The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

Their first meeting was extremely ordinary.

Just like scenes from a movie, there would always be a day where people passing through the streets would turn around the corner and bump into each other.

At the time, he still didn’t understand, and still did not quite understand the adult’s system of values.

All he knew was that there was actually someone like him.

Similar size, similar appearance. There was not much difference at all. If they ran out shoulder to shoulder, their pace would not be much different either.

In the extremely dark and gloomy circumstances, standing side-by-side might let him experience the relief of breaking free.

***

Dong Feng was waiting for cash compensation when he heard numerous bike gangs whizz past. He turned his head with a frown.

The racing gangs have really been increasing more and more recently.

He glanced at the wall clock. It was only a bit past 8 PM.

The ear-piercing noise did not stop until the flock headed off into the distance in the opposite direction. It was sometimes quite shocking to see, as if some kind of animal was rushing past for migration.

He really hated this kind of noise.

“Sorry for the wait. Here is your compensation.” The middle-aged woman walked out from the back of the shop, interrupting the waiting person’s thoughts. With a friendly smile on her face, she placed a sealed envelope in his hands. “It’s really all thanks to your help. Mr. Li said that you were extremely skilled at craftsmanship, but we had originally thought he was joking. We were surprised that you were really able to help our client make the requested sculpture.”

“It’s nothing.” Dong Feng opened the envelope and looked at the thousand yuan bills inside with furrowed brows. “This client must be insane.” He had merely helped them duplicate a sculpture identical to a photograph, yet they had paid him a price of several thousands.

The woman chuckled, “There are all kinds of clients out there. Some commemorative items are worth even more than that. This particular client is quite wealthy, but no matter how much money she has, it could not prevent the fire that burned the sculpture her deceased child had made of her. You were even able to perfectly recreate the hand markings on it. The client was very happy. Apparently, she had previously run to many different places to request for them to help duplicate it, but none of them were able to produce what she desired.”

Even if it’s perfect, it isn’t the original. Any entity, no matter what it is, will fade away from existence. Even if I make another completely identical one like this, it would simply be a means of self-comfort.

Despite wanting to voice these thoughts, Dong Feng did not speak in the end. Instead, he just pulled out some of the bills and placed it on the counter. “Commission.”

“Thank you very much.” The woman stowed the money away. As she looked at the too young and skinny boy in front of her, she could not contain her curiosity, calling out to stop him as he started to leave. She then brought out a cup of fruit juice. “You are also from Mr. Li’s…mm…someone that came from that place?”

Dong Feng knit his brows together. “He was my former senior at school.”

“Aha, please excuse me. Since Mr. Li recommended you several times, I was under the impression that you had joined society around the same time as us.” The woman took out a box of cakes a friend had sent them, politely slicing a piece to treat him. She was simply unaccustomed to seeing a child so skinny that it was practically immoral. “Mr. Li is truly a great person. Back when I first came out, I had no idea what to do—my husband was an alcoholic and owed debts from gambling. Whenever he was in a bad mood to got drunk, he would beat me – he would be able to do all sorts of things, really. Finally, when he started hitting our child, I put everything on stake and killed him with a kitchen knife…because I knew he would one day beat my child to death. So I had to do it. When I came out, my husband’s family hated me, and my family didn’t dare to provide support either. Even the child ended up being brainwashed by my husband’s family, claiming that I was a murderer…Fortunately, Mr. Li guided me into running this shop. Otherwise, I probably would have already committed suicide.”

“It’s great that you’ve found a new life,” Dong Feng indifferently responded, not really willing to participate in extra chatter.

“Now only my child is left.” The woman looked out on the people passing back ad forth on the street as she said in a somewhat heartfelt tone, “I know that I was wrong, but would a child really hate their mother so much…”

Even if the matter had a cause, even if there were multiple reasons for it, murder was still a mistake.

When she was released from prison a few years after, her husband’s family had used all kinds of words to change her child, who was no longer as young and oblivious as back then. The child had blamed her for murdering the father in cold blood for the sake of money and other suspicions. Just what did she need to do to explain everything?

“I know there are mothers who hate their children.” Dong Feng drank the juice and shrugged. After some more thought, he added, “But it doesn’t matter how many lies they’ve told, or how young the child was when you left. If the domestic violence you said was really true, the memory must still exist somewhere. Your child will have their own doubts. Don’t give up.”

