Taken together, it suggested: possibly underwater piping, or a water source; not small in scale; built and in use at least fifteen years ago; now abandoned; and had undergone renovation work such as electrical modifications…
Official records could not possibly document all of these filtering criteria in full. After all, Changlin was remote and economically underdeveloped. It wasn’t like the coastal regions where the industrial and commercial system was comprehensive. Sometimes many factories operated off the books, unregistered, especially small workshops.
And whatever renovation work they did under the table was even less likely to be known.
Fortunately, the factory they were looking for wasn’t small. Even if it had been bought and sold privately, it should have had records in the past.
They quickly narrowed it down to seven factories.
“There are still seven?” Chen Liao and the others were shocked. They were from Changlin, while the Baimu Town officers looked completely unsurprised.
An older officer sighed. “You don’t know. Back in the eighties, when environmental protection laws came out, they banned indiscriminate logging and required forest protection. A lot of regulations were revised. Baimu Town’s industrial chain basically snapped. To some extent it did protect the environment and avoided the dark chaos of the timber industry back then, but it also caused the economy to drop sharply. A lot of factories that didn’t meet regulations were abandoned.”
Xiao Li said, “I’m looking at this list. A whole bunch of these are abandoned? Wow. So many factories couldn’t keep operating? Were they all black-hearted businesses, noncompliant?”
The old officer hesitated. Liu Duan answered directly instead. “If an area can’t develop, can roads even be built? If you don’t build roads, how do you transport anything? Without highways, with that kind of traffic condition, doesn’t transport cost rise sharply? Don’t some businesspeople stop coming?”
That was the logic.
This was the downside of relying on a single industry. Once that industry was restricted and regulated, it was basically finished, and the impact on the local area was huge.
There were historical reasons why Baimu Town, once called a place of mountains full of gold and silver, had been unable to recover these past years.
Zhen Wuyu had long since flown beyond places like Changlin and seen a broader world. Even though he was investigating a case, when he looked at the list with its eye-catching red marks for abandoned factories, he only frowned and offered a single comment.
“As far as I know, this place didn’t decline only because of laws and regulations.”
“Protecting the environment is for the country’s long-term planning. You can’t destroy the foundation for short-term economic gain. But what made the local society and investment climate worsen was that there was once a very serious serial murder case here, and it was never solved. Even without the regulatory restrictions, timber business wasn’t the only option; there were medicinal herbs and other areas that could have been invested in and developed. But because of that case, many merchants and workers were anxious. The business environment here became terrible, and that’s why it collapsed and never recovered.”
He suddenly mentioned a murder case. Everyone present was police, but most were young. Some were curious, some confused.
But the older officers, as well as the chief and Liu Duan, all changed expression slightly, yet had no intention of explaining.
Zhen Wuyu didn’t plan to waste time either. He only tossed it out casually. His pen didn’t pause. The seven factory locations were fairly scattered. They didn’t necessarily meet every criterion; each one matched several and was pulled in as a top-suspect location.
With local construction conditions this poor, bringing in power and water wasn’t easy. Underground pipelines were unlikely, or had long since become unusable. More likely there was a nearby water source and water had been diverted. Many timber-based factories needed a lot of water in the first place.
Zhen Wuyu crossed out one factory that was closest to Baimu Town and connected to underground piping.
“This spot is too close. It’s next to other factories that are still operating. The abducted people could speak and shout freely, and their voices weren’t restricted. That means it’s in a remote area with no people around and no other factories nearby. This location is too risky. Even if it’s a sealed basement, it could still be noticed. People come and go often. Someone might even take an interest in the factory and want to buy or rent it, and they’d ask around. That’s dangerous.”
“This one is a furniture factory. It actually should count as matching the conditions, but I checked the legal representative. It’s a local from Baimu Town, surname Qi. They’ve always done business locally. Back when the economic environment in Changlin and Baimu was bad, locals generally didn’t have money. The furniture market that rose up locally collapsed, and huge amounts of furniture were stockpiled. But the Qi family still has a furniture business now. Their market chain has extended to other cities. Their operations have been pretty good in recent years. They’re also one of the more legitimate factories. The local government would definitely support them. For employment numbers, they’d push for reopening, so this factory is very likely to be used again.”
A known household, supported by the government. Even if someone wanted to kill and break the law, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to use such a large factory for it.
At present, it was low suspicion.
Sure enough, the chief knew some of this. He admired Zhen Wuyu’s judgment. “The Qi family company really is famous here. That factory was also inspected by government staff. They believed the production conditions were still good. In the first half of this year, they urged it to reopen, even gave a lot of policy conveniences. You don’t know how many people in Baimu Town have no work and no income. The Qi family company is basically the only pillar left.”
“I heard the Qi family even called their daughter back, just to have her take charge of this…”
Then it really could be crossed off.
They needed to narrow it down and find the place as quickly as possible.
“That leaves five…”
“Let’s move.”
Reducing it from dozens down to five was already the best possible result.
They packed up and prepared to leave. The moment they stepped outside, howling wind and snow slapped their faces.
The thick snow on the ground made everyone frown.
