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he saopi likes to collect handmade knives, strange and sharp. sometimes when she analyzes a case, she is like a knife, trying to stab the lesion accurately. reading he saopi's 10,000-word case analysis tweets in the "myrrh garden" public account, you can see the depth of human nature, the depth of entanglement, and the depth of darkness, which seem to constitute another invisible city.

sorting, analyzing, verifying, and inferring are he saopi's trek to the truth. but the process of moving towards the truth is not so easy. she described it as sometimes like opening a can of fruit, but the pull ring is gone. in the fifth issue of "extreme women", new weekly interviewed he saopi and talked about her observations on truth, justice, rumors, human nature, and public opinion.

author | felicia

editor | tan shanshan

title image | new weekly

castle of truth

she is he saopi. she is a former magazine reporter, a detective novelist, an anthropologist, a daughter, and a mother. these are all part of her identity. sometimes, her identity is a "reasoner" in reality.

in november 2020, he saopi came to linshu, shandong, brought his luggage and a laptop full of information, and checked into a local hotel. it was late autumn, the sky was gray, and the small town was dyed lead gray.

in november 2020, he saopi came to linshu, shandong. (photo/provided by the interviewee)

the case that brought her here is often referred to by the media as the "zhang zhichao case," an important case in china's judicial history. but in her opinion, the term "gao ting case" may be more reasonable, because the verdict of the shandong provincial high people's court showed that the case had nothing to do with zhang zhichao. what she cares more about is: zhang zhichao is not the murderer, so who killed gao ting (pseudonym).

in fact, she didn't need to go to the crime scene, but she came anyway.

she didn't know if the person on the other end of the phone was the real murderer. she thought of many possibilities. he was one of the key figures in the clue map she compiled. she had found out the number of this person a long time ago and had called it many times with her mobile phone, but no one answered. she also heard that no one had ever interviewed that person. late that night, the photographer sent her to the door of the hotel. when she was about to get off the car, she suddenly thought that the man might just be wary of out-of-town numbers, after all, many reporters wanted to find him. so she borrowed the photographer's local phone and called again - and it worked. "hello?" it was the man's voice on the other end. but when she mentioned the case, he hung up the phone.

the man might be guilty or just tired of the past. she didn't know. she just tried to catch even a little clue from the call.

(photo/new weekly)

in the winter of 2005, 16-year-old girl gao ting disappeared. a month later, her body was found in an abandoned toilet on campus. when the cleaner found the body, he couldn't open the toilet door and had to pry open the padlock. a witness pointed out that he saw zhang zhichao in front of the toilet door at the time of the incident. zhang zhichao, who was 16 years old at the time, was arrested and later sentenced to life imprisonment. zhang zhichao's confession was later found to be inconsistent with evidence such as dna and autopsy reports, and there were many doubts in the case, such as the lack of key evidence. over the years, many reporters and lawyers have been working on this case. in january 2020, the shandong provincial people's higher people's court declared zhang zhichao not guilty.

many people worked hard for the "zhang zhichao case". she was a latecomer and did not participate in the early work. after zhang zhichao was released from prison, there were still many rumors about him. some people would ignore new evidence and only believe the "truth" they heard. he saopi conducted layer-by-layer research and analyzed the reasons why zhang zhichao could not have committed the crime.

but who killed gao ting? he saopi wanted to know the answer. the answer was not just about the verdict. she looked through various files and reports, but could not find the answers to some key questions she wanted to know. one of them was about the lock. when was the padlock replaced, which could directly and indirectly answer many questions? how did the murderer control gao ting and unlock the door to hold her hostage in the toilet? when did the missing gao ting die?

sometimes, when tracking a case, he saopi has to read at least hundreds of thousands of words of information, reports, testimonies, comb through the revelations on social networks, and then cross-check and analyze them one by one to identify reliable information. this time, the information she collected was at least dozens of gb. she would have trouble falling asleep, driven by something to work on her brain until she found clues that connected the facts. she has written many case analyses, following the principle of objective presentation. when talking about subjective judgments and logical inferences, she would indicate that these are personal opinions. these case analyses have been widely circulated, and some family members and lawyers have found her because of this, hoping that she can shed some light on the case.

