Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 28

Chapter 28: You and Shen Yiyi, the Best Example

Qin Luo dropped Shen Yiyi off at the main entrance of the police station, but the main road in the city center had parking restrictions, so they didn’t have time to say much.

“Then I’m leaving,” Shen Yiyi said, holding the car door.

Qin Luo nodded. “Okay, make sure you have everything.”

Shen Yiyi closed the car door. Qin Luo rolled down the window and waved, then stepped on the gas. The car and the smell of seafood porridge disappeared from sight.

Hoo—

Shen Yiyi let out a long breath and heard an echo in her ear.

“Hi.”

The shadow appeared out of nowhere and greeted her.

Shen Yiyi was used to its company. She carried her laptop bag and walked toward the main entrance as usual. After taking two steps, she ran into her roommate, who had just parked her car and was walking toward her.

Lu Shimao was swinging the buns in her hand and looked up to see Shen Yiyi walking in from outside.

She glanced at the main entrance, quickened her pace to get close to Dr. Shen, and sniffed casually as she approached. “Why are you coming back from outside?”

Huh?

Shen Yiyi had said she had something to do at the station last night and wouldn’t be back at the dorm. She had thought she had gone for an autopsy.

But she didn’t smell?

These forensic pathologists, whenever they worked at night, were usually not allowed to attend the morning meeting. The ventilation in the conference room was not good enough. If the forensic pathologists smelled too strongly of corpse decomposition, the colleagues from the other case-handling departments would vomit their breakfast.

But not only did Shen Yiyi not smell bad.

There was even a… faint scent of perfume.

“I had to take care of some personal matters yesterday,” Shen Yiyi said.

Hmm, personal matters.

Lu Shimao didn’t want to pry into her personal matters. She held up the four buns in her hand. “Have you had breakfast? Xue Tong bought too many. I’ll give you two.”

“I’ve eaten.”

“It was seafood porridge, with cilantro, scallions, abalone, and shrimp.”

Lu Shimao walked side by side with her and suddenly remembered something. “Oh right, Xue Tong asked around for you. She asked the procuratorate and the court in the Greater Bay Area, and they said there’s no case like the one you’re looking for.”

“For a cold case like this… with such distinct and special characteristics of the perpetrator’s modus operandi, if she didn’t find anything… it probably doesn’t exist. A perpetrator like this usually doesn’t move around. They’re most likely still in the vicinity.”

Shen Yiyi walked up the steps. “I know. Thank her for me.”

Lu Shimao glanced at Shen Yiyi. There was no extra emotion on her face, and her tone was quite normal.

But she knew that Shen Yiyi had been asking about that strange case for a long time. During the time they had been roommates, she had often heard her on the phone, asking about this murder case.

Shen Yiyi definitely cared.

But she didn’t seem to care that much…

They were all police officers. They all knew that besides working on cases together, colleagues in the criminal investigation team could not share case details in their daily lives.

If a case file was stolen, lost, or the evidence was tampered with, and a major problem arose, they would also have to go to jail.

Not prying into other people’s cases was an organizational discipline.

Besides, she had also guessed that this case was probably still unsolved.

Once a major unsolved case was returned to the archives, it would be backlogged due to limited funding. It would only be picked up again at the end of the year when the public security organized a special campaign to tackle cold cases.

Of course, if the investigating officer in charge of the case back then was particularly dedicated, and the family often went to the relevant units to urge them, the evidence from these cases would often be taken out and entered into the database for comparison. Once there was a technological reform, the possibility of solving the case would be very high.

But if the investigating officer in charge of the case didn’t care… that was another matter.

Lu Shimao felt that this case was quite mysterious.

Shen Yiyi had mentioned to her that there was no biological DNA left at the scene of this case. Due to the long time that had passed, there were no surveillance images, only a few footprints, and they were blurry.

This was a very tricky case with a lack of physical evidence.

Without any traces left at the scene, there was no strong physical evidence. No matter how fast the public security’s criminal investigation technology was updated, there was no way to effectively trace and compare.

Without real-time updates of evidence, the chance of reopening the investigation was very slim.

But fortunately, the perpetrator’s modus operandi in this case was very special.

The perpetrator had a typical criminal psychological profile, and the modus operandi was quite strange. If they wanted to continue investigating the case, they could use the modus operandi as a reference and look for similar cases to handle together.

For example, the case that had appeared in Shanghai two weeks ago, the intentional injury case where the perpetrator had stabbed the victim over twenty times, sounded very brutal and special at first.

If, during the investigation period, the criminal investigation and identification could find a high degree of consistency in the modus operandi of the two cases, a high degree of overlap in the footprints left at the two scenes, and a roughly similar criminal profile, then the cases could be investigated together.

But looking at Shen Yiyi’s reaction now.

Well, it was highly likely that there was no connection between the two cases.

Lu Shimao really wanted to help. “Why don’t you give me some more specific details, like information about the victim, speculation about the weapon, and so on? I’ll ask my university classmates to help you ask around. They’re in police stations all over the country. They’re bound to find something related.”

“It’s fine, no need.” Shen Yiyi smiled and took out a tissue to press the elevator button.

Lu Shimao glanced at her again. Shen Yiyi looked very calm.

“Alright.”

Just by hearing Shen Yiyi describe the modus operandi, Lu Shimao knew how bizarre the case she was looking for was.

Let alone this case happening in the nineties, even if it happened now, it would cause a considerable social sensation. So as long as she wanted, she could get the general information from news reports just by searching for two keywords online.

Unfortunately, she was not a gossip.

