Chapter 370 Return to Hongcheng

With a whistle, Zhou Yi suddenly woke up from the nightmare and found himself covered in sweat.

The train attendant announced over the radio: "Our next stop is Hongcheng Station. Passengers who wish to disembark, please prepare and do not forget your belongings."

Qiao Jiali and Xu Nian, who had already woken up and were sitting on the lower bunk opposite him, saw that he had woken up. Qiao Jiali asked, "You're awake now, and you're just about to get off the bus."

Zhou Yi looked out the window and saw that it was already dawn.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, still feeling a lingering fear. The scene in his dream was surprisingly real.

He began to comfort himself, thinking that dreams are the opposite of reality, and having such a dream meant that Lu Xiaoshuang must be safe.

"I called Captain Wu twenty minutes ago. They should be back at the bureau around the same time as us," said Qiao Jiali.

Zhou Yi nodded. Even though it was a nightmare, he did sleep through it after all, and at least his body got some rest.

He patted his face and felt that his mind had calmed down compared to last night when he was caught off guard.

He decided not to dwell on whether the dead person was Lu Xiaoshuang for the time being, because compared to his previous life, the time when the grand case occurred had changed, and the method of dismembering the body had also changed.

There was still one thing he couldn't be sure of.

That is, whether the place where the murderer dumped the body has changed.

In the previous life, apart from the travel bag salvaged from the Nansha River, there were a total of twelve locations where bodies were dumped, including the head.

The specific locations of these body dumping sites were almost imprinted in his mind like carvings with a knife or an axe.

Now, he didn't know whether there were any changes in the way these bodies were dumped.

Especially the heads of the dead.

As long as the head is found, it will be clear whether the deceased is Lu Xiaoshuang.

The premise is that the murderer did not destroy the facial features of the deceased.

He was very clear about one thing, that is, a grand case cannot be solved overnight, even if he is familiar with the case files of his previous life.

Because in the previous life, this case had been going on for a full twenty-seven years, becoming the true number one unsolved case!

No matter how technology advances or how the level of criminal investigation improves, this case remains an unsolved one.

It’s not that the task force back then was incompetent, but the case itself did not leave any valid clues.

Whether it was the Du Xiaolin case, the Zhang Hui case, or even the An Yuan murder case that was just solved, Zhou Yi held the view that there must be some relationship between the murderer and the deceased, and it was impossible for a murderer to emerge out of thin air.

He seized on this point and continued to explore various possibilities, and finally found the murderer.

But grand cases are different, whether it is the special task force's three-month investigation covering thousands of people in the previous life, or his own understanding of Lu Xiaoshuang's personal situation in this life.

The murderer in the Hongda case can be said to have appeared out of nowhere and there is no trace of him at all.

In his previous life, he had seen all kinds of murderers, including some with gloomy personalities who liked to follow and monitor their victims in the dark for a long time.

But such murderers do not appear out of thin air. There is always a certain interpersonal connection between them and the victim, but most of them are relatively shallow, such as classmates in a training class, friends of friends who have met a few times, or couriers who have had many contacts, or even gaming friends who have never met online.

In short, the murderer who was under long-term surveillance and tracking could not be a person without any connections.

Therefore, in the later stages of a major case, the task force will focus on roving and random crimes, and then expand the scope of investigation and visits.

The reason is very simple. All those who were found to have connections with Lu Xiaoshuang in the early stage either had clear alibis starting from the night of May 3rd when Lu Xiaoshuang disappeared, or had no criminal motive after investigation and comprehensive analysis.

Simply put, for example, a male student is in the same major as Lu Xiaoshuang, but they have almost no interactions or communication with each other on a daily basis. The police don't just believe the male student's statement that they had no interactions. They conduct extensive inquiries, including interviewing other students, roommates, teachers, and parents. They may even investigate the male student's personal belongings and daily behavior. Only then can they confirm that the male student is no longer a suspect.

The task force conducted nearly 3,000 detailed investigations of this level in three months.

You can imagine how heavy the workload was. A police officer who had participated in the investigation recalled the situation at that time and said that he was so tired that it took him half a year to recover.

It was impossible for Zhou Yi to remember all of the nearly 3,000 investigation materials. He could only say that he had a certain impression of these materials, but he remembered clearly those who had direct interpersonal relationships with Lu Xiaoshuang.

Classmates, teachers, relatives, and people I met while working.

He had sorted out this information before, and it was all in his mind now.

But there are two keys to making this information work.

First, he needs to think calmly, because this information cannot be laid out for others to see, it is all stored in his mind.

Therefore, blindly panicking will not help the situation at all. Even if the victim of this life's grand case is also Lu Xiaoshuang, at least... at least this time the murderer must be brought to justice!

Second, the use of this information needs to be more clever and cautious.

Unlike the Zhang Hui case in Donghai Community, Zhang Hui herself had no identity support, and the case was originally filed at her insistence, so it is normal that the case is under the charge of the Third Brigade.

