Chapter 35: Catching the Poachers
In just a single day, the dismemberment case saw a major breakthrough.
The day after Consultant Lin left, Qingze District police went to the neighboring city and slapped handcuffs onto Zhao Dawen—who was living it up in a five-star hotel.
At that point, every other bureau understood: Qingze’s Criminal Investigation Squad had already secured key evidence.
And that was exactly the case. From the traces left on the hammer, the police tested and confirmed blood from both the victim and Zhao Dawen.
Back then Zhao Dawen hadn’t paid attention. He figured once he threw it into the river, the water would wash everything away. And even if it didn’t, the traces would be destroyed completely.
But he hadn’t noticed there was flour and grime stuck on the hammer—those hardened clumps of flour happened to hold onto both men’s blood. And because the hammer was sealed inside a bag, that mixture wasn’t washed off immediately. By sheer dumb luck, it was preserved.
On top of that, police successfully found the clothes he’d worn on the route from downstream of the Tongji River back to the hotel. The tear at the pant cuff matched exactly where the tortoiseshell cat said it would be, and it also matched the clothing fibers found outside the nightclub.
Zhao Dawen tried to argue, but Li Wei found the lottery ticket Zhao Dawen had cashed in at the lottery center. On the back, written in ballpoint pen, was the character “Qiang”—and the victim’s name was Wang Qiang.
“Don’t tell me you write other people’s names on your own lottery ticket as a ‘mark.’”
Once Zhao Dawen was confirmed as the suspect, Li Wei’s team began piecing together the motive.
Not just murder—dismemberment to that extent meant their conflict ran deep, deep enough that he wanted the other man ground into dust.
“After that, we investigated your past. You like gambling. Wang Qiang likes whoring. But you owed five hundred thousand in gambling debts. You had no one left back in your hometown. Your parents ran off to another province early to avoid you, and never contacted you again. Without a huge sum of money to save you, you would’ve been killed by the underground casino people.”
That was why Zhao Dawen had to take Wang Qiang’s lottery ticket. After tax, the first prize still meant nearly four million in hand—enough to clear all his debts and lie flat comfortably for years.
“And that nightclub—wasn’t it a place you used to go often?” Li Wei continued. “That hidden mezzanine was where the club owner ran the gambling den. But after he ran off with the money, you stopped going.”
When Zhao Dawen decided to make a move, he remembered that nightclub. Because he’d gambled in that mezzanine before, he knew there was a direct route from the club to the hotel.
Afterward they pulled the hotel footage again and discovered that a week before the murder, Zhao Dawen had already checked into that hotel.
“Back then, you specifically came here to see whether that hidden door was still there—right?”
The more Li Wei spoke, the more agitated Zhao Dawen became, until he was slamming the table with both hands, roaring in fury.
“Stop talking! Stop talking! I told you to stop, you hear me?!”
His face and neck were red, his eyes burning with vicious light.
But Li Wei’s next sentence made him freeze completely.
“Do you know Wang Qiang actually wanted to give you five hundred thousand to pay off your debts?”
When the squad uncovered that, they found it unbelievable. Zhao Dawen said they were only fair-weather buddies, and given both men’s bad character, the police had assumed it was a fake friendship.
But who would’ve thought—Wang Qiang really treated him like a brother.
“If you hadn’t fought with him, you might’ve paid off your debts already. And you wouldn’t have needed to kill anyone.” Li Wei snorted, voice dripping with ridicule.
Zhao Dawen stared like a statue for a long time, then muttered hoarsely, “Impossible… that’s impossible…”
Li Wei rolled his eyes. Zhao Dawen wasn’t the only one who couldn’t believe it—when Lin Jiangye heard, he also instinctively suspected the investigation might be wrong.
But it wasn’t.
“Yeah. Wang Qiang really did have some brotherly loyalty toward him. We found out because the owner of a bun shop Wang Qiang often visited remembered something after we mentioned the lottery ticket.” What a joke—he treated the killer like a brother, and the “brother” turned him into minced meat.
Sitting in the car, Lin Jiangye fell silent for a moment, then could only sigh helplessly.
When they arrested Zhao Dawen, Li Wei had invited Lin Jiangye to come along, but Lin Jiangye refused.
If he went, he wouldn’t make it in time to feed the little “____.” Then he’d become the untrustworthy bad human.
