feels the need for blood."
Most hospitals in Jiangbin City contained a psychiatric ward, but when it came to stand-alone psychiatric hospitals, there were only two in the whole city. Tai Wei told his subordinates to visit the regular hospitals (emphasizing that they were not to let the PSB director know), while he and Fang Mu would investigate the psychiatric ones.
They were looking for someone who had either sought consultation or been admitted to the hospital for paranoia in the last five years—particularly blood-related paranoia. The staff at the first hospital was actually quite cooperative; unfortunately, they had no record of such an individual. At the second hospital, however, the moment Tai Wei explained their reason for coming, the hospital director immediately thought of someone.
The person in question was a man named Feng Kai. Two years ago, when Feng Kai was 26, his father and older brother died within months of one another, and he became severely depressed. After being admitted to the hospital, Feng Kai responded well to treatment, and his depression appeared to be going away. But then one time, while a nurse was walking the grounds outside the hospital, she saw Feng Kai catch a small bird and drink its blood while it was still alive. After that, he began demanding that the hospital give him a blood transfusion, believing that he was afflicted with a serious case of anemia. But when the hospital gave him a detailed physical examination, they found his hemoglobin count to be perfectly normal. Feng Kai refused to accept this result, however, and continued to believe he was dangerously anemic. It was because of this that the hospital discovered he was also suffering from paranoia. After receiving treatment for paranoia for a period of time, Feng Kai suddenly left without a word.
According to the doctors and nurses, Feng Kai was about 5'8" , very thin, and a slob. His room was always a total mess. Feng Kai did not enjoy socializing with others, and no one ever came to visit him. The hospital did try to locate him after his disappearance, but they learned that the address he had registered with was a fake.
This discovery made Fang Mu and Tai Wei unbelievably excited. Thinking that Feng Kai was probably a fake name as well, Fang Mu advised Tai Wei to investigate city records for a father and son who, in the last two years, died one after the other from a blood disease. He also told him to search the whole city—and Hongyuan District especially—for a man fitting the description of this "Feng Kai."
It took two days for the search to finally bear fruit. Jiangbin City had over 1,244 people named Feng Kai, and not one fit the description. There were also no cases within the last two years of a father and son surnamed Feng each dying of a blood disease. However, in 1988 and 1999 respectively, a father and son surnamed Ma had died of aplastic anemia. The father, Ma Xiangwen, was a widower with two sons. Within a year of his father's death, Ma Tao, the elder son, contracted acute aplastic anemia and died soon after. The younger son, Ma Kai, inherited the father's home, where he lived now, at 83-4 North Evergreen Street in Hongyuan. The address was no more than three miles from the locations of the five crimes.
"That's him!"
They were in the housing registry room of the Hongyuan Police Substation, and Fang Mu had just been shown a picture of Ma Kai. There wasn't a trace of doubt in his voice.
In the picture, Ma Kai's hair was neat and clean, his expression composed. But in his slightly dull-looking eyes, Fang Mu could see a reservoir of anxiety and despair.
At this point, Tai Wei was still very cautious. He had the witnesses from the fourth murder case (victims: Yao Xiaoyang and Tong Hui) and the kidnapping case (victim: Xu Jie) brought to the station. The witness to the kidnapping could not be certain that Ma Kai was the man he had seen that day. The food stand proprietor, however, was absolutely
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