Eighteen Years of Manhunt: The Utility Knife Killer

From 1992 to 2012, the small eastern Henan town of Linhuai was shrouded in a twenty-year nightmare. A deranged killer, hidden among the flow of bicycles, used a utility knife to target young women riding alone in floral dresses. He would tail, overtake, slash their legs, and cut their throats with mechanical precision, leaving no trace and never stopping. Eight years, sixteen years, thirty-two lives—the killer moved like a ghost, free from justice, plunging the entire town into boundless fear. In 1994, Lu Chen, a fresh graduate from the People's Public Security University, entered the police station full of passion. But the station chief assigned him to Xiao Jingshan, a cold, aloof, and disgraced veteran detective who had been demoted from the criminal investigation unit and was extremely impatient with newcomers. One was a sharp newcomer from the books, the other a seasoned detective worn down by reality. Cold meets hot, ice meets fire. They pursued the killer from 1994 to 2012, from youth to middle age, spending eighteen years clinging to an invisible shadow. When surveillance networks finally covered the sky, and belated technology caught up with evil, the Death riding his bicycle for two decades in the twilight would finally appear. This is a century-spanning manhunt, and the justice upheld by two generations of police with their lives.