Animal Detective

Chapter 218 Wasting Police Resources
Speculation is useless; evidence speaks for itself.

So the two of them continued their visits in the afternoon, still feeling miserable.

But still nothing was found.

Around 4 p.m., a message suddenly appeared in the group chat.

They told him to go back to the branch office, saying there had been a major change in the case.

A group of people suddenly appeared, asking what major changes had occurred.

Chen Chao's message didn't specify anything, only saying that he could come back.

"Shall we leave too?"

Shen Xin looked at Ding Yuwei.

In the middle of the day, I estimated that I visited nearly two hundred hardware stores, and my WeChat step count was already number one.

The two quickly drove back to the branch office.

When they returned, they ran into Lao Zhou and Gan Yong coming back together.

The two of them went to investigate their social connections.

Upon meeting, he asked Shen Xinzhi if she knew what was going on.

Shen Xin shook his head, then asked them what they had discovered over there, since they were supposed to be going to see Jiang Qi's doctor.

Zhou Zhongyi said, "Jiang Qi's illness is quite troublesome. It has already reached the middle and late stages. I heard that they have traveled to many places abroad and used some so-called experimental treatment methods."

"But none of them worked. Finally, I specifically asked the doctor how much longer Jiang Qi had to live."

"He said he couldn't be sure, but based on his experience, he estimated it wouldn't last more than a year, and the quality of life would be very poor."

Shen Xin nodded.

That's why the basic logic behind Bai Jifei's murder of Jiang Qi doesn't make sense.

In another scenario, if there is no hope and the wife is suffering every day, the choice would be to let her go.

That wouldn't warrant dismemberment, even if you used sleeping pills or a pillow.

Shen Xin then asked the two friends if they had made any discoveries.

Zhou Zhongyi shook his head again, saying that the two of them used to travel all over the world, but later they got sick and opened a kennel, so they became more homebodies and had to take care of Jiang Qi, so they had less contact with their friends.

Anyway, no one has seen them recently. At most, they'll send a text message or make a phone call during the Chinese New Year to ask how they are doing.

After saying this, the group returned to the office.

I didn't see anyone.

I had to ask around before I found out I was in the interrogation room.

Shen Xin hurriedly walked towards the interrogation room.

Upon entering the observation room, one finds a number of people, including Lü Youwei.

Inside, Chen Chao was interrogating someone, but not Bai Jifei. Instead, he was questioning a man with glasses, a belly, a square face, and a wide chin.

Judging by his age, he should be around the same age as Bai Jifei.

"what's the situation?"

Shen Xin moved closer to Zhao Tianxing and asked in a low voice.

Zhao Tianxing pointed to the man inside and said, "Let me tell you, this case has taken a complete 180-degree turn. You would never have imagined it."

Inside, Chen Chao asked, "So, it was Bai Jifei who asked you to find online trolls to create videos and deliberately spread news that he murdered his wife."

I rely on!

Shen Xin's eyes widened suddenly, almost thinking he was hallucinating.

Bai Jifei found the man in front of him and then spread news online that he had murdered his wife.

real or fake.

He's out of his mind, why would he do that?

If you want to go to jail, just turn yourself in. There's no need to make a scene online and leave yourself with a bad reputation for being a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Bai Jifei is sick, seriously sick.

Ding Yuwei, standing beside him, also stared wide-eyed, her face filled with disbelief.

"Brother Xing, who is this person?" she asked anxiously.

Zhao Tianxing said, "His name is Cao Rui. He is Bai Jifei's elementary and middle school classmate, best friend, and childhood friend."

"Then, when Captain Chen was investigating the newspaper office, based on the phone calls and transfer information, guess what? It turned out that the account was registered using Cao Rui's own secondary phone number."

"He didn't try to hide anything at all; even Captain Chen thought he had made a mistake."

"Then I contacted Cao Rui, and we got through to him directly. He was very polite and said he was on a business trip in Matsuura and would be back in the afternoon. But around 3 p.m., he just showed up and came over to cooperate with the investigation."

Shen Xin's eyes remained wide open.

What is going on?

Inside the interrogation room, Chen Chao continued, "Where did you get that information from the internet?"

Cao Rui sighed and said, "Officer, Lao Bai has no choice. I've tried to persuade him, but he seems a bit obsessed, stuck in a rut, and won't listen no matter what. What can I do?"

“I know this is wrong, but he came to me for help. We’ve been brothers for so many years. He was crying like that, so I had no choice but to help him.”

Chen Chao was clearly confused and said in a deep voice, "Tell me carefully, start from the beginning, what exactly did Bai Jifei ask you to help him with?"

Cao Rui sighed again and said, "The seventh day, or rather the 5th, that night, Lao Bai called me and said that Jiang Qi had left."

"and many more!"

Chen Chao hurriedly interrupted Cao Rui, asking with a strange expression, "Jiang Qi is gone?"

Wasn't he murdered?

Inside the observation room, everyone fell silent.

Cao Rui said, "He did leave. Lao Bai said he went to Songpu in the morning of the sixth day of the lunar new year. A customer contacted him online, they agreed on a purchase of a dog, and the deposit was paid. He went to deliver the dog."

"When we got to Matsuura, they said something came up and asked Lao Bai to wait a while. He waited until almost noon."

"Then the other party sent another message saying they didn't want it anymore, and they didn't want the deposit either. Lao Bai didn't think much of it and went home. But when he got home, he found that Jiang Qi was gone. She left him a letter saying she had left."

Inside the interrogation room, Chen Chao remained silent.

The colleagues responsible for taking notes were stunned and forgot to record anything.

He had clearly been dismembered, so how did he suddenly disappear on his own?

Inside the observation room, Lü Youwei immediately looked at Sun Zhao: "Sun Zhao, what's going on?"

