Chapter 668 - 555: Why Not Call the Police

Chapter 668: Chapter 555: Why Not Call the Police

Jizhou, Shanggu City. The Yuneng Science and Technology Innovation Park near the North City Botanical Garden.

The park wasn’t large and was mostly comprised of red-brick, villa-style industrial buildings that catered primarily to small and medium-sized startups.

The roadside outside Building 7 in Area A was lined with cars.

Inside one of the MPVs, Shen Xin was eating from a takeout container as he gazed across the street.

Across the street stood a small, three-story building with a main entrance and two others on its left and right.

The entrance on the right led to the second floor. A sign hanging by the door read: Shengteng Visual Art Co., Ltd.

Lu Weihong, a native of Shanggu, Jizhou.

In March 2009, after Li Suhua committed suicide by jumping from a building, a distraught Lu Weihong resigned from his job at the newspaper that June.

The entire investigation had been conducted covertly, with no direct contact made with Lu Weihong.

Records from the community’s periodic checks on temporary residents showed that after quitting his job, Lu Weihong didn’t return to his hometown but instead holed up in a rental unit.

He didn’t check out and return to his hometown until February 2010.

Back then, there were still roaming fees, and the fact that he switched to a local Shanggu cell phone number supported this.

Based on peripheral information, such as his social media accounts and other publicly available data, it’s speculated that he worked as a freelance photographer afterward, taking on private jobs.

He also contributed to several magazines.

His ability to land a job at a state-run entity like *Green Times*, which was sponsored by the Forestry Bureau, showed he was quite capable.

After all, he was a television news photography major from the Communication University.

His income must have been decent. In 2012, he took advantage of the rising housing market to buy a three-bedroom apartment in a good location in Shanggu, paying in full. In 2015, he sold it for a high price and, adding it to his savings, upgraded to a duplex villa.

It was only at the end of that same year that he registered the company before them: Shengteng Visual Art Co., Ltd.

The company produced corporate promotional videos, filmed commercials, and handled post-production.

He even managed to ride the digital multimedia wave, and business was booming. The company now had nearly sixty employees, and its revenue last year exceeded fifty million.

It was considered a fairly well-known company within the relevant local industry in Shanggu.

It was safe to say that Lu Weihong, living in a villa and driving a Mercedes, was now a successful man.

"Shen Xin, his wife is here."

Yang Zeran reached out from the back seat and tapped Shen Xin.

A BMW Mini pulled up to the company entrance and started backing into a parking spot.

Once the car was parked, a woman in a long wool coat got out. She then lifted a little girl wearing a pink down jacket out of a car seat in the back.

In August 2016, Lu Weihong married Ruan Jia, who worked in his company’s human resources department.

In November of that same year, Ruan Jia became pregnant.

In September 2017, she gave birth to a daughter for Lu Weihong.

She was only a year and a half old now.

Back in 2008, Lu Weihong was already 30 years old.

He still hadn’t had his 41st birthday.

When they married in 2016, Ruan Jia was just 27. Lu Weihong was 11 years older than her, almost a full zodiac cycle.

Based on the past few days of surveillance, Lu Weihong deeply loved his wife and daughter. He had plenty of social engagements for work, but he never fooled around and always went home every night.

Ruan Jia was now a full-time housewife, taking care of their daughter. She brought Lu Weihong lunch at least four or five days a week.

A look at Lu Weihong’s spending records also showed that he never failed to buy his wife gifts and flowers for holidays and special occasions.

He also spent a great deal of money on his daughter.

They hadn’t directly contacted his friends or colleagues, but if they had, they would most likely have described them as a very loving couple.

Ruan Jia was tall and had kept her figure well after giving birth.

Lu Weihong had an honest, refined look and was rather handsome. Ruan Jia was also beautiful, so it was no surprise their daughter was adorable, with rosy cheeks and big eyes.

Carrying the child in one arm and a lunch container in the other, she walked right into the company.

