Chapter 102: A Busy Day

“…Looks like the problem still lies here!” Lei Liming circled a spot on the blackboard with a piece of chalk, then tapped firmly on the words in the center.

Song Changfeng and Aofeng, who had just arrived, quietly made their way to the back of the crowd. With one glance, they saw the words Lei Liming had circled: “Letaotao Foot Massage Parlor¹.”

Song Changfeng gently poked Guo Zile, who was standing in front of him, and asked in a low voice, “What did Captain Lei just say?”

“We just learned from Zhong Xiaoxuan’s colleague, Li Yun, that the place Zhong Xiaoxuan arranged to meet the client was this Letaotao Foot Massage Parlor. Wasn’t the garbage dump owner, Huang Tianbo, also there before? We’re now suspecting that Zhong Xiaoxuan’s murder is connected to this place,” Guo Zile replied quietly.

Song Changfeng asked, “Did Li Yun say what happened inside? I remember Zhong Xiaoxuan’s sticky note said she wanted Li Yun to go with her.”

Guo Zile shook his head. “Li Yun started crying as soon as this came up. She said Zhong Xiaoxuan did ask her to go, but she wasn’t feeling well yesterday, took some cold medicine, and laid her head down on the desk to rest. When she woke up, Zhong Xiaoxuan had already gone by herself, probably not wanting to disturb her… She said, if only she hadn’t fallen asleep yesterday.” As he spoke, Guo Zile’s expression turned complicated. That’s how life is sometimes, full of strange coincidences.

Song Changfeng let out a sigh. Who would ever want something like this to happen? He knew it wasn’t Li Yun’s fault, but as someone involved, she would still fall into a spiral of guilt and self-blame, constantly imagining how things might have turned out differently if she’d done this or that. But time doesn’t go backward, and what’s happened can never be undone.

“Did she say who the client was?”

“It was a department manager from Shengxing Technology, named Guan Qimao. Besides him, there were two subordinates. We’ve already sent people to find them, they should be brought in soon,” Guo Zile said.

As the two were talking, Lei Liming suddenly stopped and looked over, calling out, “Changfeng, come up here. Didn’t you say you found a lead too? Come up and analyze it.”

Song Changfeng stepped forward, with Aofeng following close behind. Man and dog stood before a dozen pairs of eyes. Looking at them, the crowd below couldn’t help feeling a bit emotional. Song Changfeng had only been on the job for just over half a month, yet the captain already relied on him so much. And the thing was, no one could argue with it. After all, Song Changfeng was just that good. In both the last case and this one, it was he and his police dog who had found the key evidence.

Tsk, come to think of it, maybe having a police dog really is a big help. Should they try applying for one too?

Of course, Song Changfeng couldn’t possibly read their serious expressions and realize they were eyeing his police dog with envy. He picked up a few sheets of paper and pinned them to the blackboard with small magnets.

“Among the evidence we found this morning, there was a piece of torn fabric with quite a bit of blood on it. At the time, we focused on the blood and overlooked how the fabric got torn. The forensics team actually gave us the answer. The fabric was ripped off by force, and based on the bite marks left on it, it was likely torn by a small animal,” Song Changfeng explained as he pulled out his phone and opened the forensic report he had photographed earlier.

Some of the others had also taken pictures, so they opened their phones to check. Sure enough, there it was. But what was the point of this? Were they supposed to find the animal and have it identify the killer?

“From this piece of fabric, we can infer that the killer was attacked by a cat or dog during the crime. After a struggle, a piece of his sleeve was torn off, and his arm was slightly injured. Now, generally speaking, what’s the first thing people do after being bitten by a cat or dog? They go get a rabies vaccine. When Aofeng led me to the disease control center, that’s when it clicked for me. So before I came back, I went to the center and pulled the list of everyone who got vaccinated after yesterday afternoon, along with the locations of community hospitals and private clinics authorized to administer the vaccine.”

Song Changfeng’s explanation made everything click for the group. Lei Liming even burst out laughing, praising his attention to detail.

Song Changfeng shook his head. “It was Aofeng who discovered it. If it hadn’t led me there, I wouldn’t have made the connection.”

“Aofeng did great,” Lei Liming said, reaching out to pat Aofeng’s head. “And so did you, haha. Looks like I had good judgment bringing you two in. But now’s not the time for rewards. Everyone, listen up!”

The sudden command made everyone straighten up, faces serious, ready for their next orders.

“Split into three teams immediately. One team will work with the community police to visit all hospitals qualified to administer vaccinations. Get the full list as soon as possible, then sort and categorize it. For key individuals, you must visit them in person. For the rest, confirm by phone. The second team will continue following up on the Letaotao Foot Massage Parlor. Retrieve the surveillance footage and identify everyone who had contact with the victim, then question them. The third team doesn’t need many people, two will be enough. Your job is to go to the mobile service provider and pull the victim’s recent call records. Then call each contact to screen for any suspicious individuals.”

“Yes, sir!” everyone responded in unison. They quickly broke into teams based on their usual assignments and got to work. Fortunately, they were part of the city’s Criminal Investigation Detachment. For cases requiring large-scale information gathering, they could request assistance from subordinate units. If it were just the dozen or so of them, it would probably take until the end of time to finish the screening.

