They Traced It After All
Only a dozen minutes after Shen Jingchuan left, the waitress on the third floor, thinking it was time to change the plates for private room 308, went to the door and knocked twice. "Hello, waitress."
There was no sound from inside. She knocked again and pressed her ear against the door to listen, but she couldn't hear a single sound, not even a whisper or clinking of glasses.
The little girl was puzzled. She gently turned the doorknob and peeked through the crack in the door—there was a large patch of dark red blood splattered on the wall opposite her, and two chairs were overturned on the floor.
She was so frightened that her whole body went numb. Not daring to look any further, she turned and ran to the service desk. Finding the male supervisor on duty, her voice trembling, she said, "Brother, something's wrong with 308... there's blood on the walls inside..."
The supervisor's heart sank, and he immediately followed her over. The moment he pushed open the door, a strong smell of blood assaulted his nostrils. He took two steps inside and clearly saw a person lying on the ground, blood flowing all over the neck, the person already motionless; next to the dining table was another person slumped over, face buried in their arms, lifeless and unsure.
The waitress behind her also saw what was happening on the ground. She screamed and collapsed to the ground, her legs giving way.
"Don't shout!" The supervisor, barely suppressing his panic, snapped at her, "Call the police immediately!"
He quickly pulled the waitress out of the private room, took out his phone, and first called 110 to report the incident. He explained the address, the private room, and the situation several times before he could make it clear. After hanging up, he immediately called the restaurant's duty manager.
The duty manager inspected the scene and immediately ordered everyone to move away, leaving only the still-dazed waitress and the supervisor behind.
Less than ten minutes later, the piercing sound of police sirens came from the street below.
The first to arrive were two police cars from the local police station, from which five officers got out. The station chief, who was leading the team, asked a few simple questions and immediately assigned tasks:
Two people guarded the entrance to the private room, preventing anyone from entering or leaving; two others evacuated all the guests and staff on the floor and set up a temporary cordon.
He led a police officer into the private room to quickly confirm the situation: one person on the floor was dead with a sharp force wound to the neck, and another person was unconscious at the table. The scene was clearly a homicide.
The director immediately reported to the command center, requesting reinforcements from the criminal investigation, technical, and forensic departments.
About twenty minutes later, the vehicle from the Criminal Investigation Division of the branch office arrived.
Yang Cheng, a veteran detective from the Criminal Investigation Brigade, came up with a team, including detectives in charge of questioning, trace evidence technicians carrying investigation kits, and forensic doctors.
The scene was immediately cordoned off with professional security tape, and investigation lights were turned on. The forensic doctor went forward to conduct a preliminary autopsy, and the trace evidence personnel began to collect fingerprints, footprints, and blood samples inch by inch. The criminal police took the supervisor and waiters aside one by one to take their statements, and the atmosphere on the entire floor instantly became tense.
The man who died at the scene was named Zhou Hu. He was a local Rogue Person had been involved in various social activities for many years. He had several prior convictions for disorderly conduct and intentional assault, and made a living by settling disputes and taking on dirty jobs.
The man lying unconscious on the table is Zhang Lei, Zhou Hu's henchman, who also has a criminal record. The banquet venue is called Brocade Garden Private Kitchen, with the entire third floor consisting of private rooms, emphasizing high-end privacy, and usually hosting business banquets.
In just about an hour, the basic outline of the case was revealed.
Reviewing the floor surveillance footage showed that at 6:42 PM that evening, Huang Zeyu led Zhou Hu and Zhang Lei into private room 308; at 7:14 PM—exactly 32 minutes after they entered the room—a man dressed entirely in black, wearing a black baseball cap and a black mask appeared in the corridor. He was between 1.82 and 1.85 meters tall, with a straight posture. He listened at the door for a moment, then pushed the door open and went directly into the private room.
Eight minutes later, at 7:22, the man opened the door and walked out. He walked steadily, never glancing at the security camera once, and went straight downstairs.
