“My father? What about him? He was just an old tile factory worker.” Ji Zhan didn’t understand why the police were suddenly looking into his deceased father. He instinctively said, “Ling Lie lives in our house, but my dad has nothing to do with Huang Xuntong’s death!”

Ji Zhan’s milk tea shop was quiet as Ji Chenjiao walked around and ordered a coffee.

Ji Zhan’s family had bought a home three kilometers away from Xieyang Road. Riding the cultural development wave in the northern part of the city, they had rented a street-facing storefront and started a business. Life was going well—the daughter designed the tea and desserts, Ji Zhan and his wife helped in the back, and their son had another job and didn’t live with them.

When the coffee was ready, Ji Chenjiao said, “We’re not saying your father’s death is related to Huang Xuntong. It’s just that the crime took place in a house your father used to live in. This is just a routine check. Didn’t you mention last time that the house couldn’t be rented out? The more I thought about it, the more I felt like there were things we hadn’t asked. Situations like yours are very common—every family has elderly members. If every house becomes unrentable after someone passes away, imagine how many empty homes there’d be.”

Ji Zhan grew agitated upon hearing that. “Exactly! Isn’t that all because of gossip? And who knows which heartless people started it! It’s over now—no way we’re going to rent it out!”

Ji Chenjiao asked, “What illness did your father have?”

Ji Zhan suddenly grew guarded. “You’re not suspecting us, his children, of doing something, are you? That’s impossible! My wife and I stayed by his bedside the whole time. We only sent him to the hospice when we had no other option!”

“Don’t get nervous,” said Ji Chenjiao. “I’ll verify things with the hospital.”

“It was organ failure. He had heart disease, and chronic lung and kidney conditions,” Ji Zhan calmed down. “In his last two years, he was hospitalized more and more. He couldn’t eat, became skin and bones. But I swear—we never gave up on him. I kept all his hospitalization documents. Even the doctor told us that, for his age, he’d already lived a good life. They said we should let him pass peacefully.”

It sounded like a natural death, but the house remaining unrentable was the odd part. Ji Chenjiao asked, “What about the rumors?”

“How would I know?” Ji Zhan replied. “The tenants never gave specifics. They’d just say it was ‘unlucky’ and refused to explain. When I asked where they heard it, they wouldn’t say.”

Ji Chenjiao asked, “Do you still have their contact information?”

“I’ll check.”

Out of three phone numbers Ji Zhan could find, two were inactive. The third belonged to a woman named Ms. Chen, now a taxi driver. Ji Chenjiao arranged to meet her during her shift change.

Ms. Chen was thirty-five, greeted Ji Chenjiao warmly as she stepped out of the car, and even offered him some popular cooling herbal tea shared among taxi drivers.

Ji Chenjiao insisted on paying. “About what I mentioned on the phone…”

Ms. Chen nodded. “Yeah, it’s like you said. That house was actually pretty good—ideal for a single mom like me, cheap rent, plenty of food places nearby. I was about to sign the lease, but then I heard something bad.”

Ji Chenjiao: “That an elderly person had died there?”

“Mm-hmm. But I was cautious. Old houses are usually left behind by the elderly. If they pass from natural causes, what’s the problem? So I asked Ji—Ji what’s-his-name?”

“Ji Zhan.”

“Right. I asked him how his father died and where. Maybe he’d dealt with this kind of concern before, because he explained it right away and even showed me medical records. It was a normal death, in a hospital, and directly sent to a funeral home. So I thought, okay, it’s safe to rent.”

Ji Chenjiao asked, “But you gave up in the end?”

Ms. Chen sighed. “This might sound a bit embarrassing, but if it were just me, I wouldn’t have hesitated—I’d have moved in. But then again, if I didn’t have a kid, I wouldn’t have gone through all this effort to work in the city. I came here to give her a better life.”

In just a few words, Ji Chenjiao had pieced together the life of this mother and daughter.

“Someone said, right in front of my daughter, that Ji Zhan’s house was haunted. Said the old man was quite healthy but slowly deteriorated. Scared my girl to death. I don’t believe in that kind of superstition, but then I started wondering—if the place is so cheap, why does no one want it? Maybe there really is something wrong.”

