Chapter 95: Twin Boys and Girls Smothered Alive
To anglers, hooking a suitcase is like opening a blind box.
If you’re lucky, it’s stuffed with crisp red banknotes.
If you’re unlucky, it’s a whole “person.”
And if you’re even unluckier… it’s a pile of “person pieces.”
Staring at the soggy suitcase lying on the ground, everyone instinctively backed away several steps, terrified it might reveal the ultimate “grand prize” once opened.
The guy who’d used Lin Jiangye’s rod to reel up the suitcase had gone green in the face. He’d rather blank all night than catch this!
No—when he got home, he had to make his wife get some pomelo leaves to cleanse the bad luck, wuwuwu!
Lin Jiangye and Shang Fuyan stood on either side of the suitcase, both wearing grim expressions.
They never imagined their first fishing trip together would end up with something like this.
Right then, Shang Fuyan suddenly checked the time on his phone—and his face shifted into pure dead-inside despair.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lin Jiangye asked. “It’s just a corpse—do you really have to look like that?”
Shang Fuyan held the screen toward him and pointed at the time.
“Yesterday, when dinner ended and everyone dispersed—it was also this exact time!”
Director Gao gave him one day off, and she really counted it from the moment they dispersed—exactly twenty-four calm hours.
Not a minute more, not a minute less. The instant his leave expired, work landed on his head.
Lin Jiangye almost wanted to laugh, but this really wasn’t the moment.
“Ahem… call it in,” Lin Jiangye said. “Which district is this—Wen’an District? Still Wen’an?”
The moment the suitcase was dragged up, he’d already smelled the fishy, rotten stench.
He could be sure: inside was a corpse—one that had been soaking for a while.
Shang Fuyan circled the suitcase once. The zipper was wrapped tight in several layers of waterproof tape—clearly someone was terrified the current might tear it open and expose what was inside.
Someone nearby, trembling, asked, “S-should we call the police?”
Lin Jiangye waved them off and pointed at Shang Fuyan, who was already on the phone.
“He is the police. He’s contacting people right now.”
Oh—it’s a cop! That’s a relief!
Sure, it was surprising that police would be out fishing in the middle of the night, but his presence oddly reassured everyone.
“I’ve notified Qi Gaoyang and the others,” Shang Fuyan said. “For now… protect the scene.”
He gestured for everyone to retreat back to the path.
Before long, Qi Gaoyang arrived with the deputy captain. They quickly set up tape and blocked off the curious onlookers.
“Captain Shang—how do you manage to run into stuff like this even when you’re just fishing?”
Shang Fuyan shot him an annoyed look, then turned to the forensic doctor holding a toolbox.
“Go.”
They were sure it was a body, but whether it was intact… that was another matter.
When the forensic doctor carefully peeled off the waterproof tape and pulled down the zipper, a thick wave of corpse stench hit everyone in the face.
The lid was lifted.
And the moment they saw what was inside, every officer present froze.
They had braced themselves for “person pieces,” but… it wasn’t pieces.
It was two corpses—two children, about five or six years old.
Children. Two of them.
Lin Jiangye’s brow snapped into a hard frown. Judging by their faces, these two might even be boy-girl twins.
Who could be cruel enough to kill a pair of five- or six-year-old children?
Everyone exchanged looks. This had to be another utterly inhuman murder case.
Then, after a quick examination, the forensic doctor delivered something even more horrifying:
“They were smothered alive.”
Smothered? Alive? Smothered to death?
Good heavens—listen to what you’re saying!
“There are no external injuries on their necks. The suitcase was sealed tightly and didn’t take on water… I suspect they were still alive when they were stuffed into the suitcase.”
Even the forensic doctor looked like he couldn’t take it.
How was this different from burying someone alive? It wasn’t.
Who was the killer? What kind of deep hatred did they have to use such a brutal method on two children?
“Take them back first,” someone said. “We can run DNA, and with their faces, we should identify them quickly.”
After hearing that, Lin Jiangye walked alone to the riverbank and stared at the direction of the current, sinking into thought.
They’d hooked the suitcase while fishing. Based on the direction it had dragged the angler, the suitcase likely drifted down from upstream along the Tongji River.
The Tongji River was a major river. It ran through Yue City and Gao City—and its upstream passed through several large cities.
Trying to infer the crime scene from water speed was impossible. You couldn’t even guess where the victims had been killed.
Someone patted his shoulder. He turned—Shang Fuyan had come over.
