Ji Feng asked: [Which one do you prefer?]
Jian Jing thought for a long time and replied: [If it was purely for fun, I feel we could choose a more discreet location. Public places are too noticeable and likely to attract people's attention.]
Ji Feng: [Great minds think alike. I've already started investigating what these locations have in common. I may have some results later.]
Jian Jing: [Don't say anything more if you're not going to tell me.]
Ji Feng: [It's every citizen's duty to provide clues.]
Jian Jing: [Hmmph]
She ignored him and pulled up the search interface to look up "Saint Angel".
Too many results.
Oh well, forget it.
Ji Feng's message popped up again: [Better late than never. I found it. Want to hear?]
Jian Jing flipped her phone face down with a thud.
Teacher Toni curiously gossiped: "Who was the teacher chatting with? You seem annoyed, is it your boyfriend?"
"I wouldn't date someone who annoys me." Jian Jing very calmly put her phone in her pocket.
Whether to say more was up to her.
Teacher Toni laughed and agreed: "That's right, dating should be fun. Why be with someone who doesn't make you happy? That's just asking for trouble."
Once she opened up at the hair salon, there was no more need to play with her phone.
Teacher Toni was articulate and shared plenty of gossip.
This hair salon was quite renowned in the city, frequented by famous ladies and wealthy women. With customers coming and going, the stylists heard plenty of interesting tidbits.
"Teacher Jian, have you heard? The Fang family recently had some issues." Teacher Toni brought up a regular customer and shared: "She used to always get the 8888 package, but came in this morning and switched to the 3888 one instead. 3888! The price jump is huge. Her boss must be having problems."
The salon's most expensive package was 8888, cheapest 3888. That was quite a big downgrade.
As soon as Jian Jing heard this, she was immediately interested: "The Fang family in real estate? Her boss is...?"
"Some young director she's seeing." Teacher Toni eagerly continued seeing her interest: "I heard the Fang family stocks have been falling a lot lately. Luckily I dumped them early. Real estate's not doing well the past two years. And the Fang Group's reputation isn't good either. I heard a building they constructed even burned down recently, they must be in huge trouble."
Jian Jing's heart stirred: "It wouldn't happen to be the Baimao Building would it?"
"That's right, it was on the morning news just now." Teacher Toni vividly described to her: "You know what she complained to us about—I'm only telling you since we're close, it is a client's privacy after all. But Teacher Jian's lips are always sealed..."
At this point, what else could Jian Jing say? Of course she nodded understandingly. "I'll keep it secret."
Satisfied, Teacher Toni went on: "She said, things didn't work last night even though they tried for half the night. She thought maybe it would work first thing in the morning, but suddenly a phone call came in and he went soft right away. How unlucky."
Jian Jing couldn't help but chuckle, quickly suppressing it.
"We all told her how unlucky she was. Really, too unlucky." Teacher Toni actually sounded quite sincere sighing about it.
Jian Jing cleared her throat and pretended to be proper as she took out her phone to search for parks and kindergartens.
Sure enough!
The park was called Da Fang Park, constructed by the Fang Group. And the kindergarten was a private one, part of a real estate project also developed by the Fang Group.
No wonder Ji Feng was so enthusiastic about recruiting her help.
Jian Jing took out her phone and replied: [No need to say more, I'm getting my hair done today, face tomorrow, nails the day after, too busy.]
Ji Feng sent back a shocked emoji.
He: [Teacher Jian, you're not interested in this case?]
Jian Jing indifferently typed: [Smoked some bad stuff, dizzy, nauseous, chest feels tight, don't want to work.]
Ji Feng: [Oh, that sounds pretty serious. I didn't notice anything off last night.]
The words dripped with disbelief.
Jian Jing ignored whether he believed her or not, and pulled up the Fang Group's official website to look up the buildings they had constructed in Heping City.
As an established real estate company, the Fang Group had constructed many buildings locally, as numerous as the hairs on an ox.
They had developed four residential projects themselves, two malls, and invested in constructing three public buildings—Da Fang Park, the Holiday Village, and Grand Theater.
The holiday village was a bit remote, but had huge investment. The grand theater was a bit old, business only so-so, but was one of the city's iconic buildings.
If the arsonist was really targeting the Fang Group, these two were also possible targets.
Should she investigate this case or not?
The thought lingered in Jian Jing's mind briefly before she had an answer.
Of course investigate.
Although she looked down on the Fang family, arson was extremely dangerous and best resolved quickly. Also, she had nearly lost her life in that fire, so revenge was in order.
But Jian Jing didn't want to investigate with Ji Feng.
Despite his carefree appearance, he actually had firm principles and wouldn't say anything improper to her. Half of what he did say was out of friendship, and half probing.
If he was willing to say something, it was half sentiment, half fishing for information.
So it was best they investigate separately, compare notes, and avoid interfering with each other's thinking—this had been Ji Feng's idea originally so he would surely agree [doge emoticon]
Alright, so what clues did she have so far?
Details from when the fire started.
The power was cut first before the fire was set. This showed the perpetrator had surveyed the area beforehand and was very familiar with the mall's layout. The location was not randomly chosen. But the police had already confirmed it was arson, so this information had no value.
What else? Lu Yu's ties with the Fang family?
