and fifty-four pounds, with a heavyset build, who engages in manual labor year-round.

A psychopath can’t be forced to work.

The kind of psychopath Li Jianye was talking about would have to be logically incoherent. But holding down a job proves a certain degree of logical thinking.

If they have logic, they at least have a thought process.

And if they have a thought process, can they still be that kind of psychopath?

Admittedly, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia could be factors, but like we just said…

“Purpose!”

“As long as a person possesses logic, then no matter what they do, it has a purpose!”

“Even if they’re schizophrenic, they still need a purpose to kill!”

Xu Huo’s voice was low but firm.

The snowy landscape was reflected in his eyes, and the wind, sharp as a knife, cut at his cheeks, but he paid it no mind.

Li Jianye fell silent.

They had run into a chaotic dead end.

If the killer was a psychopath, their logic could be either chaotic or non-chaotic.

Chaotic logic wouldn’t allow for the clear purpose of disemboweling someone. This proves the killer is not chaotic, that they possess a certain level of reasoning.

But a person like that… is no different from an ordinary person.

“This is bizarre.”

“For an ordinary person to kill someone without any resentment… At least there’s a purpose.”

Li Jianye pondered for a long time, his gaze falling back to the photograph.

The killer was like a dog, digging in the dirt for a buried bone.

But unfortunately…

“The purpose is also chaotic?”

The calm that had just settled in his eyes vanished, replaced by renewed intensity.

“What the hell is this?!”

First, is it possible to kill without resentment?

Yes, and many violent criminals operate this way.

For example, robbery-homicide, murder for profit, and rape-murder are all types of killing without personal resentment.

But, from these methods, a few key motives still emerge.

Robbery, profit, rape!

Yes, in these kinds of non-conflict-based, opportunistic killings, the conflict is transformed into another kind of ‘purpose’.

The killer does have such a purpose, but the problem is…

“It’s too vague.”

Li Jianye’s brows furrowed as he stared at the mass of organs pulled from the victim’s hollowed-out stomach.

The purpose of a rape-murder is the rape. But in this case, the killer’s purpose can’t just be to pull out the organs, can it?

What was her more specific, more concrete purpose?

For example, why pull out the organs?

Did the victim eat something that belonged to the killer?

Or was there something hidden inside the victim’s body that the killer wanted?

None of that is apparent.

“Her actions give me a very chaotic impression,”

Li Jianye mused.

“Perhaps… is it possible that her purpose was simply to remove those things? Or maybe…”

“She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for?”

Xu Huo spoke up, offering two lines of thought.

‘Is the purpose simply to pull out the organs?’

‘What’s the point of that?’

‘Does it give her some kind of thrill?’

In the eyes of a deviant, that might indeed provide some kind of thrill.

Is she a deviant?

If she were a deviant, the victim wouldn’t have died so easily. Compared to pulling out organs, the struggle and terror of a person before they die is what gets a deviant off.

So…

“She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for?!”

Li Jianye’s eye twitched. He looked at the police officers still investigating the scene, then back at the photograph.

‘If the killer herself doesn’t know…’

‘Then how the hell are the police supposed to figure it out?!’

“No, what I mean is, the killer might know what she’s looking for, but not know exactly where on the victim it is.”

“She might know the thing she’s looking for is on the victim’s body, she’s just not sure of the specific location.”

As he spoke, Xu Huo pointed to himself.

“It’s like us. We know she’s looking for something, but we don’t know what she’s looking for.”

Li Jianye was lost in thought.

‘Is that possible?’

It was actually very possible.

For example.

It’s like when you’re at home looking for the remote control.

You know your objective is the remote, but you can’t find it. You’re certain it’s somewhere in the living room, so you start tearing the place apart, making a huge mess.

Or like a dog looking for a bone.

It knows the bone is buried underground, and it even knows the general area, but it digs hole after hole and still can’t find it.

“But…”

“What could possibly be hidden inside a human body?”

Li Jianye’s brow knitted. He pulled out a photo of the corpse and placed it in front of Xu Huo.

“Look.”

“Logically speaking, a person’s abdomen only contains organs.”

“At most, there’s food in the stomach, but the killer didn’t take a single thing, not even the stomach itself.”

“None of the organs that spilled out are missing!”

A lot had spilled out from the abdomen, and there were clear signs of the killer rummaging through it all.

But nothing was gone.

Not the large intestine, not the small intestine, not the lungs or the liver.