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

Wang Shuai and Zhang Hui walked around the teaching building of the Conservatory of Music, asking every teacher and student tirelessly. In the piano classroom, the white-haired professor held up his glasses and recalled: "Xiao Min has a simple personality. Apart from practicing the piano, she hangs out in the library. I've never seen her interact closely with anyone." In the dance studio, classmates flipped through their cell phone albums and sighed: "She's in the group photos at dinners and classes, but I've never heard her say anything special in private."

The turning point came in the Oil Painting Department office.

In the office of the oil painting department, the smell of turpentine mixed with paint filled the air. Chen Mo's hand holding the palette knife was shaking slightly, and on the canvas in front of him, an unfinished block of color still had a wet luster. When he heard Li Xiaomin's name, his movements suddenly stopped, and an elusive emotion flashed in his eyes.

"Li Xiaomin? She comes to the studio every Wednesday afternoon." Chen Mo's voice was a little hoarse. He put down the palette knife and pulled out an unfinished portrait from behind the easel. On the canvas, the girl's profile was gilded by the setting sun, and the soft light and shadow outlined a beautiful outline, but the place where the eyes should be was roughly covered by thick oil paint, leaving only two dark shadows. "She never let me paint her face. Every time I painted here, she would say, 'Secrets are safe in the shadows.'"

Wang Shuai and Zhang Hui exchanged glances. Zhang Hui pointed at the canvas and asked, "Teacher Chen, did she show any abnormality when she said that?"

Chen Mo pondered for a moment and walked to the window. The sun shone obliquely on him, casting a long shadow on the ground. "Now that I think about it, it's really a bit strange. She didn't just come to the studio to paint. Most of the time she sat in a corner in a daze, or muttered to herself in front of the blank canvas. Once, I heard her humming a melody. The tune was very depressing, completely different from her usual cheerful appearance."

He paused and continued, "She also said that music and painting are interconnected, and inspiration is often hidden in the most unexpected places. One rainy day, she rushed into the studio, soaking wet, but she was holding a violin tightly in her arms. I wanted to help her dry it, but she pushed me away, saying that the rain was the 'baptism of creation'. Then she started playing the violin, and the song..." Chen Mo frowned, as if he was back to that rainy night, "full of struggle and despair, completely different from the style of the songs she played before."

Wang Shuai opened his notebook and carefully wrote down: "Did she mention anything that happened recently? Or who she met?"

Chen Mo shook his head: "She rarely talked about her life, but only said that she was looking for a 'pure artistic expression'. But once, she stared at her own portrait and suddenly said, 'When art collides with reality, it will either shine or be shattered.' At that time, I thought she was just discussing creation, but now I think there may be another deeper meaning in her words."

Zhang Hui noticed the speaker in the corner, which had an old SD card inserted into it: "Teacher Chen, what is this?"

"Oh, this is what Li Xiaomin left behind." Chen Mo walked over, took out the SD card, and inserted it into the computer. "She said it contains a song she improvised, and asked me to help listen to it."

Soon, intermittent notes came out of the computer. At first, it was a soft piano sound, which gradually became urgent. Suddenly, a harsh noise sounded, like the sound of a broken string, followed by a flurry of footsteps, and finally ended with the dull sound of a heavy object falling to the ground. "When I first heard it, I thought it was a device failure." Chen Mo's voice was a little trembling, "But then she never came again, and I felt something was wrong."

Wang Shuai and Zhang Hui looked serious. These few minutes of audio may be the key to uncovering the truth. In the subsequent investigation, the police confirmed that Chen Mo was on duty at the school on the day Li Xiaomin disappeared, and he had sufficient alibi to rule out his suspicion. But from the clues he provided, a Li Xiaomin full of contradictions and struggles gradually became clear. What secrets are hidden under her seemingly peaceful life? And are these secrets inextricably linked to her disappearance?
Over the following period of time, the police once again launched an in-depth investigation into Li Xiaomin's interpersonal relationships, but did not find any major clues, and the entire case seemed to have come to a halt here.

The major turning point occurred on the fifteenth day after the case.

The sirens of the police car tore through the gloomy sky, and Lu Chuan's knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. In the rearview mirror, Zhang Kai repeatedly wiped the forensic tool box, and the sound of metal instruments colliding was particularly harsh in the closed car. The alarm call received half an hour ago was still echoing in my ears: "There is a person floating in the reed marsh of Beiyang River, with water plants tangled in her hair, and she looks like a young girl..."

On the muddy riverbank, the fisherman who reported the case sat slumped on the ground, his fishing nets scattered at his feet, muddy water dripping down the mesh. Wang Shuai supported the cordon and pointed at the reeds in the distance: "There, the body is stuck on a dead tree stump, and the face... is almost unrecognizable."

Yang Sen was the first to step into the knee-deep river, crushing the floating algae on the surface with his rubber boots. Li Xiaomin's body was curled up in a strange shape, her soaked and swollen fingers still maintaining a grasping posture, and the water plants entangled in her hair were mixed with dark red algae. When the forensic assistant opened her soaked coat, the ID card in the plastic card holder reflected the sun - the girl with a bright smile in the photo formed a harsh contrast with the swollen and deformed face in front of him.

"The time of death is at least ten days." Yang Sen put on gloves and pinched the skin of the corpse's wrist with tweezers. The tissue has already shown obvious saponification reaction. "The pH value and water temperature of the river water accelerated the decay. The mud and sand between the nails..." He suddenly moved closer, and the tip of the tweezers flashed with metallic luster. "There are tiny silver fragments, like some kind of alloy."

Lu Chuan squatted outside the cordon, his eyes sweeping around the body. Deep in the reed marsh, broken reed stalks fell in a fan-shaped pattern, their cross-sections still bluish-white. "The murderer dragged the body when he dumped it." He marked the scene photo with a laser pen, with red dots extending along the fallen reeds to the river bank. "From the traces, the first landing point was three meters away from the wooden stake, and the body was washed here by the current and stuck."

Yang Lin held up the evidence bag, which contained items taken from the body's pocket: a soaked lipstick, a broken rubber band, and half a concert ticket fragment, dated exactly the night Li Xiaomin disappeared. "Strange, she was wearing a dress when she disappeared, how could she have a concert ticket?" He frowned and magnified the QR code on the ticket, "And this is a VIP ticket for the inner field, considering her financial situation..."

Under the gloomy sky, the surface of the Beiyang River was a strange blue-gray. Yang Lin and Yang Sen were like two sharp hounds, shuttling back and forth on the river bank. They wore rubber gloves and foot covers, not missing any suspicious traces. (End of this chapter)