Our Captain is actually Shen Ting!
His emotions surging like magnificent, crashing waves, Wen Di was suddenly possessed by the spirit of an actor. He silently walked over to the desk, grabbed a pen and paper, and handed them to Shen Ting: "Captain, could you sign an autograph for me? You are my idol."

Back when he was still in the police academy, in order to put gold on one's own face✦ translator's noteA Chinese idiom meaning to boast or artificially elevate one's own status or prestige, often by associating oneself with someone famous or important., Wen Di had emphasized more than once: "I'm from Jianghu City. I'm from the same hometown as 'Ears' Shen Ting."
And from today onward, he would never again have to rely on his household registration to forcefully claim a connection!

When attending meetings in sister cities, he wouldn't even need to compare how many cases he had handled this year! All he had to do was casually drop the line: "Our Captain is Shen Ting." Just imagining the feeling of being collectively envied by his peers was exhilarating!

Of course, he could only imagine it. This involved a classified operation; he wouldn't be so loose-lipped as to actually do it. But his heart was genuinely surging, as if he could already see that lovely collective First-Class Merit medal waving at him from not too far away.

Chen Cong completely understood everyone's feelings. Even he himself had felt a complex mix of emotions upon discovering that "Peach Wood" was Shen Ting.

"That's about enough! Although brown-nosing isn't illegal, don't take it too far!"
"True feelings revealed! This is an absolute revelation of my true feelings!"
Chen Cong glared at Wen Di in annoyance, then turned his head and gave Shen Ting an embarrassed smile: "Although he always loves spouting nonsense, he's actually very reliable professionally."

Shen Ting hadn't doubted his teammates' professional qualities, but being called an "idol" to his face made him feel a bit embarrassed.
Fortunately, he had always been adept at hiding his emotions, so no one noticed his rare moment of shyness.

After the brief interlude, the special operations squad officially began their first internal team meeting.

Although the team members were relatively young and their usual working atmosphere was exceptionally cheerful and lively, one thing was undeniable—they treated their work with absolute professionalism and seriousness.

In this case, everyone had different focal points, but when discussing the sections they were responsible for investigating deeply, their analyses were uniformly logical and fully supported by evidence.

Jiang Zhi was responsible for giving the summary report to Shen Ting. With a solemn expression, he said: "The killer was fully prepared and meticulously thoughtful. The murder must have been committed with a specific purpose. As of now, we all believe there is a high probability the crime was committed by someone related to Li Guangqiang. However, Li Guangqiang has no living direct relatives, and our investigation hasn't uncovered any close friends of his. Therefore, we cannot draft a suspect list by mapping out his social network. After discussing it, we decided we must start with the killer's motive."
Flipping a page of the physical document in his hands, he continued: "By visiting the victim Chen Feng's former workplace and organizing the details of the cases he handled, we discovered that—aside from the police officer Shen, who died in the 2005 case, being Chen Feng's good friend—Chen Feng and Li Guangqiang had another intersection."

"Another intersection?"

"Yes. Although the victim, Chen Feng, did not directly participate in investigating Li Guangqiang's case, he actively participated in another related case and provided evidence that helped solve it. That related case was the 'Pediatrician Drug Trafficking Case' cracked the same year." After speaking, Jiang Zhi reached up and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Fifteen years ago, most of the members of the special operations squad were still middle school students.
Yet, they all still retained some vague impressions of the "Pediatrician Drug Trafficking Case" that had shocked the entire city back then.

"If I remember correctly, wasn't that drug trafficking case brought to light precisely because Li Guangqiang committed murder while high on drugs?" Pan Xiaozhu tried hard to scrape together any memories she had regarding that drug case.
Although a long time had passed and she was very young then, the case had generated massive public discussion. This was because the drug lord involved possessed a special identity, creating a stark contrast between his public persona and his hidden crimes, and the process of cracking the case itself was highly dramatic.
Back then, the elders in her family talked about it almost every time they met, so even now, Pan Xiaozhu still remembered quite a few details of the case.

"Mm, I checked the files and evidence inventory of the Li Guangqiang case. Back then, the police found a large amount of narcotics for intravenous injection at his hideout. It was a type of mixed drug that was very popular among addicts at the time."

A natural disgust for drug dealers surfaced on Jiang Zhi's face, and his tone became much harsher: "Back then, a certain drug trafficking syndicate claimed to have developed an exclusive narcotic. In reality, it was just a mixture obtained by combining various drugs in specific proportions. Drug dealers use the mixing process to manufacture drugs because, on one hand, it lowers production costs and increases profits, and on the other hand, it increases the product's addictiveness and uniqueness."