(photo/new weekly)

she and defense lawyers li xun and wang dianxue all believe that zhang zhichao is innocent, but they each have different theories about how gao ting was killed, and neither has been able to convince the other. the process of pursuing the truth is not as compact and exciting as in police and gangster movies, and real justice cannot be driven by adrenaline alone. clues are interrupted from time to time, and pursuers often get stuck in a lot of puzzles.

he saopi invited a local photographer to guide her, take photos of evidence, and translate dialects. she came to the original address of gao ting's friend wang yan (pseudonym) and found that wang yan had moved. she asked door to door in the village, and finally chatted with wang yan on the phone through wang yan's brother's mobile phone. after many years, wang yan was no longer sure about her memory of the color of her clothes.

in order to inquire about the lock, he saopi went to li village. in this small village where only a few elderly people were left, she walked from dawn to dusk and finally found the elusive old li - the first discoverer of the scene and the school cleaner. old li confirmed that the lock was new and the fragile glass and wooden door had no signs of being violently damaged. this overturned the previous police deduction that zhang zhichao held gao ting hostage and kicked the door to break the lock to enter the toilet, because the lock is stronger than the door, and if the door is kicked, the door will be the first to be damaged. she speculated that the murderer had already changed the lock before the crime and used the toilet as a base.

occasionally, her deductions were rewarded with a bit of new evidence, but more often she was met with a cold shoulder. her calls often went unanswered.

campus building layout, taken in 2020. (photo/provided by the interviewee)

she returned to the high school campus involved in the case. she used a drone to record the building layout, thus eliminating many inferences that did not conform to reality. she tried to piece together the fragments of that morning in 2005. based on the on-site map and witness testimonies, she reconstructed gao ting's movement route.

the scene that day might have been like this: on a winter morning when the sky was still dark, the bell for morning exercises rang. gao ting had not recovered from a cold yet. she avoided the crowds rushing to the small playground in the east, walked to the path in the west, and crossed the large playground that was muddy due to the melting snow, so no students saw her. she might have been planning to go to her boyfriend who had just had a fight, so she walked into the teaching dormitory building where there were only a few students left. she might have run into the murderer who had opened the toilet door while waiting or washing shoes on the third floor, and was controlled and dragged into the toilet to be killed. the murderer hung a padlock and fled. more than a month later, the cleaner chiseled open the padlock on the toilet door to clean up the garbage and found the girl's body.

he saopi wanted to restore the scene of the crime more accurately, so she wanted more details. there are many people pretending to reason on social platforms, but reasoning is not a show of skill, it requires careful hard work: collecting a lot of evidence, logical sorting and fact verification. if key details are missing, reasoning lacks the cornerstone of facts and may never get an answer. she described it as sometimes like opening a can, she knew the fruit was in the can, but the pull ring on the lid was gone.

the onion of justice

he saopi came to the residential area where gao ting's family lived, hoping to confirm the clothes gao ting wore on the day she disappeared - to help confirm whether gao ting had "run away from home" or had been murdered long ago. gao ting's mother broke down emotionally during an interview with today's statement. she hoped to find the real murderer and give her daughter an explanation. she still remembers this sentence.

he saopi knocked on gao ting's door. in the past 20 years, zhang zhichao's family is not the only one whose fate has been changed. after gao ting's family knew why she came, gao ting's sister suggested that they go out and talk while walking, so as not to disturb their mother.

gao ting's mother and sister once desperately needed an answer. an answer can soothe the huge impact of this murder. this family was originally a wealthy family in the county town. the father opened a factory and had some face in the county town. he was once a representative of the linshu county people's congress. on the night gao ting disappeared, gao's father heated milk for his daughter as usual, but he did not wait for his daughter to return home after evening self-study. during the period when his daughter disappeared, gao's father offered a reward of 300,000 yuan for clues to the case, which caused a sensation in linshu that year. later, zhang zhichao was imprisoned and sentenced, and the case was quickly "settled." a few years later, gao's father passed away, and only the mother and sister were left in the family of four. all these years, they have always thought that the answer is "zhang zhichao."

