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

The autopsy lasted nearly four hours, and Zhang Kai's back was already soaked with sweat. By the time he finished the last record and placed the deceased's organs back into the body cavity one by one, the night outside the window was already deep. "The suturing uses the continuous locking suture method," he said as he operated, "paying attention to keeping the skin aligned neatly; this is the final respect for the deceased."

Stepping out of the autopsy room, Zhang Kai removed his goggles, the fog on the lenses leaving watermarks on the glass surface. He looked at the preliminary report in his hand; the time of death, cause of death, and age were all clear, but the deceased's identity remained a mystery. The clues extracted from the teeth, bones, and internal organs awaited piecing together with other evidence to ultimately reconstruct the life trajectory of this stranger.

In the electronic archives room of the Criminal Investigation Division, the irritating hum of the air conditioner's outdoor unit mingled with the incessant clatter of keyboards, creating a somber symphony. Zhang Hui stood before the whiteboard, circling the victim's features heavily in red: age 45-50, height 178cm, right-handed, depressed occipital fracture, cricoid cartilage fracture, electrical cord marks on the left wrist, and remnants of dark blue polyester clothing. "Tonight, we must sift through the missing persons system to find someone who matches the criteria," his voice resolute and unwavering. "Everyone, stay alert; any detail could be a breakthrough."

The team members took their positions, and twenty computer screens lit up simultaneously, the cold blue and white light illuminating their tired faces. Intern Xiaolin stared at the densely packed spreadsheets in front of her and couldn't help but complain, "There are 8762 missing persons records in the city over the past three years. How long will it take to find them all? There are over 1300 entries just matching the age and height!" Her fingers mechanically slid across the keyboard; each page refresh required enduring a ten-second system freeze. During the wait, she could only stare blankly at the spinning loading icon on the screen.

Veteran detective Zhou pushed up his reading glasses, his bloodshot eyes scrunching up the screen: "Don't just look at the electronic files; we still need to go through the paper files for records before 2019." He opened a filing cabinet, the yellowed documents emitting a musty smell. "These handwritten registrations are full of typos; some even mix up birth dates." As he spoke, he carefully unfolded a crumpled registration form, the handwriting on it flamboyant: "Zhang San, male, approximately 45 years old, height around 175 cm," even the specific values ​​were blurry, making the comparison work even more difficult.

“Focus on men who have gone missing within the last month,” Zhang Hui paced back and forth in the corridor. “The deceased was neatly dressed and showed no signs of long-term homelessness, so it’s likely he was murdered recently.” But when technician Da Liu filtered the data according to the new criteria, 376 records still appeared. “This system needs an upgrade,” Da Liu complained, frantically typing on the keyboard, trying to speed up the lagging page. “It crashes every time I enter multiple filter criteria; all the progress I made in the investigation just now has been wasted!”

Time ticked by, and at two in the morning, the atmosphere in the office grew increasingly oppressive. The coffee pot was long gone, instant noodle containers piled high, and the air was thick with the mingled smells of smoke, sweat, and the bitterness of instant coffee. The team members' eyelids grew heavier, and their typing became increasingly sluggish. Xiaolin stared at a blurry ID photo, practically pressing her face against the screen: "You can't even make out the features in this photo, yet the system requires facial comparison—isn't this just making things difficult?" She tried adjusting the image clarity, but the noise only worsened, forcing her to skip the record in frustration.

Old Zhou flipped through his thick notebook, then suddenly stopped. "This one looks a bit like him, a 48-year-old truck driver who went missing a month ago." He turned the screen to Zhang Hui. "But the records don't mention fractures or clothing fibers, and he's left-handed." Zhang Hui carefully examined the data, then shook his head. "The height doesn't match, and he was wearing a gray jacket when he went missing. Keep searching." The spark of hope was quickly extinguished. Old Zhou sighed in disappointment and continued burying himself in the massive amount of data.

After much effort, Da Liu restored the system and started screening again. "After filtering according to the new criteria, there are still 237 entries left," he said wearily, "but most of them don't have complete descriptions of physical characteristics." He randomly clicked on a record, and the page only had a few simple lines of text: "Male, about 50 years old, went missing at XX vegetable market, wearing a dark coat." Such ambiguous information made the comparison work like finding a needle in a haystack.

At four in the morning, drowsiness washed over her like a tide. Xiao Lin nearly hit her head on the keyboard, jolted awake, rubbed her eyes, and continued working. Lao Zhou chain-smoked, the ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, but still couldn't shake off the sleepiness. Zhang Hui looked at everyone's exhausted state, feeling physically and mentally drained himself, but he knew he couldn't give up: "Just a little longer, let's finish the last round of screenings before dawn."

As the morning light gradually reddened the windowpanes, the team members had been working continuously for ten hours. The whiteboard was covered with sticky notes, marking 53 suspected records, all of which were ultimately crossed out due to various discrepancies. Zhang Hui looked at the exhausted team, a hint of helplessness in his voice: "Let's rest first. It seems the deceased isn't in the existing missing persons database. We need to re-examine the clues and look for breakthroughs in other directions." The office door opened, letting in the morning sunlight, but it couldn't dispel the pervasive sense of defeat. This battle against massive amounts of data ultimately ended in failure, but Zhang Hui knew the road to finding the truth was long, and they couldn't stop.

At 8:00 AM the next morning, the blinds in the Criminal Investigation Division's conference room cut the morning light into narrow strips, slanting down onto the case files in front of Lu Chuan. The ashtray was piled high with cigarette butts, and the sound of his knuckles tapping the table was particularly clear in the silence: "36 hours after the incident, now lay out all the fragments." His gaze swept over the people sitting around him; everyone's eyes were bloodshot from staying up all night, and the coffee cups on the table were already empty.

Yang Lin switched the projector to the 3D model of the top floor of the Haorui Building, and the red dot of the laser pointer stopped at the location of the elevator machine room: "The scene was severely damaged, and the maintenance personnel caused secondary pollution when they entered, but three types of key physical evidence were still extracted." He pulled up the hydraulic oil test report, "The hydraulic oil on the floor of the elevator machine room contains special anti-wear additives, which are consistent with the composition of the residue in the deceased's fingernails, indicating that the deceased had been in contact with the hydraulic device before his death."

“More importantly, this.” Yang Lin zoomed in on the photo of the ventilation duct; a brown hair held by tweezers was faintly visible in the evidence bag. “Preliminary DNA comparison ruled out property management staff; there were signs of tearing at the hair follicle root, possibly indicating it was pulled out during an argument.” (End of Chapter)