“Go home first. We’ll talk after the forensic results come out.”
Lin Jiangye nodded. That was all they could do. This wasn’t the crime scene, and even if he asked the animals along the river, he wouldn’t get anything useful.
Just as they were about to leave, Lin Jiangye suddenly asked, looking at the direction Shang Fuyan was walking:
“Are you going back to my place to sleep?”
The moment he said it, the surrounding officers all froze mid-task, eyes widening as they stared at the two of them.
Wait—sure, they knew these two were close, but wasn’t that line a little too suggestive?
And what did “go back to my place to sleep” even mean? Had Captain Shang already started treating Consultant Lin’s house as his own?
Feeling the burning gazes from every direction, Shang Fuyan forced himself to stay calm.
“Ahem… I’ll go home first and change.”
Lin Jiangye tilted his head.
“But I have your clothes at my place too.”
Not just clothes—there was an entire room in the Lin residence kept specifically for Shang Fuyan. Wardrobe, bedside drawers… all stocked with his usual clothes and personal items.
As soon as Shang Fuyan remembered that, his body inexplicably heated up.
Luckily, Lin Jiangye didn’t actually drag him home right then. Otherwise, with Qi Gaoyang’s excited, sparkling eyes, Shang Fuyan truly wouldn’t know how to explain it.
The next day, the two of them arrived at the Wen’an District precinct together. Seeing Consultant Lin and Shang Fuyan again, everyone at the precinct was delighted.
But the joy cut off fast.
Qi Gaoyang walked in with a dark face, gripping the forensic report.
“The victims’ identities are confirmed. They’re from Yueyang City. Their mother died a month ago, and now only their father remains.”
Mother dead, and one month later the two children were stuffed into a suitcase and smothered alive…
Almost instantly, suspicion fell on the father.
It wasn’t that they were paranoid. It was just that lately, cases of biological parents killing their children kept happening—so often even the police felt their scalps go numb.
“What about the maternal grandparents? No uncle?” Shang Fuyan asked.
The father had to be brought in, of course—but it would be best to have people from the mother’s side present too, to keep an eye on things.
Qi Gaoyang nodded.
“Yes. I’ve already had someone contact them.”
This case technically wasn’t under Shang Fuyan’s jurisdiction, but he was the one who found the suitcase.
And if it turned out the children really were killed by their biological father, this would explode nationwide.
“The estimated time of death is five days ago. Cause of death: asphyxiation. The forensic team also extracted a certain amount of sleeping pills from both children. Not lethal—but enough to keep them asleep for a while.”
Everyone’s hearts sank.
The killer had deliberately wanted them to suffocate in that suitcase. Otherwise, if they already had sleeping pills, why not force-feed a lethal dose?
Death by overdose was still painful, but nothing compared to the despair of being sealed inside a suitcase, waking up, and slowly dying.
Qi Gaoyang paused, his expression twisting.
“And… we found traces of blood on the inside of the suitcase lid. The children had no obvious external injuries elsewhere—except their fingers.”
“All ten fingers. Covered in blood.”
The entire meeting room went silent.
Everyone understood exactly what that meant: after the sleeping pills wore off, the children had tried to save themselves—scratching, clawing, tearing their fingers open.
And in the end, even at the brink of death, they still couldn’t find even a sliver of hope.
Lin Jiangye closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and forced down the rage rising in his chest.
He wasn’t the only one. Many people in that room did the same.
They’d seen brutal criminals before, but a killer who targeted such small children with this level of cruelty—this was the first.
“This is disgusting…” Ai Rong pressed a hand to her chest. For a second she almost gagged.
This wasn’t just murder anymore—it was torture. Torture of minors.
Whoever it was, they deserved the death penalty.
The forensic report ignited the entire unit’s fury. At that point, no one cared who the case was officially assigned to—they just wanted to catch the killer and make them pay.
Afterward, Shang Fuyan called Yueyang City’s police bureau and demanded the two jurisdictions cooperate on the investigation.
At first the other side didn’t want to.
But first, the caller was from Yue City’s municipal bureau—not a district precinct. In rank, Shang Fuyan was practically on par with Yueyang’s bureau chief.
Second… when they heard the forensic findings, they fell into heavy silence too. The only sound on the line was rough breathing. They were furious.
“This case isn’t necessarily hard, but the public impact will be enormous. If the killer turns out to be a relative of the victims… you know exactly what kind of uproar that will cause. Right now, we need to solve it fast.”
