“The current location of the mobile phone could not be determined, but recent incoming and outgoing call records have been obtained from the service provider,” Qu Zhi said, feeling a setback. “There were no suspicious numbers; they were all from her parents, colleagues, clients, and Sang Hai. A few unfamiliar calls were delivery guys, and the times match the surveillance near her home. As for the laptop, it’s mostly photos she took while traveling. We checked her social media— she uses Weibo the most, posting a picture every three to five days, mostly scenery. The last one was on March 10, a sunset at Lake Balaton in Hungary that she took herself.”
“What about comments and private messages?” Hua Chong asked. “How many followers did she have?”
“Over five thousand,” Qu Zhi replied. “The private messages are mostly from marketing accounts selling followers, and the comments are all generic, like ‘beautiful.’ The technical investigation is still ongoing.”
Hua Chong tossed a bottle of Vita Ice Tea to Qu Zhi, without saying anything more about the case, “Drive safely.”
“I can give you a ride ah,” Qu Zhi offered, taking out his car keys. “Why, aren’t you going home today?”
“There’s hot water and a bed; it’s not much different from home,” Hua Chong raised his hand. “It’s been a tiring day. Go home early and get some rest, don’t think about competing with me for the bed.”
Qu Zhi muttered a curse, “The case is important, but so is your health. You are like this…”
“Alright, now you’re lecturing me,” Hua Chong turned around. Don’t play games when you go back. Rest up, and if I see you with two bags under your eyes tomorrow, you’ll have to write me a ten-thousand-word self-review.”
“I’ve told you so many times, those are aegyo sal!”[footnote]Y’all, what is aegyo sal in English?? It seems there’s no English word for aegyo sal??? But anyway, for those who don’t know, aegyo sal is basically the small puffy area under the eyes that’s considered cute. It’s different from tired-looking eye bags[/footnote] Qu Zhi shouted. “Not eye bags!”
•
Hua Chong was too lazy to discuss eye bags and aegyo sal with Qu Zhi. He returned to the Serious Crime Unit office, sat down for a while, and casually took out a piece of paper and a pen to start organizing the entire case.
Why did the murderer torture the corpse? What were the reasons for leaving behind PSV game cards, ID cards, and bank cards?
Why was the wasteland of Daoqiao Road chosen as the crime location?
Did they take away the phone because it contained some ulterior secret?
The most important point was: what was the motive behind the murderer’s actions?
Sang Hai appeared highly suspicious, but it was only on the surface. Hua Chong twirled his pen, recalling Sang Hai’s demeanor during the interrogation.
This young man who had not yet entered society was extremely bad at controlling his emotions, his speech was upside down, timid, inferior, yet self-righteous. This kind of person was prone to harbor twisted malice towards the bystanders, but the probability of putting it into action was very low.
Hua Chong propped up his temples, feeling bits and pieces of clues flickering by, like scooping up water in a bamboo basket, seeming to have gained a lot, but in reality, it was empty when lifted.
He sighed and was about to wash his face. When he stood up, his peripheral vision happened to glance at the folder on the table.
It was the folder Chen Zheng had brought in earlier that morning.
Hua Chong was so busy during the day that he didn’t have time to take a moment to get to know his new colleague who was about to join. Hua Chong stood by the desk for a few seconds, then sat down, opening the folder in a perfunctory manner.
What a coincidence; the young man he encountered near the construction site a few nights ago turned out to be the information warfare expert sent by the Ministry of Public Security.
Hua Chong had spent the previous years immersed in frontline counter-terrorism work. After being transferred to the Criminal Investigation Detachment in recent years, he had little exposure to the intricacies of ‘information warfare’. The only association he made was with hackers.
The file showed that the hacker was 28 years old, and his name was Liu Zhiqin.
Hua Chong stared at comrade hacker’s ID photo for a long time. The more he looked at it, the more familiar he seemed, as if he had seen him somewhere before.
He recalled carefully and was sure that apart from that night when he mistook the other man for a performance artist, there had been no previous interactions.
But what was that feeling of déjà vu?
Leaning on one side of his cheek, he remembered that he didn’t feel like he had seen each other before when they met at the construction site.
Was it because the streetlights were not bright enough?
He uttered a ‘hmm’ sound, too lazy to dwell on it further. Closing the file, he stretched in a lazy yawn and headed towards the restroom.
He hadn’t told anyone that he was more comfortable sleeping in the Serious Crimes Unit lounge than in his own home, but today he lay down and unexpectedly couldn’t sleep, as if the gaze he’d felt earlier in the hallway was getting closer.
He sat up and looked around cautiously, yet he failed to catch even a shadow.
•
“Captain Hua, Captain Hua!” Early in the morning, Qu Zhi pushed open the door of the lounge. “There’s a situation on Daoqiao Road!”
Hua Chong, who didn’t sleep well last night and woke up late, had a slightly hoarse voice. “What did you discover?”
“Didn’t you ask me to send someone to Daoqiao Road to find out if anyone had seen Sang Hai? Just as Xiao Liang and the others took out the photos, more than one person said they saw Sang Hai on the night of the 13th, wielding a knife and getting into a conflict with someone!”
Hua Chong woke up immediately, “Knife? He had a knife?”
•
Li Jing, despite his name sounding like that of a quiet girl, was actually a tough guy with fake gold chains on his tattooed arms. He was 34 years old, born and raised on Daoqiao Road. In his childhood, there weren’t many wealthy people in the entire city, and Daoqiao Road was poor. Other streets were also impoverished. Everyone was born equal and whoever could fight would be the big brother.
