Chapter 1: Strange Phenomena in the Underworld

  It was still dark on the second day, Chen Zhenhua rushed to the police station. His colleagues had not yet started work and Huang Aiguo had not arrived either. He sat in the office carefully examining the photos taken by his colleagues at the crime scene. He looked very closely, hoping to find some subtle clues that they had missed at the time.

  His efforts were not in vain, as he finally discovered a promising lead. The dagger stuck into the woman's body was not made of stainless steel, but rather an iron sheet, with a wooden handle attached to the blade by drilling a hole through it. On one side of the blade, a faint " Luo" character appeared, indicating that the murder weapon was either homemade or newly manufactured by a blacksmith. Typically, blacksmiths would engrave patterns or marks on their products, which served as a guarantee for quality and allowed customers to hold them accountable in case of any issues. This marking also functioned as a trademark and advertisement for the blacksmith's work. Usually, blacksmiths would engrave their surname on the ironware they produced. Hence, the dagger had a "Luo" character engraved on it.

  "No wonder I always felt that something was off, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. It turns out it was this dagger all along! This crude, almost laughable thing that can barely be called a blade is actually the biggest clue, and I didn't even notice it at the time! I've read so many years of 'Sherlock Holmes' for nothing!" Chen Zhenhua sat in his seat, muttering to himself, thrilled with his discovery. He was only regretful that his colleagues hadn't arrived yet, or he would have been able to show off his extraordinary wisdom."

  After struggling through several hours, colleagues returned to the office one after another. Huang Aiguo also arrived. When Chen Zhenhua saw Huang Aiguo coming in, he hastily went up to greet him and grasped his hand, saying: "You've finally come, I've been waiting for you for a long time."

  "Wow——" Huang Aiguo looked at him with a bewildered expression, his face puzzled. He sized up Chen Zhenhua for a long time before speaking, "It's rare, our police station's laziest Officer Chen has actually come to work early, sitting in the office analyzing the case first thing in the morning, it's really puzzling."

  "It doesn't matter if it can be solved or not, the lazy one is Officer Chen," Chen Zhenhua said. "Now I've found a very valuable clue, which is because I used to live in the countryside. When my father asked the blacksmith to make a hoe, the blacksmith would always engrave words on the hoe. So I think as long as we find the person who made the dagger and follow the trail, we can find the murderer. Look at this rough and crude dagger, how could we not have noticed it back then?"

  "Have you been to the countryside? Don't you live in the city?" Huang Aiguo asked him.

  Chen Zhenhua found himself slipping up, so he hastily said: "My uncle's family lives in the countryside, but that's not important. What's important is that as long as we find the blacksmith who made this dagger and ask him who ordered it, then we can follow the trail and find the murderer."

  "This is a major discovery! It's even more valuable than Edison inventing the light bulb!" Huang Aiguo exclaimed, seemingly shocked. But before Chen Zhenhua could say thank you, he continued, "It's just a bunch of nonsense!"

  "Why are you saying this?" Now it was Chen Zhenhua's turn to be surprised, he couldn't believe that Huang Aiguo would actually belittle his major discovery and even insult the intelligence he thought was superior. He felt some disappointment - no, great disappointment! Why didn't his colleagues care about the progress of the case? Why were all the police in this station just going through the motions, only caring about their salary?

  "Actually, we discovered all these things you mentioned a long time ago," Huang Aiguo walked to his own desk, picked up his teacup and took a sip of tea before saying, "Even the blacksmith was found, the team leader discovered the problem with the dagger that day and sent someone to find the blacksmith yesterday."

  "How did our police captain know about the dagger?" Chen Zhenhua sighed, finding that someone was even smarter than himself, feeling a little sad in his heart, but he had some doubts, so he wanted to know how the captain knew.

  "Because the captain's father used to be an ironworker, and industrial knives and ordinary blacksmith-made knives can be distinguished at a glance. The ones made by blacksmiths are not only rough, but also have handles that are hastily made, like a shovel, which doesn't look like a knife at all!" Huang Aiguo said.

  "It turned out to be like this!" Chen Zhenhua sighed, he stopped talking, he felt that what he knew now was not more than others, in the future if he encountered another case, in order to hold his head high, he had to find Hei Bai Wu Xian for help.

  "Let's just forget about him," Huang Aiguo said, "Now you and I are going out on a trip. We want to know where the Zhangyuan that Xiong Lengbing mentioned yesterday is."

  "Alright, no time to waste," Chen Zhenhua stood up, "Actually, it would have been better if we went yesterday."

  "Why was yesterday better?" Huang Aiguo asked with his arm under his armpit, "Tell me your reason."

  "It's easy!" Chen Zhenhua said, "What if he heard the wind and ran away?"

  "He won't run!" Huang Aiguo paused for a moment and said, "If he's the murderer, wouldn't running away be equivalent to fleeing in guilt? A clever person wouldn't be foolish enough not to know 'the thief is gone with three hundred taels of silver'. If he's not the murderer, then why would he need to run?"

  "'You're right,' said Chen Zhenhua, 'let's go now.'"

  Huang Aiguo nodded, then picked up the briefcase he had put on the table again and tucked it under his arm, saying to Chen Zhenhua: "I can't see that you're now working so actively, just like a different person."

