It’s Him – Ch25

Discovery

If Zhao Jingzheng’s ability to collect information were as strong as Li Xun’s, he would have discovered that the family members of the last case’s victim did not appear on the internet, nor did anyone go to the place where the child went missing to pay respects on this day.

Not once.

On one hand, when the incident occurred, she was severely injured. With injuries of that extent, she didn’t truly wake up until a month later.

By that time, the case had lost its heat.

On the other hand, Li Yugui was different from the other victim’s families. Others still had relatives and friends, but at that time, her only connection to the world was her daughter. After her daughter’s death, she cut off all ties with the world.

She was also very stubborn; once she remembered the killer’s voice, she was determined to find the killer through this method.

She had never paid respects to the child because she didn’t receive anything from her daughter like the other families did. She kept a sliver of hope in her heart, thinking perhaps her child wasn’t dead yet.

The killer had never killed any parents before, this was the only time. Perhaps for the killer, he only killed one person at a time, and once the other saw that she was dead, he wouldn’t harm her child.

Moreover, the killer was in her basement. So, Li Yugui wouldn’t go there.

Zhao Jingzheng didn’t know this, so he went.

Qin Li sat in the shop, chatting with a customer, when the notification bar on her phone displayed a message.

“Dear customer, your order… has been canceled. The refund request has been sent to the airline, and a fee of 240 yuan will be deducted, with an expected refund of 980 yuan…”

Her gaze immediately locked onto the important information.

Zhao Jingzheng was about to return to school, and it was she who bought the ticket for him using her software.

Why was it suddenly refunded?

Qin Li immediately called the other party.

“Today is the anniversary of the last victim, and I want to check if there are any clues here,” the son on the other end explained.

Qin Li: “You should have told me, I could have gone and kept watch there.”

“Forget it, you’re busy, you don’t have time for this. I’ll stay here and keep watch.”

His tone was full of irritation.

Qin Li pretended not to notice and, while she originally intended to scold him for not discussing the ticket refund with her, now she was in a weaker position and couldn’t say much. She could only say, “I’m not busy today, I’ll come over to keep you company.”

The son, Zhao Jingzheng, didn’t say anything more.

Qin Li didn’t support her son’s actions. He wasn’t a police officer, and after searching here for so long, he hadn’t found anything, which only delayed her own matters.

More importantly, the more she browsed online, the more she found herself being swayed by the discussions.

When someone claimed her ex-husband was the killer, she certainly didn’t believe it.

But as the online detectives analyzed the case from the perspectives of psychology, geography, the time of the crime, and even the theory of reincarnation, breaking down each factor, the more she read, the more it seemed plausible.

For Qin Li, she had always felt guilty, especially during the years of her marriage. Her ex-husband’s good temper had made those years truly exhausting for her, and she had to endure the sympathy from others for having a “mother tiger” wife like her.

Now, as people online kept persuading her that her ex-husband’s good temper was because he was a perverted killer, and her bad temper was because her husband dumped all the mess on her to clean up, she couldn’t help but read it repeatedly.

She also recalled how her husband was often absent during the serial killings, which made it seem like he had the time to commit the crimes.

She couldn’t help but start to believe this possibility.

She also thought that perhaps her ex-husband had run away because he was afraid the truth would be exposed.

Of course, she could never let her son know this. Not only could she not show it, but she also had to help find the person.

Luckily, both of today’s clients canceled their appointments. Since each session of moxibustion took at least two hours, her shop operated on a reservation system.

With both customers canceling, she had time.

Qin Li asked her son for his location, then quickly drove over.

The industrial area had few people, but there were many large vehicles coming and going.

The two of them squatted by the roadside in the industrial area, inhaling the exhaust fumes, not knowing what they were waiting for or what they were looking for.

Qin Li wanted to bond with her son, so she forced herself to bring up a topic.

“You came here when you were little. You probably don’t remember.”

