"Let me go! I haven't done anything wrong, why are you arresting me?" Zhu Yaming struggled, twisting his body.
"If you haven't done anything wrong, why were you running? Come on, let's have a chat back at the station," Fang Rui said as he handcuffed him. He noticed several scratch marks on the back of Zhu's hands. Though they had scabbed over, they were clearly made by claws.
Zhang followed Fang Rui's gaze and also spotted the scratches. He exclaimed, "Boss, look! There are cat claw marks on his hands. He might be the culprit!"
"Officer, that's slander! These scars are from when my girlfriend scratched me during a fight, not from a cat," Zhu Yaming immediately retorted, but a flicker of panic flashed in his eyes.
Fang Rui, not interested in his excuses, patted Zhu's shoulder. "No worries, I'll have the forensic team examine it later to determine the true origin of these wounds."
Zhu Yaming's face instantly turned pale.
In the interrogation room, Zhu Yaming hunched in his chair, his forehead beaded with sweat, though he struggled to maintain a composed expression.
Fang Rui slid the test results across the table to him. "The forensic report is in. The expert says the scratches on your hands were indeed made by a cat, and they're recent. Care to explain?"
"Officer, I'm sorry. I lied. The scratches are from a cat. I was feeding some strays when one of them scratched me. You were so intimidating earlier, I thought I might be involved in some major case, so I panicked and lied."
"Oh, so you lied because you were nervous? I wonder if your nervousness made you conceal anything else?"
"No, I really haven't done anything illegal."
"Nothing illegal? Well, maybe you'll start telling the truth once our Technical Department recovers the data from your computer hard drive."
"I..."
Fang Rui tapped the table, his tone growing impatient. "Forget it. I won't waste time interrogating you. Once we've gathered all the evidence, you can explain yourself to the judge!"
"I'll talk. I'll tell you everything. Animal cruelty isn't illegal, right? It's my own cat, my private property. I can treat it however I want, can't I?"
Fang Rui raised an eyebrow. "You're just admitting to animal cruelty?"
"I also recorded videos of it."
Fang Rui's gaze urged him to continue.
"And I uploaded the videos to foreign websites. I made quite a bit of money from it."
The Technical Department quickly recovered the data from Zhu Yaming's computer. Fang Rui watched a short clip. In the video, a faceless man viciously stabbed a kitten's head with a high heel's stiletto. Within moments, the kitten was beaten to a bloody pulp. This wasn't just animal cruelty; it was utterly depraved!
Although they hadn't caught the real killer, they had uncovered a sadistic animal abuser. Fang Rui felt it wasn't a complete waste of effort.
After working for over ten days straight, Mu Mian gradually adapted to her new job.
The investigation into the case had made no progress. The police hadn't found the fetus taken by the killer, nor could they identify any suspects based on the available clues.
The case had reached a deadlock.
Mu Mian left her apartment complex as usual but noticed a large crowd gathered near the nearby square.
"My God, that woman secretly gave birth to a cat in the bathroom! It was this big," someone said, gesturing with their hands. "It's terrifying!"
"Don't be ridiculous. How could a person give birth to a cat? You can't just make up stories like that."
"Uncle Chen saw it with his own eyes. The woman died from complications while giving birth to that cat. There are even photos!"
"Stop spreading rumors! You'll get arrested for that. The killer murdered the pregnant woman and then dumped a dead cat on her body!"
Mu Mian overheard their whispered conversations and suddenly had an ominous feeling.
"Excuse me, could you let me through?" Mu Mian called out to the crowd, but no one paid her any attention, remaining tightly packed. Mu Mian grew anxious. She disliked touching others, so she couldn't push her way through the dense crowd.
"Mu Mian, why are you standing there in a daze?" Fang Rui spotted Mu Mian from a distance and called out to her.
"Is there another victim?"
"See for yourself." Fang Rui cleared a path through the onlookers and led Mu Mian to the crime scene—an abandoned public toilet.
Yellow police tape cordoned off the toilet entrance, with officers already maintaining order and keeping the crowd at bay.
The toilet had been abandoned for a long time. It was dimly lit, and the air was thick with an unpleasant odor. Mu Mian entered and saw the victim wearing a loose maternity dress, but her belly was deflated like a popped balloon. The victim's face was pale, her hands bound behind her back.
An IV line was inserted into the back of her left hand, connected to an empty drip bottle. It seemed the killer had attempted to maintain the victim's vital signs through an intravenous drip.
"Forensic Mu, come take a look at this," Zhang greeted Mu Mian. "The victim is another pregnant woman, and she, she..."
Forensic Doctor Qin and his team hadn't arrived yet, so no autopsy had been performed on the victim.
Mu Mian put on the gloves Zhang handed her. She gently lifted the victim's nightgown, glanced briefly, then carefully rearranged the woman's clothes before quietly finishing Zhang's sentence: "She seems to have actually given birth to a cat."
Between the victim's legs was a small red ball, quietly curled up there. Upon closer inspection, it was clearly a blood-covered kitten.
The kitten was no longer breathing.
"The killer has refined his method this time," Mu Mian said, looking at Fang Rui, "but he still failed."
Failure meant he was likely to try again.
In less than an hour, the case had gone viral online.
The first witness to discover the body had taken photos and videos of the deceased and posted them on social media. As the victim had been a minor internet celebrity with a considerable following, these images and videos spread rapidly online and became a hot topic.
Details of Li Yan's previous case had also been leaked. With such brutal and bizarre cases occurring one after another in the same neighborhood, panic had set in among the residents.
Meanwhile, some internet users who enjoyed stirring up trouble had given the killer a nickname: the Cat Fetus Man.
The fermentation of public opinion brought this case under intense scrutiny.
