Police tape was stretched across the woods.

Several floodlights illuminated a ten-meter radius, bright as day.

The topsoil had already been removed. Du Xin Kai and his assistant, Yu Peixin, were carefully clearing away the final layer of earth.

Outside the tape, Shen Xin and the others waited for the results, some sitting, some standing.

Zhao Tianxing slapped his arm with a SMACK. "It’s December," he griped, "and there are still mosquitoes."

It seemed to be a warm winter this year; the weather wasn’t that cold.

Shen Xin also swatted the back of his neck. He looked at his open palm—it was smeared with blood.

He had no idea whose it was.

Beside him, Ding Yuwei handed over a few leaves.

"What’s this for?"

Shen Xin asked, confused.

Ding Yuwei said, "Crush them and rub them on your skin."

Shen Xin glanced at the leaves, having no clue where Ding Yuwei had plucked them from.

"You might as well have gone down the mountain to buy some mosquito repellent and coils."

Shen Xin took them. ’Looks like it’s going to be a long night,’ he thought.

Ding Yuwei huffed. "Why don’t you go?"

Going up and down the mountain was no easy task.

Just as they were speaking, Chen Chao arrived.

"Let’s eat first." He was carrying boxed dinners and had also bought mosquito repellent and coils.

Shen Xin was already starving. With quick eyes and fast hands, he grabbed a meal box with braised pork chops and meatballs and handed it to Ding Yuwei.

Then he grabbed a random one for himself and, while eating, asked Chen Chao about the situation back in Hutang.

"Don’t even get me started."

Chen Chao spat out the plastic wrapper from his disposable chopsticks and squatted on the ground. "When I left, Gou Jinlan was in the middle of cooking. She was cursing up a storm, complaining that the new kitchen knife was no good and that she wanted to trade with Yang Huixia."

"Zhu Yuchen went to play at a classmate’s house. Only Yang Huixia refused to leave, no matter what. Anyway, we left some people at the scene. Let them be."

Shen Xin broke out in a cold sweat.

’This was the so-called hostage situation from earlier?’

’The hostage ran off to play, leaving just the kidnapper, huh?’

’Seriously, you’d never see a plot this absurd in any of those cop shows on TV.’

Chen Chao bit off half a chicken leg, patted Shen Xin’s shoulder, and mumbled, "Kid, you did good."

He had actually found the burial site thanks to a monkey.

But it was just a casual compliment. After the previous cases, he was already used to this sort of thing.

Zhao Tianxing, holding his meal box, leaned against the tree trunk the police tape was tied to. He watched Du Xin Kai’s two-man team at work. "Old Du, what’s up?" he asked as he ate.

He saw that Du Xin Kai had frozen.

As he spoke, he crossed under the police tape and walked over.

It had been two years already. There was no evidentiary value above ground; the police tape was just there to roughly mark the burial area.

"What the fuck, why are there three hands?!"

Zhao Tianxing cried out.

Down in the pit, Du Xin Kai had been slowly clearing out one section at a time.

Since the body was buried directly, he was afraid of missing small pieces of evidence on the person, so the clearing process was slow.

He hadn’t expected to uncover two hands, only to then uncover another one near the skeleton’s abdomen.

That’s why both Du Xin Kai and Yu Peixin were frozen in place.

And Zhao Tianxing, after his cry of surprise, suddenly realized what it meant. "Holy shit," he yelled, "There are two bodies!"

In a flash, Shen Xin, Chen Chao, and the others all swarmed over.

Du Xin Kai blinked hard.

’That’s right, three hands.’

The half-excavated skeleton in front of him must have been lying on its side, which was why the bones of its two hands were together.

’I didn’t miscount. With that many phalanges, it has to be two hands.’

’But what the hell is this hand near the abdomen?’

Du Xin Kai looked up. "Old Chen, didn’t you say there was only one body?"

Chen Chao’s mind was reeling.

Two bodies. The situation had changed in an instant.

"Old Du, dig faster," he said in a low voice.

Du Xin Kai and his partner immediately picked up the pace.

Afraid of missing anything, they piled the excavated dirt to one side to be sifted through later.

