Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

The chat records between the two stopped three months ago, and the content of the conversation was mostly daily greetings and simple exchanges, with a flat tone, and no special relationship could be seen. However, after the deleted chat records were restored through technical means, a conversation from half a year ago attracted the attention of the police.

"Lili, leave that old man. He won't bring you happiness."

"Ah Feng, stop talking. I have my own difficulties."

"He could be your dad! What on earth do you want?"

"There are some things you don't understand. Anyway, I can't leave him."

Following this clue, the police retrieved Qin Lili's call records and found that the frequency of her calls with "A Feng" gradually decreased six months ago until it was completely cut off. Through the positioning of the communication base station, it was determined that the user of this number had been active in the jade processing area on the outskirts of Haizhou City for a long time.

During the visit to the jade processing area, the police learned from Qin Lili's former colleagues that she did have an ex-boyfriend named Liu Jianfeng, who was a jade carving apprentice. The two had a good relationship, but their relationship gradually became distant after Qin Lili started working at Li Kaijun's jade shop.

In the mottled alleys of the jade processing area, Wang Shuai's leather shoes crushed a piece of jade scraps, and the emerald green debris sparkled in the sun. He looked up at the crooked "apprentice recruitment" advertisement on the wall. The faded handwriting overlapped with Liu Jianfeng's resume left in the police file - after dropping out of junior high school, he came to Haizhou from a mountain village in Yunnan, and worked in large and small jade carving workshops for eight years. He is still an ordinary apprentice with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan.

"This kid is too stubborn." Old craftsman Chen Defa wiped the carving knife, his cloudy eyes staring at the pile of waste materials in the corner. "Last winter, he spent three months carving a brick material, saying that he wanted to carve out the transparency of ice. Others laughed at him for being stupid, so he stayed in front of the workbench all day. In the end, the finished product was cracked like a spider web. He hugged the stone and cried in the workshop all night."

When the police pushed open the tin hut where Liu Jianfeng lived, the musty smell mixed with the pungent smell of turpentine hit him in the face. The walls were covered with photos of Qin Lili, some of which were burned by cigarette butts, and some were written with "liar" in red pen. The diary on the bedside was open to the page of July 7, and the handwriting was blurred by water marks: "Her belly is already visible, why did that old man do that?" Turning to the back, the hostility between the lines became stronger, "I want to let them know what the price of betrayal is."

Investigations show that the boss of the jade carving studio "Cuiyuanfang" where Liu Jianfeng works is Li Kaijun's distant cousin. In the surveillance footage, this silent man always keeps to himself. During lunch break, when others are playing cards and chatting, he squats in the corner eating steamed buns, staring at his phone - the video of Qin Lili's speech at the opening ceremony of the jade shop is played repeatedly on the screen.

"He has a quirk." The studio accountant took out the attendance sheet and stopped at the column of April 4. "Every month when he gets paid on the 15th, he always orders 15 yuan milk tea takeout for Qin Lili, and the delivery address is the front desk of the jade shop. But starting from May this year, the orders suddenly disappeared." The real turning point occurred on June 28. The bank flow showed that a remittance of 5 yuan suddenly entered Liu Jianfeng's account, and the source was marked as "project payment". Three days later, he bought a three-bedroom apartment in his hometown county in full. The surveillance camera at the sales office captured him signing the contract - his long-bent back straightened up, and there was even a weird smile on the corner of his mouth.

"He came to resign that day, saying he was going back to his hometown to take care of his sick mother." The studio owner frowned and recalled, "But I clearly remember that he said his parents were in good health during the Spring Festival last year. What's even more strange is that he didn't take his tool box when he left. He treasured that set of carving knives like his life."

The police found a yellowed train ticket in the toolbox at her residence. The date was three years ago, and the departure station was the small county town where Qin Lili was born. The station surveillance restored the amazing scene: Qin Lili was dragging a suitcase, and Liu Jianfeng chased after her and stuffed a cloth bag into her, which contained a jade peace locket tied with a red rope - exactly the same as the one she was wearing when she was killed.

When the investigation went deeper into Liu Jianfeng's social circle, an anonymous account called "Dark Night Sculptor" surfaced. On the Jade Forum, this account began to post a large number of offensive remarks six months ago, describing Li Kaijun as a "predator" and comparing Qin Lili to "imprisoned jade." More importantly, in the early morning of July 7, the account left the last dynamic: "Some flaws can only be removed with the sharpest knife."

The technical department tracked down the last login address of this account, which was an Internet cafe near Chang'an Building the day before the incident. When retrieving the Internet cafe's surveillance footage, Liu Jianfeng was wearing a black cap and a mask covering most of his face. Only his right index finger, which was tapping the keyboard, still had calluses from years of holding a carving knife.

"He usually doesn't even want to buy a bottle of mineral water." Wang Shuai slapped the 50 yuan remittance record on the table. "He suddenly had a huge amount of money, bought a house in his hometown, suddenly resigned, and frequently made extreme remarks. All the time points are highly consistent with Tan Lili's pregnancy period." He retrieved the autopsy report. "Although most of the skin tissue extracted by Zhang Kai from Tan Lili's fingernails belongs to Li Kaijun, there is a very small part of the gene fragment that has not been matched. I bet it is Liu Jianfeng's."

After a period of investigation, the police have basically locked the clues on Liu Jianfeng, but this person is missing.

On the seventh day after Liu Jianfeng disappeared, the task force's whiteboard was covered with dense clue notes, and red ropes connected photos, addresses and time nodes into a complex network. Lu Chuan stared at the surveillance screenshot of the jade processing area with a greasy sheen - in the picture, Liu Jianfeng, carrying a denim bag, lowered his head and walked towards the outskirts of the city, and his figure finally disappeared at the corner of the Qinglan Mountain sign.

“Start with his social relationships.” Lu Chuan tapped the three big words “circle of acquaintances” on the whiteboard. “He is not a local. He has been in Haizhou for eight years. Apart from his jade carving work, he has almost no social life. The only emotional bond is with Qin Lili and his parents in his hometown.” Wang Shuai immediately led the team to the “Cuiyuanfang” jade carving studio where Liu Jianfeng had worked. In the dilapidated workshop, the buzzing sound of jade polishing mixed with the damp and moldy smell.

"This kid is too withdrawn." Old craftsman Chen Defa stopped the carving knife in his hand, staring at the waste piled up in the corner with cloudy eyes, "Last winter, he insisted on using bricks to carve out an ice effect. Others laughed at him, but he worked hard for three months. On the day when the finished product was cracked beyond recognition, he sat in the workshop holding the stone all night, and no one could persuade him to speak." When the police officer opened the studio attendance sheet, the column for April 4 was heavily circled in red pen - it was the day when Qin Lili officially announced her relationship with Li Kaijun in her circle of friends. (End of this chapter)