“When you were six or seven, your father and I had already divorced. At that time, someone introduced me to work in an electronics factory here. There was a period when I worked night shifts, and your father didn’t feel at ease, so he would come to pick me up after work every day. He couldn’t leave you at home alone, so he would bring you along without telling you.”

She spoke, and her conscience returned: “Your dad was really a good person.”

“Back then, a mother and daughter pair sold rice balls near here. Their rice balls were the best I’ve ever had.”

Zhao Jingzheng grew more impatient as he listened, feeling the irony. His father had been so kind to her, but what about him?

Qin Li sighed: “After that incident happened, I stopped working at that factory.”

Zhao Jingzheng didn’t want to listen anymore and took out his phone to play with it.

Qin Li reminisced about the past, thinking that maybe doubting her ex-husband was a mistake. She stayed silent.

They stayed together until late at night, and Zhao Jingzheng was already thinking of going back.

Qin Li thought about the past and felt that it was okay to wait a little longer.

“The case happened at dawn, why don’t we wait a bit longer?”

“You stay here. There’s someone selling fruit over there, I’ll go buy some.”

She started to leave but then remembered that someone had died here before, and it was late at night. It was a bit scary.

So, Qin Li added, “Let’s go buy it together.”

Zhao Jingzheng shook his head: “I’m not hungry. Let’s wait until after dawn to get some supper.”

Qin Li sighed. She should have eaten something before coming. Now she was starving.

The mother and son continued to awkwardly stand in the cold wind.

Qin Li was a special person. On one hand, she couldn’t say she loved her son much, but she couldn’t fully escape the shackles of society either, and still longed for reconciliation with him.

But even at this time, her son still didn’t give her a good expression.

She was also frustrated, playing on Douyin for a while, then browsing Zhihu, where she saw people discussing the case from years ago.

In the serial killer case, there were both highly talked-about and less talked-about incidents.

The first case, due to the selfishness of the child’s grandfather, gained more weight. There was also a case involving a local entrepreneur. Because they had money and had been offering rewards for clues for years, that case maintained high attention.

During this time, the post that pinpointed the victim’s burial site has kept the case’s heat high and it hasn’t died down.

This case involves murder, violence, bounties, and reincarnation, which captivated Qin Li as she read on.

“If reincarnation is real, I remember the entrepreneur didn’t want more children after that. They have the largest local car factory. Could the child from reincarnation come back to recognize their parents?”

“Do you think others haven’t thought of this? I heard people from their company say that many people have already gone to find their relatives, including people in their thirties and forties.”

“I estimate they will soon publicly search for their reincarnated children.”

“That’s so exaggerated?”

“Only those who have experienced parent-child relationships can truly understand it.”

Qin Li was speechless but continued to scroll down.

“How do you tell if it’s true or false?”

“This is easy. The person who said they were the victim in their past life actually sensed the location of their previous body. If they can reveal the body’s location, doesn’t that prove it’s real?”

Qin Li scrolled down one by one.

Perhaps because she clicked on news related to the Red Balloon serial murders every time, the big data algorithms had pushed all news related to this case to her.

She soon came across something related to the last case.

Back then, she hadn’t paid much attention. She was too scared, especially since it was a serial murder case. Once, out of curiosity, she clicked into one case where someone had posted extremely bloody photos to grab attention.

The case involved people she had seen before, so she didn’t dare click into it.

As a result, her impression of the case was that a mother and daughter were murdered.

She hadn’t heard much about the case and didn’t even know that the mother had survived.

Now, due to the internet cleaning activities, it’s hard to find such bloody photos online, and the discussions by netizens have become less gruesome and more entertaining.

Qin Li clicked to read their discussions.

“Did the mother from the last case survive? It was said she was in a coma for a long time, but I stopped following it afterward.”

“Seems like she survived.”

“No way, we haven’t seen her in years.”

“She definitely didn’t survive. Don’t you remember what an insider said back then? The victim’s wounds started at the chest, opening up the abdomen, with intestines spilling out. There’s no way she could have survived such severe injuries.”

