It’s Him – Ch40

Part of the plan

The neighborhood where the Tao family lived was called Kang Le Community. They had bought the house more than twenty years ago, back when the housing prices in Pingcheng were very low. The house was only 2,100 per square meter at that time. In the blink of an eye, the price in this neighborhood had risen to 11,000 per square meter, but it was still an old neighborhood, with very few people buying houses here. Most of the residents were elderly people.

For the elderly, this neighborhood was really a great place. The developer had put in a large pool inside the community for feng shui purposes, with flowing water. The elderly people would usually place a circle of tables around the pool and start playing cards or mahjong.

Today, there was a stranger, a young man, sitting next to the regular group of card players. He was playing games on his phone, and no one paid much attention. After all, students would get scolded at home for playing games, so they came outside to play in the neighborhood instead.

The group continued to chat casually while playing.

Zhao Jingzheng listened, but after a long time, he hadn’t heard anything useful.

They first talked about the ambulance that came earlier in the morning—

“Did anyone see what happened when you were out?”

“It was a brain hemorrhage. It wasn’t good at home. His daughter-in-law called the ambulance. When the ambulance arrived, they tried to resuscitate him for a while, but couldn’t save him.”

“Did the ambulance leave?”

“Of course, once someone’s gone, there’s nothing to save.”

“Ah, that old man had a good life. He passed away without suffering too much.”

The elderly people were more interested in these matters.

Then, they started talking about family disputes, like how one daughter-in-law had fought with her mother-in-law and had thrown the table, and things like that.

Zhao Jingzheng was starting to get anxious. He really wanted to interrupt and steer the conversation to what he wanted to know.

Just as he was about to take action, a few people came into the neighborhood.

Recently, the hottest topic online was a certain event. No matter who you were, if you could find any information about the serial murders from years ago, it would instantly become a trending topic on major video sites.

So, it was no surprise that someone had come to this neighborhood to gather information.

“Grandma, how long have you lived in this neighborhood? Do you know Tao Miaomiao?”

The child’s nickname was Miaomiao.

Zhao Jingzheng sat on the other side, pretending to play on his phone, listening to their conversation.

One of the elderly card players, an older woman, said, “We’ve been here for a long time. When we first came, this place wasn’t developed yet. It was still considered a rural area.”

“Do you know Miaomiao? Can you tell us something about her?”

The elderly woman replied, “I’ve only seen her a few times in the neighborhood. She’s just a little kid, nothing special.”

“When her daughter went missing, did any strangers come to the neighborhood?”

“There were a lot of people around that time. Everyone wanted to catch the killer. The neighborhood was full of strangers.”

Zhao Jingzheng had been recording their conversation, but there wasn’t much useful information.

The hosts continued asking, “I saw online that some people said Miaomiao was a mentally disabled child. Is that true?”

“That’s just nonsense. That child is very smart.”

The hosts asked a few more questions, and then they left.

Once they were gone, one of the card players said, “Are you sure you remember correctly? Miaomiao actually had a problem with her brain. The smart one was her twin sister, Hehe.”

“No way, the one who died was the smart one. I remember meeting the one who was alive later, and she was the dumb, silly one.”

Zhao Jingzheng lowered his head, staring at his phone. His eyes widened. The victim had a twin sister?

He continued playing the game, but kept one ear open to their conversation.

Another younger woman, while playing cards, said, “Yes, poor them. They had twin daughters. One was killed, and the other went missing. To find their child, they went into debt. Last time, I even saw debt collectors coming by.”

An older woman glanced around to make sure no one else was listening and then said, “You know too little about this.”

“What? What do you mean?” It was clear that there was an inside story.

“They didn’t go into debt just to find the child,” the older woman continued, speaking from experience. “They went into debt because they had a test-tube baby, and I heard it cost a lot of money.”

“And in the beginning, the family of that moneyed person—the one whose child also went missing—lent them quite a bit of money.”

Zhao Jingzheng was now even more attentive, but he didn’t raise his head. He kept playing the game.

“Don’t go talking about this outside. Let’s just say it between ourselves,” the women were aware of the limits of what they should share. After all, the family had lost their child, and discussing this in public would be improper, but it was fine among familiar people.

“At the time, they didn’t treat their two daughters very well. The younger daughter had some brain problems. I think she might have been deprived of air in her mother’s womb or something. The older daughter was normal, but she was very naughty and often took her sister out to play.”

She lowered her voice. “We’d see them many times when they took the younger daughter out to play, and every time they’d just leave her aside and let her cry. We told them not to do that. Be careful not to run into a pervert. They’d always say that it wasn’t that easy to meet one.”

“Who would have thought, though, they really did run into one.”

Most of the women in the neighborhood had children of their own. Sometimes, they’d get so angry that they would scold their children in public. Since the child in question had some brain issues and didn’t listen to their instructions, it was easy to get frustrated. They could understand the parents’ anxiety, but they never considered that the way they treated the child might have been because they wanted the child to die.

“Later, they regretted it so much. I always say, raising children takes patience.”

