The cannon fodder fiancée in the redemption story, mwah!
In the office of the Municipal Public Security Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division, Chen Xia was typing away on the keyboard in front of the computer screen.
Recently, their team has been handling ordinary cases such as petty theft and fights.
Solving the case wasn't difficult; it was compiling the case report that was incredibly troublesome.
"Xia, Captain Li is looking for you!" Zhang Wencheng, who was in the same group, hurriedly walked in with a note.
"Understood, thank you, Brother Zhang!" Chen Xia saved the document she had prepared and got up to walk towards the next office.
"Knock knock." Chen Xia knocked on the door of Captain Li's office.
"Come in," came Li Weidong's deep voice from inside the room.
Chen Xia pushed open the door and walked in: "Team Leader Li!"
Li Weidong pointed to the chair opposite him: "Sit down. How are you adjusting to work lately?"
Chen Xia nodded: "It's fine, thank you for your concern, Captain Li! Did you need something?"
Li Weidong hesitated for a moment, just about to hand the yellowed file to Chen Xia, when Wang Songjiang, who was on duty, pushed open the door and poked his head in, his face somewhat grave: "Team Leader Li, Huang Xiaoju's mother is here again, she's in the reception room."
Chen Xia could clearly feel that Captain Li tensed up. He quickly stood up, the chair scraping against the floor with a harsh sound: "I'll be right there. Xia, you come too."
In the reception room, an elderly man with a full head of white hair sat on the sofa, clutching a photograph tightly in his hands.
Chen Xia noticed that her nails were neatly trimmed, but her knuckles were somewhat deformed, as if she had been holding something for many years.
"Captain Li..." The old man stood up as soon as he saw them come in, his voice trembling violently: "Is there any progress in my daughter Yan Yan's case?"
Li Weidong stepped forward with a look of shame and took the old woman's hand: "Auntie, please sit down. There are no new developments in the case yet, but don't worry, we will continue to investigate and strive to find the murderer who killed your daughter as soon as possible and get justice for her."
The old man's shoulders slumped, as if all his strength had been drained away.
She slowly sat back on the sofa, her fingers gently tracing the smiling face of the girl in the photo: "Three years... Yan Yan was only twenty-five when she left..."
Li Weidong felt a tightness in his throat. The girl in the photo smiled gently, her eyes curving into crescents. Who could have imagined that such a gentle girl would have her life ended in such a cruel way by the murderer?
After seeing the old man off, Li Weidong lit a cigarette in the corridor. His expression was inscrutable amidst the swirling smoke.
"It's a case from three years ago. Huang Xiaoyan, a Chinese language teacher at the Sixth Middle School in the city, was murdered, dismembered, and her body dumped in four different garbage dumps."
The entire organization was mobilized; experts from the province came, but the murderer was not found.
"After learning of her daughter's death, Huang Xiaoju's mother turned white overnight and has come to visit every three months for the past three years without fail."
Li Weidong stubbed out his cigarette and turned to Chen Xia: "I've been watching your performance these past few months. I've noticed you have a special sensitivity to cases. Would you like to give this case a try?"
Chen Xia fell silent. Three years had passed since the case, and there were definitely no clues left. She couldn't guarantee it would work.
"Don't be nervous." Li Weidong seemed to see through her thoughts: "It would be best if we could find clues, but it's okay if we can't. After all, so many veteran detectives have run into obstacles."
If you don't want to take it on, that's fine too. I'm just trying anything at this point...
Chen Xia said solemnly, "Since Captain Li thinks I can do it, then I'll give it a try. Maybe I'll just stumble upon a lucky break and solve this case."
Chen Xia received the case file of Huang Xiaoyan's dismemberment from Li Weidong, returned to her workstation, and carefully opened the yellowed file.
The first page featured a photo of Huang Xiaoyan. The girl in the photo smiled gently, but her beautiful life was forever frozen at the age of twenty-five.
Chen Xia continued scrolling down. Huang Xiaoyan was a Chinese language teacher at the Sixth Middle School in the city. Three years ago, she took two days off because of a cold. It was normal for teachers to take leave for personal reasons, and the school didn't take it seriously.
