The case received high-level attention, and the bureau established the 317 special task force, now led by Fang Rui as the team leader, with the mandate to apprehend the killer within seven days.
Fang Rui's pressure suddenly increased.
As the meeting began, Fang Rui briefly introduced the victim's situation.
Since the victim was an internet celebrity, various information had already been exposed by netizens.
The police quickly investigated and identified the victim as Lu Yaoyao, who was once a streamer in the dance section of a certain platform. A few months ago, she was exposed for being a mistress and frantically insulting and doxxing netizens. Combined with her pregnancy preventing her from livestreaming dance performances, her career took a major hit, and she hadn't been streaming much for a long time, causing her popularity to plummet.
Fang Rui pointed to the information of the two victims on the screen and summarized:
"The two victims have very obvious commonalities: both were mistresses; both were pregnant women around eight months along, and they were carrying illegitimate children. This should be the killer's criteria for selecting victims.
From the current investigation, there is no overlap in the social circles of the two victims, and they did not know each other previously.
Although the body of the second victim, Lu Yaoyao, appeared in the Ziweili Residential Area, she usually resided in the Lijing Residential Complex in the city center, more than 20 kilometers away from the crime scene."
Forensic Doctor Qin also reported on the autopsy findings:
"The modus operandi in the second case is almost identical to the previous one, with the cause of death still being hypovolemic shock."
Forensic Doctor Qin continued: "However, the killer seems to have learned from the first experience. He used hemostatic drugs to reduce the victim's blood loss. At the same time, we detected an abnormally high concentration of oxytocin in her body, suggesting she was likely injected with a large amount of oxytocin before death."
"The test results for the liquid in the IV bag have come back. It's a regular glucose solution, probably used to maintain the victim's strength."
After hearing this, the others turned to look at Mu Mian. Could it really be as Mu Mian had said, that the killer intended to have the victim give birth to a live cat?
Feeling the gaze of everyone, Mu Mian thought it was her turn to speak. She stood up and said seriously, "The killer is likely a doctor with clinical experience, or at least used to be one."
Forensic Doctor Qin immediately refuted, "That's unlikely! The incisions on the victim's body are crooked and uneven, with several tentative cuts. The suturing technique is also very crude. This doesn't seem like the work of someone with a medical background."
Mu Mian inserted her USB drive into the device, and two photos of the abdominal wounds on the corpses appeared on the screen.
"The curved shapes of these two incisions are almost identical, and both victims have three tentative cuts on their abdomens."
"What does that prove?" someone questioned.
Forensic Doctor Qin quickly understood Mu Mian's point. "Tentative cuts occur when the killer is nervous or unable to accurately locate the incision point. For them to be so consistent in both cases, along with the consistent angle of the crooked incisions, suggests that the killer isn't incapable of dissection, but is deliberately disguising their skill."
Seeing that she had convinced everyone, Mu Mian brought up several images of the kitten's corpse, showing its body, paws, and a cut-open stomach.
Pointing to the stomach photo, Mu Mian said, "I analyzed the food in the stomach of kitten number 2. It consists of granular cat food and some kind of minced meat, which I suspect is canned cat food."
She then pointed to the cat's paw, "The claws of kitten number 2 have been carefully and evenly trimmed. Despite being a stray cat, it has no parasites, and I detected deworming medication in its fur, suggesting it had been recently dewormed. In conclusion, this cat received very good treatment before its death."
"How does this help us solve the case?" someone questioned.
"This proves that the killer is very knowledgeable about cats and may have experience in raising them."
Everyone fell silent. This made the killer's motive seem even more bizarre. The killer likes cats, yet stuffs them into the victims' bellies. The purpose became incomprehensible.
Even if it was as Mu Mian had previously suggested, that the killer wanted the victim to give birth to a live cat, what would be the significance of doing so? Cats are already alive, so why make them be born again?
Mu Mian didn't look at everyone's reactions. After finishing her report, she returned to her seat.
She wasn't interested in analyzing the killer's motive, nor did she care much about whether the killer would be caught. She simply enjoyed uncovering the secrets hidden in the victims' bodies.
Fang Rui quickly found a direction:
"Although the two victims' social circles don't overlap, they are both pregnant women, so their travel routes likely intersect. We should focus on investigating whether they visited the same obstetrics and gynecology hospitals, maternity stores, and other such places.
Wang, Li, check what brands the cat food and canned cat food are, and see if there's any breakthrough there.
The killer might be a doctor, so screen the major hospitals to see if any doctors have shown unusual behavior recently."
While the police investigation was in full swing, discussions about the case were also intense online. Suddenly, the comments of internet celebrity psychological consultant Professor Bai spread across the network.
He gave the killer a nickname: the Cat Fetus Man, and used psychoanalytic theory to provide a detailed interpretation of the killer's psychological motives—the killer has an Oedipus complex, using this cruel method of killing to attract his mother's attention and to take revenge on the mother who abused him.
Based on the victims' personalities, he deduced that the killer has a mother with a volatile temper and extremely strong controlling tendencies. Therefore, the killer is likely physically weak, timid and introverted, with a history of animal abuse.
Finally, Professor Bai contemptuously described the killer as a "pervert obsessed with the maternal womb."
