Skin - Chapter 57

Chapter 57 – A Brief Analysis of the Case

NOTE : The Chapter Contains Description Of Rape And Sexual Assault. Please Read At Your Own Risk.

　　Meng Zhao put the banner in an inconspicuous place in the room. There was a knock on the door of the ward, and the nurse’s voice came over: “Mr. Lu, the takeaway has just been delivered. Can I bring it in for you?”

　　Meng Zhao stood up and walked to the door, took the takeaway and thanked him.

　　He took the takeaway to the bedside and unpacked it, then looked at Lu Shichen again. Lu Shichen’s expression had relaxed.

　　Thinking of the confrontation between Director Xu holding the banner and Lu Shichen refusing to accept it, Meng Zhao couldn’t help laughing again.

　　”It’s not over yet, is it?” Lu Shichen glanced at him, “What did you order?”

　　”Shengjian,” Meng Zhao took out the lunch box and asked curiously, “Don’t you eat to fill your stomach? Why do you care about what to eat?”

　　Lu Shichen: “…”

　　Although this remark was a little late, it made him feel better physically and mentally. Meng Zhao sat down beside the bed in a good mood, separated his chopsticks, picked up a Shengjian and handed it to Lu Shichen: “Come, you who grew up drinking dew, try the Shengjian of our world.”

　　Lu Shichen lowered his eyes and looked at the thin-skinned and crispy-bottomed pan-fried dumpling held between his chopsticks, and did not move for a moment.

　　The action was natural when he handed it over just now, but at this moment, Meng Zhao also noticed that the action was a bit ambiguous. A few days ago, the doctor suggested that Lu Shichen should eat liquid food after the operation, so Meng Zhao accompanied Lu Shichen to drink porridge for two days. This was the first time he used chopsticks.

　　But it would be wrong to take back his hand, so Meng Zhao urged him, “Eat quickly, your hands are sore.”

　　Lu Shichen lowered his head and took a bite of the dumplings, and the juice immediately overflowed. Fortunately, Meng Zhao held the lunch box with his other hand to catch the juice.

　　”You can’t eat it like this,” Meng Zhao took out a few tissues and handed them to Lu Shichen, “Shengjian is very juicy, you have to drink it up like drinking dew.”

　　Lu Shichen: “…”

　　Seeing that Lu Shichen, who had often caused trouble for him before, was frequently silenced by him, Meng Zhao felt more and more happy: “How does it taste?”

　　”Not bad.” Lu Shichen said.

　　”Not bad? It’s much better than what you ordered two days ago.”

　　After eating the takeout ordered by Lu Shichen for two consecutive days, Meng Zhao figured out Lu Shichen’s style of ordering takeout.

　　Lu Shichen hardly ever read reviews, only looked at prices, and only ordered the expensive ones. Meng Zhao finally understood why Lu Shichen said before that “eating is to fill the stomach”. Eating these expensive and unpalatable takeouts every day would be hard to swallow if it wasn’t for filling the stomach.

　　After finding out Lu Shichen’s style of ordering takeout, Meng Zhao ordered Lu Shichen not to order takeout without permission in the future, depriving him of the right to order takeout.

　　After dinner, Meng Zhao packed up his lunch box. Lu Shichen asked again, “By the way, how is the investigation going on in the basement of the nursing home?”

　　”No progress.” Meng Zhao’s good mood instantly disappeared when the case was mentioned. He sighed and said, “The nominal legal representative of the nursing home is a thug who lends ID cards everywhere. The staff also don’t seem to know that there were people hiding in the basement. As for the people who were rescued from the basement, there is no sign of them waking up.”

　　”Have the identities of the people we rescued been found out?”

　　”We have only found out the identity of a local girl. As for the others, they are most likely from other places. We have already contacted the police in other areas to cooperate with the investigation.” Meng Zhao paused and asked tentatively, “I can roughly guess why those young girls were imprisoned and injected with drugs, but why did Wu Weihan lock an old woman there? Do you have any guesses?”

