After a long, dark night, the sun finally pierced the veil of the night sky. In the faint morning light, as the east prepared to dawn and the weather shifted from sudden warmth back to a lingering chill, the early morning in Jianghu carried a hint of misty coldness in the wind.

The residents of Room 501, Building 192 in Golden Years Sector Seven welcomed several uninvited guests bright and early.

Wang Qiang was woken up by a barrage of rapid, forceful knocks on the door. He had worked a late night shift the day before and had only gone to sleep near five o'clock in the morning. It was barely past seven, and he was already being woken up again.

Seeing unfamiliar faces outside, Wang Qiang, his sweet dreams disturbed, frowned and asked impatiently: "Who are you looking for?"

"I'm Sister Zhang from our residential complex's property management." The short, plump woman speaking wore a dark green plaid wool coat, looking exactly like a mailbox standing by the side of the road. "Are you a tenant or the homeowner?"

"Um, I'm a tenant..." Not knowing why property management would come knocking so early in the morning, Wang Qiang scratched his messy, bedhead hair and muttered, "We already paid this term's property management fees..."

"It's not about the property management fees." Sister Zhang extended a stubby finger and pointed at the two men standing behind her. "Some residents reported that the power in your building tripped last night. Property management checked all night but couldn't find the cause. However, the leadership is taking this very seriously, so they reported the situation to the power supply bureau and the fire department first thing this morning."

Of the two men behind Sister Zhang, one wore the iron-gray uniform of a power supply bureau worker, and the other wore the light blue uniform of a fire safety auxiliary police officer.

The bespectacled man in the power supply bureau uniform naturally took over the conversation: "We've already checked. The tripped breaker wasn't caused by a fault in the ultra-high voltage power supply system. Therefore, we need to go door-to-door to investigate the cause of the outage."

Although he couldn't understand all this technical jargon, the power in their unit had indeed tripped last night, and the electricity still hadn't come back on.
After getting off work, Wang Qiang hadn't even been able to take a hot shower. So, he immediately opened the security door, stepping aside to let the group in, muttering complaints: "In this season, a power outage is really deadly! I can't take a shower, and I can't use the heater. You guys need to hurry up and properly investigate what exactly the cause is!"

"Not being able to shower or use the heater is fine, those aren't major problems—"
The one who responded to him was the auxiliary police officer checking for fire hazards. The young man looked quite young, tall, energetic, and was extremely talkative. "The biggest fear with tripped breakers is unsafe electricity usage sparking a fire. If it really starts burning, people could die!"

Wang Qiang nodded. Standing to the side with his hands down, he agreed, "Fires are pretty scary."

The bespectacled man from the power supply bureau swept his gaze around the room. In the not-so-large living room, two bunk beds had been set up, with a simple curtain drawn between them.
Five or six different colored men's slippers were scattered across the floor, a balled-up pair of socks poked out from under a bed, and aside from the red plastic casing of a sausage, there were two or three dusty, frayed extension cords tangled together on the ground.

The bespectacled man frowned and turned to ask Wang Qiang: "Do a lot of people live here?"

"It's alright." Wang Qiang yawned, reaching back to scratch his back through his thermal shirt. "There aren't actually that many people in our room."

He was telling the truth. Even though the one-hundred-and-fifty or sixty square meter apartment had been partitioned into five or six rooms housing over a dozen people...
Land in Jianghu City was worth its weight in gold. A hundred-square-meter apartment in a decent location would cost around ten thousand yuan a month in rent.

Migrant workers worked themselves to the bone for a month, and the money they actually took home was only about five or six thousand in total. In order to survive in Jianghu City, where every inch of land was extremely expensive, these people had no choice but to become communal dwellers. They struggled to survive in cramped, oppressive subdivided group rentals, living like an "ant tribe" in snail shells.

Compared to the examples on the news where twenty-some people crammed into thirty-some square meters, the place Wang Qiang lived in—although also a subdivided group rental—provided an average of ten square meters of living space per person, which was already considered quite decent.

The two men investigating the power outage carefully checked the living room, kitchen, and bathroom.
In these areas, the abuse of high-power electrical appliances wasn't particularly obvious.
But when they started checking the partitioned rooms, the situation was much more severe.
Especially the last room at the end of the hallway. As soon as they entered, they could see a row of electrical wires strung up as densely as a spider's web.