The cars couldn’t drive.
There was no way they could take vehicles out to search the factory area.
“Walk there?”
“You’re insane. If you lose contact in the mountains, people will die!”
Chen Liao and the others were frantic. Liu Duan thought for a moment, went inside, and grabbed a heavy coat and a thick felt hat.
“I’ve been to Baimu Town before. I’ve been to that side too. I know the way. I’ll go take a look. Don’t move.”
Liu Duan was the team leader. He had the authority to order them, but when Zhen Wuyu saw this, he stopped him.
“He sent the videotapes. He’s this fearless because he’s relying on weather like this. It makes our investigation infinitely harder and buys him enough time.”
“Even if you know the way, communication can break in heavy snow. With poor visibility and low temperatures, forget finding people; we might end up having to find you.”
“You’re old. Don’t do something stupid.”
Zhen Wuyu’s words were blunt, even arrogant. But after working with him, they understood him: cold outside and… cold inside too; extremely calm, precise in judgment. Yet he did care about people. He wouldn’t treat lives as nothing, and he cared about Liu Duan. He would never let an old man take that kind of risk.
Not him, and not anyone else.
Liu Duan grew anxious. “Then we’re not saving anyone? Do you even know, that girl is…”
Su Li?
Zhen Wuyu caught it. Ever since Liu Duan arrived in Baimu Town and went into the chief’s office, the two of them had talked inside for a long time. When he came out, his attitude was a bit strange.
Avoidant. Oblique.
They likely knew Su Li’s identity, and even knew why her records couldn’t be found in the database.
Liu Duan almost blurted it out. The chief cut him off. “Change vehicles. These won’t work. We need snow vehicles.”
Zhen Wuyu agreed. “Right. Borrow snow vehicles. Businesspeople who might have to deal with urgent factory matters in weather like this definitely have snow vehicles.”
“Contact the Qi family.”
Liu Duan and the chief exchanged a look.
In the end, it wasn’t the chief who contacted the Qi family or other locals to borrow usable snow vehicles. Instead—
The Changlin police department reached someone, and that person directly got through to the head of the Qi family, borrowing three snow vehicles.
The vehicles quickly tore through the snow and arrived at the police station.
At a glance, Zhen Wuyu saw that the driver of one of the snow vehicles was a bright, striking woman with a bold, open manner. She looked in her thirties, wore thick winter clothing, and after pulling down her mask, she gestured for them to arrange people to get in.
Once the door shut, cutting off the wind and snow, and the vehicle started moving, the woman said her name was Liu Mei.
The Qi family’s daughter.
Liu Duan’s expression tightened. He looked at her several times.
Wait, didn’t the files say the Qi family daughter was in her forties?
How did she look so young?
But what Liu Mei said next shocked both of them even more.
“The girl who went missing in our town yesterday is called Su Li, right?”
“Her dad, Su Ye, is the biggest client of our Qi family’s coastal business. He has a lot of big malls, filthy rich. His net worth passed a hundred million long ago. When he heard something happened to her, he called my dad directly. Three snow vehicles isn’t because our Qi family can only provide three; it’s because there are only three.”
“We absolutely have to find her.”
“Otherwise…”
Otherwise, it would be trouble.
After all, the incident happened in Baimu Town. The Qi family was a local powerhouse. They would definitely get dragged into it.
Liu Duan was stunned. His fingers twitched as he tried to calculate how many zeros came after “a hundred million”…
Zhen Wuyu fell silent for a moment, staring at the boundless flying snow outside. He thought of Su Li’s material conditions already showing back in high school. Many things seemed traceable. Even so, it still shouldn’t require sealing her identity clearance…
Suddenly!
He realized something. As the snow vehicle turned, he grabbed the handhold and asked coldly, “Who knew that Su Li came to Baimu Town?”
“Was it only Mr. Su who knew? When did your family find out?”
“Does Mr. Su have other children?”
Liu Duan’s eyelid twitched hard.
Earlier, they had analyzed that Lin Zong and the others came for Su Li. That meant someone had confirmed her whereabouts. She was traveling alone. Either someone local in Baimu Town saw Su Li and provided information to those people, or—
Someone who already knew Su Li’s movements informed them first.
A family that rich, with enormous assets; could this involve an inheritance-motivated murder?
That kind of case was far too common.
Liu Mei was clearly smart, a university-educated person. She glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “You’re suspecting our family? When it comes to interests, we’re not that stupid. And if she dies, does the Su family money come to us? We didn’t even know she came to Baimu Town. If we did, would we let her stay in that crappy hotel?”
“But I heard my dad mention something while talking to Mr. Su. Su Li used to be overseas. She suddenly came back this year to pay respects to relatives, and she didn’t tell him. If the Changlin police hadn’t contacted him, he wouldn’t even have known his daughter had returned to the country.”
“Mr. Su has only this one daughter. He treasures her. There’s no inheritance dispute, at least as far as I know.”
Liu Duan said, “Then it was her private itinerary. Not many people could know, unless it was people overseas…”
It felt like these seemingly innocent “victims” were entangled in something severe, a secret strong enough that it might even be why the masked man was doing all of this.
