At the entrance of the office building.

Shen Xin leaned against the wall, enjoying the show with Zhao Tianxing and the others.

"Captain Sun’s having a hard time. He’s getting grilled so hard he’s about to blow a fuse," Zhao Tianxing snickered.

Shen Xin nodded in complete agreement.

"But do reporters even care about murder cases these days?" Shen Xin added, finding it strange.

There were four reporters in total: one from Nanjiang TV Station, one from the Nanjiang Daily, and one from the Nanjiang City News.

The last one was from a slightly more heavyweight publication, the Ningjiang Daily.

The TV station reporter even had a cameraman in tow.

The thing was, nobody really read newspapers anymore. You could look around on the streets and barely find any newsstands.

If it weren’t for government agencies and organizations propping them up, these traditional media outlets would have gone under long ago.

Just like now, they were all asking questions so earnestly, with an air of getting to the bottom of things no matter what, as if people would actually read it if they published the story.

It was nothing compared to a short video on a social media platform, which could be seen by millions of people in an instant.

Sun Zhao finally managed to deal with the reporters, sending them off to the Public Affairs Department. When he turned around, he found a few people enjoying the show.

"What are you looking at? You’ve all got nothing better to do, is that it? Want me to find something for you to do?" Sun Zhao snapped harshly.

His words sent everyone scattering like birds and beasts.

Usually, Sun Zhao was easygoing, but he was still their superior, after all.

"Get back here!"

Sun Zhao shouted again.

Zhao Tianxing shot Shen Xin a look, his expression screaming that they were about to get chewed out.

Sun Zhao snorted coldly and walked past them. "Meeting."

Inside the office, the door was shut.

Except for a few who were out investigating other cases since early morning, nearly thirty people were present.

With a grim expression, Sun Zhao crossed his arms and said in a heavy voice, "We’ve all been colleagues for years. It’s not that I’m without compassion, but discipline is discipline."

"Whoever leaked the case details, step forward and admit it now. If you do, I might still be able to put in a good word for you with Director Lv. But if I have to find out who it was myself, then there will be no mercy. You’ll face the full consequences."

Shen Xin’s heart tightened. He cautiously scanned everyone in the room.

’It’s obvious someone leaked the case details.’

’Otherwise, how would that video online know so much?’

"Captain Sun, it couldn’t have been one of us, right? That’s an ironclad rule. No one would be foolish enough to cross that line," Zhou Zhongyi said, trying to smooth things over.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Leaking case information could have consequences, both big and small.

On the small side, if you were caught, you’d get a demerit or a warning.

But on the big side, if leaking details of an ongoing investigation led to the suspect’s escape or other unforeseen consequences, it could lead to criminal charges.

It was a red line.

On Shen Xin’s first day, Li Dongsheng had specifically warned him about this.

"Captain Sun, could it have been leaked by the onlookers at the scene? Or maybe someone just made a wild guess and happened to be right," his colleague Li Haifeng suggested. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Yeah, that’s possible."

"A case of a blind cat catching a dead mouse."

"We were all swamped yesterday, who had time for that? Besides, Captain Sun, don’t you think these reporters reacted way too quickly?"

The officers all started murmuring amongst themselves.

A colleague named Qian Zhihai was the one who muttered that last part.

Shen Xin was thinking the same thing.

The case just broke yesterday, and reporters were already here for an interview today. Their response time was way too fast.

These days, when something happened, wasn’t the first instinct to pull out your phone and record a video? Who had the time to call a reporter?

Sun Zhao’s eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, swept over everyone present.

An old hand like him could tell who had a guilty conscience with just one glance.

He didn’t spot anyone.

Just then, Chen Chao pushed the door open, pulled Sun Zhao aside, and said with a serious expression, "The reporter from the City News is a bit green. I put a little pressure on him, and he spilled the beans."