In this bedroom of barely a dozen square meters sat two bunk beds.
A young lad who looked only seventeen or eighteen, wearing a washed-out, faded tank top and wrapped in a cotton quilt, was sitting on a bottom bunk eating breakfast.

There was no proper table in the room, so he had pulled up a chair to act as one. On it sat a plate of pickled vegetables and a large bowl of water-soaked rice.
In the corner of the room sat a pile of six or seven empty beer bottles. Underwear was hung directly onto the exposed electrical wires overhead or the bed frame of the top bunk.

The young lad, head down shoveling rice into his mouth, had heard the doorbell earlier but hadn't expected a "surprise inspection."
Having his dirty, messy living environment suddenly seen by strangers, a flush of bashful red crept onto his youthful face.
"Brother Qiang, who is this?"
"It's nothing, keep eating."

The property management worker named Sister Zhang frowned deeply at the messy room. "Why is it so messy? How can you just string up wires all over the place? Didn't your landlord tell you? We don't allow private wiring here! What if an accident happens! Can you afford to take responsibility?"

Before her voice even faded, the bespectacled man—who had maintained a stern face since entering the apartment—chimed in: "We've been inspecting since six o'clock this morning. Only after checking all the way here and walking into this room do I finally understand why the breaker tripped!" Looking absolutely speechless, he pointed at the loose boxer shorts hanging overhead. "Draping underwear over electrical wires to dry, it'd be a miracle if it didn't trip!" Frowning, every word he spoke carried condemnation for these tenants lacking basic electrical safety common sense: "Having completely exposed electrical wires is already a violation of fire safety management regulations! And you actually draped wet underwear over them! The fact that there wasn't a fire and no one got electrocuted is purely because you got lucky!"

After finishing his reprimand, he turned to his auxiliary police colleague, who was still looking around: "Hey, Qian Sen, hurry up and record the address of this unit. And don't forget to write down my suspected cause for the tripped breaker. This incident doesn't have much to do with our power supply bureau; it falls under your fire department's jurisdiction." While continuing to look around, he offered his own commentary: "This group rental apartment must undergo thorough rectification! The fire hazards must be completely resolved! Otherwise, it's far too unsafe. With so many people living here, what if a fire actually starts..."

Rectification?
Wang Qiang was a seasoned "old oil stick" who had navigated society for years; hearing this word, he immediately sensed things were taking a bad turn. If the relevant authorities actually intervened and ordered the landlord to rectify the apartment, the entire house full of people would end up sleeping on the streets!
Realizing this, he immediately put on an apologetic, smiling face and coaxed: "Please don't, brother! We'll just take down these extra wires another day, won't that do?" As he spoke, he shot a look at his roommate, who was still burying his head in his breakfast.
The young lad was quick-witted too. He immediately stood up and nimbly began gathering the various underwear hanging on the wires.

Wang Qiang pulled a cigarette from his pocket and offered it to the bespectacled man, but the other party remained expressionless and simply said, "I don't smoke," looking completely unswayable.

Having hit a steel wall, Wang Qiang sheepishly turned his head, attempting to strike up a conversation with the seemingly more approachable auxiliary police officer. "Young man, is your name Qian Sen?"
Seeing the auxiliary officer nod, he immediately smiled and tried to build a connection: "What a coincidence, the bro who lives on the bottom bunk in the living room with me is also named Qian Sen."

Hearing this, the "Qian Sen" who had been patrolling the room turned his head, his eyes wide with surprise: "Really?"

"Of course it's true, why would I lie to you!"
"Wow, that really is quite fate."
The auxiliary police officer "Qian Sen" began chatting with Wang Qiang, casually asking a lot of questions about the "Qian Sen" who shared his exact first and last name.

Wang Qiang noticed that as they spoke, the frost on the bespectacled man's face also thawed a bit, and he occasionally cast curious glances their way.
Eager for these two men's attention to be diverted, and seeing that they were both quite interested in his roommate Qian Sen, he racked his brain to share every single detail he could think of regarding "Qian Sen."