It was too deliberate.
Because Liu Mei was present, they didn’t continue discussing case details. But along the way, Liu Duan asked Zhen Wuyu what he thought of Su Li as a person.
“Setting wealth aside, could she have grudges? Is that what brought this lethal disaster on her?”
Zhen Wuyu felt he was asking the wrong person.
“Same class. We rarely interacted back then. She was strange. An outlier.”
Liu Duan grew curious. From the hotel owner and the mala tang shopkeeper, she sounded like a girl everyone liked.
In terms of looks, by their description: an oval face, beautiful, yet with a touch of sweet, innocent softness. When she looked at people, her brows and eyes curved warmly, even carrying a kind of naïve, clueless air. Given what they now knew about her finances, she was a classic rich, pretty girl, a golden treasure that would draw greedy eyes anywhere she went.
But during the investigation, they had also felt her intelligence, her slyness, and her ability to disguise herself and act. She wasn’t as soft and silly as she appeared.
Was that contrast what made her an outlier?
Zhen Wuyu said, “No. That only means she chooses what persona to present socially. And with her family background and academic ability, she really didn’t have much to worry about. With no worries, she could be naïve.”
Liu Duan said, “I rarely see you label someone this strongly, even with a bit of bias.”
Outlier. For someone as indifferent as Zhen Wuyu, it had to be a very strong trait to earn that kind of tag.
Zhen Wuyu glanced at Liu Mei’s curious gaze in the rearview mirror, fell silent for a moment, then said coldly, “I do have prejudice against her.”
But he didn’t say why.
He closed his eyes. Watching the wind and snow and the white mountain forests outside, it felt as if he was suddenly back in Changlin’s autumn.
Everything bleak.
His homeroom teacher had been accused of molestation.
The accuser was Su Li.
The time was yesterday after school, at dusk, in the library.
The homeroom teacher was dealt with mercilessly by the school. At the time, many people believed that if such a thing happened, the homeroom teacher was condemned by everyone and deserved to be punished.
Only he had faintly felt something was off. He also realized that the top student in their grade was different from ordinary students, and even from him, the grade’s second place.
Of course, he knew something else even more clearly—
That evening in the library, the homeroom teacher had not molested her. Because he was there too, in the shadow at the far corner by a bookshelf. He had been about to leave, but he heard her faint, flirtatious, sweet talk. He frowned, hesitated. Later, the homeroom teacher kept to professional ethics and family responsibility, refused her, and left in embarrassment.
The next day he was reported, dismissed, and lost his position. He heard that afterward, his end was miserable… and soon there was no news of him.
In that era, what she had done shook the school more than the event itself.
Whispers, constant discussion, suspicion, disgust, slander, like the endless snowflakes of every winter.
But she didn’t care. She continued going to school normally, even when it snowed. Yet no thugs, and no male students in the school, dared to humiliate her or block her path.
Why? Probably because the school protected her firmly, other teachers shielded her, and the principal personally escorted her into the school gate.
Back then, almost everyone thought this was the school’s justice, protecting a victim.
Justice fought against narrow, worldly human hearts.
And it won.
Now it seemed that if it had been any other girl, the outcome would have been different. And given what they learned now—Liu Mei said Su Ye’s assets had exceeded a hundred million many years ago. That likely meant it was already so back in high school.
So the logic finally lined up.
Zhen Wuyu also couldn’t fight the stubborn prejudice in his heart—the lie he witnessed at dusk in the top-floor library, and her pure white, sweet innocence, that look of naïveté as if she knew nothing of the world, and the falseness beneath it.
But no matter what, he still didn’t tell anyone this old matter.
He kept silent.
Silent the whole time.
And in that silence, they arrived at the abandoned factory closest to the police station.
Rust-covered. Desolate. Heavy snow piled on the factory shed roof. The door was in ruins, wind and snow pouring inside.
Liu Mei didn’t get out. And the old and the young police officers didn’t get out either.
“What’s wrong? Something off? Or is this not the right place?”
Liu Mei thought she had led them wrong, but after Liu Duan spoke, she realized what was wrong—
There were footprints in the snow.
Footprints going in.
They probably weren’t too old. The prints were still there, though more than half had been covered by snow.
They led into the broken, large iron door.
But whether anyone was inside, no one knew.
Swish.
Liu Duan drew his gun. Zhen Wuyu also told Liu Mei to stay in the vehicle and not get out. The two of them moved in coordination, one after the other, creeping toward the iron door, using it as cover…
Suddenly, a shadow shot out through the crack, leaping out. It startled Liu Duan so badly he almost fired.
Inside the vehicle, Liu Mei was startled too, but thankfully she didn’t scream.
Zhen Wuyu said, “It’s a cat.”
All three of them let out a quiet breath. They had just thought it was the killer.
But Liu Duan stayed cautious. His gun was still aimed inside. He took one look, and his expression changed.
He lowered the gun and stepped aside.
Zhen Wuyu also held his gun. When he went in, he saw a bag placed on the table inside.
There was something inside.
Videotapes.
Number 4.