In the following days, Team B received no new cases.
It was a rare moment of peace in the world, and everyone cherished it deeply. Fang Zhenyue brought out some old cases, analyzing the investigative logic of veteran detectives from past records while leveraging modern technology to identify and address any gaps.
Jiayi diligently took notes every day, studying both the thought processes of the veteran detectives responsible for the cold cases and Sir Fang’s critique of their logic to learn from his approach.
Over several days, combined with notes taken at Sister Yin’s office from reading reports of outstanding predecessors, the content in her little notebook rapidly became richer.
The day before the weekend, they finally solved an old cold case they had just taken on.
This time, neither the forensic science nor the medical examination departments played a significant role; rather, it was the detectives’ relentless and meticulous door-to-door inquiries that proved crucial.
When the whole team visited the homes of the victim’s colleagues from over a decade ago, Fang Zhenyue and Jiayi interviewed a colleague who had worked in the same team as the victim.
During their casual conversation, they inadvertently learned that back then, one of the colleagues frequently borrowed money. Borrowing 100 yuan today, repaying it tomorrow, then borrowing another 100 the day after, and repaying it the day following.
This colleague gossiped about their findings to the detectives, revealing that they only realized at a gathering that this borrower was cycling debts—borrowing from A to repay B, then from C to repay A, and from D to repay C, and then borrowing from A again to repay D…
This robbing Peter to pay Paul strategy somehow continued for quite a long time, turning into something resembling a financial loan system.
However, as the borrowing escalated, people became increasingly reluctant to lend money, and it was unclear if this colleague had any bad habits that made him so desperate for cash.
Fang Zhenyue and Jiayi caught onto this gossip and sensed something amiss.
In the subsequent search and evidence collection phase, they paid special attention to this money-borrowing colleague, discovering indeed that many had lent him money.
Eventually, when statements were consolidated, it emerged that before the victim’s death, the ‘borrowing expert’ had tried to borrow from the victim, who had refused.
Following this lead, after two more days of investigation, they finally located the ‘borrowing expert’. Fang Zhenyue, Jiayi, and Sanfu coordinated during the interrogation, combining exhaustion tactics with intimidation, and the perpetrator quickly confessed.
With the case solved, Fang Zhenyue entered the perpetrator’s fingerprints into the internal fingerprint database of the Hong Kong Police Station.
The next day, a fingerprint expert unexpectedly matched these newly entered fingerprints to those from another old case—the victim was an old man from the countryside who had never married and lived alone until his death. Moreover, the crime scene was far from the perpetrator’s living area. If it weren’t for the fingerprint match, it would have been very difficult to connect these two people.
After reviewing all the case files, Fang Zhenyue led a team to conduct a second round of interrogation on the perpetrator. The criminal, unable to withstand the detectives’ meticulous questioning, confessed within half an hour, sweating profusely.
When asked about his motive for murder, the killer hesitated before saying that when he killed the old man, he was young, had just left home to work, had no money in his pocket, and hadn’t eaten meat for a long time.
Taking advantage of the night, he went to the neighboring village, intending to steal a chicken or duck to roast and eat at home, but he came across the old man alone at home stewing chicken.
Smelling the aroma of the chicken, he jumped into the yard, killed the old man, ate the stewed chicken, and then left.
This was the killer’s first murder. After eating the chicken, he didn’t clean up anything. He was indeed very scared when he returned home, but since no police came knocking, he gradually stopped worrying about it.
Later, he moved to the city to work, living like any other normal person, only he had an additional habit: he liked to bet on horse races, and he often lost.
His reason for killing a coworker was also spur-of-the-moment, prompted by a failed loan request.
That was his second murder. He didn’t do much to cover it up, just wiped off his fingerprints and went on with his life. He felt the police would fail to catch him just like before, so when a detective questioned him about it more than a decade later, his demeanor was flawless, showing no inappropriate emotions. Due to outdated investigative techniques and unclear motives, among other complex reasons, he once again luckily escaped capture.
On weekends, the Yi family took a day off.
The Yi family, along with Sun Xin and Ding Baoshu, met with Team B detectives for a get-together at Fang Zhenyue’s mountain-top villa, where they had a barbecue party.
While Liu Jiaming was threading kebabs for the Yi family, he also talked about a recently solved old case:
“Can you believe the absurdity of that murder reason, just for a stewed chicken?”
“Yeah, who would have thought? In this day and age, killing someone just because you’re hungry and craving meat?” Sanfu couldn’t help but complain too.
