The villain is trapped in the system and begs me to let him out [Moriarty who worries about the coun

The slight touch on her shoulders woke Du Ruoying out of her daze. When she looked back, she found that there was an extra blanket on her body.

"Sorry for waking you up." William stopped walking away.

"It's okay." Du Ruoying rubbed her sleepy eyes. On the desk, the hands of the alarm clock just passed two o'clock in the morning.

She patted her cheeks hard, forcing herself to continue browsing the file in front of her.On the page that was spread out were the information and performance photos of the four missing persons——

Li Xinyu, who disappeared in 2020, was Ophelia who starred in the theater festival "Hamlet" before her disappearance.

Guan Shihan, who disappeared in 2019, was Desdemona who starred in the theater festival "Othello" before her disappearance.

Yang Xiaobei, who disappeared in 2018, was Christine who starred in the drama festival "The Phantom of the Opera" before her disappearance.

Xue Mengmeng, who disappeared in 2017, was Nora who starred in the theater festival "A Doll's House" before her disappearance.

"Still thinking about the drama club case?" William asked, "Any clues?"

"No," she sighed calmly, "this case is really tricky—it happens every year just a few days after the official performance of the drama club. You know, the school arranges the drama festival every year. On the last day of the spring semester, after that, the students went home one after another, including the four missing persons who lived in other places. Therefore, the scope of the police investigation was greatly expanded, even beyond Beiyu City."

"That was really hard work."

"Actually, if you look at these four cases together, I don't think they disappeared in other places. Their hometowns are scattered all over the world, and they are far away from each other. If it is really the same murderer, the cost of abduction is too high. It's a little bit worse," Du Ruoying thought, "I thought about whether they might have had an accident on the transportation they took home. After all, the road from school to the train station is a common necessity for them. If you use taxis as criminal tools, you can catch them all in one go.”

"This is an interesting conjecture." William smiled slightly.

"Interesting is interesting, but I ruled it out yesterday," Du Ruoying said dejectedly, "I found out that the missing person, Li Xinyu—that is, the sister of the client Li Ruiqing, is a very strict frugalist who never travels. I only take the bus and subway. But Guan Shihan likes to go home with others, and has never traveled long distances alone, so I’m afraid it’s not easy to start with.”

"I see."

"In addition, considering that the murderer has the highest probability of being active in the local area, I have also studied other disappearance cases in Beiyu City. In the past four years, there are only three cases similar to the victims of the disappearance case of the drama club, and two of them have been solved. Well, the remaining one is in the Binhai area [-] kilometers away. The testimonies of the family members of the missing person are completely contradictory. The pole can't hit..."

As she said that, she suddenly remembered the information book she had secretly found in William's office, which collected information on many celebrities, and there was also an old news about the disappearance of Aunt Jie, a cleaning lady at Beiyu University (Chapter 40).

What is the purpose of those data?

Could it be that the ordinary-looking cleaning aunt is also one of the victims of this serial disappearance?

"What do you think, Will, of this series of disappearances?" Du Ruoying asked cautiously.

"Well, let me think about it—first of all, the scope of the murderer's crimes is very small, and the number of crimes is very restrained. It must not be an organized human trafficking activity, but more like the personal behavior of a twisted drama lover. William said, "Also, people don't want things they haven't seen, so the murderer must be someone who has been to the theater festival for four consecutive years."

"Well, I thought so too." Du Ruoying took out a lengthy list of suspects, with a lot of red lines crossed out randomly, "But there are not a few audiences who have come to the drama festival for four consecutive years. Students from undergraduates, masters, and Ph.D. students, faculty and staff of the school, nearby residents... There is no end to this sort of exclusion.”

William reached out to pick up the victim's information under the list of suspects, looked at it carefully for a moment, and his crimson eyes suddenly narrowed: "Has Xiaoying learned anything about these four dramas involved?"

"No, what's the matter?" Du Ruoying's heart tightened, knowing that the mathematics professor was about to start his literature class again.

