January 23rd, Saturday. Today's Tokyo saw neither rain nor snow, finally a clear sky prevailed. The warm winter sun made people somewhat sluggish.
Aoyama Xiu Xin was no exception; his sister-in-law had gone out for a beauty treatment, and he was alone, sprawled on the sofa, flipping through TV channels out of sheer boredom.
He didn't actually know what he wanted to watch.
Then he stopped at a news report.
"This morning, the police found another dismembered victim. This is the seventh case of dismemberment in Hokkaido since the beginning of January after the New Year. Like the previous six cases, the deceased was a young and beautiful female, whose body was cut into several pieces and discarded in various blind spots of surveillance, except for the missing head. There were no fingerprints or skin flakes left on the body parts, allowing preliminary determination that the same killer is responsible for all seven cases."