"We both work at Wufeng Shangshi. To put it bluntly, that factory does live pig breeding and slaughtering."
"You know how to slaughter pigs?"
Wang Qiang let out a hearty laugh and denied it: "I don't know how to do that! Qian Sen and I both work in cold chain delivery." Thinking for a moment, he added: "But Qian Sen used to work in the slaughterhouse; he was only recently transferred to delivery. This guy is pretty straightforward and has a bad temper. He's only been doing delivery for a little over a month, and he's already offended quite a few clients." Saying this, he chuckled, half-covering his mouth as he whispered: "You guys know that Fat Mom's Signature Pork Bone Stew, right?"

The young lad, having just finished putting away his underwear, picked up his bowl again. Chewing his soaked rice didn't stop him from interrupting: "Who in Jianghu City doesn't know about it? It's the place where the body parts were dumped!"

"Yes, yes, exactly that one."
"What happened with that restaurant?" The auxiliary officer "Qian Sen" asked curiously.
"The landlady of that restaurant and our Qian Sen here just had a huge argument last month. She complained that he delivered the meat five minutes late, and scolding him wasn't enough! She even went to our manager to make a scene! It caused my bro to lose his bonus, making over a thousand yuan less that month!" Wang Qiang felt a bit indignant on his behalf. Pausing, he continued: "So, you see, a person shouldn't be too unforgiving when they have the upper hand. Look what happened. I heard that restaurant's business has completely tanked now. Oh boy, the losses there are way more than just one or two thousand! That's what you call instant karma! Who told her to be so petty and calculative?"

Although Qian Sen usually didn't talk much, in the eyes of his roommates, he was introverted, steady, and very generous. Whenever the bros ran into financial shortages, this Qian Sen had proactively helped quite a few of them out. He was the famous "rich guy" in this group rental. Therefore, when he was chewed out by the landlady of the pork bone stew restaurant, several of his roommates felt it was deeply unjust on his behalf.

"Is the Qian Sen here handsome or not?" Still young at heart, the auxiliary officer "Qian Sen," after chatting for a long time, seemed to forget his official business, only focusing on asking curious questions.
Seeing this young lad actually wanting to seriously compare his looks with his roommate, Wang Qiang couldn't help but laugh again.
This laugh made "Qian Sen" even more curious: "What are you laughing at? Is he more handsome than me?" Saying this, he narcissistically smoothed his hair. "I'm considered a famous handsome guy in our unit too, you know!"
"Of course he's not as handsome as you!" Wang Qiang lit his cigarette and took a drag. "Our Qian Sen is almost forty! How old are you? How could someone as young as you not be handsome?"
"Really? Do you have a picture of him? Let me compare, hahaha!"
"That's enough!" The bespectacled man, who hadn't spoken for a long time, intervened to stop him. "Hurry up and record the situation in this room, I'm still rushing to get back to the unit!"
"Hey, don't rush, our efficiency is already very high. We found the cause of the tripped breaker in just over an hour."
After an enthusiastic chat, "Qian Sen" apparently intended to let this room off the hook. Looking up at the "spider web" overhead, he said leniently: "Besides, as long as you replace these aging wires, it's not severe enough to require a full-house rectification."
Seeing him intentionally vouching for them, Wang Qiang exhaled a puff of smoke and repeatedly agreed: "Yes, yes! You see, actually, it's just the wiring in this one partitioned room that's a bit much! The rest of the places are perfectly fine, where's the need for rectification? We'll all just be more careful from now on!"
"Qian Sen" and Glasses didn't respond; the two began carefully studying the wiring in the room again.

Sensing things were taking a bad turn, Wang Qiang hastily clamped the cigarette in his mouth, pulled his phone out of his pants pocket, scrolled for a long time until he found a photo, and held it up, intentionally interrupting: "I actually do have a picture of 'Qian Sen' right here, take a look!"
Hearing this, the young auxiliary officer "Qian Sen" immediately abandoned the electrical wires and leaned his face over to look at the screen. "Oh, this bro is way off compared to me!" Taking Wang Qiang's phone, he naturally passed it to the bespectacled man. "Brother Jiang, look—"

The Qian Sen in the photo had a buzz cut and a robust, muscular build. His forehead wrinkles and the deep frown lines between his brows were very pronounced. The photo was a large group shot, with seven or eight men all baring their teeth in silly grins.
But even with the corners of his mouth hooked in a smile, it couldn't cover up the sinister gloominess in the man's eyes.
Even through the photograph, they could tell this person was not to be trifled with.
...