The case will only escalate if the Third Brigade fails to solve the case.

But in the previous life, after the head was discovered and the identity of the deceased was confirmed to be Lu Xiaoshuang, a freshman at Hongda University, the provincial department set up a special task force on the same day and directly sent the task force to Hongda to start work.

Such speed is not only due to the extremely bad nature of the case, but also mainly because the case involves a huge scale.

There are only four 211 key universities in the province. Such an incident will have a huge impact on the educational prospects of Hongda and even the entire province.

That's why it's so vigorous and decisive.

But this means that once the task force is established, the initiative in investigating the case will no longer lie with Hongcheng or the Third Brigade.

Even if the worst outcome is that the deceased is Lu Xiaoshuang, based on his relationship with Lu Xiaoshuang, he will not be able to participate in the task force, let alone the peripheral investigation work.

So the time left for him may be very little.

And the most painful thing is: only by finding the head can he confirm whether the deceased is Lu Xiaoshuang! But if it is, then he will basically be excluded from the case!

This is a real dilemma.

"Zhou Yi...we've arrived." Xu Nian reminded softly.

Zhou Yi came back to his senses from his deep thought and followed Qiao Jiali and Xu Nian out.

Tang Wenli told Xu Nian that if she didn't need the device urgently, she could send it back to her. So when they returned, they packed light, and Xia Yu, on the other hand, bought a lot of food that he didn't finish.

Zhou Yi noticed that Qiao Jiali and Xu Nian frequently looked back at him, so he smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'm fine."

But Qiao Jiali and Xu Nian were not stupid, they could tell that he was forcing a smile.

After the three of them left the station, they took a taxi. After all, the train station is the favorite destination for taxis these days.

"You sit in the back." Qiao Jiali said as she opened the passenger door.

As soon as the three got on the car, the driver looked at them and saw that they had no large luggage, so he asked them where they were going.

Qiao Jiali said, "Municipal Public Security Bureau, please drive faster, we have official business to attend to."

When the driver heard that we were going to the Municipal Public Security Bureau and that he was on official business, he didn't dare to talk to us anymore. He just said, "Then you guys sit down," and then stepped on the accelerator and rushed out.

Under normal circumstances, it takes half an hour to drive from the train station to the Municipal Bureau, but today it only took eighteen minutes.

The driver asked with some pride, "How are you guys doing? Fast enough, right?"

As Qiao Jiali paid, she said, "Master, please don't drive so fast next time. Be careful. Besides... dangerous driving can easily result in a fine..."

The driver's mouth twitched, and he forced a smile and nodded.

As soon as the three got out of the car, the driver stepped on the accelerator and disappeared in a flash.

After entering the Municipal Bureau, the three of them parted ways. Xu Nian went to the forensic room, while Zhou Yi and Qiao Jiali returned to the Third Brigade.

As soon as I entered the office, I saw Jiang Biao and Chen Yan. They were sitting there with tired faces, obviously having driven all night.

"Brother Biao, Brother Yan, are you back?" Zhou Yi said.

"We just arrived." Jiang Biao said, stretching.

"Where's Captain Wu?"

"I went to see that person."

Zhou Yi knew that Jiang Biao was talking about Ni Jianrong.

After all, it was he, the detachment leader, who was at the scene last night, which meant that he was implicitly in charge of the case.

As the deputy captain and head of the serious crime team, Wu Yongcheng had to inform him first.

Zhou Yi only hoped that Ni Jianrong would not occupy the toilet without doing anything, after all, he didn't have much time left.

Jiang Biao didn't know how Zhou Yi would react to this case, so he jokingly said, "By the way, have you noticed that we've become much busier since Zhou Yi came here? We've had more cases in the past two months than we did in the previous six months."

When Qiao Jiali heard this, she immediately punched Jiang Biao.

But it was too late. Zhou Yi laughed at himself and said, "Yeah, maybe I'm just a jinx."

Jiang Biao was stunned when he heard this and quickly said, "Zhou Yi, that's not what I meant. I was just joking."

Qiao Jiali glared at Jiang Biao.

At this time, Wu Yongcheng walked into the office.

"Zhou Yi and Xiao Qiao are back. You've worked hard on An Yuan's case, especially Zhou Yi." As he said this, he patted his shoulder.

Zhou Yi couldn't wait to ask, "Captain Wu, is this dismemberment case our responsibility?"

Wu Yongcheng replied: "Of course, our Third Brigade is responsible for serious and murder cases. We don't care who is in charge!"

This sentence temporarily gave Zhou Yi some peace of mind.

"I won't go into the basic details of the case. Aside from the travel bag, the on-site investigation yielded no useful clues. Old Song's preliminary examination results haven't come back yet, so we'll have to wait," Wu Yongcheng said. "Our next priority will be searching for other body parts and identifying the deceased."

Wu Yongcheng turned around and asked Zhou Yi: "Zhou Yi, do you have any ideas?"

"I……"