Ji Feng's loose tongue forced him to make the sixth, seventh, and eighth phone calls.
Bit by bit, he finally managed to explain the third case clearly.
Let's review the key points: On December 29, 2002, the third burned corpse case occurred in Peace City. It had snowed lightly that day, and the perpetrator left behind tire tracks.
The victim's body was burned beyond recognition, but forensics was still able to extract DNA from the internal organs. At the end of December this year, Liu Jian was arrested for intentional injury, and after collecting his DNA, it matched with Jane Doe No. 3 in the database.
Ji Feng first went to see his cousin and got some fragmentary information.
"My third uncle's daughter did indeed go missing. We only heard about it later. Her mother died early, and my third uncle was a gambling addict who only cared about playing cards every day, never paying attention to his child. During the New Year in 2008, my mom asked him about Liu Mei, why she didn't come home. He said she ran off to Taiwan to be some rich man's mistress and didn't care about him anymore."
The cousin added: "If even her own father didn't care, of course we didn't think much of it. Although we never saw her after that, we assumed she looked down on us poor relatives and didn't want anything to do with her gambling addict father. Officer, if you hadn't told us she was dead, we still wouldn't have known."
Unable to learn anything from the family, he had to go to her hometown to inquire.
Liu Jian's father was still around. Ji Feng's timing was good - the man was in detention for drunk driving, so he questioned him directly at the detention center.
"That girl? How should I know where she went to make her fortune?" Liu's father spat, his face full of disdain. "She's been defying me since she was little. After her mother died, she kept giving me the cold shoulder every day. I'm her father! I told her to stay in our hometown and get married early, but she had to run off and mess around outside. Who knows which stinking man she ran off with. She never gave me a penny. Damn it, I should have sued her in court for being unfilial, not even paying me alimony."
Ji Feng: "Around 2007, did Liu Mei have any close acquaintances that you know of?"
Liu's father: "How would I know that? She never told me anything anyway."
"Is there anyone who might know more about her situation?"
Liu's father: "Did that girl get in trouble?"
Ji Feng: "Liu Mei was murdered and her body burned at the end of December 2007."
Liu's father fell silent.
After a moment, he said: "She has a cousin. I think she went to stay with her back then. You can try asking her."
Ji Feng went to find the cousin next.
The cousin was already married and ran a nail salon. When talking about Liu Mei's news, she was also very surprised.
"I thought Liu Mei ran off with a boyfriend. I can't believe she..." Her eyes reddened. "Who did it?"
Ji Feng asked: "Were you close with Liu Mei at the time? Who did she usually associate with?"
The cousin told him that Liu Mei had a very tough time at first. With only a middle school education, she couldn't find good work. Most of her jobs were handing out flyers on the street or dressing up as mascots at amusement parks. She lived in group rentals with over a dozen people, and her life was a mess.
Fortunately, she later met an agent who, although demanding and handsy, found her a job as a model.
Liu Mei was pretty and worked hard, so she quickly got some opportunities. Her life gradually improved, and she even got a boyfriend.
"In 2007, she told me her boyfriend was determined to go develop his career in Vietnam, saying there were more opportunities there. He wanted her to go with him. She was hesitant. Officer, Liu Mei didn't have it easy. She lost her mom early, and her dad was a deadbeat. She really wanted a family of her own, so when that man said he'd marry her, she was tempted."
The cousin sighed wistfully: "At the end of 2008, I went back to our hometown and wanted to ask if she was coming back. But her phone was already disconnected. I thought she had already gone abroad and wasn't in contact with us anymore, probably afraid her dad would find out and come after her for money."
Ji Feng learned the identity of the boyfriend from her.
Then he went to find the boyfriend.
This man had indeed been to Vietnam, made some money, then lost it all. He returned to China in 2018 and got involved in telecom fraud. When Ji Feng showed up at his door, tensions were high, and seeing he was alone, they immediately got rough with him.
Then they were busted.
The remaining accomplices fled into the deep mountains and forests, intending to lay low for a while. Who knew Ji Feng was specifically after him, tracking them into the mountains to make the arrest.
Liu Jian was caught.
He said: "I don't know what happened to Liu Mei. That was years ago, almost twenty years now. You shouldn't be asking me about this."
"Liu Mei died at the end of 2007," Ji Feng said lightly, frightening him with just one sentence. "So I should be asking you."
Boyfriend: "It wasn't me! I didn't hurt her!! She dumped me."
Then without waiting for Ji Feng to ask, he spilled everything like beans from an overturned bamboo tube: "I asked her if she wanted to go make money in Vietnam. She said no, so we broke up. That's it."
Ji Feng sneered: "Who knows if you really wanted to make money or just run away."
The boyfriend realized he was in deeper trouble and continued to confess: "It really wasn't me. I had talked about this with some friends back in October. You can go ask them if you don't believe me. I wasn't running away. Besides, what would I gain from killing her?"
"You two didn't have any conflicts?"
"No, Liu Mei was good." This was an unexpected answer.
"She was capable and considerate. Those years I worked at an internet cafe, she often came to see me and cooked for me. I was quite reluctant to leave her, but a man has to make something of himself. I couldn't be an internet cafe manager forever, right? It just so happened that a classmate of mine was doing well in Vietnam and asked me to go help him, so I was tempted."
Ji Feng thought to himself, your "career" sure is special.
"I wanted her to go with me, but Liu Mei said she had just gotten a foothold. Being a model wasn't easy, and that agent was always taking advantage of her. She had been through a lot and didn't want to give up halfway. I understood her. Later when she didn't contact me, I took it as a clean break and bought a ticket to leave on my own."
