CH 14

Chapter 14: Victim Differences

Among the evidence brought back from the mansion, one thing was missing, an item that people in the information society can’t live without – a mobile phone. It’s not that it wasn’t found, but when it was found, the screen was damaged and unable to boot. It was handed over to a technician in the technical investigation department who is proficient in electronic products for repair.

At this moment, late at night, the office of the technical investigation department was illuminated by a single light. Cheng Zesheng leaned against the door frame, lightly tapping his fingers on the door, making a crisp sound.

At the desk with the light on, the man looked up and saw Cheng Zesheng, greeting him, “Cheng-ge, you’re here so late?”

“You’ve been working overtime to help us with the forensic data recovery. I feel bad about leaving before you.” Cheng Zesheng walked in with a cup of coffee. “How’s it going, Xiao Chen?”

“Hey, it’s not done yet. I’ve been squeezing in some time these past few days. As you know, I’ve been assisting Team Leader Bai from the Economic Investigation Division with a money laundering case. There are several underground gambling establishments involved, and we’re monitoring their communications. Each team is responsible for one location, and we’ve been rotating shifts for a week now!” Xiao Chen’s desk was cluttered with cellphone components. “Today happens to be my turn to go back and rest, so I hurried back to the bureau to repair the phone.”

“You’ve been working hard,” Cheng Zesheng handed him the coffee. “It’s from the cafeteria, don’t mind it. Once I finish my case, I’ll treat you to a coffee at a cafe.”

“Thank you, Cheng-ge.” Xiao Chen grinned and plugged in the stirrer. “This will perk me up. Don’t worry, even if the phone can’t be turned on, it’s okay as long as we can read the font chip. I just downloaded the necessary software, so once I connect it to the computer, it should be fine.”

Cheng Zesheng pulled up a chair and sat down, engaging in small talk with Xiao Chen about their recent work and office gossip. After tinkering for a while, Xiao Chen placed the font chip on the device to extract the image and recover the data. He snapped his fingers and said, “Cheng-ge, come and take a look. We can find anything you’re looking for.”

“Are all the records there?” Cheng Zesheng leaned over, looking at the screen. “Mainly the call logs, messages, and records from communication apps. Pull them up for me to see.”

“The call logs are here,” Xiao Chen opened a folder, “but the contacts couldn’t be matched, so all I can see are the phone numbers.”

“Just having the numbers is enough. Can we search them now?”

“Yes, we have a rich online system now. We can even retrieve registration information. It’s not like before when we had to go to the service providers.” Xiao Chen opened an internal software and entered the phone number. “Huh? It’s a disconnected number.”

Going through the exported communication numbers, they found that all of them were disconnected.

Xiao Chen felt puzzled and looked up at Cheng Zesheng, only to find his brows furrowed and his handsome face clouded with worry. Cheng Zesheng whispered, “Take a look at the exported messages and chat app records.”

One by one, Xiao Chen opened the files and realized that all the exported data was gibberish. He plugged and unplugged the font chip a few times, confirming that the reading was fine, but the exported data was incorrect. He stared at the font chip, muttering to himself, “This doesn’t make sense. If it’s damaged, it shouldn’t be readable at all… What’s going on?”

Cheng Zesheng remained silent and clicked on the “Photo” folder. Inside the entire folder, there was only one photo. After opening it, there was only one line of musical notation written on it.

1 7 5 2 3 5 1 2 6 5 2 1

Among them, there are semi-brackets connecting 1 and 7, and 6 and 5. There are underlines connecting 2 and 3, 1 and 2, and 2 and 1. There are dots above the two 5s. Cheng Zesheng rubbed his chin. He was naturally tone-deaf and couldn’t figure out what this was supposed to represent.

“What’s this? Was the deceased someone who played music?” Xiao Chen asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ll ask someone who understands music tomorrow.” Cheng Zesheng glanced through all the files, confirming that apart from this photo and a bunch of disconnected numbers, there wasn’t anything valuable on the font chip.

Promising to help restore the data but not having accomplished it yet, Xiao Chen scratched his short hair awkwardly. “Cheng-ge, let me keep this chip for now. I’ll study it further. Electronic stuff can be unpredictable. Maybe it’ll work fine in a couple of days, and those disconnected numbers might be a data issue.”

