Chapter 3:

Zhou Hui rushed back from the crime scene in Nancheng District, covered in dust and grime. She didn’t even pause for a sip of water before heading straight to the conference room.

As the only female field officer in the Pingling City Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Detachment—and the direct superior and detachment captain to Han Wei, Yang Pingfan, and the others—Zhou Hui had the proportions of an international supermodel. Standing at one meter seventy-three, she had legs for days, a generous chest, and exquisitely chiseled features that could rival any A-list celebrity.

She would have been the perfect pick for the Police Bureau’s “Flower,” but her untamed personality and lightning efficiency—she once shattered the records held by the old guard at the City Bureau—ended up handing the title to Yang Pingfan, that “Little Glasses” guy who spent all day glued to his computer. When the voting results came out, some mourned Zhou Hui wasting such a stunning face, but most agreed Yang Pingfan had earned the “Police Bureau Flower” moniker through sheer merit.

Zhou Hui took it all in stride, embracing nicknames like “Big Sis” and “Captain Zhou,” and even playfully adopted Yang Pingfan as her “little sister.” Everyone was thrilled.

“Captain Zhou.” Han Wei and the others called out as she pushed open the conference room door.

Zhou Hui cut straight to the case.

“The victims are a man and a girl—the man around thirty years old, the girl about four or five. Preliminary determination: cause of death is asphyxiation. Beyond the signatures of the previous two cases, the killer inflicted severe facial disfigurement on the girl, and there are signs of possible sexual assault on the child. All the abuse occurred while the victims were still alive.”

The conference room exploded in murmurs after Zhou Hui finished.

“Not even sparing a child! Have these criminals lost their minds?”

Zhou Hui pointed to a location on the map. “The bodies turned up in Nancheng District—right here—but like the previous two cases, it’s not the primary crime scene. No useful fingerprints at the site; the killer clearly came prepared. The victims’ limbs and organs are missing as well, likely taken or relocated by the perpetrator.”

“Too twisted! Is this the work of a human? Or maybe some vengeful ghost out for blood?”

Zhou Hui rapped her knuckles on the table. “No wild guesses. Focus on analyzing the case.”

“Captain Zhou, the autopsy report isn’t back yet. It’s tough to dive into analysis without it!” Field officer Sun Ye said, looking troubled.

Zhou Hui replied, “We can’t afford to wait for the autopsy.”

If the killer stuck to his pattern, the next strike would come within five days. The preliminary time of death was already over twenty-four hours ago, so they could shave off at least another day. That left them with less than four days to catch him and stop the next victim.

“…But we don’t have the victims’ fingerprints, no witnesses—it’s all feeling a bit too spooky…” Sun Ye echoed the room’s unease.

Zhou Hui shared the sentiment but pressed on. “It means we’ve got a perp with top-tier anti-detection skills.” She paused, then added, “Push on two tracks at once. Little Yang, mind running a DNA match through the database? Little Liu, have your team pull every case file from the past five years in the archives—look for similars. Check online too; copycats aren’t off the table. Group One, tomorrow morning, door-to-door along that river channel in Nancheng District—one-kilometer radius—for unreported missings or sus individuals. Group Two, team up with the Nancheng District Local Police Station to scour for evidence. Dismissed.”

The room filled with the scrape of chairs and rustle of papers as people poured out—some to work, others to grab overdue sleep. It was already 1:15 a.m.

No fresh leads meant sticking to protocol. Victim identification, suspects, murder weapon, MO—the full evidentiary chain had to be ironclad to seal the case. No shortcuts.

Over the past half month, Zhang Yunan’s thinning hair had shed another half. The province had demanded the first case cracked in twenty days, and with the clock ticking, he feared his career was toast. With a sigh, he trudged back to his office.

The next day, nearly the entire Pingling City Police Bureau mobilized. Zhou Hui led Group Two to link up with the Nancheng District Local Police Station and comb the riverbank for evidence.

