Chapter 8
Having apparently enjoyed enough of Luo Jingyao’s displeased yet restrained expression, Lin Jiafan finally looked away. After ending his call with Pang Guang, he unhurriedly stepped out of the car.
Luo Jingyao grumbled inwardly for quite some time before resigning herself to fate and pushing open the door.
The two walked into the Tian City Public Security Bureau’s office building in silence. They took the elevator straight up to the sixth floor without exchanging a single word.
The moment the elevator doors slid open, Luo Jingyao spotted Pang Guang hurrying toward them. Perhaps because he’d already worked beyond his limits for an entire day, his face looked even longer—and strangely greenish—beneath that unruly shock of bleached-yellow hair.
“Boss, where the hell did you go—?”
His urgent question died halfway through when he finally saw who was standing inside the elevator.
“Coach Luo?!”
Pang Guang stood there with his mouth slightly open. He looked at the expressionless Lin Jiafan, then at Luo Jingyao, who was still carrying the oversized backpack she’d had during the day.
The next second, he let out a dramatic wail.
“No way. No freaking way! You only missed one training session! Did you really chase us all the way to the station in the middle of the night just to make us do extra practice? Exercising after staying up this late can kill people!”
Lin Jiafan merely shot him a look of mild disgust before stepping out of the elevator and heading toward an interview room at the end of the corridor.
Luo Jingyao naturally followed behind him.
The room itself was as bare as it could be: a table, a chair, and a surveillance camera mounted in a corner of the ceiling. Nothing more.
After settling her inside, Lin Jiafan didn’t begin questioning her immediately. Instead, he turned around and left.
By now, Pang Guang had finally recovered from his initial shock and pieced together what was happening.
The two men began talking openly outside the door without bothering to hide it. Their voices drifted through the narrow gap, carrying clearly enough for Luo Jingyao to hear. With only a slight turn of her head, she could even see everything they were doing through the glass panel in the door.
“Captain Lin, what are we doing about Ma Hongtang in the hospital?” Pang Guang asked in a deliberately lowered voice.
“After he fled, the evidence team found quite a few interesting things in that vacant room on the second floor,” Lin Jiafan replied. “Some of them have already been confirmed as stolen property connected to several recent burglary cases in Hexi District.”
He paused.
Pang Guang immediately brightened.
“Then he’s definitely not escaping burglary and unlawful trespassing charges. We’ve got plenty of time to wear him down.”
“According to the elderly woman downstairs, Ma Hongtang had been staying on the second floor for more than just a day or two. The infrastructure around Sanjiang Road in Hexi District is notoriously poor. I suspect that’s exactly why he chose that run-down neighborhood as a hideout.”
There weren’t enough surveillance cameras to track his movements completely, and most of the nearby residents were elderly. Naturally, that greatly reduced the chances of police discovering him.
He had played the classic trick of hiding in plain sight remarkably well.
“A habitual thief like Ma Hongtang would definitely scout locations beforehand. He wouldn’t randomly break into an abandoned property without a reason. Right now, the priority is finding out why he went there in the first place. Whatever he saw or heard could very well be the breakthrough we need in these two murder cases.”
Pang Guang nodded in agreement.
The two leaned closer and exchanged a few more words before a set of hurried footsteps drew their attention.
The newcomer was also a member of the Special Cases Investigation Unit.
He was slightly shorter than Lin Jiafan and Pang Guang, somewhat heavyset, with thick black-framed glasses that covered most of his face.
If Luo Jingyao remembered correctly, his name was Guo Zhen.
After jogging up from the stairwell, he stopped beside them and reported in a muffled voice,
“Captain Lin, I’ve finished the secondary examination of last week’s victim and the preliminary autopsy on today’s victim. Here are both reports.”
He handed them over and opened his mouth to continue, but his gaze caught the half-open interview room door.
His words stalled in his throat.
Sensing his hesitation immediately, Lin Jiafan made no effort to explain.
“Go on.”
Years of working together allowed Guo Zhen to understand instantly.
Sharing selected information with a suspect wasn’t exactly a new tactic.
Criminal investigations were often psychological warfare.
Sometimes, the more evidence a suspect believed the police possessed, the faster their mental defenses crumbled.
After a brief moment of consideration, Guo Zhen continued.
“First of all, these two murders do share many similarities with the June 13 Serial Murder Case from two years ago. The victims were all women between twenty and forty years old. Both killers skinned the victims, stripped flesh from the bones, and left only the skeleton behind. They also removed the victims’ middle fingers after the murders.”
“Those similarities are all details the police released publicly after the June 13 case was solved,” Lin Jiafan said calmly, not even looking up. “Anyone who spent a little time studying that case could replicate the surface details.”
“Exactly.” Guo Zhen nodded. “That’s why the differences matter more.”
He pointed to a section of the reports.
“Whether it was Huang Guojun two years ago or the killer in these recent cases, both performed extensive skinning and flesh removal after the murders. That inevitably leaves marks on the bones.”
“Captain Lin, if you compare the cut marks on the recent victims’ remains with those from the June 13 victims…”
He tapped the reports.
