Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

Most of the houses here were built in the 1970s and 80s. The red brick exterior walls have long been eroded by time and wind and rain, making them mottled and unsightly. The stairwells are dark, with peeling paint revealing the gray bricks underneath.

Because of urban planning that requires demolition, most residents moved away last year, leaving only a few holdout households who are unwilling to leave.

The entire street was littered with piles of construction waste and old furniture, the corners were overgrown with weeds half a person tall, and the air was filled with the smell of rotting wood and a faint odor of urine.

The residential building where the incident occurred was an old-fashioned four-story tenement building. The windows in the stairwell had long been shattered, and broken glass shards were piled up in the corner, covered with a thick layer of dust.

The only lighting in the corridor was a few incandescent bulbs whose covers had been smashed with stones; some of them were still lit, emitting a dim, yellowish light.

The cordon for the on-site investigation was set up at the stairwell. Two police officers stood guard at the door. When they saw Jiang Ruolan and Lu Zheng coming over, they saluted and pulled up the cordon.

The room where the incident occurred was on the third floor, and there was a faded seal on the door—it was put up by the demolition office last year, and the writing on it was already blurred.

The room was about twenty square meters, and there was nothing inside except for a few pieces of abandoned old furniture.

Several woven bags full of waste paper were piled up in the corner, a piece of glass in the window frame was broken, and glass shards and withered leaves blown in by the wind were scattered on the ground.

The room was filled with a damp, musty smell, but it couldn't mask the deeper, instinctively unsettling aura of death.

The body of the deceased, Su Nian, has been removed for further autopsy. Only a human outline drawn in chalk and a few evidence markers were left at the scene.

Jiang Ruolan stood in the center of the room and slowly looked around.

The ground was covered in thick dust and scattered with messy footprints—footprints of the person who reported the crime, the first police officers to arrive, and investigators—which had obliterated most of the original traces.

However, the technicians had already collected ground traces immediately after the incident, and the location of each suspicious trace was marked in detail in the on-site investigation record.

"The deceased's identity has been confirmed. She lives on the next street. Her parents said that yesterday afternoon she told them she was going to the library to study in the evening and would be back around 10 p.m.."

Lu Zheng flipped through his notebook and said, "But the library closes at nine o'clock at night. That means that her family doesn't know where she is or who she's with during that one hour from nine to ten o'clock."

We checked the security footage at the library entrance and confirmed that she did indeed leave the library at 9:00 AM sharp, walking alone towards the east of the city, and then turning into this old town area from an alleyway without security cameras.

"Why go into the old town? Her house is on the next street. The normal route should be to go north along the main road. There's no need to go through this demolition area."

Jiang Ruolan walked to the window and looked out at the street through the broken glass.

Looking out of this window, you can see the whole street – old residential buildings, piles of construction waste, and tower cranes of high-rise residential buildings under construction in the distance.

She turned to Lu Zheng and said, "Unless she's not alone."

"You mean, someone invited her here?"

"It wasn't an appointment."

Jiang Ruolan squatted down and looked at the human figure outlined in chalk on the ground. "Su Nian is a 20-year-old female college student. After the library closed at nine o'clock at night, she did not go straight home, but turned into a demolition area with no streetlights and no one living there."

If it were you, under what circumstances would you walk into a place like this alone?

She stood up and tapped her fingers lightly on the window frame. "Either she was coerced, or she came here voluntarily with someone she trusted."

The second possibility is more likely, given that she didn't shout or run away at the library entrance. She knew the killer, or at least wasn't afraid of him. But this person lied to her.

She walked to the corner and pointed to a marked spot on the ground:

"There is a special set of shoe prints in this area, about size 42, and the sole pattern is the kind of anti-slip pattern commonly found on outdoor sports shoes."

Unlike the other footprints around it, this set of footprints had a very even stride, and the direction was from the doorway directly to the window, and then it stopped—it didn't move, it didn't pace back and forth, it just stood there for a while.

Then he turned around, walked out of the room, and left the hallway. This person wasn't just lingering in this spot before or after the incident; he was looking at something. Or—looking at someone.

Lu Zheng followed her gaze to the broken window:

What can you see from here?

Jiang Ruolan gestured for him to stand where the shoe prints were marked. Lu Zheng walked over and stood there, looking out through the broken glass window.

Looking out the window, there was another abandoned residential building. Between the two buildings was a vacant lot overgrown with weeds. In the middle of the vacant lot stood a crooked old locust tree, with an old bed sheet hanging on it, swaying slightly in the wind.

Looking further into the distance, past several dilapidated buildings, you can see the building where Su Nian lives.

"The murderer is standing here and can see Su Nian's house." Lu Zheng's voice changed.

"So he knew where Su Nian lived. He didn't act randomly. He chose this room and this window; it was all premeditated."

Jiang Ruolan's gaze drifted past the window and landed on the gray residential building in the distance. "Check Su Nian's social connections, especially her male acquaintances. Classmates, friends, teachers, neighbors, and everyone who has had contact with her in the past month."

In addition, surveillance footage from all entrances and exits of this old town area was retrieved to investigate all personnel and vehicles entering and exiting between 9 p.m. and midnight last night.

This murderer had a ritualistic approach to his actions—after killing the person, he lingered at the scene for a while, standing by the window looking out at the victim's home.

This kind of person doesn't run; he enjoys the afterglow of his crime. He didn't act on a whim; he must have scouted the place beforehand.

After leaving the old town, Jiang Ruolan and Lu Zheng went to Yi'an Teachers College.

The school is located in the north of the city and occupies a small area. Several teaching buildings and dormitories surround a small playground, with a row of crooked plane trees planted along the edge of the playground.

Because of the murder, a somber atmosphere permeated the campus. Students gathered in small groups along the road, whispering among themselves. When they saw the police car drive in, they all stopped and looked over.

..............