"Someone contacted them, told them a murder had occurred at Shuiyue Mountain, and even paid them two thousand yuan for page space to get them to come and report on it today."

"I bet it was a similar situation for the other agencies. The kid said he was surprised to see people from other papers when he got here this morning."

"He said they normally don’t cover this kind of news, so he didn’t expect any other papers to show up."

These days, there were fewer murder cases, but precisely because of that, fewer people paid attention to them.

It wasn’t like the old days when everyone read the newspaper, and a murder somewhere would become the talk of the town, discussed on every street corner.

Who cared about this stuff nowadays?

At this point, Chen Chao paused for dramatic effect. "Lao Sun, there’s something else you’d never guess."

"Spit it out."

Sun Zhao was already annoyed, and his tone showed it.

Chen Chao said, "The reporter was busy yesterday morning and only called the person back in the afternoon to arrange today’s interview."

"But get this—the person called the City News front desk a little after ten in the morning, saying they had a news tip and asking which reporter they could contact to get it covered."

"Lao Sun, ten in the morning! That was right when Bai Jifei had just come to the station to report the crime. Someone already knew about the dismemberment before we did."

Sun Zhao’s eyebrows instantly knitted together. He crossed his arms and fell silent.

A report had just been filed here—they hadn’t even confirmed if Jiang Qi was missing or had been murdered—and someone was already calling the papers with a scoop. This was a huge problem.

’How did this person know Bai Jifei had killed and dismembered someone?’

’And why proactively leak this, post a video online, and expose Bai Jifei’s atrocities? What was the motive?’

’An enemy of Bai Jifei’s?’

’Or someone seeking justice for Jiang Qi?’

"Find this person," Sun Zhao said in a low voice.

Chen Chao nodded.

It should be easy to trace, given the phone call and the money transfer.

Sun Zhao added, "And the video online—contact the platform and have it taken down."

The case was still under investigation; having it cause such a public uproar wasn’t good.

He then instructed Chen Chao to continue the investigation according to the plan decided at yesterday’s case analysis meeting, while he would take charge of interrogating Bai Jifei further.

With that said, he quickly left the office.

The news Chen Chao brought was a relief to everyone present, but it also raised a lot of questions.

"Shen Xin, how did this person know that Bai Jifei killed Jiang Qi?" Ding Yuwei asked in a low voice.

Shen Xin shook his head.

’Logically, Bai Jifei is a meticulous person. He cleaned the primary crime scene so thoroughly. How could he have been so careless as to let someone know about the entire crime?’

"There’s something wrong with this case."

Shen Xin frowned.

He’d felt it was strange yesterday, like things were going too smoothly.

Now it seemed his gut feeling had been right.

And just like that, the case had become a lot more complicated.

’Looks like I might have to use my talent after all.’

Today, Shen Xin and Ding Yuwei’s task was to continue visiting hardware stores to trace the origin of the murder weapons.

After Chen Chao explained the new situation, everyone set off on their respective tasks.

Just as they were about to leave, they ran into Bai Jifei’s parents arriving at the station.

Bai Jifei’s father was slightly overweight and looked a lot like his son, with a similar scholarly, academic air about him.

Zhou Zhongyi had mentioned yesterday that he was some kind of senior engineer.

With them was a lawyer in a sharp suit, who was very polite upon meeting them.

Chen Chao didn’t pay him much mind.

This was a criminal case, still in the investigation phase. It wasn’t like in the movies, where the lawyer shows up and says, "My client will not be saying anything."

That kind of thing didn’t happen. It would be difficult for him to even see Bai Jifei.

And even if he did, it would be pointless.

As for later, after the case was transferred for prosecution, the lawyer would be even more useless.

’What’s he going to do, overturn the chain of evidence?’

Shen Xin took a quick look and then left.

Aside from the Boning Knife, which was part of a kitchen knife set from Bai Jifei’s home, the remaining hacksaw, hammer, and axe were all common brands. You could say every hardware store in Nanjiang sold them.

