Chapter 8: Ghost Appears Again

For several consecutive days, there was no progress in the case. The Special Case Team analyzed that Tony should be the breakthrough point of this case as he was the only one who had seen the murderer.

However, in these few days, Tony, who was lying in the hospital, still had a poor mental state. He had several epileptic seizures. Each seizure was terrifying. His eyes rolled upwards, his limbs convulsed, his fingers curled into a chicken - claw shape, and he lost consciousness and became delirious. The patients in the same ward all thought that Tony was possessed by a ghost.

When Tony was slightly more conscious, Professor Liang gave him a hypnotherapy session.

The Hong Kong police have hired psychics to solve cases, and the US FBI has also used the sixth sense to crack cases. In some cases, it is necessary to use special criminal investigation methods.

Professor Liang didn't reveal his identity as a police officer. He claimed to be a psychologist in the hospital and showed a forged certificate, which won Tony's trust.

Professor Liang told Tony that hypnotherapy is a form of psychological treatment that can stop anxiety, eliminate fear of things, face life with a new and correct attitude, and get out of the shadow of the heart.

Tony sat upright in the chair, looking haggard, and said that he would cooperate well.

Professor Liang took out a pocket watch, hung it in the air and swung it, asking Tony to stare at it and listen carefully to the sound of the moving hands. This is also the "pendulum method" in hypnotherapy. Professor Liang began to implement imaginative guidance, using words for suggestion and induction. After more than half an hour, Tony's eyelids became heavier and heavier. He closed his eyes and began to enter a hypnotic state.

Professor Liang: It's raining. Can you hear the tick - tock sound of the rain?

Tony: I can hear it.

Professor Liang: You are walking in the Lower Street Park. The smell of gardenias is very strong. Can you smell it?

Tony: Yes.

Professor Liang: Can you see the water tower in the park?

Tony: I can see it.

Professor Liang: What else do you see?

Tony: A person in a raincoat, carrying a corpse on his back.

Professor Liang: What does the person in the raincoat look like?

Tony: This person... I know him.

Professor Liang: Who is he?

Suddenly, Tony's eyes widened, he let out a loud scream, and woke up from the hypnotic state.

Hypnosis can induce others to enter a certain situation, but it can't control others to do things that their subconscious minds don't agree with. Everyone has unshakable secrets and privacy in their subconscious. For self - protection, even in a hypnotic state, they won't expose their secrets.

The news that Tony knew the murderer obtained from hypnosis was exciting. The Fourth Street police then intensified the interrogation, but Tony refused to say more. His spirit was almost broken. The Special Case Team asked the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau to closely monitor Tony's accomplices. Presumably, one of them was the murderer. Two days later, a piece of feedback came. According to a police officer secretly monitoring Duke, this kid had somehow got a sum of money recently. He was partying and singing with his accomplices every day, and even taking drugs in the KTV. He was highly suspected.

The Fourth Street police made a bold assumption. A criminal investigation team leader deduced as follows:

That night, after leaving the sauna city and on his way home, Pierre was likely to have gone to the park due to urgency or other reasons. He didn't go to the toilet but solved the problem on the spot in the bushes near the water tower. Duke happened to be in the park that day - a teenager always likes to wander around. Duke had evil intentions, robbed and killed Pierre, carried the corpse to the water tower, and later, together with his accomplices, pretended to have found the corpse by chance to avoid suspicion...

The director of the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau said: It's also possible that these kids killed him together. Tony should be an outsider and didn't participate.

The criminal investigation team leader said: Yeah, these delinquent teenagers, who even take drugs, are capable of doing such a thing.

Philip Sofia asked: Where is the murder scene? If it was in the bushes, why didn't we find any blood?

The criminal investigation team leader said: It was raining that day. The rain washed it away.

Philip Sofia nodded, walked to the window, fell into deep thought, and said to himself, "It was raining. Why didn't I think of that?"

Professor Liang said: Today is the last day.

The director of the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau asked: What?

Professor Liang took out the photo taken by Tony and pointed to the ghost face in the photo.

That night, it rained heavily. Four teenagers, Duke, Vinny, Lexi, and Fiona, were surfing the Internet in the Internet cafe. Two police officers were sitting in the car outside secretly monitoring. The four teenagers were all smoking cigarettes, playing online games, and immersed in the virtual world of battles. Tony's hospitalization didn't affect their mood. In these few days, Lexi had a new love interest and got married to Duke in the game.

They were playing games and saying some words that only they could understand:

Duke: Damn it, kneel down for me, drink XX, lick XX.

