The Archivist

Xikang City, the provincial capital of Xi Province, is an international metropolis with a population of up to 20 million.

Xikang City is divided into the inner city and the outer city. The inner city, from the inside out, is divided into the first ring, second ring, and third ring. The outer city is divided into 8 districts, with two districts occupying one direction.

At the same time, Xikang City is also the location of the national criminal case archives repository. In the Donghua District of Xikang's outer city, there is a huge archives building, where all the case files of unsolved cases nationwide in the past 20 years are stored.

This is a relatively quiet and remote place. Usually, few people come here, apart from the staff working here and deliverymen bringing takeout.

However, on November 1st, Su Mo, dressed in a suit and with a Hong Kong-style combover, walked into the Donghua Archives.

After showing his ID to the security guard and signing in the logbook, Su Mo entered the archives building.

The office building of the archives was very simple, with only three floors. Now it was 9 a.m., and the second and third floors had their doors and windows closed, and it was unclear whether they would open at all.

On the first floor, there was only one office with its door open. Inside, a woman in her forties was casually playing on her phone. If you got closer, you would see she was watching short videos.

Su Mo walked to the door and knocked on the open office door.

The woman looked up at Su Mo and then smiled, "You must be Su Mo, right? I'm the one you communicated with online. Please come in."

The woman seemed very nice with a warm attitude and polite speech.

After Su Mo sat down, the woman smiled and said, "Let me introduce myself, my name is Zhao Chunlan, and I'm the administrator here. Just call me Sister Zhao.

I've looked over your file. You used to be in the army and now live alone, and your credentials checked out fine.

But, Su Mo, this job is very dull. There's basically nothing to do every day except occasionally cleaning up and organizing the case file numbers.

You're still so young. Can you stand the loneliness? To be honest, after I finish up this year, I'm also planning to switch jobs. So I'm very happy to have you apply.

But we do have a rule that contracts are a minimum two years. That means if you stay, you have to work the full two years before you can leave."

Su Mo said, "Sister Zhao, don't worry. I've considered this very clearly. My personality has always been rather solitary, and I don't like noisy environments. Also, I like reading books.

Sister Zhao has probably already verified some of my background with the Weiyuan side. For now, I also have no plans to start a family again. So I really like it here and hope to get this job."

Zhao Chunlan already understood clearly. She also felt Su Mo was suitable for the job. Now she was just confirming. So she smiled and said, "Alright, let's go and get your onboarding paperwork done."

Then the two left the office and went upstairs to the second floor.

Su Mo had considered for a long time before choosing this place. The Donghua Archives had the most unsolved case files in the country, perfect for Su Mo to select his targets.

He wasn't a madman who would randomly kill people. So he planned to select some of these unsolved cases and first find the perpetrators himself before passing judgement on them.

Also, being an archive administrator had another advantage - lots of time where no one paid attention to him. He had ample time and opportunity to perfectly act out his twisted alter ego.

Furthermore, the location was remote with minimal surveillance but also very few visitors. This provided Su Mo with an ideal environment to commit his acts.

Of course, the most important factor was selecting his targets. Without these case files, where would he find so many people deserving death? He couldn't just guess randomly.

The onboarding process was simple, taking less than an hour. Su Mo finished the paperwork, signed the contract, and officially became an archive administrator with a salary of 4,000 RMB plus social insurance and housing fund, not bad at all.

"Alright, Su Mo, you can come to work tomorrow. Go get your personal items in order later, and you've seen the dorm - the conditions aren't great but not too shabby either.

Oh right, I suggest you buy some entertainment items, like books, games, stuff like that. These days will be long," Zhao Chunlan advised.

By around 6 p.m. that afternoon, Su Mo had gotten his dorm room organized since he would be sleeping here for at least the next two years. Naturally, he prepared everything he would need very thoroughly.

Zhao Chunlan clocked off work sharply at 5 p.m. She had a car and didn't live at the archives. In fact, no one lived at the archives except for Su Mo.

The job of archive administrator was actually quite good - work 9 to 5, two days off per week, not much to do, and decent pay and benefits. The only downsides were the lack of people and being too unoccupied and quiet.

After the security guard closed the main gate for the night, Su Mo openly walked into the archives building. He was going to start selecting his first hunting target.

The archives building had many archive rooms over its six floors. The higher up, the older the cases in the archives.

So Su Mo directly opened up an archive room on the first floor - this batch of unsolved cases was the most recent.

The archive rooms were divided into roughly three sections - ordinary cases, major cases, and cases that shocked the whole country.

What was Su Mo's personality like? With hands in his pockets, he didn't know the meaning of "match".

So without hesitation, he headed straight for the files on the cases that shocked the nation, and after not too long, selected his first target.

Two years ago, a horrific series of serial killings occurred in Xikang City. Over a period of six months, there were a total of 4 victims.

It was classified as a serial murder case because each victim was dismembered. Furthermore, after dismembering, the body parts were sewn back together with thread, which was very bizarre.

Dismemberment could be understood, and sewing back together could also kind of be understood, but the sewing method was very strange and haphazard, with some body parts even sewn into the wrong positions.

At the time, the case caused huge uproar nationwide. The local police swiftly set up a task force but after more than a year of investigation, the perpetrator still could not be caught and also did not continue committing crimes. Thus it became an unsolved case.

Until three months ago, the materials for this case were sent here, clearly indicating it had been temporarily abandoned for now.

The case files contained detailed information on the case circumstances, identities of the four victims, forensic evidence from each scene, various surveillance footage, very thorough.

After reading it, Su Mo came to the following conclusions: First, the four victims had no contact with each other that the police found. But Su Mo was certain there must have been some commonality.

Second, the scenes were very clean without leaving any clues or evidence. This showed the killer had very strong counter-investigation abilities.

Third, the ceremonial nature of the killer's methods certainly meant he was a psychopath.