Just as everyone was silently cursing in their hearts—Drug dealers deserve to go to hell!—

Jiang Zhi continued with a look of revulsion: "Once an addict becomes accustomed to consuming this mixed drug, ordinary drugs can no longer relieve their cravings when withdrawal hits. Because of this uniqueness, the mixed drug monopolized the drug trade market in 2005 and was constantly in short supply."

Back then, because the impact of the pedestrian street murder case was so atrocious, the Provincial Department issued a strict order the moment they received the news, demanding a thorough investigation into the drug-related crimes that triggered the tragic massacre.
At that time, both the municipal anti-narcotics and criminal investigation departments were under immense pressure.

Actually, the municipal anti-narcotics detachment had already set their sights on a drug trafficking syndicate manufacturing mixed drugs prior to this, and had planted multiple informants inside.
However, because the drug dealers possessed high counter-reconnaissance awareness and the organization had an extremely strict compartmentalization mechanism between its upper and lower tiers—with zero information shared across levels—the police had delayed pulling the net, terrified of alerting the enemy and letting the big fish escape.

After the murder case occurred, by increasing police manpower and resources, authorities rapidly mapped out the supply and demand network of the drugs involved. They confirmed the criminal facts: the drug dealers were organizing and using a company named "Hangyu Trading" as a front to engage in drug manufacturing and trafficking.
After drafting a plan to close the net, the Municipal Bureau partnered with multiple cross-provincial and municipal sister units to strike like thunder, annihilating the enemy in one fell swoop.

That operation was a massive, complete victory in every sense of the word. Because, in addition to arresting the nominal controller of Hangyu Trading, the police followed the clues provided by an informant and arrested the mastermind behind the scenes—An Kang, the major drug lord who used his identity as a pediatric director as a cover. They consolidated numerous pieces of direct evidence, forming a complete chain of evidence.

Even though the cunning drug syndicate leader, the pediatric director An Kang, denied the drug trafficking charges until his death... because the police found a massive amount of direct physical evidence in his car, and an informant voluntarily testified in court against him, both human and physical evidence were complete. Therefore, after the procuratorate initiated a public prosecution, the presiding judge—relying on this evidence—convicted him with zero confession...

Having sat aside and listened for a long time, Chen Cong frowned and asked, "You mentioned earlier that Chen Feng provided evidence for that drug trafficking case back then. Could it be that the person who testified in court against An Kang was Chen Feng's informant?"

If the person who appeared in court back then really was Chen Feng's informant...
Then the investigation direction for the "02.05 Cop-Killing Case" would completely change!
The killer might truly have nothing to do with Li Guangqiang, but rather be someone connected to the drug lord An Kang!
And Li Guangqiang's fingerprint was nothing more than a prop used to deliberately mystify things and divert focus!
This would perfectly explain why Chen Feng—who had no grievances or enmity with Li Guangqiang—was murdered so brutally. —This was the drug syndicate taking revenge against the police officers involved in the case back then!

"Captain Chen, let me finish." Jiang Zhi pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the photos in his gallery.
The drug trafficking case from back then was a super massive case; the case files alone numbered tens of thousands of pages.
Jiang Zhi didn't have time to read through them one by one, but he had taken pictures of some important pieces of evidence in the files.

While scrolling through the photos, he continued, "Given that the pediatrician drug trafficking case and the 2005 pedestrian street murder case have an undeniable connection, I carefully reviewed the files. Among the physical evidence listed on the inventory, I found a photograph..." His finger swiped across the screen a few times before stopping on a picture.

The angle from which the photo was taken was highly concealed; it was very obviously a candid shot.
"It was this photo that helped the police confirm the supplier of Li Guangqiang's drugs." Jiang Zhi turned the screen around to face everyone.

In the candid photo, there were two sneaky-looking men acting out a transaction of "handing over the money with one hand and delivering the goods with the other."
And the small bag of white powder in one of the men's hands...
No one would naively assume it was just cornstarch meant for making fried milk.

Shen Ting's gaze remained fixed for a long time on the face of one of the men—a tall man with prominent cheekbones and short black hair. His heart felt as though it had been violently squeezed; a hollow, dull pain radiated near his ribs, and even his breathing hitched.

"Who is this?" Pan Xiaozhu felt that the tall, robust man with prominent cheekbones looked somewhat familiar.
Jiang Zhi was just about to speak when someone beat him to it.

