"That's right." Wang Chao nodded.
Xu Liang choked for a moment, surprised at the other's honesty, but still spoke:
"From my perspective, there's both passion killing and murder."
"Why?"
Wang Chao was intrigued and put down the notebook he was holding.
Passion killing is when emotions take over, and in a heated moment, a person is killed.
It's common for an argument to escalate, and in a rash moment, someone might grab a knife and attack.
Murder, on the other hand, is targeted, planned killing.
"How can both exist simultaneously?" Wang Chao questioned.
"It's possible, but leans more toward passion killing... or rather, a very unique kind of passion killing."
Xu Liang pulled out a napkin to wipe the oil from his mouth and continued:
"Do you know the core characteristic of passion killing?"
Wang Chao shook his head.
"Emotions. The core feature of passion killing is: short-term emotional loss of control."
Xu Liang explained:
"Murder's characteristic is to purposefully and plannedly kill someone, with motives often concealed."
"But regardless of motive, murder requires thought to plan, and thought requires calmness. As long as not controlled by emotions, most people would leave themselves a way out."
"So, murder usually has characteristics like: hidden clues, the body is concealed, difficult to detect, the suspect's whereabouts disappear."
After saying this.
Xu Liang looked up at the crime scene not far away, where a group of police officers was gathered.
"And this case?"
Wang Chao pondered: "The body is on the main road, the method of killing is rather crude."
Every murder strives toward the perfect crime.
But, a truly perfect crime is...
Not to appear in the police's sight!
That is, not getting investigated!
For example.
You kill someone, cleverly setting up the scene. Then the police come to the scene, playing a mental game with you; or you kill someone, but the police don't even know someone has died...
Comparing the two, which case do you think you're more likely to get caught?
So, the essential purpose of making murder plans has another layer.
Preventing the occurrence of the case!
Even if the case does happen, making it seem more like a natural or accidental death rather than murder!
In contrast, if you encounter acts like hiding the body, destroying evidence, eliminating traces, disposing of the corpse, most are murder cases, only a few are passion killings.
The case at hand is different, as soon as day breaks, not to mention three or four o'clock, the latest by six the case will be discovered, Xu Liang would dare to kneel and kowtow to the killer!
"From the scene, I guess your police..."
"Would likely determine from surveillance content that the two parties know each other, and thereby classify the case as a murder."
"And would conclude the deceased was killed personally by someone close, and suspects would probably be found from the social circle!"
Xu Liang suddenly inquired, stating the three steps police must take when encountering murder.
"But, I ask again, the core of murder is to kill the target person. Did the killer kill?"
Did he kill?
Surely, he did!
Several clear knife marks were visible on the temple, and it's estimated damage was done to the brain area as well.
"He didn't completely kill."
"During the alert, I reviewed the scene. The killer hadn't directly murdered the victim, after stabbing once, the victim ran for thirty meters, then crawled a few more meters on the ground."
Xu Liang shook his head, "Eventually leading to the wound being inflicted twice or even thrice, causing death, the temple injuries appeared on the deceased after death."
"If you were a murderer, after stabbing once, the other party sees your face, wouldn't you chase if they run? Most would."
"But the killer didn't pursue!"
"Even judging by the footprints, he left, he fled in the opposite direction!"
"Honestly, if he hadn't returned to the death scene a second time..."
"I would even dare to assert, he now cannot be sure whether the victim is truly dead!"
Xu Liang confidently asserted.
The killer returned to the scene a second time.
The victim's head trauma was very severe, a normal person subjected to such harm, wouldn't possibly be able to move with such injuries, let alone escape from the alley.
Looking again at the footprints leading away from the alley, in the opposite direction, as well as the blood loss from the trauma, it's enough to prove that when attacked, the killer didn't chase but fled.
Thus, it's completely possible to infer that the facial trauma appeared after death.
Summing up the information.
The case process went: case initiation—victim attacked—both killer and victim flee—victim dies—killer returns to the scene to do secondary harm.
During this, after the killer finished the first act, he didn't even know if the target person was dead, leaving ample time for the person to call the police, if this was a murder plan...
How paralyzed in the brain would someone have to be to create such a plan?
