Unlike Xieyang Road, Jiayu Road was home to several middle schools, with most residential buildings along the route rented to junior and senior high students. Police searches here with extra caution, careful not to disrupt regular school activities, to avoid interfering with classes.

The body was found in a sewer on a small alley between two schools. The manhole cover was still in place, but a police dog, catching a scent, refused to move, earning high praise for its contribution.

The body was retrieved, with rigor mortis easing. Though submerged, it hadn’t been long since death, so severe decomposition odor hadn’t set in yet.

An Xun, wearing a mask, conducted the initial on-site autopsy, “Examination.” The victim had an abdominal stab wound from an irregular sharp object, two knife wounds to the waist rupturing a kidney, and two to the chest damaging the heart. Scratch marks, likely from fingernails, marred the arms and hands.

The head and shins showed multiple contusions, with a fractured cervical vertebra. Some injuries were post-mortem, showing no vital reaction, likely from transport or dumping, while others—on the knees and forehead—were pre-mortem, possibly from a fall.

Based on the stab wounds, the scene should have had significant blood spatter, but luminol testing revealed only sparse drip-like blood traces around the manhole, which had been washed away.

“This is just the dump site,” An Xun said gravely. “The murder happened elsewhere. The body was dumped before rigor set in or just as it began, headfirst into the sewer. I suspect the primary scene is nearby—the killer acted fast.”

The body was taken to the city bureau for autopsy and identification. The face, undamaged, confirmed the victim as Gan Pengfei.

He killed Tang Xiaofei on Xieyang Road, only to be killed by another. Was this new killer the same one who murdered Tang Xiaofei?

During An Xun’s examination, Ji Chenjiao stood by. The four knife wounds varied in depth, suggesting the killer aimed to kill Gan Pengfei without anatomical precision, contrasting sharply with the one who snapped Liu Yixiang’s neck instantly.

Notably, the irregular abdominal wound came from a broken glass bottle. Its depth and leg contusions suggested Gan Pengfei was tripped, falling onto the bottle—a trap, likely set to incapacitate him before the four stabs.

Needing a trap implied the killer might be weaker than Gan Pengfei.

A third killer?

Ji Chenjiao returned to Jiayu Road, standing in the alley’s center, eyeing both ends. The road was unique, flanked by the schools’ “study groves.” Even daytime saw few venturing into the wooded areas, let alone at night.

Though narrow, the road had steady traffic. Dumping a body would require late-night timing. Did the cameras at either end catch anything?

“Shen Qi, pull the surveillance.”

An Xun estimated death occurred in the early hours of April 13. By 1 a.m., the alley saw almost no vehicles.

School officials noted that residents—mostly teachers, students, and parents—rarely roamed late. Delivery trucks, restricted near schools, were rerouted to avoid Jiayu Road at night.

At 5 a.m. daily, sanitation workers cleaned the area with high-pressure water jets, giving the killer ideal conditions: no witnesses at midnight, and any blood or footprints around the manhole washed away before dawn.

“This person knows Jiayu Road well,” Ji Chenjiao mused, awaiting surveillance results. He thought of Cao Kexiong, currently only traced as a kept man living in the south, still uncontacted.

Could Cao Kexiong be the killer? He lived on Xieyang Road before leaving Xiarong City. Jiayu Road wasn’t in his work area—would he know it so well?

“Captain, this guy’s suspicious!” Shen Qi froze a frame. At 3:20 a.m. on April 13, a figure in a dark green raincoat and wide-brimmed bamboo hat pedaled a tricycle cart into the left-end camera’s view—a common vendor’s cart.

A dark tarp covered the load, obscuring its contents. The rider’s face was hidden by the hat, and the raincoat masked their build.

At 3:38 a.m., they exited via the right-end camera. The cart looked different—the tarp was balled up, whatever it had covered now gone.

Major suspect.

“The cart’s hard to dispose of. They must’ve hidden it somewhere,” Ji Chenjiao frowned at the footage. Where would the suspect stash it?

Not Jiayu Road—the cameras at both ends would catch it, explaining the full face and body cover. Sedans dominated Jiayu Road; schools banned vendors from parking. A cart nearby would stand out.