“Mr. Li said the same thing before. I will work hard to think of a way to interact with him more.” The woman retracted her gaze to smile kindly at him. “Thank you very much for your consolation.”

“I didn’t really…Never mind I’ll be leaving now.” Dong Feng stood and stuffed the envelope into his backpack.

“Ah, wait a minute, bring these back with you too.” The woman quickly packed the cakes and placed the paper bag into his arms. “Developing boys should eat more nutritious things, or else they won’t grow bigger. Be good and listen to what this Āyí says.”

“…” Dong Feng indifferently glanced at the cakes and left the multipurpose shop with a dark expression.

To him, everything was the same.

His sky had always been black.

He did not need anyone to treat him well, nor did he want to gain anyone’s attention. It would be great if he could just silently disappear somewhere.

He felt that being alive was extremely exhausting.

“Dong Feng!”

Dong Feng abruptly stopped walking to look behind him with furrowed brows. As he expected, he spotted a motorbike braked nearby, the rider on top waving at him.

Yu Yin took his helmet off and smiled. “What a coincidence, I was just going to look for you at your place. I didn’t expect to see you on the way.” Since Dong Feng’s figure was too distinctive, Yu Yin had been able to spot him immediately even from a distance.

“…” Dong Feng exchanged glares with Yu sitting in the backseat and decided to pretend he had not seen these people as he continued walking towards his residence.

“Ah, wait a second, I brought some food for you.” Yu Yin jumped off the bike. He had actually brought Yu to buy some ingredients on the way as well. Once Yu also climbed off, he began to push the motorbike while walking together [with Dong Feng]. “It’s been ages since I last explored the area around East Sea, so I was surprised to see so many decent shops had opened. It’s no wonder that Yan-dàgē had also suggested to come walk around here sometime when I had the chance. But the shops he introduced to me are just a bit expensive.” Yu Yin carelessly glanced at the shop Dong Feng had just exited from and spotted a shadow stuck outside the store. However, it quickly vanished.

Ah Yin had seen ghosts passing by like this countless times by now. In any case, it was fine if he just pretended not to see it.

Dong Feng had originally assumed these two would leave after blabbering their nonsense. He had not expected that, ten minutes later when Dong Feng arrived underneath his own home, the pair had found a place to park the bike with no plans of leaving. They had then followed him up with two large bags of food.

“Let me see, which floor…” Yu Yin looked up at the complex. He had come two or three times to drop off food before but had never gone in. Every time he handed the things to Dong Feng at the front door, he would be driven away by Dong Feng’s stormy face.

Dong Feng wordlessly led the others up, silently letting them follow him to his place. He then opened the door to let them inside.

When Dong Feng switched the lights on, Yu Yin’s eyes lit up.

Starting from the front entrance, display shelves covered all the walls, lined with various kinds of objects.

“Your place seriously has so many sculptures!”

Yu Yin stood in front of a shelf, fired up from looking at the entire row of statues. While he had heard Li Zi Hong mention this before, Yu Yin had not imagined there to be that many. “That’s too amazing. Have you really never learned? These are absolutely no different from the ones our professor makes!” There were not only humans and busts in various positions…but there were even all kinds of different mythical creatures, plus aliens as well. It was a dazzling lineup of styles, and just seeing them made him want to bring them home with him.

Regardless of whether they were made of plaster, kaolin, clay, or even stone, every single product was scarily detailed. Even the student that was most skilled with clay in his class was not this amazing! Plus, this skeleton wasn’t even a student in this department!

Next to him, Yu was completely fixated as well.

There were even more when they walked into the living room. It was clear to see that the owner had directly used the living room as a workspace. Several scratched-up tables were filled with different workpieces: half-carved clay, completed plasters, and one shorter table was even filled with paper drawings. Aside from a small room with a bed, all the other rooms were filled with racks and products. It was truly astonishing.

The entire house was a really spectacular sight, aside from the dirt bits littered all over the ground, of course.

However, Yu Yin noticed that one of the rows contained scaled-down human sculptures of wanted criminals or suspects from certain cases. He did not know why Dong Feng would make such things.

In comparison, the section filled with mythical creatures matched his interests perfectly.