"Li Guangqiang." Shen Ting's expression was frozen.

"Yes, someone captured him buying drugs on camera. It was also by relying on this photo that the police followed the vine to get the melon✦ translator's noteA Chinese idiom meaning to track down the source by following clues. and locked onto the involved drug syndicate. And this photo was provided to the anti-narcotics detachment by Chen Feng."

"Chen Feng? Where did he get this photo?"

"The files only state that it was an 'anonymous public tip' he received after the incident occurred."

Everyone present worked within the police system; naturally, they all understood that the so-called "public tip" was, plainly speaking, intel from an informant.

Jiang Zhi put away his phone and continued, "According to Chen Feng's old colleagues, because it involved the death of his best friend, Chen Feng utilized all of his resources and participated quite actively in the investigation of the Hangyu case. But he wasn't an anti-narcotics officer after all. Although he invested a massive amount of personal energy, he only managed to dig up this one clue related to the case."

Only then did Jiang Zhi formally begin answering Chen Cong's previous question: "At first, we also suspected that Chen Feng's death was retaliation against the police by the remnants of the Hangyu syndicate. But a senior officer who participated in the Hangyu case investigation told us that the informant who testified against An Kang in court was planted by the anti-narcotics detachment, and didn't even know Chen Feng at all."

Unresigned, Chen Cong pressed further: "So in the Hangyu case, from beginning to end, Chen Feng only provided that one single photograph?"

Seeing Jiang Zhi nod, he immediately proposed another bold hypothesis: "Then is it possible it was an associate or interested party of the drug dealer in the photograph?"

Jiang Zhi shook his head: "The person selling the goods to Li Guangqiang in the photo was just a lowly lackey dealing to support his own habit—the absolute bottom-rung kind. The amount of drugs he possessed wasn't enough to warrant the death penalty. He wouldn't harbor enough hatred to murder and dismember someone, nor would he necessarily have the guts." Jiang Zhi paused, then continued his deduction along the Hangyu case line: "If the killer committed the murder out of hatred stemming from the Hangyu case... there was an ocean of people involved in cracking that case back then. Based on this alone, he shouldn't have chosen Chen Feng as his very first target."

"Right! The photo Chen Feng provided couldn't even be considered crucial evidence; at most, it just helped push the waves along✦ translator's noteA Chinese idiom meaning to add momentum to something that is already happening.." Wen Di chimed in from the side. After thinking for a moment, he added, "If I were the killer and wanted to avenge the drug lord An Kang, killing the informant who testified in court would make much more sense than killing Chen Feng!"

Frowning, Pan Xiaozhu drew a circle on her case notes: "But what if the killer intended to commit a string of serial murders from the start, and Chen Feng was merely the first victim?"

Chen Cong squeezed the mineral water bottle in his hand so hard it crinkled loudly: "If it was truly for revenge, even if it were a serial killing, they would definitely start with the key figures."

"Exactly, killing a cop who only provided a photo of a lackey, and then dismembering and dumping the body to cause a massive uproar! If the killer truly still wanted to target the main detectives who handled the case back then, wouldn't this be beating the grass to scare the snake (打草惊蛇)✦ translator's noteA Chinese idiom meaning to take premature action that alerts the enemy.?" As Wen Di spoke, a sudden sense of sorrow overcame him. He couldn't help but sigh heavily toward the ceiling and broke down: "So after investigating for so long, we're still completely in the dark!"

A thousand loose ends, unable to make sense of any of them. Left with no choice, he pinned his hopes on Shen Ting, who had remained silent the entire time. Turning his head with a face full of anticipation, his eyes sparkling, he asked, "Captain, what do you think?"

My writing hand feels great today~ Another update is coming around 6:00 PM. Also, consider this a 'double update' warning for tomorrow!
I'm putting my heart and soul into writing this case, and I'm full of anticipation as I hold back a 'big move.' The private car for our Capitalist and Ear is about to start its engine soon~~~
See you in the comments section, cuties!!

Put gold on one's own face (往自己脸上贴金): A Chinese idiom meaning to boast or artificially elevate one's own status/prestige, often by associating oneself with someone famous or important.

Follow the vine to get the melon (顺藤摸瓜): A Chinese idiom meaning to track down the source by following clues.

Push the waves along (推波助澜): A Chinese idiom meaning to add momentum to something that is already happening.

Beating the grass to scare the snake (打草惊蛇): A Chinese idiom meaning to take premature action that alerts the enemy.