“Check tricycle and bicycle secondhand markets, vegetable and fruit wholesale markets, and community group-buy distribution points!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Hold on!” Ling Lie interjected. “This stakeholder has something to say.”

Ji Chenjiao turned, recalling Ling Lie’s foresight in a recent kidnapping case, anticipating the kidnapper’s gas canister and preparing thoroughly.

“Speak,” Ji Chenjiao said.

Ling Lie suggested, “Add one more place—public bus stops near the suburbs.”

The team looked to Ji Chenjiao, who quickly grasped Ling Lie’s point. “Main city zones ban tricycles during the day. Vendors load up before 8 a.m. Daytime, they just move carts from storage to their spots. But suburbs are laxer. Many tricycles hustle at bus stops, charging a few yuan to ferry people to neighborhoods, making them a tricycle hub.”

Ling Lie grinned. “I’ve pedaled one myself! Made over 300 yuan a day!”

Ji Chenjiao: “…”

Though the killer’s identity remained unknown, their appearance on camera and the distinct dump site gave the Major Crimes Unit a boost. New search tasks were assigned, and team members rushed to tricycle hotspots.

Meanwhile, though Cao Kexiong was still missing, police reached the wealthy woman bankrolling him. Mentioning Cao Kexiong, she fumed, “That scumbag! I was blind to fall for him!”

Liang Wenxian soothed her. She calmed, admitting she’d been Cao Kexiong’s sugar mama, even funding his fitness equipment venture. But Cao Kexiong, a failure, squandered it all. Resenting being called a gigolo, he used her money to chase college girls.

“He loved their admiration, not realizing they liked him for my money! We’re done. He even stole from me—he wouldn’t dare stay in my territory!”

Liang Wenxian asked, “When was this? No police report?”

“Last month,” she sighed. “I couldn’t bear the shame. Call it a loss.”

“That’s why we can’t reach Cao…” Ji Chenjiao was now at Ji Zhan’s other property. Ji Zhan, though reluctant, cooperated, saying most of his father’s belongings were burned, with the rest in this old house.

Liang Wenxian said, “He fled with cash—likely back to Xiarong. If someone like Liu Yixiang, Tang Xiaofei, or another used a 15-year-old secret to extort him, he’d have motive.”

From the house’s balcony, Ji Chenjiao pondered. “He’s more likely back in his hometown. The woman didn’t report him—that’s her mindset. But from Cao Kexiong’s view, wouldn’t he fear her chasing him to Xiarong? They met here.”

Liang: “If he’s in his hometown, he’s not our killer?”

Ji Chenjiao: “First, confirm if he’s there.”

“Got it.”

Ji Zhan brought out all the relics. Ling Lie, hunched over, sifted through them like a scavenger, his movements surprisingly professional.

That nagging question resurfaced—what exactly did Ling Lie do?

Ji Ke’s relics included work and production documents, plus his handwritten tile analyses. An iron box held train tickets from nationwide business trips.

Ji Zhan said his father took pride in his work, lamenting the tile factory’s obsolescence, which dimmed his chance to shine.

Ling Lie picked up a yellowed Criminal Law book, oddly out of place among technical texts.

“My dad read this?” Ji Zhan scratched his head, embarrassed. “I didn’t know. Maybe people his age cared about social issues?”

The box held several notebooks, densely packed with work notes. Ling Lie flipped through them rapidly—too fast to read unless he had “quantum speed.” But at one notebook, he paused, backtracking to a page. “Captain Ji, found something.”

Ji Ke had twenty notebooks, work notes and excerpts meticulously organized—not in handwriting but in layout. Flipped quickly, they formed a neat, edge-to-edge black block, making less orderly pages stand out.

Ling Lie handed the notebook to Ji Chenjiao. “Looks like Ji Ke’s diary.”

The yellowed pages, written in black fountain pen, had double-spaced lines, some with later additions, as if Ji Ke left gaps for future notes.

Ji Chenjiao spotted a key term—Luchang County.

Flipping back, earlier pages held standard work logs, the last noting a business trip to Luchang County, with tasks handed off to colleagues.

[I thought this place would be dull, just good for selling products, but I noticed a few interesting people. H is one, L is another, and H’s coworkers are worth watching.]

Ji Chenjiao murmured, “H, L—Huang Xuntong and Liu Yixiang? Why was Ji Ke observing them?”