“You can take them if you want. Hurry up and get out of my home.” Dong Feng continued to concentrate all his efforts into banishing the outsiders, having nearly reached his tolerance for noisiness.

“Ah, these are all your works. That wouldn’t really do.” Yu Yin barely curbed his admiration and turned his head to see Yu pull out a thick original text from the bookshelf and gaze at him longingly. “Don’t just randomly take books…”

“If you want it, I’ll give it to you. Just get out now,” Dong Feng interrupted as he glanced over. “You can even take the whole shelf if you want.”

“He’s just joking. Xiao Yu, go ahead and borrow it to read then,” Yu Yin said. He could tell that these books were very expensive, and most of them were completely new.

“Just take them, no need to return. I’ve read all of them.” Dong Feng waved his hand, trying his best to shift his focus back onto an incomplete sculpture. “Rather than leaving them here, might as well take them with you. Books are the type of thing that should be kept with people that will read them.”

“We’ll definitely return them once we’re done reading.” Yu Yin nodded at Yu, and the latter began to scrutinise the bookshelf to choose the books he wanted to read.

The books here were not the same as what Yan Si and the others had. Yu quickly selected a few he was interested in.

While Yu’s attention was taken by the books, Yu Yin took some of the food out. “We were planning on going home to eat dinner, but why don’t we just all eat here together instead?” Indeed, food was better with more people eating it together.

“…Did my senior teach you that?” Dong Feng glared at the steaming noodles on the table. He knew the reason for it without even thinking about it. It had been like this in the past too. Whenever his senior found out that he had moved, there would always be some people that dropped by to chat, and then food would appear as well. It was really annoying; he had no idea why they were all so meddlesome.

“Huh? Li-dàgē only mentioned that I could come find you.” Yu Yin was puzzled for a few seconds, but seeing as the other person did not want to continue talking, he simply pulled away the carving knife from Dong Feng’s grip. “Anyways, let’s just eat first…Also, could I borrow your computer?” He had noticed the computer making strange sounds earlier. It did not sound like it was broken; it was likely generating some kind of sound effect.

Since Ah Guan’s group had gone through a phase where they had enjoyed playing with these kinds of things, they had frequently switched around some sound effects. As a result, this sounded pretty familiar to Yu Yin.

“…Do whatever you want.” Dong Feng reluctantly accepted the bowl of food that made him want to vomit, unable to stop fidgeting impatiently.

When Yu Yin dispelled the screensaver, the first thing he saw was the photo of the girl he had seen on the table. For some reason, he felt like he had seen her somewhere before, but it was actually a stranger…Probably a common face. There was a flickering search bar on the bottom right of the screen, which was likely what was generating the noise. There were also several news articles minimized on the bottom. Since Dong Feng did not stop him, he pulled them up slightly to take a look, then searched the case from today.

Female body from serial murder case found next to XX Mountain…

Yu Yin had seen the news while eating lunch at school, so he had been slightly concerned about the case Yu Xia and the others were on today.

I didn’t think Su Zhang was still around.

The online news article did not report many details. It simply stated that a female corpse that had been dead for a while was discovered next to the mountainside. When they found it, it was already rotted away. But according to the knife wounds, it was very likely another case from the serial murders, etc…

Yu Yin felt that there was something strange about this, but he could not quite say what.

“The style is wrong.”

He abruptly looked up to see Dong Feng already standing next to him. “Previously, the style repeated was almost always [the body] immediately being found.”

“Ah.” Now that it was mentioned, that was indeed correct. Regardless of whether it was the gas explosion or the throat-slitting, Su Zhang’s self-proclaimed story-like incidents were almost always discovered immediately, regardless of the victim, aside from the body that had gone missing.

“Another way to say it is that the original criminal’s thought process is that they hope for it to be discovered after the stage is set-up. In addition, according to what my senior said, he has only used this murder style in the incident you guys were involved in because he was targeting that bastard, Yan Si, so he wouldn’t be fixated on using that same style…It isn’t a series [of murders], he wants to show off the killed individuals.” Even if it was the throat-slitting wolf, the method had changed – the cuts on the nape were different. The killing style used on the nape was a display that specific people recognized.

Su Zhang was not a “serial killer”, but a murderer.

The distinctive trait of his crimes were the set-ups.

As if putting on a play, each one was a unique story.

And the actors wished to be seen, not rotted away.

