It was already one in the morning when Shen Xin returned to the sub-bureau.

The main team from the mountain had also just gotten back.

It was a cold case. The one upside was that it wasn’t like a fresh case where they’d be rushing to find clues and arrest a suspect.

Zhou Zhongyi was back too.

According to him, there was nothing new to report from Hutang. After all that fuss, Yang Huixia hadn’t left in the end; she’d chosen to stay home.

By the time he got back, she was already fast asleep.

Shen Xin clocked out.

On the way home, Shen Xin carefully went over the details of the case in his mind again.

As for the bodies, the preliminary examination results were in.

On the male victim, they found four puncture holes in his T-shirt.

One was near his heart.

They speculated the wounds were from a sharp instrument with a 2.5-centimeter-wide blade.

The female victim’s clothing was intact, with no punctures found, leading them to speculate she had been strangled to death.

This was strange.

If Yang Huixia had killed them in a rage, with a knife in hand, it was unlikely she would have only stabbed Zhu Guishen. She would have surely taken her anger out on his mistress as well.

Because of this, Sun Zhao and Chen Chao had already reached a preliminary conclusion: Yang Huixia was most likely not the murderer.

And yet, the two bodies had been buried together.

Shen Xin’s line of thinking was the same as Sun Zhao’s. It was possible that Zhu Guishen had witnessed the murder and had the misfortune of being caught up in it, becoming a victim himself.

Based on the current condition of the bodies, this was a fairly reasonable conclusion.

Now, the most important task was to identify the female victim.

After getting home, Shen Xin crashed into bed. He woke up early the next day and rushed to the bureau.

As people gradually arrived, they started with a brief case meeting.

Lv Youwei was also in attendance.

A missing person case had turned into a murder, and with an extra body discovered, he was bound to ask about the progress.

"Right now, we’re waiting on the DNA report from forensics, especially for the female victim, to see if we can get a match in the missing persons database."

"Second, regarding Yang Huixia. Old Chen, you bring her in this morning to identify the clothing, see if it belonged to Zhu Guishen. Then question her about his social circle and whether there were any young women in his life."

"Old Zhou, you go re-canvass Zhu Guishen’s social circle. Focus on the young women."

"As for the rest, Xiaoshen, Xiaoding, and Xiaozhao, you younger officers will keep checking the missing persons files."

"The DNA results will take at least three to four days. In the meantime, let’s get a head start on the legwork."

DNA can be extracted from skeletonized remains, but the process is time-consuming.

It requires decalcification, DNA purification, and amplification, a process that takes several days to complete.

"Director Lv, do you have any other instructions?" Sun Zhao asked after laying out the tasks, looking toward Lv Youwei.

Lv Youwei shook his head and said, "According to your analysis, the suspect was murdering the female victim when Zhu Guishen stumbled upon him, and so he chose to kill Zhu Guishen as well. This suspect is extremely ruthless."

"It’s been over two years. We need to give an answer not only to the Zhu Family, but also to the family of this female victim. So I want all of you to get focused, don’t be afraid of the difficulties, and crack this case as soon as possible."

He got up to leave.

Everyone rose to their feet.

"Oh, by the way, Xiaoshen."

Lv Youwei stopped again. "Those police dogs of ours... when you have time, give them some extra training. And our short-form video account—you need to get back to filming for that. I’ve seen a lot of fans asking for new content."

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Shen Xin simply nodded.

The meeting ended, and everyone went to their assigned tasks. Zhao Tianxing and another young officer, Gan Yong, headed to the Houxia Police Station, east of Dingshan, to investigate.

Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei headed back to the Dingshan Police Station.

They had gotten through most of the files yesterday. With a bit of a push today, they should be able to finish them all.

They were almost there when Shen Xin suddenly got a call from Li Dongsheng.

"Master, what’s wrong?"

He answered the call.

Li Dongsheng said, "Shen Xin, this morning I saw the request for assistance your sub-bureau sent out. It said you’re looking for a woman who’s been missing for two and a half years, disappeared around May 2015, is that right?"

