Chapter 323 Numbers Don’t Lie

A total of one year and nine months. A total of 520 people committed suicide.

According to this data, on average, the number of suicides in Blue Lake City reaches 24.7 every month. Calculated based on 100,000 people per year, the average number of suicides per 100,000 people per year is about 15.6.

This number far exceeds the global average of 12.6.

Although this kind of statistics must be higher or lower in different cities, those regions and cities with high suicide rates have clear reasons, whether they are environmental factors, economic factors, or cultural factors.

Moreover, those places have always been so high and stable from beginning to end.

Here in Blue Lake City, the number of suicides has only increased sharply in recent years.

No matter how hard Feng Guozhu thought about it, he couldn't think of any factors that could have caused this phenomenon in recent years.

After thinking for a moment and finding nothing, he shook his head and focused his attention on the writing case in front of him.

He did not instruct his subordinates to analyze these cases with him. Because the criteria he selected were relatively idealistic and could not be clearly defined, he had to do it himself.

Fortunately, this kind of screening is not complicated, otherwise more than 500 suicide cases would not be able to be analyzed in a year.

These dossiers are often very thick. There are dozens of pages of background checks, crime scene pictures and analysis reports, interviews and investigations, etc. But what he paid attention to was only the rough identity background of the deceased and the investigation of the motive for suicide, and he would not even look at the rest.

"Age, 17, early love... was blocked by teachers and parents, and the family was not harmonious. His father was prone to domestic violence and his economic conditions were poor. The motive was to commit suicide in love with his boyfriend, so he jumped from a viaduct and committed suicide..."

Looking at the two bloody corpses in the photo, as well as the photos of the two deceased people who were delicate and introverted during their lifetime, Feng Guozhu sighed in his heart.

This is a very clear case of suicide without any doubt.

He turned over the case and dismissed it.

The next one was a middle-aged man. The family is harmonious, the children are filial, and the economic conditions are good. Unfortunately, he suffered from cancer, which is the most dangerous, painful form of pancreatic cancer and has the worst prognosis.

After he was diagnosed with cancer, he organized a family trip and took his wife and children to travel around for more than a month. After that, before symptoms appeared, he left a suicide note, found a tree in a mountain nook, and hanged himself.

This is also a very clear case of suicide that does not require any further investigation.

It only takes Feng Guozhu a few minutes to rule out this extremely clear case. In just two hours, he had seen more than twenty cases, and the progress was rapid.

When he saw the twenty-ninth suicide case, he discovered the first case of unknown suicide motive.

The deceased was a middle school physical education teacher. He committed suicide by taking an overdose of drugs one night.

The records and video images of the deceased purchasing drugs are complete. No trace of the second person was found at the death scene. The deceased's fresh fingerprints were found on the medicine bottles and water cups, and the cause of death was clearly a drug overdose.

This is an iron-clad suicide case with a complete chain of evidence.

The description of the motive for suicide is "failed in the professional title selection and failed to receive better treatment."

but……

The family background of the deceased described the patient's financial situation as being relatively good. When he died, he still held stocks worth millions. His car is a large SUV, and his home has a large flat in the city center. He usually likes traveling, fitness, football, self-driving, barbecue, fishing, etc., and has a wide range of hobbies.

The deceased graduated from a prestigious university majoring in sports science. After graduation, he gave up the opportunity to enter a large human body science research institution and was willing to return to an ordinary middle school in Blue Lake City, a small and medium-sized city, as a physical education teacher in order to have more opportunities. Use your own time to do the things you love.

After all, physical education teachers have the highest probability of getting sick and the highest probability of being unable to attend class, right?

In this way, once he gets "sick" or "has something to do", he doesn't even have to go to school. Teachers from other subjects not only attend classes on his behalf, but also thank him repeatedly for his cooperation.

Such a person who is obsessed with his own hobbies and only regards his career as a social identity will commit suicide by taking medicine because he "failed in the selection of professional titles"?

