We asked you to solve cases, and here you are sharing your criminal experiences?

7:30 p.m.

Several black Iveco vans without any police markings quietly parked in the wasteland surrounding the West District Textile Factory.

In November in Jiangcheng, the night wind was already biting cold.

The textile factory covered a huge area, and its towering red brick chimneys looked like a giant monster in the night.

The factory area was overgrown with weeds, and the rusty iron gate was half-closed, letting in very little light.

Zhou Zheng, dressed in a full black tactical vest and wearing night vision goggles, was leading several SWAT team members in a final tactical check.

"Sniper number one is in position, high ground on the east side of the factory area. Clear view, no heat source detected," the report came through the headset.

Gu Tingchen leaned against the car door, holding a diagram of the factory's internal structure in his hand.

Song Qianxia, ​​wrapped in an oversized police coat, huddled in the back seat, her hands in her pockets to keep warm.

"Captain Gu, this place is too quiet." Lin Wan turned her head from the front row and lowered her voice. "It doesn't look like anyone is about to pull off a big heist at all."

"We need to be even more careful in quiet conditions." Gu Tingchen closed the blueprints. "The terrain in this old factory area is complex, with abandoned machinery and load-bearing columns everywhere, making it the perfect place to set up a series of traps."

It's exactly eight o'clock.

Gu Tingchen gave the order into the walkie-talkie.

"action."

Zhou Zheng immediately gave a tactical hand signal. Two groups of SWAT officers, like black ghosts, crept into the factory area along the wall.

Gu Tingchen drew his sidearm and followed behind the second group.

Song Qianxia was instructed to walk in the very middle of the group. This was the safest position, but also the most restrictive.

Several beams of powerful flashlights swept back and forth in the huge production workshop.

The air was filled with the smell of moldy engine oil and dust.

No target was found in the factory building on the first floor.

No target was found in the office area on the second floor.

The underground warehouse remained deserted.

Zhou Zheng kicked open the iron door of the last power distribution room, and only a few frightened rats scurried out.

"What the hell! Are they playing us?!" Zhou Zheng angrily took off his helmet and cursed into the communication channel.

Gu Tingchen stood in the central workshop on the first floor, a powerful flashlight shining on the floor.

The ground here is the old-fashioned cement type, which should have been covered in dust.

But now, the area in the very center of the workshop, about fifty square meters, has been swept clean.

It was spotless, without even a shoe print, and the cement floor was even wiped until it shone slightly.

In the very center of this clean area, there is something.

A red brick.

It's just an ordinary red brick, the kind you see everywhere on a construction site.

But its placement was extremely bizarre.

Song Qianxia walked out from behind Gu Tingchen and stared at the red brick for a few seconds.

Without saying a word, she took a measuring tape directly from Lin Wan's pocket.

"What are you doing?" Lin Wan was stunned.

"Don't move." Song Qianxia stepped on the clean edge, pressed one end of the measuring tape against the wall, and pulled the tape towards the red brick.

After measuring the length, they went to measure the width.

"The distance from the left wall to the brick is 15.62 meters."

"The distance from the right wall to the brick is 15.62 meters."

"The distance from top to bottom is exactly the same."

Song Qianxia put away the measuring tape and stood up straight.

"This brick is placed precisely at the absolute physical center of this workshop. There isn't even a millimeter of error."

Zhou Zheng walked over, looked at the broken brick, and was completely bewildered.

"Is this crazy? Coming out in the middle of the night to sweep the floor clean, just to measure and put in a brick?"

"No, this isn't a disease, it's called severe obsessive-compulsive disorder." Song Qianxia stared at the brick, her tone becoming unusually professional.

"He can't stand anything asymmetrical or irregular."

"Look at this brick itself," Song Qianxia said, pointing to it. "Ordinary red bricks on construction sites have chips and dents along their edges, but all eight corners of this brick have been sanded down."

"It is now a perfectly beveled cuboid."

Gu Tingchen watched Song Qianxia speak eloquently on the spot and did not interrupt her.

"Advisor Song, you're looking at bricks and trying to find something interesting, but you still can't catch anyone!" Zhou Zheng scratched his head.

"Who says we can't catch him?" Song Qianxia turned to look at him.

"I just read a book on criminal behavior last night, which said that criminals with severe perfectionism and symmetry obsessions are the easiest to deal with."

Song Qianxia brought up the all-purpose excuse of "reading novels" again.

"Because their behavior is predictable."

"They cannot tolerate any deviation from the plan. Once the external environment disrupts their symmetrical balance, they fall into severe psychological anxiety and even lose their ability to think."

Song Qianxia recalled that she had killed a drug lord with a similar target in her previous life.

That guy always takes the same route when he goes out, and his bodyguards must stand symmetrically on either side of him.

Song Qianxia didn't fire a shot at all; she simply had someone place a bicycle parked crookedly at an intersection frequented by drug lords.

In an attempt to avoid the car, the drug lord veered off course by a meter and stepped right into the trap she had set.

Perfectionism is the biggest weakness in real combat!

Gu Tingchen walked to the red brick and picked it up with his gloved hand.

There's a photo underneath.

The photo was in a clear, sealed plastic bag, completely free of dust.

"Technical Department, come over and take photos as evidence," Gu Tingchen called out.

Then he shone a flashlight on the photo.

This photo was taken at night.

The image shows a luxurious European-style wrought iron gate, with the address clearly visible under the streetlights.

[Blue Ocean Villa District, Block A, No. 9]

On the gate of this villa, a huge smiley face is painted in red spray paint.

However, the mouth part of the smiley face was drawn as a cut-off red line.

"A throat-slitting ceremony." Lin Wan realized immediately upon seeing the smiling face. "This isn't for us to see, but a provocation against the archives?"

Song Qianxia frowned.

Was Mirror, this madman, sent by Night Owl to harass the police, or to provoke the archives?

Does he even know what he's doing?

Gu Tingchen put the photos into the evidence bag.

"Tonight's drama not only showed him outsmarting the police, but also announced his next target."

"Blue Ocean Villa District, that's the most famous wealthy area in Jiangcheng. Security is tight," Old Zheng added from the side.

"Immediately check the homeowner information for Unit 9, Block A, Blue Ocean," Gu Tingchen ordered into his headset.

Two minutes later, Xiao Wang from the cybersecurity department spoke.

"Captain Gu, we've found it! The homeowner's name is Liu Wei, a businessman in the import and export trade. But he went bankrupt and fled abroad two years ago."

"That villa is currently vacant and has been seized by the court."

An empty house?

Song Qianxia's eyelid twitched.

Cheng Yan never acts without a purpose. The fact that the mirror chose an empty house as the location for the second act definitely indicates a hidden secret.

"Let's go." Gu Tingchen turned around and strode towards the factory gate.

"Tonight, we'll play along with him to the very end."