A Chance Encounter

Lin'an was also a big city with a population no less than Xikang City, so there were direct high-speed trains.

The next morning, Su Mo boarded the high-speed train from Xikang to Lin'an. He sat by the window, feeling very satisfied with his seat.

After boarding the train and finding his seat, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to rest. It would take six or seven hours!

At the train entrance, a small fat guy with a backpack was desperately squeezing in, but due to his poor physical fitness, he was always let in by others first. He had no choice but to wait.

This square boy was naturally our strongest audience, Wang Jian.

His parents were not going back to Xikang for the New Year this year. The company needed people to work overtime with double pay, so his parents successfully became the chosen hard-working people to get double pay.

So this year for the New Year festival, he could only go to his parents' place, coincidentally, his parents were in Lin'an.

After going through all kinds of difficulties, he finally got on the train. During this peak travel season, it was really not easy as there were too many people.

According to his seat number, he looked for a while before finding his seat. Then he squinted his eyes, very satisfied.

His seat was in the middle. Inside sat a tall and sturdy man who looked about the same age as him. But his temperament was very special. At first glance, he felt a little scared, feeling that this person was better not to provoke.

The outside was great, sitting was a sexy beautiful woman with gorgeous legs, wearing really eye-catching clothes.

He sat down a little nervously. His body unconsciously leaned toward the beauty. After all, he did not dare get close to the man inside for fear of getting beaten.

The beauty glanced at Wang Jian, then disgustedly moved her body toward the aisle, obviously very unwelcoming of Wang Jian.

Wang Jian pouted his lips. He thought to himself: "If you know I'm the keyboard man, I bet you wouldn't look down on me like that!"

Knowing that he couldn't chat with this beauty, he took out his phone and started playing. After all, online, he was the keyboard man who everyone admired.

Su Mo squinted for a while, unable to fall asleep. So he boredly looked left and right.

Soon, he saw a fat guy next to him playing on his phone. Normally it was nothing, but when he glanced over, he saw the online name and showed a weird look on his face: "No way, what a coincidence?"

So he patted Wang Jian on the shoulder and asked, "Are you that online Keyboard Man? That private investigator?"

Wang Jian, who was originally scared, heard this and raised his head arrogantly, with a strong aura of showing off.

He revealed unconcealable pride and humbly laughed: "You actually recognized me. Yes, I am the keyboard man. Keep it down, keep it down, don't make a fuss."

Su Mo almost couldn't help laughing out loud. This fat guy was so interesting.

"Okay, haha, I won't make a fuss, I won't make a fuss," Su Mo said, holding back his laugh.

Previously feeling that Su Mo looked so scary, but now, he felt that Su Mo looked very easy-going, clearly a good person. So he opened up and asked:

"Brother, are you also going to Lin'an?"

"Yeah, Brother Keyboard, could it be you're also going to Lin'an?"

"Yes, my parents are not coming home for the New Year this year. They have to work, so I can only go there. To be honest, I was going to stay in Xikang to continue investigating the Dark Night Judge, but..."

Afterwards, the two chatted with each other. In fact, it was mainly Wang Jian talking while Su Mo listened.

Su Mo found that this fat guy was too naive, but should be a good person, just a little silly.

He didn't even ask anything yet this fat guy had already told him everything clearly, even telling Su Mo his home address.

Su Mo quite liked Wang Jian. Apart from the fat guy unintentionally helping him before, he felt that people like the fat guy were rare now - sincere and interesting.

So for the next period of time, the two naturally became chat companions. Of course, the fat guy really liked showing off, very skilled and professional at it.

Time passed quickly. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the train reached Lin'an City. The two walked out of the station together.

The fat guy was still a little reluctant. He felt that he and Su Mo had really hit it off and were already friends. Although he did not make friends easily, having someone want to be friends with him still made him very happy.

Su Mo did not think too much about it. He just thought Wang Jian was very interesting and a wonderful person.

"Brother, remember to add me on WeChat. I'll take you to conquer the Summoner's Rift," said Wang Jian.

"Okay, Brother Keyboard, goodbye for now," said Su Mo.

After saying goodbye, the two went their separate ways. Su Mo had to get to business. The encounter with Wang Jian was just a small interlude.

Regarding the demon case, although there were a lot of files and documents, few conclusions could be reached. Otherwise, the case would not still be unsolved after ten years.

After analysis, Su Mo could only draw the following conclusions:

First, the murderer was a man between the ages of 35 and 45 who lived alone.

Second, the murderer had a car that allowed him to reasonably appear all over the city without arousing suspicion.

There were many possibilities here, such as a taxi driver, which met this point. But Su Mo felt that the possibility of the murderer being a taxi driver was small because this line of work was very busy without much free time to commit crimes.

Therefore, he tentatively analyzed several most likely occupations - freight driver, cleaner, cesspool worker, garbage collector, etc., about seven or eight possibilities.

Third, the murderer was in average economic conditions. This judgment was based on the murderer eating humans.

If the murderer lived in a residential district, it would be difficult to dispose of the skeleton and large water usage would also arouse suspicion, making it easy to get caught. Therefore, the residence of the murderer was most likely in a shanty town or rural outskirts.

This was also similar to the police’s judgment that the murderer was in the suburbs, but Su Mo felt it was also possible that the murderer was in the countryside.

Fourth, the murderer was not a local. On this point, the police had not made a judgment.

But Su Mo was very certain, because a human-eating demon was definitely not innate but must be related to past experiences, and these experiences were also very special. If it was a local, with the case being so big, locals who knew the murderer would surely have suspicions and reported him, so the murderer would have been caught early on. Therefore, it must have been an outsider.

These were all the conclusions that could be analyzed. Random murder cases themselves were not easy to solve. Combined with a mobile murderer from ten years ago, it was reasonable that the police could not solve it.

The victims were all kidnapped when alone in remote places throughout the city, never to be seen again. Apart from occasionally finding some human bones and pieces of cooked human flesh, there was nothing else, let alone the corpses. How could the police investigate?

Su Mo could only take it step by step. The first thing he had to do was wander around.

Yes, just wander around and check out the entire city of Lin'an except for the city center.

His goal was to select areas where the murderer might reside before being able to take the next step.