Ms. Chen thought it over and gave up the cheap 4-2 unit. After a lot of effort, she found another apartment, five hundred yuan more expensive.

Ji Chenjiao asked, “So you’re saying someone actively discouraged you from renting?”

This surprised him—Ji Zhan had said the rumors had merely reached tenants, but Ms. Chen said someone had spoken to her directly.

Ms. Chen replied, “Yes. I didn’t tell Ji Zhan back then—it seemed like the guy meant well. But since you’re the police, I won’t hide it. He was a balding middle-aged man, sallow-skinned, with a raspy voice.”

“He didn’t say his name?” Ji Chenjiao asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. I asked him how he knew so much. He said he lived upstairs.”

Ji Chenjiao immediately told Shen Qi to send over photos of residents from the crime scene building and as many from Xieyang Road as possible. “See if he’s in there.”

Ms. Chen had only flipped through a few when she said, “That’s him.”

The photo was unmistakably of the deceased—Huang Xuntong!

Ji Chenjiao: “Are you sure?”

“If you bring him in front of me, I’ll know for certain. From the photo… I’m eighty percent sure.” Ms. Chen looked closer. “I really think it’s him.”

“Is this getting bigger or what?” Xi Wan was stunned by the revelation. Though a trace evidence analyst, she and Ji Chenjiao were both “all-rounders” in the major crimes unit—field work and even tactical roles were nothing new.

She clicked her heels across the room, only to find Ji Chenjiao already at the whiteboard, connecting the dots. She walked over and looked at the names, events, dates, and arrows.

“Ji Zhan’s father died three years ago, cause of death not in question for now. That same year, Huang Xuntong had a drastic personality shift. No clear causal link between the two—they weren’t even close. After Ji Zhan’s father passed, Ji Zhan tried to rent out 4-2, but someone kept spreading rumors and scaring tenants away. That person was likely Huang Xuntong.”

“It wasn’t until last October that 4-2 was finally rented to Ling Lie.” Ji Chenjiao capped his marker and crossed his arms. “On the early morning of April 6th this year, the same Huang Xuntong who spread the rumors died in 4-2. Ling Lie is either the killer—or someone framed by the real one. If you look at it this way, maybe Huang Xuntong’s change really was related to Ji Ke’s death—and to 4-2.”

The clues seemed to link up—but the motives behind each step were still a mystery. Why had Huang Xuntong spread the rumors? What did he gain by driving away potential tenants? Was he killed for doing so? Why had Ji Ke’s death changed him?

Xi Wan clutched her head. “Ugh, I can’t sort it out. Boss, by this logic, doesn’t Ji Zhan have the strongest motive? But from what I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t seem like someone who’d kill over this.”

“The house is already rented now. If he were to kill over it at this point, it’d be ridiculous. It’s his own family’s property.” Ji Chenjiao’s gaze shifted to the name Ling Lie, his brow tightening.

His suspicion toward Ling Lie suddenly deepened.

Back then, Huang Xuntong actively kept tenants away. Most people, upon hearing something might be wrong with a place, would rather avoid trouble. Eventually, the rumors spread so far that Huang Xuntong no longer needed to personally warn anyone. Even Ling Lie had heard about the old man dying in the unit—but still chose to move in.

Why was 4-2 so important to him?

Was it because he wanted to turn it into a crime scene?

Shao Ling knew nothing about Huang Xuntong scaring off tenants and found it hard to believe. “He wasn’t one to meddle in other people’s business, and he never mentioned the old man from 4-2. I never saw him talk to Ji Zhan, either. When he passed that unit, he wouldn’t even glance at it. What would he gain from driving people away?”

As for Ji Zhan, he was completely baffled. He said his father didn’t really socialize after retirement—preferred staying home reading the newspaper, maybe going for walks. He wasn’t into chess, dancing, or other elderly hobbies.

But Ji Zhan’s understanding of his father might’ve only scratched the surface—because Ji Chenjiao easily found out that when Ji Ke was still in decent health, Ji Zhan only visited him once a month.

Ji Ke’s death might not have hidden secrets—but the man himself was shrouded in mystery.

While the Major Crimes Unit was racking their brains over Huang Xuntong’s case, a child suddenly went missing at Moonflower Kindergarten. A boy named Zhou Zongyi disappeared from the school.

