The two sides connected their leads, and of course had to exchange intelligence.
The street food stall was not a convenient place to discuss, so Ji Feng moved closer to Jian Jing and whispered the recent investigation findings into her ear. The top boss sat across from them, pretending not to see.
And so, Jian Jing was smoothly "leaked" information.
Cigarette ash and rural soil...she silently recited the two clues, searching her mind for the corresponding dots: "The workers smoke cigarettes, not the brand you mentioned. State-owned enterprise employees don't smoke, his teeth don't show signs of being stained by smoking."
Ji Feng's stomach immediately hurt, and he quickly drank some hot noodle soup to warm his stomach.
Jian Jing picked up a strand of rice noodles, but didn't eat it, tying knots in it with her chopsticks, pondering: "Why freeze to death?"
"Of course it's ceremonial significance." Liang Yi chimed in enthusiastically, joining the group chat, "Wavy long hair, frozen to death, they both have special meaning to the murderer. What do you think? You've interacted with this kind of person before, what are your thoughts?"
Jian Jing shook her head: "Can't say."
Liang Yi: "Just say whatever comes to mind."
"I haven't seen the corpse, haven't even seen a photo." She complained, "What can I say?"
"Uh..." Liang Yi awkwardly trailed off, "Right."
Jian Jing leaned in: "So you guys will go investigate them tomorrow, right?"
"Of course." Liang Yi's eyebrows lifted, her eyes were full of red veins, yet there was a stubborn look between her brows, seeming more spirited than some of the men present.
Jian Jing moved closer, speaking in a tone as if sharing secrets with a best friend: "Take me along?"
Liang Yi blinked, not agreeing or refusing, but wanted to agree.
Her previous collaborations with Jian Jing had been quite pleasant, communication between girls was also more comfortable, not like others. Captain Wang felt she was young and needed more care, Brother Zhao thought himself more experienced, also didn't value her ideas much. As for Ji Feng around the same age...forget it, he was asking for a beating, no need to go into details.
"Let me ask." She signaled with her eyes.
Jian Jing gave an "OK" hand gesture.
Ji Feng: "..."
He tactfully pretended not to have heard.
The meal was quickly finished, because this was the dinner for Liang Yi's group of four, not even ten minutes before it was completely swept clean.
Liang Yi was single-mindedly focused on cracking the big case, her gaze fixed in the distance. Seeing the maintenance worker finish his bowl of noodle soup, she immediately put in a request: "Captain Wang, can I follow him?"
Captain Wang said: "Aiya, go back and rest, let little Ji follow along."
"It's no problem, I'm not tired." Liang Yi extremely hated when people "took care" of her, anxiously said, "Let me go!"
Zhao Ge also put down his chopsticks: "I'll go with little Liang."
Captain Wang conceded: "Alright, Ji will go back first today, take shifts tomorrow. You young people may be young, but pay attention to your health too."
Liang Yi gave a perfunctory "mmhm" to gloss over it, inconspicuously merging into the stream of people, trailing Suspect #1.
Captain Wang gave Ji Feng a side-eye: "Send her back."
Ji Feng listlessly replied: "Got it."
The boss left satisfied.
As soon as he left, Ji Feng livened up: "Chat?"
"Tired." Jian Jing yawned, patting the knight who was gnawing on an unseasoned roasted lamb leg. "Let's go, back home."
She got up to leave, forcing the knight to reluctantly let go of the bone in his mouth. He slowly dragged his feet, looking back every three steps.
Ji Feng glanced at the untouched fried rice noodles, asking: "There's a bakery if we detour half a block, want to go?"
"It's open this late?"
"It's open."
The bakery was indeed open, brightly lit. The remaining bread was on sale at a steep discount, extremely cost-effective. Ji Feng bought a huge bag of bread, just right for tomorrow's breakfast.
Jian Jing browsed and selected a matcha pound cake, packaged in individual slices that could be eaten anytime. She tucked it into her pocket.
She stuffed a few slices into Ji Feng's hand: "Give some to Liang..."
"Huh?" He pretended not to have heard, tearing open the package and stuffing it in his mouth. "Not bad, not too sweet."
Then he casually stuffed the rest in his own coat pocket.
Jian Jing squinted: "What's that about?"