No matter how you look at it, it's unreasonable.

However, after strict investigation by the security guards at the time, this seemingly absurd incident was the only "setback" he encountered recently.

The reason for his suicide could only be because of this incident. Otherwise, what else could it be because of?

It couldn't be because he was slightly scratched by someone while driving five days before committing suicide, right? It couldn't be because the boss sold him a box of fake cigarettes when he was buying cigarettes, right?

Feng Guozhu was thoughtful. He took the case out and put it in a separate folder.

Then he continued to read.

After looking at three more normal suicide cases, another case came into his sight.

The deceased this time was a company white-collar worker. After being reprimanded by his superiors, he turned around and jumped from the window to end his life.

The motive for suicide seems clear in this case. After all, you just received a reprimand from your superior, right? In addition, the salary of ordinary employees of the company is not high, and the deceased's family conditions are not good, and the life pressure is relatively high.

His motive for suicide seemed reasonable.

However, company employees generally said that the superior was cold-faced and warm-hearted, and took great care of his subordinates. Not long before the deceased committed suicide, the superior had pushed for the deceased to be promoted. At that time, the promotion announcement had been made public, and it would not be long before he would take office.

Moreover, the incident in which the superior reprimanded him at that time was indeed a mistake made by the deceased.

Also, the deceased was usually kind and showed no signs of extreme behavior.

According to the security officer's investigation, although the deceased's family conditions are not good, his father has recovered from a serious illness and has seen the dawn of recovery. My sister is about to graduate from college and got an offer from a large company. She will soon be independent.

Just when everything was going well and the suffering was about to be over, you committed suicide just because of a scolding from your old superior who promoted you. Or was it really because you had done something wrong?

This doesn't make sense.

His suicide also implicated his old superior who was forced to resign and had to leave the post he had devoted to for decades. It also implicated his father, who became ill again, and his sister suffered from depression and had to give up her precious life. job opportunities.

Feng Guozhu also took this case out separately.

Such were his screening criteria. He will take out any case that makes him feel that the motive for suicide is unreasonable.

In this way, after his daily work, he devoted all his free time to this matter. After a full month, he finally completed the screening of more than 500 cases.

Among them, a total of 82 suicide cases were screened out by him.

Feng Guozhu subtracted these 82 cases from the total number of suicides in the past 21 months, which was 520, and got the number 438.

Then using the number 438 to calculate the number of suicides per 100,000 people per year in Blue Lake City, he got the number 13.2.

His pupils suddenly narrowed.

On average, 13.2 people commit suicide per 100,000 people every year. This number is only 0.6 higher than the global average of 12.6, or only 4.76%.

This does not exclude some ambiguous cases. In those cases, if the motive for suicide is reasonable, it can barely be considered. But it doesn't look that convincing anyway.

There were 24 such ambiguous cases. Even if only half of it is taken, that is, only 12 pieces are taken, plus the 82 pieces that were previously screened out, this is 94 pieces.

If a total of 94 cases are excluded, then the average annual number of suicides per 100,000 people in Blue Lake City is only 12.8.

This number is only 0.2 people, or 1.59% higher than the global average of 12.6 people.

However, before excluding these people, the number 15.6 is a full 23.81% higher than the number 12.6.

Numbers don't lie. So what do these numbers mean?

Doesn't this mean that after excluding those suicide cases that are obviously unreasonable, the suicide rate in Blue Lake City is clearly in line with the global average, but in fact it is not high at all?

But if you add these obviously unreasonable suicide cases, the suicide rate in Blue Lake City is much higher.

So, are those obviously unreasonable suicide cases really... suicides?

Or is there another reason behind their suicide?

Could it be that in these suicide cases, the so-called motives for suicide were all forced upon?

After all, if a person commits suicide, there must be a reason, right? Under the premise of "there must be a reason", these only things that may be the reasons become the reasons for suicide.