Maybe because Li Wei had notified the Forestry Bureau about gull hunting yesterday, when Lin Jiangye reached the riverbank he found a fresh group of patrol inspectors there.
When they saw him, they all stared at him warily—especially with that huge backpack on his back.
Lin Jiangye pulled out his special consultant ID, plus a handwritten certificate from Li Wei.
“I’m not one of the people hunting gulls. I’m here to feed the gulls at their nest.”
The Forestry Bureau people still didn’t quite believe him—until the next second, a flock of gulls flew over and circled around him.
[Human! You’re finally here! Gull is starving to death!]
Lin Jiangye stared at the gull’s bulging belly and didn’t know what to say.
You’re not starving—you’re about to explode, you silly thing… How did you get so round? Can you still fly?
Seeing so many gulls appear also startled the Forestry Bureau staff.
They reached out to shoo the gulls away—and nearly got pecked.
“Hey, hey, hey! No hurting people! They’re here to help you catch those bad humans!” Lin Jiangye reacted fast, pinching the beak of the gull that was about to bite. No matter how hard it flapped, he didn’t let go.
Maybe it was just imagination, but after Lin Jiangye said that, the Forestry Bureau staff suddenly felt the gulls weren’t quite as hostile toward them.
“Sorry, sorry. They’re reacting a bit strongly to humans lately.” Lin Jiangye soothed them, patting their heads, then waved off the few greedy little pigs perched on his backpack.
Watching the intimate way he interacted with the gulls, the Forestry Bureau staff suddenly felt both sour and envious.
When they came yesterday, the gulls had mobbed them in a swarm—rushing in to beat them up, then rushing away again.
But this young man? Not only did the gulls not attack him, they would even attack others for him!
So who exactly was the Forestry Bureau staff here?!
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Lin Jiangye didn’t bother with their feelings. He hurriedly followed the gulls away.
Seeing that, one of them chased after him, asking anxiously, “I… can I go with you?”
Lin Jiangye had wanted to refuse, but then he remembered their Forestry Bureau identities—and thought about how he might truly buy land and build a safari park in the future. The refusal got stuck in his throat.
Fine. Whether he really built the park or not, it didn’t hurt to build a relationship. If they ran into injured wildlife later, maybe they’d ask him to come take a look.
“Alright. But you follow my instructions—no acting on your own.”
After getting permission, the group happily followed him to where the boat was docked.
The boat was borrowed from Qingze District police—a rubber dinghy that could seat at most five people.
Once they boarded, they took initiative to row. Following the gulls’ directions, they made their way to the gulls’ nesting cliff.
Just like when Li Wei’s team arrived yesterday, the moment these people got close, their scalps tingled. They looked up and saw almost every gull scrutinizing them.
“They’re on our side. Don’t attack them.” Lin Jiangye set down his backpack and clapped his hands, clearing things up for the Forestry Bureau staff.
In the next second, the oppressive scrutiny vanished. The group exhaled hard, staring at Lin Jiangye in disbelief.
What on earth was this guy’s identity? Why did the gulls listen to him so much?
They couldn’t figure it out, but they obediently followed Lin Jiangye’s instructions, pulling out bird feed from the backpack and scattering it on the ground.
The moment the feed appeared, the gulls went wild, swooping down in a rush. The Forestry Bureau staff panicked and crouched, covering their heads, terrified their scalps would be pecked bald.
Their reflex made Lin Jiangye’s mouth twitch, and he felt a little sympathy for them.
He pointed at the staff and said to the gulls, “From now on, if you see them, you’re not allowed to attack, got it? They’re good humans here to protect you.”
The gulls didn’t want to listen. They turned around and stuck their butts toward Lin Jiangye.
But Lin Jiangye subdued them with one sentence: “If you don’t behave, I won’t come next time. I’ll just change meeting spots with the little ‘____.’”
The gulls instantly started shrieking in rage—only for Lin Jiangye to pinch a beak shut.
“Little mouth, close.”
They were furious and aggrieved, but staring at the fragrant bird feed, they still gave in in the end. Unwillingly, they screeched a couple times at the staff.
The staff looked at Lin Jiangye blankly. Lin Jiangye grabbed one gull, placed it on their hands, and said, “I told them: from now on, when they see you, they won’t attack.”
