Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Jiang Ruolan stood in front of the traces of the struggle for a long time.

She could almost perfectly recreate the scene that had unfolded there the night before—two people fighting in the reeds, one of them wielding a blunt weapon and relentlessly striking the other on the back of the head. The victim struggled desperately, digging his fingers into the mud and grabbing at the reed leaves as he tried to stand up, blood gushing from his wounds and splattering onto the reed stalks.

Then he was dragged to the riverbank and thrown into the water, where ripples spread across the surface before returning to calm.

"Take photos as evidence, and seal off the entire area."

Jiang Ruolan told the technician, "Especially that bloody handprint, I need to see a detailed identification report."

At 10:00 a.m., the body was sent to the provincial forensic center for autopsy.

When Jiang Ruolan returned to the Municipal Public Security Bureau, Lu Zheng had already compiled the missing persons reports from the past week.

In Yian City and several surrounding counties, a total of seven people were reported missing within a week. Five of them were minors—it is almost certain that they ran away from home or had conflicts with their families—and the remaining two were adults.

One is a 26-year-old young woman from Shiqiao County who left home after arguing with her husband three days ago and has not returned. The other is a 47-year-old middle-aged man named Sun Guangli from Yi'an City who runs a motorcycle repair shop in the west of Yi'an City. He suddenly disappeared two days ago, and it was his wife who reported him missing.

"Sun Guangli".

Jiang Ruolan repeated the name, "How did you disappear?"

"His wife said that Sun Guangli was repairing cars in the shop as usual the day before yesterday afternoon. Around 4 p.m., he received a phone call, then closed the shop and left. He didn't even clean up the shop when he left; the wrenches and parts were still spread out on the worktable."

His wife called him at 7 PM, the call went through but no one answered, and his phone was switched off after that. She waited all night but he didn't return, so she reported it to the police the next day. The Xicheng Police Station took the case and treated it as a regular missing person report.

Jiang Ruolan opened Sun Guangli's photo.

An ordinary, slightly overweight middle-aged man with a round face and dark skin, who looks like someone who works outdoors.

There's nothing particularly special about him in the photo; he's just a car mechanic in the small town of Nghe An who makes a living with his skills.

But one detail made Jiang Ruolan's nerves skip a beat.

Sun Guangli's motorcycle repair shop is located in the west of the city, and Qinglong River is also in the west of the city.

There are too many coincidences between a middle-aged man who went missing in the west of the city and a middle-aged man's body found by the Qinglong River in the west of the city.

"Contact Sun Guangli's wife and ask her to come and identify the body."

Jiang Ruolan paused for a moment, then added, "Let her prepare herself mentally first. Don't let her see the body directly; let her see the photos first."

At 1 p.m., Sun Guangli's wife arrived at the Municipal Bureau.

Her name was Wu Xiulan, she was 45 years old, not very tall, wearing a faded floral cotton-padded jacket, her hair was tied haphazardly behind her head, and her eyes were red and swollen, clearly she hadn't slept for two days.

Behind her was a boy of about seventeen or eighteen, Sun Guangli's son, who was studying at a technical school in the city. He had rushed back from school after hearing that his father had gone missing.

Jiang Ruolan personally received them.

Instead of showing her the deceased's photo, she first asked for some basic information—Sun Guangli's height and weight, his clothing on the day he went missing, and whether he had any special scars or marks on his body.

Wu Xiulan answered them one by one.

Sun Guangli was about 1.7 meters tall and rather thin. On the day he went missing, he was wearing a dark gray jacket and black trousers—which perfectly matched the clothes on the deceased.

His left ring finger was injured when it was caught in the engine while repairing a car, and the nail still bears the marks of bruising.

After hearing the last detail, Jiang Ruolan was 90% certain of the truth.

She showed Wu Xiulan photos of the deceased's clothes, but not the face; only the clothes and shoes were photographed.

Wu Xiulan glanced at it, and then slid off the chair as if her bones had been removed.

Her son grabbed her and supported her, his own hands trembling violently.

"Yes...it's his clothes. I bought him this jacket last Chinese New Year; he wouldn't refuse to wear it..."

Wu Xiulan's voice was squeezed out from her throat, thin and weak like a string about to break, "Director Jiang, what's wrong with him? What's wrong with my husband?"

Jiang Ruolan was silent for a few seconds, then told what she knew.

However, she did not mention the details about the signs of a struggle and blunt force trauma, only saying that a male body was found by the Qinglong River. The preliminary judgment is that it was a homicide, but it cannot be confirmed with 100% certainty that the deceased is Sun Guangli, and DNA comparison is needed.

As she said these words, Wu Xiulan kept shaking her head, tears streaming silently down her face, her mouth opening and closing but unable to utter a sound.

Her son had his head down, his fists clenched tightly, and his shoulders trembling.

"He never makes enemies. He's just a car mechanic, spending his days going back and forth between the shop and home. He hardly even drinks..."

Wu Xiulan suddenly grabbed Jiang Ruolan's hand, her nails almost digging into her skin. "Was he harmed by those gangsters? Was he? I heard you've arrested a lot of people recently, are there any left to catch?"

Looking at the woman in front of her, Jiang Ruolan recalled another woman she had seen a few days ago in the same reception room—Xu Guangfa's mother, the old lady who had traveled twelve hours by train from Sichuan.

History seems to be repeating itself in a cruel way.

"We cannot confirm the killer's identity yet, but rest assured, everyone involved will be brought to justice."

Jiang Ruolan's gaze was firm when she said those words.

After Wu Xiulan left, Jiang Ruolan called Lu Zheng to her office.

"Sun Guangli, 47 years old, a motorcycle mechanic, has run a repair shop in the west of the city for more than ten years. This person seems to have no connection with Fengmao Group, but there are a few suspicious points - first, he received a phone call on the afternoon of the day he disappeared and then closed the shop, which means that the call was made by an acquaintance of his, and the meeting place should be a place he felt was safe."

Secondly, he had an old injury on his left ring finger, and the bruises on his nail matched those of the deceased perfectly. Thirdly, his repair shop was in the west of the city, and the Qinglong River was also in the west of the city; the location where the body was dumped was less than four kilometers from his shop.

"Could he have witnessed something he shouldn't have?"

Lu Zheng asked.

"That possibility cannot be ruled out. But a more important question is—if Sun Guangli had no connection with Fengmao Group, why was he murdered through forced confession?"

Jiang Ruolan recalled what Old Zheng had said—"The bruises on the fingernails indicate that the person suffered some kind of special violence before death."

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