Jian Jing considered it then rejected the idea. Whether the Fang family or Lu Yu, neither were easy to deal with. Poking around could alert them needlessly.
And although this case was very unusual, completely lacking substantive evidence and relying solely on analyzing the perpetrator's actions and psychology to identify suspects, it still needed to be fact-based.
Jumping straight to suspecting the Fang family could lead her astray.
She still needed to visit the fire scene personally.
Jian Jing was at the salon until after 8 PM fixing her damaged hair. She didn't dye it this time, just trimmed and touched up the color, changing the loose waves into more refined curls, tying them in a low ponytail that looked very nice.
It was nearing the time the park fire started so she didn't stop to eat, just bought a hot coffee and sandwich at a convenience store and drove over.
Da Fang Park was an open park. At 7 or 8 pm, the square dancers were still there.
Jian Jing walked around to get a feel for the layout.
This was built during the Fang Group's heyday. The location was great, right next to the CBD office towers, very lively with people coming and going.
Retirees liked to square dance here. Young people with cats and dogs also came to walk them. Occasionally there were even some night joggers.
Recently, one of the park's attractions, Meteor Lookout, was being renovated. That was also where the fire occurred.
Jian Jing walked around half the day before finding that remote spot in the park.
Online it said the park built the Meteor Lookout because there happened to be a meteor shower the year it was constructed. To make it appealing, they deliberately built the raised lookout.
That year when the meteor shower came, Meteor Lookout was indeed very lively, with many young men and women rushing over to watch the meteors. It even made the newspaper headlines.
But meteor showers didn't happen every year.
So it gradually became forgotten in the park.
This year, the park got a new director, young and ambitious. He wanted to revive this dead end. After surveying the situation, he decided to renovate Meteor Lookout and turn it into an aerial restaurant.
The renovation had just started in the past few days. Unfortunately both the renovation materials and the original Meteor Lookout were completely destroyed by a sudden raging fire.
When Jian Jing arrived on scene, all she saw was scorched earth.
The remote location meant limited casualties and property damage. With high foot traffic, someone could come every day without drawing notice.
Was this his first crime?
Park - kindergarten - mall, it seemed to be escalating.
Jian Jing pondered as she left the park, taking a detour to the kindergarten.
This time, the fire was on the 3rd floor classroom building of the teaching block. A large hole was burned into the exterior wall painted with cartoon characters. But nearby residents saw the flames and called the fire department promptly. The firefighters arrived in time so it wasn't too severe.
With so many Fang Group constructions, why target a kindergarten?
Jian Jing suspected that even if the arsonist had a grudge against the Fang Family Group, humans have an instinct to protect their young, and normal people generally would not think of setting a fire at a school. Even if it was at night, there are still considerable doubts. Jian Jing had to suspect that the arsonist was not simply using arson as a means, but had an antisocial personality to begin with.
How should she find this person?
*
It was another day of overtime work.
Ji Feng stirred the clumped instant noodles with a plastic fork, and shoveled big mouthfuls into his mouth.
Sigh, he had eaten this stuff too much, he couldn't even taste the flavors anymore. Whatever flavor went into his mouth tasted the same, awful and waxy.
He hastily filled his stomach, then started going over Wen Hui's confession again.
Tsk tsk tsk, Teacher Jian was really polite, readily offering up a big gift. This Ms. Wen seemed to harbor deep hatred towards the chairman of the Fang Family Group, and had actually exposed a huge shocking case.
In the past, the Qilin Bridge project had collapsed due to quality issues, resulting in nearly a hundred deaths and injuries. It was considered one of the biggest accidents in Peace City.
But when pursuing responsibility, the Fang Family Group used soft and hard tactics, and in the end only paid money to settle the matter.
It was said that over the years, there were still family members of the deceased who kept petitioning, demanding a retrial. But lacking evidence, they never had any results.
No one expected that Wen Hui actually had copies of the documents in hand.
The bureau was preparing to reinvestigate the case, but it was a major issue, and the leaders unanimously emphasized that the information could not be leaked.
This was to be expected, but who could have thought that suddenly there would be several more arson cases?
When the first two incidents occurred, Ji Feng had felt it was very strange, believing they might not be accidental, and had someone specially look into potential connections. Sure enough, they were all related to a real estate company owned by the Fang Family.
Upon further thought, the Qilin Bridge accident had occurred in April, exactly ten years ago.
This was too much of a coincidence.
Ji Feng's primary suspects were the relatives of the Qilin Bridge accident victims.
After going through the files and conducting an initial screening, there were seven suspects. He planned to thoroughly investigate them to see who was most suspicious.
But having locked onto this investigative direction, he didn't feel completely assured in his heart.
The two cases were too close together, and his thinking was somewhat disturbed. So yesterday, when he saw Jian Jing, he wanted to hear her thoughts.
But she had refused!
Getting a haircut???
What's so great about getting a haircut?
Ji Feng couldn't help but open his Moments to frown at the photo Jian Jing had posted an hour ago.
It was taken by her at a hair salon, a sideways selfie with only half her face showing. Her pose, expression, and filter were no different from ordinary girls' selfies.
Ji Yunyun and Liang Yi had liked it below.
He stared at it for a while, then left an aggrieved comment: [Teacher Jian, you have fallen...]
Jian Jing replied with an expressionless smiley face.
