Ten Years Ago Mystery

Officer Sun told me that this case happened ten years ago. At that time, he was just a squadron captain of the criminal police. He was able to get to his current position all because of the help of my grandpa.

My grandpa had a weird temper. He wouldn't easily take action, but whenever he did, he was sure to crack the case!

It was a night without any stars. At that time, he went to the local police station to deliver some documents. Just then, a middle-aged man walked in, carrying a plastic bag that he swung around unsteadily. His face was flushed, as if he were drunk. As soon as he entered the station, he started shouting that someone wanted to kill him, and then collapsed on the ground.

At that time, Officer Sun thought he was just a drunkard. But when he checked the man's breathing, he found that the man was already dead.

When he opened the bag the man had been carrying, he discovered a human heart inside!

The dead man didn't have any wounds on his body. His expression was as if he were sleeping peacefully. There were no signs of abuse or poisoning. His car was parked outside the station with the engine still running. There were only his own fingerprints in the car. In other words, he had driven himself to the police station to report the case, and then died right there.

The police investigated his identity and found out this man was actually a judge in the city!

The department took this case very seriously. They called together the best criminal police and forensic examiners in the surrounding areas to form a special task force to investigate all the clues, but after a few days they still had nothing. They hadn't even figured out the cause of death...

The task force was made up of top experts. When they discussed the case, they would argue until their faces turned red, with no one willing to concede. They investigated the case on their own, resulting in a completely disorganized situation.

At that time, Officer Sun had the least say in the group, so when he suggested inviting my grandpa to help, he was mocked and ridiculed by the experts. They said it would be better to go to a Taoist temple to ask a Taoist priest for help rather than find a washed-up mystic.

Just then, the second case occurred. The victim was a woman, a wealthy merchant who had returned from overseas.

Like the first victim, the police found a heavy plastic bag next to her corpse containing a heart!

The investigation didn't make any progress at all. Officer Sun went all out and brought the files to ask my grandpa for help. My grandpa agreed to help, but when Officer Sun took him to the criminal police department, they discovered the two corpses had already been dissected.

The forensic examiners had cut up the corpses into pieces, only discovering one thing - the heart in the bag belonged to the victim themselves. The killer had somehow managed to remove the hearts precisely and accurately without damaging the surface of the bodies at all.

At that time, my grandpa said he couldn't take this case because he had one condition for cooperating with the police - no one was allowed to touch the corpses before he took over the case.

Officer Sun begged him desperately to stay on the case. My grandpa proposed going to look around the homes of the deceased.

The homes of the deceased had already been searched many times. Other than the footprints and fingerprints left by the police, there was nothing else there. The killer's characteristics could be summarized in just two words - clean!

The criminal motive, murder method, and crime scene traces were all too clean, not leaving the police a single clue!

But my grandpa was no ordinary person. He drew all the curtains, lit a bundle of mugwort in the room, and repeatedly smoked it out. Eight bloody words slowly emerged on the walls - "The Crippled Blade of North River, hanging the people to punish crimes!"

The Crippled Blade of North River was probably the nickname the killer had taken for himself. "Hanging the people to punish crimes" meant eradicating evil on behalf of the broad masses! Officer Sun immediately went back to the criminal police to look up information on the deceased. He discovered that the first victim, the judge, had once taken bribes and wrongly convicted a righteous uncle and nephew of murder. The second victim, the female merchant, had once invested in the medical industry. Using improper means, she had raised the price of a cancer treatment drug that only cost a few tens of dollars to several thousand dollars, profiting hugely off patients.

The killer felt they were guilty, so he proclaimed himself the judge and killed them!

At that time, the third murder case occurred. The victim was a university professor who was also morally corrupt. He had repeatedly slept with his female graduate students and recorded videos to blackmail them.

This professor died during an academic seminar. There were many reporters present, so the case could no longer be kept secret.

After media coverage and sensationalized reporting, many people online actually started worshipping this "people's avenger" serial killer. They said the police were reversing black and white and couldn't tell right from wrong. This put huge pressure on the task force from public opinion.

While there are indeed many injustices in society, and many villains exploiting loopholes, the law and institutions can be continuously improved. No one has the right to stand above the law and use such terrorist means to punish evildoers. Committing murder is a crime, and the police must arrest him!

This time, my grandpa requested to examine the corpse immediately. Disregarding objections from the other police, Officer Sun let him into the morgue. My grandpa locked himself in the morgue for a full day and night, with Officer Sun standing guard outside, not letting anyone disturb him.

When Officer Sun went to the bathroom at one point, an intern medical examiner accidentally pushed open the door and saw a shocking scene inside! He said my grandpa and the corpse were both wearing strange masks. My grandpa had strung up the corpse with two ropes, seeming to be reenacting the crime scene.

After a full day, my grandpa suddenly burst out laughing inside the morgue. Officer Sun went in and asked if he had discovered anything. My grandpa said this case had really stumped him. He was completely unable to figure out the murder method or how the heart was removed alive. It was a mystery he couldn't solve.

But he hadn't come away empty-handed either. He said, "The corpse told me the killer is 1.8 meters tall, thin, triangular eyes, shaved eyebrows, and a high nose bridge." Those were his exact words.

Having cooperated many times, Officer Sun naturally believed in my grandpa's abilities.

So he mobilized all the police to carry out a carpet search of the city based on this description. Although they didn't find the killer, they did find a key witness - Zhang Bao. Zhang Bao was a former gangster who had beaten someone to death. Using his own methods, he had only served 3 years in prison before getting out. Zhang Bao said he had recently seen a strange looking man lurking around his neighborhood, and was afraid of becoming the next target. He requested protective custody from the police.

My grandpa asked to see Zhang Bao's testimony, then compared it to the information from the previous three murder cases.

Finally, he drew some strange symbols on a map of the city, and ordered Officer Sun to immediately go search around the marked streets.

Officer Sun asked how he had figured it out, but my grandpa didn't explain, only urging him to hurry.

The police immediately rushed to the corresponding streets and went door-to-door asking questions. Sure enough, one landlord said a man matching my grandpa's description had recently rented an apartment from him. He also said he had a rental contract with the tenant's information.

Officer Sun was overjoyed and immediately sent two officers along with the landlord to fetch the information, while the rest went to search the suspect's residence. In the apartment, the police discovered many newspaper clippings. Photos of the three deceased victims and Zhang Bao had all been stabbed into the wall with daggers.

They could basically confirm that the person living here was the legendary "Crippled Blade of North River"!