　　Lu Shichen said: “No.”

　　Meng Zhao observed the expression on Lu Shichen’s face. Lu Shichen returned to his usual expressionless face, but he vaguely felt that Lu Shichen seemed to know something.

　　It seemed that Lu Shichen would not give him any hints this time like he did in the sanatorium.

　　”Besides, why did Wu Weihan inject these people with drugs to paralyze them while keeping them alive? This is both expensive and laborious. What is his purpose in doing this? Is it just because it is too troublesome to deal with the bodies?”

　　The two of them were silent for a moment, and Lu Shichen said, “Let’s continue investigating.”

　　”I’m going to go out and throw these away,” Meng Zhao stood up and picked up the takeout bag containing the lunch box, “and take a look upstairs by the way.”

　　”Yeah.” Lu Shichen said.

　　•=|=•

　　In the next few days, news came from police stations in various places. Except for the old woman, the identities of the remaining three girls were also found out one by one.

　　Just after the family of the last girl arrived to confirm her identity, Meng Zhao gathered the main investigators of the case to sort out the current progress of the case.

　　In the meeting room of the Municipal Bureau, photos of six girls were displayed on the big screen.

　　Director Xu sat in the middle and Meng Zhao was responsible for presiding over the meeting.

　　”After a nationwide investigation over the past few days, the identities of the five girls rescued from the sanatorium have been clarified. Let’s sort out the progress of the case, starting with Lin Lang. Although she was not rescued from the sanatorium, she is the first victim of this case.”

　　On the big screen, Lin Lang’s photo jumped to the center, and Meng Zhao began to sort out the case.

　　”Victim No. 1, Lin Lang, was in a relationship with Wu Weihan ten years ago. Wu Weihan and several of his friends sexually assaulted her. Although Lin Lang kept the skirt she was wearing when she was assaulted as evidence, it was too long ago and the skirt alone is not enough evidence. In addition, Lin Lang suffers from mental illness and her confession is not effective. Therefore, the evidence we have about Wu Weihan’s crime is far from enough. The sexual assault case of Lin Lang is handed over to Team B to handle as an independent case. We must find out all the people who participated in the sexual assault and find more evidence of Wu Weihan’s crime.”

　　”The second victim, Xu Yulin, fell in love with Wu Weihan ten years ago, ran away from home and disappeared. Preliminary speculation is that Xu Yulin should have also been sexually assaulted by Wu Weihan and others. After the sexual assault, Wu Weihan was worried that he would be punished by law if the matter was exposed, so he hid Xu Yulin in the basement of the nursing home for ten years.”

　　”Victim number three, Xu Yingying, disappeared on April 16 and was imprisoned in the basement of a nursing home. The reason for her imprisonment is unknown. It is initially speculated that it is related to Zhou Yan’s murder and Zhao Tong’s bullying.”

　　”All three victims had romantic relationships with Wu Weihan during high school. Lin Lang and Xu Yulin even encountered accidents during their relationship. So the current speculation is that Wu Weihan, under the guise of romance, colluded with others to seduce girls during high school. Because he was never punished, Wu Weihan’s criminal behavior not only did not stop after graduating from high school, but intensified, developing in the direction of large-scale and commercialization.”

　　”Victim No. 4, Shao Qi, was a local from Mingtan City. She disappeared two years ago. She was 14 years old and in the third year of junior high school. According to her family, before she disappeared, Shao Qi mentioned that a company wanted her to be a contract anchor.”

　　”Victim No. 5, Liu Yu, from Xiangcheng, disappeared three years ago. She was 17 years old and a third-year student at a medical school. Her family said that before Liu Yu disappeared, she had mentioned that she wanted to drop out of school and become a streamer.”

　　”Victim No. 6 Jiang Mingxin, a native of Yingshi, disappeared a year ago. At the time of her disappearance, she was 19 years old and worked as an apprentice in a barber shop. According to the shop manager, Jiang Mingxin asked him if she was suitable to be an internet celebrity.”