In truth, they didn’t have to wait for the complete excavation.

The clothes told the story.

Cotton clothing rots quickly, but synthetic fibers wouldn’t change much, not in two years, not even in a few more.

So when another pair of jeans was revealed, they could confirm that there were indeed two bodies buried below—and one was a woman.

Because they were clearly a pair of women’s slim-fit jeans.

Soon, both bodies were fully excavated and laid bare before them.

One body wore a pair of men’s faux leather sandals; the other, a pair of classic black-and-white canvas sneakers. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Judging by the position of the clothes and the skeletons, they could surmise that the pit had been dug deep but not wide, and both bodies had been thrown in on their sides.

And based on the size of the skeleton, the second body was clearly a woman with a more petite frame.

Zhao Tianxing pinched his nose and said, "This couldn’t be Zhu Guishen’s mistress, could it?"

Shen Xin’s heart pounded wildly.

Behind him, Ding Yuwei suddenly grabbed his arm.

Shen Xin turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide with terror.

A chill shot straight up Shen Xin’s own spine.

Zhao Tianxing might have just been talking off the cuff.

But if the female corpse in the ground really was Zhu Guishen’s mistress, then the whole situation would change.

Before this, Shen Xin had genuinely believed Yang Huixia was just a pitiful woman who had no motive to commit the crime.

Because in his interactions with her, he could feel that she deeply loved Zhu Guishen.

But what if it was all an act?

She knew her husband was cheating, convinced him to buy a life insurance policy, and then waited for an opportunity to murder both him and his mistress.

That would give her a powerful motive.

She loved Zhu Guishen so much, yet her husband still cheated on her.

Previously, Shen Xin thought that although Yang Huixia and Zhu Guishen argued, it was just the normal bickering of a long-married couple—the kind that’s quickly forgotten.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if Yang Huixia was putting on a façade, acting the whole time?

If that were the case, her acting was so good it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to give her an Oscar.

The thought sent a shiver down Shen Xin’s spine.

Chen Chao had clearly thought of this too. His expression shifted several times before he barked in a low voice, "Don’t talk nonsense."

Zhao Tianxing quickly shut his mouth.

Chen Chao clenched his fists, his eyes fixed on the bodies in the pit. After a long moment, he spoke. "Old Zhou, get to Hutang right now. You must secure the scene. Don’t let Yang Huixia do anything drastic."

He couldn’t ignore the possibility that Yang Huixia was faking it.

If so, she might take her anger out on Gou Jinlan and Zhu Zhenyuan.

In a more extreme scenario, she might even harm Zhu Yuchen.

So they had to control the scene now to prevent that from happening.

"If you have to, depending on the situation, consider taking her into custody and bringing her back to the station," Chen Chao added.

Zhou Zhongyi nodded, quickly grabbed a colleague, and hurried off.

"Old Du, call Old Tang over too. Clean up the scene quickly, perform a preliminary autopsy, find out the cause of death, and determine the female victim’s age as soon as possible."

The only clues would come from the bodies.

"Zhao Tianxing, hurry to the Dingshan Police Station. Check for any missing persons reports filed around the time of the crime for people who are still unaccounted for."

With that, he walked quickly to the side, pulled out his phone to contact Sun Zhao, and asked him to send reinforcements.

Ding Yuwei was still shaken.

"Shen Xin, do you really think Yang Huixia is acting?" Ding Yuwei’s voice trembled slightly.

Before Shen Xin had even met Yang Huixia, she had felt that Yang Huixia was deeply in love with Zhu Guishen and didn’t seem like a killer.

Shen Xin had previously asked her what era she was living in to still believe in love, even bringing up Zhang Qin’s case.

She had refuted him at the time.

Now, seeing all this, if Yang Huixia really was acting, she felt like her own views on love were about to collapse.

"I don’t know. My head’s a complete mess right now."

Shen Xin shook his head, recalling that night when Yang Huixia sat on Lotus Peak, pointed to the distant Peony Garden, and said she was working hard to earn money to buy a house there.

In that moment, there had been a genuine light in her eyes.

’If all of that was an act, then human beings are truly terrifying creatures.’