Chapter 76 - 75: Li Jianye: This Is What You Call a Small Case?

"Li Jianye?"

Xu Huo paused for a moment, then his eyes lit up.

’Well, I’ll be damned. The captain of the Jiangsan City Criminal Investigation Division!’

His expertise was leagues beyond that of a regular detective. It was only because the cases he’d encountered in the last two months were each more bizarre than the last; otherwise, he would have easily led his team to crack them!

’And now he’s crossed over a thousand kilometers to find me...’

Of course, that wasn’t the key point.

The key was...

He remembered that Linlan City seemed to be... short on skilled labor, wasn’t it?!

’And hasn’t that labor just arrived!’

"To the municipal bureau!"

...

...

"Oh, my, Captain Li! It’s been too long!"

"I’ve missed you like crazy!"

At one in the afternoon on the twenty-second, Xu Huo, with tears welling in his eyes, gave a warm embrace to the plainly dressed Li Jianye standing before him.

"I’m just a civilian now, an ordinary consultant."

Li Jianye said with a serious expression, pushing away from Xu Huo’s embrace.

He wasn’t in uniform; he was here in his capacity as a consultant.

"Eh, consultant or not, it’s all about solving cases."

Xu Huo enthusiastically slung an arm around the other man’s shoulder. Li Jianye didn’t refuse.

"Don’t worry, we’ll be sure to call you for any big cases!"

’Big cases?’

"No, no big cases. I’m planning to rest for a few weeks. I can handle a small civil case."

Li Jianye said truthfully. The last few cases he’d worked had left him feeling utterly haggard.

The whole reason he’d agreed to come to Linlan City was to get away from his official duties with the Jiangsan City division and take a break.

’If I come all this way just to get dragged into another big case...’

’Breaking a huge case right before vacation, then working myself to death on another huge case right after... what’s the point of the vacation then?!’

"No big cases?"

Xu Huo paused. After a moment of thought, he looked the other man up and down.

"Well, there is a case in Linlan City right now... It seems to need Captain Li’s help."

"There’s one right now?"

Li Jianye felt a bit numb. He had just gotten off the plane, and his welcome wasn’t a proper meal or even some street food, but a stinking, rotten case...

"What kind of case?"

Xu Huo thought for a moment before replying, "Oh, nothing much. Just a homicide."

"A body turned up in a well."

"You wouldn’t even need to follow the case or do any deduction. Just manage the tiny little bit of manpower for witness interviews."

"A well-dumping case?"

Li Jianye breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this.

There were many well-dumping cases. Most involved a murder followed by the disposal of the body, and the victims were usually locals, which tended to make the canvassing investigations quite simple.

"Something like that," Xu Huo said evasively.

"Alright, then." A smile appeared on Li Jianye’s face, and he agreed.

It was just a well-dumping case. It wasn’t something he’d be afraid to take on.

"Great. Wait here for a moment. I’ll find someone to hand over the assignment to you."

Xu Huo’s face was filled with gratitude.

Then, before the other man could ask for more details, he promptly slipped away from the scene, leaving Li Jianye standing there alone.

After a long while, a Police Chief approached Li Jianye, his face beaming with excitement.

"Captain Li, thank you! Linlan City thanks you for coming!"

"It’s nothing, just helping out where I can."

Seeing the man’s overwhelming enthusiasm, Li Jianye felt a bit puzzled but still smiled and nodded.

"That kid Xu Huo said I’d be in charge of the canvassing investigation..."

"Is there a list of personnel for the short-term canvass?"

"What about the previous interview records? Did they turn up anything?"

Hearing this, the Police Chief thought for a moment, then took out a notebook and handed it over.

Li Jianye opened it, only to find it filled with blank pages.

"Why isn’t there anything written here?"

He was utterly astonished.

"Ermmm, the canvassing investigation hasn’t started yet," the Police Chief replied.

"What about the personnel list?" Li Jianye paused slightly, not pressing the issue.

"The personnel list... we don’t have one of those either. But we have a rough number for now."

The Police Chief spoke again.

"What number?" Li Jianye found this odd. No list, but they knew the number... ’That’s actually pretty impressive!’

The Police Chief didn’t speak, merely pointing at Li Jianye’s notebook.

Li Jianye froze on the spot. "What do you mean?"

"The number of pages in a notebook."

The Police Chief said.

Li Jianye fell silent.

After a long moment, he seemed to snap out of his silence.

"You mean to say..."

"There are no interview records, no list of personnel, and the number of people to be interviewed is enough to fill a notebook... and you need me to be in charge of this canvassing investigation?"

"That is correct, Officer Li."

"What about the deceased’s file?"

"We don’t have one."

"What about a rough scope? What’s the range for the canvass?"

"We don’t have that either."

Li Jianye fell completely silent. The Police Chief beside him kept his mouth shut.

Until...

"Book me a return ticket." Li Jianye was silent, then he let out a silent laugh.

When a person is truly speechless, they sometimes inexplicably start to laugh...

"Don’t do this, Officer Li! We had an agreement!"

The Police Chief was on the verge of tears, clinging to Li Jianye’s luggage and refusing to let go.

"Son of a..."

Li Jianye’s teeth ached. He felt like he’d been tricked onto a pirate ship.

"What in the world is this case?"

"This workload... is this really just a well-dumping case?!"

...

...

Things at the body disposal site—the crime scene—had reached an impasse, but good news arrived from another front.