Since Shen Yiyi didn’t want others to get involved, Lu Shimao didn’t want to get involved either. “Then let me know if you need anything.”

The elevator arrived. The places they were going were on the left and right of the corridor.

Shen Yiyi patted her shoulder. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

“Then if you’re not working overtime tonight, let me know. We can leave together.”

Shen Yiyi waved her hand. “Summer isn’t over yet. What day do you not have to work overtime?”

Lu Shimao smiled wryly. “That’s true.”

In late summer, people were most prone to restlessness. Just one food stall at night could lead to three or four police calls.

Forensic pathologists were no exception.

She had just arrived at the office and hadn’t even put down her bag when she saw Little Wang, who was on duty, walking out with an examination kit.

Shen Yiyi asked quickly, “Where are you going?”

“The hospital.”

“So early?”

Shen Yiyi looked at the clock. It was only 8:30, just the start of the workday. If Little Wang was out for a while, then she would have to take the next case, and she wasn’t sure if she would have time to go to the scene.

Little Wang grabbed his police uniform and ran out. “I heard the victim’s intestines are leaking. They said to get there quickly.”

“Then you should hurry.”

Just as she finished speaking, he was gone.

Shen Yiyi sat in her office chair. She hadn’t been in last night, and her desk was piled with a mess of reports.

She reached out and flipped through them.

On the left were the identification commission acceptance documents that Lin Puping had organized. On the right were the identification documents for several cases from the end of June. In the middle were the guidance documents for the identification center’s activities next month, sent by the internal affairs department. There was also a notice from the science and technology department stuck to her computer screen, saying that the backend system would be under maintenance this week and reminding her to make a backup in advance.

Shen Yiyi had never felt that these things were so tiring before.

But ever since… ever since she had reunited with Qin Luo, the shadow beside her had started to appear and disappear again. She could even cry like she used to, and sleep soundly, making her feel that everything would pass smoothly.

So annoying.

It must be the shadow coming and going that had aggravated this feeling of fatigue.

Shen Yiyi opened the identification document and began to review it. Her master’s words echoed in her mind.

“You have to climb a mountain in one go, and the same goes for an examination. No matter how tired you are in the middle, don’t stop to rest. Otherwise, your train of thought will be broken, your stamina will decrease, and you will waste more time.”

“Waste of time.”

Shen Yiyi stopped her signing pen.

“Waste of time.”

Stereotypical repetition was the trouble of OCD. Shen Yiyi comforted herself in her heart, then lowered her head and quickly regained her composure, opening the second report.

***

Two days.

Shen Yiyi hadn’t sent a single message.

When Liu Jia heard this gossip, she was so shocked she shook her head in the passenger seat. “Are you two crazy?”

This time, it was Qin Luo’s turn to drive. She rested her elbow on the car door and supported her chin with the back of her hand, not speaking. “Mainly—”

Liu Jia covered her ears. “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me!”

Qin Luo thought her voice was too loud and slapped Liu Jia’s arm hard. “Fine, I’ll talk about something else.”

Liu Jia lowered her hands. “Okay, go ahead.”

Qin Luo said, “I still haven’t gotten the outline for my live stream with SD Underwear tomorrow night. The live stream department’s work efficiency has been so low recently. You should keep a close eye on them.”

“Really?” Liu Jia frowned, pulled out her phone from her pocket, found the live stream department’s business group chat, and pressed the voice message button to start urging them. “Are you sisters still not up and working yet? Your boss is going live tomorrow. Are you planning on letting her go on with nothing? Even the most eloquent person can’t pull something out of thin air. Hurry up and get your people to organize the live stream outline and send it over this morning.”

Hearing Liu Jia’s nonchalant words, Qin Luo blinked in confusion. “That’s it?”

Liu Jia said, “The live stream department has someone in charge. We can’t overstep our authority when handling work.”

“Have you been following the training process for those live stream hosts? I feel like their views are getting more and more extreme. Last week, when they were promoting baby products, I saw them trending several times,” Qin Luo asked.

“I have. Don’t worry.” Liu Jia put on her sunglasses and looked at herself in the vanity mirror. “In the second half of the year, when the live stream company is established separately and they move out of Logos, our risk will be reduced.”

Qin Luo continued, “I’m being serious with you. Most of the products in the live streams are empowerment products, related to the employment of the aid recipients in the mountainous areas. This risk must be nipped in the bud. Don’t let a few hosts ruin this channel for them.”

Liu Jia was also annoyed. “If your hosts’ live streams aren’t distinctive and aggressive, no one will buy the products. If the volume doesn’t go up, do you think they’ll make money? Shipping fees, operating fees, refunds, I don’t even want to talk about it. Qin Luo, sometimes it’s really tiring for me to deal with them too.”

Qin Luo took a deep breath.

“Do you know how long the business department and the legal department have to negotiate with them to get a product? They don’t understand why you keep the prices so low. They go back and forth on a contract and then drag their feet on signing it. They even turn around and bundle the product with someone else. But that was the factory we donated back then. They don’t see you as a savior. But what savior is there in this world? There’s only money.”

Liu Jia crossed her arms, and her tone became heavy.

“I really think you should stop for a moment and look at the business behind Logos. Can we handle the aid society and the reading group right now? Can we provide blood to the empowerment institutions? Is the psychological aid under us making money? How much other business do I need to get back to make up for it? Let me catch my breath too.”

Qin Luo didn’t speak.

Liu Jia smiled. “Qin Luo, I always remember Logos’s original intention. But many things, many things, you can’t get a good result just by persisting.”

She let out a breath. “Aren’t you and Shen Yiyi the best example?”