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

As his assistant pushed the dissected body into the refrigerated cabinet, Zhang Kai's phone vibrated. The soil test report showed that the soil under the deceased's fingernails matched the composition of the soil at the scene; however, the DNA test on the semen stains was ineffective due to severe decomposition. He gazed at the gloomy sky outside the window. The scalpel was not only cutting through the corpse, but also revealing an increasingly thick fog; the truth seemed to remain hidden in deeper darkness.

At 2:17 a.m., the archives room on the third floor of the Criminal Investigation Division resembled a malfunctioning mechanical clock. Fluorescent tubes emitted a constant hum, and the cold light from the thirty-seven computer screens cast crisscrossing shadows on the walls. Zhang Hui stood in the center of the archives room, watching his team members slumped about—Xiao Wang's chin was almost hitting the keyboard, Lao Zhou's fingers trembled slightly as he rubbed his temples, and the newly hired intern, Xiao Lin, stared blankly at the computer screen, his eyes red-rimmed.

"Hold on for another three hours." Zhang Hui's voice sounded particularly abrupt in the silence. He grabbed his mug and gulped down a mouthful of cold, strong tea, the bitter taste stimulating his numb nerves. "There are still 2378 unverified records in the municipal bureau's database, and we must also go through all 512 leads in the provincial department's assistance documents."

Intern Xiaolin suddenly raised her hand, her voice trembling with tears: "Captain Zhang, these photos of missing persons are all blurry pixel blocks, and the system keeps prompting 'similarity too low' and 'incomplete information,' making it impossible to compare them!" Her mouse moved frantically, and blurry photos of elderly people flashed across the screen, some of them even just photocopies of ID cards.

Old Zhou took off his reading glasses and wiped the lenses. The tea stains on the temples had turned black. "The paper files are even worse. All the files before 2019 are handwritten. Some of the handwriting is so messy it looks like scribbles." He held up a file book covered in mold. The numbers in the "Date of Disappearance" column on the yellowed pages were blurred by water stains and were completely illegible.

Zhang Hui walked over to Xiao Wang and discovered that he was checking a child abduction case from three years ago. "What's going on?" his voice suddenly rose. "Didn't I tell you to focus on men aged 45-60?" Xiao Wang jolted awake and hurriedly switched interfaces: "The system automatically redirected; this damn database keeps freezing. I just clicked the wrong thing."

The archives were filled with a cacophony of complaints, like boiling water. Suddenly, Technician Liu slammed his fist on the table: "This facial recognition system is giving us another error! It says record number 1327 'may match' the deceased, but the photo is of a young woman in Hanfu!" He angrily loosened his tie. "I could have just looked with my own eyes!"

"Stop arguing!" Zhang Hui grabbed the whiteboard eraser and forcefully wiped away the messy notes on it. "Now let's adjust the division of labor. Da Liu will lead the team to fix the system vulnerabilities and highlight false alarm cases; Lao Zhou and Xiao Lin will be responsible for the electronic files after 2015, using the keywords 'construction site' and 'demolition' for cross-referencing; the rest of you will work in pairs to check the paper files against the electronic records."

The new work pace made the atmosphere even more oppressive. The sounds of papers turning, keyboard clicks, and suppressed coughs mingled together. Old Zhou's white-gloved fingers moved among the paper files when suddenly a rusty paperclip pricked his fingertip, and blood dripped onto the 1998 missing persons registration form. "Damn it!" he cursed, rummaging for a band-aid, only to find that the first-aid kit was empty.

At four in the morning, Xiao Wang's exclamation broke the silence: "A possible match! This missing person named 'Chen Jianguo' is 58 years old and has a birthmark behind his right ear!" Everyone gathered around. The ID photo on the screen was blurry, and only the man's weathered face could be vaguely seen. Zhang Hui immediately dialed the assistance hotline, but hung up five minutes later with a grim face: "Chen Jianguo was just found in a neighboring city last week and is currently in a nursing home."

Hope shattered like a bubble, and the archives fell into a deeper silence. Some began to doze off, their heads drooping; others mechanically repeated the actions of clicking and turning pages, their eyes empty and lifeless. Zhang Hui stood by the window, watching the distant streetlights cast mottled shadows in the morning mist, and suddenly remembered the clump of dark red soil under the deceased's fingernails—now lying in a petri dish in the laboratory, awaiting an answer that would never come.

As the morning light pierced the clouds, the 37 computers in the archives finally completed all their searches. The whiteboard was densely covered with new records, all of which were then crossed out in red pen. Zhang Hui's shirt was already soaked with sweat, and salt stains were clinging to the collar: "That's enough for now. Take a three-hour break, and we'll continue checking the missing persons databases of surrounding cities at nine o'clock."

The team members dragged their weary steps away, leaving behind a mess of instant noodle boxes and empty coffee cups. Zhang Hui sat alone at his computer, reopening the autopsy report of the unidentified male corpse. The faded ring mark on the deceased's left ring finger stood out starkly in the photograph, as if silently questioning: Who are you? And why are you lying alone beneath the soil of the demolition area?
The blinds in the conference room cut the morning light into sharp strips, casting it obliquely onto the long table covered with photos and case files. Lu Chuan twirled his red and blue marker, his gaze sweeping over the bloodshot eyes and wrinkled uniforms of his team members. The sound of tapping on the whiteboard was particularly clear in the silence: "Second case analysis meeting. Putting aside fatigue and frustration, we now need a breakthrough new approach."

Yang Lin stood up first, the projector lit up, and a 3D model of the demolition site slowly rotated, each piece of rubble marked with a number. "The excavation pit is 2.3 meters long, 1.5 meters wide, and 0.8 meters deep. Soil stratification shows that the time of burial of the body basically matches the time of death estimated by the forensic doctor." He pointed a laser pointer to the fluorescent reaction area in the virtual scene, "Mixed residues of engine oil and paint were detected here, but the composition is consistent with commonly used materials at demolition sites, so we cannot identify the suspect." When the screen switched to a high-resolution photo of brick scratches, a slight gasp came from the back row—parallel metal scratches showed an eerie regularity under an electron microscope.

“Trace analysis experts have preliminarily determined that these scratches were caused by a high-speed rotating metal tool, possibly an angle grinder,” Yang Lin said, pulling up comparison images. “However, there were 27 angle grinders in use at the demolition site, and the wear on the grinding wheels of each machine was different. We are still comparing them one by one.” The nylon rope fiber analysis report he presented at the end was filled with dizzying amounts of data: “The rope material is ordinary industrial grade, sold in hardware stores throughout the city, but the white powder adhering to the surface has a special composition—it contains titanium dioxide and acrylic resin, which is a raw material for a certain high-end coating.”

Zhang Kai opened the autopsy report; the autopsy photos cast unsettling gray-white shadows on the screen. "The deceased suffered a fracture of the left thyroid cartilage, exhibiting typical strangulation marks from a single hand, with the force directed from the upper right to the lower left, suggesting the perpetrator was right-handed." (End of Chapter)