　　”What all these girls have in common is that they have low education levels, are easily deceived, and have a distant relationship with their families. Their families will not find out and report their disappearance to the police in the short term. Moreover, before they disappeared, they all had the idea and tried to become streamers. Wu Weihan’s Yunya Technology Company is an MCN agency that specializes in signing up internet celebrities and streamers. I don’t think this is a coincidence. However, the technical investigation team cracked Yunya’s server in the past few days and systematically checked all the information of Yunya’s contracted artists and live broadcast websites, but found nothing fishy.”

　　”We also retrieved the chat records of victims No. 4, 5, and 6 on various social networking sites before they disappeared, and did not find any information inviting them to be streamers, so these conversations were most likely conducted on the Yunya live broadcast software.”

　　”The current speculation is that Wu Weihan’s Yunya Live is completely fine on the surface. The streamers and internet celebrities signed by Yunya Technology, such as Xu Yingying, are indeed doing legitimate work. However, Yunya Live is likely to act as a bait, first attracting various girls to be streamers on the platform, and then Wu Weihan will instruct his subordinates to look for suitable targets in various live broadcast rooms and induce them to meet offline. All these conversations take place on the Yunya Live platform. Once the prey is caught, all the conversations will be deleted and disappear from the server without a trace, leaving no evidence.”

　　”So now, here comes the tricky part. We have already identified Wu Weihan as the suspect, but because the girls are still unconscious, there is no way to find direct evidence pointing to Wu Weihan.”

　　Meng Zhao paused after reviewing the current case. He took the bottle of mineral water next to him, unscrewed the cap, tilted his head back and drank a sip of water. Then he scrolled the mouse wheel, and the last photo of the old woman appeared on the screen.

　”As for this old woman, there is no clue yet, and no relevant information was found when investigating missing cases in various places. Judging from the years of injecting drugs, this old woman has been receiving injections longer than these girls. If the other girls were locked up in the basement because of the pornographic anchor incident, then why did this old woman appear here? Do you have any ideas?” Meng Zhao said, looking around at the other people in the meeting room.

　　Everyone in the conference room fell into deep thought. After a moment, Director Xu asked, “Have you interrogated Wu Weihan again?”

　　”We face,” Meng Zhao said, “but he said nothing. He must have guessed that we don’t have direct evidence. According to the evidence we have now, even if we can bring a public prosecution later, as long as Wu Jiayi can find a strong defense lawyer, Wu Weihan will most likely be acquitted.”

　　At this moment, the cell phone that Meng Zhao was holding vibrated.

　　He glanced over and saw that it was a voice message from Zhang Chao. Meng Zhao converted the message into text, and the text was displayed one by one in the chat box: “Zhao’er, according to your instructions, the entire network has been searched for information about Shao Qi and other girls. Now I have found a video. The girl in the video is very similar to Shao Qi. Come and take a look?”

　　”Let’s adjourn the meeting first. Everyone, think about the way to solve the case. If you have any ideas, please tell me at any time.” Meng Zhao took the phone and stood up. “The technical team has a message. I’ll go take a look.”

　　Director Xu waved his hand forward twice, signaling him to hurry over.

　　After leaving the meeting room, Meng Zhao quickly walked to the technical investigation office.

　　Pushing open the door, Zhang Chao sat on the chair, took off his headphones and waved at him.

　　When Meng Zhao walked over, Zhang Chao handed him the headphones and said, “The person who took this video is simply a pervert. Be prepared.”

　　He said, and pressed the play button.

　　The video began to play, and a place that looked extremely desolate appeared on the screen. In the distance, a girl was running quickly towards the camera.

　　The girl was wearing revealing clothes, with large areas of her body exposed. When she ran closer, Meng Zhao recognized her as Shao Qi.

　　The girl looked back as she ran, as if she was afraid that someone would catch up with her. She was out of breath, her movements and expression were extremely flustered, and she even fell to the ground and rolled for a while, but she quickly got up and continued to stagger forward.

