Mystery Hunter

Wang Chao was informed by the technician, “I just discovered that Jiang He used Li Weiyi’s SIM card to make and answer a call. The call was made to a previously dialed foreign number, and it was answered by Li Weiyi’s company. The range is near the Public Security Bureau.”

“What the hell is Jiang He up to?” Wang Chao pulled at his hair in frustration.

“Have you considered surveillance?” Wang Chao asked.

“Jiang He has exceptional skills in avoiding investigation,” said another member of the criminal police.

“The camera hasn’t caught him since Jinlun Road. He’s obviously been avoiding detection. We can only be certain that he went south for the time being, but there were numerous forks in the road after that, and we couldn’t track him down…”

“Jiang He, Jiang He, Jiang He,” muttered Wang Chao to himself.

“What kind of game is he playing?”

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It was midnight.

The two patrolling guards thought everything around them was fragile. Even though He Huijuan and Wu Guifeng had been dead for four days, their ghosts could return at any moment before seven days. The second guard was always scared every night when he patrolled. He had the impression that his surroundings were extremely cold and that someone was following him.

The old man had told the young guard that if something scary was behind him, he must not look back, especially if he heard someone calling his name; if he did so, the ghost would take away his soul.

The young guard chose to trust the old man’s advice.

He could now hear someone walking behind him.

The sound was getting louder and louder, and the young guard realised it was getting closer.

He did not dare look back. His heart was about to jump out of his throat as he walked faster and faster with the flashlight in his hand.

At that moment, he heard a voice behind him yell, “Guard number two!”

The young guard was startled; he realised there was a ghost behind him!

He started humming a song, hoping to boost his courage.

But then another voice called his name from behind, and he started running.

However, as he ran, the voice behind him grew louder and closer.

A hand was placed on his shoulder.

The young guard was paralysed with fear; his limbs went stiff, refusing to move.

Then he saw a face, and it was Jiang He’s.

Jiang He approached him and said, “What are you doing, second guard?”

“It’s you.” A heavy stone was lifted off the heart of the young guard.

“What do you want?”

“Return to your captain and inform him,” Jiang said. He advised, his voice calm and collected. “I shall spend the night at He Huijuan’s house.”

“Understood,” the young guard replied, before turning on his heel and walking away.

As he watched the guard depart, Jiang He couldn’t help but feel a sense of admiration for his bravery. Jiang He could almost envision the him bravely patrolling dangerous, dark places without a trace of fear.

Shaking off his thoughts, Jiang He turned and made his way back to He Huijuan’s house. Switching on her computer, he logged into her WeChat account, intent on discovering who had proposed the reunion two months prior. Scrolling through page after page of chat history, Jiang He eventually found the person he was looking for in the dead of night.

He discovered a group of high school classmates on He Huijuan’s QQ, totaling fifty-three participants. According to the chat history, the reunion had been casually proposed in the group chat without a specific organiser.

However, someone had taken it upon themselves to arrange a meeting time for Zhang Luo and offer to contact classmates. With the help of this classmate, a date for the party was set after a few days of planning.

Jiang He continued to scour the chat group until he stumbled upon Feng Bin’s message, elated to have been invited to the party. Even He Huijuan, who usually remained silent in the group, had decided to attend.

But Jiang He’s goal was to locate the organiser’s contact information before dawn—a task that was far from simple. Most people would not have been able to accomplish it, but Jiang He was not like most people.

He knew He Huijuan’s annotation for the organiser, Fu Qianwei, had a 90% chance of being their real name. Entering Fu Qianwei’s name in QQ space, Jiang He discovered that almost every aspect of the person’s life had been documented there, from trips to the park to meals eaten.

Undeterred, Jiang He dove further, determined to find the information he was seeking before the night was through.

Jiang He meticulously combed through the information, extracting only what was useful to him.

He began by separating a node, filtering out photos and videos posted within the last six months. Then, he focused on the location details, opening a map of Longcheng City on his mobile phone.

As he entered all the locations into the map, he discovered that the majority of Fu Qianwei’s activity traces were in Wanlin District, with a few scattered elsewhere. Using this information, Jiang He was able to pinpoint Fu Qianwei’s likely place of residence in the area.

With this information in hand, he scrutinised each of Fu Qianwei’s posts. One particular post caught his attention: “I was drinking coffee nearby today, and I’m not sure when my order will arrive.” The attached image showed a Starbucks.

This was a crucial piece of information. Jiang He immediately searched for Starbucks locations in Wanlin District and found only two—one on Yunhua Street and the other on Shengli Road. But then, he discovered a photograph taken by Fu Qianwei looking out her window, and in the background, he saw numerous high-rise buildings.

He quickly compared the buildings near the two Starbucks using Google Earth and determined that the location was on Yunhua Street. He then scoured the internet for information about nearby communities, comparing the angle of Fu Qianwei’s photo in his mind while looking at the information for these communities. Soon, he realised that if he wanted to take a photo from this angle, it had to be in the rainforest community, and the information appeared vividly in Jiang He’s mind through a high degree of comparison.

Finally, he arrived at the precise location: Building 3, Rainforest Community, 2301, 23rd floor. However, after searching on Baidu, Jiang He discovered that the household head had posted rental information a year and a half ago, implying that this was not Fu Qianwei’s house but rather a rented room. According to his theoretical analysis, she is currently living alone.

Jiang He marvelled at Fu Qianwei’s lack of caution, despite her apparent belief that she was careful not to reveal her address in her posts. He understood that often people’s information is betrayed because they unwittingly disclose too much about themselves. In Fu Qianwei’s case, the message was clear: a beautiful single woman had rented room 2301 in the Yunhua Street Rainforest Community, Wanlin District, for one and a half years.

Jiang He spent several hours investigating the whereabouts and preferences of Fu Qianwei, including her love for spicy food, squid, and matcha desserts. He also learned that she disliked sour foods and small animals, enjoyed writing alone, and enjoyed reading horror s. Furthermore, he knew the type of men she preferred, her late work hours, and her loneliness.

Jiang He had a motive for gathering this information; what if someone with ill intentions did the same thing next time?

Despite it being four in the morning, Jiang He was not feeling sleepy. He had dark circles and bloodshot eyes, but he was used to erratic sleeping patterns. He wondered if other geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci and Tesla had the same dark circles under their eyes. He identified most with Einstein, who could go without sleep for days while working but needed more than ten hours of sleep in his leisure time.

Unable to sleep, Jiang He looked out the window and started counting the stars^{*Note 1}, but the pollution was so severe that he could only count up to eight.

While Jiang He was feeling restless, Fu Qianwei was fast asleep. She had stayed up late scrolling through Weibo, as she did almost every night, and was groggy when she woke up to her third alarm. She warmed milk and prepared for her day, planning to catch the subway at half past six for work.

But then, the doorbell rang at six in the morning, which was unusual since nobody ever visited her. Fu Qianwei walked to the door with her milk and was surprised to see a thin, dishevelled man with a beard and a dark circle under his eye.

“I’m a cop.” He Huijuan, your high school classmate, was murdered four days ago,” Jiang He said.

“We suspect it has something to do with the reunion two and a half months ago. You were in charge of organising the reunion. I’m here to investigate.”

Fu Qianwei was shocked to hear about He Huijuan’s death and asked, “He Huijuan is dead!?”

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Note 1: Jiang He looked out the window and counted the stars: is a reference to the first book

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Translator’s Note: Book 1 readers are crying rn.

Unedited Chapter, will be updated as soon as Mr. Editor gets some free time.

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