The local police station was the first to get involved, and since the case involved a child, the district bureau gave it special attention and assigned experienced officers to the investigation.

Technically, this case had nothing to do with the Major Crimes Unit—except for one detail: Ling Lie was a volunteer at Moonflower Kindergarten.

That same day, rumors started spreading online. Someone claimed that an employee at Moonflower was suspected of murder and had already been taken away by the police. The leak didn’t mention any link between the “murderer” and the missing boy. But once even a drop of gossip hits the internet, it boils over by itself. Almost everyone who followed the case immediately believed Zhou Zongyi had gone missing because of Ling Lie—despite the fact that Ling Lie had been sleeping at the Major Crimes Unit when the boy disappeared.

“What kind of garbage story is this?” Shen Qi was tracking the source of the leak. He wasn’t exactly fond of Ling Lie, but the guy had been right under his nose—how could he possibly be involved in a child abduction? Clearly, someone was trying to muddy the waters and derail the district bureau’s investigation.

“Brother, did someone see you when you visited Moonflower last time?” Shen Qi looked up, half-accusing Ji Chenjiao.

Ji Chenjiao reached out and turned Shen Qi’s head back toward his screen.

He had warned the kindergarten director not to reveal that the police were investigating Ling Lie. But if someone was determined to shift blame onto Ling Lie, there were more ways to get that information than just through the director.

There were plenty of gossipy people on Xieyang Road. The police couldn’t control them all. The crime had taken place at apartment 4-2. The tenant of 4-2 worked at Moonflower Kindergarten. Even civilians could connect the dots.

Missing child. Murder suspect. Kindergarten volunteer. Throw those keywords online and boom—instant uproar.

Ji Chenjiao opened the leaked video again. The voiceover was computer-generated with captions. The footage was taken outside Moonflower and didn’t look like it came from an insider. But the text revealed an almost eerie familiarity with the kindergarten’s daily schedule—what was served for meals, when activities happened, which dishes were popular. They knew everything—except they didn’t include any footage of the cafeteria. That didn’t quite add up.

The reasonable explanation was that the leaker was an insider who deliberately avoided filming the inside of the school to hide their identity—but still gave themselves away through the details they knew.

For Shen Qi, tracking the IP address was a piece of cake. He would have results soon enough. Meanwhile, Ji Chenjiao went to see Ling Lie again.

When Ling Lie found out he had become the internet’s new favorite scapegoat, he was stunned for a moment, then scratched his head. “Man, my luck is just the worst. Why does everyone keep dumping their crap on me?”

That’s what he said—but there wasn’t a trace of frustration on his face.

That kind of reaction meant one of two things: either he had nerves of steel, or he’d been through enough that he was just used to it.

“I gotta ask, Ling Lie—how do you keep getting into this kind of situation?” Ji Chenjiao said with a mocking tone. Watching Ling Lie get the short end of the stick weirdly cheered him up.

Ling Lie straightened up and met his gaze. After a moment, he gave a pitiful little pout. “Maybe I’ll never be cleared.”

Ji Chenjiao’s eyelid twitched. He could sense Ling Lie was about to get sarcastic.

Sure enough, Ling Lie said, “I’m the one being wronged here. I can say I’m innocent. But Captain Ji—you’re a cop! If I say I’m innocent and you believe me…”

Ji Chenjiao cut him off. “I don’t believe you.”

“But you just said, ‘Why do you always end up in these situations?’ And I had just said I was being framed.” Ling Lie grinned. “So you do believe me, don’t you?”

Ji Chenjiao: “…”

“Sigh!” Ling Lie exaggerated a dramatic sigh and gave Ji Chenjiao a glance. “The Major Crimes captain is such a naïve softie. Believes anything he hears. Not very competent, huh?”

At mealtime, Ling Lie wanted McDonald’s again, but this time Shen Qi came to see him. Shen Qi tossed a piece of bread at him. “Still dreaming about McDonald’s? My brother said this is all you deserve!”

Ling Lie didn’t mind. Bread it was.

Ji Chenjiao glanced at the surveillance footage. Why did that guy look like he was enjoying even a dry bun so much?