Chunhong, Henshui.
As the opening and closing lines of a famous ci poem, now each is used by two people tied to the case, making it hard not to connect the two.
Earlier, when Jiang Yan and Yu Renwan were at the market, someone had told them that Meng Henshui had a younger sister.
A younger sister who was very lively.
Whether this sister and Meng Henshui were cousins, biological sisters, or distant relatives, in any case, this younger sister was likely named Chunhong—Spring Red.
Once this assumption is made, the situation becomes particularly interesting.
Jiang Yan swirled the cup of water in her hand, slowly sorting through the current cases.
Thirteen years ago, seven children in Changxia City went missing one after another. The police quickly filed a case and started investigating, but after the case was opened, not only was there no progress, but another child went missing in early April.
While everyone was in panic, on April 17th, Meng Zhaolin, then an ordinary detective, found a critical lead. To prevent the suspect from escaping, he reported it and immediately pursued alone. Later, he found the missing children in a basement of an abandoned factory and fought the criminals desperately. Just as his life was at stake, the police arrived, his life was saved, and the seven trapped children regained freedom.
After this, the police used the suspect’s testimony to uncover an entire trafficking network, rescuing countless children who had not yet been sold. Meng Zhaolin was commended and awarded first-class individual merit, rising through the ranks.
But there was a tragic figure in this case.
The girl who went missing in early April.
She was not found. She escaped while being transported to the basement, but never returned home, her whereabouts unknown.
Given the nature of news reporting, if that child had been found, it would have made headlines. The most likely scenario is that to this day, her fate remains a mystery—thirteen years, never seen alive nor dead.
This is the infamous 4.17 major trafficking case that once shocked Changxia City.
Eight years later, five years ago, there was another notorious case in Changxia—the February Bridge corpse case.
A man, after divorcing his wife, grew vengeful toward society. He staked out February Bridge for several nights, strangled three women walking home alone at night, and hid their bodies under the bridge.
When the weather got hot, the stench from the corpse bags emerged. The bodies were finally discovered by a cleaner, but because the corpses were so decomposed, no useful fingerprints could be found, so the case stalled for a time.
Then came the fourth victim: Meng Henshui.
On her way home at dusk, passing by February Bridge, she was stalked and attacked by the murderer, but as she knew some self-defense, she escaped with minor injuries.
The case was quickly solved.
But there’s an interesting point.
According to the official notices Jiang Yan had just seen, by that time, a central investigation group had arrived in Changxia, inspecting how the police handled complex and cold cases. The February Bridge case was a key part of their assessment.
In short, had this case not been solved well, Changxia’s police would all be implicated and likely face a shake-up or removal.
Just at that critical moment, the February Bridge case was cracked.
The investigation group stayed in Changxia for half a month and found no major problems in old cases. The public still recalled Meng Zhaolin’s rescue of the children, and he was widely praised. A month after the investigation group left, Meng Zhaolin was officially promoted from deputy chief to chief of the Criminal Division.
Then came the mattress-with-snakes case.
No one reported it, no one investigated it, and even the case’s name was made up by Jiang Yan herself, but it echoed the previous two cases in a key way—
The last victim was always someone related to Meng Zhaolin.
And, Meng Zhaolin was always at a crucial moment for career advancement.
After the 4.17 major trafficking case, Meng Zhaolin smoothly entered the public eye, breaking educational and age barriers, and advanced step by step.
After the February Bridge case, the central team had greater trust in Changxia’s police, and Meng Zhaolin was promoted to chief.
Now, the stage of nomination and consultation for national political committee members has arrived, with the public and many groups in Changxia advocating for Meng Zhaolin—his odds of being elected are sixty to seventy percent.
Meng Zhaolin seemed to need a case to amplify his reputation even further.
*
There were still a few minutes until midnight. Jiang Yan asked if Shen Huanhuan was asleep, then lazily got up.
When she walked out, Yu Renwan was eating the last few bites of noodles. Xiao Wa stood on the dining table with two noodles in its beak, slurping them down happily.
“What are you eating?” Jiang Yan asked as she slipped on her jacket.
“Triple spicy fire noodles. Xiao Wa and I both love them,” Yu Renwan turned Xiao Wa’s head toward Jiang Yan. “Every time Xiao Wa eats these, she cries with joy.”
Xiao Wa sniffled.
Jiang Yan gave a sound of acknowledgment, then notified Yu Renwan, “I’m going downstairs. Be back in a bit.”
“Ah…”
Yu Renwan glanced at the black night outside the window, “Want me to go with you?”
“No need.”
Jiang Yan went down alone. Passing the landing between the third and fourth floors, she ran into Lin Xinjiu.
Lin Xinjiu stood before the wall with his arms folded, staring at the patch where Xiao Wa had earlier pecked away the paint—red brick especially conspicuous.
Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow and continued downstairs.
