Chapter 43: The Dismemberment Case

Baicheng was an ordinary prefecture-level city, ranking merely in the mid-range among nearly three hundred prefecture-level cities across the country, with a total population of just barely over two million in 1997.

Therefore, relatively speaking, the number of violent homicides in Baicheng was not particularly high, and unsolved cold cases were among the lowest in the entire province.

Yet, there was one particular case that shocked the entire nation. Because it remained permanently unsolved, tiny Baicheng would forever be remembered by the world for this single cold case.

For someone like Zhou Yi, who was born and raised in Baicheng, this was undoubtedly a disgrace.

This cold case was known as the May 6th Dismemberment Case.

It was also referred to as the Baida Dismemberment Case, because the victim was a freshman at the university.

The date the case was discovered was precisely May 6th, 1997—leaving exactly fifty days from the present moment, right after Zhou Yi cracked the March 16th case!

Zhou Yi made up his mind: he was going to save that victim.

Zhou Yi could not fathom what reason a young woman could possibly have to die, let alone die in such a horrific and mutilated manner.

However, it was impossible for Zhou Yi to simply run up to someone and tell them that a murderer was coming after them, and that they would be dismembered.

If he did that, people would only treat him as a lunatic and call the police.

Therefore, he needed to find a suitable opportunity and environment to get to know her naturally, then deliberately approach her, understand her interpersonal relationships and circumstances, and apprehend the killer before the culprit struck!

This was the most rational and the only solution.

He planned that after going to the municipal bureau next week, he would pull out all the stops to rapidly solve a few cases. Once he secured a certain degree of authority, he would propose to Wu Yongcheng that the municipal bureau conduct safety education lectures in the name of the department, using that opportunity to meet her and figure out the next steps.

...

The next day was Saturday. Zhou Yi had nothing pressing to do, so he went to the hospital early in the morning with his mother.

After the mother and son arrived, they sent the aunt who had stayed overnight for night duty back home to rest.

Grandfather's condition was much better than expected. The doctor said to observe him for another three days, and if there were no issues, he could be discharged.

Zhou Yi was naturally overjoyed in his heart, because his grandfather's situation proved that the past could be changed!

He had the opportunity to save more people!

Zhou Yi originally wanted his mother to go back first, since he could manage just fine on his own here. However, his mother quickly found a "chat buddy" and scampered off to another ward to enthusiastically gossip about neighborhood trifles with someone.

Zhou Yi lowered his head, slowly peeling an apple, and suddenly asked in a casual tone, "Grandpa, do you still remember how you took that fall?"

Zhou A-si, lying on the hospital bed, experienced a sudden hitch in his otherwise steady breathing. After a long pause, the old man's raspy voice spoke up: "I only blame myself for being clumsy."

This answer was not what Zhou Yi wanted to hear.

"Grandpa, don't be afraid. With me here, tell me the truth."

"It really was my own fall. I tripped on my way to the restroom."

"Oh, is that so. Then when you're discharged in a couple of days, we'll send you back to Second Uncle's place." Zhou Yi still spoke calmly, only pretending to look up casually for a glance.

Sure enough, a flicker of panic flashed across the old man's eyes.

"Cough, cough. Little Yi, why don't grandpa stay at your place for a couple of days first?"

"I had a dream last night, and I dreamt of your grandma. She scolded me for not favoring your dad back when the family property was divided, making your dad suffer grievances."

When the old man said this, there was a trace of cautiousness in his eyes, along with a hint of apprehension, much like a child who had done something wrong.

The so-called division of the family naturally referred to when Zhou Yi's father and his siblings reached adulthood and split the family assets.

Zhou Yi was still young back then and didn't understand the situation, but he could vaguely glean some of it from his mother's later complaints about his father.

At the time of the family division, apart from the Third Uncle, the other three had already started families. The aunt was a married daughter, so naturally she couldn't get much.

It was said that the Third Uncle was going through his most rebellious phase back then, taking eighty yuan and heading south to make his fortune.

Therefore, the split essentially took place between the eldest and the second brother. It truly lived up to the old saying: the crying child gets the milk.

How could Zhou Yi's honest and dutiful father possibly be a match for the scheming Second Uncle? In the end, all the benefits went to the Second Uncle's household.

If it weren't for the aunt being fierce since childhood and forcing the Second Uncle's family to support the elderly, the grandfather probably would have been cast out onto the streets.

In Zhou Yi's memory, when he was little, he seemed to have crammed into a rental room of just over ten square meters with his parents for several years. Later, the steel mill prioritized the allocation of dormitories to dual-income couples, and life finally began to improve.

Zhou Yi used a fruit knife to cut the peeled apple into small pieces, placed them in a bowl, and handed them to the old man on the hospital bed.

Then, he took a bite of the leftover apple core. "Grandpa, if Grandma feels my dad was wronged, why don't we simply draw up a will? We can divide what needs to be divided, so nobody feels wronged, and Grandma won't have to worry down below."

The old man was instantly stunned: "A will?"

"Yeah. To be honest, with Second Aunt's shrewish personality and Second Uncle's spineless cowardice, living with them must be driving you out of your mind with stifling misery."

The old man's eyes turned red. All the suffering of these past few years was something he had nowhere to voice.

Back then, seeing that his second son and second-order daughter-in-law were pitiful, and hearing the second daughter-in-law's solemn vows to support him through his old age until death, he had given the opportunity to inherit the job and the house to the second son.

He never expected that within a few years, even picking up a piece of food at the dining table would require him to read the second daughter-in-law's facial expressions.

It was clearly his own home, yet he was reduced to living under someone else's roof like a dependent.

"I heard from my mother that back when the property was divided, the house was never formally transferred into their name, right?"

The old man shook his head. "This house of ours was assigned to me back when I was transferred from the military to the factory. We only hold the right of use, not the property ownership title. Your second uncle wanted to go get the title transferred back then, but when he went to ask at the factory, they said converting the right of use into full ownership required a sum of money. He didn't have the money, so it never got done."

"And he didn't trick you into coughing up the cash?"

"How could he not? But I figured, what difference does it make whether we have the ownership title or not? Isn't it still our Old Zhou family's house? Why spend that unjust money."

Hearing this, Zhou Yi breathed a sigh of relief. The conservative mindset of the older generation sometimes still came in handy.

If this house had already been registered under the Second Uncle's name, it really would have been difficult to handle.

"Well then, Grandpa, let's do this." Zhou Yi said, leaning forward and whispering a few words into the old man's ear.

Zhou A-si asked half-convinced and half-doubtful, "This... will your second uncle agree?"

"You don't need to worry about that. You just have to answer me: if we do it this way, do you agree or not?"

The old man looked at his grandson's solemn expression and let out a soft sigh. "Little Yi, Grandpa only asks one thing of you: just leave your second uncle a way to survive. No matter how much of a wretch he is, he is still my son."

Zhou Yi knew his grandfather had a soft heart; he had realized it the moment he uttered that first sentence.

This was indeed an extremely difficult multiple-choice question, but that didn't mean the Second Uncle and his wife wouldn't have to pay the price after doing such things.

"Grandpa, don't forget, I am a police officer."

"This is already the only path to survival I can find for Second Uncle."