Chapter 41

July 21st. Four days since the 718 Arson Case. The weather forecast said Shanghai would have scattered showers today.

Also, there were no explosions today.

Ever since that phone call to Xue Tong, Lu Shimiao had lost contact with her.

No greetings, no texts, not even a glimpse.

Lili, the administrative officer, often abused her position by posting candid work photos of the Superintendent in the Criminal Investigation department group chat.

Lu Shimiao would scoff at them but secretly downloaded and saved every single one, sneaking a glance during the grueling late-night shifts when she was about to collapse.

In the photos, Xue Tong was at the shooting range, demonstrating and exchanging pointers. The standard-issue Type 95 pistol looked so small in her hands, like she was holding a chick. Lu Shimiao remembered when they fought side-by-side in the drill grounds; Xue Tong in a bulletproof vest was still stunning enough to blow up the sky.

Sigh! Now Xue Tong was flaunting her skills at the shooting range.

While she was stuck in an office, breathing in secondhand smoke.

Lu Shimiao fished a crime scene mask from her pocket and stealthily put it on. Showering at the precinct was already a hassle, and the smoke stench clung to her hair.

The office was packed. Everyone was assembled, waiting for the next phase of the investigation deployment.

Since Lu Shimiao had discovered the mall’s secret passage two days ago, the case had a breakthrough. Not only did she find trace evidence in the corridor, but she also mapped out the criminal’s escape route.

The Video Surveillance Unit had been grinding for three days on the footage of the escape route. They found a suspicious figure in a convenience store outside the office building.

Male, 173 cm, slender, wearing a blue cap and mask. No discernible facial features.

Unfortunately, he was merely a suspicious figure who happened to be at the right place at the right time.

The Criminal Police Unit never dared to fight a battle without evidence. So, everyone could only use terms like “suspected,” “resembling,” “suspicious,” and “had the opportunity” to describe him for speculation.

The Golden Shield Project used those few blurry frames to search through 200,000 city-wide surveillance feeds in Shanghai. The result was over 20,000 similar silhouettes, a complete mess.

The 10-plus officers in Video Surveillance worked in shifts around the clock, their computers burning hot, just to find one unconfirmed person.

Lu Shimiao sat on a stool, dazed. She thought: if they find a suspect and the lead turns out to be wrong, how devastated will these Video Surveillance colleagues be?

She didn’t dare think about it. She had already preemptively felt that despair.

Besides the surveillance feedback, the canvassing team had done a full background check on the victim, discovering that Zhang Lin had a boyfriend.

This boyfriend immediately caught Li Siting’s attention.

Li Siting’s intuition was always sharp, and Lu Shimiao was willing to trust his speculation and experience.

In the Criminal Police, experience often trumped knowledge. Four years in Criminal Techniques had increasingly solidified this belief. She even felt that the theoretical knowledge from the police academy was useless in most apprehension scenarios.

The criminal investigation strategies in textbooks sounded like clichés: “Influence the heart,” “Scare the snake in the bush,” “Control movement with stillness.”

This world wasn’t beautiful. No criminal would be moved by a cop’s speech; they only knelt and wept before the Criminal Law.

So, theory wasn’t as effective as Li Siting’s approach, as effective as saying: “Don’t sleep until you find it!”

She was getting sidetracked.

Lu Shimiao shook her head, pulling her thoughts back to Zhang Lin’s boyfriend.

Zhang Lin was 24, earned over 7,000 a month, rented a 5,000-a-month apartment, and still sent money to her parents. Lu Shimiao had felt a heavy, stifling sense of inferiority for a long time after hearing that.

Zhang Lin commuted from Jiabei to the Jing’an Center for work every day, using the metro and bus. Her commute was 40 minutes, working six days with one day off.

The surveillance focused on a five-kilometer radius of Zhang Lin’s rented apartment but found neither that suspicious silhouette nor any other suspicious person. This gave Lu Shimiao a headache.

The perpetrator had no stalking plan for Zhang Lin, unlike his behavior at the fire scene.

He meticulously set up the fire scene, killed her with one fatal blow from behind, carefully positioned the body, and intentionally blasted her face. The intent for deliberate revenge was obvious.

But the lack of stalking behavior suggested the perpetrator knew Zhang Lin’s routines very well.

After learning this, Li Siting shifted the motive to a crime of passion. To investigate the boyfriend, the community police in the precinct spent two days canvassing, but the recorded answers were all: “Not sure.”

“Her boyfriend stays over occasionally.”

“That’s her boyfriend? I thought that was her dad.”

“There is a man who comes to stay, but not often. He drives a BMW.”

Since Zhang Lin was very secretive about her relationships, the officers couldn’t get useful information. The investigators had no choice but to pull Zhang Lin’s bank records and trace the account owner through the transaction history.

Account Holder: Cheng Guang.

Upon verification through the Public Security system, Zhang Lin wasn’t Cheng Guang’s girlfriend.

She was his mistress.

Lu Shimiao even suspected Zhang Lin wasn’t just a mistress, but perhaps mistress number four, five, or six—just that she hadn’t realized it herself.

Cheng Guang, 46 years old, was the boss of Shanghai Chengshang Construction Co., Ltd. He was originally from Zhejiang.

His wife lived in his hometown in Zhejiang. He also had a son, currently a junior in college, studying law—barely a few years younger than Zhang Lin.

Since Zhang Lin and Cheng Guang were in a mistress relationship, it was naturally kept secret. It was no wonder the community police couldn’t get answers.

