Animal Detective

Chapter 216: Millionaire Finance Elite Murders His Wife

Inside the interrogation observation room.

Sun Zhao and Chen Chao stood on the other side of the one-way glass, watching Bai Jifei inside.

He sat there quietly, perfectly calm.

"Lao Sun, what are you thinking?" Chen Chao asked.

During the case analysis meeting earlier, Sun Zhao had said at the end that he felt something was off about this case.

Sun Zhao’s gaze never left Bai Jifei, as if trying to find something on his face. He then said, "It’s hard to say. Just a gut feeling. I feel like Bai Jifei’s behavior is a bit abnormal."

"When you guys brought him in at noon and went through the booking process, his reaction was extremely calm. There wasn’t the slightest hint of panic you’d expect from a criminal who’s been caught."

"It was as if he expected this to happen."

Chen Chao had still been at the villa during the booking, so he wasn’t aware of this.

But hearing Sun Zhao put it that way, it did indeed sound abnormal.

In all his time on the force, he had never seen a suspect who wasn’t flustered when a case broke.

Besides, his status had changed from the one who reported the crime to the prime suspect. Wasn’t he surprised? Didn’t he have any questions?

After a moment’s thought, Chen Chao said, "Could it be that he thinks he did a clean job and isn’t afraid of us finding anything?"

Cui Yan did say the scene was cleaned with professional-level skill.

Sun Zhao still shook his head. "Then what about the murder weapon? He just buried it in his own house that casually?"

"And why go to the trouble of hacking the property management’s system to delete the surveillance footage? Did the cameras capture some kind of evidence? And then he files a false report? Don’t you think that’s all a bit redundant?"

"Most importantly, what’s the motive?"

"Jiang Qi’s illness was already very serious. Was he that desperate to kill her? Couldn’t he just wait a little longer?"

"This core piece of logic just doesn’t add up."

Chen Chao nodded thoughtfully. Indeed, on the matter of motive, it was hard to explain why Bai Jifei would kill someone who was already dying.

And to use such an extreme method, no less.

If he had been even a little less attentive in his care, Jiang Qi could have died from an accident.

"Let’s talk to him first," Chen Chao said. He called over Zhao Tianxing, grabbed a file folder, and walked out of the observation room.

The others kept their eyes on the monitor.

Sun Zhao suddenly turned his head and beckoned to Shen Xin.

"Shen Xin, what are your thoughts?"

He felt Shen Xin had a sharp mind and often asked for his thoughts on cases.

Shen Xin stepped forward.

He had also been thinking about this case all afternoon.

Like Sun Zhao, he felt something was strange about it.

Just then, Chen Chao entered the interrogation room.

"Name."

As was standard procedure, he started with personal information.

Unexpectedly, Bai Jifei just sat there silently, not saying a word.

Chen Chao prompted him twice, but his reaction was the same. He just watched Chen Chao calmly.

He simply wouldn’t speak.

The last person who was this silent was Guo Chunping.

They interrogated him for a full twenty-four hours, and he didn’t say a single word.

Chen Chao wasn’t bothered. He directly asked Bai Jifei to recount the process of his wife Jiang Qi’s disappearance.

The result was the same. Not a single word.

Shen Xin snapped back to the present and continued answering Sun Zhao’s question.

"Captain Sun, during the case analysis meeting earlier, I mentioned the surveillance camera at the back door."

Sun Zhao nodded, gesturing for Shen Xin to continue.

Shen Xin said, "We found that the surveillance camera at the villa’s back door had been moved, right?"

"And the property management’s surveillance records prove that this camera was moved sometime before the sixth, at the latest."

"Then, on the morning of the sixth, at 11:30 AM, the surveillance footage and the access control records were all hacked and deleted."

"This was before Bai Jifei went to the property management office that afternoon to check the surveillance footage."

"So, doesn’t that seem a little illogical?"

Sun Zhao immediately folded his arms and fell into deep thought.

Shen Xin had mentioned this earlier, but he hadn’t paid it much mind.

Beside them, Ding Yuwei also caught on. "Shen Xin, you mean it’s abnormal for Bai Jifei to go to the property management office to check the surveillance footage after he had already managed to delete it?"

Shen Xin nodded.

