The crime scene was again by the river. Looking from afar, the police had already put up a cordon. Song Xing, Physical Evidence Section Chief Xu, Forensic Doctor Chen, and even Li Qian were all busily shuttling around the scene.

As soon as Wang Ruijun stopped the police car, Zhang Yi’ang impatiently opened the door and got out, on his own supporting himself with two crutches, limping toward the scene.

As soon as he crossed the cordon, a police officer shouted inside: “Director Zhang is here!”

Everyone stopped their work and looked up toward him. After a few seconds of silence, all the police at the scene suddenly burst into applause. The onlookers outside the cordon were completely confused, all wondering what background this disabled person with bandages still wrapped around his buttocks had—all the police officers’ eyes lit up when they saw him.

The police executing the mission inside collectively gathered around him. Even Forensic Doctor Chen, who always held himself in high esteem, couldn’t help but straighten his herniated disc-afflicted back, sighing in a low voice to his apprentice: “Truly the younger generation is to be feared. With the status of Deputy Director, he still personally took risks, barehanded facing a group of armed criminals without fear. In the end, he captured everyone. Hmm… remarkable!” He raised his thumb.

“Director, how’s your injury?”

“You should rest well. Just leave this case to us with complete confidence. We’ll definitely get to the bottom of it!”

“Director, you’re truly my idol!”

Everyone expressed their respect to him. In the past, they respected him more because of his leadership position. Now he had become a great hero in the detectives’ hearts—taking risks alone, creating a miracle in solving cases.

In the crowd, Li Qian’s lips curved up as she smiled at him. Zhang Yi’ang had not only risked his life to save hers, but she had also participated throughout the final case-solving. These past two days, the entire Criminal Investigation Team looked at her with new respect.

“I’m fine, thank you everyone! Where’s Lu Yibo’s body? Let me take a look.”

Everyone again sighed that Director Zhang truly worked himself to exhaustion. The crowd automatically parted on both sides, as if welcoming a visiting foreign head of state, lining up to welcome him to a huge corpse that had been soaked and swollen in water.

The corpse lay face-up flat on the ground, wearing casual jogging attire, with blood stains all over the clothes. A police officer beside him introduced: “This morning someone made an anonymous police report call, saying there was a corpse here by the river.”

“Have you found the person who reported it?”

“Not yet. The other party used a virtual phone number. The voice was computer-generated. We suspect the person who reported it is the killer. We sent people to search nearby and finally found a rope under a tree beside here. One end of the rope went into the water. We pulled up the rope and pulled out a large burlap sack. Inside was Lu Yibo’s corpse. Just now, technical investigation personnel discovered blood traces on the grass nearby and determined this was the primary crime scene. The killer killed Lu Yibo here, put him in the sack, and threw him into the river. Based on the corpse’s condition, Forensic Doctor Chen preliminarily determined death occurred about three days ago.”

Forensic Doctor Chen beside him crouched down and gestured above the corpse: “Director Zhang, look. He has multiple knife wounds on his body, very similar to Ye Jian’s. I’m certain it’s definitely the same killer.”

“Hmm… the wounds do look very similar to Ye Jian’s indeed! Aiyoyo—” Zhang Yi’ang raised a crutch and pointed at the corpse’s abdomen. Suddenly stumbling unsteadily, the crutch directly inserted through the corpse’s wound, breaking through the belly skin. Internal organs and filthy liquid squeezed out. Everyone quickly turned their heads to hold back vomiting. Forensic Doctor Chen was about to curse—how am I supposed to do the autopsy with this stick destroying the wound? He instantly realized this was Director Zhang’s unintentional mistake. Thinking about how he came to the front line despite being injured, he wasn’t angry anymore. Instead, he raised his thumb—well pierced! This stick inserted exactly right, allowing him to determine the corpse’s water-soaking degree. Earlier he could only estimate the approximate time of death. Now he could accurately determine Lu Yibo was killed exactly three days ago.

Everyone looked at Forensic Doctor Chen with new respect. They didn’t expect this old bag of bones could reform himself too.

Zhang Yi’ang withdrew the crutch, held his breath and wiped it clean on the grass, came to the side, looked around at the surroundings, turned back and asked other officers: “Do you remember what I said last time?”

Everyone was blankly stunned. After desperately recalling, they still didn’t understand. Song Xing asked: “Which time last time?”

Zhang Yi’ang gently sighed and shook his head at him.

Wang Ruijun snorted at Song Xing and raised his head: “Last time, Director already said Lu Yibo didn’t tell the truth. He must know certain things about Ye Jian’s situation. Look—this time he died exactly the same way as Ye Jian. He was definitely silenced. Director indeed had foresight!”

“Last time I didn’t dare be certain. I also had no evidence in hand. Otherwise, directly arresting Lu Yibo for forced interrogation might have actually saved his life. I’m afraid when we went to question Lu Yibo last time, we had already alerted the enemy. Sigh, I didn’t kill Bo Ren, but Bo Ren died because of me.”

Everyone nodded and sighed together. Many people privately asked “Who’s Bo Ren?” “Lu Yibo’s nickname probably.”

Everyone at the scene discussed for a while. Now the case had no specific leads. They had to proceed step by step with the investigation. The forensic technical team continued to stay at the scene. One team went to check nearby surveillance. One team went to search Lu Yibo’s residence. Zhang Yi’ang led other people to Maple Forest Evening Hotel to understand the situation.