These kinds of motives, they, as detectives, sometimes can’t even imagine.
If they hadn’t obtained the evidence and caught the person, how could they have thought to pursue the angle of ‘killing for chicken’?
The detective handling the old man’s murder initially thought it was an ‘inside job’ based on the messy dining table and kitchen at the crime scene. Usually, one would think the old man’s dinner guest who came for chicken did it.
Back then, although some detectives considered the possibility that the murderer was after the pot of chicken, looking for clues pointing to a starving drifter was also a direction.
Who would have thought it was a robust young man just entering society?
And it wasn’t entirely because of hunger; it was more about craving…
“But the killer looks perfectly sane, not a madman. I really can’t understand it…” Jiayi also shook her head in disbelief.
Real-life cases are truly too complex.
Only after becoming a detective do you realize that a person can kill another of their own kind for reasons that are both trivial and ludicrous.
“Don’t try to understand the murderer’s thought process.”
“Once, we solved a case of murder-for-hire. There was only one person who had a grudge against the victim. We questioned him, and he confessed right away. Following the confession, we tracked down the killer. It turned out to be an old butcher who used to slaughter pigs and took on a human job this time. The case was solved in three days. It’s hard to imagine, didn’t they think about how obviously suspicious it would look when they met to plan the murder?
“People who seem perfectly normal most of the time can sometimes do things even a fool wouldn’t do.”
Fang Zhenyue waved over Jiayi, Gary, and Sanfu to help carry mineral water and small stools into the house.
Jiayi and the others had just arrived and were playing around in the beautiful large courtyard. The eldest brother immediately took charge of the barbecue near the grill, and they hadn’t even entered the villa for a tour yet.
Following Fang Zhenyue happily into the villa, Jiayi saw the curved staircase leading to the second floor as soon as she entered the living room.
In later generations, many people who build houses or villas, even with two-story designs for space-saving and other considerations, would no longer opt for curved staircases.
The opulent white base decor style, combined with an exceptionally spacious first-floor living room about four or five meters in height, felt like entering a palace.
This place would be perfect for a Jackie Chan movie, running and jumping around, it would look very cool!
And then…
With starry eyes wide open, Jiayi began to fantasize about another scene.
She imagined herself in an ultra-luxurious, heavily laced gown, the kind she had never worn before, a pricey evening dress. Descending from the second-floor corridor gracefully, touching the handrail, her long skirt trailing behind her, a peacock tail fan flick of her skirt rustling into the view of the crowd, surely many would marvel at how stunning she looked.
Then, she would puff up her chest, raise her head, walk slowly, step by step down the stairs…
It was her childhood dream of opulent princess luxury!
Squinting her eyes and flaring her nostrils, Jiayi took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and internally screamed: I need to earn more and more money! I want to buy a villa!
No, even renting one for a year would be okay!
I must live in one! Oh…
Following Fang Zhenyue to the kitchen to fetch things, passing through the living room, Jiayi was already tired from walking.
The living room was really too big and too long!
Turning her head to look through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she could see everyone busy in the yard, and there was an outdoor swimming pool by the yard.
Fang Zhenyue held a box of mineral water by himself, handing only an apron, three bottles of milk, and two sun hats to Jiayi.
As they walked out of the villa side by side, Jiayi turned to look at the tall house owner dressed in flip-flops and baggy sweatpants, wishing she could work another job with him.
Like being a detective at the police station on weekdays, and a servant at his villa on weekends— the kind of servant who, after finishing their chores, could nestle in a lounge chair under the grapevines in the master’s courtyard, read the newspapers bought by the master, pet the master’s Golden Retriever Wangcai, enjoy the fresh breeze of Fragrant Hills, and sip the red tea provided by the master.
Fang Zhenyue walked to the grill, bent down to set down a box of excessively heavy mineral water, clenched his fist and shook his arm, then turned back only to see Jiayi looking at him with a goofy smile.
Smiles are contagious, and he smiled back, then reached out to playfully scoop her head, bringing her closer. He took the apron from her hands and passed it to Yi Jiadong, and distributed two of the milk bottles she had in her arm to Jiajun and Jiaru.
Then turning back to face Jiayi’s smiling eyes, he softly asked:
“What’s so funny?”
Jiayi put her finger to her lips and made a zipping motion.
Her fantasy had already advanced to the point of usurping the master’s house.
Such a brutal story… nonono, absolutely must not be said!