Case Files 013

"In any case, her death is so unusual that I've found the case files and the coroner's report." Xiao Liu placed the files on the table. "Come and take a look." I opened the files and spread the pages on the table so that everyone could see it. From the coroner's report, it said that Zhou Guo's mother died from acute gastric perforation, enterocentesis of duodenum, gastrorrhagia and so on. When the coroner opened up her body, she found a small amount of rice and a large amount of soybeans in the mother's stomach. Her primary suspicion was that the boiling soybeans had caused the stomach walls to weaken and leak. The stomach acid corrupted parts of her internal organs, this was a long and painful death.

WHO delineated intensity of pain into 5 different levels, 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. Zhou Guo's mother would have suffered a level 4 pain, I couldn't imagine how she managed to pull herself through it. Just the thought of it caused my stomach to churn with discomfort. Her death lasted for about an hour before she passed away in extreme pain. The file came with pictures of the crime scene. Zhou Guo's mother had a twisted expression where her face was scrunched together, the pain was palpable. Her body was curled up in response to the pain but due to her paralysis, there was an indescribable strangeness about her posture.

There were a few pictures before the autopsy and after the autopsy. I saw a totally messed-up stomach, not something a normal person should have. Gu Chen and I turned to Guan Zhenglin at the same time. She shrugged. "The coroner's report is accurate. Look at the patches of white and yellow here. Those are pus, signs of necrosed tissues and organs. You can see there are small holes throughout her stomach, the stomach acid would have leaked out through these opening to corrode the other internal organs." Guan Zhenglin concluded, "This should be a suicide unless of course someone forced her to eat these things. The human cavity, the esophagus and stomach wall can only resist temperature between 50 to 60 Celsius. Boiling soybeans have a very high internal temperature. It would not cause any burn if ingested in the manner you suggested, which was wrapped up in cold rice, but after it enters the body…"

Gu Chen raised his brow and turned to me, "You said there was a problem earlier, what was it?"

I pulled on my hair. "We've been to Zhou Guo's house and there was no space for a kitchen. Plus Zhou Guo's mother was paralytic, she couldn't move unless aided. She could only lay in bed and move with one of her arms. So how did she manage to prepare the soybeans and rice?" Gu Chen and Guan Zhenglin's eyes shone because they knew what I was hinting at. Guan Zhenglin said, "You mean, like the other cases, someone has provided the tools for Zhou Guo's mother to commit suicide?"

I nodded slowly. "I believe that was the case."

Gu Chen said with disbelief, "But why would Zhou Guo persuade his own mother to kill herself?" But immediately he gasped, "You mean, there was someone else?"

"Indeed, if Zhou Guo's mother was the first victim, then I believed the first killer wasn't Zhou Guo but someone else." I turned to the files. "Plus the killer couldn't have been Zhou Guo. He was at school during his mother's period of death, unlike one other person…" I tapped my fingers on the table lightly, if my speculation was true, then I had to go and meet someone.

…

1 hour later, I sat before the man, Zhang Dequan who was captured not too long ago. It was not easy to meet him, Captain Zhao had to pull some strings for me. Even so, I only had 1 hour to talk to Zhang Dequan and then he had to go and face other interrogations. "Can you tell me more about Zhang Xue's mother? This will affect your daughter's future…" I began. Zhang Dequan studied me for a full 5 minutes as if thinking whether to buy my words or not. Eventually he said, "Do you have a cigarette?"

I nodded and handed him one. Research showed that smoking could help lessen anxiety. And it was not bad to show that I was on his side. Zhang Dequan accepted the smoke and took a deep draught. "Ask me anything you want. After what I did, this is probably the last chance I have to tell my story." Zhang Dequan looked at me with relief in his eyes. "This is just fucked up. This is going to sound crazy but I worry about my daughter. Who will take care of her after I'm gone? Even though I've done those things, she, she is still my daughter." It was a bit too late for regret now.

I lit up a smoke myself and said, "Tell me about your wife."

"My wife…" Zhang Dequan mumbled. About 20 years ago, Zhang Dequan still travelled the sea. He looked out at the horizonless ocean and he had no place called home. Zhang Dequan had been sailing for years already, he couldn't say where he came from and where he'd go. He only knew that if he was not a sailor, he'd die.