“The paint just fell off,” Lin Xinjiu asked, “Did you do this?”
The question came out of nowhere.
Jiang Yan yawned and turned around lazily: “What of it?”
Lin Xinjiu’s features weren’t clear in the dark: “You saw what’s inside the wall.”
Though it was a question, the words were stated as if certain.
“Mm,” Jiang Yan glanced at the wall, “Seems you didn’t actually remove the brick. Remote viewing?”
Lin Xinjiu let out a short laugh: “More advanced than that.”
“If it were me living on the fourth floor, I’d have noticed it the first day.”
Jiang Yan: “That’s really a pity.”
Lin Xinjiu’s expression twisted. Talking to Jiang Yan always felt like punching cotton. He gave up, turning his head back to the wall, still staring at the bricks—or really, at the weasel spirit behind them.
Jiang Yan continued on. As she reached the third floor, she vaguely heard a mutter behind her, “I owe you one.”
Jiang Yan paused briefly but ignored it.
She went straight down to the second floor and knocked.
Shen Huanhuan must have been waiting by the door; she opened it immediately.
The scent of food hit instantly.
Shen Xiaoxiao was wolfing rice and hotpot, and when she saw Jiang Yan, she wiped her mouth with her hand, “Jiang Yan-jie, come eat with us!”
Jiang Yan walked to the table. Shen Xiaoxiao brought out a bowl of instant wontons from the kitchen.
Shen Huanhuan handed a pair of chopsticks to Jiang Yan, “Eat while it’s hot.”
Jiang Yan frowned, “I’m not here for dinner.”
Shen Xiaoxiao pouted her oily lips, “But chatting is better over food!”
Jiang Yan: “If I can’t digest, I can’t sleep.”
Shen Xiaoxiao waggled her finger, looking smug: “You don’t get me! My stomach could digest a whole elephant!”
Shen Huanhuan also sat down with chopsticks, giving her sister no face: “It’s your digestive tablets that could digest an elephant.”
“……”
Shen Xiaoxiao: “No food talk at the table, I’m not talking to you.”
Jiang Yan hadn’t meant to join for dinner, just to talk easily, but Shen Xiaoxiao’s eating was so lively and the aroma tempting that she picked up a wonton, then ladled some soup.
Shen Huanhuan pursed her lips and smiled.
After swallowing, Jiang Yan recounted what had happened that evening: the weasel in the wall, why the elderly died after killing snakes, and her thoughts on all three cases.
As Jiang Yan spoke, Shen Xiaoxiao listened while eating. By midway, she forgot to eat, staring intently at Jiang Yan, completely zoned out, not exhaling until Jiang Yan finished, and the seaweed on her chopsticks dropped onto the table with a plop.
“You found all this online?” she muttered.
“Analyze while searching. Very quick.”
Jiang Yan replied, “The information age is far more convenient than I imagined.”
No sooner had she spoken than a flock of elders in the livestream rushed to lecture the newbies, afraid they’d get tricked by Jiang Yan.
[She’s just talking—you all just listen…]
[Don’t believe Jiang Yan; only a fool would!]
[Don’t lean too much on the internet—analyze first, then look. If you can’t analyze, you won’t know what to search!]
[A tip for newbies: the reason Jiang Yan finds clues so fast is that her mind already has suspects, or even conclusions. Didn’t you notice every keyword she searches pans out? Online info only confirms her deductions, not the reason for them. Got it? Don’t buy her nonsense! Use your brain first; the internet only saves you legwork.]
[Got it. My ranking hasn’t improved because I can use a computer but have no brain.]
[Stop, that’s so cruel! I refuse to hear it QAQ]
Finds them so quickly?
Information age is convenient?
These two phrases echoed in Shen Xiaoxiao’s head as she nodded drowsily.
But after nodding, she looked at Jiang Yan for several seconds as if wanting to say something, but held back.
Jiang Yan: “What’s up?”
Shen Xiaoxiao scratched her head, sheepish: “Just feels like, Jiang Yan-jie, you’re on ten-times speed.”
“I always thought you were on double speed; in the last rounds, I wondered if it was just luck, but you did it three times now, you really are doing tasks at ten times speed.”
Jiang Yan frowned: “What do you mean?”
Shen Xiaoxiao scratched her head, and Shen Huanhuan explained it for her: “She means every time you’re here, tasks go super fast. When I streamed with her, our completion rate was average, one week minimum, sometimes two—and that’s the Bureau’s average. Very few psychics can do it in under five days; three days is rare.”
“But three times in a row now, you’ve solved things in just two days. Except for a few people at the top of the leaderboard, I’ve never seen anyone finish in two or three days,” Shen Huanhuan added with a smile, “so you’re amazing, Jiang Yan-jie.”
Jiang Yan understood.
But as someone thousands of years old, why would she compete with people barely old enough to be her toenails? Of course, she finished fast.
