In 2007, the only mala tang shop in Baimu Town had quite a few customers, all coming around dinner time to order a bowl of mala tang.
Among those waiting was a young woman. Even wrapped up in a puffy down jacket like a bear, her pretty features were still obvious. She was watching the news playing on the shop’s television.
Some 3.15 charred corpse case, case name Snow Fire Case; the victim was seasoned like a roast chicken.
“Changlin next door isn’t peaceful. Don’t go there.”
“Exactly, absolutely don’t go. Our small place is safer. Changlin breeds freaks.”
So scary. Su Li muttered a comment of her own. The shop owner comforted her, but also told her to head home early.
Squish, squish. Snow boots stepped on the thick layer of snow.
The town was large but felt especially empty and quiet. People hid their mouths and noses behind scarves; with every breath, white vapor puffed out. The mala tang hanging from her hand also steamed.
Su Li lifted her head and looked into the distance. Beneath the dim blue sky, the orange-red sunset revealed the outline of an inn building. It was getting dark.
Hungry and drawn by the aroma of the mala tang, she quickened her pace…
Then she heard other squish, squish sounds.
Following.
Hanging behind her.
Keeping step by step.
The same road? Another customer?
She grew nervous. She didn’t dare turn her head, but quietly reached for the phone in her pocket…
She hadn’t even had time to take it out.
The footsteps behind her suddenly sped up.
“Ah…”
A broad hand covered her mouth. A sharp chemical smell from the cloth hit her nose.
After a while, her body went limp. Plop—the mala tang fell to the ground, glug glug, warm liquid flowing into the snow.
A coarse burlap sack was pulled over her…
She was dragged into the darkness, hauled toward the woods, and quickly swallowed by the vast night.
In the city next to the town, separated by a large snowy forest, the great lake had frozen over and the roads were sealed. Criminal police officer Chen Liao, wearing a heavy military coat, had been overloaded with cases lately. Busy and eating irregularly, he noticed his mouth felt dry, even when he exhaled, he felt his breath smelled strong. Old Team Leader Liu Duan beside him asked whether he was so hungry he’d secretly gone to the bathroom to eat shit.
Chen Liao’s face darkened. He muttered curses about his master’s poisonous mouth. “It’s weird. I didn’t even eat anything. Why does it smell so bad… eat what, Shifu, I have no appetite. That last 3.15 case, that charred corpse…”
Seeing civilians around, he lowered his voice and vaguely mentioned a few words.
Skinning. Breaking bones. Smearing pepper and soy sauce. Charcoal grilling and smoking… a freak.
Old Liu thought of it too. His expression wasn’t good. He wanted to smoke, but realized they were on a case and there were many onlookers from suburban villages, so he shoved the cigarette back into the pack and only stared at the van overturned in the reeds ahead.
“Several days without enough staple carbohydrates leads to fat breakdown in the body, producing ketosis. Your breath will smell of acetone. It’s just bad breath.”
“Eat properly next, and it’ll be fine.”
The cool, detached voice from behind left both Old Liu and Chen Liao momentarily confused.
What was he talking about?
When they turned their heads, the person had already walked past them and casually stuffed a bag of hot bread into Chen Liao’s arms.
The steaming old-fashioned egg cake lit up the eyes of the two middle-aged-to-elderly policemen. They split it and ate it on the spot.
Chen Liao: “Who is this guy? Hey, he’s not wearing our uniform?”
Liu Duan: “Just noticed? You already let him cross the isolation line.”
Chen Liao: “Didn’t you let him through too? Wait—Shifu, you ate two. The last one is mine…”
Liu Duan: “My apprentice can naturally pass.”
Chen Liao: “?”
Your apprentice? Isn’t that me?
Liu Duan ignored him, grabbed the last one, and followed the tall young man with the egg cake.
Later, while talking with other officers, Chen Liao learned that the young man was a criminal investigation expert transferred from the Provincial Bureau to assist with the 3.15 Snow Fire Case.