Catch the person first. Everything else could be dealt with afterward.
They agreed quickly and immediately sent officers to escort the victims’ father to Yue City—if he wasn’t the killer, it was protection; if he was, it was surveillance.
While the victims’ family headed to Yue City, Shang Fuyan brought Lin Jiangye to Yueyang City.
They needed to find the crime scene first. Only with the crime scene could Lin Jiangye’s abilities be used to their fullest.
Yueyang hadn’t expected Shang Fuyan to come—much less bring the special consultant.
But Yueyang wasn’t far from Yue City, and they’d heard of Lin Jiangye’s feats too. If they’d once thought Yue City was just doing flashy nonsense, then after Lin Jiangye went to the capital and then to Nanhai, they could basically confirm it:
This man truly had special abilities.
And now, this “prodigy” was here to help Yueyang.
Yueyang’s Criminal Investigation Captain was a woman in her forties. She was smaller than Director Gao and Jiang Heping, but her eyes were like knives—cold and razor-sharp.
The moment Lin Jiangye saw her, he instantly thought of the first time he’d met Shang Fuyan.
“Captain Su, hello.”
Shang Fuyan took the initiative to shake her hand.
Captain Su was the kind of police officer who actually got things done. After a brief greeting, they moved straight to the point.
“According to the forensic report, the two children were killed around the time their kindergarten let out. I already went to the school earlier and asked—those kids were picked up by their biological father. But…”
That “but” immediately sharpened both of their attention.
Captain Su’s face darkened. “But only a few hours after pickup, the local station received his report saying the two children had suddenly gone missing.”
“Missing???” That was… way too convenient.
They exchanged a look and saw the same suspicion in each other’s eyes.
“I checked the report at the station,” Captain Su continued. “He said he sent the kids downstairs to buy something, and they never came back.”
And then there was no “after.” Because it involved two minors, the station launched a search right away.
But the two children vanished like they’d evaporated. No traces, no leads. Every nearby camera had been checked—nothing.
Back then, the officers suspected traffickers. If kids simply ran off, there should have been some clue.
But this kind of “not a feather left behind” disappearance was something only an adult could pull off—and usually with premeditation.
No one expected it wasn’t a disappearance at all.
It was murder.
There was still no hard evidence, but Captain Su’s first suspect was the children’s biological father.
She stopped walking and lowered her voice. “One week after the children’s mother died, that man brought a woman home. He claimed they met through a matchmaking date. But my officers asked neighbors—everyone says the two were very intimate. Not like people who just met.”
That wasn’t a blind date.
That was him having a mistress long ago—and bringing her into the house right after the mother’s first seven days of mourning had barely passed.
Lin Jiangye fell silent. Not because he was speechless at the man’s shamelessness—but because he hadn’t expected Captain Su to dig up this much in just a few hours.
She was terrifyingly capable.
Seeing Lin Jiangye’s wide-eyed, almost reverent look, Captain Su froze for a beat, then pressed her lips together and gave a small, shy smile.
“I was in a hurry… Honestly, when we saw the report, our whole unit exploded.”
Two adorable kids—boy-girl twins. Their kindergarten teachers said they were exceptionally well-behaved. After their mother died, the teachers all felt especially sorry for them.
And then, not long after… the kids were gone too.
“When we first heard they were missing, the teachers even volunteered to help search,” Captain Su said, her voice growing heavy. “That tells you how lovable they were.”
She was a mother herself. If she learned her own child had been tortured to death, she’d lose her mind.
Lin Jiangye and Shang Fuyan listened quietly. And with what they now knew about the father, his suspicion level shot up several more notches.
The old neighborhood
A large group headed to the victims’ residential compound. It was an old neighborhood—no cameras anywhere nearby, not even at the corner convenience store.
That was why, during the initial “missing” investigation, the local station hadn’t found any useful footage.
This time, they were here mainly for the father’s so-called “blind-date partner.”
If the father really was the killer, there was no way that woman knew nothing.
Just as they were about to go upstairs, Lin Jiangye halted and glanced back.
On a tree branch lay a big cat.
Everyone noticed and stopped too.
Captain Su followed his gaze and saw a chubby, well-fed orange tabby.
Putting two and two together, she immediately said, “Let’s split up. Consultant Lin, you can go wherever you need. I’ll leave two people with you.”
