A real killer playing a villain; the guy surnamed Zhen in Detective, run!

Lu Yuan didn't even blink. His eyes glanced at the screen out of the corner of his eye.

"The cutting trajectory is decisive, the advance and retreat of the blade are uniform, the operator's dominant hand is the right hand, the elbow joint has a large range of motion, and the arm span is longer than the average for people of the same height."

He threw the bones he had finished gnawing into the trash can.

"But what does all this have to do with an 18th-tier actor like me? The ribs on the stove are almost ready. Officer Jiang, if you don't have anything else—"

"Fifty thousand yuan."

Jiang Yan put her phone away.

"The municipal bureau approved a reward of 50,000 yuan. It's an unofficial informant channel, cash settlement, pay on the spot, no taxes deducted."

The kitchen fell silent.

The plastic rice scoop, used to hold the rice, abruptly stopped amidst the white steam rising from the rice cooker.

"Officer Jiang, police-civilian cooperation is our duty, and I am a law-abiding citizen," Lu Yuan said with a righteous expression.

"But the bonus can't have any payment period, and then they can't just refuse to pay it, right? And it shouldn't be taxed, right?"

Jiang Yan suppressed the urge to curse: "I guarantee it with the badge number of the criminal investigation team leader! Even if the bureau doesn't approve it, I'll personally pay for it out of my own pocket! I guarantee not a single penny of tax will be deducted."

"make a deal."

Lu Yuan tore off his apron, crumpled it up, and threw it on the stove.

He scanned all the files Jiang Yan had brought, which were spread out on the coffee table.

"You're using a counter-surveillance model based on ordinary people to simulate a ghost using a city as a sandbox. Jiang Yan, you're completely going in the wrong direction."

Jiang Yan opened her mouth.

"The route modeling deduced by the image analysis team—"

"Waste paper."

Lu Yuan pointed his index finger at the red-marked line on the map.

"Your algorithm is based on the premise that the killer planned the route on the fly. But perfect surveillance blind spots can't be calculated on a computer before leaving home."

He turned the map around to face Jiang Yan, "This is the territory."

Jiang Yan was stunned.

"The connection window for each blind spot is only three to five seconds. Do you think this level of precision can be achieved by simply timing the shots? No!"

"He lived in this area for at least two years, walking the same route every day. He internalized the streetlights' on/off times, the frequency of garbage trucks passing by, and the shift changes at convenience stores—all of which became part of his body's rhythm, leading to path dependence."

His fingertips slowly slid along the red line.

"It's muscle memory. A conditioned reflex that's been replaced frame by frame into his bones. He doesn't need to calculate at all; taking that route is as instinctive as you taking your own living room to the bathroom."

In the kitchen, the embers of the simmering pot had reduced the last bit of broth, emitting a faint smell of burning. Old Liu wrinkled his nose, jumped off the coffee table, and hid under the sofa.

Lu Yuan closed his eyes.

His breathing rate dropped from fourteen breaths per minute to six. The tension in his facial muscles gradually relaxed, and his expression degenerated from cold to blank.

Jiang Yan stared at him, a chill creeping down her spine.

The man was switching channels. He was tuning himself to the killer's wavelength.

The only sound in the living room was the rustling of the plane tree leaves in the wind outside the security window.

Lu Yuan spoke, his tone, breath, and even timbre adjusted to a frequency that sent chills down one's spine.

"Corpses are not spoils of war."

"It's garbage. He hates his own work. The chemical reagents were mixed with such precision that they destroyed DNA without corroding the carrier; this wasn't to destroy evidence."

A tiny smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

"This is a purification ritual."

Jiang Yan's sweat glands all opened in the same second.

"He wasn't washing a bag, he was washing himself. The precision of the cutting, the thoroughness of the cleaning, the cleanliness of the path—the obsessive control over every step—all point to the same psychological core: a morbid fear of dirt."

Lu Yuan's eyes were still closed.

"This fear is not adult-onset. It typically manifests between the ages of six and ten, when individuals are forced to live for extended periods in extremely filthy environments, surrounded by excrement, decaying matter, or subjected to scenes of physical humiliation created by their guardians."

"He used a different medium to wipe away the stains that he couldn't wash off himself."

The outdoor unit of the air conditioner in the living room was humming outside the window.

"Cut others into pieces, sew yourself up."

silence......

Lu Yuan opened his eyes.

He walked to the coffee table and took the red marker from Jiang Yan's handbag.

He flipped the map over, and with a stroke of his pen, began to draw lines.

"The logic of a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder choosing a body disposal site is the opposite of that of a normal criminal."

The pen tip traced two-thirds of the southern suburbs, "a location that simultaneously meets the requirements of monitoring blind spot links and cleanliness thresholds."

The three lines converge and intersect. The pen tip is heavily planted in an inconspicuous spot in the lower right corner of the map.

"Here. An abandoned cotton mill power distribution room. Concrete floor, sealed doors and windows, no standing water or dust inside. Two of the external surveillance cameras were removed during last year's municipal renovation, leaving behind a tactile paving that is just wide enough for one person to pass sideways."

He threw the pen back onto the coffee table.

"The perfectionist's body disposal site, within an 800-meter radius. Investigate. There should be new body parts."

The marker rolled to the edge of the coffee table and fell onto the carpet.

Jiang Yan's hands were trembling. She stuffed the file into her handbag without even zipping it up, then turned and rushed towards the door.

"Jiang Yan".

She stopped and turned around.

Lu Yuan returned to the kitchen sometime earlier. Wearing a drab gray apron, he came out carrying a large bowl.

A bowl of rice topped with braised pork ribs, the sauce drizzled down and staining half of the rice, sprinkled with a few scallions, steaming gently.

He shoved the bowl directly into Jiang Yan's hands.

"Let's order first."

The bowl was scalding hot. Jiang Yan's fingers instinctively recoiled.

"Only when you're well-fed do you have the energy to verify things and arrest people."

He glanced at Jiang Yan's expression and added:

"If you faint from hunger on the way, who will I ask for my 50,000 yuan?"

Jiang Yan held the bowl, the steam from the ribs rising from the rim, making her vision blurry. The sweetness of the star anise, the caramelization of the rock sugar, and the saltiness of the soy sauce mingled together and were poured into her stomach, which had been empty for three days.

I bent down and took a bite; the rice was scalding hot. The fat from the ribs, coated with salt, slid down my esophagus and into my stomach. My digestive system, which had been idle for seventy-two hours, was activated by the heat; my stomach lining contracted, and I felt a sour taste.

Old Liu peeked out from under the sofa, glanced sideways at the policewoman who was wolfing down her food in the entryway with a bowl in her hand, and then shrank back inside.

Jiang Yan emptied the bowl in four minutes, placed it on the shoe cabinet, and the soup was gone.

She picked up her handbag and opened the door.

"The ribs are good."

The door closed. The sound of military boots clattering on the stairs echoed in the hallway, each step farther than the last.

Lu Yuan leaned against the kitchen door frame, holding his bowl of rice in his hand, and slowly gnawed on a piece of pork rib.

The sixth brother jumped onto the coffee table and sniffed the map with a hole poked in it with a marker.

"Don't touch it." Lu Yuan used chopsticks to push the cat's head away. "I told you to watch the law and politics channel less."