That afternoon, the police had already uncovered a lot of leads.
For example, they had identified the owner of the fried chicken shop and the corpse in the freezer.
"The body belonged to Kang Dalong, the owner of the fried chicken shop. According to our investigation, Kang Dalong came to People's Celebration City six years ago to look for work. He worked as a restaurant helper and a cook. In July 2020, he rented a shop on Snack Street and opened the fried chicken shop he owns now. He made all the fried chicken himself and hired two waitresses to handle the register and deliver orders. Both were migrant workers from out of town, one named Zhang Xiao and the other Xu Jiali. The three of them ran the shop together the whole time. Aside from making a few appearances when the shop first opened, Kang Dalong spent most of his time in the kitchen, leaving Zhang Xiao and Xu Jiali in charge of everything. The shop was doing perfectly normally. It passed the health department's regular inspections, had no consumer complaints, and received about the same reviews as similar shops on the food delivery apps."
After Li Xingfang filled me in on the shop's background, he changed the subject. "The body in the freezer was incomplete. It consisted only of the eyes and some surrounding muscle and bone fragments. Our examination confirmed that it belonged to Kang Dalong, but because it had been frozen for a long time, we couldn't determine when he died. Also, apart from some of Kang Dalong's fingerprints, the only traces we found in the kitchen were yours."
My heart sank.
"Regarding those missed calls, we received several more afterward. They came from unknown numbers again, but the voices on the other end were different