Shen Xin pulled the car over to the side of the road and asked, "Master, do we have a matching missing person report at our station?"

Two years ago, Shen Xin had still been in the police academy.

Li Dongsheng sounded a little hesitant. "You could call it a suspected disappearance. The family never filed a report, but someone else reported the girl missing right around May of 2015."

Shen Xin was puzzled. ’What does he mean the family didn’t file a report?’

Shen Xin asked for details about the disappearance, like the clothes she was wearing and her hairstyle.

Although the body had been buried for two and a half years, hair decomposes very slowly.

However, the follicles needed to extract DNA had long since decomposed, leaving only hair shafts. From these, they could only make a rough guess that the female victim had shoulder-length, slightly wavy hair that had been dyed dark brown.

"I wouldn’t know about that. Like I said, the victim’s family never filed a report."

It was too complicated to explain in a few words over the phone, so Li Dongsheng asked Shen Xin where he was and if he had time to come over. He offered to take Shen Xin there himself.

The timing of the disappearance Li Dongsheng mentioned was too coincidental to ignore, so Shen Xin decided to check it out.

The crime scene was in the Dingshan Police Station’s jurisdiction, but Dingshan was a scenic area. Plenty of people came to hike on a typical weekend, so the scope of the investigation could be very wide.

Shen Xin turned the car around, arriving at the agreed-upon location on Tingyang Old Street twenty-something minutes later.

Li Dongsheng was there in a police car, accompanied by auxiliary officer Old Zhou.

"Master, what’s the full story?"

Shen Xin glanced around.

Tingyang Old Street was the general name for a district with many old buildings. They were meeting at an intersection on a street called Zhitingsan Road.

Not far away was the Tingyang Hospital Yunlin Branch.

Li Dongsheng led Shen Xin into an alley, speaking as they walked. "The girl I’m talking about is named Guan Hong, born on March 17, 1996. That means if she really did disappear in May 2015, she would have just turned nineteen."

Shen Xin nodded slightly.

The age matched Du Xin Kai’s estimate.

"It’s a real shame about this girl, actually."

"Her parents divorced when she was four, and her mother got custody. Within two years, her mom found another man."

"Turns out the new guy was a real piece of work. He drove a forklift at a factory, gambled, and worst of all, he was an addict. He ended up getting her mom hooked, too." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"We’ve arrested them at the station before. They’re on our watchlist, so I’m pretty familiar with Guan Hong’s situation."

"The kid was very smart, had great grades, but because of her mother’s situation, she lost all interest in studying. After junior high, she failed to get into high school and dropped out, just started running wild."

"I remember we’d be dealing with brawls between young punks or trouble at bars, and we’d end up dealing with her several times in the process."

"The last time I saw her, she was on one of those electric motorbikes, street racing at night. One of the kids crashed into a guardrail, and I saw her at the hospital. Her whole getup... she was dressed like what you’d call a... ’delinquent girl’."

Li Dongsheng thought for a moment, having found a trendy descriptor.

Shen Xin chuckled. Li Dongsheng was always trying to drop the latest slang.

"Master, you said her family didn’t file a report. So who did?" Shen Xin asked.

Li Dongsheng said, "A boy who lived next door to her."

"Her mom doesn’t give a damn about her—the type who couldn’t care less if she lives or dies. Her biological father is from Xinyun. He went back there after the divorce, and I heard he remarried and had other kids. He wants nothing to do with her either."

"So basically, she has no real family. Do you know what her mom said when I went to her and told her we suspected Guan Hong was missing?"

Shen Xin shook his head.

Li Dongsheng snorted. "Her mom said, ’I don’t care. It’d be for the best if she dropped dead somewhere.’"

He mimicked the mother’s tone, then shook his head with a sigh.

But working at a local station, he had seen this kind of thing all too often.

"That neighbor boy, though, he really cared about her. He kept coming by to ask about Guan Hong, never stopped. I remember he even came by once during the summer vacation."

As he was speaking, they arrived at their destination.

It was an old house, its front door now shut tight.