“So this is…”

“An imitation homicide.”

“This is an imitation homicide.”

The next day, Li Zi Hong went to check on the autopsy. He coldly stared at a certain forensic investigator that had allegedly still been on vacation yet had appeared here instead. “What are you doing here?” If his memory served correct, the job should have been handed to someone else.

“Whaaa, you should be feeling touched! For the sake of a good friend, I didn’t hesitate to toss my vacation far away and came here to help at work. My junior brother was so moved that he was even weeping bitterly.” Yan Si pressed down on his forehead that had been hit. Seriously, he’s so heartless. I came out to help out of goodwill and instead end up getting an ice-cold face.

Li Zi Hong glanced at Wu Tong gesturing an apology from outside with a guilty expression, then decided to let it go, or else it would definitely end up just annoying himself. “So it’s not Su Zhang?”

“It isn’t him. The victim was stabbed after death. It looks pretty similar at first glance, but the way the blade was inserted is different.” Yan Si pointed things out as he explained, “The victim was clearly pressed down and stabbed twice after dying. There are no pulls on the wounds; the cuts were smoothly made. The depth is about the same, indicating that there was ample time to act without any resistance, which further shows it was an injury made after death…Looks like the news was blowing it up too much before, so they wanted to push this onto the serial killings.”

“Hm…” Li Zi Hong contemplated the issue of correlation and decided he would have to make a trip to the station later.

“The exact cause of death should be a powerful blunt force striking the head. The skull is fractured and has internal bleeding.” Yan Si grabbed a section of the skull and gestured at the crack. “Simply put, she was likely grabbed at the head and shoved into a wall, leading to her death…Well, if you look at the force of the splitting and the direction, I think it was probably partially from being smashed into a wall and partially from hitting the ground. Although the body’s significantly rotted away and has even been eaten by animals, there were still many human-made injures that could be gathered from it. The hair roots stretched in the opposite direction are mostly damaged.”

“It sounds like an impulse crime.” That would easily explain why the body had been discarded and disguised as part of the serial killings.

“Ahh, well, in short, she was assaulted against a wall ¹.” Yan Si ignored the eyeroll directed at him and pulled out his own report notes. “The perpetrator is an adult male. Both the stab and the shove into the wall were determined to require a large amount of force that could not be done by the average female. Also, this assaulted young miss here had traces of having given birth. It seems like she had a child quite recently.”

“She’s single.” Li Zi Hong flatly stated, “Song Hui Chun, twenty-five years old. Single. Was awaiting job assignment at the time.”

“Huh? Awaiting job assignment?” Yan Si knew he had undoubtedly seen a suit. Do clothes make the emperor nowadays?

“Yes, it has already been a year since she quit her job. The suit she had been wearing at the time of her death was the worker uniform from her previous company.”

According to the initial investigation of the crime scene, the body had not died there. Rather, that location had just been a place to discard the body. They had not discovered any clues from examining the area.

By using the clothing, they had quickly interrogated the previous company and determined the deceased’s identity without an issue. They had also requested some dental records to further confirm that she was the correct person.

The strange part was that after they had used the clothes to find her company and identity, the company staff had informed them that the deceased had left the company a year ago. She had previously been part of public relations and service. Her colleagues all had good interactions with her; there had been no particular reason for her quitting back then. Aside from her seeming slightly strange at the time, the colleagues had not been able to determine the reason, which had left a deep impression on the management.

As for why she had been wearing the company uniform while laid out at the mountainside, management was unable to come up with an explanation either. Since she had left the company, they had not heard of the deceased having any enmity with people or having any notable dealings with others. Thus, they could not provide any additional information.

The company had also informed them that the current worker uniform had changed over the years from the one in this case. The uniform now was different from the one that the deceased had been wearing.

Management told them that because the public relations and service staff frequently interacted with various clients as representatives of the company, they had to consider their appearances and would often change uniforms as a result. The company would generally provide two pairs. Some would have to request to buy more due to damaging the uniform or other various reasons. Typically, the company would request for the provided uniforms back when the employee left the company, although purchased extras would not need to be returned. This was also the reason why the deceased had an old uniform. At the same time, management helped them check the purchasing records to confirm that the deceased had indeed bought two more spare uniforms as back-up, and was the person that had purchased the most that season.

