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

However, after a thorough investigation, Wang Shuai discovered that the developers' dealings with Zhou Zhengming were merely normal business collaborations, and they were completely unaware of the overseas remittance. "Could we have gone in the wrong direction?" Wang Shuai stood in his office, staring at the clues about Zhou Zhengming on the whiteboard, lost in thought.

At this moment, team member Xiao Li brought new information: "Team Leader Wang, Zhou Zhengming has a clear alibi for the time period of the incident. We retrieved his dashcam footage and hotel surveillance footage. He was attending a demolition project seminar in a neighboring city at the time, and there are complete records from the afternoon until the next morning."

Wang Shuai was still uneasy, so he personally went to a neighboring city to verify the situation with the organizers and attendees of the seminar. The hotel's surveillance footage clearly showed Zhou Zhengming actively participating in the conference and frequently interacting with other participants, leaving him no opportunity to commit the crime. The attendance sheets and conference agenda provided by the organizers also proved his itinerary.

Back at the police station, Wang Shuai reviewed all the clues about Zhou Zhengming. Those things that had once seemed suspicious now had reasonable explanations. The overseas remittance might simply be a profit share from a business project he was involved in; the mysterious man loitering outside his house might just be a misunderstanding. Wang Shuai picked up the whiteboard eraser and slowly wiped away the red lines around Zhou Zhengming's name: "It seems we need to find a new direction."

Outside the window, night fell, and the city lights gradually came on. Wang Shuai stood by the window, looking at the bustling streets, and secretly vowed: no matter how faint the clues, he would not give up and would definitely find out the truth.

Lu Chuan's leather shoes crunched over the gravel at the entrance of Meida Coatings Company, kicking up fine dust. The security camera in the guardhouse followed his movements, the hum of the metal detector door sounding particularly jarring in the quiet factory entrance. He looked up at the rusty signboard; the words "Meida Coatings Technology Co., Ltd." were blurred by wind and rain, while the bronze plaque in the corner proclaiming "Model Unit for Safe Production" was dazzlingly new.

"Team Leader Lu, the business registration records show that this company should have been rectified ten years ago." Team member Xiao Li flipped through his tablet, the screen light illuminating his tense face. "All the environmental approval documents are expired, and the fire safety inspection records are full of loopholes." Before he finished speaking, a pungent smell suddenly wafted from the direction of the workshop, like benzene solvents mixed with the smell of burning rubber, making one's eyes sting.

The air conditioner in the reception room groaned in a death thud. General Manager Chen Dehai covered his trembling hands with a gold-rimmed teacup: "Officer Lu, we've always been law-abiding. We don't know where things went wrong." Behind him, photos of him with leaders at various levels filled the wall, but the tax inspection records were conspicuously missing. Lu Chuan's gaze swept over the shredder in the corner, where incompletely shredded invoice stubs still remained.

The surprise inspection began at the raw material warehouse. A forklift driver attempted to move container number "HC-2023" but was stopped by Lu Chuan. As the rusty iron door opened, a pungent smell of formaldehyde assaulted the senses. The blue plastic buckets were scribbled with "Industrial Grade Coating," but the labels on the buckets themselves indicated "Food Grade Gelatin." "Explain why food-grade raw materials are stored in a hazardous materials warehouse?" Lu Chuan's voice, like an icicle, pierced the suffocating heat of the warehouse.

In the finance office drawer, two ledgers revealed a clue. The surface accounts were clean and neat, with accounts payable and tax returns perfect; however, the ledgers in the hidden compartment were shocking—from 2022 to the present, the amount of falsely reported export tax refunds reached a staggering 1700 million yuan, and uninvoiced income was concealed deep within the accounts under the guise of "waste disposal fees." The accountant, trembling, handed over a USB drive: "It was all done at General Manager Chen's request; he said the tax authorities wouldn't be able to find it."

But when asked for clues related to the deceased, everyone remained tight-lipped. The workshop foreman wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: "I've never heard of this person. We always follow procedures here." In the monitoring room, nearly three months of video footage had been deliberately deleted. After the technicians recovered it, they found that the video files from the week of the incident showed obvious signs of editing, except for the footage of goods entering and leaving the premises.

In the staff dormitory area, Lu Chuan discovered an even more shocking secret. The iron door to the basement was welded shut, and after a cutting machine was opened, it was found to be filled with waterproof paint that had expired five years ago. A register in the corner showed that these products, which should have been destroyed, had been refilled, labeled with "environmentally certified," and sold to school projects in surrounding counties and cities. "Do you know how many children this will kill?" Lu Chuan grabbed a bucket of paint; the bucket was so thin it was almost translucent.

However, during the 72-hour investigation, evidence related to the deceased remained elusive. DNA testing revealed that the hair and bloodstains in the warehouse belonged to company employees; no unusual financial transactions were found in the financial records; and employee work schedules showed that all entrances and exits of the factory were covered by surveillance cameras during the time of the incident, with no one leaving the premises. Even the special paint found under the deceased's fingernails was confirmed to be from a three-year-old product, a model that had long been discontinued.

As Lu Chuan slammed the thick investigation report onto the municipal bureau's conference table, the torrential rain outside was pounding against the glass. "Tax evasion, counterfeiting, selling fake goods—these illegal acts are enough to give them a hard time," he said, his finger tracing the crime statistics in the report. "But the leads regarding the deceased are still zero." On the whiteboard, the red arrow that had pointed to Meida Paint was heavily crossed out, the ink spreading across the paper like an unhealed wound.

The team members slumped wearily in their chairs, the only sound the ticking of the digital clock on the wall. "Keep investigating," Lu Chuan's voice broke the silence. "There must be a connection between illegal activities and murder that we haven't discovered. Just like these falsified accounts, the truth is always hidden in the most inconspicuous details." He looked out at the rain, lightning illuminating his furrowed brow, as if foreshadowing that this battle against evil was far from over.

The musty smell mixed with the odor of ink in the hospital archives room was even more pungent under the incandescent light. Zhang Hui tugged at his sweat-soaked collar, looking at the mountain of manila envelopes in front of him, and felt a tightness in his throat. This was already the 17th hospital they had visited. In the past week, he and his team members had visited almost every medical institution in the city with registered orthopedic treatment records.

"Team Leader Zhang, the system search failed again!" Intern Xiaolin's voice was trembling with tears. The computer screen in front of her kept displaying "No matching results" messages, the cursor stubbornly blinking in the search bar. Technician Da Liu squatted on the floor, his fingers frantically typing on the portable server: "This old system crashes every few days. The data formats from all the hospitals in the city are inconsistent; even converting a PDF results in an error!" (End of Chapter)