Love Me if You Dare: Pristine Darkness

“The person we are looking for is a man aged 35 to 40 years old. He is tall and sturdy. He constantly works out, and has a very robust physique as a result. This is how he is able to transport the bodies of his victims to the mountaintop on foot.

He has trained in unarmed combat or taekwondo or some form of martial arts before, and is an expert in that form. He is a meticulous thinker and is very good at plotting. He has some way to access information on police cases, and is very familiar with criminal investigation techniques. This is why he has been successful in tracking down so many fugitives and slaughtering them.

He has an excellent financial situation. Either his family circumstances are great, or he has a job with a considerable income.

He is from Tong City. At present, it is impossible to ascertain whether he has any connection to Jian Yi’s case that year. However, he definitely suffered some huge psychological provocation in his early youth, after which, he started killing people. His experience in slaughtering people has matured from the chaos it was when he started. His first targets were selected without any pattern whatsoever, and each and every one of them was haphazardly hacked to death, with a butterfly painted behind them thereafter. Later on, he changed progressively, and focussed on killing criminals, even including the bandits who were guilty of terrible crimes. Moreover, he executed them by nailing them with iron nails, and completely transformed himself into an ‘enforcer of the law’.

There seems to be no clear time period within which he committed crimes, and no clear pattern of occurrence, either. In fact, there is a gap of several years in the middle. I suspect he was distracted by other reasons during that time, such as imprisonment, going abroad or hospitalisation.

The incense burner at the scene, as well as the different ways in which he handled the two types of corpses, also confirms his remorse and guilt over his treatment of the earlier victims. Although he is a psychopath, he is always struggling, and has a conscience. I believer, after he became an ‘enforcer of the law’, he attained a considerable measure of relief, and his mental state also stabilised. This is because he finally found a way to balance his need to kill and his conscience.

However, from a psychological perspective, this stability is only superficial and temporary. The more he killed, the greater the degree of his psychopathy. After so many years, I am certain that his mental state was teetering on the brink of collapse. All it needed was an ignition point.

And, recently, that ignition point appeared. He finally, publicly killed the accomplice of the person who had imitated his butterfly murders.”

All the criminal investigators were silent after Bo Jinyan laid out his deductions. Jian Yao, however, felt inexplicably uneasy; what was this feeling? There was always this feeling of deja vu, of details that just seemed so familiar; there was always the sense that some important person and situation was right there, on the cusp of being revealed. But, because she was caught in the net, she was unable to see clearly.

She looked at Bo Jinyan and remembered his earlier words to her. Slowly, her heart regained a measure of calm.

Don’t be afraid to face your wounds.

Because the truth is always there, under our wounds. Just waiting for us to discover it.

In the following few days, everything regarding this case took place on a large, and earth-shaking, scale. A report had to be made to the Ministry of Public Security, whereupon the case was listed as the number one major case this year, shocking the entire nation. Additional forces were sent to the south to establish a special investigation team with command over multiple work groups. Meanwhile, Bo Jinyan’s special cases team became the core of the special investigation team, and its main consultant. The criminal investigators conducted their investigations on several fronts: running background checks on the 12 victims, carrying out a thorough and meticulous evaluation of the site, compiling a list of possible suspects . . .

It was during this time that Bo Jinyan determined that the main focus of the special cases team would be Xun City, Jian Yi’s case 20 years prior.

He never did anything that was useless.

He was merely taking a shortcut.

What did this indicate? It indicated that he had already decided, much earlier on, that the ‘Butterfly Killer’ case had an unknown relationship with Jian Yi’s case.

——

The autumn winds blew. The high walls outside the prison stretched on in unending grey. Fang Qing and An Yan walked out holding a stack of files. When Fang Qing saw them, he said, “Investigations into the case that year uncovered a total of eight killers. Of these eight culprits, three were sentenced to death, one received life imprisonment, and four were sentenced to definite terms of imprisonment. Of the five, two died while in prison. As for the remaining three who were eventually released, two died more than 10 years ago. There is only one still alive, named Xu Huqiang.”

. . . . . .

This place was an auto repair yard, totally ordinary. There were four or five employees.

Xu Huqiang already sported a head of white hair, a face full of wrinkles, and a stooped figure, but he was washing cars together with the younger employees. Life was tough. Jian Yao looked at this former murderer from a distance, and her heart swelled with something she could not describe.

“Will you forgive him?” Bo Jinyan asked softly, out of nowhere.

“I can let it go, but there’s no way I can forgive,” Jian Yao replied.

When he was brought to them, Xu Huqiang was visibly trembling with fear. “I have not done anything wrong, why have you caught hold of me?”

Coldly, Fang Qing said, “We want to ask you some questions, so tell us the truth. This is a very important matter, so if you don’t take it seriously and give us answers, you’ll have to follow us back to the police station.”

Those who have been released are never willing to go back in again. Moreover, Xu Huqiang was apprehensive about losing his job, so he hurriedly nodded.

However, what questions should they ask?

The case that year had been thoroughly investigated by the excellent and furious criminal investigators at that time, and they had interrogated everyone repeatedly. All the details had been recorded in minute detail. It was very likely that Xu Huqiang had confessed countless times.

Bo Jinyan calmly faced Xu Huqiang. No one could see his eyes beneath his sunglasses.

“That day, there was a teenager who initially intended to go with you guys to the Jian household. What is his name?”

Xu Huqiang was dumbstruck.