"Director Lü, please don't ask me, my mind is also muddled right now."

Sun Zhao pointed to his head.

He saw the gruesome dismemberment scene firsthand. "Holy crap!"

At this moment, Shen Xin exclaimed in surprise.

It immediately attracted everyone's attention.

"What's wrong?" Sun Zhao turned his head and asked.

Shen Xin pointed inside.

Inside the interrogation room, Cao Rui continued, "In the letter, Jiang Qi said not to go to her, it was all nonsense. Once, she was drinking with Lao Bai, and he got drunk and even cried to me."

"She said Jiang Qi didn't want to be treated anymore, that she felt she was a burden, and that she secretly searched for information about euthanasia online."

Shen Xin pointed at Cao Rui and hurriedly said, "Director Lü, Captain Sun, could the murder scene have been staged by Bai Jifei?"

"Forged?"

Zhao Tianxing, who was standing nearby, exclaimed in surprise, "Is he crazy? He's faking the scene to make himself the murderer!"

"Yes, that's what it means!"

Shen Xin's mind went blank as if struck by lightning, and he hurriedly nodded.

As Shen Xin gathered more and more information about the case, he felt increasingly uneasy.

For example, Bai Jifei tried to delete the access control information.

Since they've already chosen to dismember the body at home and given up on disposing of it, why bother deleting the access control information?
And the murder weapon—the dismemberment scene was handled so cleanly, yet the murder weapon was buried in his own home, and it was found so easily.

Then there's the fact that if he killed Jiang Qi and dismembered her, it seems a bit unusual that he hastily filed a false police report just four days later.

Since you're staying home anyway, let's just delay it a bit longer, until we can't delay any longer before reporting it to the police.

If he had ample time to dismember the body, then he would have even more time to deal with the scene in the first-floor guest bathroom.

Although he did the bloodstain cleanup, it still couldn't explain the bloodstains all over the place.

If you want to completely cover up your dismemberment, why don't you just demolish the guest bathroom on the first floor and renovate? If you're quick, it'll only take a few days.

He could have been even more discreet and then staged the incident to create the illusion that someone had broken in and abducted his wife.

But he didn't. Only four days later, he rushed over to report the case.

Of course, there is still the fundamental logical problem that has always existed.

If he wanted to kill Jiang Qi, there was absolutely no need to resort to such an extreme method as dismemberment.

Furthermore, the crime occurred yesterday, and today they contacted reporters for interviews, paid online trolls to amplify the narrative, and portrayed themselves as the murderer across the internet.

All these behaviors are abnormal and cannot be explained at all.

But if one intends to become a murderer, then everything makes sense.

Shen Xin had already figured out the reason.

Inside the interrogation room, Cao Rui continued, "I didn't see the letter, and I don't know what it said. Anyway, Lao Bai looked like he was going to die."

“I told him to go look for her. How could a living person really be lost? But he refused, saying that Jiang Qi is so smart that he would never find her if she hid herself.”

"Then he told me that he had thought about it for a day and a night and came up with a plan, saying that he wanted to turn himself into a murderer and force Jiang Qi out."

Inside the observation room, everyone turned to look at Shen Xin.

Shen Xin nodded repeatedly.

That's what I mean.

Sun Zhao seemed to have figured it out as well, and murmured, "Suppose Bai Jifei becomes the murderer who killed and dismembered his wife, and it gets exposed online, causing a huge uproar, and everyone knows about it."

"In this situation, the best way to prove that he is not the murderer and exonerate him is for Jiang Qi to show up and prove that she is not dead."

"Fuck you."

Sun Zhao gasped, then cursed, "Has Bai Jifei lost his mind? How could he think of doing something like this? His wife is missing, he should call the police!"

Everyone looked at each other.

By this point, everyone had understood.

Ding Yuwei exclaimed in shock, "That means the entire dismemberment scene was faked, so we can't detect human DNA, and we can't even find it on the murder weapon."

Shen Xin nodded.

This is the truth.

The cleanliness of the scene was so impressive that even Cui Yan, a seasoned veteran, found it unbelievable.

But what if it's all fake?

The fact that no DNA could be found on the murder weapon suggests that it may never have been used.

Bai Jifei's purpose was, as Sun Zhao had said.

When the police identified him as a suspect, the only way to prove he wasn't the murderer was for Jiang Qi to come out and prove she wasn't dead.

He really used the most extreme methods to try and force Jiang Qi to come out.

Jiang Qi's so-called departure might simply mean she found a place to wait for death.

Then, as Cao Rui said, Bai Jifei thought Jiang Qi was very smart and that he would definitely not be able to find her after she hid herself.

So after racking my brains for a day, I came up with this "genius" method.

"monitor?"

Shen Xin muttered to himself, then suddenly understood some things.

Problems that I couldn't understand before, I can understand now with the assumption that Bai Jifei fabricated the scene.

For example, the backdoor surveillance cameras were moved before the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.

Then it might not have been Bai Jifei who moved it, but Jiang Qi.

Or rather, it was the people who helped Jiang Qi hide who moved.

As for why the surveillance footage and access control information were deleted, Shen Xin initially thought it was because Bai Jifei had been filmed with some kind of evidence.

He deleted it in the morning, and then went to the property management office to check on it in the afternoon.

Now it makes sense; Jiang Qi must have managed to delete the surveillance and access control information.

In other words, Jiang Qi also put thought into concealing her whereabouts.

That's why Bai Jifei said Jiang Qi was a smart person and that he couldn't find her at all.

These two people...

Shen Xin frowned, having the same thought as Sun Zhao.

be sick.

Your wife is missing, call the police!
So you distrust the police, think you can't even find them, and then you have to pull this stunt, wasting police resources?

(End of this chapter)