"After Liu Mei left you, did she have any other close friends?"
"She had a cousin who was nice to her, often inviting her over for meals. She didn't get along well with her roommates, always arguing over trivial things. Then there was the agent. It must have been him. He had his eye on Liu Mei, tried to force himself on her when she refused, and ended up killing her."
The boyfriend wracked his brains to clear himself of suspicion, thinking hard before finally digging up the name of Liu Mei's agency from the depths of his memory. He also said the agent's surname was Li, and he was absolutely certain about that.
Ji Feng made a note of it.
He actually didn't suspect the boyfriend. Firstly, visa records showed this man went to Vietnam in January 2008, which had no connection to the fourth case in February. Secondly, this man wore size 43 shoes and only got his driver's license when he returned in 2018.
In 2002, he probably didn't even know how to drive.
Could the agent be suspicious?
Ji Feng said: "This person is in Beijing. I'll go there and let you know the results after I ask him some questions."
He paused, then added: "Answer the phone, don't hang up on me."
"You don't have to call." Though invisible over the phone, Jian Jing's eye roll nearly reached the sky. He used to not say anything when she asked, but now he's talking so freely, yet not listening. It's infuriating.
Ji Feng: "I know you're curious."
"I'm not curious."
"Five cases, three victims identified. Any thoughts?" he asked, not waiting for her answer before continuing, "I think the killer didn't choose victims randomly. They must have had contact with these people and known about their situations."
Jian Jing couldn't help but interject: "Li Xiaonuan is strange."
Wang Zihui and Liu Ao weren't locals of Peace City, but even though Wang Zihui and Liu Mei were models, their families wouldn't have been too concerned if they couldn't contact them for a while. Li Xiaonuan, however, was a student. If she disappeared for long, her roommates would find it odd, and her counselor would inquire.
"Something must have happened in those 5 years," Ji Feng asked, "What do you think?"
Jian Jing looked down at her notes and said: "There's one thing that bothers me."
"Why did the killer choose winter?" she asked bluntly. "It's freezing cold in the dead of winter, isn't it too cold to even take off your pants? The girls wouldn't have been dressed provocatively either, so it's a stretch to say it was lust at first sight."
Ji Feng: "So far, there's no evidence of sexual assault."
"Robbery is even less likely," she said. "They clearly didn't have much money."
Ji Feng agreed.
In this case, the killer's psychological motive has always been difficult to define. Whether the body burning stemmed from hatred or was purely to destroy evidence, everyone had different opinions.
He first ruled out robbery, as the victims' financial situations weren't good. He leaned more towards a hatred of women, but that wasn't certain either.
"Actually, I haven't really thought about the motive," Jian Jing pondered. "I just feel that the timing in winter is strange. Is it appropriate to cremate bodies in such cold weather?"
Ji Feng mused, "Indeed. Although the dry air makes things burn faster, the clothes would all burn together... A heavy coat isn't easy to burn, and it would smell."
Summer clothes are mostly cotton and linen, with less odor, while winter clothes are thick—whether wool or synthetic, they'd definitely smell stronger.
Wouldn't the killer be afraid that the smell would attract passersby, leading to an early discovery of the body?
"The frequency of the crimes is also odd," he said. "They were clustered at first, but the gaps became longer later on."
Jian Jing sighed.
Everything about this case was strange, but no matter how they looked at it, it was like a turtle retreating into its shell—they simply couldn't find a weak point.
Frustrating.
As her heart grew irritated, her stubbornness kicked in. She didn't bother to keep arguing with Ji Feng: "I must dig this person out no matter what."
Ending the call, she walked to the window and gazed at the grey sky in the distance.
All the cases happened on such winter nights. Why?
Even as she went to bed, Jian Jing was still thinking about this. As a result, she had a night full of chaotic dreams, waking up feeling exhausted but unable to remember any of the content.
Outside, a fine snow had begun to fall.
The heating was on inside, making it warm, of course, but Jian Jing couldn't sit still. She decided to take Knight out for a walk.
The snow was light, so there was no need for an umbrella. They strolled leisurely along the riverside path.
Her thoughts scattered once again.
Winters in Peace City usually hover around freezing, occasionally dropping to seven or eight degrees below zero, with a damp chill that's unbearable without heating.
Rain is scarce, but it snows a few times every two or three years. When particularly strong cold fronts hit, snowfall is common.
The temperature difference between indoors and outdoors is significant. Whether a body is preserved inside or outside could result in several days' difference in the estimated time of death.
No matter how Jian Jing thought about it, she felt that temperature was the key factor.
But cremation added another step.
She furrowed her brow.
"Crunch, crunch," Knight walked ahead, his paws leaving a trail of muddy footprints in the thin layer of snow.
Tire tracks.
Footprints.
Snow accumulation.
Time of death.
Time... She suddenly stopped in her tracks and immediately took out her phone to make a call.
The call connected instantly.
Ji Feng asked, "I was just about to call you. What's up?"
Jian Jing said, "I have a theory."
"Go on."
"The killer chose to act in winter probably to interfere with determining the time of death."
Ji Feng had considered this point as well, so he wasn't surprised: "Very likely."
"Cremation serves another purpose besides destroying evidence," she said. "It creates an alibi."
He repeated, "An alibi?"
"Have you considered that Li Xiaonuan might not have died in the evening?" Jian Jing's thoughts suddenly crystallized. "Her time of death was entirely based on stomach contents and the heavy snow."
On the other end of the phone, Ji Feng silently agreed, two words flashing through his mind.
Trickery.