(photo/new weekly)

he saopi and gao ting's sister went downstairs for a walk. the sister thought that the clothes her sister was wearing when her body was found were the ones she wore on the day she disappeared. the white pants described by wang yan were never worn by her sister. he saopi talked about the details of the case and why zhang zhichao could not be the murderer. the sister found it difficult to listen to the complex reasoning and just wanted to ask who the murderer was. for many years, the mother and daughter were often told that "zhang zhichao is the murderer". it seems that if you lock on to a certain "enemy" and clearly know the object of hatred, the pain can find an outlet.

but now they can no longer run for answers. the elder sister needs a stable job, and the mother's body can't cope. after experiencing repeated misfortunes, how a person's state of mind will change, no one can tell. maybe there is loss, maybe numbness, maybe pain, maybe more powerlessness, the mother and daughter need to find a way to keep living.

pursuing justice is like peeling an onion. one layer is procedural justice, and another layer is justice of good and evil, justice of truth. peel off one layer, and there are many more layers inside.

this is part of the outcome of the "zhang zhichao case": in january 2020, zhang zhichao was acquitted by the shandong higher people's court, and later received 3.32 million yuan in state compensation; on march 30, 2021, zhang zhichao, accompanied by a lawyer, submitted a complaint of accountability to the linyi municipal supervision committee and the linyi municipal procuratorate of shandong province; in june 2022, the linyi municipal people's procuratorate of shandong province announced the results of the accountability handling, and 10 people in the shandong procuratorate system were held accountable.

(photo/new weekly)

he saopi wanted another ending: to find the real murderer who killed gao ting. one of the key evidences in this case was a white snakeskin bag with foreign trade information printed on it, which was put on gao ting's upper body. he saopi thought that this might be related to the identity of the real murderer, and the police did not find its source at that time. she found an italian trading company related to this, but her phone calls and emails did not receive a response.

he saopi put a lot of effort into the "zhang zhichao case". similarly, she has also been following up on the progress of the "lengshuijiang case" for a long time. over the years, many people have worked hard for this case.

on a summer night in 2009, a 41-year-old female teacher named liu was found collapsed on the roof of a residential building at the lengshuijiang alkali factory. she was later sent to the hospital but died after failed rescue efforts. a resident reported that liu hu and xie wei, two high school students, were playing on the rooftop of another building on the same evening, so they became suspects and were later convicted. since then, their parents have been running around to appeal for them.

(photo: "the long season")

the two teenagers "confessed" that they took turns sexually assaulting liu before her death, but no male dna was found in liu's body, and there were no biological traces of the two teenagers at the scene. in the bloodstains on the victim's underwear, the police detected mixed dna of another man and the victim. in 2019, the police confirmed that the man was zhang ze (pseudonym), who lived near the crime scene at the time of the crime and had been imprisoned for robbery and theft. however, the newly discovered evidence has not given liu hu and xie wei a chance to overturn the case.

after graduating from the department of journalism, he saopi worked as a reporter and editor, and followed many cases. in those years, she often read reports of major cases written by her peers in the media, but some cases had no follow-up reports. some cases gradually became "cold cases", and she wanted to know the answers.

when he saopi was studying for a doctorate in anthropology, urban crime was one of her research topics. all countries have the same situation: the urbanization process has led to population mobility, and the proportion of crimes committed by strangers has greatly increased. in an acquaintance society, human eyes are surveillance, and criminals are roaming around and committing crimes, and it is difficult to link them to specific people through motives. at that time, the police still relied on acquaintances to solve the case. it was not until the establishment of the sky eye project that the detection of stranger crimes became relatively easy - according to public data released by the ministry of public security in 2024, the current homicide clearance rate in the country is 99.94%.