Winning wasn’t much to brag about; losing wasn’t a big deal, either.
As for those top-ranked? She could stomp them out with a few kicks.
Wipe them all out—she’d be number one.
Not worth fighting for.
So she just said, “It’s nothing special, really.”
“You all contributed a lot, too. I’m not actually that good at finding clues—Yu Renwan’s headbutt is what solved the weasel.”
She picked up another wonton, then asked Shen Huanhuan, “Enough of that—what do you think?”
“What about Meng Zhaolin and Meng Henshui?”
Shen Huanhuan thought deeply for a while: “I lean toward Meng Zhaolin being the mastermind, and Meng Henshui as both victim and accomplice.”
She explained, “Only Meng Zhaolin gained. In just thirteen years, he went from unknown to Deputy Director and likely soon a national committee member.”
“At every crucial moment in his rise, a relative faced a crisis. It strongly feels like he’s sacrificing his own for gain.”
“But that was my initial thought,” Shen Huanhuan continued. “Judging from the cases, I feel the first case—Chunhong’s abduction—was accidental. But after Meng Zhaolin tasted success, he copied the model for later cases.”
“For example, the February Bridge case—when the central team was coming, but the case wasn’t solved. To avoid being implicated, Meng Zhaolin used his own daughter as the last victim, sending Meng Henshui over the bridge late at night to lure the killer.”
“And in this mattress-and-snakes case, with his promotion imminent, he needed a case to raise his fame. He probably knew about Meng Henshui’s connection with the Yellow Immortal, so he had Meng Henshui help design this case and chose the three old men as victims.”
“First, Meng Henshui killed off Shang Demin and Li Ronghai. Even though their families didn’t intend to report, too many watched when they died—someone had to alert the police, so the case should have been filed recently. After that, Meng Zhaolin turned to his own father as the third victim.”
“After all, he’d fully trust his father. As long as Meng Zhaolin installed cameras in Meng Xiangjiang’s house in advance, he could obtain the footage of his death.”
Jiang Yan added, “And so, the case is ‘solved.’”
“Once Meng Xiangjiang was dead, Meng Zhaolin could feign grief and turn over the surveillance. With a horrifying video of ‘a snake draining and strangling a man,’ the police certainly wouldn’t make it public—at most, the public would be told to keep windows and doors closed to guard against snakes.”
Shen Huanhuan nodded, “That’s my thinking too.”
“And with three old men dead in the same building—not just Meng Xiangjiang—the police would simply chalk it up to a snake infestation, and never suspect Meng Zhaolin…”
“Besides, the Yellow Immortal’s involvement makes it untraceable by normal police; odds are it would just end here.”
“Then Meng Zhaolin could spread rumors that he’d solved it and say some vague things. His reputation would soar again, making his election virtually certain.”
Having finished, Shen Huanhuan drew applause from Shen Xiaoxiao nearby.
“Sis, I think you’ve levelled up in secret!”
But after a moment’s thought, Shen Huanhuan shook her head:
“Still not rigorous; too many guesses, and a few clues haven’t been used.”
She turned to Jiang Yan, “What do you think, Jiang Yan-jie?”
Jiang Yan leaned back, looking down in thought, then said:
“Cheng Yue once said that in the half year after the February Bridge case, Su Zhiyu received frequent calls for help from Meng Henshui.”
“I checked the timing. There was another case then in Changxia—a tongue-removal corpse abuse case. My guess is that Meng Zhaolin tried again to use Meng Henshui as bait, hoping to lure in the killer by making her the final victim, but maybe bailed out fearing suspicion.”
Jiang Yan spoke slowly, “The details are unclear, but whatever happened, it would be hard for Meng Henshui not to hate Meng Zhaolin.”
“Even if she didn’t hate him during the February Bridge case, even if she went in as bait with his full knowledge, after Su Zhiyu died, Meng Henshui would surely harbour resentment.”
“Given all this, Meng Zhaolin likely lacks familial feeling, so I suspect even the original Chunhong abduction is linked to him. We don’t yet know how close Meng Henshui and Chunhong were; if it was close enough, Meng Henshui’s hatred must have built for years.”
“So I think the mattress-and-snakes case has actually been Meng Henshui’s scheme from start to finish.”
“She set up the first two deaths to force a police investigation, and they did investigate. They found the common ground—the two old men both bought the ‘Fu Ru Donghai’ mattress.”
“To solve the case, Meng Zhaolin first placed cameras in Meng Xiangjiang’s home, then hyped up the mattress and urged him to buy it.”
Jiang Yan looked down thoughtfully: “I don’t think Meng Zhaolin knew about Meng Henshui’s connection with the weasel.”
“This mattress-with-snakes case—most likely, it’s Meng Henshui’s fishing attempt.”
“She wants ironclad proof that Meng Zhaolin used his own father as bait for the kill.”
“And clearly, Meng Zhaolin took the bait.”