This undoubtedly made the search much more difficult.

Bai Jifei was supposed to be a meticulous person. Wouldn’t he have considered that the police would investigate the origin of the murder weapons after the crime?

He might have driven far away, or even to a nearby city, to buy the tools in order to evade investigation.

So, this investigation was truly like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But they had to search, because these were the crucial murder weapons.

They started again near Shuiyue Mountain, going through the hardware stores marked on the map one by one.

The killer part was, about five kilometers from his house, there was the Five Continents International Industrial Expo City.

Good lord, there were several hundred hardware stores in that place alone.

It was only because of the New Year holiday that many of the shops were closed.

Even so, going from store to store and asking questions left them parched.

At noon, the two of them found a nearby fast-food restaurant for lunch.

Shen Xin was scrolling through his phone.

The original video with the most views had already been taken down.

But the story was still spreading.

Shen Xin was seeing related comments in the comment sections of some trending videos.

Conspiracy theories had even started to pop up. People were taking Jiang Qi’s side, crying injustice for her, and falsely claiming Bai Jifei’s wealthy family was throwing money around to get the video taken down.

They were saying how tragic Jiang Qi’s situation was and asking everyone to share her story.

And then tons and tons of accounts were posting related videos.

The main thing was, there really was a video.

That clip of police cars parked in front of the villa with the area cordoned off was being reposted by countless accounts, each with slightly different captions.

They must have paid to boost the traffic, because some of the videos had very high numbers of likes and shares.

This level of attention was definitely not normal.

Shen Xin had a feeling a professional troll farm was orchestrating things from behind the scenes.

As he was looking, Ding Yuwei, sitting across from him, suddenly held out her phone. "Shen Xin, look! It’s on Weibo now, too."

Shen Xin glanced over.

On Weibo’s hot topics list, a post titled "Million-Yuan Financial Elite: A Beast in Human Form, Murders and Dismembers Wife" had already climbed to number 41.

Seeing how the hype was building, it was sure to climb higher.

Shen Xin took the phone and carefully scrolled through the content under the related hashtag.

There was video evidence.

And it wasn’t just the original video anymore.

There must have been onlookers at Shuiyue Mountain who also filmed it and posted the videos online to join in on the commotion.

Combined with some people who lived nearby chiming in with their accounts, the story looked highly credible based on this content alone.

So the tide of opinion in the comments section was to cry injustice for Jiang Qi and curse Bai Jifei as an animal, less than human.

Then, people kept dropping more "revelations."

They said Jiang Qi had ALS and was in a very pitiable state.

They even brought up the saying "spouses fly their own ways when disaster strikes," speculating that Bai Jifei had abused Jiang Qi.

Some people even started doxxing Bai Jifei.

Shen Xin even came across his ID photo, with a pile of comments below it saying things like "you can’t judge a book by its cover" and "cold-blooded killer."

Jiang Qi’s photos were dug up as well.

The two of them had a joint Weibo account where they used to share photos of their travels around the world.

Now, it was being flooded by onlookers, all expressing sorrow for Jiang Qi.

Shen Xin’s brow furrowed.

’This level of hype is way too abnormal. Someone is definitely fanning the flames.’

’But who is it, and what’s their motive?’

’Most importantly, how did they know Bai Jifei had killed and dismembered someone?’

"Shen Xin, what are your thoughts?" Ding Yuwei asked.

Shen Xin thought to himself, ’I’m more interested in what *you* think.’

"Could it be someone who liked Jiang Qi? Maybe they found they couldn’t contact her, or maybe she had revealed something to them before, like suspecting that Bai Jifei was going to kill her."

"And then, when he really couldn’t get in touch with her, he started leaking all this information like crazy to ruin Bai Jifei’s reputation?"

Shen Xin said, putting down his chopsticks.

Based on the current situation, that speculation seemed the most logical.