"Let’s assume he moved the back door camera to hide something. We don’t know what, but it must have been crucial. That’s why he chose to hack the system and delete the video and access records."

At this point, Shen Xin added, "Actually, there are many other things that don’t add up."

"Look, let’s say his initial plan was to dispose of the body, so he moved the back door camera to avoid being filmed."

"But the villa has a private garage. He could have just loaded the body into the trunk inside the garage. The external cameras wouldn’t have caught anything, so there was no need to move the camera outside the back door."

"And we checked his car but found no traces in the trunk, which suggests he might have given up on the idea of using his car to dispose of the body."

"If he had used another vehicle, it would have needed to be registered upon entry and exit, and the security guards would have remembered."

"So if there was no need to leave to dispose of the body, why did he delete the access control data?"

"I just feel like there are a lot of logical inconsistencies here."

Everyone fell into contemplative silence.

Shen Xin continued, "Also, if he had the means to delete the property’s video files, he could have confirmed whether they contained any incriminating evidence while he was deleting them. So why would he still make a special trip to the property office to view the footage?"

Ding Yuwei thought for a moment and came up with an idea.

"I looked at Bai Jifei’s file. He studied finance, so it’s unlikely he’s an expert hacker."

"So, could it be that he hired a hacker to do it for him, but then he didn’t trust them? He was worried the hacker didn’t delete everything properly, so he went to the property office, using the lost dog as an excuse, to check the surveillance and confirm it himself."

Sun Zhao immediately nodded. That was a possibility.

Shen Xin thought about it and realized Ding Yuwei’s explanation made sense too.

"Captain Sun, either way, I think the sixth is the crucial day."

Sun Zhao nodded and instructed Zhao Tianxing, who was beside him, to meticulously check the traffic surveillance footage from outside the residential community on the sixth. Every single vehicle had to be identified.

Zhao Tianxing took note.

In the interrogation room, Bai Jifei remained completely unresponsive, not saying a word.

After trying to wear him down for a while, Chen Chao decided to give up for the moment.

Returning to the observation room, Chen Chao discussed with Sun Zhao whether they should reveal some of the evidence.

Namely, the bloodstains in the villa, the murder weapon, and so on.

He had only talked about Jiang Qi’s disappearance so far, without mentioning this key evidence.

Sun Zhao considered it and thought it was a good idea.

They had to strike while the iron was hot and not give Bai Jifei too much time to think.

Chen Chao entered the interrogation room again.

He first used the evidence from the external surveillance cameras to prove that Jiang Qi had not gone missing that morning.

"Bai Jifei, you filed a false report!"

He reprimanded him sharply, then directly threw down the evidence of the massive amount of bloodstains in the first-floor guest bathroom.

The evidence was right in front of him, yet Bai Jifei remained unnervingly calm.

Shen Xin could see clearly that there wasn’t even much of a flicker in his eyes.

If it was just a matter of strong mental fortitude, his was too strong.

Although he worked in the high-pressure finance industry, he wasn’t like Guo Chunping, who used to be in a security department and had professional training.

’Murder and dismemberment... for something this major, he doesn’t feel a single flicker of emotion?’

Chen Chao didn’t reveal all the evidence at once. After probing for a while longer, he left the interrogation room again.

"Damn it, there’s something wrong with this guy. He’s too composed," Chen Chao said the moment he walked in.

In his view, such excessive composure was also a problem.

Sun Zhao stared at Bai Jifei, thought for a long while, and then said, "Don’t let him rest. Take turns interrogating him. Wear him out first."

If they didn’t interrogate him now and let him go, he would have ample time to think of a counter-strategy.

So they had to wear him down until he was so exhausted he couldn’t help but fall asleep.

That was the only way to buy everyone time to find more evidence.

Chen Chao nodded, turned around, and went out, ready to continue the grind with Bai Jifei.

Then, Sun Zhao called everyone over to watch the traffic camera footage.

The focus was on the sixth, but they also had to review all the footage from the third up until today.

Sleep was out of the question. Everyone who was free pitched in, and the footage was distributed for them to review individually.

In reality, this was how most criminal cases were solved—using the most tedious methods.

When Shen Xin woke up again, it was already past eight in the morning the next day.

He had been watching until past five in the morning before he couldn’t take it anymore and dozed off for a bit.