The group went to the hotel lobby with great momentum. Wang Ruijun showed his credentials, informing them they wanted to search Lu Yibo’s office. The lobby manager stopped them, asking what happened. Wang Ruijun very officially said no comment. The manager said she needed to report to leadership first, then walked to the back to make a phone call. After hanging up, she apologetically said: “Officers, there are Director Lu’s personal items in the office. Director Lu said he’s currently on a business trip in another city. Could you arrange another time to come?”

As soon as these words came out, everyone’s scalps exploded. Director Lu? Could the corpse soaked in water not be Lu Yibo?

Wang Ruijun urgently asked: “The Director Lu you’re talking about—is it Lu Yibo?”

“Of course. We only have one Director Lu.”

Everyone looked at each other. Finally, their gazes turned to Zhang Yi’ang. He furrowed his brow tightly, also completely confused. Although the corpse had been soaked in water for many days, after all, it wasn’t disfigured. They recognized Lu Yibo at a glance. But the lobby manager kept saying Lu Yibo was on a business trip. Could someone have killed a person who looked very much like Lu Yibo, deliberately making the victim wear Lu Yibo’s clothes, substituting one for another to fake Lu Yibo’s death? But what would be the point of that?

He walked forward leaning on his crutches: “You just spoke on the phone with Lu Yibo himself?”

“Uh…” The manager hesitated a moment and nodded. “Yes.”

“Where is he on a business trip?”

“He didn’t say. It’s not convenient for me to ask the boss.”

Zhang Yi’ang said with a solemn expression: “Call Lu Yibo again. Just say the police want to personally speak with him.”

“This…”

“Hurry up.” The detectives all urged.

“Oh.” The manager went to the back again and dialed the phone. After some time, her brow furrowed. “Strange. Director Lu’s phone is off. Is the battery dead?”

Everyone vaguely felt something wasn’t right. Zhang Yi’ang quickly instructed his subordinate: “Immediately check Lu Yibo’s phone location when it was just called.”

“Wait,” The detective was just about to turn around when the manager hastily said, “No need to go, no need to go. I… I just didn’t get through to the boss. The boss’s phone has been off for several days.”

Wang Ruijun was furious: “You just said Lu Yibo!”

“I…” The manager was shouted at until her face paled. “The boss instructed that if the police came, we should say this.”

“Damn!”

The detectives at the scene all cursed. They thought the case had other mysteries, giving them a false alarm. Among the threatening voices saying she would be detained for obstructing criminal investigation and law enforcement, the lobby manager fumbled to find the spare key to Lu Yibo’s office, let loose her feet and ran upstairs to open the office door, letting the police in to search.

After entering, the police followed procedure, having the manager take two more staff members to guard outside the door, supervising that the police wouldn’t steal things from the office. Actually, this office was very clean without much stuff. Valuable items were just furniture and appliances like sofas, office desks, and air conditioners. No one worried the police would carry away the sofa to sit on themselves during the investigation. It was just going through the motions.

The entire office was quite large—over sixty square meters—simply decorated. Not far from the entrance on the left was a bookshelf with some decorative thick books and some office documents. On the other side were an office desk, sofa, etc. At first glance, nothing abnormal.

Zhang Yi’ang pulled open the filing cabinet by the desk. The first compartment held nothing but a few pens. The second compartment was similar. Opening the last compartment, several management books appeared. Picking up these books, suddenly, two familiar photos came into view.

These two photos were identical to those found at Ye Jian’s home, both annotated on the plastic cover outside the photo with elegant small regular script marking the year and month of the shooting.

Seeing these two photos appear, Wang Ruijun repeatedly exclaimed in admiration while sighing to other officers beside him: “Last time when we went to search Ye Jian’s home, his house was very messy. We didn’t know what to look for. Director picked out these two photos from a pile of miscellaneous items and earnestly told us this was an important lead. At that time, I was still unconvinced—they’re just two old photos. What could they prove? Today seeing the photos again here, I finally realized—this is called professional!”

Officers beside him nodded repeatedly and put the photos into evidence bags.

Zhang Yi’ang stared at the cabinet for a long time, then called over the lobby manager to ask: “Was Lu Yibo’s filing cabinet always this empty?”

“I haven’t looked at the boss’s cabinet. I don’t know.” The manager gave a perfunctory response, but under the sharp gaze of Mount Tai-like pressure from Zhang Yi’ang, she hastily corrected: “Oh right, I saw the boss often take documents from the cabinet. It should… normally the cabinet should have contained some documents.”

Hearing her say this, everyone looked at the cabinet again. At this moment, the cabinet contained nothing. Could someone have taken away certain documents inside?

Soon, an even bigger suspicious point appeared.

A police officer stared at the ceiling above the office desk: “Hey, Lu Yibo even installed surveillance in his own office?”

The lobby manager looked up for a few seconds and immediately said: “Impossible. Surveillance was never installed here.”

Everyone immediately became alert. Looking carefully, they discovered this was a simple remote surveillance system using batteries. Through a phone APP connection to the surveillance equipment, one could view in real-time. Installation was very simple—just stick it up. They confirmed with the manager again and again—this surveillance had absolutely never been installed in the past. It was only discovered today.

Zhang Yi’ang quickly asked: “Besides Lu Yibo, who else can freely enter and exit this office normally?”

“Only the boss.”

“Don’t you also have a spare key?”

“The spare key isn’t normally kept with me. It’s kept in the company security department. I also got it from the security department today.” The manager quickly cleared herself of responsibility.

“How many keys total?”

“Only two. One in Director Lu’s hands, one in the security department.”

Zhang Yi’ang thought for a moment and first had his subordinates copy all the hotel’s surveillance from these past few days to investigate in detail. However, Lu Yibo’s office belonged to the administrative office floor, which had always been private. No surveillance was installed outside. They probably couldn’t find out who entered his office.