“How interesting. What kind of situation would entail being murdered while wearing the worker uniform of a company after leaving…? Oh, right, also, something was discovered in the deceased’s digestive system. It should have been swallowed before her death.”

Li Zi Hong accepted the photos being passed to him and saw a small bundle of darkening paper.

“I sent it to Jiu Shen-xiǎodì’s side. It’s a piece of scrap paper, though the words are blurred and the paper is all stuck together. We’ll just have to see if Jiu Shen-xiǎodì can find anything.” Yan Si pointed at the photo. “There’s blood, mucus, corpse fluids, etc…you understand. Let’s just wait for the analysis.”

“Mm.”

***

When Yu Xia received Li Zi Hong’s notification, he just happened to be conducting a search near the deceased’s residence.

Fortunately, the home address that the deceased had registered at her previous company had not changed. Thus, after they had contacted the deceased’s family and the landlord, the two had rushed over to help them open the deceased’s small flat.

They had not found a baby within the home. There were not even any baby products.

Typically speaking, a pregnant woman would purchase products or clothing before giving birth to a baby. However, there was nothing of the sort to be found, which made Yu Xia feel suspicious after the news he had just received.

“I didn’t know Hui Chun was pregnant.” The only sister of the deceased, Song Hui Ling, helplessly said, “I didn’t even know if she had any significant other. It has already been a very long time since she last contacted the family and she hasn’t been home for nearly a year now. I bumped into her a few times around a year ago, which happened to be at my parents’ funeral…Ah, they were in a car accident, so they passed together. Hui Chun came back for the funeral arrangements and hasn’t returned back even once since then.”

“Does your family not get along well with each other?”

Hui Ling chuckled bitterly. “How should I say it? I guess every household has a few issues here and there. But it’s not how you’re thinking. Although we’ve had some friction, the relationships in our family are quite good. It’s just because Dad previously helped someone and ended up carrying a very large debt, so there was a period of time where people would often come seeking the repayment. At the time, Hui Chun moved out because she was unable to take the pressure. After she left, she periodically sent some money back. Before my parents’ accident, Hui Chun would always say that she would be able to bring back more money soon…unfortunately, my parents soon passed away. It truly is impossible for humans to anticipate anything, after all. No matter how much more money she could bring back, she was too late.”

Life was just like that. While consciously wanting to earn more to be filial, one would always neglect a lot of time for interaction instead, thinking that there would always be more time, while business was the proper and right thing to do. Then, with a sudden look back, one would belatedly realise that there was no time left at all.

“In short, this matter seemed to be quite a big blow to her. During the funeral, she said she would have to change some of her approaches. Afterwards, we never saw her again. Even when we called, she would only ever use text to reply. I never imagined that she would now…If you hadn’t informed me, I would not even have known that she lived in this kind of place…”

Since the sister did not know much about Song Hui Chun’s lifestyle or work situation, Yu Xia could not get much useful information from asking her. He simply exchanged phone numbers with her, telling her to contact him if she remembered anything that seemed strange.

After that, two more people that had been notified by Song Hui Ling arrived. The female friends that arrived one after another had answered with similar replies. Originally, their interactions with the deceased had been decent, but they had lost contact ever since the parents’ death a year ago. The deceased would practically never respond to phone calls either.

“Ah, I remember during our last call that she mentioned she had a younger female cousin taking care of her, so we didn’t need to worry,” one of the friends supplied.

“But we don’t have any younger female cousins.” Song Hui Ling was somewhat puzzled and asked the other person several times to confirm these words. “We don’t have any [female] relatives at all. In our generation, we’re the only two girls.”

The friend that had provided this information was called Xie Li Ru, who had been Song Hui Chun’s best friend in university, as well as the only classmate that maintained communications with her after graduation.

“That’s weird, but I definitely remember her saying that. She even said that this cousin of hers would often buy her things to eat, so I thought she probably had good relations with her relatives.” The girl’s head was cocked to the side in confusion.

Yu Xia didn’t think either of them were lying, so he asked about the Song family’s relationship among relatives, as well as any details that Xie Li Ru knew about this “younger female cousin”. Unfortunately, they were unable to give any more information. Just as they said, they did not know anything after they had stopped seeing the deceased.

Since there were no abnormalities with the search, they left the deceased’s home.

Yu Xia glanced at the time; it was not that late yet.

