After Jiayi went downstairs, she saw the building manager’s phone number on a paper notice at the butler’s counter, noted it in her notebook, and stepped out of the building. Walking a bit farther, she looked up to find the window of unit 4A on the fourth floor where the incident occurred, then turned her head to see the residential complex’s fence and the opposite elevated area.
It was hard to find a person to report ‘an accidental witness of a crime scene due to peeping.’
How could she get the police to find this room?
Surely she couldn’t just stand guard at the door…
Should she call the police directly?
The person who reports would definitely be considered the prime suspect, and the police would actively seek out the reporter after finding a body inside. She had come all the way here from the police station today, looking around everywhere.
It’s hard to ensure that no one else saw her.
What if the police found out she was the one who reported it? How would she explain that?
It’s unclear.
Turning around and walking out of the community with her notebook, Jiayi even thought of drawing a treasure map, marking the location at Fuk Oi Estate, Block 6, Floor 4, Unit A, to let a thief wanting to steal break in and discover the body.
But a thief already committing a bad deed like breaking in would probably get scared and run away upon seeing a body. If they were more composed, they might even hide the body, clean up the scene, and fingerprints on the doorknob, which would just backfire.
Scratching her head.
Carrying countless unreliable ideas, Jiayi took the tram back to the police station.
She kept recalling the scenes and passers-by the victim saw while alive in the car, flashing through her mind like a slideshow.
Even if she noticed some peculiar points, if they couldn’t be linked to the body or other evidence currently held by the police station, they couldn’t be used.
It’s such a pity that supernatural abilities cannot be used as courtroom evidence.
…
In the afternoon, Sanfu took Gary out to ride the tram, continuing to search for eyewitnesses at each stop, asking for clues.
Liu Jiaming continued to investigate missing persons, while Uncle Jiu reached out to the public relations department to coordinate details for publishing a search for the victim.
Jiayi obtained all the forensic reports on the contents found in the victim’s stomach, trying to trace back where the victim had been to find a place that might serve all those foods.
Fang Zhenyue was pulled by Qiu Sushan to attend a summary meeting on the Qin Hongliang murder case, and then he communicated with the plaintiff’s lawyer in the Qin Hongliang case about the evidence and the case details. By the time he returned to the police station, it was already evening.
Fang Zhenyue erased the unnecessary information from the whiteboard, reorganized the clues, and the detectives who had gone out to work gradually returned.
Sanfu and Gary brought back nothing but a chill in the air, with no significant breakthroughs. They obtained some eyewitness accounts of the deceased taking a vehicle, but these offered no help in determining the time or location where the deceased boarded.
Liu Jiaming still hadn’t found any missing person information related to the deceased. The new lost reports called into the reporting center today were also unrelated to the deceased.
Uncle Jiu had coordinated with the Public Relations Department to place a missing person advertisement in the newspaper tomorrow. He took a photo of the deceased and, to prevent discomfort among the citizens, covered the deceased’s eyes in the photo.
Details such as the deceased’s height and clothing were thoroughly described.
Whether the identity of the deceased can be confirmed will have to wait until tomorrow.
The contents of the deceased’s stomach, finally determined by Jiayi, consisted of food available at any convenience store, including alcohol and cooked foods like the roast meats commonly sold in nearly every alley of Hong Kong.
No special ingredients or seasonings were found, making it virtually impossible to narrow down the possibilities.
The team gathered to discuss the case again, brainstormed, and then wrapped up, each returning to their own homes.
The next morning, Director Fang changed Uncle Jiu and Jiayi’s task to riding the tram in search of clues. Today marked the passing of the crucial 72 hours since the event. Even if there had been eyewitnesses, as time passed, these witnesses might forget details, making continued visits less effective.
If no eyewitnesses or new leads were found today, there would be no need to continue searching tram stations tomorrow.
Jiayi dressed warmly in a thick coat and a small scarf, bundled up tightly for the outing.
The canvassing was tedious and unrewarding, completely disproportionate to the effort required, yet they had to forcibly suppress their sense of loss and continue working.
Uncle Jiu’s complaints reached their peak, at times lamenting the poor weather, at times grumbling about the tram’s fast turns, feeling like the double-decker was going to tip over and panicking.
An hour later, he bought milk tea at a station, warming his stomach with the drink but complaining that it didn’t taste as good as Yi Ji’s, and again moaned about the tram’s jerky movements making him nauseous.
By noon, back at the police station, they were still at an impasse.
In the afternoon, Brother Yue took Liu Jiaming to ride the tram. Near evening, the reporting center finally received a call, after someone saw the newspaper and thought the deceased resembled a colleague.
Jiayi excitedly called back, asking the caller to come to the police station to identify the person.
Upon seeing the body, the caller finally confirmed the identity of the deceased.
Liu Dahong, 37 years old, divorced, childless, made his living driving his own truck, generally picking up jobs at freight points or securing his own freight contracts. He had a decent income.
His parents had passed away, he lived in Tin Shui Wai, and he had no close relatives remaining.
Truck drivers, when starting work, usually check in at the freight point. If they don’t show up, it might be because they’ve taken a private delivery job or they’re still on the road from their last job. They don’t necessarily report to the freight point every day.
Luckily, Liu Dahong’s colleague happened to read the newspaper and recognized Liu Dahong. Otherwise, who knows when the freight point would have realized that they were missing a partner… It’s not impossible that they would never have discovered it.