　　At this moment, a man suddenly rushed out from the roadside. He was in his thirties or forties, tall and strong. He pulled Shao Qi over and grabbed her clothes and pulled her to the roadside.

　　The girl began to resist violently, trying to break free from the man and continue to run away, but the physical strength of an underage girl was no match for an adult man. The man soon pressed her to the dirt road and roughly tore off her clothes.

　　The girl immediately let out a desperate and resistant scream, but the man was like a wild beast and sexually assaulted her without a care.

　　The sound in the headphones was so sharp and painful that it almost pierced his eardrums. Meng Zhao couldn’t bear to watch any further.

　　”It was so realistic,” Zhang Chao said at this time. “Although from the camera position, this seemed to be a pre-planned performance and filming, but it was no different from the process of real rape.”

　　”For the photographer and the man, this may indeed be acting,” Meng Zhao’s voice was hoarse, “but for Shao Qi, she must have been raped. I suspect that in order to create such a realistic feeling, the photographer did not even tell Shao Qi that this was acting.”

　　Meng Zhao dragged the progress bar of the video to the front and played it from the beginning. He had a question while watching it just now. Shao Qi looked flustered, looking back while running, as if she was afraid that someone would chase her from behind. Was she running away?

　　‘So where did she escape from… Was Shao Qi imprisoned somewhere before this video was filmed? And when filming this video, the person who filmed it deliberately made her think that she had a chance to escape…’

　　Meng Zhao speculated on the scene when this video was filmed. He thought that Shao Qi had just had a little hope of escape, but she didn’t expect that what was waiting for her was the filming of an inhumane rape. The thought made people feel despair.

　　‘Where exactly is this desolate place?’ In the headset, Shao Qi’s crying and screaming had not stopped. Meng Zhao looked at the environment on the video, trying to find a landmark that could help him locate the place. At this moment, he heard a hint of other sounds in between the desperate screams.

　　‘Is this… the sound of flowing water?’ Meng Zhao held his breath and listened to the sound in the headphones, but the sound of the flowing water was mixed with Shao Qi’s cries and screaming, making it extremely difficult to distinguish.

　　”Brother Chao, listen to this,” Meng Zhao took off his headphones and handed them to Zhang Chao, “Do you hear the sound of flowing water?”

　　”It seems to be a little bit…” Zhang Chao listened carefully to the sound in the headset, “Wait a moment, I will separate the frequency band of this sound.”

　　Zhang Chao quickly extracted the sound from the video on the computer and processed it. A few minutes later, he handed the headphones to Meng Zhao again: “Listen again, it’s a little more obvious this time.”

　　Meng Zhao listened attentively to the sound from the headphones. The sound seemed a bit far away, but since there was a clear sound of flowing water, it meant that there must be a river nearby!

　　Meng Zhao continued to look at the environment where the video was shot. It was obvious that the person who shot the video was very cautious and did not capture any landmark buildings around. However, it was obvious that the place in the video was empty and desolate, with messy branches and untrimmed trees around. This place should be sparsely populated and must be an extremely remote suburb.

　　Meng Zhao took off his headphones and said, “Brother Chao, give me a copy of the video.”

　　”It’s already copied,” Zhang Chao pulled out the USB drive and handed it to Meng Zhao, “Remember to return the USB drive. All my USB drives are with you…”

　　”I know. I’ll send you all of them once the case is solved.” Meng Zhao interrupted him and said, “Brother Chao, can you help me again? Continue to search for how this video was leaked and where the source is. Thank you.”

　　”Okay.” Zhang Chao agreed.

　　Meng Zhao pushed the door into the criminal investigation office, connected the video to the electronic screen, and called all the members of the special investigation team over.

　　”If Shao Qi really escaped, then given her speed and physical strength, she should be not far from where she was previously controlled. The criminals would not have allowed her to run too far, so I speculate that there must be a place like the basement of the sanatorium nearby.”

　　”There are no landmark buildings around, but we can roughly locate all possible places based on the sound of the water, the outline of the mountain in the distance, and the types of trees around it. Then we can check one by one to find the place in the video.”