Nancheng District was Pingling’s urban village—out of the way, with spotty security and frequent thefts and muggings. The river edge saw little foot traffic even normally, and recent online rumors of “river killings” and “ghostly vengeance” had everyone spooked. No one dared venture there alone, even in daylight.

Zhou Hui turned to Nancheng District’s Director Chen. “No cameras around here?”

Director Chen replied with evident difficulty, “Nancheng District isn’t like the city center. Hardly anyone comes near the river channels under normal circumstances, so we never bothered installing cameras. Even in the residential areas, the cameras have mostly been smashed or stolen—it’s all surveillance blind spots.”

“Any suspicious individuals or unusual happenings lately?”

Director Chen spread his hands in helplessness. “An unusual happening? Well, doesn’t this river murder count? It’s stirred up such chaos that everyone’s at the local police station pulling all-nighters, and we’re still short-staffed.”

It really was a tough ask for the old chief. At his age, he was still out doing fieldwork alongside the youngsters, his weary old bones on the verge of collapsing right there on the riverbank.

It was nearing one o’clock in the afternoon.

Sun Ye sprawled flat on the riverbank, unleashing a pitiful wail. “Ah—which goddamn killer was it? There’s no justice left in this world! Poor me—I haven’t even married my wife yet, and now I’m about to keel over from exhaustion on this godforsaken riverbank! River God Grandpa, please show a sign!”

Deputy Han tossed him a sausage. “Cut the howling, you brat. Your grandpa here busted his ass to score you this grub. Save your breath for actual work.”

Sun Ye scarfed it down in two bites and, picking at the meat scraps clinging to the casing, yelled back at Deputy Han, “For one sausage like this, calling you grandpa was a steal!” He flashed a cheeky grin. “Grandpa, your grandson’s still hungry—toss over another?”

Deputy Han grinned right back. “You poor naive kid—you’re begging for a reality check! You swallow every word hook, line, and sinker. Ever think about my pitiful monthly wage of a hundred eighty bucks? Most of it goes straight to the blind dates Mom lines up for me. Where the hell would I get cash to feed you punks? Captain Zhou sprang for it. Bread’s in the car—if you don’t hustle, you won’t snag a single crumb.”

Sun Ye bolted upright and charged toward the van at full sprint, like a hundred-meter finalist. After a brutal tussle, he emerged chomping on a loaf and launched into another bout of ghostly howls aimed at Captain Zhou. “Captain Zhou, you’re my birth mom! Deputy Han’s saddling us with a pack of wicked stepmoms—they’re straight-up abusing us, starving us without a scrap to eat!”

Captain Zhou patted his shoulder. “Once you’re stuffed, get back to earning your keep. Otherwise, that half-loaf in your paw’s gonna be your last supper.”

“Ah—Captain Zhou, you’ve changed! Can’t we all just play nice anymore?” Sun Ye leaped back three feet and wolfed down his treasured bread in frantic bites.

Captain Zhou leaned against the police car and shook her head with a smile. Deputy Han handed her a water bottle. “Captain Zhou.”

She twisted off the cap and chugged several gulps, eyes fixed on the brooding storm clouds massing along the distant horizon. “Our real headache’s here now.”

Deputy Han let out a sigh. “Pingling City’s rainy season is upon us—which means evidence collection’s about to turn into a nightmare.”

By six-thirty that evening, a violent downpour hammered the earth.

The teams from the City Bureau straggled back one by one, utter exhaustion etched on their faces.

A full day wasted—no leads whatsoever.

Meng Liansu from the Forensic Room dropped an even grimmer update: the time of death was a full seven or eight hours earlier than their initial estimate. The girl’s hymen showed severe damage; she’d been sexually assaulted prior to death for certain. But no semen or usable fingerprints turned up. The killer had come loaded for bear, with airtight precautions.

This was a calculated, premeditated hit. Crime of passion? Off the table.

“Fuck! This… what the hell? Captain Zhou, get over here—someone dumped last night’s body-retrieval video online.” Yang Pingfan, the upright young goody-goody who never cursed, couldn’t hold back a profanity.