Zhang Jian and Wang Hu had been bending over backwards, and their request to the province for technical personnel and resources had finally been approved.

The medical examiner had even arrived in Linlan City.

And at eight o’clock that evening,

a rushed autopsy report was presented to everyone.

"The ages of the deceased vary, ranging from twenty to fifty years old. After examination, all have been identified as male."

"The stab wounds were determined to be from a sharp object. There are no other signs of a struggle. The preliminary hypothesis is that the deceased were in a relaxed state before death and were stabbed unexpectedly by a killer standing in front of them."

"No useful substances were detected in the flesh slurry..."

Reading the autopsy report in his hand, Xu Huo’s brow furrowed. He was sitting in the main hall.

’Aside from confirming our initial theories from the crime scene, this is almost completely worthless...’

The age range of the bodies was too wide, spanning nearly thirty years, making it nearly impossible to find any leads that way.

The wounds, however, could arguably be considered a clue.

"A crime committed by an acquaintance?"

After a moment’s thought, Wang Hu, who had just returned from the provincial capital, voiced his speculation.

There were too many dead, far more than in the last case...

’Poor Zhang Jian barely got a few days of good sleep before having to go back to the provincial department...’

It wasn’t just him; during the meeting, everyone had fallen silent, unsure of what to say for a moment.

Fortunately, the nature of this case didn’t rise to the level of the bombing case.

First, it was a cold case.

Second, its impact was far less than the bombing case.

Especially the latter point. This was why Song Si had used a bomb to commit his murders back then.

If it didn’t change the nature of the crime or have a major impact, it would never have escalated to that level, even if the number of victims was exactly the same!

Therefore, while the scale of this case far exceeded the bombing, its nature and impact were far less significant.

Otherwise, Wang Hu would probably be preparing to start a grid search by now.

"It’s possible, but not necessarily at the level of an acquaintance."

Xu Huo nodded, then shook his head.

"The age range of the victims is too wide, and the number is massive. Almost no one has that many ’acquaintances.’"

A person can have acquaintances, but not that many.

Furthermore, how did the killer ensure the victims would be facing them when they were killed?

"Moreover, the crime scenes all had to be in Zhang Family Town."

"The victims most likely died in Zhang Family Town and were then dumped in the well. If the killer were an acquaintance, they’d likely be a local resident. But no one reported anything, and no one noticed anything unusual, which rules out that line of inquiry."

"In other words, the victims were likely not from Zhang Family Town. The killer lured them there by some means and then murdered them."

"The question now is..."

Xu Huo mused, the logic in his mind gradually becoming clearer.

Wang Hu’s brow furrowed. "You mean..."

"How did the killer lure the victims to Zhang Family Town?"

Xu Huo nodded, paused for a moment, and added:

"And why were they all men!"

The victims were all male, and not locals...

That means they were from out of town.

Zhang Family Town is a remote area with no scenery to speak of. Outsiders have no reason to come here.

’Where were these people from?’

’Other villages?’

Xu Huo didn’t think so.

First, the police couldn’t possibly miss a large-scale, collective disappearance in a single region.

Second, if even one family member had reported a person missing around the time of their death, it would have been traceable.

But right now, there was no information at all. So, it was highly likely that besides not being from Zhang Family Town...

they might not even be from Linlan City!

’They are...’

"From other cities?"

Wang Hu frowned.

"More than that. The entire Hanhai Province is a major tourist area. It’s a real mixed bag, with people from all over the country."

Xu Huo nodded. "So, it’s very likely these people weren’t from Hanhai Province!"

"They might not even be from the same province!"

Wang Hu’s heart sank.

Xu Huo had just said what he feared most.

Assume the killer was from Zhang Family Town, lured people there, killed them, and then disposed of the bodies.

If they hadn’t moved away, they could conduct canvassing interviews around the killer’s neighborhood.

Unfortunately, the town had been dismantled. The timeline was at least a year and a half ago, the residents were no longer living together, and any clues were probably long forgotten.

That line of investigation was half-dead.

The other line of investigation was to canvass for the victims’ identities.

But based on what Xu Huo was saying...

"Not from Hanhai Province, possibly from all over the country."

"Died several years ago, over a long time span..."

Wang Hu repeated these words in his mind, his brow suddenly knitting together.

’How the hell are we supposed to investigate this?!’

The police’s most effective methods are canvassing and reviewing surveillance footage.

But there was no surveillance footage now. That meant the vast majority of clues had to be obtained through canvassing, but that path was completely blocked...

"Perhaps we need to aim our focus at something else."

Xu Huo thought for a moment, deciding to file the problem away in his mind for now and turn his thoughts to other matters.

"The killer..."

"Why only kill men?"

Looking at Wang Hu, Xu Huo’s eyes were sharp as he spoke.

"Logically, women would be easier targets and thus less risky, but the killer still chose to murder men."

"And yet, the killer was able to build a friendship in a very short time, allowing them to be stabbed from the front, completely defenseless..."

"What’s going on here?"

’Able to build a friendship that quickly?’

’The kind of friendship that makes someone follow you to a place like Zhang Family Town alone?!’

’Is this like one of those ’three-hour seduction’ techniques? A self-made psychological trick to get a strange woman into bed within three hours?’

’No, that’s not right...’

"Wait, luring... the most likely way to make someone let their guard down is enticement. A large number of men, all enticed..."

Suddenly, Wang Hu froze, and a look of astonishment spread across his face.

"Could it be..."