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

Ground surveillance footage showed it was a startled pigeon, its white feathers fluttering in the sunlight. "What a waste of excitement," Old Li stubbed out his cigarette in his empty lunchbox. "This damn surveillance camera isn't even as clear as the one in my building's hallway."

After 36 hours of continuous investigation, the fluorescent lights in the monitoring room began to flicker, and everyone's eyes were bloodshot. Wang Shuai stared at the loop of trucks coming and going on the screen and suddenly realized that for the three days before the incident, every afternoon at 3 o'clock, a man in blue overalls had been loitering at the entrance of the warehouse in Block B, his work badge number blurred by sweat.

"Check this employee ID!" He asked Xiao Zhang to zoom in on the image; the last two digits of the ID number vaguely resembled "38." The logistics park's employee roster was flipped through for the third time before a matching name was finally found: "Zhao Lei, warehouse manager of Zone B, took sick leave last week." Wang Shuai immediately had someone contact him, but the number was disconnected, and the registered address was a long-demolished bungalow.

"We found him!" Team member Xiao Wang rushed in, phone in hand. The screen showed Zhao Lei's social media account, with the latest post from the day of the incident: "Finding fortune somewhere else, don't worry." The location was a bus station in a neighboring city. By the time Wang Shuai and the others arrived, all that was left was a crumpled ticket, the seat number scratched beyond recognition by fingernails.

The clock in the monitoring room pointed to four in the morning, and the trucks on the screen were still repeating loading and unloading operations. Wang Shuai folded the investigation records into squares, aligning the corners with the cracks in the tabletop. The sixteen surveillance videotapes were spinning hot in the machine, but in the end, only three suspicious points could be marked, and all of them were proven to be coincidences or unrelated personnel.

"Let's call it a day." He grabbed his coat, the sound of the fabric rubbing together clearly in the silence. As he walked out of the monitoring room, morning mist was seeping through the gaps between the warehouses, softening the footprints they had checked the night before. Wang Shuai glanced back at the row of lit screens; each image showed countless moving figures, like a swarm of headless flies, while the one they were looking for had long since escaped this dense web.

As the car drove onto the main road, Xiao Wang suddenly pointed out the window: "Isn't that the Sunshine Technology building?" Wang Shuai looked in the direction he was pointing, and the sunlight on the glass curtain wall was dazzling. He quickly turned his face away, feeling as if something was blocking his heart—both clues had been cut off here, like ropes that had been neatly cut with scissors, without even a place to tie them back together.

The fluorescent lights in the Criminal Investigation Division's conference room buzzed with electricity. Lu Chuan slammed his enamel mug on the table, tea stains spreading across the bottom. Around the long conference table, each person had piles of case files in front of them, and cigarette butts piled high in empty tin cans. The clock on the wall pointed to nine o'clock at night, and the darkness outside the window was so thick it seemed to blend into the oppressive atmosphere inside.

"Let's start with the scene." Lu Chuan tapped the table with his fingers, his gaze sweeping over everyone. "Yang Lin, you go first."

Yang Lin opened the investigation logbook, the sound of pages turning was particularly clear in the silence: "Warehouse No. 17 in Area B is an enclosed space with an area of ​​approximately 300 square meters. There are signs of recent dismantling at the north-facing ventilation opening, and dark blue fibers were extracted. Preliminary comparison shows that the material is consistent with the 2015 workwear of Sunshine Technology. Dragging marks were found on the ground, with a length of approximately 5.8 meters, ending at the location of the body. There are imprints of electronic component packaging boxes on the edges of the drag marks."

He paused, then pulled up photos of the scene: "The capacitors, resistors, and other components scattered around the deceased are all ST brand, exactly the same electronic components used by Ren Tao's company. On the packaging box of capacitor number 087, half a blurry size 42 rubber shoe print was extracted, with serrated texture and moderate wear. No matching item was found in the database."

"Any further findings on the fibers in the vents?" Lu Chuan pressed. "The technical department is conducting spectral analysis," Yang Lin adjusted his glasses. "The preliminary assessment is that it's a cotton-polyester blend containing trace amounts of silicone, possibly remnants from the elastic band of the work uniform cuffs. In addition, fragments of a surveillance hard drive were found in the northeast corner of the warehouse, with burn marks on the edges, likely caused by high-temperature equipment damage; no usable data could be recovered."

Zhang Kai took over the conversation and projected the autopsy report onto the screen: "The deceased was male, aged 39±2 years, and 175 cm tall. The cause of death was determined to be mechanical asphyxiation due to strangulation, with a fracture of the greater horn of the hyoid bone and a fracture of the ossification center of the superior horn of the thyroid cartilage, consistent with typical strangulation characteristics. There was a 3.5 cm round blunt force wound on the back of the head with irregular edges and tissue contusions, which should have been caused by a metallic weapon, but was not fatal."

He switched to the skeletal images: "There are traces of an old oblique fracture in the left humerus, presumably formed when the person was 20-25 years old, and it healed well. There is a ring-shaped indentation on the second joint of the left ring finger, suggesting that the person wore a ring for a long time, but the reason for its loss is unknown. The gastric contents test showed that the deceased died about 4 hours after his last meal. Titanium alloy fragments were found in the food chyme, presumably remnants from the hip replacement surgery."

"Any progress in the missing persons comparison?" Lu Chuan asked Zhang Hui.

Zhang Hui rubbed his red eyes, his voice weary: "We checked more than 1000 missing persons records. There were 17 people who met the criteria of 'male around 39 years old, working in the electronics industry, and with a history of hip replacement.' After contacting and verifying them one by one, all of them were ruled out. Among them, 3 people have been confirmed to be working in other places, 7 people cannot be contacted but their families deny that they are missing, and the household registration information of the remaining 7 people has changed, which is being further verified."

He sighed: "We've also checked with Sunshine Technology. No one from the company has gone missing recently, and the employee roster doesn't match the deceased's characteristics, so we've temporarily ruled out any connection. However, the company did have business dealings with Sunshine Technology in 2015, mainly involving the purchase of electronic components."

Wang Shuai spread the surveillance screenshots across half the table, pointing to the silver-gray van in the image: "The logistics park's surveillance footage revealed three suspicious points. First, the figure in the dark blue hoodie in the early morning of the day before the incident, carrying a tool bag, and wearing shoes matching the deceased's, but their whereabouts could not be traced; second, the silver-gray van with a fake license plate, Liaoning A72XXX, which disappeared after entering the urban village on the day of the incident, and the owner's information was forged; third, Zhao Lei, the warehouse manager of Zone B, whose employee ID number ended in '38,' took leave on the day of the incident, and his social media accounts showed that he had left the city, and his whereabouts were unknown."

"Have you investigated Zhao Lei's background?" Lu Chuan pressed.

“I checked,” Wang Shuai said in a heavy tone. “His household registration information shows that he is an orphan, his adoptive parents died early, and he joined the logistics park three years ago after leaving Sunshine Technology, where he was in charge of warehouse management in Zone B. His bank statements show that he received an anonymous remittance every month, ranging from 5000 to 8000 yuan, for two years. The remittance account has been cancelled.”

A brief silence fell over the meeting room, broken only by the wisps of smoke rising from the cigarette butts in the ashtray. (End of Chapter)