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

The neighbor said, "This child has been timid since he was a child. He wouldn't dare to say a word even if he was bullied. Before his adoptive mother passed away, she held my hand and said that she was afraid he would suffer injustice outside."

The most crucial evidence came from the logistics park's attendance system. Wang Shuai retrieved the access control records from the day of the incident. Zhao Lei's work badge had been swiped at the exit at 7:03 AM, while warehouse surveillance showed that the man wearing a baseball cap didn't appear in Zone B until 7:15 AM—this thirteen-minute difference was enough for him to leave the logistics park, but it was impossible for him to be in the warehouse at the same time committing the crime.

“And this,” Xiao Zhang slammed the fiber testing report on the table, “the dark blue fibers in the vents contain polyester fibers, while Zhao Lei’s work clothes are pure cotton, so the composition doesn’t match.” He pointed to the spectrum in the report, “and the machine oil on the fibers is the same type used in Hongtu Technology’s trucks.”

When Wang Shuai peeled Zhao Lei's photo off the whiteboard, glue left a faint mark on the wall. The rain outside the window had stopped, and moonlight shone through the clouds onto the diagnosis report on the table. The words "severe depression" gleamed coldly under the lamplight. He suddenly remembered Zhao Lei's last post on his social media account, which featured a picture of rice paddies in Nanping Town and the caption, "Want to plant something, don't want to assemble parts anymore."

"Excluded from suspicion." Wang Shuai stamped the file with his red seal, the ink spreading across the paper like a flower that had withered before it bloomed. While packing up, Xiao Zhang accidentally knocked Zhao Lei's work jacket off, and a crumpled piece of paper fell out of the pocket. It read in pencil: "The capacitors in the warehouse have incorrect serial numbers; three are missing."

Wang Shuai walked to the window, clutching the note. There should be a few lights shining in the direction of Nanping Town at this moment. The young man counting electronic components in the warehouse, the young man crying in the hotel saying "I didn't do it," were ultimately just passersby in this mystery. The real clues were hidden behind the missing capacitors, hidden in the birthmark on the wrist of the man wearing the baseball cap.

While Wang Shuai's investigation was stalled, Zhang Hui made a new discovery.

The iron door to the municipal hospital's archives groaned with rust. Dust billowed in the beam of light as Zhang Hui pushed it open, choking him and causing him to cough repeatedly. This was the seventh hospital they'd visited. From the orthopedic outpatient department to the inpatient ward, and then to the medical records room, they were searching through a pile of forgotten old newspapers, hoping to find that crucial name among the yellowed pages.

"Retrieve all the hip replacement surgery records from 2018 to 2023." Zhang Hui slammed his police ID on the reception desk, the plastic cover leaving shallow scratches on the dusty surface. A nurse came over carrying a stack of blue-covered files, the clanging of metal rings particularly jarring in the quiet room: "There were over three hundred cases last year alone. You can look through them yourselves."

Xiao Li squatted on the ground, his fingers tracing the names on the case file, his fingertips quickly becoming stained with black ink. "Brother Hui, when will this ever end?" he rubbed his aching neck, his cervical spine cracking. "How can we match names together? Besides, who knows which hospital he had surgery at?" As soon as he finished speaking, the case file in his hand suddenly slipped to the ground, revealing an X-ray film among the scattered pages, with the name circled in red in the lower right corner—Zhang Kaiqi.

"Wait!" Zhang Hui lunged forward and pressed down on the medical record page, his heart pounding in his chest. The record showed that Zhang Kaiqi, male, 39 years old, underwent left hip replacement surgery at the Municipal Hospital in March 2022, with Director Liu as the chief surgeon. "Check this person's social security records," he shouted into the walkie-talkie, his voice trembling, "See if he's an employee of Sunshine Technology!" The technical department's reply struck the archives like a thunderbolt: "Zhang Kaiqi joined Sunshine Technology in 2015 and resigned in July 2024, with his social security payments interrupted until now. His household registration information shows a height of 175 centimeters, which perfectly matches the autopsy data!" Xiao Li suddenly remembered something, pulled out the skull reconstruction diagram of the deceased, and compared it with the one-inch photo on the medical record—the height of the brow bone, the angle of the jawline, even the mole behind the left ear, were all exactly the same.

When we found the lead surgeon, Dr. Liu, he was in the operating room preparing for the next surgery. The moment he took off his mask, sweat was still dripping down his forehead: "Zhang Kaiqi? I remember him. He didn't recover very well. He kept complaining of joint pain after the surgery." He pointed to the 3D reconstruction image on the computer, "He used an imported titanium alloy prosthesis, the model is Stryker Trident. This type of prosthesis has a particularly low wear rate, and the characteristics of the fragments left in the body are very obvious."

These words put Zhang Hui's mind at ease. The titanium alloy fragments extracted from the deceased's body by forensic doctor Zhang Kai showed characteristic wear marks of this model. "He came for a follow-up examination before resigning," Director Liu said, pulling up the medical records. "He said he was going to develop his career in the south, but his tone was rather vague, not like a normal resignation."

In Sunshine Technology's personnel file, Zhang Kaiqi's resume looks dated. The man in the photo is wearing a white shirt, with the employee ID number "YG-073" on his chest, and his eyes are somewhat wary. The reason for leaving is listed as "personal development," but the handover record shows that the electronic component procurement project he was in charge of was suddenly interrupted, and the colleague who took over wrote in the remarks that "the accounts are chaotic and there are many discrepancies."

“Zhang Kaiqi is a very withdrawn person,” said Sister Wang, a former colleague, as she held her coffee cup in the coffee shop, the steam blurring her glasses. “He suddenly stopped coming to work last summer, leaving his things at his workstation untouched, with half a box of stomach medicine still there.” She suddenly lowered her voice. “I heard he had a fight with the vice president, Zhao Wei, because the wrong type of capacitors they purchased almost delayed production.”

Zhang Hui pulled up Zhang Kaiqi's bank statements and discovered a strange pattern: every month on the 15th, a remittance of 5000 yuan would be deposited into his account, originating from a private account. But this money stopped after he resigned last July. "Investigate this remitter," he pointed to the name on the screen, "Zhao Wei, vice president of Sunshine Technology."

The more crucial discovery was hidden in Zhang Kaiqi's medical records. During his last follow-up visit, he complained to Director Liu that "someone has been following me lately," and also said that "the parts in the warehouse have been tampered with." At the time, the doctor thought it was just post-operative anxiety and didn't take it seriously. Now, looking back, how much unspoken fear was hidden in those words?

When Zhang Hui placed Zhang Kaiqi's photo in front of forensic doctor Zhang Kai, the shadowless light in the autopsy room shone directly on the eyes in the photo. "It's him," Zhang Kai pointed to the jawline in the photo, "The angle of the mandible on the skull is exactly the same as this, and that mole behind the ear corresponds to a 0.3-centimeter depression on the skull, which is a congenital suture variation."

The deceased found in the warehouse, the man with the ring who had worked his way up in the electronics industry, finally found his name again in the archives of the seventh hospital. (End of Chapter)