Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After collecting the evidence from Wu Ruoxi’s bed, Captain Liang led the few of us in a search through her home, inside and out, for nearly half an hour.

I kept waiting for his conclusion, but he only shook his head and sighed without saying a word.

I was starting to get anxious.

“Captain Liang, do you have any leads?”

Captain Liang shot me a glare and was just about to speak when Wu Ruoxi’s father came home.

He ignored us and headed straight for Zhou Xia.

“What happened? Where’s the child?”

He was wearing a hard hat, and every crease on his face was beaded with sweat.

After he got a clear picture of the situation, he shoved Zhou Xia.

“The security bars were taken apart, the child was hurt by someone, and we don’t even know if she’s alive or dead. And you were sleeping like a pig?”

When he looked at Zhou Xia, his jaw was clenched tight, as if he were barely holding himself back.

I had the feeling that if the police hadn’t been standing right there, he would already have hit her.

Captain Liang noticed something was off too. He pulled me aside.

“How long have you been working as a security guard here?”

“A little over two months.”

“Are you close with this family?”

“I’m pretty close with the girl. She often comes to the guard room to play. I don’t know her parents.”

“I took a look just now. This complex doesn’t have surveillance, does it?”

“Only one camera in our guard room. It points at the main gate.”

“All right. We’ll have to trouble you today. In a bit, we need to talk to the couple, and to the neighbors on both sides of their unit. Then we’ll go check the footage at the gate.”

“Sure. As long as it helps find her, just tell me what you need me to do.”

“Didn’t you ask me just now if I had any leads? I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.

“Overall, the scene is very strange.

“This girl is only ten years old. Judging by the state of the scene, she clearly struggled.

“There were scattered bloodstains on the sheets and the wall, and the security bars had been pried open…

“First, we can rule one thing out: there is no way she staged this herself, and this wasn’t her running away from home.

“There must have been a conflict here. She must have suffered harm at someone else’s hands.

“So what’s left? On the one hand, this fits the characteristics of a violent crime scene.

“But on the other hand, it lacks certain things a violent crime scene should have.

“For example, the girl’s cries for help. Other major noises.

“If the girl was attacked at the very beginning and fell unconscious, or was even killed outright, then that could make sense.

“But if that were the case, the scene wouldn’t be this messy, and there would be a lot more blood.

“Besides, in the middle of the night, it’s impossible not to make any noise at all, and it’s even more impossible that the perpetrator cleaned up the scene afterward.

“What does that tell us? It tells us the perpetrator used some method to threaten the girl and keep her from making a sound.

“It’s even possible that the girl knew them.

“From that, I can think of two possibilities.

“The first is that the perpetrator was someone she knew.

“The second is that her parents have a problem.”