Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Old Zheng flipped to the last page of the report and pointed to a line of data highlighted with a highlighter.

"Her endometrial thickness and hormone levels indicated that she had never been pregnant. However, we extracted a foreign tissue residue from her stomach contents, a trace amount of placental tissue fragments, which, after DNA comparison, did not belong to her or any other evidence collected at the scene."

Preliminary assessment suggests she consumed some kind of tonic or health supplement containing placenta shortly before her death. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, placenta is believed to have warming and nourishing effects on qi and blood, and there is a folk custom of consuming placenta after childbirth. However, in recent years, some health supplements have appeared on the market using animal placentas to impersonate human placentas. We need to find out where the placenta in this bowl of white fungus soup came from.

Jiang Ruolan put down the autopsy report and remained silent for a long while.

Red date and white fungus soup is a common nourishing sweet soup, but adding placental fragments makes all the difference.

A 28-year-old unmarried woman was cooking soup containing placental fragments in her kitchen when she was repeatedly strangled to death by a killer who crawled in through a drainpipe. A note with numbers written on it was placed on her chest.

These elements collided and recombine in my mind, gradually outlining a vague clue.

She stood up, paced around the duty room a few steps, then suddenly stopped and said to Lu Zheng:

"Go find Qiao Xiaoyue's online shopping records. Placental products, no matter what form they take, cannot be bought in a regular supermarket. She either bought them online or someone provided them to her through private channels. List all the products from the last three months, including donkey-hide gelatin cakes, placental capsules, and nourishing soup packets, anything containing placental ingredients."

At the same time, all police stations in the city were notified to investigate health product stores, beauty salons, and postpartum care centers within their jurisdictions to see if anyone was selling placenta products privately. Also, check if Qiao Xiaoyue had recently visited any postpartum care centers or maternity facilities. She hasn't given birth, but she might have been buying things for someone else, or she might have been consuming them herself.

Lu Zheng took a picture of Lao Zheng's autopsy report and sent it to the technical department, asking them to use Qiao Xiaoyue's online shopping account to filter products containing placental components one by one, and then focus their investigation on health product stores and beauty salons near the riverside road in the west of the city.

After doing all that, he looked up at the deep night outside the window and suddenly realized that he hadn't even eaten dinner yet.

He got up and went to the vending machine at the end of the corridor to buy a can of coffee and a compressed biscuit, which he chewed up in a few bites while leaning against the wall.

Meanwhile, Zhao Rui went to Qiao Xiaoyue's GG company overnight.

The company is called "Yidian GG" and is located on the fourth floor of an office building in the west of the city. It is not a large company, with a total of about a dozen people including the boss.

The boss, surnamed Qiu, was a middle-aged man in his early forties. He wore thick-rimmed black glasses and spoke slowly and deliberately. Upon hearing the news of Qiao Xiaoyue's death, he was so shocked that he couldn't speak for a long time.

He said that Qiao Xiaoyue is a key designer in the company, has several important clients, is conscientious and responsible, and has never had any conflicts with clients.

He said that Qiao Xiaoyue is currently working on a packaging design project for a health and wellness brand called "Yuejifang," which specializes in women's health supplements. The product line includes donkey-hide gelatin cake, bird's nest porridge, angelica paste, and something called "placenta essence capsules."

Ziheche is the Chinese medicine name for placenta.

The brand required Qiao Xiaoyue to personally try the product, saying it was for "experiential design"—only when the designer uses the product can they create a solution that is closer to consumers.

Qiao Xiaoyue initially refused, but the brand said it was a mandatory requirement for the project, so she eventually agreed. She has indeed been taking the capsules recently and told her colleagues that her skin has improved significantly after taking them.

Boss Qiu pulled a brand cooperation contract out of his drawer and handed it to Zhao Rui.

The official seal of the brand on the contract is "Yi An Yue Ji Fang Trading Co., Ltd.", the legal representative is Han Qiuping, and the company address is in a mixed-use commercial and residential building on Cuihu Road in the west of the city.

Zhao Rui immediately relayed this information to Jiang Ruolan.

Jiang Ruolan assigned tasks overnight, instructing Lu Zheng to investigate Han Qiuping and her company. At the same time, she herself led a team to the industry and commerce and health departments to retrieve Yuejifang's business records, as well as the sales ledgers of placental products from all postpartum care centers and beauty salons in the city.

Around four in the morning, Zhao Rui returned from Qiao Xiaoyue's apartment with a livid face.

He found a small glass bottle with a white label in the drawer of Qiao Xiaoyue's bedside table. The bottle contained dozens of dark red capsules. The product name on the label was "Placenta Essence Capsules," and the manufacturer was listed as "Yi An Yue Ji Fang Trading Co., Ltd.", but there was no health food approval number.

Qiao Xiaoyue stuck a sticky note on the back of the label, on which a few words were written in red pen:

"Sister Han, this batch of capsules tastes off. Did you change the formula?"

Technicians conducted preliminary component tests on these capsules and found that the placental extract contained in them was not from human placenta, but a mixture of sheep and pig placenta, and the content of E. coli was seriously excessive.

After daybreak, the investigation results from each group were gradually reported back.

The municipal health supervision bureau retrieved Yuejifang's business records for the past three years and found that Han Qiuping sold a large number of unapproved placenta products through online and offline channels, with customers covering Yi'an and three surrounding counties and cities, and annual sales approaching three million.

The Chengxi Police Station visited businesses near Yuejifang and learned that Han Qiuping had been frequently changing her store signs in the past six months, always doing so late at night.

Beauty salons and postpartum care centers along the river road are indeed found to be selling placenta products privately. Preliminary statistics indicate that seven businesses are involved, four of which are associated with Yuejifang.

Jiang Ruolan decided to summon Han Qiuping first.

She instructed Lu Zheng and Zhao Rui to lead a team to the control site of the commercial and residential building on Cuihu Road, and at the same time contacted the industry and commerce and drug administration departments to cooperate in sealing off all of Yuejifang's inventory products.

Lu Zheng paused at the office door before leaving, then turned back and asked her:

"Director Jiang, what exactly does the number 273 mean? If there is some connection between the murderer and Qiao Xiaoyue, then this number should be some kind of code or record between them, but this number has not appeared on Qiao Xiaoyue's phone or computer."

Jiang Ruolan remained silent for a moment, her gaze falling on the gradually whitening horizon outside the window.

She said she was also thinking about this issue.

273 is not a date, not a phone number, and not an ID number.

But there was a detail in Qiao Xiaoyue's computer document that had been on her mind all night: in the product manual that Qiao Xiaoyue was designing for Yuejifang, the sample numbers for each product were arranged starting from 1.

She has completed three versions of the placenta capsule packaging design, with the last version numbered 272.

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