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

When the notification popped up indicating successful delivery, he seemed to see the woman waiting for her husband's return at the freight company entrance, finally freed from her heavy shackles. The motion-activated lights in the hallway still flickered, illuminating the path to the truth, and also illuminating the humanity distorted by greed and anger.

As the police car carrying Wang Baokai stopped at the entrance to the firebreak road in the southern suburbs, morning mist was seeping out from the camphor tree grove, turning the tires of the police car white. Two officers helped him out of the car, the shackles reflecting a cold light in the morning light, each step dragging a harsh "clatter" on the gravel road. His orange prison uniform stood out starkly against the lush greenery. The moment his gaze fell upon the familiar grove of trees, he suddenly trembled violently, his knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed to his knees, repeatedly muttering, "It's here...it's here..."

Zhang Hui stood by the cordon, the crime scene investigation record in his hand worn through from repeated reading. "Start identifying from where you entered the woods." His voice was calm, yet carried an undeniable force. His gaze swept over Wang Baokai's pale face—the interrogation last night had left dark blue bruises under his eyes, the wear and tear on the edges of the size 44 shoe print found at the scene revealing an undeniable exhaustion.

Wang Baokai's trembling finger pointed to the steep slope beside the firebreak, where ferns still bore traces of fallen foliage, perfectly matching the "2-square-meter area of ​​fallen ferns" recorded in the on-site investigation. "I parked the car on the firebreak and climbed down from here," his Adam's apple bobbed, sweat dripping from his chin onto the front of his prison uniform, "carrying a black backpack containing a wrench, a half-empty bottle of water, and that trekking pole..." He suddenly stopped, staring at a rock on the slope, where fresh scratches on the rock surface were embedded with dark blue fibers—technicians extracted and compared them on the spot, finding them to be completely consistent with the fabric composition of his work pants, and also matching the fiber samples found during the on-site investigation.

Walking about 30 meters along the fallen ferns, Wang Baokai suddenly stopped. A circle drawn with white chalk remained on the humus at his feet. "I met him here," he said, his voice trembling with tears, his toes pointing to the center of the circle. "He was wearing that fluorescent green windbreaker, holding a camera, and when he saw me, he yelled, 'You dare come here again!'..." On the pine trunks surrounding the circle, there was a 1.2-meter-high scratch, highly consistent with the "suspected camera collision mark" recorded in the on-site investigation. The silvery-white metallic powder remaining in the scratch matched the aluminum alloy material of Li Jianfeng's camera.

"How did the conflict happen?" Zhang Hui's laser pointer drew a straight line between the pine tree and the boulder 5 meters in front of him. The beam pierced through the morning mist, illuminating the faintly visible size 44 shoe prints on the ground. Wang Baokai suddenly squatted down, imitating the action at the time: "He threw the camera on the ground and then pushed me," his right hand swung forward sharply, "I took two steps back and took out a wrench from my bag..." The position he pointed to was the area where the "dense size 44 shoe prints" were found during the on-site investigation. The pressure distribution on the outer forefoot of the shoe prints was completely consistent with his confession of "shifting his center of gravity when stepping backward."

As Wang Baokai walked behind the boulder, his breathing suddenly quickened. The human figure drawn on the ground with white chalk was still clearly visible, the dark red stains around the edges gleaming bluish-black in the morning light—marks left by Li Jianfeng's blood seeping into the humus. "I hit him right here," his voice trembled, his finger pointing shakily to the left side of the outline's chest, "He pushed me, so I raised the wrench and smashed it down, right here..."

This location perfectly matched the precise points of "fracture of the 4th and 5th ribs on the left side" and "rupture of the left ventricle" stated in the forensic autopsy report. Zhang Hui had technicians measure the angle between the wrench and the ground; "45 degrees," perfectly matching the "blunt impact angle" deduced from the on-site investigation, and also consistent with the angle of inclination of the edge of Li Jianfeng's left chest wound. Scattered among the fallen leaves next to the human-shaped outline were three 6205 model bearings, one of which had fresh impact marks on its raceway, the shape of which perfectly corroborated Wang Baokai's confession of "bearing collision caused by the wrench strike."

"What did you do after he fell?" Zhang Hui's gaze fell on the drag mark extending from the human silhouette into the depths of the dense forest. The 30-centimeter-wide mark resembled a twisted snake in the morning mist, perfectly matching the "bloody drag mark" recorded in the crime scene investigation. Wang Baokai's eyes followed the drag mark, then he suddenly covered his face: "He lay motionless on the ground, his eyes wide open. I was terrified, so I grabbed his arm and dragged him in..." He gestured the dragging motion, "...to behind that thicket of bushes, and covered him with leaves..."

Near the bushes where the drag marks ended, there was a 50-centimeter-long scratch mark on a tree trunk, the height of which matched Li Jianfeng's height. The fluorescent green fibers in the scratch mark, after testing, were consistent with the nylon 66 composition of his down jacket, perfectly matching the "clothing scratch marks" recorded in the on-site investigation. In the humus soil under the bushes, technicians extracted several size 44 shoe prints at the time. The direction of the shoe toes was consistent with Wang Baokai's confession of "backing away to cover up the scene." The soil around the shoe prints also contained a small amount of pine needles—the same type of pine needles that were stuck to the cuffs of his prison uniform trousers.

When pointing out how he disposed of the murder weapon, Wang Baokai pointed to a low-lying area behind the boulder. "I rubbed the wrench here, trying to wipe off the blood," he said, tracing a friction mark on the ground with his palm, "but I didn't get it clean, so I put it in my bag and took it away..." On the surface of the rock in the low-lying area, there was a fresh metallic friction mark. Tests showed that the residual iron content matched the material of the wrench found in his residence, and the width of the friction mark also matched the thickness of the wrench.

When pointing out the escape route, Wang Baokai quickened his pace noticeably, seemingly eager to leave the woods. "I went back the way I came," he said, pointing to the firebreak above the steep slope, "and when I got to the car, I found my trekking pole was broken, so I threw the broken piece into the roadside bushes..." The bushes he pointed to were the very spot where the "bloodstained half of a trekking pole" was found during the on-site investigation. DNA testing confirmed that the bloodstains on the tip of the pole belonged to Li Jianfeng, and the shape of the break matched perfectly with another piece of the trekking pole found in Wang Baokai's bag.

As the escorts prepared to take him away, Wang Baokai suddenly broke free from the officers' grasp, turned back to look at the bushes shrouded in morning mist, and let out a suppressed sob. "I really didn't mean to kill him..." His voice echoed in the woods, ironically echoing the scene investigation record's "no obvious signs of struggle, consistent with the characteristics of a sudden attack," and corroborating the forensic report's conclusion of "a single fatal wound, with no secondary injuries"—this murder case, which began with a two-thousand-yuan shipping fee, ultimately revealed its most gruesome truth through the meticulous attention to every detail.

As Zhang Hui closed the investigation log, the morning mist had just dissipated, and sunlight filtered through the gaps in the camphor tree leaves, casting dappled light on the human-shaped outline on the ground. Those previously scattered clues—the bloodstained wrench, the broken trekking pole, the size 44 shoe print, the drag marks—now, with Wang Baokai's identification, perfectly matched the details of the crime scene investigation and forensic autopsy, like a reassembled lock finally finding the key to lock it. (End of Chapter)