Free Web NovelChapter 836: Chapter 441: There Are Other Victims
Upon hearing this, Zhang Yean suddenly raised her hand to scratch her head, showing a slightly awkward yet suddenly enlightened expression.
"Exactly... now that you mention it, I realize that this method indeed has many oversights and loopholes."
She paused for a moment, her tone becoming firm: "How about this—I’ll disguise myself as a masseuse and stake out nearby, observing while collecting clues. This way, I can contact the target group without alerting them."
"What? You want to go undercover? And in such a place?"
Wan, who was busy eating, suddenly lifted his head, with food still in his chopsticks that hadn’t reached his mouth, and he stared with wide eyes.
"Sister, don’t make such a risky decision just because you’re eager to solve the case!"
"This completely goes against our investigation principles."
"Not to mention Mr. Jiang definitely won’t agree, even Mr. Li would absolutely not approve if he knew!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Jiang An solemnly nodded and added, "It’s indeed too risky."
"The area is composed of a complex mix of people, and we haven’t fully grasped all the details yet."
"More importantly, such undercover missions pose significant psychological and physical challenges to the personnel involved."
He looked at Zhang Yean, his tone becoming particularly serious, "As the team leader, I have to be responsible for your safety."
"Should anything happen to you, I wouldn’t be able to explain to the higher-ups, let alone face your family."
But Zhang Yean just smiled nonchalantly, casually tucking the stray hair in front of her forehead behind her ear.
"It’s actually not as frightening as you think."
"In my view, the biggest risk in an undercover mission is personal safety, but this time it’s a short-term stakeout in a fixed area, so there shouldn’t be too much of an issue."
She paused again, with a relaxed tone, "Besides, I’m currently single, carefree, without the need to consider too many family factors."
Jiang An’s mouth twitched slightly, "Sister, there’s really no need for this."
"We can fully advance the case through other means."
"I have a feeling there’s more than one breakthrough point in this case."
"We need a more comprehensive plan."
About half an hour later, Jiang An suddenly stood up and walked over to the whiteboard in large strides.
At this moment, key information from two cases was displayed on either side of the whiteboard.
Both cases’ scenes were desolate wells in the suburbs, and the victims were young women—one 22 years old, the other 24.
What was most shocking was that the investigation showed both had worked at "Jinsheng Foot Massage Shop."
"It seems that the killer’s target is very specific."
Jiang An drew a conspicuous circle on the whiteboard with a marker, "He deliberately targets women working at Jinsheng Foot Massage Shop, instead of selecting random targets."
"This indicates he has a special obsession with this venue and its workers, or rather, there’s an unknown link between him and this place."
He then turned his head, looking at Wan, and asked in a steady tone, "Wan, aside from the known facts, do we have any information on other possibly related missing persons?"
"Or are there any suspicious missing cases that haven’t been recorded yet?"
Wan pondered for a moment before replying, "Other missing persons?"
"This aspect is indeed difficult to ascertain at the moment. As I reported over the phone, people come and go very frequently at that place; many workers might be there today and gone tomorrow."
"It’s hard to determine whether they are truly missing, or have simply changed jobs, locations, or industries."
"After all, most workers in this industry lack stable registration information, and their mobility makes tracking quite difficult."
Jiang An listened and slowly nodded, his expression serious.
He paused to think, then assigned tasks: "In that case, let’s personally visit the shop once more for a deeper investigation."
"Focus on asking whether any female workers have suddenly lost contact in the past five years, especially those who were permanent yet inexplicably disappeared."
"We need to meticulously record these women’s physical characteristics, approximate age, time of disappearance, and even their daily habits and social circles."
"All this information should be systematically documented for subsequent cross-referencing and analysis."
Wan stood by, and upon hearing this, couldn’t help but scratch his head, showing confusion and curiosity.
"Mr. Jiang, are you implying... besides the current case, there might be other missing persons we’re unaware of?"
Jiang An nodded, his tone calm yet firm, "We currently cannot ascertain that, but it’s worth delving deeper into."
"When a case lacks a clear breakthrough direction, we can only broaden our thinking as much as possible, leaving no possibility unexplored."
He paused before continuing, "We’ll also need to examine unidentified bodies discovered over the same period—to see if among the unknown bodies we’ve documented over the past five years, there are any whose identities remain unclear."
Hearing this, Zhang Yean’s eyes lit up, "Mr. Jiang, you want to cross-reference data to see if we can find more potential missing persons?"
"Especially those potentially linked to the massage shop?"
Jiang An nodded, "Exactly, that’s my intent."
"Therefore, I’d like Wan’s assistance in thoroughly investigating any missing reports of women from related industries over the past five years."
"If such records exist, we’ll then compare them with unidentified body information from the same period, looking for connections in time, location, physical characteristics, and so on." frёewebηovel.cѳm
"Even the slightest clue could be the key to breaking the case."
Quickly, everyone stood up and began to take action.
Ten minutes later, Jiang An, Zhang Yean, and others arrived at the file room, quickly diving into intense data searching.
They divided tasks by year, retrieving missing persons records from the past five years one by one.
Jiang An raised his head and said with a serious tone, "We need to focus on unidentified female bodies found in the last five years."
"Everyone, compile all the details of each body—including height, gender, estimated age, location found, specific body marks—and list them."
At 4:30 AM, Officer Wan returned hurriedly from the field.
At practically the same time, Jiang An had just completed preliminary file sorting and returned to the office.
By 4:50 AM, the detective squad’s office was brightly lit, and everyone gradually returned to their posts.
Wan, ignoring rest, immediately stepped forward to report, "Mr. Jiang, during our deep inquiries with several related females, we found that besides the two confirmed deceased persons, three more women are missing."
"Their names, ages, genders, heights, and other basic information have all been compiled in this table."
As he spoke, he handed the notebook to Jiang An.
Jiang An took the notebook, quickly scanning the lines of records.
The ages of the three missing women were 33, 47, and 26, and they hadn’t left any clear whereabouts before disappearing.
He frowned deeply and then turned to Zhang Yean beside him: "Sister, in the information about unidentified bodies we just sorted, are there any that match closely with this data? We need to conduct a cross-comparison as soon as possible."
Zhang Yean immediately responded, and the two began matching the missing persons’ information against the unidentified body files.
After five minutes, Zhang Yean suddenly raised her head, with a trace of disbelief in her tone:
"Mr. Jiang, in the past five years, we’ve documented twenty unidentified female bodies, and for three of them, the forensic estimated ages closely match the ages of these missing women, and the height data is also roughly consistent."
As those words fell, the entire office fell into dead silence.
Everyone froze in place, as if struck by an invisible chill.
After a moment, someone murmured softly, "The characteristics of three bodies match closely... could it be that they were all killed by the same killer?"