The gull perched on their hands was unbelievably obedient, nothing like the vicious creature from before.
Damn it. Clearly we won’t get attacked anymore—so why does it feel even more heartbreaking, QAQ?
Still, they could tell now: this special consultant from Wen’an District had the uncanny ability to communicate with animals.
That must be why the gulls not only didn’t reject him, but welcomed him so warmly.
Definitely not because they couldn’t produce bird feed that smelled this good, QAQ…
Lin Jiangye left them to feed the gulls while he carried a huge bag of fish biscuits to the other side of the water.
The Forestry Bureau people were still wondering what he was doing—until they saw a big gray “fat pig” (strike that) a big finless porpoise appear in front of them.
“!!!”
“He… he he he he…” Someone trembled, raising a hand to point at the porpoise, stammering until they couldn’t speak.
They knew finless porpoises sometimes appeared here, but porpoises were shy and rarely seen up close.
And now, they’d only come out to help feed birds—and they ended up seeing an East Asian finless porpoise!
[Human! It’s you!]
“Yes, it’s me!” Lin Jiangye happily patted the little “____”’s chubby body. This little guy had been taking good care of itself.
The porpoise lay on the damp ground, happily being hand-fed fish biscuits one bite at a time.
After it ate its fill, it slipped back into the river with the current, delightedly flipped a somersault for Lin Jiangye, then vanished underwater.
From start to finish, it didn’t even glance at the other humans—despite their burning, desperate stares that practically wanted to bore holes through it.
When the porpoise disappeared and Lin Jiangye began packing up, the group finally snapped out of it and grabbed his arm, refusing to let him leave.
“Brother! Friend! Consultant Lin! How—how did you hook up with a finless porpoise?”
Lin Jiangye shot him a displeased look. “Hook up” sounded awful—this was mutual consent!
The man clearly understood the meaning in Lin Jiangye’s eyes and immediately corrected himself.
“I said that wrong. I mean—how did you… how did you know you could feed a finless porpoise here?”
“Because I made an appointment with it yesterday.”
The man’s mouth fell open, face full of shock. Instinctively he felt it was impossible—but then he remembered what this man could do, and suddenly it didn’t seem like that big a deal…
Even the gulls who hated humans were willing to let him approach their nest. Why wouldn’t a finless porpoise?
In just one day, the dismemberment case had a new breakthrough.
On the second day after Consultant Lin left, Qingze District police went to the neighboring city and snapped handcuffs onto Zhao Dawen—who was enjoying himself at a five-star hotel.
By that point, the other precincts all understood: Qingze’s Criminal Investigation Squad had already secured key evidence.
And the facts proved it. From the residue on the iron hammer, the police tested and found blood from both the victim and Zhao Dawen.
Zhao Dawen hadn’t paid attention at the time. He assumed once it was thrown into the river, the water would wash everything away. And even if it didn’t, the traces would be completely ruined.
But he didn’t notice that the hammer still had bits of flour and grime stuck to it. It was precisely those hardened clumps of flour that picked up both men’s blood—and because the hammer was shoved into a bag, that sticky mixture wasn’t washed off immediately. By a strange twist of luck, it ended up being preserved.
On top of that, police managed to find the clothes he’d worn on the route from downstream of the Tongji River back to the hotel. The tear at the pant cuff did match the location the tortoiseshell cat described, and it also matched the clothing fibers found outside the nightclub.
Zhao Dawen still tried to argue, but Li Wei found the lottery ticket he’d cashed in at the lottery center. On the back, written in ballpoint pen, was the character “Qiang”—and the victim’s name was Wang Qiang.
“Don’t tell me you’d write someone else’s name on your own lottery ticket as a marker.”
After confirming Zhao Dawen as the suspect, Li Wei’s team began working out his motive.
Not just murder—dismemberment to that extent meant the conflict ran deep, deep enough that he wanted the other man ground to dust.
“After that, we checked your past. You like gambling. Wang Qiang likes whoring. But because of gambling, you owed five hundred thousand. There’s no one left in your hometown—your parents ran to another province early just to avoid you, and they never contact you. Without a huge sum of money to save you, you’d have been killed by the underground casino people.”
That was why Zhao Dawen had to take Wang Qiang’s lottery ticket. After tax, the jackpot still meant nearly four million in hand—enough to pay off every debt and lie flat comfortably for years.