"This Qian Sen is Li Songyuan." Coming out of the group rental apartment and getting into the car, Wen Di, still wearing the auxiliary police uniform, grabbed a file folder from the back seat and stuffed the resident information registration form he had gotten from property management inside.
The strong middle-aged man named Qian Sen in the documents was using a fake ID. After cross-referencing, the face on the ID photocopy was almost identical to the Li Songyuan who had been dead for over a decade. And based on the photo Wang Qiang just provided, they had further confirmed Qian Sen's true appearance.

In order to fish for information, Wen Di, who had temporarily changed his name to "Qian Sen," organized the documents before looking up to ask his companion beside him: "Jiang Zhi, shouldn't we notify the Captain and apply for an arrest warrant directly?"

Jiang Zhi, wearing the power supply bureau worker's uniform, pondered for a moment: "We definitely have to apply, but I don't think the higher-ups will approve it immediately." His brows knitted together, forming an especially deep furrow between them: "The timing for an arrest might not be mature yet."

Last night, after discovering Li Songyuan's hideout, Shen Ting "supervised" Chu Huainan to report it to the police immediately.
This news, clearly closely related to the murder case, quickly reached Chen Cong.

Chen Cong held an emergency overnight meeting within the detachment. After formulating a combat plan, he immediately notified the power supply department to coordinate and cut the power to Li Songyuan's suspected residence.
Bright and early the next morning, Jiang Zhi and Wen Di used the excuse of investigating the cause of the tripped breaker to launch a surprise raid on Li Songyuan's hideout.

During their preliminary inquiries, they learned from property management that Li Songyuan, now using the alias Qian Sen, had been living in this complex for over half a year.
Thus, the two of them, wanting to "fish" for intel without "beating the grass to scare the snake," put on a disguise. Jiang Zhi transformed into "Brother Jiang" from the power supply bureau, while Wen Di used the alias "Qian Sen" and played the role of a fire safety auxiliary officer.
While investigating whether the suspect's residence possessed the conditions to commit the crime, through their conversation with the roommate Wang Qiang, they also successfully gathered intel on the suspect's work situation and general personality.

Now, it could be basically confirmed that this "Qian Sen" should be Li Songyuan himself.
However, although it was confirmed that Li Songyuan was still alive and was highly suspected of committing the crime, his residence did not match the police's previous hypothesis.
The police believed that after kidnapping Chen Feng, Li Songyuan highly likely carried out the murder and dismemberment at his own residence.
But looking at it now, this hypothesis was impossible to establish—Jiang Zhi took off his glasses with a headache and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The suspect's residence does not possess the conditions to carry out a murder and dismemberment..."

Five minutes later, Shen Ting, who had spent another purely innocent night staying over at Chu Huainan's house, also received this news. —The group rental apartment Li Songyuan lived in was crowded with people and mixed eyes; it was impossible for it to be the primary crime scene.

Shen Ting moved his fingers, drafted two short phrases, [Monitor actions / Trajectory], and sent it over.

Li Songyuan, who had been missing for years and completely changed his identity, was indeed highly suspicious.
But the evidence the police currently possessed was far from enough to prove he was the killer.
Although Chen Cong had already applied to the higher-ups for an arrest warrant, Shen Ting knew very well that a rash arrest would, at most, result in a charge of fraudulent use of another's identity information.
If they wanted to prove that Li Songyuan was the true culprit behind the pedestrian street case, the most urgent priority was to analyze his movement trajectory, filter out the locations he had stayed at that met the conditions for murder and dismemberment, and obtain direct evidence to cement his status as the killer.

This time, Vice Captain Chen Cong and he happened to share the exact same view without prior consultation.
After Wen Di and Jiang Zhi raided Li Songyuan's residence, Chen Cong immediately dispatched people to pull all the surveillance footage near the Golden Years complex. He also ordered that everyone in the CID, whether office staff or field officers, as long as they were free, must participate in the screening of the surveillance footage.

Where exactly the primary crime scene for the murder and dismemberment was... they should have an answer very soon.
...

When Chu Huainan, wearing a bathrobe and drying his wet hair, walked out of his room, Shen Ting was sitting on the living room sofa, bored to death scrolling through his phone with his head down, and wished him a good morning without even looking up.