Judging from Ruan Jia’s daily spending and social media presence, she was a gentle, virtuous, and family-oriented woman—the very model of a good wife and loving mother.

Yang Zeran’s eyes followed Ruan Jia. He pursed his lips and said, "Shen Xin, don’t you think that Ruan Jia looks a lot like Li Suhua?"

Shen Xin was noncommittal.

’They share a certain resemblance,’ he thought, ’but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they look alike.’

’In any case, they’re both pretty.’

Shen Xin got out and walked over to the vehicle behind them.

The vehicle was packed with equipment. Chang Zhigang was inside as well.

On a monitor, surveillance footage of Lu Weihong’s office showed him busy at his computer.

A moment later, Ruan Jia pushed the door open and walked in.

His eyes lit up at the sight of his daughter. He immediately dropped what he was doing, went over to take the child from his wife, and started happily cooing at her, nuzzling her cheek.

The couple’s conversation immediately came through the audio feed.

The office camera didn’t have audio, but they had secretly planted a bug.

They had deployed technical surveillance measures soon after the investigation into Lu Weihong began.

In a major case involving six lives, no measure was too extreme.

The couple was just making small talk about family matters, nothing of value. Shen Xin listened for a bit before returning to the front vehicle to lie down and rest.

It was already February 23rd.

The investigation into Lu Weihong had been going on for about ten days now.

Many details were still being verified and confirmed.

This was especially true for Lu Weihong’s whereabouts at the time of each crime.

He was still in Anjing when the first murder occurred.

By the second and third murders, he had already returned to his hometown. But so much time had passed that records like travel ticket purchases and even bank transactions were no longer available, having exceeded the mandatory data retention period.

Then there was the gun.

They had previously theorized the suspect used a gun to control the two adult male victims.

They had tried every conceivable method to see if Lu Weihong had any way to purchase a firearm, but they’d found nothing.

In short, they were pushing forward on all fronts, trying to find concrete evidence proving Lu Weihong was their man.

They had a suspect, at least.

The key now was how to secure a conviction.

It had been almost five years since the last murder in 2014.

If they arrested and interrogated him now, it would be tough to get him to confess.

They couldn’t count on him being like Gao Jinrui from that previous case, who, plagued by guilt and his own inner demons over running down Wu Jiawang, had confessed to everything the moment they found him.

The task force and Xu Jinguang’s plan was to conduct a peripheral investigation first, obtain crucial evidence, and then go in for the kill, leaving Lu Weihong no room to talk his way out of it.

Ruan Jia stayed upstairs for over an hour before leaving.

Lu Weihong saw his wife and daughter downstairs, said a reluctant goodbye to the little girl, and watched until Ruan Jia’s car was out of sight before turning to go back upstairs.

Shen Xin adjusted his seat, sitting up straight again.

One team had already driven off to tail Ruan Jia.

It would be a while before Lu Weihong got off work, and the stakeout was getting boring. Shen Xin decided to discuss the case. "Lao Yang," he said, "I’ve been thinking about two questions for the past couple of days."

In the back, Yang Zeran was also sprawled out in boredom and casually asked what they were.

Shen Xin said, "First question: If we assume our theory is correct and Lu Weihong’s motive was revenge for Li Suhua, then shouldn’t he have killed Wang Shulin first?"

Yang Zeran immediately perked up in the back seat, sitting up straight. "Exactly," he said eagerly. "I’ve been wondering about that, too."

"Think about it. He wanted revenge against four targets. Logically, you’d either kill the one you hate most first, to get it over with, or save him for last."

"But out of these four guys, Yang Guofa was an honest man, and Liu Baoli also had a decent reputation for being upstanding."

"Wang Erpeng was just a lackey, a follower. The only real scumbag was Wang Shulin."

"If someone had evil designs on Li Suhua back then, my money’s on Wang Shulin. In that case, Lu Weihong should have hated Wang Shulin the most."