He pressed his slightly aching neck as he contemplated whether to head back directly to the police station or whether to go to the forensic labs. He had been on edge these past few days due to the new person at the inspector’s office. That person was much older than him, so he couldn’t really oppose him and thus was full of pent-up irritation…It’s better to stop by the forensic labs first still. At the very least, I can punch Yan Si.

With the decision made, he prepared to leave. However, just then, he heard a series of low barks come from behind him.

Yu Xia automatically turned his head to see a pretty large golden retriever standing not too far away. The uneasy noises were coming from its lowered body. Yu Xia did not spot any owner around the area. There were only a few people that halted to look curiously at the large dog while passing by.

Seemingly noticing his gaze, the large dog unexpectedly approached him.

“…Where’s your owner?” Yu Xia bent down to grab the collar. He did not see any type of contact method on it. The collar was very normal, the type that could be seen at any pet shop. The only thing engraved on it was a strange name that may or may not have been the dog’s name.

The golden retriever innocently looked at him with its big eyes.

“…Fish Jerky ²?”

The large dog happily barked.

Exactly what kind of owner would give a dog this sort of name? Yu Xia was somewhat speechless.

“Dìdì, is that your dog?” A woman that owned a nearby snacks shop walked out upon seeing his interaction with the dog. “It’s been circling around here since a while ago.”

Yu Xia stared down at the dog that was fervently trying to jump up at him, then shook his head at the approaching owner.

“It’s really strange, actually. I saw it run off a bus with a bunch of people this morning, so I thought it was from the area…but nobody in this neighbourhood has seen anyone raising such a large dog.” The owner rubbed the dog’s head. The golden retriever with a strange name docilely sat in place, letting the friendly middle-aged woman rub its head. “Should probably bring it to the local police station. This dog is so pretty, it would be horrible if it was kidnapped away.”

“That’s true.”

“Then Āyí will bring you to the police station, good doggy…” The woman pulled the dog with her to leave and smiled at Yu Xia.

Yu Xia nodded in farewell and turned back to return to his own motorbike. Only after he had started the engine and put on his helmet did he hear the surprised cry from behind, then the sinking of the back seat. When he turned his head, he was once again rendered speechless as he stared at the furry passenger that had jumped onto the back of the vehicle. “Get down.”

The dog still used its guiltless eyes to gaze at him. It had absolutely no intention of leaving.

“…”

“Eh, why don’t you bring it to the local police station instead?” The woman asked.

Yu Xia calmly pushed his motorbike, bringing the dog on top to the local police station with him. Originally, he had wanted to hand the dog over to his comrade at the administrative unit to handle. In the end though, the dog still relentlessly followed him around, from biting onto his pants to charging through the police station to chase after his bike, forcing Yu Xia to return to the police station.

Finally, the administrative officer kindly registered it for him while asking Yu Xia to bring the dog back first, saying that they would notify him if they found the owner.

This was also why when Yu Yin and Xiao Yu returned home, they saw a large dog at the front entrance.

***

“Take good care of the dog, don’t run around.”

As soon as Yu Xia dropped these words, he raced back to the police station, having already been delayed by half the day.

Yu Yin closed the front door and turned to spot Yu crouching in the front entrance to pet the dog, seemingly quite happy about it. “Have you raised pets before?”

Yu looked up towards him and shook his head.

“I have before; it died after two days.” Yu Yin bent down to look at the large dog’s face as he said somewhat ruefully, “Since I saw that my classmates had them, I begged Dad about it for a very long time once. Dad asked a colleague and brought a puppy back. In the end, when I snuck out to walk it, the neighbour’s dog ended up attacking it. By the time the adults had dragged it away, it had already been bitten to death.” He had never raised any pets since then, especially after he was able to see strange things. By then, he wanted to take care of them even less.

Yu gazed at him with pity and stood up to pat Yu Yin’s head. Before the latter could protest, the former ran to the kitchen to prepare lunch, leaving a trail of smoke behind him.

“Don’t just randomly pat me!” Yu Yin belatedly protested, stomping towards the kitchen with gritted teeth with a brandished fist. He then turned his head and spotted the dog’s collar. “Fish Jerky…What the hell, why does this name sound like something that Yan-dàgē would give? Do you love eating fish jerky?”

Fish Jerky stared at him with its head ti