“Patience doesn’t help in those cases. When you have a child with a condition, any family would be overwhelmed.”

The older generation in Pingcheng was known for having a short temper. They would indeed get so angry that they would hit their children, but it wasn’t because they wanted their child to die. Instead, it was a feeling of regret after the outburst.

The women in the neighborhood, because of this, and the fact that the child’s relatives had become very thin and were in a depressed state, meant that no one in the community would speak ill of the parents.

As elders, they could empathize with other parents and saw things from that perspective.

Zhao Jingzheng sent the recording to his father. He hadn’t thought there could be anything of importance in it.

He wasn’t a person who thought like a criminal, so a lot of things went over his head.

Zhao Xin immediately had a rough idea in his mind upon hearing this—

Back then, this family despised their youngest daughter for having a mental problem. With the serial killings happening at that time, they came up with an idea: they would have the serial killer help them get rid of their child.

However, they were unlucky and didn’t encounter the killer themselves. Several times, they probably hoped each time the child would be dead, but each time, they failed.

Eventually, they must have gotten anxious.

At first, they may have just wanted to hire the killer to do the job, but later, they decided to take matters into their own hands.

So, they killed the child themselves and framed it on the killer.

After the youngest daughter died, the eldest daughter surely didn’t survive either.

After all, what happens to one can happen to the other.

Then, they began trying for a test-tube baby, and over the years, they probably accumulated a lot of debt.

Now, they were collaborating with Li Xun, planning to scam money from the wealthy family?

——————————————

What Guo Ying was asked to bring was… an urn.

Yes, the urn with ashes.

When Guo Ying first heard Li Xun ask her to bring it, she was completely confused.

“Wait, can they really give me this? Give it to me?”

“They already believe you’re the reincarnation of Miaomiao. When you get there, you just say someone calculated your birth chart, and if you can stay with the ashes of your past life, you won’t have nightmares.”

“But I don’t think they would give it to me.” Her reasoning was solid.

“Try it, they will give it to you.”

She didn’t expect that as soon as she asked, they would give it to her, just like Li Xun said.

At the funeral they held today, there were no ashes at the ceremony; the ashes were at their home. They had been thinking about how to deal with it, and since they couldn’t keep it at home and didn’t have the money to buy a burial plot, Guo Ying’s request was a timely solution.

Mom Tao went to her room and brought out the urn.

At that moment, Guo Ying felt like a high school student, unsure about accepting it. Li Xun naturally took it and said, “Your hands aren’t feeling well, let me carry it.”

Mom Tao also said, “You haven’t eaten anything yet, let me make you some fried rice.”

Guo Ying waved her hand, “Not today, we need to get back to studying.”

As the two of them were leaving, Mom Tao kept saying she hoped Guo Ying would come visit them when she had time.

Guo Ying nodded and promised she would definitely visit them.

Li Xun carried the urn, and Guo Ying followed, quietly asking, “Is this an important piece of evidence?”

Li Xun shook her head, “No, it’s just my personal interest.”

In fact, she didn’t understand Li Yugui’s insistence in the past. If Li Yugui had been determined to take revenge on the killer, Li Xun could understand. But Li Yugui had given up the chance to kill the murderer just to find her child, even though the child was already dead.

Li Yugui said: “I just can’t sleep when I think of her lying in an unfamiliar place, probably cold and scared. I want to bring her home.”

Now, Li Xun understood.

Li Xun carried the urn as they walked back.

When they reached the stairs, Guo Ying noticed the word “debt repayment” in the corridor and sighed, “They really are so pitiful.”

Li Xun glanced at her and, seeing she truly thought so, worried that she might get too emotionally involved. She said, “Yes, it’s pitiful. They had to cry while killing their own child.”

Guo Ying suddenly turned her head so fast her head almost snapped.

What? What?

Li Xun didn’t explain further but just reminded her, “Don’t meet them privately. If anything comes up, consult me first.”

Guo Ying was processing the information she had gathered, then realized, wait—does this mean the family killed their own child? Oh my god, not only did they kill the child, but they also cut off one of the child’s fingers and framed it as a serial killer’s work?

That’s terrifying.

Wait, should we call the police?

Calling the police… seems useless now. The child’s body has already been found. If there was any evidence on the body, the police would have figured it out by now. The fact that there’s no movement means there’s no evidence linking them to the crime.

And they—two high school students’ testimonies won’t help either.

So what should we do? Doesn’t this mean the family will get away with it?

Li Xun saw her looking distressed and, worried it might affect her mood, comforted her, “Don’t worry about it. There will be results later.”

Hearing this from Li Xun, Guo Ying immediately relaxed. She knew Li Xun was definitely up to something big.

At this moment, Guo Ying vaguely felt that, with Li Xun at the center, and using the families of the victims from the serial killings as the radius, a massive web was being cast, trapping many people.

Guo Ying was in charge of a small part of it, but she couldn’t see the whole picture. She didn’t know what the ultimate goal of this plan was or how it worked, but she couldn’t help herself—she wanted to do something.

Young people simply can’t resist dangerous and mysterious things!