Was it fear after attacking?
No.
Most people simply lack the courage to act or not.
Once the deed is done, there is no turning back, people become increasingly ruthless, it's like burning the boats!
As with the most common unpaid wage dispute, either turtle-like inaction till the death, but once acted upon, nine out of ten result in death or massacre!
The killer violated this principle.
Wang Chao was stunned.
He never expected the other person could analyze so many things.
A flood of information rushed into his not-so-advanced CPU, making his brain freeze a bit, before he regained his composure.
"So it's a crime of passion?" Wang Chao's eyes lit up.
"Yes, but it's not purely a crime of passion."
Xu Liang shook his head, "I just mentioned, the core of a crime of passion is emotional loss of control."
"Emotional loss of control means a certain emotion surges to a certain extent, exceeding the limits of rationality, causing emotions to control the body."
"Does the information at the scene support this theory?"
You can recall a bit.
In most crimes of passion, are there often many bystanders around?
Yes, the characteristic of a crime of passion is loss of control, standing out like a crane among chickens in a crowd, commonly seen as loud voices, extremely abnormal behavior, and such scenes.
But at the crime scene?
There are residents on both sides of the alley.
Stabbing someone to death, yet even the people sleeping a few meters away weren't awakened, can that also count as emotional loss of control?
"Seems... it doesn't really count..."
Wang Chao hesitantly shook his head, the other person's train of thought was quick, and he was quite willing to follow along and think.
"That's why I said it's not entirely pure, but overall it still belongs to a crime of passion."
"And... guess why the perpetrator returned to the crime scene a second time?"
Xu Liang smiled, started eating the steamed dumpling with chopsticks.
Food is the iron, bread is the steel, although the store is now surrounded by police, at least he needs to eat enough.
"Why!?"
Wang Chao was a bit anxious.
"Why is it considered a crime of passion with such quietness?"
"And returning to the scene... isn't it to confirm whether the victim is dead!?"
To the point of extreme quietness, it almost completely contradicts the literal meaning of a crime of passion, yet they can come together?
This is completely contradictory!
And the perpetrator came back, besides checking if the victim was dead, what else did they do? Or what could they do?
Xu Liang said: "A rope never has only one end as a head, the other end is also a head."
He ate the bun as he sold the suspense, teasing the intern officer for fun.
"Since it's not this end, it must be that end."
A rope?
Two ends?
What does this mean?
Wang Chao was completely confused.
He watched the other person fall into a state of contemplation.
Without another word, Xu Liang stealthily slipped away.
He had a client appointment!
No time to waste with this intern!
Yet Wang Chao remained bewildered at the spot for quite a while.
A while later, just as he looked up to ask.
He discovered the person had already disappeared, and the person before him had somehow been replaced by the owner of the bun shop.
"Where is he? Where did he go?"
Wang Chao was stunned.
The owner didn't respond, just stood in front of him expressionless, hand outstretched.
"Pay up."
"Pay what?" Wang Chao was even more puzzled.
"For his meal."
The owner pointed to the chair where Xu Liang had been sitting.
"He said you could offset his consultation fee as a meal payment, no need to pay him."
Consultation fee???
Wang Chao was dumbfounded, then his expression darkened immediately.
He now remembered that the other was a lawyer.
A lawyer might be late, but his consultation fee never misses!
Yet Wang Chao still paid.
He thought it was worth it, for just those few words, he even wanted to consult more!
"That's six and a half bucks." The owner said.
Wang Chao reached out to take it.
He looked at the half-eaten sesame cake Xu Liang had left, smacked his lips, didn't mind, and directly pinched it in his hand and ate.
As he ate and pondered on what Xu Liang had said before.
A voice suddenly rang from behind.
"Knowing you're daft and don't like sitting around in administrative duties, I brought you here to learn how your captain investigates cases."
Wang Chao came back to his senses, turned his head to look behind him.
Only to see two middle-aged police officers slowly approaching him.
"But right now everyone else is busy working..."
Chen Changchun frowned deeply, looked at the sesame cake Wang Chao was holding, his tone was very dissatisfied.
"You're leisurely eating breakfast here, what does that count as?"