“They’re nuts! Who does shit like… Fuck, no mosaic at all.” The grisly clip had leaked from police channels and rocketed to the top of the hot searches. Every wild theory under the sun. Some #PinglingCityFengShui tag was even dragging ghosts into it.

Staring at the screen, Captain Zhou instructed Deputy Han, “Alert the web moderators—yank that hot search now.”

After hanging up, Deputy Han said, “Reposts are already in the hundreds of thousands. It’s viral across the net—containment’s gonna be rough.”

The team watched the trending topic fade bit by bit, words failing them.

In the Red Club’s basement.

A man huddled on the cold floor as two hulking bodyguards wielded baseball bats, methodically cracking them against his ribs.

“Tipping off the cops—who the fuck are you working for?”

“Spill it! Or Hera beats you to a pulp! Talk!”

The man’s agonized shrieks rose in pitch, ricocheting off the cavernous space in eerie echoes. At last, quaking, he dragged himself across the floor toward the woman in stiletto heels lounging on the sofa ahead.

One of the bodyguards immediately put a stop to his actions, landing a clean, sharp blow on his back. The man collapsed to the ground once more, lacking the strength to climb back up this time. He could only mumble incoherently through bloodied lips: “Sister Yu… Sister Yu, please… spare me… It was me. I got greedy for the cash… Someone paid me fifty thousand bucks to make that tip-off call…”

The woman lounging on the sofa was Jennifer, the boss of Red—and the Yu Bai who had vanished from Pingling City two years earlier. She lowered her gaze and spoke in a low, eerie tone. “Who gave you the money? If you don’t come clean, you’re not walking out of this basement.”

The man shook his head in terror. “Sister Yu, I swear I don’t know! Two days ago, someone shoved a note through my door crack, telling me to tip off the cops… about you dealing drugs. I thought it was some prank, but that afternoon, ten grand showed up in my bank account. He said it was the deposit—the other forty would hit once I made the call. I lost my head for a moment…”

Yu Bai nodded. “I see.”

One of the bodyguards asked, “Madam, how should we handle him? Take him out?”

The man nearly wet himself in fright, groveling on the floor and begging for mercy. “Don’t kill me! Please, don’t kill me…”

Yu Bai’s voice rang out from above him. “Don’t make a mess with a body here. Follow the street code—leave him two fingers, bag him up, and dump him in the river.”

With that, she strode out of the basement in her high heels. The heavy iron door slammed shut behind her, muffling the man’s piercing screams.

On the riverbank, the bodyguards drove right up to the edge. The two of them donned black raincoats and hauled the man in the sack from the car, on the verge of tossing him into the water. Suddenly, blinding beams of light flashed in their eyes.

“Don’t move. Police!”

Deputy Han Wei and Group 1 had the car surrounded. The pouring rain pattered against their raincoats, but no one noticed the two shadowy figures lurking in the bushes on the opposite riverbank. Like cats in the night, they crouched with four gleaming eyes fixed motionlessly on the cops cuffing the trio and loading them into the patrol car.

The patrol car’s blue-and-red lights faded into the rainy night before the figures in the bushes finally stood. No one could see the faces hidden beneath their raincoats, but a bobbing Adam’s apple produced a raspy voice: “What now? Someone beat us to the punch.”

“Let’s go. Back to report to the boss.”

Meanwhile.

Three squad cars from the City Bureau had the Red Club boxed in tight. Captain Zhou Hui stormed inside with her team and flashed the arrest warrant at Yu Bai.

“Yu Bai, you’re coming with us.” Captain Zhou’s voice was crisp and icy as it cut through the air. Yu Bai had been smoking by a pool table in the billiards lounge. She sauntered over, one hand pinching her cigarette, the other snatching the warrant for a quick glance. She exhaled a single word: “Fine.”

The smoky haze billowed from between her lips, wafting right into Captain Zhou’s face. For an instant, something strange flickered in the captain’s chest.

