Chapter 32: A Stack of Criminals

Page 1 of 3

There were a great many surveillance recordings, and Cen Lian had no particular objective in mind. He simply kept a notebook beside him, ready to record the names of any criminals he happened to spot.

The cameras at a place of this sort could capture far more than the killer responsible for the deaths of those five sex workers. They might also reveal all kinds of other criminals. After all, establishments that appeared respectable on the surface but conducted every kind of business behind the scenes were also favored trading grounds for people with shady backgrounds.

When Wu Qiushan saw Cen Lian enter his working mode, he quietly moved aside to deal with other matters.

After being temporarily transferred to the municipal bureau, Wu Qiushan still enjoyed a certain degree of freedom, but most of the time he had to prioritize cases from the bureau.

It was difficult for a criminal-investigation technician like him to ever be completely idle.

Tang Hua glanced at the mountain of surveillance footage and figured Cen Lian would have no time to concern himself with other cases for the next few days. As it happened, the DNA from the Chen Nan case had been sent to Yunnan Province for matching, and no results were likely to come back anytime soon. Perhaps he could take the opportunity to slack off a little.

Unfortunately, Tang Hua’s pleasant fantasy was crushed by merciless reality before lunchtime.

The Third Squad received an assault case. Tang Hua obediently went out with Wang Yuanteng and Qi Yan to handle it, leaving Cen Lian alone in the office to study the surveillance footage connected to the headless corpse case.

Only when Cen Lian rubbed his neck and raised his head to stretch the vertebrae did he realize that almost everyone in the office had gone out.

He looked somewhat regretfully at the notebook before him.

Although he had yet to find any clues related to the headless corpse case, a morning spent watching surveillance footage had been more than enough for him to identify several people involved in criminal activity.

Most of them were connected to prostitution.

In addition, he had discovered a rather interesting tomb-robbing gang.

Eight years earlier, those people had frequently conducted transactions at this nightclub. Out of curiosity, he looked into their current circumstances. There had been six members in the gang altogether: four had died and had their registrations canceled, while the other two had been sentenced to fifteen years and were still in prison.

He had no idea whether the four had died fighting among themselves or whether a tomb-robbing expedition had gone disastrously wrong.

After marking several robbery suspects with prior convictions, Cen Lian checked the progress bar and discovered that, of the month’s surveillance footage, he had watched only five or six days’ worth.

That efficiency was rather poor.

Cen Lian simply divided the screen, set the computer to a nine-panel layout, and played nine surveillance feeds from different angles at triple speed.

In any case, what he was mainly watching for were the text bubbles.

At lunchtime, he bought meals for Tang Hua and the others, who were out handling the case, and placed them on the desks before continuing to watch the surveillance footage.

It was not until after three in the afternoon that Tang Hua finally returned, looking exhausted.

“As expected of Brother Cen.” He opened his lunchbox and wolfed down the food before finding time to say a few words. “Today’s case was a real pain. Two people had a minor scrape, started arguing, and then neither of them would back down. In the end, they lost their tempers and started fighting. Now, once they’re discharged, they’ll both have to be sent to the medical examiner for injury assessments.”

“So you mainly went there to break up the fight.” Cen Lian paused the surveillance footage. “The case should be wrapped up soon, then.”

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

Tang Hua suddenly had a bad feeling.

“Don’t tell me the headless corpse case still has no leads, but you managed to uncover other cases by watching the surveillance footage.” Drawing on his knowledge of Cen Lian, he began guessing wildly.

Cen Lian gave him an innocent smile.

Tang Hua nearly choked to death on his food.

When Wang Yuanteng and Qi Yan returned together, they saw Tang Hua pretending he had not seen anything.

“What happened?” Wang Yuanteng asked curiously.

Cen Lian handed him a stack of A4 sheets.

“I found several people who looked suspicious while watching the footage. These are their identities and the cases associated with them. They’re all robbery and theft cases. Since the year is coming to an end, you can use them to boost your performance.” His smile became even more guileless.

Wang Yuanteng: “...”

“Do these cases all have evidence?” Qi Yan asked cautiously.

“Some do, some don’t.” Cen Lian could not possibly spend the time to find evidence against every single person. “You can deal with the ones that have evidence first. Take care of the rest gradually.”

Wang Yuanteng sighed and accepted the stack of papers. “At this rate, our team is going to become the God of Wealth, handing out rewards left and right.”

Qi Yan flipped through the papers and discovered that, in the cases with evidence, Cen Lian had directly matched the suspects’ DNA through the database.

Wang Yuanteng decided to eat first. In any case, all these criminals had committed their offenses more than eight years ago, so waiting a little longer would not matter.

Some of the cases were not complicated to begin with. They had probably simply been overlooked at the time.

After handing over the batch of criminals he had sorted out that morning, Cen Lian continued studying the surveillance footage.

He watched until after nine that evening before finally seeing the text bubble he wanted flash past on the computer, which had by then become a sixteen-panel display.

He was the only one left in the office. Even Yuan Chenxi had already gone home.

Cen Lian straightened and located the relevant segment of footage.

It was from a nightclub called Grand Feast. The place had since closed down after its owner was imprisoned during an anti-organized-crime crackdown, but it was clear that, at the time, it had been an extremely lively establishment.

This was where the second victim had worked.

Cen Lian remembered the second victim rather clearly. He had been a male sex worker, barely twenty years old. According to his household registration, he had come from a remote rural village. After entering the city to seek work, someone had introduced him to this nightclub. He had worked there for less than a year before someone murdered him and cut off his head.

He had been the only son in his family. After his death, his parents had aged overnight. They had come to the precinct several times to ask whether the killer had been found, but in recent years they had stopped coming.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

As for the text bubble that had flashed past, Cen Lian now knew who the killer was, but he still had no idea why the man had committed the murders.

[Name: Tu Lou]

[Sex: Male]

[Age: Forty-five]

[Criminal Record: Long-term illegal possession of a firearm
Killed Hao Xingzong in Kang'an City 3,085 days ago
Killed Zhao Yang in Kang'an City 3,087 days ago]

[Imprisonment Record: None]

There had been five victims in Case 527, the Headless Corpses Case, but the two lives on Tu Lou’s record belonged only to the two male victims. This meant that the five cases had not been committed by a single killer.

Based on the circumstances, it was more likely that there had been two killers.

But who exactly was Tu Lou, and how had he come to possess a gun?

Everyone knew that once a criminal case involved a firearm, it became incomparably more complicated.

Cen Lian entered Tu Lou’s name and soon found his household registration records.

Then he became even more bewildered.

Tu Lou was not a local of Kang'an City. He came from Yunzhong City, a prefecture-level city in neighboring Xingxi Province, which bordered Yunling Province. His identity was utterly ordinary: he was merely an employee of a private company.

More than eight years ago, he had been only thirty-seven years old. In theory, it should have been difficult for him to have any connection with Hao Xingzong or Zhao Yang.

Unless he had encountered the two sex workers in Kang'an City.

But Tu Lou’s name had not appeared at all on the list investigated by the special task force at the time.

That meant he had never appeared on either man’s “customer list” or transaction records, nor had he been part of their network of contacts.

But where had he obtained his gun?

Page 3 of 3