He clicked his tongue, saying: "Do you even need to ask? I wrote the report, spoke on your behalf, otherwise how could you have heard any of this? Yet here you are, killing the donkey after it finished grinding the flour, getting chummy with Liang Yi, where's your conscience?"
Jian Jing: "Scram."
Just as the two were about to bicker, Ji Feng's phone rang. He picked up, chuckled: "Lucky break."
"What is it?"
"My auntie sent the vice squad their 'business performance'." He said, "Alright, I'll come pick you up tomorrow morning, let's meet downstairs."
Jian Jing realized, immediately lamenting: "You're right, I should've gone yesterday..."
Cough, Suspect #1's unsavory hobby, if she had reported it yesterday when he went to the salon, she could've snooped around his home today.
Mistake, rookie mistake, not as skilled in the craft as Liang Yi.
"You better not stand me up." Jian Jing was quite invested in this case, warning thusly.
Ji Feng: "Teacher Jian, you can't think I'm that awful, right?"
"Hah."
*
As it turns out, Ji Feng wasn't scummy to that extent.
Early next morning, three consecutive calls from him dragged Jian Jing out of her home: "Downstairs in five minutes."
"Ten minutes, I still need breakfast." She said.
"Got you buns and soy milk." Ji Feng said. "Seven minutes."
Jian Jing: "I don't want buns."
He glanced out the car window: "Fried dough stick?"
"I want pan-fried buns." She said.
Ji Feng thought, where am I going to find her pan-fried buns: "Egg pancake okay? With fried breadstick."
"Fried fritters." She said. "Add crispy cake, potato shreds, pork floss, peanuts, extra sauce."
Ji Feng conceded: "Fine."
So it took eight and a half minutes to get to her place, picking up Jian Jing who was walking down while tying up her hair, making a beeline for their destination.
Mr. Dong, we'll call him Dong the worker, lived on the outskirts of the city.
Housing prices were low here, management was loose, and the environment was also relatively terrible.
Jian Jing put on the hood of her sweatshirt, carefully walking on the street filled with sewage. It had rained heavily late last night, garbage and rainwater mixing together, giving off a foul odor.
Delivery men, food deliverymen, repairmen, laborers...busy figures shuttled up and down the streets and alleys, supporting the convenient metropolitan life.
The Dong family lived on the top floor of a self-built residential building. The landlord came to open the door, didn't even ask what crime his tenant had committed, coldly threw out a "Don't make a mess", before hurrying off to play mahjong.
Ji Feng entered the house, first sweeping his eyes over the environment, quite dirty.
The sofa was full of stains, with several cigarette burn holes. The ashtray was filled with cigarette butts, white ash spilled out. There were also some scattered on the ground.
"Several different cigarette brands." Jian Jing also noticed this detail. "Yours only had one kind of ash?"
Ji Feng nodded.
They went into the bedroom next. Inside was a tattered quilt, some cardboard boxes, no balcony for hanging laundry. The clothes were all hung outside the window.
Jian Jing walked into the bathroom. It was very narrow, only a shower area, not even a bathtub, extremely simple. She couldn't help but wonder: "Is there even space here to freeze someone to death?"
"You think someone can only freeze to death in icy and snowy weather?" Ji Feng asked.
She frowned.
"We've checked all the freezers in the city, as well as all refrigerated vehicles. Aside from that, what other methods are there to freeze someone to death without alerting anyone?" He slowly said.
Jian Jing considered: "If you have to say, dampness could also work."
A person doesn't necessarily have to be in a cold environment to lose body heat and die. If around 0 degrees Celsius, soaking wet, body heat would also quickly dissipate until death.
"Ms. Wan's corpse might have been slightly different. The other three female bodies mainly showed lividity in the lower limbs."
She raised her eyebrows: "Dying in a sitting position?"
Ji Feng nodded, adding: "There was also a little on the upper body, more minor. She died sitting, then was laid flat later. So the murder scene was probably quite small."
Like this kind of family bathroom.
Jian Jing pondered: "Water bill?"
"Here it is." Ji Feng was tall, directly flipping open the meter on the wall.
In rented homes like this, water and electricity were separate to facilitate billing, which worked conveniently for him. But after calculating the numbers, he shook his head: "Not that much."