In the criminal investigation team’s interrogation room.

Captain Zhou and Deputy Han grilled Yu Bai, but Zhou had never seen a suspect this cooperative. She answered every question directly—no dodging, no vagueness, all laid out with crystal clarity. It made Zhou wonder if the woman had known the questions in advance.

Outside the interrogation room, Sun Ye was in full gossip mode. He nudged the bureau’s resident beauty with his elbow. “Flower, any intel on what’s going on?”

Little Yang kept a straight face. “I know all about it. Thanks to my tireless dedication and unwavering duty, we finally got a DNA match on the second victim’s profile in the database. That’s our breakthrough—the case is moving forward for real.”

Sun Ye: “…”

Talk about killing the conversation dead with one line. Textbook example.

At seven that evening, Little Yang dove back into the database. Twenty minutes later, he leaped from his chair. “Got it! I found it!”

An hour earlier, the Guer District precinct had uploaded data from the past month. Guer fell under Nancheng District’s jurisdiction, right on the city’s ragged edge—the infamous “no-man’s-land” of Pingling. It was packed with migrant workers from cities and nearby villages, drawn by the jobs. High turnover, shady mix of folks—it was the sorriest spot for law and order in all of Nancheng.

Twenty days back, a brawl had erupted near the migrant workers’ barracks in Guer. After a day on the site, the guys set up a table out front for some cards. Things escalated over a few bucks, and what started with a handful snowballed into dozens clashing in a full-on melee as gawkers piled in.

A bunch of guys pent up from getting reamed on the job all day, nursing grudges and knocking back drinks—it didn’t take much, just one hotheaded remark, to spark a fight. This was routine in Guer; the local precinct usually turned a blind eye, letting the neighborhood committee smooth it over. Gentler approach, better results.

This incident had escalated badly. Thirteen men were hospitalized, four with injuries classified as more than minor, forcing the local police station to intervene. The migrant workers’ shacks were mostly ramshackle temporary structures with no surveillance cameras nearby. Without evidence of the ringleader, the police could only log the case, detain the group for a few days, and release them.

The second victim, Wu Guojiang, was right there among them.

The criminal investigation team immediately headed to Guer District for door-to-door inquiries, piecing together Wu Guojiang’s social background. He was thirty-five, with only a primary school education, unmarried, and working as a day laborer on a construction site there. He lived in a row of dilapidated shacks across from the workers’ dorms. After clocking out, he had wandered over to join the crowd—and that’s when things went south.

According to his coworkers, Wu Guojiang wasn’t well-liked. He drank too much, stirred up trouble everywhere he went, and had a notoriously short fuse. He’d rubbed plenty of people the wrong way, but none of it seemed like the kind of grudge that would lead to murder.

Finally, a tip from one of his colleagues on the site caught Han Wei’s attention. The man said that over ten days ago, Wu had gone to Red and caused a scene, publicly groping one of the young ladies there. The bodyguards had beaten him up, dragged him out the door while he cursed their mothers and fathers, and demanded compensation for his medical bills. Red’s boss had sent a message loud and clear: “Show your face here again, and we’ll chop off your paws and feed them to the fish in the river. Now get lost!”

It had seemed like an empty threat at the time. But this woman had crossed paths with the police far too often lately. Even the slightest whisper connected to her was enough to set their nerves on edge.

And crucially, that person was Yu Bai. Han Wei knew exactly who she was—and that she was more than capable of orchestrating something like this.

Moments later, as Han Wei led his team around to the back of Red’s main entrance, they spotted two men in raincoats hauling a large sack and stuffing it into the trunk of an SUV. That sparked the chain of arrests that followed.

When the hands of the corridor clock edged toward eleven, Yu Bai—seated in her chair—raised a hand and rapped lightly on the table. Her slender eyes, with their subtly upturned corners evoking the allure of peach blossoms, glinted with a mix of sincerity and teasing as she said to Captain Zhou, “Officer, are we done here?”