Vinny: Nonsense. I'll blow your head off.

Fiona: Looking for F. My heart only belongs to rich brothers.

Lexi: Get lost, you migrant worker. I'll fly at you. This princess will massacre your whole family. 

At three o'clock in the morning, there was a power outage in the Internet cafe. The four teenagers went home separately.

When leaving the Internet cafe, Lexi begged Duke to let her stay at his place. But Duke ignored her. He put his hands in the two extra - large pockets on his buttocks, with an indifferent expression on his face, and walked into the rain.

The police car followed Duke quietly from behind.

Vinny and Fiona held hands and turned into a street, disappearing from sight.

Lexi hugged her arms and walked into an alley without streetlights. The end of the alley was her home.

She was wearing a pair of Korean - style jeans that were so long that they almost dragged on the ground. She once pointed at the trouser legs and said, "The dirtier and more tattered it is here, the more I like it."

The rain got heavier, but she didn't care. She let the rain soak her and didn't avoid the puddles on the ground.

The alley was long and dark. Lexi vaguely heard footsteps coming from behind. She looked back, but there was no one. She became scared. After walking a few steps, she suddenly turned around. A person in a raincoat appeared behind her. In the darkness, she couldn't see the person's face. Lexi was startled and quickened her pace. The person behind her ran towards her. Lexi panicked and hid in front of a house. She hesitated whether to knock on the door or call for help. She only heard the footsteps getting closer. Lexi's heart was pounding. She thought it was probably just a passer - by. The person in the raincoat didn't walk past but stopped in front of Lexi. He turned his head and looked at her.

A flash of lightning pass, illuminating Lexi's terrified eyes and also the person's face - she found that she knew this face!

The next day, a large amount of blood was found 50 meters away from Lexi's home. Obviously, Lexi had been killed. However, no corpse was found at the scene.

The blood on the ground had been washed clean by the rain, but there was still a large pool of blood on the wall. The police conducted a trace inspection but couldn't determine what murder weapon the murderer had used. Matt successively used lethal tools such as axes, hammers, baseball bats, and wrenches to imitate the impact, but still couldn't determine what had caused the bloodstain on the wall.

After visits and investigations, according to the Internet cafe owner, the power outage that night was man - made. Someone pried open the transformer box near the Internet cafe and pulled down the knife - switch, causing the power outage in the Internet cafe.

Judging from the on - site investigation, due to the rain, no valuable clues such as footprints or fingerprints were obtained. The police believed that the murderer was familiar with the terrain and environment and should be an acquaintance. However, that night, the police had been following Duke and found no abnormalities. Vinny and Fiona went home after leaving the Internet cafe, and Tony was lying in the hospital. There were people who could prove that they were not at the scene.

So, who killed Lexi, and who was this acquaintance?

Why was the corpse missing again?

The criminal police of the Fourth Street analyzed that the murderer might be a necrophiliac. However, the Special Case Team refuted this speculation. Professor Liang said that if nothing unexpected 

happened, there would surely be another murder case.

As a protective measure, the police detained the three teenagers, Duke, Vinny, and Fiona, for suspected drug use. After multiple interrogations, they didn't provide any useful clues.

Just one day later, the Lower Street Police Station received a report. An accountant from the tobacco bureau went to the bank to withdraw money but never came back to work or went home. He disappeared. The police retrieved the bank's surveillance video and found that at four o'clock in the afternoon, the accountant withdrew 150,000 yuan from the bank and left. That night, another person withdrew 40,000 yuan from the accountant's bank card in two transactions at the ATM.

The ATM surveillance video showed that the person was wearing a raincoat, deliberately lowered his head, and used the brim of his hat to cover his face. It was midnight at that time, and only a thin and short figure could be vaguely distinguished.

The Special Case Team and the Fourth Street police agreed that this accountant was likely to have been killed, and the person wearing the raincoat to withdraw money was the murderer. This case, together with the water - tower corpse case and Lexi's murder case, should have been committed by the same person.

With three consecutive murder cases occurring, the director of the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau could no longer sit still. If the case couldn't be solved, he would surely be held responsible. The director of the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau deployed more police forces to intensify the investigation, focusing on finding witnesses. Philip Sofia said, "There's no need to look for witnesses."

The director of the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau: Why?

Philip Sofia: This person in the raincoat, when we were conducting the investigation, some police officers must have seen him...

The director of the Fourth Street Sub - Bureau: Nonsense. We saw him in the surveillance video.

Philip Sofia: I mean, this murderer, we also know him...