“We can confirm that the murder weapons weren’t identical. The direction and depth of the cuts are also different. Huang Guojun was right-handed, while this copycat is left-handed. And judging from the force applied, he’s physically weaker than Huang Guojun.”
“Mhm.”
Lin Jiafan first acknowledged the finding before adding his own observation.
“There’s another major difference.”
He paused.
“Once Huang Guojun selected a victim, he always entered her residence and committed the murder there. He never moved the body afterward. But the recent killer operates in the exact opposite manner.”
“He processes the bodies elsewhere before transporting them to the dumping sites where we discover them. Which means we still haven’t identified the primary crime scenes where either victim actually died.”
“That alone is enough to show this imitator is far more cunning than Huang Guojun.”
After a brief pause, he added,
“Brother Guo, contact Forensics later and push them to cross-reference all evidence collected from today’s victim and crime scene with last week’s case as quickly as possible. Let’s see if anything new turns up.”
Guo Zhen agreed immediately.
Pang Guang, who had been silent throughout, finally let out a long breath.
“Thank God. At least we’ve found something. The important thing is that we can finally confirm those ridiculous rumors online aren’t true. This definitely isn’t some ‘resurrected serial killer’ coming back from the dead.”
“Captain Lin, you have no idea. After Wang Guifen made that scene earlier today, public attention exploded. The stuff people are saying online now is completely insane.”
Unexpectedly, Lin Jiafan fell silent.
He simply tapped the autopsy reports against his palm, once… twice… again.
A few seconds later, he turned and walked back into the interview room.
Apparently unwilling to waste any more time on pointless back-and-forth, he got straight to the point.
“It’s been a while. Coach Luo, have you decided what you’re going to tell us?”
What he hadn’t expected was that Luo Jingyao’s patience had long since been ground away by his repeated tactics.
Without hesitation, she pulled out her phone, opened her photo gallery, and slapped the device onto the table.
“The apology was genuine. My curiosity about how Wang Guifen knew details of an active investigation was genuine too.”
She pointed at the screen.
“This is the only photo I took inside her home.”
Lin Jiafan slowly picked up the phone and studied the image for a long time.
“At first, I was only surprised to see envelopes in her house. When I got closer, I realized there seemed to be something inside them.”
Luo Jingyao had never been someone who judged people by appearances.
Initially, she’d simply found it unusual that anyone still exchanged handwritten letters in modern times.
What truly caught her attention was Wang Guifen’s unusually nervous reaction and the way she hurried to hide them.
Pang Guang leaned closer to examine the photo.
“Huh? There’s no stamp and no postmark. Just from the picture, we can’t rule out the possibility that the envelopes are empty.”
“That would be true if Wang Guifen hadn’t tried to hide them right in front of me.”
Since things had reached this point, Luo Jingyao argued her case without backing down.
After all, even if she had noticed something suspicious, there was very little she could do herself.
The police, however, could.
Pang Guang shrugged noncommittally before abruptly changing the subject.
“If I remember correctly, Coach Luo has always worked in competitive sports. Since when did you start moonlighting as a private detective?”
“…”
The question left Luo Jingyao speechless.
Eventually, she gave up resisting.
“To be honest, I often suspect I chose the wrong career. I regret it deeply.”
At that answer, Lin Jiafan finally lifted his gaze toward her.
At the same time, he reached a conclusion.
Utter nonsense.
Fortunately, Pang Guang didn’t dwell on the topic.
Turning to Lin Jiafan, he lowered his voice.
“That said, Wang Guifen really is suspicious. Director Zhang mentioned sending someone to talk with her. Should we go ask a few questions too?”
“And if we do, do you think she’ll actually tell us anything?” Lin Jiafan replied.
If Wang Guifen was hiding something, questioning her rashly would only alert her.
Did they honestly expect her to hand over the envelopes from the photograph voluntarily?
Even if she did, who knew what she’d put inside them by then?
“True. She probably wouldn’t.”
Pang Guang sighed.
Still, they were pursuing multiple leads simultaneously. They couldn’t exactly ignore one that had landed right in their laps.
Lin Jiafan ignored him.
Instead, he slid the phone back across the table.
A gentle smile appeared on his face.
“Thank you for cooperating with the investigation today, Coach Luo. Sorry for keeping you here so long.”
Luo Jingyao waved a hand dismissively and bent down to grab her backpack from beside her chair.
Then Lin Jiafan spoke again.
“And thank you for taking care of my team these past few days.”
He adjusted his rimless glasses with a finger, his tone carrying an oddly unreadable note.
“I wonder if you’d be willing to give me a chance tomorrow to properly express both my gratitude and my apology.”
He paused.
“How about a massage? Help loosen up those muscles?”
“…Huh?”
“…Huh?”
The two voices rang out almost simultaneously inside the interview room.
Unlike Pang Guang’s pure bewilderment, Luo Jingyao’s reaction contained a healthy dose of disbelief.
She instinctively looked up at Lin Jiafan, whose expression remained perfectly composed.
This man was something else.
For the sake of achieving his objective, he truly knew how to bend when necessary.