He lived and ate on the boat, working odd jobs for the crew. Zhang Dequan spent 5 years on the boat, growing from a 15 years old boy to 20 years old man, from a child worker to a professional sailor. One time, when the ship docked, a girl appeared near the harbor. She sold fresh seafood for a living and Zhang Dequan fell in love at first sight. The sea breeze caressed the two young people's hearts. Zhang Dequan didn't have much salary but that day he used all of his income to clean out the girl's stall. Once the other sailors found out about this, they laughed. They practically lived on a boat, why would he waste money to buy seafood?

The sailors laughed about Zhang Dequan's inexperience with money; while Zhang Dequan laughed about their inexperience with love. When the ship stopped at this harbor for the third time, Zhang Dequan stayed permanently. Standing at the pier, looking out into the sea, Zhang Dequan finally found home. They would soon marry but Zhang Dequan knew that he had to quickly find a new job to support his family but he had nothing but familiarity with nautical skills. He decided to work and study. Thankfully his savings from 5 years of sailing managed to sustain him. He finished vocational school and graduated. He planned to sit for the government job exam. But that took longer than he expected, a full 5 years. It was during this period that his wife fell ill.

Zhang Dequan's family had to live on credit, at the time, Zhang Xue was only 2. His wife understood that she was a burden to the family and that was when she considered suicide for the first time. After Zhang Dequan left for work, his wife cut her wrist with a fruit knife but she was so weak that she failed to reach her artery. She watched the blood leak out from her body and eventually she fell asleep. Zhang Dequan was shocked when he came back and saw this. Thankfully, his wife was fine, she just had to live with a scar on her wrist. His wife cried, because she couldn't even successfully kill herself.

For her second attempt, she chose to use gas poisoning. She used all her might to twist open the cooking gas tank inside the house. Then she closed all the windows and doors. She waited and waited but nothing happened. She didn't know that they had gotten so poor that Zhang Dequan hadn't replaced the empty tank for a long time already. Zhang Dequan didn't know about this.

She tried to electrocute herself but the fuse melted and the circuit jumped. She tried hanging but she was too weak to throw the noose over the roofbeam. She thought about jumping but her house was too low to the ground. It was just 1 story tall. If she survived the fall, it would only burden her husband further. She never thought that suicide would be so difficult. If a person couldn't even have control over her life, what else was she good for? She felt like this was a cruel joke by God. She was struck with illness and her medical fee crushed her family, she wanted to die but even that God had refused her.

But finally, she got her chance. Eventually she got so ill that she had to be hospitalized. She laid in bed all day and watched the ceiling day after day. Finally, there was a day when she was the only patient inside the room. She took out a syringe and slowly pierced it into her skin. Since the nurse would administer drugs through the needle every day, she had picked up the skill just from watching it so many times.

The syringe had nothing but air. Air, something humans couldn't live without but in certain situation, it was also the most fatal thing. She slowly injected the air bubble into her artery. 1 syringe, 2 syringes. She died in extreme pain. According to the doctor, the air cause air embolus in the artery. The blood that flowed into the heart entered a state of spumescence and it seriously clogged up the blood circulatory system. That then caused a lack of oxygen transportation. In the end, she died from organ failures due to lack of oxygen inside the body. This process only lasted for several minutes, but they were extremely painful. When the doctor found her, she was already dead.

The hospital paid compensation for their negligence but money was not going to bring his wife back. Zhang Dequan knew why his wife died, it was because of poverty, because he couldn't support the enormous amount of medical bills and because he couldn't give their daughter a fulfilling childhood. The sadness festered into anger within Zhang Dequan, he swore to change his life, to eliminate poverty. Right at that time, he was accepted by the city organizational unit.

When everything was smooth sailing, the incident with Zhang Xue happened. That night, the anger and drive within Zhang Dequan dissipated. He had no idea why he was holding out so long. He missed his wife so much that night. He wanted to cry, he wanted to kill but in the end, he did neither. When he saw his manager wake up from his daughter's bed, Zhang Dequan knew that his life was already over.