They found it hard to believe. So young—was he really an expert?
But the egg cake made Chen Liao unable to say anything harsh to doubt him. He just quietly moved closer to listen to Liu Duan’s conversation with the man.
Liu Duan pulled out a cigarette and handed it over. “Just arrived?”
“No. I’ve been here half a day. Just came out of your station’s evidence room.” The man took the cigarette but didn’t smoke it. He then reached into Liu Duan’s pocket, took the whole pack, and pocketed it.
Liu Duan: “You?!”
The man: “Smoking too much blackens the liver and lungs. Makes you look heartless. And there are a lot of people here. Bad influence.”
Liu Duan laughed angrily. “You think folks in our small place are as hard to deal with as your Provincial Bureau crowd, always running to the news to curse the police… you people have it easy…”
The young man said flatly, “If the Snow Fire Case isn’t solved, your Changlin will be on the news too.”
That left Liu Duan, the old police officer from Changlin City, speechless. He sighed and led the young expert to the van.
“Was it that person again? The 3.15 case before was a female charred corpse. She was found three days after going missing already… This van disappeared with five people including the driver. All phones and personal items are missing. The interior is clean, no clues at all, not even footprints from the killer or victims. It’s extremely strange.”
A junior officer in charge of scene processing asked Old Liu while looking at the young man. The question itself was basic, but in criminal investigations, any guess or definition was rash.
He was probing the expert’s depth. Frontline officers didn’t want to run around with experts who only talked theory on paper.
The young man’s gaze slowly moved from the twisted skid marks where the van had braked and turned sharply on the road to the van plunging headfirst into the reeds, where it finally stopped… overturned.
The driver’s door was open.
Liu Duan still cared for his apprentice. He glanced at the junior officer and provided the current findings. “This van is registered under Changlin City Passenger Station, but it’s not an official bus. It’s essentially private passenger hauling. After the incident, a passing vehicle discovered the crash and called it in. Our investigation at the station confirmed four passengers boarded. All are currently missing. The reason we suspect this crash and the disappearance of five people is linked to the 3.15 case is, first, all five are completely missing, with no traces left behind, not even signs of struggle—exactly the same as what happened to Qi Meijuan in the 3.15 case. Second, this was left in the vehicle.”
The report mentioned that Qi Meijuan’s car stopped midway on her way home. Later the car was found, the person gone, valuables swept clean. At first, everyone thought it was a kidnapping. Three days later, her body was found by Baiyan Ice Lake…
The young man turned back. Liu Duan took the evidence bag from the junior officer. Inside was a bottle of soy sauce.
“Same brand as the soy sauce left at the 3.15 scene.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence, so we notified you.”
Right now, all of Changlin was spreading the story of “a murder caused by a bottle of soy sauce.” If this crash were added, who knew how public opinion would explode.
Liu Duan also knew this link was a bit forced, but the previous case had hit a dead end, and this disappearance felt more like a continuation of a lead.
Though if nothing came of it, it would only make things worse.
“Any fingerprints? I read the report—the bottle from 3.15 had none. What about this one?”
“Just checked. None either.”
The young man said, “It does look overly coincidental. My suggestion is—define this as a copycat case first. Don’t classify it directly as a serial murder.”
Liu Duan and the junior officer were startled. The former cared about his reasoning; the latter instinctively objected. “Why? Because the killer suddenly escalated the difficulty? From one person to five?”
The young man said, “No. Combining cases isn’t just about similarities; you also have to look at differences. In the 3.15 case, the reason no footprints were left was because the killer bound Qi Meijuan to a floating board and dragged it while swimming across the river. We know this because the dust compression marks in the trunk and the disturbed items clearly showed a floating board-like object was missing.”
“And before coming, I already transferred some of your evidence to the provincial forensic lab.”
“The results are out.”