(photo/new weekly)

she hates lies and always has the urge to expose them. she believes that among truth, goodness and beauty, truth is the foundation of the latter two. there are many lies in the case, and criminals often lie about the process or motive of the crime, and she will use evidence and common sense to refute those lies. before the "hangzhou wife killing case" was solved, he saopi listened to xu guoli's statement in the news video and speculated that xu guoli was most likely the murderer. as he said, his wife ran away from home, so how could she not even take her wallet and mobile phone, and the elevator surveillance did not capture her leaving? in many cases, the husband made similar statements, but the wife's mobile phone and wallet were left at home, and it was finally discovered that the husband killed his wife.

surveillance is everywhere, and the facts seem clear, but there is still a long way to go to get to the truth. when the murderer explains the motive for the crime, he sometimes rationalizes his crime by throwing dirty water on the victim. just like a case she analyzed: the murderer pursued the victim but was rejected, so he killed the victim on campus.

after the victim died, rumors about her were rampant, and she was described as a "bad woman"... while the murderer was said to have "killed because he was desperate." the gray area of ​​human nature is difficult to explain with "evidence" alone, which is one of the realities observed by he saopi. she feels that this is the meaning of being close to the truth: she wants to restore a true story for the deceased, rather than having the living murderer tell the story unilaterally. she said that if she can get closer to the truth, it may be simple justice.

stigma and conspiracy theories

he saopi has her own "sense of order". she likes to sit in the last row of the classroom or in the corner of the restaurant, where she thinks it is safe and private, and observe the whole view. "saopi" is the pen name she gave herself, which comes from the story of "pippi longstocking" her father told her when she was a child. in the fairy tales she heard when she was a child, only pippi longstocking did not want to marry a prince.

later, when she grew up, she liked wang xiaobo, as well as latin american magical realism literature, such as vargas llosa, josé donoso, and juan rulfo. she liked stories that were magical but had strong support from reality and logic. she wrote suspense novels, anthropological field research reports, and poems. she wrote many case analyses in "myrrh garden", which added up to several million words.

poems written for witnesses, written by he saopi. (photo/provided by the interviewee)

at first, some readers thought that "he saopi" was a man. she analyzed and reasoned so many murders and major cases, and reviewed many records and photos in turn. the materials involved blood and violence, which sometimes made people shudder. she had to block out fear and anger, and calmly write down the process and evidence.

a few years ago, he saopi talked about her daily life on her wechat account and posted photos of her life. some people were surprised: why does she have a southern girl's face? others were not surprised at all. they could sense her sensitivity and insight into the situation of women from her writing.

when she was little, he saopi wanted to become a war correspondent or an investigative reporter. when she was studying journalism at nanjing university, it was the "golden age" of the news media. that's when she first heard about diao aiqing's case - it was so sensational that rumors about it were circulated among teachers and every class of students.

the place where diao aiqing disappeared was once a place where he saopi passed by every day. people ate, bought dvds, and bought daily necessities in the street where diao aiqing disappeared. diao aiqing disappeared on the busy streets of nanjing, and no one knew who she met. when people heard about diao aiqing again, her body had been cut into more than 2,000 pieces and thrown in different places around the campus.

he saopi not only wants to analyze who the murderer is, she is also concerned about how a female victim was stigmatized. more than 10 years after the case occurred, diao aiqing's photo was made public for the first time. before that, people had many imaginations about the appearance and temperament of the girl represented by this name. in the rumors, diao aiqing was an "improper woman" and a "mistress who dated a married man." he saopi said that this was imagination and slander without any evidence.

