Free Web NovelChapter 835: Chapter 441: Other Victims Still Exist
At this moment, the office of the criminal investigation team was filled with a strong aroma of takeout food, mingling with the scent of oil and sauce.
Wan and a few officers who had just returned from outside were seated around a makeshift desk, holding disposable meal boxes in their hands, heads down, eating their meals in large bites.
They had been running around all day, didn’t even have time to drink water, and were now famished.
The slurping sounds they made while picking up their food with chopsticks and bringing it to their mouths became the only rhythm with a sense of life in this quiet space.
At the other end of the office, Jiang An sat alone in front of a whiteboard.
He clasped his hands against his chin, his gaze fixed like nails on the whiteboard.
The dense handwriting, arrows, and question marks on the whiteboard formed a maze with no visible exit.
For criminal investigation work, every case is like a spiritual journey, a tribulation.
You never know how many invisible hurdles you have to overcome or how much fog you have to break through before reaching the truth.
This case was shrouded in layers of fog from the very beginning.
The victim’s identity was unknown, physical evidence was scarce, and the motive was a mystery.
Later, after days and nights of investigation and comparison, the identities of the two victims finally came to light.
Logically, this was a major breakthrough.
In the criminal investigation field, there’s an unwritten consensus: once the victim’s identity is clarified, the case is half-solved.
But Jiang An’s intuition told him this case was different.
Even though the identity was confirmed, the suspect’s outline remained blurry.
Even though the physical evidence was sent for examination, the motive was like a root buried deep in the soil, unseen and intangible.
He faintly felt that there were at least two-thirds of the journey left before the case could be fully solved.
And all of this was closely linked to the peculiar nature of the crime scene—a place where a murder shouldn’t have happened, a space that was supposed to be safe, enclosed, and orderly.
Yet, here occurred an incident akin to "strangers killing each other."
Such cases are often the most headache-inducing.
Unlike vendetta or crimes of passion with clear cause-and-effect chains to trace, nor familiar perpetrator cases with stable social relationships for investigation.
It’s more like an indiscriminate attack, random, cold, with unclear motives.
Just like someone walking on a street, suddenly attacked from behind by a stranger—unpredicted, without reason, without witnesses, without surveillance.
Under such circumstances, conducting an investigation is akin to fishing for an invisible needle in the vast ocean.
Even a seasoned crime expert like Dr. Li Changyu, leading his elite team, would probably only stand at the scene shaking his head in sighs, finding it difficult to find a point of entry.
No motive, no connection, no criminal record—from any direction you start, it’s like hitting a soft wall. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Jiang An picked up the teacup from the table, took a sip of the long-cold strong tea.
He closed his eyes, and every detail of the case from its inception till now replayed in his mind like a film frame by frame—scene photos, autopsy reports, visit records, evidence lists, timeline sketches...
At this moment, he undoubtedly bore the greatest pressure in the entire room. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Serving as the captain of the criminal investigation team, investigation and case solving was both his duty and primary task.
If a case remains unsolved for a long time, it means even his basic professional ability is being questioned.
After a long while, Zhang Yean slightly raised her hand to cover her mouth, speaking: "Mr. Jiang, I have an idea, I don’t know if it’s appropriate, I’d like to propose it for everyone’s discussion."
Upon hearing this, Jiang An immediately responded: "Sister, go ahead."
"Our investigation into the case has essentially reached a bottleneck, any bit of clue or direction might be key for a breakthrough."
"I’ve always emphasized, before the truth of a case comes to light, everyone’s ideas are worth listening to—it could be right or wrong, but without trying, you’ll never know which path may lead to the truth."
With the captain’s approval, Zhang Yean steadied her nerves and continued to elaborate her thoughts.
"Here’s what I think: The target chosen by the killer in this case is very special, and the biggest difference between this and past cases is that the two victims both came from the same foot massage shop."
"This commonality is by no means coincidental, can we cut in from here and delve deeper into the connections?"
"Perhaps, this is the breakthrough we’ve been looking for."
As soon as she finished speaking, Jiang An nodded, clearly endorsing this line of thinking.
Seeing his response, Zhang Yean further proposed a specific strategy: "Since this is the case, should we consider deploying police forces near that foot massage shop, adopting a ’waiting for the hare’ approach, closely observing everyone coming in and out, and checking suspicious individuals one by one?"
Jiang An pondered for a moment, then looked at Zhang Yean, speaking earnestly: "Sister, the direction you proposed is indeed very valuable, and focusing the investigation on the foot massage shop, digging in from commonalities, I also believe is crucial."
"’Waiting for the hare’ is theoretically a feasible strategy, helping us directly contact individuals related to the scene of the crime."
"But we must also consider the difficulty of practical execution—we cannot predict when the killer will appear, nor can we ensure he won’t show up and notice the police’s movements before we finish checking a suspicious individual."
"If while checking the nth person, the real killer—who would be the n+1 target—happens to appear and discovers there’s police setup on site, it’s very likely he will immediately escape, even vanish without a trace, leaving us in an even more passive stance."
