Ji Feng's loose tongue forced him to make the sixth, seventh, and eighth phone calls.
Bit by bit, he finally managed to explain the third case clearly.
Let's review the key points: On December 29, 2002, the third burned corpse case occurred in Peace City. It had snowed lightly that day, and the perpetrator left behind tire tracks.
The victim's body was burned beyond recognition, but forensics was still able to extract DNA from the internal organs. At the end of December this year, Liu Jian was arrested for intentional injury, and after collecting his DNA, it matched with Jane Doe No. 3 in the database.
Ji Feng first went to see his cousin and got some fragmentary information.
"My third uncle's daughter did indeed go missing. We only heard about it later. Her mother died early, and my third uncle was a gambling addict who only cared about playing cards every day, never paying attention to his child. During the New Year in 2008, my mom asked him about Liu Mei, why she didn't come home. He said she ran off to Taiwan to be some rich man's mistress and didn't care about him anymore."
The cousin added: "If even her own father didn't care, of course we didn't think much of it. Although we never saw her after that, we assumed she looked down on us poor relatives and didn't want anything to do with her gambling addict father. Officer, if you hadn't told us she was dead, we still wouldn't have known."
Unable to learn anything from the family, he had to go to her hometown to inquire.
Liu Jian's father was still around. Ji Feng's timing was good - the man was in detention for drunk driving, so he questioned him directly at the detention center.
"That girl? How should I know where she went to make her fortune?" Liu's father spat, his face full of disdain. "She's been defying me since she was little. After her mother died, she kept giving me the cold shoulder every day. I'm her father! I told her to stay in our hometown and get married early, but she had to run off and mess around outside. Who knows which stinking man she ran off with. She never gave me a penny. Damn it, I should have sued her in court for being unfilial, not even paying me alimony."
Ji Feng: "Around 2007, did Liu Mei have any close acquaintances that you know of?"
Liu's father: "How would I know that? She never told me anything anyway."
"Is there anyone who might know more about her situation?"
Liu's father: "Did that girl get in trouble?"
Ji Feng: "Liu Mei was murdered and her body burned at the end of December 2007."
Liu's father fell silent.
After a moment, he said: "She has a cousin. I think she went to stay with her back then. You can try asking her."
Ji Feng went to find the cousin next.
The cousin was already married and ran a nail salon. When talking about Liu Mei's news, she was also very surprised.
"I thought Liu Mei ran off with a boyfriend. I can't believe she..." Her eyes reddened. "Who did it?"
Ji Feng asked: "Were you close with Liu Mei at the time? Who did she usually associate with?"
The cousin told him that Liu Mei had a very tough time at first. With only a middle school education, she couldn't find good work. Most of her jobs were handing out flyers on the street or dressing up as mascots at amusement parks. She lived in group rentals with over a dozen people, and her life was a mess.
Fortunately, she later met an agent who, although demanding and handsy, found her a job as a model.
Liu Mei was pretty and worked hard, so she quickly got some opportunities. Her life gradually improved, and she even got a boyfriend.
"In 2007, she told me her boyfriend was determined to go develop his career in Vietnam, saying there were more opportunities there. He wanted her to go with him. She was hesitant. Officer, Liu Mei didn't have it easy. She lost her mom early, and her dad was a deadbeat. She really wanted a family of her own, so when that man said he'd marry her, she was tempted."
The cousin sighed wistfully: "At the end of 2008, I went back to our hometown and wanted to ask if she was coming back. But her phone was already disconnected. I thought she had already gone abroad and wasn't in contact with us anymore, probably afraid her dad would find out and come after her for money."
Ji Feng learned the identity of the boyfriend from her.
Then he went to find the boyfriend.
This man had indeed been to Vietnam, made some money, then lost it all. He returned to China in 2018 and got involved in telecom fraud. When Ji Feng showed up at his door, tensions were high, and seeing he was alone, they immediately got rough with him.
Then they were busted.
The remaining accomplices fled into the deep mountains and forests, intending to lay low for a while. Who knew Ji Feng was specifically after him, tracking them into the mountains to make the arrest.
Liu Jian was caught.
He said: "I don't know what happened to Liu Mei. That was years ago, almost twenty years now. You shouldn't be asking me about this."
"Liu Mei died at the end of 2007," Ji Feng said lightly, frightening him with just one sentence. "So I should be asking you."
Boyfriend: "It wasn't me! I didn't hurt her!! She dumped me."
"The frequency of the crimes is also odd," he said. "They were clustered at first, but the gaps became longer later on."
Jian Jing sighed.
Everything about this case was strange, but no matter how they looked at it, it was like a turtle retreating into its shell—they simply couldn't find a weak point.
Frustrating.
As her heart grew irritated, her stubbornness kicked in. She didn't bother to keep arguing with Ji Feng: "I must dig this person out no matter what."
Ending the call, she walked to the window and gazed at the grey sky in the distance.
All the cases happened on such winter nights. Why?
Even as she went to bed, Jian Jing was still thinking about this. As a result, she had a night full of chaotic dreams, waking up feeling exhausted but unable to remember any of the content.
Outside, a fine snow had begun to fall.
The heating was on inside, making it warm, of course, but Jian Jing couldn't sit still. She decided to take Knight out for a walk.
The snow was light, so there was no need for an umbrella. They strolled leisurely along the riverside path.
Her thoughts scattered once again.
Winters in Peace City usually hover around freezing, occasionally dropping to seven or eight degrees below zero, with a damp chill that's unbearable without heating.
Rain is scarce, but it snows a few times every two or three years. When particularly strong cold fronts hit, snowfall is common.
The temperature difference between indoors and outdoors is significant. Whether a body is preserved inside or outside could result in several days' difference in the estimated time of death.
No matter how Jian Jing thought about it, she felt that temperature was the key factor.
But cremation added another step.
She furrowed her brow.
"Crunch, crunch," Knight walked ahead, his paws leaving a trail of muddy footprints in the thin layer of snow.
Tire tracks.
Footprints.
Snow accumulation.
Time of death.
Time... She suddenly stopped in her tracks and immediately took out her phone to make a call.
The call connected instantly.
Ji Feng asked, "I was just about to call you. What's up?"
Jian Jing said, "I have a theory."
"Go on."
"The killer chose to act in winter probably to interfere with determining the time of death."
Ji Feng had considered this point as well, so he wasn't surprised: "Very likely."
"Cremation serves another purpose besides destroying evidence," she said. "It creates an alibi."
He repeated, "An alibi?"
"Have you considered that Li Xiaonuan might not have died in the evening?" Jian Jing's thoughts suddenly crystallized. "Her time of death was entirely based on stomach contents and the heavy snow."
On the other end of the phone, Ji Feng silently agreed, two words flashing through his mind.
Trickery.