(photo/new weekly)

the first step for he saopi to analyze a case is to verify the appearance, identity, experience and personality of the parties involved from many aspects. she believes that personality is a very complex thing, which includes the subjective evaluation of a person by people around him. but when it is integrated, it can explain a person's behavior patterns and living habits, and become an objective factor that changes the direction of events. after the photo of diao aiqing was released, it broke the "sexual fantasy" of many people. this is a simple rural girl who has lived in nanjing for more than 3 months. she likes to listen to "ping ju" and read magazines such as "liaoning youth". diao aiqing's personality is very introverted. after arriving in nanjing, she only interacted with two high school classmates. there is no evidence that she is in a dangerous emotional relationship.

he saopi said that whenever a female victim appears, people may habitually stigmatize them if they cannot find a sufficient reason to explain why she was killed. for women in a relationship, people's first reaction is whether she is cheating; for women who are killed late at night, people imagine that she is engaged in an improper job.

(photo/new weekly)

diao aiqing's death has even been involved in conspiracy theories. rumors of "transplanting organs for the rich and powerful" are rampant, but there is actually no evidence to support these claims. he saopi once questioned that if the murderer of diao aiqing was so omnipotent, why didn't he just let her disappear, but instead packed her remains in old sheets and backpacks and dumped them in trash cans around the place where she disappeared? it is more likely that the murderer lived nearby, had no car, and could not go to the yangtze river or the suburbs to dump the body, so he could only dump it nearby.

he saopi said that rumors are different from conspiracy theories. rumors are fragmented false information, while conspiracy theories are generally systematic, relying on complete theories to explain tragedies. "many people believe in conspiracy theories to gain a sense of certainty, and creating and spreading conspiracy theories may be to gain a sense of superiority, as if 'i can see through the truth of this world' or 'i know the real inside story that they don't know'. conspiracy theories may appear to be a kind of pride, but they may be a sense of powerlessness and anxiety. they cannot grasp reality, so they use conspiracy theories to get false answers."

(photo/new weekly)

after graduating from nanjing university, he saopi joined a shanghai newspaper group as a cultural reporter and travel reporter, a job that lasted about five years. she was the person who produced the most feature articles in the editorial department. later, she didn't want to observe a certain cultural landscape superficially anymore. at around 30 years old, she quit her job, traveled across the ocean, and studied anthropology in a small town in the united states for eight years. her research areas include emotional anthropology, and she also focuses on people's fears. she found that no matter whether it is people in history or people today, as long as there is anxiety about agency and insecurity, conspiracy theories may arise.

she believes that complete procedural transparency is impossible, just like the two sides of a coin, where there is sun there is shadow. as long as there is something that people cannot see through, conspiracy theories will arise. if people have a sense of power and control over their lives and reality, they may not seek answers through conspiracy theories. conspiracy theories are essentially a form of violent communication.

(photo/new weekly)

she recalled an argument by anthropologist edward evans-pritchard. when he explored why the azande believed in witchcraft, he gave an example: a family's son was crushed to death by a suddenly collapsed wooden house. the family believed that neighbors or other villagers had cast a spell on their son, leading to his death. scientists said that the wooden house was corroded by termites, and over time, the house would naturally collapse. but this answer was not enough for the family. they could understand why the house collapsed, but why did it collapse when their son was inside?

it could be fate, or it could be coincidence, but it just so happened that the cabin collapsed when their son walked in. people use witchcraft to explain things that cannot be explained by science. like conspiracy theories, they need an answer: why did misfortune happen to this person at this time?

caution and fear

he saopi is sometimes praised for her courage. she can immerse herself in the reasoning of the case, and the horror and evil of human nature do not make her feel afraid or have a chill down her spine. she knows that these cases are frightening because of the immeasurable malice in them, which is more frightening than bloody pictures. but she believes that these cases have existed since ancient times and are low-probability events in the human group, so she will not lose faith in human nature. sometimes, people's kindness and mutual help can also be seen in the cases.