"And the facts bear that out. I mean, look at Wang Shulin—he was stabbed twenty or thirty times. A horrible death. And yet, Lu Weihong killed Liu Baoli first. That seems backward."

"You think maybe he went after Liu Baoli first as a practice run, to gain some experience?"

’Killing is a skill,’ Shen Xin thought. ’If you don’t want the police to catch you right away, you really have to use your head.’

That was exactly what Shen Xin was thinking; he found Lu Weihong’s decision to kill Liu Baoli first to be strange.

As for Yang Zeran’s theory about gaining experience, Shen Xin wasn’t so sure.

The first crime scene was already very "professional."

The suspect had managed to determine the victim’s route, lain in ambush in the mountains, intercepted the target at a predetermined spot, and executed a plan to control and then kill him.

He left no useful physical evidence at the scene, and an extensive search of the area revealed no trace of where he might have been hiding in the mountains.

It all indicated that the suspect had thought things through and made a meticulous plan.

This was a crime committed by a clever man, someone with strong counter-surveillance skills. A pro.

Yang Zeran tapped Shen Xin’s shoulder. "What’s the second question?"

Shen Xin said, "I’ve been wondering... why didn’t Li Suhua go to the police after she came down from the mountain?"

The group of four came down the mountain on December 15th. If Li Suhua had been raped, she could have reported it.

But she didn’t. She chose to leave in silence.

Then, a few months later, she discovered she was pregnant, couldn’t handle it, and committed suicide by jumping from a building.

The task force had looked into Li Suhua’s background. According to her friends and classmates, she was a very optimistic and cheerful person.

She was a good student and a capable worker. A person like that should have been psychologically resilient, you’d think.

If something terrible had happened to her, she should have had the courage to stand up and expose the crime.

But she didn’t.

Yang Zeran said, "That’s easy to explain. Either she was afraid of the damage to her reputation and had her reservations, or she was coerced into doing something—like killing the giant panda."

Shen Xin completely agreed with Yang Zeran’s assessment.

If you want to silence someone, you either kill them or make them an accomplice.

And conveniently, there was a giant panda in that cabin—a crime that would land you in prison for life.

"Lao Yang, you’re missing my point," Shen Xin said. "I’m asking, if Li Suhua was assaulted, would Wang Shulin and his friends have filmed the whole thing?"

’Even porn flicks have scenes like that, where they take photos and videos for blackmail,’ Shen Xin thought. ’Given Wang Shulin’s cruelty, he probably would have filmed it to have something to hold over her.’

"So where’s that video now?"

Shen Xin asked, turning his head.

’The hardest part of solving a case is identifying the person of interest.’

’Once you’ve identified someone like Lu Weihong, with modern investigative techniques, it’s only a matter of time before you find enough temporal or spatial evidence to prove he’s the killer.’

’Cell tower data, for example.’

’They had checked the cell tower data back then. The paper files containing the records of every cell phone that connected to the towers near the crime scenes during the relevant time windows had all been preserved.’

’Lu Weihong could have switched phones, but given enough time, they could screen every single one of those tens of thousands of phone numbers. They would almost certainly find something.’

That was why Shen Xin now had to consider how to secure a conviction against Lu Weihong.

And the most powerful piece of evidence, Shen Xin thought, would be the video Wang Shulin had filmed when he committed the crime.

It could reveal what truly happened in that cabin all those years ago.

"The cell phones of all six people from the three crime scenes were missing, and they were never recovered. Lu Weihong probably retrieved the video."

"But what if Wang Shulin had a backup? After Liu Baoli was killed, even Yang Guofa ran to Wang Shulin, guessing it might be revenge. You’re telling me Wang Shulin wouldn’t have thought of the same thing?"

"And Yang Guofa is still alive. Do you think he might have kept a copy of those videos as well, for self-preservation?"

"So we still have to find this Yang Guofa."

They had received news on February 9th that Yang Guofa had gone to New York. It had been over ten days now. There should be some word soon.