Diary of a Criminal Investigator

Gao Xiang’s team gathered a lot of information from Sixth Zhang’s building materials company from back in the day.

According to Sixth Zhang, this abandoned building in USA has a history of ten years.

Back then, an external developer was attracted by USA’s investment promotion, eyeing this piece of land to build high-rise buildings.

Those were the years when the real estate market was at its peak, with prices climbing steadily. As long as you were in real estate, you could make huge profits.

But no one expected that the wealthy businessman brought in by USA’s investment promotion was actually a fraud.

During the entire building process, all subcontractors were advancing funds for the work.

In the end, the buildings were sold, and the developer ran off with the money.

The building became an abandoned project, and these subcontractors who had advanced funds were also deceived.

Zhao Kai and his team had subcontracted part of the building materials and window installations.

However, as for who Zhao Kai collaborated with and the specific projects they undertook, Sixth Zhang wasn’t particularly clear.

The only known individual is Fatty Brother, a nickname for Zheng Bin, the second murder victim discovered by Gao Xiang’s team.

Leaving the hardware store, Gao Xiang and others, along with the Ping’an County Public Security Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Team, headed straight to the USA Construction Bureau.

The construction materials for all projects from back then should have relevant records at the Construction Bureau.

Gao Xiang wanted to investigate and see if he could find information on the subcontractors from that time.

To further determine if the four victims were, as he suspected, partners in contracting the project back then.

However, unfortunately,

The Construction Bureau did have data on the abandoned building project.

But this information was for the entire construction project; there were no records of to whom the developer subcontracted the work.

Attempting to find that developer...

The fact that they absconded with funds and committed a crime was filed long ago, and the police searched for ten years without finding him, making it impossible to locate him now.

According to the Construction Bureau staff, the person may have already left the country.

And since this matter didn’t involve a criminal case, the intensity of the pursuit back then wasn’t that strong.

Although they didn’t get the information they wanted, Gao Xiang used the information provided by Sixth Zhang to visit several construction workers who had worked on the project back then.

The information obtained was still minimal.

They were only responsible for the work and never met the boss, let alone the partners.

By evening, all four teams returned to the Binzhou City Criminal Investigation Team.

Some people managed to grab dinner, eating a little.

Those who didn’t have time asked colleagues to make instant noodles to quickly eat.

In the meeting room, several work groups were reporting their progress.

First was Luo Qiang’s team’s investigation report.

"No major findings."

Luo Qiang was responsible for investigating the origin of the Soul Suppressing Nail.

But they visited all the temples in Binzhou City and surrounding counties, finding nothing unusual.

Purchasers of such nails weren’t high in number, but there were several.

In Binzhou City, the custom involves not only blessing Soul Suppressing Nails but also using temple nails for house building and repairs.

"The sales volume of these nails isn’t small, and the monks at temples generally don’t have strong impressions."

From the current investigation results, this clue seems unable to pinpoint the suspect.

Of course, this clue isn’t entirely useless.

Because Luo Qiang further learned in his investigation that the use of such Soul Suppressing Nails was indeed more prevalent in USA.

Some surrounding counties and cities didn’t even have this custom.

So, at least it proved that focusing on USA as a key investigative area wasn’t too far off.

While Luo Qiang’s investigation didn’t achieve good progress and results, Li Donglin had anticipated this to some degree.

Because Gao Xiang’s second team hadn’t returned yet.

Li Donglin looked at Wang Song.

Wang Song’s group was tasked with scrutinizing the interpersonal relationships of the four victims and profiling them to find individuals matching the suspect’s physical traits.

"Through the phone call records, bank transfer records, etc., of the four victims’ relatives, we investigated a total of 76 individuals."

Wang Song began his report: "Among them, four individuals matched the suspect’s physical traits as outlined by Lu Chuan."

"But from the preliminary investigations, these individuals had no time to commit the crime."

"However, we have collected their blood samples. Lu Chuan will conduct DNA analysis to see if there’s any possible match."

"Good."

Li Donglin nodded and looked towards Song Mingguang.

"I’ve already screened half of the released convicts from the past year."

"Among them, 13 individuals matched the suspect’s physical traits. We conducted focused checks on them, collecting DNA samples, which have now been handed over to Lu Chuan for comparison."

Bam!

Li Donglin was about to understand the specifics when the meeting room door opened, catching everyone’s attention—it was Gao Xiang’s team from the Binzhou City Criminal Investigation Team.

"Director Li! A breakthrough!"

Upon entering the room, Gao Xiang, filled with excitement, started reporting to Li Donglin.

"Today we found the connection between victim No. 4 Zhao Kai and victim No. 2 Zheng Bin in USA."

Oh?

Upon hearing this, Li Donglin and the others perked up.

Until now, the reason for this serial murder case’s inability to pinpoint a specific suspect range was due to no apparent intersection between the four victims.

No intersections meant there was no way to identify the reason why these four victims were killed.

Without a reason, it was naturally impossible to determine the suspect’s motive and hence the suspect range.

"Tell us, what exactly happened?"

Gao Xiang didn’t sit down but pulled over the whiteboard in the meeting room.

"Ten years ago, an abandoned building appeared in USA, and the developer absconded with funds back then..."

Gao Qiang began to elaborate on some details about the abandoned building from that time.

"In our field investigation, we found that Zhao Kai had contracted part of this abandoned building’s project, and he had some partners."

"It’s currently confirmed that victim No. 2, Zheng Bin, partnered with Zhao Kai on this project back then."

"I suspect the four victims—Zhao Kai, Zheng Bin, Li Junhao, and Zhao Dong—were likely partners in this project."

"Because after the scam back then, everyone ended up with enormous debts."

"Is it possible that in their partnership, there weren’t just these four victims, but perhaps a fifth or a sixth member?"

"I speculate that unresolved conflicts from the deception then led to someone targeting these four individuals."

"We enquired at the USA Construction Bureau about the situation, but there was no recorded information on subcontractors at the time."

"I’m thinking, should we now shift some police resources to investigating the data on the transfer and subcontracting of this abandoned project from back then?"

"If so, could we potentially identify the suspect?"