but it is impossible for people to be without fear. he saopi said that there are many dimensions to evaluate whether someone is brave or timid. just like some people are not afraid of snakes but are afraid of ghosts; some people are not afraid of ghosts but dare not read about murder cases.

he saopi said that she is actually quite timid. she dare not ride on roller coasters with a large drop in height, and she is particularly afraid of geckos. she couldn't explain why geckos are scary, and the reason for fear may be hidden in the subconscious. she talked about the plot in "1984", winston was not afraid of anything, but was frightened by mice (winston once dreamed that his mother's body was eaten by mice). she believes that her courage is not reflected in reading so many murder case materials and photos every day, but in doing what she wants to do at a critical point in her life.

(photo: "invisible guests")

the nightmares she had included: falling from a height, and her child being in danger. she would be scared awake when she dreamed that her child was lost. she may have planned her life completely for herself before, but later she changed. once, her daughter leaned on her in the car, and she didn't dare to move for several hours in order to let her daughter sleep well. sometimes, she found that her daughter had the courage she needed to learn, for example, her daughter knew how to express her emotions better than she did.

he saopi is a cautious person. professional norms and academic training have certain requirements for her way of thinking. in addition to her own personality, she will carefully consider the consequences of her expression and behavior. when faced with hot events, she does not want to make judgments immediately or choose which side to stand on. she would rather wait until the topic is no longer hot before considering how to convey information so that the inference can withstand more scrutiny and testing. when the hot spot dissipates, perhaps everyone will evaluate her inference with a more peaceful attitude, rather than letting emotions and positions take the lead. she said that even if the hot spot has passed, the truth and human nature in the case are still worth discussing and meaningful.

(photo/new weekly)

she is afraid of disappointing people and always sympathizes with strangers inexplicably. she thinks there is a supermarket near her home that is too deserted and is worried that it will go out of business, so she always goes there to buy food that is not as fresh as other supermarkets. until one evening, she went to the supermarket again and saw that there were many customers, and she felt relieved. sometimes she would be worried because her family members bargained too hard. she said that this symptom was more serious when she was young, but it is better now. this makes her more careful when expressing her opinions, and repeatedly considers how to reduce offense to others. of course, she doesn't want to offend herself, and she will still say what she should say. even if she doesn't write, she will never write something against her will or that she doesn't believe.

she once accidentally stood at the forefront of public opinion, which she described as "probably because she was a newborn calf that was not afraid of a tiger." she wrote an analysis of a case, and someone disagreed with her point of view, so she started to abuse and attack her. the sudden online violence caused her to suffer from acute anxiety, making it difficult for her to fall asleep at night, and her weight dropped from more than 100 kilograms to more than 80 kilograms. later, she gradually got used to letting her expression be scrutinized by the public. she knows that many people who make a living by expressing themselves have anxiety disorders. this may be because, in the current online environment, any speech will be scrutinized, speculated, and interpreted from different angles, and even the smallest words may cause a tsunami of public opinion.

(photo/new weekly)

in he saopi's opinion, the platform's algorithm and the characteristics of the network itself can bring together people who are concerned about the same topic, forming a huge voice. there are supporters and there are naturally opponents. whether it is for the parties involved or for the authorities, public opinion pressure is inevitable.

in unsolved cases, the families of the victims usually seek public attention, believing that in an environment of attention, the case is more likely to be resolved fairly and quickly. however, sometimes public opinion can be misled, and rumors can give people a preconceived impression. for netizens who are hungry for information in hot events, they want to get all the details about a certain event, and some people want to get a share of the traffic of hot events, and will pretend to be the parties involved or insiders. according to the platform's algorithm, fake news with gimmicks is constantly pushed to the public, forming people's initial judgment on this. with such a "prejudice", it may be difficult for people to accept the "truth" later.

but he saopi remains optimistic. she believes that the public, as an all-embracing group, is smart, will settle down, and will continue to learn. "don't try to use false personalities and stories to gain attention and stir up public emotions, because the truth cannot be obliterated forever."