Cheng Zesheng patted his shoulder. “No rush, no rush. I feel guilty about bothering you to help me. It would be great if you could recover it, but if you can’t, don’t stress about it. We’re in the criminal investigation field, and our predecessors solved cases even without this high-tech stuff in the past, didn’t they?”

Today, all the news they found was unfavorable. Cheng Zesheng drove, pondering the seemingly uncomplicated but heavily shrouded case. It was just one person who died, but as they investigated, one mystery after another emerged. The key was that the evidence they had couldn’t even convince them; how could they convince anyone else?

His car entered the military compound. The sentry at the gate, recognizing the license plate, saluted and let him through. Cheng Zesheng quietly entered his home, afraid of waking his parents. But as soon as he closed the door, a deep voice sounded from the darkness, “Back already?”

“…Yeah,” Cheng Zesheng flicked on the lights. “Dad, you’re still awake?”

“You’ve been away for several days. I was afraid Xiao Huang would bring me a wooden box.”

“…Here we go again.” Cheng Zesheng looked up and saw a family photo hanging on the wall. He and Cheng Zhenqing stood shoulder to shoulder, both wearing formal police uniforms, their young faces radiating youthful vitality.

“Don’t pressure me to go to the Provincial Department. I won’t go,” Cheng Zesheng casually changed his shoes and entered the house. “Oh, and I’ll be moving to the dormitory in a couple of days. It’s closer to the bureau than our home.”

After saying that, he couldn’t be bothered to look at his father’s expression and went upstairs to sleep.

——-

In a cramped and small office, Cheng Zesheng and Xiang Yang, flanked by a security guard, were waiting to access the surveillance footage from April 13th to 14th.

He Wei’s rented house was located in the old city district, a small residential area built in the 1990s with no dedicated property management. The concept of surveillance was nonexistent. It was only last year, when the local government responded to the call for comprehensive renovation and allocated funds, that surveillance cameras were installed in various old residential areas, and even a security booth was set up.

However, in this small residential area, there was only one camera installed at each entrance, with a total of three cameras. There were no other cameras in the neighborhood. Therefore, they could only determine when He Wei entered the residential area, but whether he returned home or not was unknown.

In the colored surveillance footage, the first time He Wei was seen was on the evening of the 13th, around 6 o’clock, when he returned home from work, carrying groceries. The second time he appeared was around 9 o’clock in the evening, when he changed into casual clothes and left the house. Then the footage was fast-forwarded, and at around midnight, He Wei appeared on the screen again. He had returned.

He walked slowly, swaying as if truly intoxicated, and stopped near a tree, fumbling in his pocket for something. At that moment, He Wei suddenly looked up, his perfectly symmetrical face directly facing the camera, and his eyes unexpectedly became sharp, devoid of any drunkenness.

Cheng Zesheng quickly pressed the pause button and zoomed in on the image. The low-quality camera didn’t provide a clear picture, and when zoomed in, the facial features became a collection of pixelated contours. Cheng Zesheng then reduced the image and took out his phone, comparing it repeatedly with the photo of the deceased. Finally, he said, “Something’s not right.”

“Hmm?” Xiang Yang stared at the screen and the phone for a long time but couldn’t discern any difference. Seeking guidance with humility, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Everything from head to toe is wrong. The colors of the shirts are the same, but one has striped cuffs and collars while the other doesn’t. The belt buckles on the pants are of different styles. Even the shoe styles are wrong. Though they both have a blue and white color scheme, one is the AJ11 North Carolina Blue, and the other is the AJ11 Blue Snakeskin, with a snakeskin pattern on the upper.” Cheng Zesheng placed the photo next to the surveillance image. “Can you see it now?”

Xiang Yang rubbed his eyes and stared at it for a long time, nodding in a dazed manner. “…It seems so.”

“Not ‘seems so,’ it is so.”

Xiangyang’s eyes were glued to the screen, almost bulging out. “I can’t see if there’s a mole below his eyes, but it’s unlikely to be He Lu. He has a solid alibi, as he was resting in a hotel out of town with colleagues during that time period.”

“I am indeed suspecting if this person is He Wei, but I haven’t suspected him to be He Lu.”

