The most conspicuous place?
A place where everyone could see?
Hearing these words from Jiang Mu, everyone present was baffled, looking around the room and surveying their surroundings.
Where was it?
Why couldn’t they see it?
Tang Jinxian felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest, as if she appeared fierce yet brainless before Jiang Mu.
She asked impatiently, “Where exactly is it?”
Jiang Mu ignored her, his gaze fixed tightly on Wu. “Young Master Wu, you seem somewhat frightened?”
Wu recovered from his earlier loss of composure and sneered, “Frightened? Why would I be frightened? Absurd!”
“Fine, still playing tough, are we.”
Jiang Mu smiled. “I previously analyzed the killer’s personality. A person who spent years under the strict control and corporal punishment of an elder, their inner self suppressed to the extreme, eventually becomes twisted.
Wu, you must hate your mother deeply, don’t you? Apart from hate, what else is there? Fear? Or something else…”
“Nonsense!”
The veins on Wu’s neck bulged.
“I, Wu, have known nothing since childhood but upholding ‘filial piety’! My mother raised me through hardships; her kindness to me is as weighty as a mountain. Why would I hate her!?”
Jiang Mu listened quietly until he finished, then continued:
“It is precisely this hatred with no outlet that gave birth to your twisted desire for revenge. You dare not resist her, so you redirect this malice, venting it upon those women who resemble your mother yet are powerless to resist.”
“Shut up!”
“You pulled out the victims’ fingernails partly to satisfy your perverse ‘desire to collect’ and your sense of control. But on another level, subconsciously, you wanted even more to use this method to humiliate your mother…”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
Wu glared with bloodshot eyes, struggling even more violently.
If not for the bailiffs holding him back, he likely would have lunged forward long ago.
Jiang Mu’s gaze swept past the prayer beads on Madame Wu’s wrist, finally settling on the small Buddha statue on the incense altar that had been wiped spotlessly clean.
He stepped forward and lifted the Buddha statue.
Jiang Mu spoke to himself:
“You placed them in the most conspicuous place, and also in the place your mother holds most sacred and inviolable, carrying out a secret humiliation. Thus, when your mother devoutly worships Buddha every day, she burns incense and prays day after day before these bloodstained pieces of evidence without realizing it, satisfying your deformed mentality.”
The Buddha statue!
Everyone suddenly saw the light.
During the previous search, because Madame Wu had worshipped Buddha for years, everyone out of reverence had not touched this Buddha statue, only searching around it.
The Buddha statue was hollow inside.
Jiang Mu slowly withdrew a paper packet from the base of the Buddha statue.
At that moment, the room fell deathly silent.
Madame Wu was dumbstruck, as if struck by lightning.
Wu turned ashen-faced.
As the paper packet opened, pieces of bloodstained fingernails met everyone’s eyes.
In a daze, everyone could imagine how much pain the victims must have suffered while alive when these fingernails were pulled out.
“Beast!”
Tang Jinxian was furious. She rushed forward and kicked Wu.
Wu vomited sour fluid and collapsed limply to the ground.
Jiang Mu walked up to Wu and looked at him with a pitying gaze:
“From childhood to adulthood, you could never decide what you wanted to do. How to eat, how much to eat, which books to read, until what hour of the night; not allowed to play with things you liked.
Not allowed to make friends, not even allowed to spare a glance at the neighbor’s daughter…
Even how many copper coins you could carry, at what time you had to retire each night, what posture you slept in—all strictly regulated…”
With every sentence Jiang Mu spoke, the veins on Wu’s forehead throbbed.
“You hate her so much you wish you could devour her flesh. Yet you fear her too, like a mouse seeing a cat, not daring to overstep the boundary by half a step.
But the most tragic thing is that under such extreme suppression, you actually developed a twisted and complex emotion toward that person who controls your every move…”
“Shut up!!”
Wu stared with wide eyes full of bloodshot lines, wanting to charge forward, but the bailiffs held him fast.
Madame Wu cried out mournfully, “My son, what is going on?”
Wu turned his head and glared at her.
As he glared, he suddenly burst into a mad laugh, like a demon:
“Are you satisfied?”
“You vile woman! Are you satisfied now?! Huh?! Are you?!”
“Is this the obedient son you wanted?! Is this the good son you raised?!”
“Isn’t this what you wanted?! Huh?!”
“You vile woman, I hate you! I hate you!”
“I want to kill you! I want to kill you!”
Wu, pinned tightly to the ground, streamed with tears and mucus. In his eyes, besides disgust and hate, other emotions were mixed in.
A twisted emotion.
Madame Wu stood woodenly, looking at this completely unfamiliar son before her, retreating repeatedly in terror. “No… you’re not my son… you’re not my son…”
Everyone in the room had complicated feelings.
