Chapter 83: Beating the Lovebirds

Leaving the forensic lab, Lin Qiupu asked Lin Dongxue, “What do you make of this case?”

Lin Dongxue thought for a moment and responded, “Captain Peng just mentioned that all the jewelry on the female victim was gone. I wonder if it could have been a couple who came to the mountains to commit suicide. Perhaps the girl died first, and as the man was about to kill himself, a third party interrupted. Maybe this third party had a dispute with the man, killed him, then took the woman’s jewelry and their phones, and used rocks to disfigure their faces.”

“A couple? I doubt it! I think this case is a straightforward revenge killing. The murderer dumped the bodies deep in the mountains to stage it like this.”

“Brother, did you forget the signs of struggle we found at the scene?”

Lin Qiupu fell silent for a moment before responding, “Then it’s not just dumping the bodies; the murders might have happened in the cave.”

“Three people being in that cave at the same time, the two victims must be related.”

“Not necessarily, their times of death differ significantly, and their stomach contents were different. It’s very unlikely they were a couple. I think they were just unrelated passersby.”

“By your logic, did the murderer kill the girl first and then wait in the cave to kill the second person?”

Lin Qiupu couldn’t figure it out and just chuckled bitterly, “The more we talk, the messier it gets. Let’s just investigate!”

What followed was all grunt work. The special task force officers combed through each jurisdiction, compiled recent missing persons reports, and visited their families to identify potential matches.

This alone took three days. Meanwhile, Peng Sijue made a breakthrough; he discovered that the jewelry particles found on the female victim were all pure gold. The facial reconstruction of the female revealed a girl with fine features and neat teeth, suggesting she might be from a wealthy family.

The reconstructed image of the male victim showed an ordinary appearance. Peng Sijue found signs of lumbar muscle strain in him during a detailed autopsy. Moreover, comparing it with the cigarette ash samples brought by Chen Shi, it turned out the male victim smoked cheap cigarettes costing five yuan a pack.

This contrast painted a clear picture of a poor young man who loved hiking.

Peng Sijue added, “The drug found in the female victim’s system was succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant commonly used for local anesthesia that can cause bradycardia, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, and in excessive doses, bronchospasm or anaphylactic shock leading to death. The level of succinylcholine in her was lethal.”

“Is this drug easy for ordinary people to get?” Lin Qiupu asked.

Peng Sijue shook his head, “I’m not sure about that.”

Lin Qiupu ordered his team to track down the source of the drug and continue confirming the victims’ identities based on the reconstructions.

With the reconstructed images, their work efficiency improved significantly. That same day, they identified the female victim as Jiang Mei, born in 1997, a recent finance management graduate from a university, and unemployed.

Her father was a bank president—a genuine case of a wealthy family’s daughter.

A call from the station brought Jiang Mei’s parents rushing over. When they saw their daughter’s disfigured body, they were inconsolable. Lin Dongxue, tasked with comforting the bereaved parents, did her best.

Amid her tears, Jiang Mei’s mother suddenly said, “It’s all our fault, we shouldn’t have pushed her!”

Her father, however, burst out angrily, “It’s all that boy’s fault. I knew we shouldn’t have let her associate with him!”

Lin Dongxue asked, “Are you referring to Jiang Mei’s boyfriend? Could you please tell us more about him?”

They were brought to a meeting room and served tea. While Jiang Mei’s mother continued to grieve, her father began to speak. During her university days, Jiang Mei dated a poor boy named Cheng Chao, a relationship she kept hidden from her family. After her graduation, her father tried to set her up with a son of his colleague, a match both suitable in social status and appearance.

After meeting him once, the man took a liking to Jiang Mei, but she showed no interest. Her parents then suspected she had a boyfriend and, after much prodding, she admitted to dating Cheng Chao.

They invited Cheng Chao over for dinner, and from the first sight, they disliked the poor boy, finding him ill-mannered and unrefined. He kept saying he would work hard to make Jiang Mei happy, which only made her father scoff internally, thinking how his hard-earned daughter could end up with such a poor boy.

That night, father and daughter argued fiercely, and he forbade her from seeing Cheng Chao again. Jiang Mei was unwilling to comply and eventually locked herself in her room.

The conflict strained the family relations significantly, causing relatives and friends to intervene, but Jiang Mei remained defiant. Her father cut off her financial support and forbade her from leaving the house, yet she often sneaked out to meet Cheng Chao. The family went to great lengths to block these meetings, turning their efforts into a sort of guerrilla warfare.

Unexpectedly, Jiang Mei disappeared overnight. Her parents thought Cheng Chao had eloped with her, but they never imagined that the next time they would see her would be under such tragic circumstances…

“It must have been that poor boy who killed her, it must be! I’ll sue him until he’s ruined!” her father said through tears, fiercely determined.

Her mother, grasping Lin Dongxue’s hand, pleaded, “Officer, we will cooperate fully with the investigation. Please, you must bring our daughter’s killer to justice!”

“But…” Lin Dongxue hesitated, seeing how devastated the couple was, yet she couldn’t help but add, “Actually, there were two bodies found. There’s another male victim, about twenty-five years old.”

The couple looked at each other, the father wondering, “Could Mei really have died in a suicide pact with that poor boy?”

“Why! Why would she abandon us like this, you ungrateful child!” the mother cried out, slamming her hands on the table.

“Do you remember what Cheng Chao looks like? Could you possibly identify him?” Lin Dongxue asked.

The couple agreed and were taken to the technical team. The technicians showed them the 3D reconstruction of the male victim. After staring at it for a while, the father said, “This face without hair or eyebrows, I can’t recognize him.”

“Do you remember his hairstyle or his eyebrows?”

“His eyebrows… just ordinary. I remember his hair was showing scalp on the sides but had a lock of hair in the front,” the father recalled with a look of disgust, “I’ve always disliked these young people who try to stand out.”

The technician worked on the computer, adding hair to the reconstruction. “Yes, that’s him, I remember that face! I don’t know what Mei saw in him!”

“No, that’s not it, the nose is wrong,” the mother interjected.

Lin Dongxue explained, “The victim’s face was damaged, and the nasal cartilage is soft, so the reconstruction might not be perfectly accurate.”

The technician adjusted the nose, trying different heights and positions, but the mother kept shaking her head, “The eyes don’t look right either.”

The father insisted, “It’s that sneaky-looking face, I remember it clearly.”

“No, it’s definitely not him,” the mother asserted confidently.