This is what created this unreasonable situation.

Among these suicide cases, there is another one that is more special, and that is the suicide case of Zhang Lu.

For the rest of the unreasonable cases, if you insist on finding a reason, you can barely find one or two unsatisfactory things in the life before the suicide. For example, a quarrel with a son, a reprimand from a boss, etc.

Only in Zhang Lu's suicide case, no real reason could be found. No matter where you look, this young girl is so happy and her life is so perfect.

It was precisely because of Zhang Lu's suicide case that he had the idea of ​​in-depth investigation, and finally screened out these cases.

Feng Guozhu vaguely smelled a hint of conspiracy. He seemed to feel that there was an invisible hand behind these events, and that it was plotting some mysterious tricks in a place that he had not yet noticed.

He felt that this incident was beyond his control.

If my guess is true, and there are really any factors behind these obviously unreasonable suicide cases, or there is manipulation, then how big of a case is this?

Hundreds of lives are involved! The fate of hundreds of families is involved!

Once the matter is exposed, I am afraid it will shock the whole world!

A little cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

He did not hesitate anymore, but picked up what he had discovered during this period, went directly to his superior's office, and photographed it in front of his superior.

The superior looked uncertain. After a long time, he slowly said: "Old Feng, you are an old criminal. You told me clearly that you believe that there is a large criminal organization hidden behind these numbers. It is this criminal organization that manipulated all this and created These suicide cases? These suicide cases are actually homicides, are they criminal cases? "

"Yes. Leader, although my grades were average when I was in school, I also know that numbers don't lie!"

The superior said slowly: "Numbers do not lie. But...the same numbers have different interpretation methods. How do you ensure that your interpretation is correct?"

Feng Guozhu's face darkened: "Isn't this obvious? Apart from this possibility, what else is possible?"

"Then, why have so many people investigated hundreds of cases and found no clues? What kind of criminal organization can commit hundreds of crimes in a row without leaving a single flaw?"

This is indeed an unexplainable point.

Feng Guozhu continued to investigate the Zhang Lu suicide case for a long time, but no sign of a criminal crime was found.

"Is it possible that this is just a coincidence?"

The superior's tone seemed to be asking Feng Guozhu, but it was more like he was explaining his own point of view: "The numbers do match up, and it's a coincidence. But there are no signs of criminal offenses, and they are real. Just because of some numerical analysis, we restarted Investigation of hundreds of cases? Is this...reasonable? "

Feng Guozhu was dissatisfied, but he could only admit that this was unreasonable.

"In any case, this indicates a possibility, right? Should we check this possibility?"

"We need to investigate, but not the kind of investigation you think."

The superior made his decision: "Contact the Academy of Social and Psychological Sciences, find some public psychologists and suicide psychologists, come to our Blue Lake City to do a sociological survey, and look at the people in our Blue Lake City , what is the reason why he breaks down emotionally so easily and makes irrational actions?"

The superior obviously still did not think there was any possibility of a criminal offense. He thinks there may be something abnormal here, but it should be something at the level of public psychology.

For example, some areas have a long-standing culture of suicide. When someone suffers great humiliation or makes a huge mistake, there is a tradition of dying to apologize. Or, in order to express determination and clear up grievances, one may die to show one's determination.

Or when they realize that they have no contribution to society or their family, and are instead a drag, some elderly people in economically backward areas will also choose to commit suicide.

Sometimes social and cultural restrictions on individuals are too great, causing people to have too much psychological pressure and collapse easily. They often end their lives on impulse because of trivial matters.

There are many reasons, but the answers can probably be found in social psychology. The most direct reasons are nothing more than culture, economy, and environment.

The suicide rate in Blue Lake City is too high, and there is a considerable proportion of "unreasonable suicide" cases. Maybe this is also the reason?

Could it be that the urban economic growth has slowed down recently and prices have not stopped rising? Could it be that excessive economic pressure has led to an increase in the suicide rate?