Following the trail, the man exited the restaurant's main entrance and turned into a narrow alley called People's Convenience Alley.
This is a narrow alleyway left over from the old city. There are no surveillance cameras inside; only the two entrances at the front and back of the alley have public surveillance cameras. However, when the police checked the surveillance footage at the other end of the alley, they found that no one was captured walking out of that end during the corresponding time period.
A perfectly healthy person slipped into the alley and vanished into thin air.
What's even stranger is Huang Zeyu. All the surveillance footage from the restaurant's entrances and exits, as well as all the surrounding intersections, was reviewed. From the time the man left until the waiter discovered the murder, a period of more than an hour, there was no footage of Huang Zeyu leaving the restaurant.
Although the window of the private room was open, there were no signs downstairs proving that he had left from there.
It's as if the person vanished into thin air in room 308; they disappeared without a trace, neither alive nor dead.
The task force conducted a thorough investigation overnight, checking every house and courtyard wall on both sides of the alley, inch by inch, but found no fresh signs of climbing, and no residents had seen any suspicious persons.
The investigation continued until late at night before the forensic investigators discovered a fresh, cone-shaped dent on the ground in the alley—a small pit had been punched into the hardened asphalt, with clean edges, indicating extremely heavy force.
After repeated comparisons by trace evidence experts, the pit was determined to have been made by a sharp, hard, long pole, shaped much like the tip of a spear. Judging from the depth and angle, the suspect most likely used this pole for leverage to climb up to the second floor.
It must be said that no matter how mature and comprehensive Capital's criminal investigation system is, it was temporarily stumped by this completely illogical modus operandi. How the suspect disappeared and where Huang Zeyu went remained unsolved mysteries.
The forensic team searched the alley until late at night and finally concluded that the suspect jumped from the second-floor back window of the nearby Fortune Comes Smoothly Home-Style Restaurant to commit the crime at Brocade Garden; on his return, he used a long, pointed pole to brace himself and climbed back to the second floor, which is why the surveillance cameras at both ends of the alley could not capture anyone entering or leaving.
"Investigate Fortune Comes Smoothly first," Yang Cheng decided immediately. "Get all the opening times, order records, and billing times for all the private rooms on the second floor within an hour before and after the incident. Record who registered and what phone numbers they left—don't miss a single one."
The police immediately found the owner and cashier of Fortune Comes Smoothly that night and checked the cashier system and registration book. The result came out quickly: the 203 private room at the back of the second floor opened at 6:20 pm that night. The customer only registered a mobile phone number, ordered four dishes and a soup, and paid by scanning the code at 7:42 pm.
The timing was perfect—7:00...
One has to admire the Capital detectives; they uncovered the truth in just over ten hours, which is tantamount to "solving the case," but...
Just as dawn was breaking, Yang Cheng arrived at West Mountain Separate Courtyard with four criminal police officers. After showing them the summons, the property management staff did not dare to delay and led them directly to the entrance of Shen Jingchuan's villa.
He rang the doorbell, and the door opened quickly. Shen Jingchuan, dressed in casual clothes, appeared calm and showed no surprise at seeing the police officers at the door. He stepped aside to let them in, saying, "Officers, what brings you here so early? Has there been a new breakthrough in the case? Come in and talk."
"No need." Yang Cheng showed his police ID and summons warrant, his tone calm. "Shen Jingchuan, there's a case we need to summon you back to cooperate with the investigation."
Shen Jingchuan glanced at the summons and nodded readily, "Okay, let me change my clothes."
He turned and went back into the house, and came out in less than two minutes after changing into casual clothes. He looked calm and unhurried, without showing any sign of panic or hesitation.
Yang Cheng's gaze fell on Shen Jingchuan's back. He had worked in criminal investigation for thirty years and had seen countless suspects. Either they were truly innocent, or they were frighteningly cunning.