“Liu Dahong’s ex-wife couldn’t possibly fail to recognize him, could she?” Gary, holding the newspaper, turned to Jiayi and asked, “Didn’t the report center receive any calls from him earlier?”
“Maybe after the divorce, she didn’t want to be associated with him anymore, so even though she recognized him, she didn’t call to report it,” Jiayi explained.
“It’s also possible that the person who killed Liu Dahong was his ex-wife, right?” Gary speculated, not knowing the truth of the crime but making a reasonable inference based on the situation.
Jiayi wanted to say that it wasn’t his ex-wife who had a conflict with Liu Dahong, but since she couldn’t substantiate her statement, she wisely stopped herself.
Sitting through an unproductive afternoon in the tram, Fang Zhenyue wrote Gary’s hypothesis on the whiteboard and then said, “Before we finish today, let’s get all the details on Liu Dahong’s ex-wife, including whether she has a boyfriend, and prioritize investigating her tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, sir,” Gary responded, taking Liu Jiaming to look up the files and slowly unraveling the information about Liu Dahong’s ex-wife.
“Uncle Jiu, check Liu Dahong’s medical records to see if he has had any incidents of fighting while drunk in the last six months. Try to trace his bad social circle from this lead,” Fang Zhenyue noted another point on the whiteboard.
“Yes, sir.”
“Jiayi, now go check Liu Dahong’s address, and I’ll take you to visit his place after dinner. Then we’ll slowly explore Liu Dahong’s neighborhood and social circle,” Fang Zhenyue continued making notes on the whiteboard.
“Yes, sir.”
“Sanfu, since he was a truck driver, check his colleagues, competitors, and the deliveries he made in the past month to see if there were any conflicts,” Fang Zhenyue wrote and frowned slightly. The trucking business occasionally intersects with the underworld and might encounter issues like protection or toll fees, making Sanfu’s task dauntingly large for just one person.
Turning around, Fang Zhenyue pondered for a moment before speaking:
“I’ll go talk to madam to see if there’s a group currently without a case that can come help us with the investigation.”
With a case like Liu Dahong’s, where his death in a tram doesn’t point clearly to any specific leads, it’s essential to thoroughly explore all his social connections. The workload for investigating and gathering evidence is enormous, necessitating additional personnel for each working group.
When Fang Zhenyue walked into madam’s office, he wasn’t just asking for a team of detectives but also several uniformed police officers for logistical support.
Jiayi, who was tasked with checking Liu Dahong’s home address, felt overwhelmed upon hearing about the subsequent work tasks.
Continuing like this, who knows when they would locate the couple in Block 6 of Fuk Oi Estate. She hoped that the couple would be within the area they were planning to survey and search for evidence tomorrow.
If there was even the slightest clue pointing to them, she would find a way to sneak in some of her own contributions to help everyone find the couple’s home… Pray!
Firstly, she prayed that Liu Dahong was the couple’s neighbor and also lived in Fuk Oi Estate.
After finding Liu Dahong’s home address, Jiayi felt a darkness before her eyes.
Kwa Wan, On Hing Estate.
One in the northwest of Kowloon City and the other in the northeast of Hung Hom, so far apart…
Wiping her face, she didn’t know whether others would make any progress tomorrow, but she and Brother Yue would definitely come back empty-handed.
Outside the window, the sky was turning darker, the wind was picking up, and rain clouds were gathering overhead, looking like it would rain.
Jiayi shivered unconsciously and sighed with a worried expression.
“Cheer up, Jiayi, this is just the routine of solving cases,” Uncle Jiu patted her back. They had all been spoiled lately.
Accustomed to a life of investigating with constant new leads, this challenging situation was really hard to adapt to.
…
The next day at noon, when everyone was compiling information, Jiayi was saddened to find that not a single clue pointed to the couple in Fuk Oi Village.
The faces of the deceased man and woman from the crime scene footage did not appear in any of the photos.
The number of suspects continued to increase, far more than expected, with those who had disputes or conflicts with Liu Dahong.
Jiayi felt a desperate sense of the detectives moving further away from the truth while the workload continued to increase as they followed the wrong leads and suspects.
Everyone was engaged in intense discussions, braving the harsh autumn wind and rain, running back and forth with sore throats and wind-chapped faces…
When they returned to the police station to report the information, some had shoes full of mud, others had shoulders completely soaked by the rain, and some had hair blown into a mess.
Jiayi was so cold that she kept sniffing, her hands red and cold.
She stamped her feet in place, raised her head to scan her teammates’ faces—all frowning and looking distressed. Liu Jiaming even seemed to have lost weight…
By the third day, as they uncovered more conflicts and ‘suspects,’ the scope and number of people they needed to investigate had also significantly broadened.
It was like the clues had exploded from zero to a thousand threads overnight, requiring them to check and rule out everything.
The method of exhaustion was such a tiring and unavoidable clumsy approach, continuing this way, when would they ever finish? She now understood why major crime teams often took a year or more to solve cases.
The other detectives, not knowing the real situation, still had hope with every clue they pursued, earnestly investigating each one, and every new discovery brought them a surprise.
Working with hope, even if disappointed time and again, at least there is hope each time. Hope can sustain one to keep going.
Jiayi tried to convince herself, telling herself that this was a way of learning, a part of the job. She needed to enjoy the thrill of exploration and the sense of achievement in making progress. She shouldn’t be too concerned with everything she saw in the flow of her mind, and should discard them to experience the reality of investigating cases, even if it was hard, and immerse herself, staying in sync with everyone.