But three days after the holiday ended, Huang Xiaoyan still hadn't come to work, so the school leaders asked a colleague who was on good terms with her to contact her and ask what was going on.
She didn't answer her phone or reply to her texts. I went to her house, but no one was home. I asked the neighbor across the hall, and they said they hadn't seen her when she went out for the past few days.
The colleague panicked and contacted her sister, who hadn't been home or contacted her family for days.
So the school leaders and her sister went to the city police station to report the incident. Just then, someone reported that a bag of minced meat, suspected to be human tissue, had been found in an open-air garbage dump in the eastern suburbs.
Police immediately cordoned off the scene and launched a citywide search. They eventually found the dismembered human remains in four different landfills, which were later confirmed to be those of the missing Huang Xiaoyan.
Because the body was discovered too late, the golden period for solving the case was missed, and many clues had disappeared. The body was dumped in four different garbage dumps in the east, west, south, and north, with no surveillance cameras installed, and the scene was severely damaged, making it impossible to find any useful clues.
Chen Xia continued to look through the photos taken at the scene. The scene was gone, and now she could only look for clues through these photos and the surveillance videos that were saved at the time.
For the next three days, Chen Xia stayed in the office, watching all the surveillance footage frame by frame.
In the early hours of the third day, Chen Xia rubbed her sore eyes and finally spotted something unusual in the community's surveillance video. A water deliveryman had the text bubbles she wanted appearing above his head.
Name: Wu Jiang
Gender: Male
Age: 28
Criminal record: Killed Huang Xiaoyan 1125 days ago, dismembered her body, and disposed of it in a garbage dump.
The man in the surveillance footage was wearing a baseball cap, so his face was not clearly visible, but the watch on his wrist was very eye-catching.
Chen Xia took screenshots of all the man who appeared in the surveillance footage and then sharpened them.
The murderer has been found, but how to explain to Captain Li how she identified the water deliveryman named Wu Jiang as the killer of Huang Xiaoyan is a big problem.
Chen Xia felt a headache coming on; even after knowing the answer, the reverse deduction process was extremely difficult.
But she couldn't tell the captain that she was linked to a police god system that could see people's criminal records through surveillance. It was really worrying!
After much thought, Chen Xia decided to go to the neighborhood where Huang Xiaoyan lived to take a look, hoping to find some overlooked clues.
Chen Xia contacted Huang Xiaoyan's sister, Huang Xiaoya, through Captain Li, and the two arranged to meet at the entrance of the Jinxiu Huacheng residential complex where Huang Xiaoyan lived.
Jinxiu Huacheng is located in the South Third Ring Road Education Park, which offers significant discounts for teachers buying houses. As a result, it is a teacher-populated area with a quiet environment and good security.
When Huang Xiaoyan's older sister, Huang Xiaoya, took out her keys to open the door, her hands trembled slightly: "Yanyan bought a second-hand house, but the decoration was all done according to her preferences."
Since the accident, we've rarely come this way, and nothing has been touched...
The family was afraid of being reminded of the past, and they also hoped that with the advancement of criminal investigation technology, the police could reopen the case and find the murderer of Huang Xiaoyan. So they kept everything in the house exactly as it was.
Pushing open the door, a faint smell of dust wafted out.
Chen Xia put on gloves, a mask, and shoe covers, and carefully walked in. She looked through all the rooms carefully, and a watch on the dressing table caught her eye.
The silver strap and simple dial look expensive, very similar to the watch worn by the water deliveryman named Wu Jiang in the surveillance video.
Chen Xia immediately had the small system scan to confirm whether the two watches were the same brand and model.
The system quickly concluded: "They are indeed watches from the same brand. This is a couple's watch launched by XXX three years ago."
Chen Xia picked up the phone, put it in an evidence bag, and walked out of the room to ask Huang Xiaoya, "Is this Huang Xiaoyan's watch? Do you know which store she bought it from?"
Huang Xiaoya nodded: "I think so, but I'm not sure, I've never heard her mention it."
Does your sister have a boyfriend?
Huang Xiaoya shook her head firmly: "No. My parents are strict, and Yan Yan has always been obedient. She wouldn't dare to secretly date early. After I started working, my second sister and I introduced her to some people, but she felt it wasn't a good fit, so we didn't continue."
