The Secret Behind the Disappearance — Chapter 2

Anyone watching the video could easily believe he was a desperate son searching for his parents.

Chu Kai-ying’s missing-person post had already drawn considerable attention. So when the video aired, it spread rapidly online. Hong Kong media outlets covered the case one after another, and the couple’s disappearance soon became a matter of intense public interest.

People across Hong Kong began sympathizing with the brothers—especially Chu Kai-leung. His performance was nearly flawless. To the public, he was a “good son,” a model of filial devotion. He even became something of an online celebrity.

But that still was not enough for Chu Kai-leung. To put suspicion completely to rest, he needed to do one more thing.

Two days later, he went to a police station himself to report his parents missing.

That’s right. The man who had killed his parents went straight to the police.

He was staging a case of the thief crying “Stop, thief!” right in front of the people assigned to investigate.

In the interview room, Chu Kai-leung was suspiciously calm. He answered every question smoothly. No stammering. No evasions. Not a hint of a slip. When the moment called for emotion, he even managed to shed a few well-timed tears.

The officers present were taken in by his performance. They praised his devotion and tried to comfort him, worried that the disappearance might overwhelm him with grief and drive him to do something reckless.

They had no idea it was all a disguise—a smokescreen Chu Kai-leung had carefully built to hide his crime.

When he left the station, Chu Kai-leung was convinced he had fooled everyone. He was so exhilarated that he could barely contain himself.

Back home, he turned on his computer, hummed a tune, and logged into an online game. With every win, his triumph swelled and his guard slipped further.

He started bragging to his teammates.

But he never imagined that one careless remark would make a teammate suspicious. The mask Chu Kai-leung had worked so hard to construct was beginning to crack.

And a single crack could be enough to bring the whole truth to light.

Perhaps Chu Kai-leung thought his little tricks had fooled all of Hong Kong—even the police. But he had forgotten one thing: the more clever people think they are, the more easily they give themselves away.

The tension that had weighed on him for so long finally began to ease. As he won game after game, his smugness grew until he could no longer contain it.

To show his teammates how formidable he was, Chu Kai-leung boasted:

“I’m not just good at games. I’m even better in real life!”

“I’d even kill my own parents!”

At first, his teammates assumed he was just talking big in a virtual world to feed his ego. No one took it seriously; they treated it as a joke.

But Chu Kai-leung was too pleased with himself to be careful. In the game’s group chat, he described in detail how he had murdered his parents.

One teammate could not sleep for days afterward. The details Chu Kai-leung had shared sounded far too real. And with the story of two elderly people missing already spreading across social media, the more the teammate thought about it, the more wrong it felt.

After weighing the matter for some time, the teammate finally decided to call the police.

Meanwhile, investigators began checking the account Chu Kai-leung had given when he reported his parents missing. They pulled surveillance footage from around the teahouse at Langham Place, hoping to trace the couple.

The results surprised them: in all the footage from March 2, neither Chu Kai-leung nor his parents appeared.

Police then checked the couple’s travel records and spending history. Once again, the findings left them stunned. Immigration records showed that the two had not left Hong Kong at all in recent weeks. Their bank cards showed no transactions on the mainland, either.

The police were at a loss. Where had they gone wrong? Could the brothers, Chu Kai-leung and Chu Kai-ying, be lying?

As the missing-person video was shared from one user to the next, some of the people who had sympathized with Chu Kai-leung began to see things differently.

One viewer pointed out that although Chu Kai-leung looked distraught, his eyes kept darting away—as if he were playing a part. In particular, when he suggested that his parents might have taken an unlicensed taxi, the corners of his mouth seemed to twitch as though he were holding back a smile.

Fortunately, no matter how far-reaching the investigation, a killer cannot hide every trace forever. Chu Kai-leung’s boasts during a gaming session had become a ticking time bomb.

After receiving the report, police immediately verified the group-chat conversation. On the morning of March 15, Chu Kai-leung was arrested.

According to his statement, he had an accomplice. The man was named Tse Chun-kei, and Chu Kai-leung claimed that Tse had masterminded the crime. He said he had only dismembered the bodies and had not personally killed the couple.

Soon afterward, police went to the Hoi Hing Building, where Tse Chun-kei lived. What they found inside the flat completely upended the investigators’ understanding of the case. Even seasoned forensic officers struggled to bear the sight. Some had to turn away and vomit.

Under ordinary circumstances, the couple’s bodies should have begun decomposing and giving off a powerful stench. But when police arrived at the building, what hit them was an overpowering fragrance.

Chu Kai-leung and Tse Chun-kei had used large amounts of bleach and deodorizer to keep the bodies from decomposing and smelling.

Bloodstains remained on the living-room walls. Three large barrels sat on the floor. A dark-red liquid was leaking from one of them. Through a gap, the shapes of human hands and feet could just barely be made out.

Nearby lay a collection of tools for dismemberment: four butcher knives, a hammer, kitchen knives, a boning knife, a saw, saw blades, and a cutting board. There were also five large bags of salt for processing the bodies.

Two freezers in the kitchen had been secured with chains.

The forensic officers had tried to prepare themselves, but even so, what they saw when the freezers were opened horrified them. One contained a human head; the other, internal organs. Some other body parts had also been severed and left inside.

It was one of the most horrifying details the investigators had encountered.

Under Tse Chun-kei’s bed, police found a notebook and a large number of prepaid SIM cards. The notebook listed the victims’ bank-account numbers and a method for draining blood.

Five of the prepaid SIM cards had not yet been used. Alongside them, police found a slip of paper with twelve phone numbers. That was how Chu Kai-leung and Tse Chun-kei had tried to avoid detection after the crime: they took turns using different numbers, each using one for a week and never repeating one.

Call records showed that between March 1 and March 13, the numbers on the paper had made a total of seventy-three calls.

The scene also contained six rice cookers, 615 food containers, ten tablecloths, several bottles of soy sauce, a large supply of black garbage bags, plastic wrap, soil, backpacks, and bicycles.

By now, you may be wondering: why would a murder scene contain so much cooking equipment?

Chu Kai-leung’s plan had been to turn the flesh and body parts of his own parents into char siu rice, a popular dish in Hong Kong. He intended to pack it into takeaway containers and sell it.

The thought alone was enough to make anyone shudder.

What depth of resentment could drive a son to turn his own parents’ bodies into food? Had Chu Kai-leung been unloved as a child? Had he been abused?

The truth was the opposite.

His family was well-off and owned several properties in one of the world’s most expensive real-estate markets. As the younger son, Chu Kai-leung had been doted on by his parents from childhood. They had even hoped he would become a concert pianist.

When he turned eighteen, they spent a considerable sum to send him to Australia to study.

But as the years passed, Chu Kai-leung grew increasingly insecure and rebellious.