Confirmation from the bank showed that Cheng Guang had been sending Zhang Lin money starting three years ago, from 20,000 a month down to 8,000, and for the last two months, the payments had stopped. The frequency of Cheng Guang visiting Zhang Lin’s apartment had also gradually decreased.

Because Cheng Guang had been on a business trip out of town at the time of the crime, he had no opportunity. Therefore, he couldn’t be treated as a suspect.

The Criminal Police Unit only had the right to interview him, not interrogate him. The difference between those two words in Chinese was immense, with much nuance. The most important point was that to talk to Cheng Guang, they had to visit him.

Li Siting didn’t dare entrust this task to just anyone, so he went personally, taking Lu Shimiao and the Field Operations Team.

Inside the police car, Lu Shimiao sat listlessly in the back. A couple of light coughs caught Brother Zhu’s attention. “Caught a cold?”

“Just didn’t sleep well.”

Li Siting looked at Lu Shimiao, a hint of heartache in his eyes.

The woman before him was under thirty. After joining Criminal Techniques, she had cut her long ponytail to a collarbone-length bob. Now, her face was full of heroic spirit, her brows and eyes cold, her thoughts never revealed.

He remembered when Lu Shimiao first joined the force; she weighed less than 100 jin.

The first time she participated in the wrap-up of a special operation, Lu Shimiao was injured by a fleeing criminal. Back at the precinct, the Captain berated her relentlessly, and she had to write a self-criticism afterward. The Boss said: “Weighing that little, you’d break in one hit. Don’t be a cop; go be a model instead!”

Since then, Lu Shimiao started gaining weight and muscle every day.

Li Siting had lost weight before; he knew how tough it was. But gaining weight was even harder, because some people just can’t gain weight no matter what they eat. Lu Shimiao was one of them. But she had grit. She ate two bowls of rice at every meal, three times a day, desperately loading up on carbs to build muscle. It took her two years to reach 104 jin, but she still looked so thin.

Their precinct covered a population of 966,000 people. The Criminal Police Detachment had only 150 officers, and only three frontline female cops.

Two were transferred from the military. The remaining one was Lu Shimiao.

In this line of work, women were treated like men, and men were treated like beasts of burden.

Lu Shimiao followed a bunch of gruff men around every day. Sometimes, she was bound to face grievances, but she never spoke of them.

He remembered last year at the national police force competition, they had to search a river scene. In the dead of winter, Lu Shimiao only wore her duty liner and crouched in the icy river for ages, her legs going numb. Halfway through, she secretly went off to take a pill. Later, he forced it out of her—it was a painkiller. She had her period that day.

Just like these past two days, buried in the case and staying at the precinct. The dormitory was only so big, packed with a bunch of big men sleeping inside. Little Lu could only sleep on the couch in silence. She showered like the male officers, making do with cold water.

Criminal police coming home past midnight was nine times out of ten. Not coming home at all was completely normal. Guard duty, holiday patrols… Li Siting’s longest time away from home during an out-of-town arrest was 14 days. Over four Spring Festivals, he spent three of them with Lu Shimiao.

Right, and the Mid-Autumn Festival the year before last.

He and Lu Shimiao spent it in the office of the “919 Fireworks Explosion Case.” They shared a mooncake, laughed a little, and buried their heads back into work.

In over a decade as a criminal police officer, he, a rough man, had lost count of how many times he’d cried. A thick-skinned old man like him could just endure it. Not going home just meant a marriage heading towards divorce. But how was Lu Shimiao going to endure in the future?

He truly had no idea.

Lu Shimiao was outstanding in the force—great physical stamina, highly professional, efficient, discreet, and with an extreme sense of responsibility.

So, whenever a major case hit the frontlines, Little Lu became hot property, everyone fighting to work with her. Li Siting’s summary of Lu Shimiao was: “Fast, incredibly steady, no chaos.” Most importantly, she had no family, so using her didn’t provoke guilt.

But Li Siting still felt guilty.

“When this case ends, get some sleep. Catch up on it. Sleep for a full day and night.” That was all he could say.

“Captain Li’s words aren’t trustworthy.” Lu Shimiao tilted her head back, eyes closed, resting.

The police car stopped outside the construction site contracted by Cheng Guang’s company. Li Siting got out first.

“Split up. Xiao Zhu, go question the workers. I’ll take Little Lu to meet Cheng Guang,” Li Siting assigned tasks.

As Lu Shimiao walked with Li Siting, her hand typed on her phone screen. Li Siting leaned over and saw her listing items one, two, three, four in her memos.

“You prepared?”

He hadn’t expected her to have questions ready just during the car ride, but then again, it seemed very much like Lu Shimiao’s style—meticulous and methodical.

“Yeah.”

Lu Shimiao watched the path from the corner of her eye while typing. “Does Cheng Guang have any civil lawsuits in court? Was his company checked?”

“The letter of introduction has been sent to the court to pull the files. The court just opened; we’ll probably have results around noon.” Li Siting walked with his hands behind his back, head down.

Lu Shimiao inadvertently glanced up at the logo of Chengshang Construction, stopped in her tracks, and refocused her gaze. Frowning, she began rapidly scanning her memories from the past two days.

“Captain Li, doesn’t that logo look familiar?”

Familiar?

Li Siting looked where her gaze fell—a red circle encompassing the letters ‘CG’.

He frowned. “What are you thinking of?”