Lin Jiangye waved it off—Bai Zhengwen was still in the car, and if anything happened he could call him.
Still, Captain Su insisted on assigning one officer to follow him—not as surveillance, but as a witness. Lin Jiangye’s “methods” were hard to capture in written reports; she needed someone who could testify to what happened.
Lin Jiangye didn’t make it difficult. He took the officer and walked toward the tree.
His backpack and the cubs were still in the car. He messaged Bai Zhengwen to bring his things over, then stood under the tree and looked up at the tabby.
This orange cat clearly had an owner; it wore a collar. No telling if it was free-roaming or had simply wandered out.
“Hello,” Lin Jiangye greeted it, immediately catching the tabby’s attention.
But cats were cool by nature. It just flicked its tail as a “reply.”
Lin Jiangye didn’t get discouraged. He held his hand out near the cat’s nose so it could learn his scent.
Then he scratched under its chin. When the cat melted, eyes narrowing in pleasure, Lin Jiangye finally asked:
“Great and mighty kitty… would you be willing to make a deal with me?”
Chin scratch, head rub, then the spot beneath the ears—he hit the full comfort combo until the cat felt like its scalp was tingling.
It swished its tail, then meowed in confusion.
“What deal? Don’t understand!”
Right then, Bai Zhengwen arrived with Lin Jiangye’s backpack—and Bixi.
The moment the orange cat saw the big black bird, its eyes narrowed into slits. But as Bixi got closer and its size became obvious, the cat instantly gave up.
“That’s a huge bird. Too bad I can’t catch it—there goes my bonus meal.”
This little fatty was thinking about extra food? Didn’t it see Bixi staring at it? One peck to the butt and it’d cry.
Lin Jiangye quickly lifted the cat off the branch and set it down safely, just in case Bixi really took offense.
The tabby didn’t like being carried and started to struggle—until it caught a whiff of faint meat aroma.
“Meat!”
“Yep. Meat,” Lin Jiangye said, patting its head. After placing it steadily on the ground, he pulled out a piece of freeze-dried chicken breast and waved it in front of the cat.
“I want to ask you something. If you answer honestly, you get this. That’s the deal.”
The cat’s gaze was already glued to the snack—until it processed Lin Jiangye’s words and froze.
“Human! You can understand cat speech?!”
Bixi puffed up proudly on Lin Jiangye’s shoulder.
“Of course! Dad is super amazing! He can understand any animal language!”
The orange cat’s eyes blew wide open.
In its entire eight years of life, it had never seen a human who could understand cats.
Not even the humans in its own home could understand a single sentence it said.
Damn it—why wasn’t this human the cat’s human?!
“So?” Lin Jiangye coaxed, still holding up the chicken. “Deal or not?”
The tabby’s eyes darted. It immediately snatched the chicken from his hand in its mouth.
To Lin Jiangye and Bixi, that meant: deal accepted.
Lin Jiangye began asking about the twins.
“Do you know the brother-and-sister pair who live on the fourth floor?”
Fourth floor. Siblings. The tabby instantly matched it in its memory.
“Yeah. I remember. Those human cubs were pretty well-behaved.”
There were plenty of bratty kids here—kids who tried to pet it and got slapped for it—but those two always asked politely first.
“What about them? Come to think of it… I haven’t seen them in a long time.”
Lin Jiangye paused. For a moment he didn’t know how to tell a cat that two polite little children had been murdered.
But facing the cat’s clear, innocent eyes, he sighed and said it anyway.
“They were killed.”
The cat went blank, mouth slightly open—like an idiot.
After a long beat, it finally snapped out of it, staring at him in disbelief.
“Killed… what does that mean?”
It felt like it knew… but what if human words didn’t match cat meanings? What if it wasn’t what it thought?
“They’re dead. They were killed by humans.” Lin Jiangye didn’t say how.
From the tabby’s expression, it clearly had a real impression of those kids. Otherwise it wouldn’t look so shocked.
He didn’t want to traumatize it further.
But the cat exploded on the spot, fur bristling.
“Was it that man?! I saw him try to do it several times! If I hadn’t been there, those human cubs would’ve been gone long ago!”
Now it was Lin Jiangye’s turn to be stunned.
“Wait—what do you mean? What do you mean he tried several times? Which man are you talking about?”
So the killer hadn’t been “acting” for the first time?
The orange cat arched its back like a full-on monster about to unleash a nuclear breath.
“Who else?! The cubs’ dad, obviously!”