“And that nightclub was somewhere you used to frequent, right? That hidden mezzanine was where the club owner set up the gambling den. But after he took the money and ran, you stopped going.”
When he decided to strike, Zhao Dawen remembered that nightclub. Because he’d gambled up there before, he knew there was a direct route from the club to the hotel.
Afterward, they pulled the hotel surveillance again and found that one week before the murder, Zhao Dawen had already checked into the hotel once.
“That time, you came here on purpose—just to see whether that hidden door still existed, didn’t you?”
The more Li Wei spoke, the more Zhao Dawen’s emotions spiraled, until he slammed the table with both hands, roaring in fury.
“Stop talking! Stop talking! I told you to stop, do you hear me?!”
His face and neck were flushed red, and his eyes gleamed viciously.
But Li Wei’s next sentence made him freeze completely.
“Do you know Wang Qiang actually wanted to give you five hundred thousand to pay off your debt?”
When the squad uncovered that, they found it unbelievable. Zhao Dawen claimed they were only drinking buddies, and with both men’s poor character, the police had assumed the “friendship” was fake.
Yet unbelievably, Wang Qiang truly treated him like a brother.
“If you hadn’t fought with him back then, you might’ve paid off your debts already. And you wouldn’t have had to kill anyone.” Li Wei sneered, voice thick with sarcasm.
Zhao Dawen sat frozen like a statue for a long time, then muttered under his breath, “Impossible… that’s impossible…”
Li Wei rolled his eyes. Not only Zhao Dawen—when Lin Jiangye heard it, he also instinctively suspected the investigation had gone wrong.
But it hadn’t.
“That’s right. Wang Qiang really did have a bit of brotherly loyalty toward him. The owner of the bun shop Wang Qiang frequented only remembered this after we brought up the lottery ticket.” Imagine that—the victim treated the killer like a brother, and the “brother” chopped him into mince.
Sitting in the car, Lin Jiangye fell silent for a moment, then could only sigh helplessly.
When Zhao Dawen was arrested, Li Wei had invited Lin Jiangye to come along, but Lin Jiangye refused.
If he went, he wouldn’t make it in time to feed the little cutie, and then he’d become the untrustworthy bad human.
Perhaps because Li Wei had reported the gull-hunting issue to the Forestry Bureau yesterday, when Lin Jiangye arrived at the riverbank, he found a new batch of patrol inspectors there.
When they saw him, they stared warily—especially since he had a huge backpack.
Lin Jiangye pulled out his special consultant ID, plus a handwritten certificate from Li Wei.
“I’m not one of the people hunting gulls. I’m here to feed the gulls at their nest.”
The Forestry Bureau staff still didn’t fully believe him—but the next second, a flock of gulls swooped over, circling him.
[Human! You’re finally here! Gull is starving to death!]
Lin Jiangye stared at the gull’s bulging belly and didn’t know what to say.
You’re not about to starve. You’re about to burst, you silly thing… How did you get that round? Can you even fly?
That many gulls showing up also startled the Forestry Bureau staff.
They reached out to shoo them away and nearly got pecked.
“Hey, hey! No hurting people! They’re here to help you find those bad humans!” Lin Jiangye reacted fast, pinching the gull’s beak shut. No matter how hard it flapped, he didn’t let go.
Maybe it was just imagination, but after Lin Jiangye said that, the Forestry Bureau staff suddenly felt the gulls were less hostile.
“Sorry, sorry. They’re reacting a bit strongly to humans lately.” Lin Jiangye soothed them, rubbing their heads, then waved off the greedy little pigs perched on his backpack.
Watching him interact so closely with gulls, the Forestry Bureau people felt a surge of sour envy.
Yesterday, when they came, the gulls had swarmed them in a mob—rushing in to beat them up, then rushing away.
But this young man? The gulls not only didn’t attack him, they would attack them for him!
So who was the Forestry Bureau staff here, exactly?!
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Lin Jiangye didn’t bother with them. He hurried off with the gulls.
Someone chased after him, asking anxiously, “C-can I go with you?”
Lin Jiangye had wanted to refuse, but remembering their Forestry Bureau identities—and thinking about how he might really buy land for a safari park someday—he couldn’t bring himself to reject them.
