After sending Leng Ning back, Di Ye was back on his feet, busy as ever. It was already 3 a.m. “How’s the surveillance check going?”

The officer investigating the surveillance looked troubled, “Private room 888 is right at the corner on the second floor, next to the direct elevator. It’s in a blind spot of the cameras, something’s definitely fishy!”

Di Ye’s sharp gaze swept over the KTV staff, “I think it’s not just the room, the whole KTV is problematic!”

The investigator continued, “If the murderer knows the layout, they could easily avoid the cameras. This means checking the second-floor surveillance isn’t very meaningful. Based on this, the murderer should be someone familiar with the room, could it be an inside job?”

Di Ye pondered for a moment, “Are there any other exits?”

“The kitchen has a vent that leads outside,” He Le said, “Just checked, no signs of anyone stepping through. To leave the KTV, the murderer must pass through the lobby.”

“Pull up the lobby surveillance.”

Di Ye watched the surveillance for a while, then suddenly shouted to stop. He pointed at the screen, “This guy’s pocket is clearly stuffed with something. Zoom in on his face.”

After zooming in, the screen was just a blur of pixels, no face visible, the cap brim pulled low, but judging by the build, it was a man about 175 cm tall.

Reconstructing the suspect’s movements, they found that at 10:45 p.m., the suspect passed through the lobby empty-handed. At 11:10 p.m., his pocket was stuffed with something as he walked out of the lobby. At 11:11 p.m., he lingered in the lobby for a moment, then entered the emergency exit. At 11:12 p.m., he emerged from the first-floor emergency exit, by then, whatever was hidden in his clothes was gone. The suspect walked out the main door, and the next scene was Di Ye bursting into the KTV with his team.

“Damn it!” Di Ye punched the table, “Get a sketch artist, I need to talk to him!”

Di Ye has a knack for remembering faces, even if he just caught a glimpse at the KTV entrance, he remembered the man’s appearance.

“It’s so late… the sketch artist must be asleep,” He Le said, “How about we wait till morning…”

“We’re all public servants, what’s there to sleep for? Call Old Cheng, I’ll talk to him!”

Yan Jun had no choice but to call Cheng Shu.

After a phone conversation with the other party, Di Ye received a photo of the sketch. He glanced at it, at least an 80% resemblance.

“Immediately issue a notice for assistance!”

• At 6 a.m., there was a new discovery.

He Le pointed at a woman in the surveillance, “Her name is Li Wantao, nicknamed Taozi. Chu Jian went to the KTV looking for her yesterday morning, but couldn’t find her. Checked the surveillance, turns out she was hiding in the kitchen storage the whole time.”

Di Ye stared at the woman in the surveillance, “Doesn’t she look familiar to you?”

“Familiar? How?” He Le scrutinized, “Nowadays, all pretty girls look alike.”

“No…” Di Ye tapped his temple, “Don’t you think she looks a lot like the person in the sketch?”

He Le opened his phone and pulled up the sketch from the assistance notice, “Does she? I can’t tell, it’s too abstract.”

“Check Li Wantao’s relatives, see if there’s a male around twenty years old.”

What they found was shocking!

“Li Wantao has a younger brother named Li Shuo, he’s 21, studying at Longchuan Industrial University, currently in his second year. The photo we pulled is from three years ago, can’t say it’s a perfect match, but at least an 80% resemblance.”

Di Ye cracked open a can of Red Bull, “He Le, bring some people and come with me to Longchuan University. Old Xie, you stay and interrogate Li Wantao, find a way to get her to talk.”

• After bringing Li Wantao back to the interrogation room, her shoulders kept trembling, her whole body was in a state of high tension.

“Why were you hiding?”

“Someone wants to kill me!”

“Who wants to kill you?”

“I was being followed! I’m scared!”

Seeing her in such a state of shock, Xie Changhong instinctively thought she might have used drugs and hadn’t sobered up.

“What’s your relationship with Chu Jian?”

Li Wantao clearly didn’t expect him to ask about Chu Jian, her eyes flickered, “He… he’s my ex-boyfriend.”

“Did you know he was dealing drugs?”

Li Wantao steadied herself, “I knew.”

Xie Changhong leaned back in his chair, “What did you and Chu Jian do? How did you distribute the drugs? How did the transactions with the suppliers and buyers work?”

Li Wantao drifted off for a moment, absentmindedly saying, “Chu Jian beat me, made me entertain guests, the goods weren’t pure, the guests beat me… no money for impure goods… no money to buy goods…”

“What do you mean by impure goods?”

“Widow not pure, got me beaten…”

Xie Changhong furrowed his brows, recalling the assistance notice from the anti-drug team. A new type of drug had appeared on the market—a substitute for Pink Widow, a compound with a different molecular formula but similar appearance.

The drug residue found at the crime scene matched the new drug, it should be the fake goods Li Wantao mentioned.

So, Chu Jian was selling fake goods?

Xie Changhong fell into deep thought.

Was this the reason Chu Jian was killed?

