Preliminary Lock Down

Su Mo heard it and deliberately slowed down his pace, walking slowly past here. He did not go upstairs to inquire about the details because inquiry itself was a flaw, which he tried his best to avoid.

After returning to the hotel, he stood by the window, looking at the night view outside. The night was particularly dark tonight, abnormally dark.

"Did the murderer start committing crimes again? After eight years, he only started committing crimes now, and the frequency is so high. It seems something must have happened eight years ago.

Which resulted in the murderer being unable to commit crimes until now when he finally has a chance to continue.

Enduring for eight years, you must have endured great hardship, so you are more frenzied, trying to make up for the losses from before.

I understand you. Don't worry, just commit crimes boldly. This way, it will be easier for me to find you. When the time comes, I will entertain you nicely, haha, hahaha, hahaha!"

The next day, Su Mo went to the northern suburbs. In the previous period of time, he had investigated everyone who collected garbage in the shantytowns one by one, and they were basically ruled out as suspects.

The northern suburbs were quite far from the city. It was indeed the countryside like the taxi driver said. There were not even a few decent houses here.

When he arrived, he wandered around and chatted with someone he met, claiming he was a tourist.

There were four or five villages in this area. He looked around the village closest to the city for less than half an hour before leaving. The houses here were dense and did not match the conditions for the murderer's crimes.

Then he went to the second village. The house density was also high here, and the environment was slightly worse, so it was also eliminated by Su Mo.

It was not until he walked to the third village that when he stood at the entrance of the village, he saw a small courtyard halfway up the hillside and became curious.

So he looked around and found a big sister nearby washing clothes. He went over with a smile and asked,

"Sister, hello. I'm a tourist here. Your place is really quiet!"

The big sister was very enthusiastic. Seeing a handsome young man, she laughed, "Of course it's quiet in the village. It's not like in the city. Usually if it's not during the holidays, there are few people in the village."

"Sister, whose house is that? Why was it built halfway up the mountain?"

The big sister glanced at it, then had a strange expression as she looked at Su Mo and said, "Don't go there for no reason. That person's brain is not normal. The villagers won't go there either."

This aroused Su Mo's curiosity even more. He hurriedly asked, "Not normal?"

The big sister put down her clothes and explained, "That man is called Xie Kun. He is not from here but came here more than ten years ago. He does not talk much usually; we thought he was mute at first. Later we found out he was not mute but just unwilling to talk. He walks with his head down, afraid that others will talk to him.

Besides that, he does not interact with others either. In the past, some villagers wanted to get close to him, but they were all driven away. Since then, people stopped looking for him.

There are also many children in the village. Sometimes they would run over there to play. He would chase them away with a wooden stick, scaring the kids quite badly.

Everyone thought something was wrong with his brain, so they were not bothered by it. They just warned their own children not to run to Xie Kun's place. Since then, villagers have severed ties with him..."

The rest were some trivial matters. After the big sister finished speaking, he asked, "Since his brain is not normal, how does he make a living?"

"Oh, in that sense, Xie Kun is still normal. He collects garbage. He goes out every day at dawn, collects garbage everywhere, then takes it to the processing plant to sell.

I have to say, although he is a bit abnormal, he is quite good at making money. He earns more in a year than most villagers."

After chatting for a while, Su Mo left. He wanted to go take a look at the halfway up the hillside place.

Instead of going straight there, he circled around and approached the small courtyard from the side.

Before even getting close to the yard, his eyes lit up because he saw the courtyard walls were extraordinarily high, which was very unreasonable.

This was a village, and the yard looked a bit shabby. It would not attract thieves at all.

But Xie Kun actually built high walls around it. No matter how you looked at it, it was abnormal.

The door was locked at this time. It seemed Xie Kun was out. Su Mo sneaked over and looked around but could not get in without breaking down the door.

After thinking for a while, he decided not to force entry but to quietly wait for Xie Kun to come back.

He waited for a few hours until around seven o'clock at night when a limping middle-aged man finally stumbled to the yard gate.

He took out the key and slowly unlocked it, then prepared to open the yard door. But at this moment, Xie Kun's head suddenly turned to look to the right and kept looking for several seconds before he retracted his sight and entered the yard.

A few meters away, hidden behind a tree, Su Mo secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he hid in time; otherwise, he would probably have been discovered.

"Such a keen sense of smell. Hehe, you are more and more like the one I'm looking for."

After thinking for a while, he decided to leave. His consideration was simple. If Xie Kun was the Demon Case murderer, going to inquire now would most likely lead to a fight where he could only kill Xie Kun on the spot. That would not be perfect.

So he decided to confirm it first. He walked in the direction Xie Kun had returned from.

Sure enough, after walking a few steps, there was a small open space with a four-wheeled vehicle parked there. This should be Xie Kun's car. There was still some scrap paper, bottles and other garbage piled on it.

Su Mo quickly took out a thumb-sized round object from his body and stuck it under the car with adhesive tape where it would not be found.

The round object looked similar to a watch but smaller. It was a tracking device made by Su Mo himself. It was just a simple GPS locator that anyone could make.

After doing all this, he looked back at the small courtyard not far away with an interested expression on his face before quickly disappearing into the night.

Inside the yard, after returning home, Xie Kun went straight to the kitchen. He had not eaten dinner yet and was a little hungry.

He first lit the fire, then filled the pot with water and waited for the water to almost boil before he stood up and walked to the cabinet.

He opened the cabinet and looked through it for a long time before finally taking out an arm.

"Arm is still the tastiest with meaty and chewy texture."

After muttering to himself, he put the arm into the boiling water in the pot.