Chapter 289 168: Product from Hell! Elixir of Immortality

The identities of the deceased are... quite special...

How special?

"Of the five victims, we've currently identified three. The other two aren't in our records or the DNA database."

"Our current theory is that the two are from out of town. As for the three we've identified, their identities are..."

Li Jianye paused, looking at Xu Huo.

Then, he uttered two words.

"Good people!"

"Good people?"

"Good people!"

Seeing the other man's dead-serious expression, Xu Huo froze. His brow instantly furrowed into a knot.

"All three victims were good people!?"

He asked again in disbelief.

Li Jianye nodded gravely.

"That's right. They were all good people."

"The first victim is named Zhao Shan, forty-five years old. He was the director of one of the few student aid websites in the country. Even before starting the site, he was already widely known as a good man, having launched a village student aid program that helped several thousand children."

"The second victim was a businessman, thirty-four years old. He started his own company three years ago and has since built his assets to over ten million. His name is Chen Jin."

"The third was more unassuming. A volunteer teacher, female, thirty years old. Su Shan."

Li Jianye recited the file information for each of the three identified victims.

"All three enjoyed excellent public reputations."

'Three... good people... were murdered...'

Xu Huo's brow furrowed as he fell deep into thought.

'At the scene, I smelled something spicy...'

'Not the spiciness of a victim toward their killer.'

'But the hatred—the spiciness—that the killer radiated toward the victims!'

'The killer hated the victims. And if you hate someone, it must be because they did something to hurt you.'

'Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with being a 'good person'.'

'But according to the police files... these victims really were good people!'

"Are you sure there wasn't a mistake?"

Someone couldn't help but ask.

"There's no mistake. The archives have Zhao Shan's physical description; he has a birthmark on the back of his neck," Li Jianye said slowly. "It matches the body."

"There's no doubt the victim is Zhao Shan. The information on the other two is even more straightforward. We're certain there's no mistake regarding their identities."

'No mistake...'

'So the killer murdered three good people?'

'Zhao Shan, with his student aid programs, helping people leave the mountains...'

'The charitable businessman, Chen Jin...'

'Su Shan, the volunteer teacher who spent five or six years in a harsh environment.'

On the surface, all three of them looked spotless. Each one could be considered a moral paragon of society.

But now, they were dead, just like that.

Killed at the hands of a murderer!

Worse, they had been tortured before they died—their bodies flayed open—and had even developed Stockholm Syndrome...

"On top of that, Zhao Shan once received a 'Moral Paragon' award from Jiangsan City."

Li Jianye added after a moment of thought.

Now, everyone was at a loss for words.

"What about their families?"

Xu Huo rubbed the bridge of his nose. The fragmented information in his mind was frustrating. This feeling of having clues but being unable to connect them was excruciating.

"We can't contact the families."

Li Jianye shook his head.

"Zhao Shan has no family. Chen Jin's and Su Shan's families can't be found. It's as if they vanished into thin air."

"Our initial theory is that the killer may have kidnapped them."

"It's also possible..."

Li Jianye's voice trailed off.

Although he didn't say it outright, everyone around him understood what he meant.

'It was also possible... that they were dead...'

At this thought, everyone's heart sank, as if weighed down by lead.

Xu Huo, however, wasn't surprised by this. He had already guessed as much, so he wasn't tense. Still...

"What else?"

Xu Huo looked at Li Jianye and said slowly,

"Don't tell me that after all this time, with all three victims being local to Jiangsan City, all you've found are these surface-level files..."

Li Jianye paused, then said,

"You're right. Besides these surface details, there is indeed something else."

"And I suspect that this 'something else' is precisely what led to this case."

"What is it?"

A look of confusion appeared on Zhao Shui's face.

He had previously checked the witness statements, but unfortunately, there were no leads. They had revealed even less than Wang Chao did.

"There's a problem with their finances!"

Li Jianye said, his tone firm.

"Take Zhao Shan, the owner and director of the student aid website, for example."

"He publicly claimed to only take a fee for the website's daily maintenance, but the police discovered a large amount of money from unknown sources in his financial transactions."

"Obviously, this amount of money far exceeds what someone in his position should have."

"Furthermore, the student aid programs he ran received numerous investments from unknown sources, as well as some inexplicably arranged funding contracts."

"It's the same with Su Shan and Chen Jin."

"The former's personal expenditures are suspicious. As for the latter, the police couldn't find a clear source for his initial start-up capital."

'It's about money...'

'Zhao Shan's student aid website was launched in early '03, while his aid program began over ten years ago.'

'If he was involved with the criminal underworld for over a decade... then this is a much bigger problem.'

'It's hard to say about Su Shan, but Chen Jin's initial capital...'

'In life, the hardest million to make is always the first.'

'That was true in my past life, and it's true in this one!'

'A million lets you start a business, to gamble on the future. Success or failure is all down to luck.'

'In other words, that first million takes the longest and is the most difficult to earn. It's also the period when a person is most likely to leave a trail while making their money.'