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

The excluded items piled up like a gray mountain in the system, each one like a spark that had briefly ignited a fleeting hope in everyone's eyes. Li Bing lit a cigarette in the moonlight outside the window. The lighter clicked three times before it lit, the orange flame flickering on his stubble-covered face, illuminating the weariness in his wrinkles. "I find it strange, this person has no relatives or friends? He's been dead for several days and no one has reported him missing?" He exhaled a smoke ring, the smoke swirling in the blue light. "Even if he was a migrant worker, he must have some fellow villagers or coworkers, right?" Zhang Hui flipped through the deceased's clothing list, the mouse hovering over the words "blue polyester work clothes, tool marks on the left breast pocket": "Look at this work clothes, there's a rectangular crease on the left breast, like he always carried some tools, probably a driver or a repairman."

At 2:30 a.m., the information system suddenly popped up a notification box, and thirty-one suspected matching results poured out like a swarm of fish, finally stirring the deathly silence in the analysis room. Xiao Lin's eyes lit up instantly, and most of his drowsiness vanished: "The system uses height, age, and physical labor characteristics for weighted filtering, and the matching degree is over 75%." His fingers slid rapidly across the touchpad, switching between photos on the screen one by one. "Let's go through them one by one. Better to be wrong than wrong." The first one, "Sun Hao," a deliveryman, matched the height but was six years younger; the second one, "Zhou Jian," a chef, had a right-hand injury but no tool marks on his left chest; the third one, "Wu Liang," a construction worker, matched all the characteristics but had been imprisoned for fraud six months ago and was still serving his sentence.

“This system is smart my ass,” Li Bing dragged the third result into the exclusion bar, the mouse cursor leaving an afterimage on the screen. “They even include inmates? Are the programmers idiots?” He scratched his fingernail on the “manual labor” label, then suddenly stopped. “Wait, the forensic doctor said there are calluses on the palms and tool marks on the left chest, so it’s probably someone who drives frequently, like a truck driver or a ride-hailing driver.” Zhang Hui’s eyes lit up, and he immediately adjusted the search criteria, adding “driver,” “freight,” and “ride-hailing” to the keywords. The system’s loading progress bar crawled slowly, eventually re-filtering twelve results, among which the name “Zhang Guojun” attracted everyone’s attention like a magnet.

“Zhang Guojun, 40 years old, Lalamove driver,” Xiao Lin read the information, his voice trembling slightly with excitement. “Height 175cm, ID photo shows single eyelids, habitually wears a ballpoint pen and notebook on his left chest, with obvious pressure marks. He disappeared after taking a ride on the evening of September 10th and has not returned.” He placed Zhang Guojun’s ID photo and the skull reconstruction provided by the forensic doctor side by side, splitting the screen in two. The two faces had strikingly similar features: high brow bones, flat noses, and even the barely noticeable mole on the corner of their mouths was in the same spot. Li Bing suddenly slapped his thigh, almost tipping the chair over: “That’s him! Look at those brow bones, the brow peaks are so prominent, and those protruding ears!”

Zhang Hui frowned, staring at the close-up of the hand in the photo, zooming in on the details on the screen: "The system says there's an old scar on the right index finger, but the deceased's finger was freshly severed. Furthermore, Zhang Guojun disappeared on the evening of September 10th, and our estimated time of death is between 8 PM and midnight on September 10th. The timing matches perfectly, but we need to see more detailed characteristics." He pulled up Zhang Guojun's pre-employment medical examination report. "Blood type A, consistent with the deceased's blood type; and this," he pointed to the "Special Marks" section in the personal information, "There's a 0.5cm diameter black mole on the left scapula, not mentioned in the forensic report, but it might have been covered by clothing during the autopsy."

This discovery sent a jolt through his weary nerves. Xiao Lin immediately contacted the Lalamove platform: "Check Zhang Guojun's order route on September 10th!" Li Bing flipped through Zhang Guojun's attendance records. The last pickup time on September 9th was 10:25 PM, and the work uniform was registered as "blue polyester work clothes, number 158," perfectly matching the color and style of the deceased's clothing. "And this," he pointed to a work accident record, "last year while delivering goods, his right index finger was bitten by a customer's dog, leaving a scar—this perfectly matches the location of the deceased's broken right index fingernail!"

Just then, Lalamove called back: "Zhang Guojun's order list for September 10th shows that the last order was for Building 3 of Anju Community, with a delivery time of 7:30 pm. He hasn't accepted any new orders since then, and his location on the app has disappeared within Anju Community." Zhang Hui's gaze fell on Zhang Guojun's vehicle information: "His white van is still parked in the parking lot at the east gate of Anju Community. It hasn't moved since 11 pm on September 10th!" Xiao Lin suddenly noticed that Zhang Guojun's emergency contact was his wife, Liu Fang, and the phone number showed that the location was in the same city.

At 6:30 a.m., Zhang Hui dialed Liu Fang's number. The snoring on the other end suddenly stopped. "Who is it? In the middle of the night..." Liu Fang's voice was hoarse from a hangover, mixed with the breathy sounds of yawning. When she heard the words "Zhang Guojun" and "corpse," she suddenly burst into tears: "My husband has been missing for three days! I thought he went to deliver goods on a long-distance route... He had a scar on his right index finger from a dog bite, and he always carried a pen and delivery slips in his left breast pocket. Last week he said his work clothes pocket was worn out and needed replacing..."

The chain of events closed slowly in the darkness before dawn. Zhang Hui instructed the technical department to retrieve Zhang Guojun's DNA file, which he had kept when he joined the company, for urgent comparison with the deceased's biological samples. Li Bing stared blankly at Zhang Guojun's delivery route map: "On the evening of September 10th, he finished his last delivery and headed towards the truck. Something must have happened in the neighborhood," he pointed to a red dot on the route map, "from Building 3 to the East Gate parking lot, right past the water tank." Xiao Lin was already investigating Zhang Guojun's social connections. "He's been chasing a customer for unpaid delivery fees recently. The customer is a building materials store owner named Li Qiang. The two of them had an argument on the phone last week."

At exactly seven o'clock in the morning, the sky outside the window was turning a pale white, and the first rays of dawn filtered through the gaps in the blinds, casting long, thin patches of light on the floor. Xiao Wang from the technical department pushed open the door, holding a freshly printed report, the edges of the pages still warm from the printer. "The comparison results are in," he said, handing the report to Zhang Hui, his voice weary from staying up all night. "The probability of parentage is greater than 99.99%, the deceased is Zhang Guojun." Zhang Hui slammed the report on the table with a "thud," startling Xiao Lin awake. The morning light fell directly on the three characters "Zhang Guojun," casting golden stripes and ripples, as if gilding the name with a halo. (End of Chapter)