And so, Jian Jing circled back to her original question: "The space is so small, why freeze to death?"
"My auntie said the murderer must have been abused by a stepmother as a child, nearly froze to death, so he broods over it." Ji Feng joked, "What are you still waiting for? Yesterday's salon she checked out, today she's already looking into the missing girls."
Jian Jing held her forehead: "If that's true, it's too classic."
He nodded slightly. "That's exactly what's strange about it."
Thanks to all kinds of TV shows and movies, people are no stranger to psychopathic serial killers: specifically targeting unsavory lower-class women, using strange code words and passwords, harboring desires to become famous and earn exclusive titles...there are far too many examples.
But are there really so many such people in real life?
In the year and a half that Jian Jing has solved so many cases, she has only encountered one Wang Shi.
"Let's go back to Suspect #3's home and take another look," she suggested.
Suspect #3, Zhu, was a state-owned enterprise employee and office director, commonly addressed as Director Zhu. He worked regular hours, usually leaving for work later in the day. When the two arrived, Zhu had not yet left for work.
Director Zhu was surprised. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
"We'd like to ask you a few questions, may we come in?" Ji Feng inquired.
Zhu hesitated briefly before opening the door and letting them in, though he added, "I have to leave for work soon, so could we make this quick?"
"We just have a couple questions," Ji Feng assured him.
"What's this about?" Zhu asked.
"Recently, have you noticed any suspicious individuals lurking around the neighborhood?" Ji Feng questioned.
Zhu responded cautiously, "I usually get home from work pretty late, so I haven't really paid attention to the neighborhood. What happened? What do you consider suspicious?"
"Anyone unfamiliar, acting furtive and asking around," Ji Feng fibbed.
Zhu thought for a moment before shaking his head. "Haven't run into anyone like that."
As the two exchanged questions and answers, Jian Jing began to circle around the living room, examining the Zhu residence from all angles.
It was a typical two-bedroom, one living room, one bathroom layout. The kitchen was fully stocked with oil, salt, sauces and vinegars, the tiled countertops glowing faintly - evidence of frequent use.
Peering into the bedroom, she saw a tidy full-sized bed with two pillows.
She scrutinized it for a while longer before shifting her gaze towards the bathroom.
It was equally small, but contained a bathtub. Lined up on the shelves were bottles of shampoo and shower gel, two toothbrush cups on the sink, and a storage rack hanging on the wall that she couldn't easily take down to examine.
Jian Jing signaled Ji Feng with her eyes.
Ji Feng got up and ambled over to the television cabinet, picking up a photo on the side. "Pardon my intrusion, but is this your child and spouse?" he asked.
"Yes," Zhu replied, subconsciously moving closer. "This was taken when our son graduated middle school and we went on a family trip to Sanya."
Seizing the opportunity, Jian Jing took down the hair comb from the shelf and carefully sifted through the bristles.
Spotless.
Ji Feng continued asking, "Has your wife mentioned any suspicious individuals lately?"
"She went back to her hometown," Zhu explained. "My son is away too, so I really wouldn't know."
Glancing at his watch, he hinted that it was time for them to leave. "I'm sorry, but I have to get to work now, so if you could..."
"We apologize for disturbing you," Ji Feng readily responded.
The two bid their farewells, pretending to head to the next building to ask around, but instead lurked in a corner, waiting for Director Zhu to leave. Only then did they start questioning the neighbors in earnest - about him.
The residential community was neither new nor old. The neighbors were familiar enough to provide some information, but not know-it-alls.
"Director Zhu? I know him. He's pretty nice, smiles and greets politely. Very family-oriented, often stops to buy groceries on his way home from work. His wife is quite busy though, she runs a business so she's out late most nights."
"Their relationship? Hm, hard to say. I've heard them arguing sometimes, I live downstairs so I catch bits and pieces. But what couple doesn't fight? I haven't paid much attention."
"Their son, rarely see him around. I think he's away studying."
"When did his wife leave? No idea, the 1st or 2nd?"
Everyone chimed in with fragmented snippets of intel, confusing and disorganized.
Ji Feng asked, "Teacher Jian, any thoughts?"
Jian Jing considered carefully. "One thing seems very strange."
"What's that?" he prompted.
"Their comb is so clean," she pointed out.