They had not expected that this Wu was actually one of the killers.
Tang Jinxian had originally worried that Wu, driven to desperation, would reveal the matter of her serving as Jiang Mu’s dog inside the cave. But seeing his frenzied state, she was no longer worried.
At this point, no matter what Wu said, no one would believe him.
This fellow was simply a madman.
“The lad is still too young; he couldn’t take the pressure.”
Jiang Mu shook his head, then turned to look at Yan Qingshan, who had remained expressionless the whole time, and said indifferently, “Hall Master Yan, matters having reached this point, do you still wish to bear all responsibility alone and shield him?”
Before Yan Qingshan could speak, Madame Wu rushed over and began punching and hitting him, pulled away with effort by the bailiffs.
Madame Wu glared at Yan Qingshan with hatred:
“You harmed my son; it must have been you who led my son astray! Yan Qingshan, you beast!”
“No, you definitely threatened my son! Yes, you definitely threatened him into doing evil!
“Yan Qingshan, speak! Isn’t that so?! Back then, for that vixen, you killed your own first wife! And now, you want to harm my son too! You beast!”
Jiang Mu watched this hysterical woman coldly, his heart full of disgust.
Even now, she was still unwilling to admit that this psychologically twisted demon, Wu, had been single-handedly created by her suffocating desire for control over the years.
Yan Qingshan glanced at the deranged Wu, sighed softly, and said:
“That’s right. I orchestrated everything. Wu was deluded. From beginning to end, he never abused or violated those women. I did it.”
“Did you hear that?! Did you all hear that?!”
Madame Wu latched onto this lifeline and shouted excitedly, “He did it all! My son was forced! My son didn’t harm anyone! He didn’t kill anyone!”
Jiang Mu frowned.
Yan Qingshan was not lying about this point.
The autopsy results clearly showed that those violations and whip wounds had all come from a left-handed person.
Although Wu Chong was the holder of a spiritual artifact, he had only watched from the sidelines the entire time and had not directly participated in the abuse.
It was unclear whether this situation would lighten Wu’s sentence.
If that were truly the case, it would simply be the greatest injustice to the deceased; the mere thought made one sick.
Tang Jinxian said coldly, “No matter how Yan Qingshan tries to take the blame, he is the principal culprit who used a spiritual artifact to harm people. His crimes are unforgivable, and the laws of Great Qian will convict him.”
But Madame Wu paid no heed to this, shouting tearfully at Wu:
“Son, don’t be afraid. Mother will definitely save you! Mother will petition the court immediately and petition His Majesty. Your father rendered service to the realm in his time; His Majesty will certainly show clemency beyond the law. You did nothing wrong…”
Tang Jinxian could endure it no longer. “Those innocent women who were tortured and killed—did they do anything wrong?”
Madame Wu wailed like a shrew:
“They’re already dead! The dead cannot come back to life! Must my son pay with his life before you’ll be satisfied? I only have this one son! He was just momentarily confused; he’s still but a child!”
Tang Jinxian was thoroughly disinclined to argue with this unreasonable woman. She ordered sternly:
“Take away all the offenders!”
She, Tang Jinxian, refused to believe that she couldn’t put this beast to death.
After handling the offenders, she turned to look at Jiang Mu, her gaze instantly softening considerably. “Mu Jiang, you did well. Once this case is tried and concluded, this official will report truthfully to the court and request merits for you.”
Hearing this, Jiang Mu immediately bowed with clasped fists and said loudly:
“The solving of this case relies entirely on my lord’s strategic planning. Had my lord not long ago perceived the suspicions in this case, laid plans in secret, and ordered your humble subordinate to monitor suspicious persons and search for key evidence; and had my lord not dispatched your humble subordinate to thoroughly investigate the Wu residence—how could your humble subordinate have made such a discovery?
Everything is due to my lord’s calm command; your humble subordinate merely followed orders diligently and contributed a meager effort. Your humble subordinate absolutely does not dare claim credit.”
The other personnel of the surrounding Patrol Bureau looked at Tang Jinxian with varied expressions.
Some held admiration, some fear, and some fell into deep thought.
Speaking from the heart, many still were unwilling to believe that an obscure young bailiff could be the key to solving the case.
They were more inclined to believe that An Chenghu was pulling strings behind the scenes, or that Tang Jinxian herself possessed exceptional ability.
But no matter what, after this case, the prestige of this newly appointed Chief Tang Jinxian had been established, enough to silence many doubters.
Listening to Jiang Mu’s flattery, the corners of Tang Jinxian’s lips curved upward.
Gotta say, being brown-nosed by this kid felt pretty nice.