Xiang Yang looked confused once again. What did that mean? Vice-Captain Cheng’s words were becoming increasingly profound and inscrutable, and Xiang Yang was struggling to understand his reasoning. He cautiously asked, “Is it also possible that he went out for a while and changed his clothes?”

“Then it becomes intriguing why he would go out.” Cheng Zesheng looked at the security guard. “Apart from the main gate, are there any other entrances or exits in your residential area?”

“Near the South Gate, there’s a damaged railing behind which is a vegetable market. Many elderly people find it convenient to sneak out from that railing to buy groceries.”

The security guard led them to the location, and they saw a constant flow of people using this exit. Even if there were any valuable clues, they would have been destroyed long ago. Xiang Yang observed the road and noticed that two liquor stores had surveillance cameras installed. If He Wei had walked out of here, there was a possibility of capturing him on camera.

Cheng Zesheng assigned Xiang Yang to check the surveillance footage one by one, while he took the keys and went to He Wei’s rented house. This small rental apartment, measuring only thirty square meters, was He Wei’s home. It consisted of one bedroom and one living room, with yellowed walls and some cracks in the ceiling. However, the interior of the room was clean and tidy; it was old but not dilapidated.

Cheng Zesheng walked around the rental apartment, and although it was small, it had everything one needed. Even in the cramped kitchen, there was a coffee machine and a milk frother. This indicated that, despite living in a humble dwelling, He Wei led a somewhat bourgeois lifestyle.

Considering that his colleagues had already searched the place once, Cheng Zesheng didn’t expect to find anything valuable. He noticed that He Wei had a narrow circle of interests and social connections. His introverted personality was evident from the books on his shelf and in his drawers. He seemed to bury himself in books and kept his sexual orientation hidden, with none of his parents or friends having any knowledge about it.

However, he frequently visited Avenoir, and Cheng Zesheng suspected that it had something to do with Lian Jingyuan. But as Lian Jingyuan had mentioned, He Wei was very principled, and most of the time, people came to the bar to chat with him. There were often individuals interested in having an intimate encounter, but He Wei rejected all advances, leading one to suspect he might be sexually averse.

Cheng Zesheng continued his search, opening each drawer of the desk. He didn’t find any books related to music but discovered several medications instead. It seemed more like the possessions of a health-conscious individual than an artist. He retrieved the numeric musical notations he had saved on his phone and compared the handwriting with He Wei’s books. They seemed to be written by two different people, particularly the number “5.” He Wei habitually connected the digits, making it resemble an “8” if one didn’t look closely.

He put away his phone and continued exploring He Wei’s home. Opening the wardrobe, he found that the clothes were not only monotonous in style but also limited to black, white, and gray. It was as if he wanted to metaphorically convey that his work mood was like attending a funeral. In the shoe cabinet, among several rows of black, white, and gray shoes, two pairs of colorful sneakers stood out. One pair had a combination of light green and bright yellow, while the other pair had deep blue and dark red colors.

Cheng Zesheng took out the shoes and observed them for a few seconds, concluding that they were definitely given to him by someone else. Moreover, He Wei didn’t seem to like this style and color, as they appeared almost unused. These two pairs of shoes were no different from brand-new ones. Cheng Zesheng instantly thought of the North Carolina Blue shoes. Such a vibrant color must have been a gift from someone else, and He Wei had specifically chosen to wear them when going out. Who was he going to meet?

As he crouched on the floor, lost in thought, his phone suddenly rang. It was Xiang Yang calling. “Vice-Captain Cheng, we have footage of He Wei at the liquor store. He came to buy cigarettes. But based on what you’ve said, it’s possible that he’s not the ‘He Wei.’ He’s still wearing the Blue Snakeskin shoes.”

“You said he came to buy cigarettes?” Cheng Zesheng stood up abruptly and returned to the desk, pulling open the third drawer and taking out a bottle of budesonide-formoterol inhalation powder.

“Xiang Yang, ask the store owner if He Wei frequently buys cigarettes.”

Xiang Yang inquired with the store owner from the other end and answered after a moment, “He says it’s the first time he saw He Wei buying cigarettes. Usually, he buys beer.”

“Of course,” Cheng Zesheng clenched the medication bottle in his hand. “He has allergic asthma, so he definitely wouldn’t be smoking.”