“She used low-quality hair dye. After soaking in water, it dilutes. This type of chemical seeps into the skull and body tissues and leaves traces under high heat. Another substance was detected in the burned materials like her hair. After comparison, it was identified as algae from that area’s waters.”
“There were no emergency braking marks where Qi Meijuan’s car stopped. She stopped voluntarily. She wasn’t forced to stop by a stranger. The items in the driver’s seat were neatly placed. Based on people around her, she was hot-tempered, picky, careless in doing things, but bullied the weak and feared the strong. When something happened, she liked to curse, throw things, smash bowls. Someone like that, if forced to stop, would immediately search for her phone to call the police. Things would be in chaos. But they weren’t. That means her emotional state was stable and she felt safe at the time.”
“Taken together, the killer in the 3.15 case was an excellent swimmer, knew the victim well, and the victim even knew him. That’s why she stopped the car and let him in. The soy sauce was full and unopened, freshly bought. A familiar person carrying newly bought soy sauce on the road—whether the encounter was coincidental or not, during the crime he could directly take and use the floating board in the trunk without searching. That’s not just familiarity; at minimum, he had personally seen the trunk’s contents and was certain it was still there. And he could take the victim away by swimming without leaving footprints, which shows he had long planned to kill Qi Meijuan.”
“In the 3.15 case, the killer had an intimate relationship tie with Qi Meijuan, within her social circle. That’s traceable.”
“But in this case, on the surface, the five victims came from different places as passengers, only setting off once four were gathered.”
“Same lack of footprints and traces, but this time, a boat was used.”
“Look there.”
As the young man pointed, there was a depressed opening in the reeds.
A boat of moderate size could indeed enter and exit, transporting people by water.
“The soy sauce in the 3.15 case was cheaper compared to other varieties, which suggests some financial constraint in daily necessities.”
“This time, the killer used a boat—not a paddle boat, but a motorized one. That’s why there are shredded reed fragments on the water surface. Even the cheapest fishing boat costs tens of thousands, not to mention more expensive speedboats.”
“There’s an economic gap between the killers of the two cases.”
“That’s the first difference.”
The young man continued, “Second: when Qi Meijuan was burned to death, she was alive.”
“There were goose-claw-like changes in the eyelids, soot in the palpebral fissures, soot deposits in the trachea and main bronchi, charcoal particles in the stomach. The airway showed ‘thermal injury airway syndrome’. High HbCO concentration in the blood.”
“A classic case—no struggle marks, burned alive.”
“Then during the burning, there must have been drugs controlling her physiological response, preventing resistance or movement. The report speculated anesthetics, but none were detected?”
The junior officer felt he was just reciting the report to show off memory.
“It wasn’t detected, but based on the case analysis, she must have been anesthetized. Maybe because metabolism consumed the drug? Isn’t it that anesthetics usually metabolize clean within 24 hours… and excessive burning made detection impossible?”
The young man said, “The test results in the report prove the blood still had testing value. While anesthetics can indeed metabolize within 24 hours, Qi Meijuan’s situation was different. From the stomach condition, she hadn’t eaten or drunk. That’s an abnormal physiological state and affects metabolism. And she was missing for three days. Maintaining immobilization for three days would require more anesthetic, making full metabolism unlikely. Not finding it suggests that after the initial drug-induced unconsciousness, later control relied on physical restraint, such as binding.”
The junior officer said, “No burned rope residue was found in the charcoal pile…”
The young man said, “That’s actually a good thing. It further narrows down the killer’s identity.”
The junior officer was confused.
What did that mean?
Liu Duan reacted first. “Our investigation shows Qi Meijuan liked gambling. Her most familiar circle and the casino she frequented are just next to Changlin City. She often used visiting her son studying in that town as an excuse, driving half an hour across the forested hills to get there. That area has a kind of ramie tree. Its bark fibers can be used to make rope. Local natives make them, and some shopkeepers sell them as handicrafts at high prices to bosses or tourists.”
The young man said, “They’re all plant fibers. Once burned, they’re just burned. The components mix into the ash and can’t be identified.”