Chen Xia held up the evidence bag and gestured for her to take a photo: "I need to take this watch back to have my fingerprints checked. After the fingerprints are checked, I'll let you know to pick up the watch from the station."
Huang Xiaoya immediately said, "Officer Chen, please take it. As long as it helps solve my sister's case, I'll do anything!"
Chen Xia chatted with Huang Xiaoya for a few more minutes, telling her that she could call her anytime if she remembered anything.
After leaving Jinxiu Huacheng, Chen Xia took the watch and went straight to the shopping mall in the city center, where she found the brand's counter.
After she presented her identification, the staff helped her find the purchase record for the watch using the eight-digit serial number on the back of the watch.
"Officer, it's confirmed. This watch is indeed a couple's model. The buyer was a Mr. Wu Jiang, and it was purchased three years ago..."
From then on, Chen Xia finally found the intersection between Wu Jiang and Huang Xiaoyan.
Holding the printed purchase record, the watch, and the screenshots of the surveillance footage, Chen Xia drove back to the police station and rushed into Li Weidong's office: "Captain Li, I've found something."
Li Weidong jumped to his feet: "What?"
Chen Xia showed him the watch, surveillance screenshots, and purchase records one by one: "Look, these videos are all marked by me. Before and after the incident, this water deliveryman frequently entered and exited the community where Huang Xiaoyan lived."
Of course, it's normal for water delivery workers to come and go in the community to deliver water, but look at the watch on his wrist. There's an identical one in Huang Xiaoyan's dressing table drawer.
I took this watch to the brand's counter and asked the staff to retrieve the purchase record.
Guess what? By checking the serial number of Huang Xiaoyan's watch, it turned out that her watch and this person's were a matching couple's model, purchased by Wu Jiang, the water deliveryman.
Li Weidong paced excitedly around the office: "Great! Investigate Wu Jiang's background immediately."
Wu Jiang's information was quickly retrieved: 28 years old, high school graduate, water delivery worker. Further investigation revealed that he and Huang Xiaoyan had actually attended the same high school.
In the interrogation room, Wu Jiang initially pretended to be calm and claimed ignorance when asked questions. His bewildered expression made it seem as if he had been wrongly accused.
But when Captain Li produced the watch and the purchase record, his face instantly turned pale, his fingers trembled slightly, and he asked in a hoarse voice, "Could I have a cigarette?"
Wu Jiang took a deep drag on his cigarette, choking back tears as he spoke: "I killed Huang Xiaoyan. We...we were together since high school."
After she got into university, I went to the city where she was studying to work.
I scrimped and saved, hoping to marry her in style after graduation. But after she passed the civil service exam, she changed...
According to Wu Jiang's confession, Huang Xiaoyan began to dislike his job after she started working, and even rejected his marriage proposal on her birthday.
"She said her parents disapproved, that she had already gone on blind dates..." Wu Jiang's eyes turned bloodshot: "I loved her so much, but she wanted to marry someone else, so I killed her..."
On the night of the incident, Wu Jiang used a key he had previously stolen to enter Huang Xiaoyan's home, drugged her with a gun, and strangled her to death.
He then evaded security cameras and used a water delivery tricycle to transport the body out of the residential area. In his rented apartment, he dismembered Huang Xiaoyan's body and disposed of it in four separate instances at garbage dumps in the four corners of the city.
"I've watched a lot of crime dramas..." Wu Jiang laughed in a sickly way: "Wear gloves, avoid surveillance cameras, and even deliberately choose garbage dumps without cameras."
I hid for three years without being discovered, and I thought I would never be found out...
After the case was solved, Huang Xiaoyan's mother came to the police station again. This time, she brought a photo of her daughter to present a banner, but everyone felt that the banner was undeserved.
Back in the office, Li Weidong clapped his hands to signal everyone to look over: "Xia has done a great job this time, so the whole team is having a dinner, and it's on me!"
The teammates gathered around and cheered, then started discussing where to have dinner together, and finally everyone agreed to go for hot pot.
Wang Songjiang and Zhang Wencheng were even more eager to fight, saying that this time they were determined to make Captain Li bleed a lot.
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