Those memories were so distant and vague for him now. However, because this one incident had changed his life, and had also filled it with remorse and foreboding, when Bo Jinyan asked such a precise question, some images which he had previously repressed, suddenly appeared in hazy flashes. It was as if the fragments of a shattered movie were flickering in her mind.

“How did you know?” he responded without thinking.

Fang Qing, Jian Yao and the others were shocked beyond belief. On the other hand, Bo Jinyan merely smiled in an irreverent and indifferent manner.

“Of course I know,” he responded. “It’s as if I had seen it with my own eyes.”

Why kill Jian Yi? The 80s and 90s belonged to the criminal gangs. If these reckless scoundrels wanted to kill someone, it could be due to their desire to show their supremacy, or it could simply be because that someone had rubbed them the wrong way.

And, in the eyes of all the criminals in the city, Jian Yi was definitely rubbing them the wrong way.

He hated evil with a passion, and was especially skilled and capable. In rapid succession, he smashed many of the gang’s underground gambling dens, and arrested many of them in brawls. At that time, all over the country, those bast–ds who had ‘made it big’ all had the blood of several people staining their hands. But, not in Tong City, because Jian Yi’s attitude was firmly that of ‘all murders must be solved’. If a person killed someone else, the very next day, while he was still celebrating his newly-won Jianghu* status, Jian Yi would have followed the most minute clue, traced that f**cker, seized him and sent him to the detention centre. Then, the death penalty! Or, life imprisonment!

*T/N 江湖 (jiang hu) – the world of the wuxia (martial arts) stories, also used to refer to the section of society out of the reach of the law (the underground).

The gangsters all hated Jian Yi with a passion. However, in that era, no one dared to provoke the police, because the police themselves were as savage as tigers.

But, that night, a group of gangsters who had previously been dealt with by Jian Yi had too much to drink.

Furthermore, amongst them were two or three characters who were ‘famous’ within the city. They thought it would be a good idea to “teach Jian Yi a lesson”, and decided they wanted to “hack to death that motherf**ker”. Thus, they picked up their knives and left.

At that time, one fought with machetes and cleavers. This seemed to be the proof of being a ‘true gangster’.

This bunch of rowdy, hooting gangsters made their way to the home of Jian Yi’s parents – a gangster had seen him go there that day, rather than back to his residence in the police compound.

Jian Yi was totally unprepared.

The young, decorated, criminal investigator, renowned throughout the province, was totally unprepared. If this murderous desire had been premeditated, he might have had an inkling about the situation and manoeuvred it somehow. But, it had been an impulsive move by a bunch of drunken gangsters, who recklessly hacked away with their weapons the minute they entered the house. Even the highly skilled Jian Yi could do nothing to defend himself once he had been slashed down from behind, what’s more his aged parents.

Fresh blood oozed over the ground in meandering rivulets. Every single person had been hacked into many pieces.

……

At that time, the gangsters* liked to gather ‘little brothers’**. Xu Huqiang vaguely remembered that the boss that day had brought along several ‘little brothers’, in order to make their rowdy crowd look even larger, even more powerful. However, they had really only been children and kept to the back. When the adults at the front had finished their killing spree, the kids had turned tail and run, so scared that they blundered around with no clear idea as to where to run to. After that, the police had chased after and caught quite a few of these ‘little brothers’. However, the lack of their fingerprints at the crime scene proved that they had not actually participated in the action. Thus, only a few of them were sent to the reformatory for young offenders, where they stayed for a few months.

*T/N 黑帮 (hei bang) – literally,‘black help’.

**T/N 小弟 (xiao di) – literally, ‘little brother’. This probably refers to younger kids who are interested in joining the gangs (frequently drawn by the sense of family and perhaps the buzz of danger), but who are not fully committed gang members.

……

When Xu Huqiang had finished speaking about the past, he stared blankly at them, not really understanding what they wanted to know.

Jian Yao raised her head and looked forward in silence, without a word.

Bo Jinyan muttered to himself for a little while, then said, “Among those ‘little brothers’, there was one who was different from the others. You must remember him. He was about 15 to 18 years old, his family situation was excellent, you could see it from the way he dressed. He had an obstinate character and didn’t say very much, but he always liked to talk about your code of brotherhood, your spirit of loyalty and self-sacrifice. Although young, he was a real badass*. He would usually not utter a word, but if someone annoyed him, he was ready to fight them to the death. He accompanied you guys to that killing spree, but, afterwards, he was never seen again.”

*T/N 狠角色 (hen jue se) – literally, someone who suits the role/ persona of a ruthless person; someone who dominates and draws respect.

Jian Yao was entirely perplexed.

Was there such a person?

Xu Huqiang stared at Bo Jinyan with wide eyes for a long time. Out of nowhere, he asked An Yan, who was sitting to one side, “Is he really blind? Did you ask him here to tell fortunes? The police also believe in such things!”

Fang Qing slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t babble nonsense, talk!”

In truth, Xu Huqiang could no longer clearly remember those little brothers, all those details. That year, he was not the boss, he was just a common gangster. However, Bo Jinyan had described everything so vividly, in such detail, in a split second of realisation, he actually remembered that there was indeed such a person, who accompanied them that night, and then vanished abruptly without a trace thereafter. The police had caught quite a number of these youth, but, of course, not that particular one.

“Blockhead . . .” Xu Huqiang muttered. “I only remember his nickname, ‘Blockhead’ . . .”