“So you’ve been tracking the killer through anesthetic drug dosages across hospitals and prescriptions in Changlin City. That direction may be too narrow.”
“Better to check people, and rope, in neighboring Baiyun Town.”
The junior officer suddenly understood. The look in his eyes changed, now carrying respect and excitement. “Then the second difference you mentioned between the two cases—is this drug issue?”
The young man said, “Yes. This killer is more advanced. If I were you, I’d stay away from that car door. It’s open for ventilation.”
The junior officer: “?”
Liu Duan immediately went over, pulled him away, and loudly told everyone else to stay away from the vehicle.
The young man stood with hands in his pockets, calmly watching the commotion. Only when Chen Liao emerged and asked did he slowly explain.
“There were five people in the car—four adult men and one woman. That’s not something a killer can subdue in one go. Given the severity of the crash, it couldn’t have caused a group to completely lose the ability to resist. So something went wrong inside the car first, causing it to lose control and overturn into the reeds.”
“But all the windows were open. That doesn’t look like the killer’s doing; it wasn’t necessary. It’s more like the people inside felt something was wrong—discomfort, chest tightness, difficulty breathing—and all lowered the windows at the same time. So the air inside the car was the problem.”
“I checked the car earlier. The beckoning cat decoration is actually an aroma diffuser. Inside is very likely an anesthetic corrosion inhibitor.”
“Even though it’s been ventilated for quite a while, there’s no guarantee it’s no longer releasing anything.”
Liu Duan and the others: “!!!”
You noticed that early and still chatted with us for so long…
Liu Duan said, “If you do this… Xiao Li will get angry.”
The young man said, “I was officially approved to be transferred here to assist you. You test me, judge me—did you consider that I might get angry too?”
His expression was blank, his gaze cool as it swept over them.
“No wonder you haven’t solved the case for so long.”
Chen Liao subconsciously looked at Liu Duan. No—he really is your apprentice? He even scolded you along with us?
Liu Duan grimaced. Later, he told Chen Liao and the others that the man had interned under him right after graduating from a top-tier university. Because he lacked field experience, he’d been assigned to Liu Duan, thus gaining the title of apprentice. But his ceiling was high; within two years, he’d been transferred to the Provincial Bureau.
“This time, he’s really here to help us.”
“Stop messing around. Hurry to Baimu Town.”
As they got into the car, Chen Liao tried to build rapport and asked his name.
“Zhen Wuyu (Really speechless).”
“Huh? I was just asking… did I offend you?”
“No. Zhen Wuyu.”
“…”
Liu Duan said, “Explain it properly. Who wouldn’t misunderstand that? Didn’t I scold you enough back then?”
The young man said, “The Zhen from Zhen Mi in the Hong Kong drama 《Goddess of the Luo River. Wu Yu—speechless to the point of speechlessness.”
Everyone else: “…”
As soon as the car entered the road to Baimu Town, they received news—there was a female tourist missing there. The only thing left at the scene was a bag of frozen mala tang.
Oh, right. That female tourist was called Su Li.
“What was her name?”
“Su as in Suzhou, Li as in fox. Su Li. Why, do you know her?”
Zhen Wuyu frowned and looked at the gray, hazy road ahead.
It was snowing.
“Can’t say I know her.”
“High school classmate.”
“A very strange person.”
You’re already strange enough. Could she really be stranger than you?
Everyone was puzzled.
Fifty minutes later, they arrived at the town’s incident site. While everyone else focused on the case details, Zhen Wuyu stood by the snowbank, looking down at a puddle of mala tang ingredients on the ground.
After a long moment, he squatted down and examined it carefully.
His expression turned odd.
Liu Duan asked what he’d found.
“Nothing. Just curious.”
“It looks like her taste changed. What she bought isn’t what she used to like. It feels more like a random purchase.”
Liu Duan was confused. Random? What does that have to do with the case? Weren’t they not close?