Chapter 9: Audacious Beyond Reason

Judging from the scene, the only personal belonging the deceased carried with her was a crossbody bag. Inside it, everything was completely intact—her keys, cell phone, and various miscellaneous cosmetics were all accounted for.

This reduced the possibility of robbery to the absolute minimum.

Looking at it from another angle, under the current lifestyle conditions, "killing for money" might just be the crime with the lowest "cost-performance ratio." It offered high risk and low return, far less efficient than those hiding behind the signals of mobile phones, speaking heavily accented Mandarin to threaten people into cooperating with investigations under the threat of freezing their accounts.

Therefore, the most likely motive was a personal vendetta.

Yet, what kind of social connections could this twenty-two-year-old young woman possibly have that would lead someone to meticulously set a trap just to murder her?

Ning Shuyi stared at the photograph of Wu Meifang on her computer screen, falling into deep contemplation.

By the early hours of the morning, the autopsy results for Wu Meifang were finalized. There were a total of seven stab wounds on her body. A slight bruise could be discerned on her cheek, which was a perimortem injury. Judging by its location and distribution pattern, it appeared to have been left by someone forcefully clamping a hand over her mouth.

Among the seven stab wounds, one could be described as fatal. Following that single blow, had emergency resuscitation not been administered on the spot immediately, no one probably would have been able to keep this young woman alive. The remaining six wounds felt more like a measure "just to be sure."

Corresponding to the bruised marks on her cheek around Wu Meifang's mouth and a small amount of bruising on her shoulder, the forensic opinion was that someone had used a posture akin to a bear hug from behind amidst the chaotic crowd, muffling her mouth while swiftly delivering that fatal stab.

Wu Meifang had barely enough time to emit a scream before rapidly losing her capacity to resist, after which she was struck six more times.

During this process, the assailant likely kept her constrained, preventing her from collapsing to the ground early on, and only released Wu Meifang right before the crowd dispersed, blending into the throng to flee the scene.

Because there were many people and the situation was extremely chaotic at the time, the scattered colored powder was dyed cornstarch. While that substance helped liven up the atmosphere while being tossed about in the air, the aftermath was truly a mess.

Quite a few people, caught up in the excitement and buffeted by the wind, ended up with colorful powder covering their bodies, hair, and faces. Once the music stopped and the crowd broke up, they dispersed in various directions to clean up the messy state they were in.

Consequently, even if someone had collapsed to the ground, without hearing any cries for assistance, many people probably defaulted to assuming someone had accidentally tripped and fallen, figuring it was nothing serious, and thus did not stop to inquire or attempt to offer help.

To make matters worse, Wu Meifang was wearing black clothes that day. Even if blood had soaked through her garments, it was invisible from the exterior, failing to arouse visual vigilance from passersby.

This murder case featured a modus operandi that was crude, brutal, straightforward, and decisive. Summed up, it consisted of only three words: "Make her die."

Unfortunately, colleagues from the team had already visited the park management office. In that park, surveillance cameras were basically present only near a few entrances. However, aside from those gates, the perimeter fence had multiple broken gaps, which local residents routinely used as "shortcuts" to crawl back and forth when entering and exiting the park.

Coupled with the fact that it was during a peak period when the park was most lively, with a massive influx of people coming and going, it became even harder to determine whether any suspicious individuals had left the park during that time window.

They even reviewed the surveillance footage from all the entrances, and not only were there no suspicious individuals to be found, but they couldn't even spot the figure of the deceased, Wu Meifang—evidently, she, too, had entered via an unconventional path!

Darkness fell quickly after the crime. Within that park, the streetlamps were extremely dim, offering plenty of atmosphere but falling short on illumination.

That was especially true for the wooded areas, which occupied the vast majority of the park's acreage! Shrouded in deep shadows, even a complete human silhouette could not be clearly discerned.

Although it remained unknown who had deliberately set up such a trap in this park to harm someone, the sheer calculation and intent behind it forced one to exclaim just how much effort had been invested!

Especially since the vast majority of cases handled in the past were executed secretly in hidden environments, at most prompting remarks regarding the cunning methods of the perpetrator.

Yet this time was different. The adversary had committed murder amidst the chaos in the park, right in the most clamorous location.

This was no longer a question of whether they were cunning; it could truly be described as utterly unbridled and audacious to the extreme!

This stirred up a heavy sense of anger in the hearts of every criminal police officer involved in handling the case.

By the next morning, before even eight o'clock, Wu Meifang's family members had arrived. The visitors were Wu Meifang's parents, along with her older brother and sister-in-law.

Wu Meifang's parents had likely wept the entire way. By the time they reached the Public Security Bureau, they were in a state where their bodies had arrived, but their souls had long since drifted away, both of their eyes severely red and swollen.

Her brother's eyes were likewise filled with bloodshot veins. According to his account, after learning the previous day that Wu Meifang had met with disaster, they had driven overnight from their home. The brother and sister-in-law had taken turns driving the whole night through, enabling them to arrive so swiftly.

Identifying the body fell to Wu Meifang's brother. Originally, Wu Meifang's father was supposed to go, but before he even stepped out of the office, overwhelmed by excessive tension and grief, he clutched his chest and nearly collapsed.

Frightened, Ning Shuyi and her colleagues hurriedly gave him heart-soothing pills and supported him to the reception room to rest.

Thus, the task of body identification fell upon Wu Meifang's brother.

Wu Meifang's brother went quickly and returned quickly; after all, the deceased's facial features had not been disfigured, and she could be recognized at a glance.

Upon returning from the identification, Wu Meifang's brother looked completely beaten down and drained, as though he had been dealt a heavy blow to the head with a club, swaying slightly as he walked.

His wife stepped forward anxiously out of heartache, supporting her husband back to sit on the sofa.

Wu Meifang's parents had still been harboring a tiny fragment of illusion, refusing to accept reality, hoping that this entire ordeal was merely some mistaken mix-up. Now, seeing their son return in this state, they understood everything in their hearts.

Wu Meifang's father closed his eyes, let out a long sigh, and leaned against the back of the sofa without uttering a word.

Her mother buried her face in the tissues handed to her by her daughter-in-law and burst into loud, wailing tears.

Judging by this state, communicating with the elderly couple at this precise moment was likely inappropriate.

Consequently, Ning Shuyi shifted her focus first to Wu Meifang's brother and sister-in-law, who appeared relatively calm by comparison.

"What is your usual relationship with Wu Meifang like? When was the last time you were in contact with her?" she asked.

"Our relationship with Meifang is quite good. She was close to her parents and close to her brother," Wu Meifang's sister-in-law answered on behalf of her husband, seeing that he had not yet recovered from the shock. "Just yesterday afternoon, she even video-called home and chatted with her parents and the others for a while. She even mentioned taking a vacation to come home in a bit—who would have thought that by evening she would..."