Fine. Whether he built a safari park or not, strengthening ties now wasn’t bad. If they found injured wildlife later, maybe they’d ask him to come check.
“Alright. But you follow my instructions. No acting on your own.”
With permission granted, the group happily followed him to the dock.
The boat was borrowed from Qingze police—a rubber dinghy that could carry at most five people.
After sitting down, they took the initiative to row. Following the gulls’ directions, they headed to the nesting cliffs.
Just like when Li Wei’s team came yesterday, the moment they got close, their scalps tingled. Looking up, they saw nearly every gull scrutinizing them.
“They’re on our side. Don’t attack them.” Lin Jiangye set down his backpack and clapped his hands, clearing things up for the Forestry Bureau staff.
In the next second, that oppressive gaze vanished. The group exhaled hard, staring at Lin Jiangye in disbelief.
Who was this guy, exactly? Why did the gulls listen to him so much?
They couldn’t figure it out, but they obediently followed Lin Jiangye’s commands and scattered the bird feed from the backpack.
The instant the feed appeared, the gulls got excited and swooped down in a rush, scaring the Forestry Bureau staff into crouching with hands over their heads, terrified their scalps would be pecked bald.
Their reflex made Lin Jiangye’s mouth twitch, and he felt a little sympathy.
He pointed at the staff and told the gulls, “From now on, when you see them, you’re not allowed to attack, got it? They’re good humans here to protect you.”
The gulls refused to listen and turned their backs, sticking their butts toward Lin Jiangye.
But Lin Jiangye subdued them with one sentence: “If you don’t behave, I won’t come next time. I’ll just change meeting spots with the little cutie.”
The gulls immediately shrieked in rage—only for Lin Jiangye to pinch a beak shut.
“Little mouth, close.”
They were angry and wronged, but seeing the fragrant feed, they still yielded in the end. Unwillingly, they screeched a couple times at the staff.
The staff looked blankly at Lin Jiangye. Lin Jiangye grabbed a gull and placed it into their hands.
“I told them: from now on, when they see you, they won’t attack.”
The gull perched on their hands was absurdly obedient—completely different from its earlier viciousness.
Damn it. Even though we won’t be attacked anymore, why does it feel even more heartbreaking, QAQ?
Still, they could tell: Wen’an’s special consultant truly had the uncanny ability to communicate with animals.
That must be why the gulls not only didn’t reject him, but welcomed him warmly.
Definitely not because they couldn’t make bird feed that smelled this good, QAQ.
Lin Jiangye left the gull feeding to them, and carried a big bag of fish biscuits to the other side of the water.
The Forestry Bureau people were still wondering what he was doing when they saw a big gray “fat pig” (strike that)—a big finless porpoise—pop up.
“!!!”
“He… he he he…” Someone trembled, pointing at the porpoise, stammering until they couldn’t speak.
They knew finless porpoises sometimes appeared here, but porpoises were shy—seeing one up close was rare.
And now, they’d only come out to help feed birds, yet they were witnessing an East Asian finless porpoise with their own eyes!
[Human! It’s you!]
“Yes, it’s me!” Lin Jiangye happily patted the little cutie’s chubby body. This little fellow had been taking good care of itself.
The porpoise lay on the damp ground, munching fish biscuits fed to it bite by bite.
After eating its fill, it slipped back into the river with the current, flipped a happy somersault for Lin Jiangye, and disappeared underwater.
From start to finish, it didn’t spare the other humans even a glance, no matter how desperately they stared—like their gaze could burn holes through it.
Once the porpoise vanished and Lin Jiangye began packing up, the group snapped out of it and grabbed his arms, refusing to let him leave.
“Brother! Friend! Consultant Lin! How—how did you get acquainted with a finless porpoise?”
Lin Jiangye shot him an annoyed look. “Get acquainted” sounded fine—“hook up” was awful. This was mutual willingness!
The man understood instantly and corrected himself. “I said that wrong. I mean—how did you… how did you know you could feed the porpoise here?”
“Because I made an appointment with it yesterday.”
The man’s mouth fell open in shock. He wanted to say it was impossible, but thinking of Lin Jiangye’s abilities… maybe it wasn’t a big deal at all.
Even the gulls who hated humans were willing to let him approach their nesting grounds. Why wouldn’t a porpoise?
