"We've conducted an extensive search of the parking lot. We checked all the garbage bins and every corner of the parking lot, but found nothing! We've questioned the janitors and security guards, and they all said they hadn't seen this item," Zhang complained.
"There's still one place we haven't searched," Fang Rui said. "We haven't searched the cars."
"But all those cars are locked. How could he put it inside? We've already checked under every car, and nothing was hidden there."
"Didn't Ding Zhuangzhuang used to work at an auto repair shop? Could he be skilled at picking locks?"
Zhang and the others went through the parking lot again with photos of the refrigerator, searching each car, even rechecking the vehicles that had left after the incident.
After spending an entire day, they finally identified a suspicious vehicle. Through the window, they could see something wrapped in a black plastic bag in the trunk. It was square-shaped and not very large.
The trunk's lock showed no signs of tampering.
Using the vehicle entry and exit records, they tracked down the car's owner. When contacted, the owner explained that he was one of the mall's shop owners and had been away on vacation, which was why the car had been parked there. He had a spare key at his shop.
After opening the trunk and removing the plastic bag, they found a pink mini-refrigerator - the very one that had disappeared from Sun Xiaoning's car.
Everyone's faces lit up with excitement, finally finding evidence to implicate Ding Zhuangzhuang.
Wang eagerly surrounded the refrigerator with his toolkit, "Don't touch it! Let me check for fingerprints first."
"He must have worn gloves while committing the murder. How could there possibly be fingerprint evidence?" Zhang objected.
"There are quite a few fingerprints here," Wang detected numerous prints on the refrigerator.
"That only proves the refrigerator hasn't been wiped clean in a while."
"..."
After bringing the refrigerator back, Mu Mian sprayed luminol reagent both inside and outside. Soon, several small fluorescent reactions appeared on the exterior, appearing as droplet-sized spots - likely blood spatter.
"There's blood," Chen Xue said excitedly.
But Mu Mian wasn't as optimistic. "Chen Xue, do you remember how Wang Yonghua died?"
"He was struck on the head with a wrench."
"This is blood spatter," Mu Mian reminded her.
"Oh right, this could be Wang Yonghua's blood. Of course, the killer wouldn't be so careless as to injure himself during the crime and leave his DNA evidence at the scene."
Wang detected many fingerprints, belonging to eleven different people, but none matched either Ding Zhuangzhuang's or Chen Yuankun's prints.
"Wang, I told you the killer wouldn't leave fingerprint evidence. Wearing gloves during a crime is basic criminal knowledge," Zhang sighed.
Wang gave him a side-eye. "So, you think my work is meaningless?"
"Of course not. Some criminals are stupid and don't know the basics."
"..."
The blood test results came back quickly. As Mu Mian had predicted, the blood on the refrigerator's exterior belonged to one person - Wang Yonghua.
"If there's no evidence on the refrigerator, why did Ding Zhuangzhuang hide it?" Zhang complained.
"Besides fingerprints and DNA samples, what other evidence could prove his identity? And this evidence would need to be difficult to destroy and intrinsically linked to the entire refrigerator."
Everyone was deeply disappointed. They had thought finding the refrigerator would provide evidence to convict Ding Zhuangzhuang, but they came up empty-handed.
"We've only checked the outside of the refrigerator, not the inside," Fang Rui said.
"We did check the inside... wait, you mean we should take the refrigerator apart?"
Fang Rui handed the refrigerator to the technical department, asking them to dismantle it for clues.
There were new developments in Chen's father's ladder death case. Shop owners near the supermarket reported hearing welding sounds the morning before Chen's father's accident. That morning, Chen's father had gone out to restock inventory, Chen Yuankun wasn't at the supermarket, and only Chen's Mother was there.
The answer seemed obvious - Chen's Mother was likely the one who damaged the ladder. But now the body was gone, making an autopsy impossible, and there was no crucial evidence to prove Chen's Mother had deliberately sabotaged the ladder.
The next day, the technical department completed their examination of the refrigerator and issued a report.
"The internal components were doused with water, causing a short circuit that completely destroyed the refrigerator."
They still found no fingerprints or blood traces inside. However, they discovered something unusual about one of the components.
"This... appears to be a listening device. It can record sound and transmit it to other devices through the cloud. It also stores recordings locally. But since it was connected to the refrigerator's circuitry, it was damaged in the short circuit."
"Can it be fixed?"
"We'll try."
Thanks to the technical department's efforts, the listening device was soon repaired. They played the most recent recording:
"Chen Yuankun, I've treated you well, groomed you as my successor. Why did you kill me?" Wang Yonghua's breathing was heavy as he spoke weakly.
"Because I'm not Chen Yuankun. After you die, I can be Chen Yuankun forever." The other voice was triumphant.
"You're not Chen Yuankun? Who are you really?"
"You're about to die, so I'll let you know the truth. I'm Ding Zhuangzhuang. I slept with your wife, oh, and Sun Xiaoning too - I used her and discarded her... The lowlife scum you looked down on now holds your fate in his hands."
"Please, don't kill me... don't kill me!"
The sound suddenly stopped, and after a long pause, a voice said, "Almost forgot, there's a listening device here!"
The recording abruptly ended. Ding Zhuangzhuang must have poured water into the refrigerator, causing the short circuit that stopped the recording.
The technical team traced the terminal device through the listening device to a laptop computer. Further investigation confirmed it was Ding Zhuangzhuang's work laptop.
They obtained Ding Zhuangzhuang's laptop, and although he had deleted all the recordings, the technical department recovered his browser history and found the platform and account he used to receive the recordings.
The recordings were stored in the cloud - they just needed to log into the account to download them again.
The account usage records showed that Ding Zhuangzhuang had been monitoring Sun Xiaoning and Wang Yonghua for three months. There were numerous recordings, and Fang Rui's team randomly listened to a few.
One recording from six months ago revealed Sun Xiaoning and Wang Yonghua plotting to hire someone to murder Li Meijia.
Zhang wondered, "Why did Ding Zhuangzhuang really kill him? It couldn't have been for Li Meijia, right? He doesn't seem like the romantic type."
Wang excitedly said, "Why don't we just talk to him and find out?"