• Di Ye found Li Shuo while he was in class.

He was sitting in the back row, seemingly paying close attention.

Di Ye didn’t immediately go in to arrest him, instead, he stood in the hallway and lit a cigarette.

“Boss, why not go in and arrest him?” He Le asked.

“It’s the last class, let him finish.”

He Le glanced into the classroom, the class seemed quite dull, several students in the back row were asleep, and the teacher was talking about chemical formulas, which gave him a headache.

The teacher suddenly stopped and called on Li Shuo to answer a question.

It was clear that Li Shuo was an excellent student, the teacher nodded repeatedly, looking pleased as Li Shuo answered.

No matter how you looked at it, Li Shuo seemed like an outstanding student, with no connection to murder.

After answering the question, Li Shuo glanced towards the door.

He saw several men standing in the hallway, and his body instinctively tensed up, but then he thought it was unlikely.

Until class ended, the group at the door hadn’t left. He packed up his things and was the last to leave the classroom. As he reached the door, a tall man suddenly placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Li Shuo, you’re suspected of murder, come with us!”

His heart skipped a beat, his breath halted for a few seconds, and then his ears started ringing.

It was like an electric current passed through his brain, his thoughts were completely scrambled, and at that moment, he couldn’t hide his panicked reaction, laid bare in front of the police.

Where did it go wrong?

No, they don’t know, they can’t possibly know!

He had been planning this for so long, researching countless documents, it couldn’t have been discovered so quickly!

Even as the handcuffs clicked onto his wrists, Li Shuo still believed the police couldn’t possibly find out, because he thought it was the perfect murder!

As the car drove out of the campus, all the laughter and joy faded away, and when the sun shone directly through the car window, Li Shuo’s body finally slumped back.

When his supposedly brilliant crime was laid bare, he suddenly felt like a joke.

Of course, there are people in this world smarter than him, who specialize in studying unnatural deaths, and such schemes are crude in their eyes, which is why he was caught so quickly.

The midday sun cast its rays on the tree-lined paths of the campus, the trees on both sides flourishing, the sunlight filtering through the leaves, casting dancing shadows on the ground.

Faces full of collagen passed by the black Volkswagen, and no one knew that inside that ordinary private car, the police were escorting a murderer.

• Faced with irrefutable evidence, Li Shuo didn’t hold out for long, confessing his crime in detail.

“Chu Jian always chose room 888 at the KTV. I hid the murder weapon there in advance, waiting for the day he got high so I could kill him.”

Li Shuo’s face showed no remorse, as if he had rehearsed killing Chu Jian in his mind many times.

“I thought of many ways to get back at him, but only killing him could ease my hatred!”

“What did he do to make you hate him so much?”

Li Shuo seemed to fall into deep thought, taking a while before answering.

“For my sister.”

“Li Wantao?”

Li Shuo nodded, “My family’s situation is special. I was raised by my sister. She was great before, but after getting into meth, she changed completely.”

Li Shuo began recounting his experiences…

The siblings were nine years apart. After Li Shuo was born, Li Wantao took care of him more than their parents did.

Li Wantao lost her father at a young age, and her mother remarried, marrying an alcoholic named Li Zhong, who later had a son, Li Shuo, with him.

Li Zhong drank almost every day, always in a drunken stupor, taking out his anger on them, whipping them, hitting them with chairs. Li Shuo grew up in domestic violence, timid and afraid to speak up.

To him, Li Wantao was like an angel, always protecting him, even if it meant getting beaten black and blue by Li Zhong, she never gave in.

Growing up in such an environment, Li Shuo and his sister shared a deep bond. Their father’s mood swings made life difficult for the family, and Li Shuo just wanted to grow up quickly to protect his mother and sister. But he was still too young to do anything.

They endured their abusive father, anger building up inside, until one day, Li Zhong raped his sister. Li Shuo was right there, but he was no match for Li Zhong, getting kicked until he couldn’t stand for days.

After that, his sister changed, always on edge, having nightmares.

“Later, my mom found out about it, gave me some money, and sent me and my sister to our aunt’s for a while. When we came back, the whole village was gathered at our house. My mom had poisoned the food, killing both herself and that man.”

From then on, Li Wantao took on the burden of the family.

“That year, my aunt introduced her to an old bachelor twenty years her senior. He was bald with black buck teeth. I couldn’t let my sister marry someone like that.”

It just so happened that year, Chu Jian came to the village for business. His humorous talk and stylish appearance immediately attracted Li Wantao.

They quickly became a couple, and Chu Jian took Li Wantao to earn money outside, leaving Li Shuo alone to guard the old house, growing up under the villagers’ gossip.

“Back then, I felt abandoned by the whole world, so I focused on studying hard, wanting to leave the countryside and find my sister in the city.”

It was this belief that supported Li Shuo in getting into university. Receiving the admission notice was the happiest moment of his life.

But soon, reality shattered his happiness.

Entering the big city, he didn’t find the dreamlike beauty he imagined, but instead saw his sister lying in a rented room, disheveled.