On Dingshan.

Shen Xin was bent over, using a rake to scrape away the topsoil, practically inch by inch.

"Time’s about up. Let’s call it a day."

Captain Chen’s voice drifted over from nearby.

About five meters to his right, Zhao Tianxing straightened up, hands on his lower back, and grumbled, "Shen Xin, how long do you think we’ll have to search for this thing?"

"That kid just pointed in a general direction. What if he remembered wrong? It was the middle of the night, how could he recall it that clearly? If he was off by just a little, we’ll be searching ourselves to death."

Shen Xin and the others were currently searching for the murder weapon.

After Li Xiaofei confessed to the murders, he was brought back to identify the crime scene. He admitted that after strangling Guan Hong that night, he had then gone after Zhu Guishen.

Zhu Guishen was already motionless.

Having killed two people in a row, he only then began to feel a creeping fear.

He tossed Guan Hong’s body down the hillside as well, then prepared to flee the scene.

He had run about a hundred meters before realizing he was still holding the knife. Without much thought, he flung it into the woods on his right.

Then, he made his way down the mountain in the dark.

Once he was off the mountain and his mind had calmed down, he came to his senses and realized what he’d done wouldn’t work.

’The bodies will be found sooner or later, and they still have their phones and everything. I have to take care of it.’

So he went back up the mountain, returned to Lotus Peak, and found the two bodies at the bottom of the slope.

He searched both bodies, thinking of staging it as a robbery-murder, but then he had another thought. ’No, that won’t work either.’

’I was in a relationship with Guan Hong. Once her body is discovered, the investigation will lead to me sooner or later.’

It was then that the idea of burying the bodies came to him.

He immediately tried to dig a pit on the mountain.

But without a proper tool, he couldn’t make any progress.

So he went down the mountain again, rode his motorcycle home, and got a shovel.

By the time he got back to the mountain, it was already almost two in the morning.

After finding the bodies again, he felt they were too close to Lotus Peak, so he dragged them further down the mountain before he started digging.

He grunted and groaned, digging for more than three hours until the sky began to lighten, before the pit was finally ready.

He had committed the murders around eleven at night, and from then until dawn the next day—a period of five or six hours—he had somehow gone completely unnoticed.

It just went to show how desolate Dingshan was, especially late at night.

If Dingshan had been a proper tourist attraction with night guards on patrol, he never would have had it so easy.

But now, the situation was that they were missing the murder weapon.

That’s why Chen Chao had mobilized his people to come and search for it.

In the middle of the night, he’d just randomly chucked it down the mountain. Who knew how far it flew, or what nook or cranny it ended up in. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Just like searching for the burial site before, it was truly like looking for a needle in a haystack.

When they were looking for the bodies, at least they had Bubu.

"Come on, at least it’s still winter. All the spicy noodles are in hiding. If it were summer, you’d part the grass and a spicy noodle would jump out. Now that would be a surprise."

Shen Xin also put a hand on his back.

"What spicy noodles? Did you guys bring snacks?" Ding Yuwei asked, turning her head from a short distance away.

"Snakes."

’And she calls herself a young person?’

"Where are there snakes?!" Ding Yuwei shuddered, her face turning pale.

She was terrified of snakes.

If it had been earlier in the day, right after they’d started work, Shen Xin would have definitely teased her about it. But now, he couldn’t be bothered.

Chen Chao called for everyone to pack up and leave.

"Captain Chen, this isn’t working. You should’ve gotten us a metal detector or something. It’d be way more efficient than us combing through the grass inch by inch," Shen Xin complained as he walked.

Walking ahead of them, Chen Chao stopped dead in his tracks.

He blinked, then asked in return, "Shen Xin, how many days have we been searching?"

"Yesterday and today. Two days. Why?"

"What do you mean, ’why?’"

Chen Chao shot him a resentful look. "Why didn’t you say so sooner?"

Shen Xin was taken aback as well. "I thought you’d already thought of it," he said, puzzled.

Chen Chao’s eyes widened. ’So this is my fault?’

It wasn’t just Li Xiaofei’s case on his plate these past two days; Chen Chao had been swamped, working day and night. The idea truly hadn’t occurred to him.

Zhao Tianxing silently clutched his back, then said with a deadpan expression, "Captain Chen, this is your fault. You have to treat us tonight."

Nothing short of a feast could make up for the last two days of hard labor.

"Fine, I’ll treat. Happy now?"

Chen Chao sighed. He had been planning to treat everyone to a good meal to reward them anyway.

Especially Shen Xin, who had just cracked another cold case. That called for a proper celebration.

The next day, they upgraded their gear, and their efficiency shot up.

But there was also a lot of trash on the mountain, so the search was still difficult.

You could say it went from looking for a needle in a haystack to looking for a needle on a sandy beach.

But after a few more days of searching, right on New Year’s Eve, they actually found it.

It was discovered by Yu Xiaoping, a new recruit who had just joined the forensics department this year.

The young woman had just graduated. She wasn’t tall and was quite thin, giving her a petite and delicate appearance. When she dug the switchblade out of the decaying soil, she held it up excitedly, as if she had just won a championship.

Everyone around her was just as thrilled.

Zhao Tianxing let out a whoop and rushed forward, sweeping Yu Xiaoping into a hug. He then grabbed her hand, raised it high in the air, and yelled, "We’re free! We’re finally free!"

Li Xiaofei’s casual toss had really put them all through the wringer.

They confirmed it was the same switchblade Li Xiaofei had described, with skull inlays on both sides of the handle.

His whole gang of shady friends had seen it before.

Yu Xiaoping carefully placed the knife into an evidence bag.

Shen Xin secretly nudged Zhao Tianxing and whispered, "Brother Xing, was that a moment of uncontrollable excitement, or did you do that on purpose?"

’I saw it all. After he hugged her, Yu Xiaoping’s cheeks turned red.’

Zhao Tianxing just chuckled slyly, the meaning obvious.

Shen Xin glanced at Yu Xiaoping.

’She isn’t what you’d call beautiful, more like the cute, dainty type.’

"Brother Xing, didn’t you say you’d given up on love? How come your worldly desires are stirring again?"

After the Zhang Qin case, this guy had been shouting about how love was dead and he was going to be alone for the rest of his life.

Zhao Tianxing snorted. "The past is the past, and now is now. Look at Yang Huixia and Zhu Guishen—that’s what you call deep and abiding love. So, I believe in love again."

Shen Xin thought, ’You sure are fickle.’

But when he turned his head, his eyes met Ding Yuwei’s bright gaze.

Shen Xin smiled briefly and quickly looked away.

The discovery of the murder weapon forged the final link in the chain of evidence.

And to their pleasant surprise, a tiny scrap of fabric was stuck in a groove of the switchblade’s handle.

It was a folding switchblade. They surmised that when Li Xiaofei stabbed Zhu Guishen and then pulled the knife out, the base of the blade must have snagged and torn the victim’s clothing. Later, when the knife was folded, that tiny scrap of fabric got wedged into the handle’s groove.

Fortunately, Zhu Guishen’s shirt wasn’t pure cotton; it had synthetic fibers, which was why the scrap had survived for two and a half years.

With this, the chain of evidence was now rock-solid.

On the day before New Year’s Day, the case was formally transferred for prosecution.

This brought the matter to a close.

Given Li Xiaofei’s circumstances—brutally murdering two people and burying their bodies—the death penalty was unavoidable.

That afternoon, Shen Xin made a special trip to Cute Pet Paradise with some gifts.

For one, he wanted to check in on Yang Huixia.

And for another, he wanted to properly reward the great hero of the case, Bubu.

The dog had been a huge help, after all.