Qin Li suddenly froze.

“These injuries… I’ve seen them before.”

Zhao Jingzheng, sitting next to her, turned her head. “What do you mean you’ve seen them?”

“Nothing,” Qin Li realized she had spoken out loud. Since she wasn’t particularly close to Zhao Jingzheng, and because she ran a therapy business for female clients where privacy was crucial, she immediately regretted speaking and knew she would ruin her reputation if such things got out.

Qin Li stopped scrolling through her phone and sat in the wind waiting for early morning. She didn’t take the initiative to speak to her son, and he didn’t speak to her either.

The mother and son sat there in the cold wind until dawn.

Qin Li didn’t go home immediately. Her mind was filled with questions, so she went back to the store.

Their store was by appointment only, with many clients purchasing session cards. After clients underwent acupuncture or other treatments, they had to sign.

She remembered… there had been a client with a long scar from the chest to the abdomen.

Since most clients were regulars, she quickly found the records.

Li Yuigu.

She remembered now. This client was booked by her daughter, and her daughter paid for the session. She also had her daughter’s WeChat.

At that time, she had even sighed, thinking it was her daughter who truly understood how to care for her.

Qin Li suddenly widened her eyes, grabbed her phone, opened WeChat, found the girl’s account, and clicked on her Moments—

The last post the girl made was during the New Year.

“Happy New Year, may we all have our wishes come true in the new year.”

That wasn’t the point. The point was, her son had liked a post from a long time ago.

Her son had the girl’s WeChat, and not only that, he had even liked a very old post on her Moments.

She couldn’t wait until tomorrow to deal with this and immediately called her son.

The phone rang, and after a long while, someone answered.

“Mom? I just fell asleep. What’s up?”

The voice on the other end was very impatient.

Qin Li didn’t care about that. She asked, “How did you meet that WeChat friend called ‘Xun Xun Mi Mi’?”

“She’s my dad’s student. What’s the matter?”

“Are you close with her?”

Zhao Jingzheng got annoyed when talking about this, responding sarcastically, “She’s been helping me find my dad these days. What do you think? Are we close?”

“Don’t meet her again. If she asks you out, don’t go.”

She grabbed the car keys and hurried downstairs, preparing to find her son.

“I’ll come to your place now, buy you a ticket tomorrow, and you need to go back to university quickly.”

If… if that woman really was the victim from back then, and she truly believed what the internet said about her ex-husband being the murderer…

Then her son would be in danger.

They never found the victim’s child’s remains, yet the “murderer’s” son was alive and well in front of them.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the girl wanted to take revenge on her son. Otherwise, why would she be getting close to him?

Her son had such a bad attitude! A senior high school student who didn’t study, yet kept helping her look for someone? What was he after? Was it because he had a bad temper? Was it his sarcastic attitude?

The more she thought about it, the more she felt Zhao Jingzheng was in danger.

Zhao Jingzheng stood up. He had already prepared to leave tomorrow, but now he didn’t want to go anymore. “I know what I’m doing. Why are you interfering now?”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I care? I’m the one paying for your ticket back to university.”

“Did I ask you to pay? You just felt guilty and wanted to make it up to me, so you paid. Is that worth all these years of raising me?” He was already annoyed. “You’re criticizing my friends now. Do you have the right to do that?”

“Fine, fine!” Qin Li’s temples hurt in anger. It felt like she was back in the days when this little bastard didn’t understand anything, always howling around.

“I don’t have the right? I gave birth to you, so I owe you, right? You always think I’m not good enough for you, but have you been good to me? Every time we meet, you just throw a tantrum at me and then say I have no right to interfere with your friends? Tomorrow, go to their house. Her mother is a relative of the victim from the last case. No, she’s also a victim. You go tomorrow, and I’ll come pick up your body the day after. I’ll pretend I never had you as a son!”