  "This thing has to be done by us anyway." Chen Zhenhua smiled, but in fact he was so enthusiastic because he wanted to prevent Ran Jiaoluo's soul from being destroyed. After all, she had died so miserably.

  The two walked out of the police station together, Huang Aiguo took out the key and started the police car, then headed towards the South City Gate.

  The southern gate of Haijing City is the most bustling, although the population is relatively small compared to the east, west and north gates, and the traffic is not very large. However, since almost all the residents here are wealthy people, this southern gate is also crowded with cars and horses coming and going constantly. There are high-end villa districts distributed here, and various skyscrapers stand tall, five-star hotels can be seen everywhere, luxury clothing and high-end living goods fill the streets, even noisy and chaotic dance halls have dozens of them. So, in a place like this where money is spent lavishly, it's impossible not to have a jewelry store.

  The two of them were going to a jewelry store called "Zhu Guang Bao Qi", where Ruan Jiaolü was the general manager.

  Chen Zhenhua and Huang Aiguo parked their car in front of the jewelry store, and the two got out of the car and walked into the jewelry store. As soon as they entered the jewelry store, Chen Zhenhua's eyes widened in amazement, he had never thought that he would enter such a magnificent jewelry store, where everywhere he looked was gold carved into various styles, emitting a tempting glow from the display cases, giving him a sense of being wrapped in gold.

  Huang Aiguo seemed to have the same feeling, being a police officer may look impressive in front of people, but that salary is not enough to buy even one gold accessory in this jewelry store. However, he was different from Chen Zhenhua, who was just an ordinary poor citizen, struggling to make ends meet by sweeping streets for a meager wage that barely kept him alive. If it weren't for his rebirth and taking someone else's place as a police officer, perhaps his life would not have led him to this luxurious jewelry store filled with glittering jewels.

  "We are from the Municipal Police Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division," Huang Aiguo was the first to come back to his senses, he showed his police officer ID to a slender and beautiful salesgirl and asked, "Is Zhang Yuan here?"

  "Hello, are you looking for our store manager?" The female salesperson smiled sweetly and said, "He hasn't come to work for several days. I heard his mother is ill so he went back home to take care of her."

  "Has he returned to his hometown?" Chen Zhenhua came back to his senses from the confusion of Huang Jin, and heard that Zhang Yuan had already gone home. He hastily asked, "Excuse me, where is his hometown?"

  The female salesperson thought for a moment and said, "I'm not very clear either. Um, I heard it's in a village on the outskirts of Wubang City. The village is called Heiye Pu, that's all I know. Sorry."

  "You've already helped us," Huang Aiguo said with a smile, "I'd like to ask one more thing, what's the relationship between Zhang Yuan and your company?"

  "Manager Zhang," the salesgirl thought for a moment and said, "he doesn't like to talk to his colleagues, is a bit introverted. People like him who are so dull are naturally lacking in social skills, but our boss still appointed him as the lobby manager. It's said that he's related to the boss."

  "Was there a woman named Ruan Jiaolu in your store before?" Chen Zhenhua asked.

  "You're talking about General Ruan," the salesgirl said, "She's our store manager, she's very easy-going and gets along with everyone, unfortunately, she was murdered, we're all very sad."

  "Do you know if she has offended anyone?" Huang Aiguo asked.

  "There shouldn't be any, she has a good relationship with people, even our city's mayor is friends with her," the saleswoman said.

  "No wonder our director is so concerned about her case, it turns out she's a friend of the mayor." Huang Aiguo seemed to have nothing more to ask this beautiful and charming saleswoman, so he nodded his head in thanks again, called Chen Zhenhua and turned around to walk out of the Golden Store.

  The two of them got on the police car and headed in the direction out of town.

  "Where are we going?" Chen Zhenhua asked curiously as he sat in the passenger seat, after the police car left the city.

  "Go to Wubang City and find Zhang Yuan!" Huang Aiguo said, "The director seems to be very concerned about the case of Ran Jiaolü's murder. He asks about the progress of the case every day, almost running back and forth a dozen times a day. It can be said that our criminal police team is also working in the police station, but in the past three years, the director has not entered our office as many times as he has in the past two days. So, if we can crack the case as soon as possible, the director will be so happy that maybe we'll have a chance to get promoted and raise our salary."

  Chen Zhenhua nodded, smiled slightly, and then closed his eyes to rest and recharge. The two of them suddenly had nothing to say to each other.

  By dusk, they finally arrived at the outskirts of Ubon City's Heiye Pu. After inquiring, the two confirmed that they had not mistaken the place, as people said there was indeed a young man named Zhang Yuan in their village who had been seen just two days ago. Then Huang Aiguo asked again how to get to Zhang Yuan's home, and an old man insisted on taking them there. On the way, the old man also mentioned a situation about Zhang Yuan that made Huang Aiguo and Chen Zhenhua think twice: Zhang Yuan had only returned two days ago, and this time he came back with a flustered expression, sometimes even staring blankly into space.

  But little did they know, as soon as they pushed open the gate of Zhang Yuan's house, they heard a burst of crying sounds coming from inside, and it turned out that Zhang Yuan was already dead!