Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

The man in the photo looks exactly like Ding Hai – the same pale, thin frame, the same gloomy eyes, and the same tightly pursed lips.

But after looking closely for a few seconds, she noticed a subtle difference: this person's cheekbones were slightly higher than Ding Hai's, and his chin was slightly wider.

If you compare Ding Hai's onboarding photo from three years ago with this interrogation photo taken last year, you can clearly see a strange fact—it's not Ding Hai imitating Zhou Haipeng, but Zhou Haipeng imitating Ding Hai.

He was intentionally changing his appearance to make himself look more like his roommate who had disappeared three years ago.

"What exactly is going on?" Jiang Ruolan asked.

"This involves the question of the two people's true identities."

When Bijie police took fingerprints during the check last year, the "Zhou Haipeng" in the photo was indeed not the real Zhou Haipeng, but it was not Ding Hai either—his fingerprints did not match the fingerprints left by Ding Hai when he was administratively detained in Yi'an.

In other words, the man questioned in the Guizhou mining area was neither Ding Hai nor Zhou Haipeng, but a third person. This person's identity is still under investigation.

Zhou Pei's voice grew increasingly serious, "I cross-referenced the timelines of three people and discovered a very strange pattern:"

Three years ago, Fang Zhiqing was murdered, Ding Hai disappeared, and Zhou Haipeng also disappeared. In the three years that followed, Ding Hai's name never appeared again, but Zhou Haipeng's name appeared alternately in the three provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan. Each time it appeared, it was in remote mining areas and small counties. Each time, the registered identity was Zhou Haipeng, but the person in the photo kept changing.

I have identified at least three people sharing the identity of "Zhou Haipeng"—Ding Hai, the real Zhou Haipeng, and a third person whose identity is unknown.

This is no longer just a matter of one person impersonating another; it's a small group taking turns using the same "shell."

Jiang Ruolan held her phone and remained silent for several seconds.

She recalled Ding Hai's words in his statement: "The boss cursed me, calling me a bastard without a father. I'll show him that even bastards aren't to be trifled with."

A person who was called a "burden" by his stepfather since childhood, isolated by his classmates at school, and humiliated by his boss in society gradually developed a distorted defense mechanism during his growth process—he hated the world and all those who looked down on him, but at the same time, he longed to be recognized, respected, and loved.

When he met Zhou Haipeng, his roommate at Longsheng Trading Company in New South Wales—a young man with a criminal record, struggling at the bottom of society, and filled with resentment towards life—the two might develop a dangerous "resonance".

The unknown third person is very likely the third member of this morbid group.

"Zhou Pei, continue investigating that third person and uncover his true identity. I'll go to Xinzhou first to reinvestigate the original case files and physical evidence in Fang Zhiqing's case."

The case from three years ago was hastily shelved by the New Jersey police, and many leads were never fully investigated. If they had seriously pursued the Ding Hai and Zhou Haipeng line back then, Su Nian might not have died.

Jiang Ruolan's voice carried a sharp yet restrained chill.

When Jiang Ruolan arrived in New Jersey, it was already completely dark.

The office building of Xinzhou Public Security Bureau was brightly lit. She had dragged the criminal investigation team out of bed with a single phone call and laid out all the original case files of Fang Zhiqing's case in the conference room on the third floor.

The case files from three years ago filled two cardboard boxes, and a thin layer of dust had settled on the covers.

The head of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of Xinzhou Public Security Bureau is surnamed He. He is in his forties, with a square face and thick eyebrows, and speaks with a crisp and decisive military air.

He stood at the conference room door, watching Jiang Ruolan take the files out of the cardboard box one by one, his expression complex.

"Director Jiang, this case was marked when I was reviewing old cases after I took over the criminal investigation department in Xinzhou. The police officer who handled the case at the time retired earlier this year, and the lead investigator was transferred to the traffic police the year before last. The interview records in the case file were indeed poorly done."

Captain He did not shirk responsibility and spoke frankly, "Fang Zhiqing's parents have made several trips to the Municipal Bureau for this matter, and I have been the one receiving them each time, but all I could give them was 'still under investigation.' It's been three years, and I still feel that I owe them an explanation."

Jiang Ruolan picked up the top file from the cardboard box and opened it to the first page, which showed Fang Zhiqing's photo.

The girl in the photo has a round face and almond-shaped eyes. When she smiles, she has two shallow dimples at the corners of her mouth. She is wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and standing on the stone steps at the entrance of the company. The sunlight shines on her face, and she looks as clean as a blank sheet of paper.

She died at the age of twenty-four on the ninth floor of an unfinished building, with a plastic bag over her head and a half-stain of lipstick that didn't belong to her on her lips.

"Are the technicians who surveyed the site back then still around?" Jiang Ruolan asked.

"Here. Old Zhou, Zhou Guodong, has been doing on-site investigation for over twenty years and is retiring next year. I've sent someone to call him."

When Lao Zhou arrived, he was still wearing slippers, clearly having just come from home.

He was a short, stout middle-aged man whose hair on the top of his head had almost all fallen out, leaving only a sparse ring of gray-white curly hair around the back of his head.

But his eyes were sharp, and his voice was strong; as soon as he entered, he said:

"Regarding Fang Zhiqing's case, I told the investigators back then that this murderer was no ordinary person. The crime scene was handled too cleanly; apart from that lipstick mark, there was almost no other valuable physical evidence."

But Sun Zhengyang, who was in charge at the time, said I was overthinking it, and that this was just a simple case of attempted robbery and murder that escalated into a murder.

Jiang Ruolan raised her head:

"Attempted robbery and murder? The victim's belongings were intact; his phone and wallet were still there. On what grounds is it classified as robbery?"

Old Zhou sneered, sat down in his chair, crossed his legs, and spoke with a tone that carried the lingering resentment of the past three years:

"Because it is classified as robbery and murder, it can be handled as a regular homicide case—if the investigation fails, it can be shelved, without affecting performance targets or the case-solving rate."

If it is classified as a serial killer or a psychopathic killer, then it must be reported to the provincial department, a special task force must be established, and the case must be solved within a specified time.

Sun Zhengyang was working on transferring to a provincial department at the time and didn't want to add more burdens to himself at this critical juncture.

I told him at the scene that there were unexplained lipstick marks on the victim's lips, a mark that suggested the perpetrator had a specific criminal motive and was likely involved in a series of crimes. He wouldn't listen. He said I was a technical person and didn't know anything about investigations.

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