Sun Zhao’s eyes were also bloodshot. He called everyone to the cafeteria for breakfast.

Afterward, they would continue to carry out the plans from yesterday’s case analysis meeting.

"Captain Sun, how’s the interrogation with Bai Jifei going?" Shen Xin asked, stretching languidly.

Sun Zhao shook his head and said, "That guy is really something else. A normal person would have broken down long ago."

’So, no results yet.’

Shen Xin shook Ding Yuwei awake. He first went to the restroom to splash some water on his face, which woke him up a bit.

It wasn’t a big deal. Ever since joining the criminal investigation team, all-nighters had become routine.

The cafeteria.

Shen Xin, Ding Yuwei, and Zhao Tianxing sat together at a table.

Shen Xin scrolled through his phone while sipping his congee.

He was searching for the habits of Maltese dogs. ’Something is off about this case. Just in case, I might need to use my talent.’

Beside him, Zhao Tianxing was also on his phone, but he was scrolling through short videos.

Just then, he suddenly exclaimed, "Holy shit!" and quickly handed his phone to Shen Xin. "You guys, look at this."

Shen Xin took it.

It was a short video.

The video was posted by a local Nanjiang video account that shared local news.

The video opened with the kind of dramatic background music that signals something major has happened.

The key was the video’s content.

It showed Bai Jifei’s villa, with police cars parked in front and police tape cordoning off the area.

Then came the sensational headline.

[Financial Elite with a Million-Yuan Salary is a Beast in Human Form, Murders and Brutally Dismembers Wife]

In the video, police officers could be seen going in and out.

Their faces were even thoughtfully pixelated.

To Shen Xin’s surprise, he even saw himself.

This was footage from yesterday morning.

The question was, who filmed it?

There were residents spectating at the scene. Could they have filmed it?

The angle of the video looked like it was from the surveillance camera outside the main gate.

The crucial part was the headline.

Murdered and brutally dismembered his wife!

How did the person who filmed this know that Bai Jifei had dismembered the body?

The case was only officially opened yesterday, and no details had been released to the public. Besides the police, no one should know that Jiang Qi had been dismembered.

Below the video was a detailed news report.

It said that a vicious crime had occurred in the Shuiyue Mountain villa community in Nanjiang.

It even knew Bai Jifei’s name, referring to him as the suspect, Bai Mou.

It said that Bai Mou was once a financial elite with an annual income in the millions, but you can know a person’s face without knowing their heart.

It went on to say that his wife suffered from a serious illness, and he, fearing she would become a burden, cold-bloodedly murdered her.

He even went as far as to brutally dismember her body.

It also mentioned that the victim, Jiang Qi, was her parents’ only daughter. They had raised her through great hardship, only for her to be brutally murdered by this modern-day monster.

The victim’s parents had already fainted from crying several times and had been taken to the hospital.

Reading through the whole thing, any bystander would be filled with righteous indignation and see Bai Jifei as a cold-blooded demon.

But the key question remained: how did the video’s publisher know all this information?

Moreover, Shen Xin noticed the video had a terrifyingly high number of views.

It had over 300,000 likes and over 90,000 shares.

’I run a short video account myself. With this many likes, it must have at least several million views.’

He then looked at the comments.

[Is this for real?]

[During the New Year holidays? That’s so vicious.]

[What kind of deep-seated hatred is this? Couldn’t he at least have waited until after the holidays?]

[My condolences. That woman’s fate is too tragic.]

Some local Nanjiang residents also started chiming in.

[It’s probably true. I saw police cars go by yesterday.]

[A relative of mine lives in Shuiyue Mountain. He said a ton of cops showed up at the scene, so it’s a good bet she was dismembered.]

[So scary.]

The comment section was in an uproar, with incredibly heated discussions.

The video had even shot to the number one spot on Nanjiang’s local trending list.

Shen Xin was a little stunned.

’This isn’t right.’

The case just broke yesterday. How was it posted online today with such clear details about the investigation?

Just as he was thinking about this, a colleague hurried in and whispered a few words in Sun Zhao’s ear.

Sun Zhao’s expression changed, and he quickly walked away.

Soon, Shen Xin found out what was going on.

Local reporters had actually shown up at the precinct to ask about the case.