Song Changfeng joined the first team, tasked with screening key individuals and conducting in-person visits. Just as he was about to leave, Lei Liming called him over to the office.

When Song Changfeng arrived at Lei Liming’s office, he saw two written statements spread out on the coffee table, along with several keys. Lei Liming explained that the statements were from the landfill workers, Lao Huang and Old Zhang, and the keys were for the landfill’s back gate.

Song Changfeng picked up the statements and found that the two accounts were nearly identical. On the day of the incident, both had been at the scene, but it was early in the morning around five or six. They had driven the garbage truck to collect trash from the residential complex and the mall, delivered it to the landfill, and then gone home separately. They stayed home the entire afternoon and didn’t go out again. This was confirmed by surveillance footage from their apartment building elevators. As for the back gate keys, both men carried them at all times since they needed them daily. The keys had never left their possession and had not been lost.

Huang Tianbo’s keys were a different story. Although he also kept them on him, the environment at Letaotao Foot Massage Parlor was more chaotic. The chances of someone exploiting a moment of carelessness to duplicate his keys were significantly higher. Even Huang Tianbo himself wasn’t sure if his keys had ever been taken.

“That guy’s a complete scatterbrain. What kind of manager is that supposed to be? And those responsible for maintaining the surveillance equipment, what were they doing? Just like last night, when everyone reviewed footage from the surrounding roads and still didn’t spot anything unusual. Why? Because the camera covering the road near the landfill’s back gate had been broken for a while and never got repaired. And the cameras inside the landfill? They’ve been out of order for over six months.” Lei Liming shook his head and sighed. Cases like this often go unsolved because of broken surveillance systems. No wonder some citizens complain that when it comes to catching minor violations, the authorities are spot-on, but when it comes to catching real criminals, they’re nowhere to be found.

Song Changfeng sighed too. Exactly. Huang Tianbo didn’t even know there was a homeless man sneaking in and out of the landfill, coming and going at all hours. What could anyone expect from him? Speaking of that homeless man, he was still at the station. He said he didn’t dare go back to the landfill after hearing someone died there. No one knew what to do with him, so they were temporarily sheltering him for a couple of days until the case was resolved, then they’d figure out how to send him back to his hometown.

…

Night fell, but the Criminal Investigation team was still out in the field, busy with their respective tasks. Most of them were already exhausted, but the work had to be done.

At 10:30 p.m., Lei Liming gathered everyone to report on their team’s progress.

The third team reported first. Their task was the simplest: use the phone number Chen Ru provided for Zhong Xiaoxuan to identify recent contacts. Since Zhong Xiaoxuan was a sales rep, she had a high volume of calls each week, sometimes dozens a day. The team was still in the middle of making calls and screening contacts, and had reached the third day’s worth of calls so far.

Next was the second team. Two of their members had stayed at the station to take statements from Guan Qimao of Shengxing Technology and the two staffers. After thorough questioning, they were mostly ruled out as suspects. Zhong Xiaoxuan had met with them at Letaotao Foot Massage Parlor yesterday morning and stayed for about an hour and a half before leaving. When asked why they chose a foot massage parlor for the meeting, the group looked embarrassed and said they just wanted to relax with a foot soak. Most importantly, whatever they did there, the bill was covered by Zhong Xiaoxuan’s company.

The team that retrieved the surveillance footage backed up their story. The footage from the main entrance showed that Zhong Xiaoxuan did indeed leave after about an hour and a half. She even had a smile on her face as she walked out, probably because the deal had gone well. That team was still collecting footage from nearby shops and streets, trying to track where she went after leaving the massage parlor.

The workload for the first team was pretty heavy, but the initial screening results were in. Across the city, there were about seventy-nine people who had been scratched or bitten by cats or dogs. After ruling out children, the elderly, and women, forty-three individuals remained. Those households had already been contacted by phone, and the team was now focusing on these forty-three key individuals. So far, they had only managed to question fifteen.

Lei Liming felt a sense of relief. Since receiving the report yesterday, none of them had gotten much rest. He himself had barely closed his eyes. Looking around, it felt like they were at a panda sanctuary²—everyone looked drained, with heavy dark circles under their eyes.

“Pause all tasks for today. Tell those still out in the field to come back and get some rest. We’ll resume the investigation at seven tomorrow morning.”

The moment the order was given, cheers broke out. As much as they wanted to crack the case quickly, their bodies were reaching their limits. If it weren’t for the endless cups of coffee keeping them going, they would’ve collapsed long ago. If they didn’t get some rest now, the next case might be investigating their own sudden deaths.

Song Changfeng headed out with the others. Before returning to the dorm, he stopped by the kennel to check on Aofeng. Most of tonight had been spent on interviews, so he hadn’t brought Aofeng along. When he arrived, he found Aofeng sprawled out on its back, sound asleep, completely relaxed—nothing like the other two alert police dogs nearby.

What he didn’t know was that Aofeng was only pretending. The moment Song Changfeng left, Aofeng flipped over, stood upright on its hind legs, and began fiddling with the latch on the door…

Translator’s Notes