The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 253 The Victim's Appearance
"You're crazy." Qi Dongjun did not back down, uttering the four words that would most hurt Xi He.

But this time, those words failed to enrage Xi He. He suddenly grinned and laughed, laughing until his voice gradually became distorted. Suddenly, the laughter stopped, and only a chilling malice remained on his face: "I'm a madman, then what about Qi Fei? Is he normal? A child who grew up in a filtered world, is he normal?"

No one knows better than you that I'm not the one who's gone mad, it's all of you, it's you! I'll show Qi Fei that the light he sees is all an illusion!
-
The clock on the wall of the Criminal Investigation Division of Nancheng Police Station showed that it was already 1 a.m.

The investigation over the past few days has left everyone exhausted, but half of the time given by Xi He has already passed, and no one dares to rest. They are still working hard to sort out the clues collected so far.

On the whiteboard, Qi Fei's marker moved about, the relationships between the characters were intricate. He repeatedly circled the names of two people—Xi Ziyun and Feng Yongshou—and these two people both pointed to an unknown person, that small, mysterious man.

However, aside from Feng Yongshou's ambiguous descriptions and Xu Tong's vague glimpse, the only person who might know this person's identity...

Qi Fei thought for a moment, then drew another arrow from the mysterious man and wrote the three characters "Qi Dong County" on the other end.

“According to Xu Tong’s recollection, this person had close ties with Qi Dongjun’s business. Now that Xi Ziyun and Feng Yongshou are both dead, the only one who knows this person’s identity is Qi Dongjun.” Qi Fei said, looking at everyone present.

It was rare for Liu Tong to stay with them so late at night. He held a thermos in both hands, and his expression was very different from usual. It turned out that the smile that seemed to always be in his eyes could disappear.

"Not necessarily. The old method may not be creative, but it works," Liu Tong said. "A woman who is about 1.6 meters tall, slender, and runs a clothing business. With these three elements combined, it's not impossible to find a missing person in Nancheng."

Wu Shanqiu shifted a couple of times in her wheeled office chair and moved closer to Liu Tong: "Captain Liu, we've done a preliminary comparison and haven't found anyone who matches the criteria. We're just worried that the family didn't report the missing person, and we won't be able to find any records here."

“Maybe we can try a different approach,” Zhong Kui suddenly said. She walked over to Qi Fei, took the marker from his hand, and drew several radiating lines around the mysterious man, with a question mark at the other end of each line.

Amidst everyone's puzzled gazes, she tapped the whiteboard and said, "Don't forget, this person is in business. A characteristic of business people is that they come into contact with many people, especially those related to their business. That order back then was enough for Qi Dongjun to make his fortune, which means this person definitely has far more resources in the industry than Qi Dongjun. Qi Dongjun was her last client, but not her first." She sneered, "Back then, there weren't as many people in the clothing business as there are now. The probability of people knowing each other was very high. If someone in the industry suddenly disappears, someone will definitely remember them."

"You mean we need to find those people who did clothing business in Nancheng back then and ask them?" Qi Fei asked, then questioned, "That's no less difficult than finding missing persons."

“Zhong Kui makes a good point. The business model was completely different 27 years ago. I remember there was a clothing wholesale market in Nancheng back then, and almost everyone in Nancheng who did clothing business did so there.” Liu Tong agreed with Zhong Kui’s statement.

“Among the veterans of Dongjun Industry that Lu Man has found, there must be someone who can contact these people from back then,” Zhong Kui said confidently.
-
All morning, the criminal investigation team members were making phone calls, contacting the clothing store owners from back then, whom they had obtained through Xu Tong and his associates.

At Zhong Kui's suggestion, each time a name resembling a missing person was obtained, it was written on the same whiteboard. As more and more people were contacted, one name gradually appeared more and more frequently, eventually precipitously surpassing the others. Qi Fei, his eyes bloodshot, stared at this name and murmured, "Li Yang'er?"

Wu Shanqiu, holding her notebook, said, "We've gathered information from the clothing store owners. This Li Yang'er is a client of many of them, frequently purchasing large quantities of clothing. She's supposedly in the foreign trade business. She's an anomaly in the clothing market. People in this industry generally don't have high levels of education, but Li Yang'er is an exception. She's a top student from Nancheng University, and some people have heard her talking to foreigners in fluent English on the phone."

Indeed, Li Yang'er disappeared 27 years ago. Currently, at least five clothing store owners have said they received deposits from Li Yang'er but haven't come to pick up their goods.

Upon hearing this, Qi Fei's thoughts inexplicably drifted to another place—in Feng Yongshou's fabricated story, the thin, mysterious man placed an order for urns containing ashes but never came to pick them up—perhaps Feng Yongshou unconsciously mixed what he knew into his lies, without even realizing it himself.

Wu Shanqiu, who was standing to the side, continued, "As for why Li Yang'er did not appear in the missing persons record, we also know that before she disappeared, Li Yang'er had told several familiar clothing store owners that she planned to go abroad after making a big profit, so after she went missing, everyone assumed that she had immigrated."

The funniest thing is that these people made wild guesses and even misled Li Yang'er's family. It's said that later, some people claiming to be Li Yang'er's family came to the clothing market to inquire about her whereabouts, and they actually said she had gone abroad.

Li Yang'er is not a local; she's from Baicheng. We have already notified the Baicheng police and asked them to assist in contacting Li Yang'er's family.

As she was talking, her phone vibrated twice.

She opened it and immediately handed it to Qi Fei: "This is Li Yang'er's household registration photo that just came from Baicheng."

The woman in the photo has short hair, a hairstyle popular among powerful women in the millennium.

His eyes were long and narrow with upturned corners, and his face was thin. The features seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't quite place where that feeling came from.

"Hmm? Fox-like eyes and thin cheeks, shrewd and calculating, hardworking and prone to early death." Zhong Kui's voice suddenly came from behind them, startling Qi Fei and Wu Shanqiu.

"Damn, how do you manage to walk in high heels without making a sound?" Qi Fei complained.

Zhong Kui didn't respond to him, but instead stretched out her slender, fair fingers and pointed at Li Yang'er's photo: "This woman looks about five-tenths like the clay sculpture at Wong Tai Sin Temple. No wonder Feng Yongshou said that Wong Tai Sin killed someone."