Li Jing had been strong since he was a kid. His parents were illiterate and could not control him. When he was in junior high school, he dared to collect protection money in the neighborhood and even engaged in numerous fights and encountered the police station frequently. Later on, some of the brothers who lived together moved out of Daoqiao Road, some got married and lived a serious life, but he still seemed to be unable to wake up. He had no job, no wife, and in his prime years, he still relied on his parents. Unfortunately, his elderly parents didn’t have much money for him to live on. So he became the boss of younger troublemaker students, making some extra money for cigarettes and alcohol.
“Right here, I got slashed by that curly-haired guy,” Li Jing’s home had dim lighting, with concrete floors and yellowed newspapers pasted on the walls. Next to the bed hung a calendar featuring beauties from over a decade ago. He took off his denim jacket, revealing a muscular upper body. He pointed to the cut on his forearm. “Not a deep cut, just a flesh wound. Who the hell doesn’t have eyes, making a fuss over this trivial shit.”
The wound was indeed not deep. Hua Chong took a look and showed a photo of Sang Hai from his phone. “Are you sure it was this person who stabbed you on the night of the 13th in Wuli Alley, Daoqiao Road?”
“It’s him,” Li Jing grumbled. “The sneaky bastard was wandering in the alley. I called him twice, and he pulled out a knife in an instant.”
“Did you just call him twice?” Hua Chong asked.
Li Jing looked around awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with Hua Chong.
Hua Chong crossed his legs: “That’s not what the people in Wuli Alley said. They said that it was you who stopped the curly hair first and made a move on him before he moved the knife.”
Li Jing on the chair fidgeted irritably. “Fine, yes, but, police brothers, you get it straight; he stabbed me. I didn’t harm him. You can’t blame me for this one.”
Hua Chong laughed: “Blaming you for what? I’m just here to understand what happened on the night of the 13th. What time did you encounter him? And what kind of knife was he carrying?”
“At what time?” Li Jing tilted his neck, as if his IQ was in arrears, and thought for a long time before saying, “Around 11, maybe 11:05.”
“You remember that clearly?”
“He slashed me and ran off. I fucking thought I got mugged, so I quickly checked my phone and wallet, glanced at the time casually, and remembered it,” Li Jing said. “Officer, let me be honest with you. That day, I saw he was a new face, dressed decently, skinny as a bamboo stick. I thought I could get some money for smokes. I never expected the guy to be carrying a knife. It’s embarrassing to say this—getting stabbed by an outsider—so I didn’t want to make a fuss. If you guys hadn’t come today, I wouldn’t have told anyone; I’d have kept it to myself.”
Hua Chong listened to him talk about the mental journey of the gangster boss, and asked again: “You remember the time and won’t forget what the knife looked like, right?”
“Just a straight-handled fruit knife,” Li Jing said as he stood up. “I have a similar one at home. Wait a moment; I’ll get it for you to take a look at.”
There was a clatter from the kitchen, the sound of pots and pans being moved around, accompanied by a few muttered curses. A few minutes later, Li Jing came back with a plastic-handled stainless steel knife. “Look, it’s similar to this one. But I threw away the sheath on this one a long time ago, his one looks pretty new with a sheath.”
Qu Zhi sealed the fruit knife in an evidence bag. Li Jing panicked when he saw it, “Weren’t you asking about the incident? Hey, what are you doing with my knife?”
“Where did you buy this knife?” Hua Chong asked.
“At the hardware store near the entrance of Erli Alley. I buy all my spoons and knives there.”
Hua Chong took the evidence bag from Qu Zhi and asked in a low voice, “Which camera captured Sang Hai entering Daoqiao Road?”
Qu Zhi hurriedly called the technical investigation team and came back: “It’s Erli Alley!”
•
“I remember him, he came to my shop to buy a fruit knife.” The middle-aged owner of the hardware store at the entrance of Erli Alley rummaged through the counter and took out a sample. “It’s this kind.”
Hua Chong picked up the knife, removed the sheath, and felt the blade. Although it was labeled as a fruit knife, it was sharper and more threatening than a folding fruit knife. He took out his phone, snapped a few pictures from different angles, and sent them to Xu Kan, along with a text message: Can this type of knife cause injuries to Xu Yujiao’s eyes, ears, and legs?
“Did he buy anything else besides this knife?” Hua Chong rested his elbow on the counter, “Maybe a household hammer?”
“No, he didn’t,” the middle-aged owner said. “He only bought the knife, 15 yuan. He gave me 20 yuan.”
Hua Chong raised an eyebrow, “He gave you an extra 5 yuan?”
“I didn’t intentionally take advantage of him. He wanted to pay with WeChat, but the signal in my store was bad. He scanned for a long time but couldn’t pay, so he put 20 yuan on the table. Before I could find the change, he took the knife and ran.”
Hua Chong nodded thoughtfully, “Do you have surveillance here?”
The middle-aged owner laughed, “What surveillance? This little run-down shop of mine doesn’t need that.”
•
Just after coming out of the hardware shop, Qu Zhi cursed: “That sly bastard acted dumb yesterday!”
Hua Chong walked slowly, layers of doubt accumulating in his mind.
When he interrogated Sang Hai yesterday, he felt that the person was hiding something, but what he didn’t expect was that Sang Hai would conceal the fact that he bought a knife.
If Sang Hai hadn’t gotten into a fight with Li Jing on the street and was seen by someone living nearby when he pulled out the knife, who knew how much more time it would have taken to find out the clue about the knife.
Just as he was thinking, his phone vibrated.
When Hua Chong saw that it was a message from Xu Kan, he immediately clicked on it.
Xu Kan: Yes!