Because of this "good morning," Chu Huainan's handsome face was brimming with smiles.
He suddenly felt that this utterly ordinary morning had become exceptionally beautiful.
Having slept in separate rooms in the same house with this person for two nights, seeing him sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the sofa right now, for some reason, an unexpectedly warm illusion arose that they were already an "old married couple."

"You're up really early today. What do you want for breakfast?" Chu Huainan walked into the kitchen and took out quite a few ingredients from the refrigerator. Seeing that Shen Ting, clutching his phone, still hadn't answered after a while, he changed his phrasing and asked: "Do you prefer Western or Chinese style for breakfast?"

Today was February 14th. First thing in the morning, Chu Huainan had specifically instructed Auntie Zhao that she didn't need to come in. He hoped to spend an undisturbed "Valentine's Day" with the young man before him, who frowned slightly even while just scrolling his phone, looking utterly serious.

"You actually know how to make breakfast?" After quickly skimming the case progress report, Shen Ting put down his phone, stretched lazily, and his mouth didn't stay idle either as he teased: "I didn't expect President Chu to actually be the 'good wife and loving mother' type?"

Chu Huainan, wearing a bathrobe, possessing an otherworldly face free of mortal desires, and sporting exquisitely long fingers as stunning as a work of art, was actually holding two small, raw eggs.

A scene like this was truly a rare sight in a century.
The Chu Huainan that countless people racked their brains trying to meet just once... was actually going to personally cook breakfast for him?

Shen Ting walked toward the kitchen, curiously poking his head over to look at the eggs in Chu Huainan's hand, only then daring to confirm that these two were indeed edible, real eggs, and not some artist's hyper-realistic simulation piece. He spread his hands with a look of feigned regret, "But, I never eat breakfast."

Not eating breakfast was one of the very few things Song Ci and Shen Ting had in common.

"That's a bad habit." Holding the eggs didn't stop Chu Huainan from extending a finger and flicking the smooth, full forehead right in front of him.
The eloquent capitalist, having launched a physical sneak attack on someone, still spoke with righteous indignation: "In this world, there are no people who don't like eating breakfast, only bad-tasting breakfasts!"

Suddenly and intimately poked on the forehead, Shen Ting looked up in astonishment, meeting Chu Huainan's eyes staring earnestly back at him.
The rippling, peach-blossom smiling eyes were so watery they looked like they could raise a pond full of koi fish.
The Yuannan helmsman, who was domineering in the business world, highly confidently raised the eggs in his hand and teased: "From now on, I'll contract out all your breakfasts."

Faced with such a teasing remark, Shen Ting's heart suddenly pounded wildly a few times for some inexplicable reason.
Such an everyday, domestic scene made him feel as if he had returned to many years ago...

His habit of not liking breakfast was inherited from his father, Shen Zhi. A long time ago, almost every single morning, Mother Shen would nag and grumble in front of the father and son duo about the importance of breakfast.

After so many years, he had already forgotten when the last time was that someone had urged him "you have to eat breakfast."
Besides family, who else would care whether he ate breakfast or not?

In this context, Chu Huainan's "breakfast contracting declaration" actually felt like a particularly solemn confession.

The next few chapters should be all sweet, sweet romance—after all, it’s Valentine’s Day!

Having taken President Chu’s money, I’m requesting that Inspector Shen 'neglect his duties' and go on a full-day date with him. As for solving cases... let’s leave that to his teammates for now.

Continuing tomorrow in the early hours~~ Love you all!

Ant tribe living in snail shells (蜗居的蚁族): "Ant tribe" (蚁族) is a well-known sociological term in China referring to young, low-income workers (often recent college graduates) who live in cramped, subdivided apartments in big cities, working tirelessly like ants. "Snail shells" (蜗居) emphasizes the tiny, cramped nature of their living spaces.

Old oil stick (老油条): Slang for someone who is highly experienced, shrewd, and slippery to deal with.

Good wife and loving mother (贤妻良母): A traditional Chinese idiom praising a woman's domestic virtues. Shen Ting uses it sarcastically/teasingly to describe the ultra-wealthy, domineering male CEO Chu Huainan cooking breakfast.

Beat the grass to scare the snake (打草惊蛇): An idiom meaning to take action to alert or frighten the enemy, causing them to make a move.

Old married couple (老夫老妻): Refers to a couple who has been together so long they are completely comfortable and domestic with each other.