"Actually, I have thought about a question before—is it a coincidence that there will be a female lead in every drama, and the dramas are all very visually aesthetic?" William said, "Although the client emphasized at the beginning 'The missing are all starring', but now it seems that this conclusion only applies to the first three plays, namely "Othello", "Phantom of the Opera" and "A Doll's House", while in "Hamlet", strictly speaking , the role of Ophelia is not considered the protagonist. The real protagonists of this play are King Claudius and Prince Hamlet, and Ophelia's role is not much, even less than that of Queen Gertrude."

"What does this mean?" Du Ruoying frowned, "The client lied to us? But is there any benefit for her to tell such an easily exposed lie?"

"It's not a lie. As the sister of the missing person, it's just out of vanity instinct to use words to beautify her sister's performance status. It's a very normal thing. What's wrong is this script. , Ophelia should have faded away in the second act, and they played the fourth act, not only imposing the role of Ophelia, but also making many unskillful adaptations , What is this for?

"Similarly, this year's "The Last Case", they also imposed Erin, who was not needed. I'm afraid it's not accidental."

Du Ruoying nodded as if realizing something.

"The murderer's criteria for selecting targets is also very strange. If appearance and temperament are really the criteria, why do they only start with theatrical performers? In other performances of the drama festival, there are obviously many people who are suitable to be targets, such as dancers. , and playing musical instruments. However, only theater performers have been killed for four consecutive years. Is the murderer really paranoid about theater aesthetics to this extent?"

Strange selection criteria, and adapted scripts that just happen to meet certain criteria...

What is going on here?

Du Ruoying was stunned.

Suddenly someone's cry came to mind: "Help me! This time he's after me, Xiaoying, help me..."

That was a long, long time ago.

The list of suspects in Du Ruoying's hands felt tighter.

"Okay, it's getting late, let's go to bed early," William patted her on the shoulder pretending to be relaxed, "If Xiaoying suffers from unsightly dark circles, the murderer will be scared off."

"You!" Du Ruoying angrily and funnyly hit him back with the document booklet, but was in vain.

However, being teased by him like this made me feel a lot more relaxed.

"Will," she suddenly smiled knowingly at him, "thank you."

William was stunned for a moment, and then smiled politely back: "You're welcome."

Finally, the last ray of light in the teacher's apartment was also lost in the deep darkness, and the two of them each lay back on the bed in their own bedroom.

Outside the window, only the monotonous sound of crickets is still ringing.

William knew that Du Ruoying fell asleep almost as soon as she got out of bed, and had already dreamed - because the "dream entry button" in front of him was emitting a faint blue fluorescence.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally pressed it.

In a blink of an eye, the surrounding scene changed into a short corridor. He knew that this was Du Ruoying's home.

From the living room outside the corridor came a childish voice. It was a boy who was reading a story in "The Collection of Sherlock Holmes". Through the wall at the corner of the corridor, William saw the figure who was reading——it was about seven or eight years old. Du Ruoxian. .seven

The young Du Ruoying was being caged by his arm holding the book, listening to his recitation fascinated.

Du Ruoxian read slowly: "'Unexpectedly, Watson, you also have such a humorous and cunning side. I will be more careful in the future." Holmes said, "However, calling Moriarty a criminal is legally speaking. You are a blatant slander...'”[1]

"Brother, I didn't understand," Du Ruoying's childish voice interrupted him, "Moriarty has committed so many crimes, why can't he be called a 'criminal'?"

"Because the crimes he committed are all 'perfect crimes', the law can't catch him, and he can't be judged and sanctioned." Du Ruoxian explained.

"Perfect crime?" Du Ruoying tilted her head slightly, as if she was smacking at this newly learned strange term. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, "If I kill Dean Fang in this way, will everyone be killed?" Can everyone be saved?"

Under such an innocent and happy expression, he uttered such cruel and cold words.

For the first time in his life, William felt an unprecedented shock.