Chapter 97: Did He Get Away?!
Since they couldn’t pin down the exact spot, Lin Jiangye decided to check everything.
He first followed everyone to the kindergarten. Then he and Bai Zhengwen got out of the car, and he sent Bixi off to round up nearby animals.
“Not just birds—stray cats and dogs are fine too.” Unfortunately, several days had already passed since the incident, and it happened in an open area. Any scent trail had long since vanished without a trace.
Tianheng looked dejected—its ears flattened into little “airplane ears,” and it whimpered softly.
[The wolf couldn’t help at all, QAQ…]
Lin Jiangye smiled faintly, grabbed the wolf’s head, and gave it a hard ruffle. “That’s not your fault! No self-blame, okay?”
But even with that, Tianheng didn’t feel much better. Once it learned the victims were human kids—two of them—anger started boiling in its chest.
They were children. Babies!
Lin Jiangye and Shang Fuyan split up. Shang Fuyan went to talk to the kindergarten teachers, while Lin Jiangye took the others to retrace the route.
About ten minutes after Bixi took off, it came back with a whole crowd—about half birds, half stray cats and dogs.
Lin Jiangye counted them, then handed out the snacks he’d prepared, one by one.
With food in their mouths, the little guys immediately dropped their guard and happily munched away.
Once everyone had eaten their fill, Lin Jiangye pulled out a photo of the suspect and showed it around. “Do you remember this human?”
He’d also prepared a photo of the man’s car. Seeing either the man or the car would work.
The animals didn’t really understand what he wanted. They’d only come because the raven told them answering questions would get them food.
They just hadn’t expected this human to be so generous—handing out snacks before they even said anything!
Good human! Meow/woof/chirp likes you!
Seeing their round little bellies, Lin Jiangye couldn’t resist reaching out and petting a few.
Fed by a nice human, the little guys shamelessly flopped over and showed their soft bellies, purring and whimpering in sweet, clingy little voices. Passersby couldn’t help feeling jealous.
Because they could feel Lin Jiangye’s goodwill, they tried extra hard to remember. Soon, bits and pieces surfaced.
[I think I’ve seen this human…] a timid orange-and-white cat spoke up.
Lin Jiangye’s eyes lit up—only for the hope to sink again when it continued.
The orange-and-white cat had seen him, but it was a week ago.
Noticing his silence, the cat grew nervous.
[I… I didn’t lie…]
Lin Jiangye snapped back, gently patted the kitten’s head, and said warmly, “I believe you didn’t lie. I just need to know whether you saw him five days ago.”
He hadn’t said “five days” earlier because it’s hard to convey time precisely—and most animals don’t really track days anyway.
Sure enough, the moment he said “five days,” everyone tilted their heads and stared at him blankly.
“It’s okay. Did anyone else see him—or that car?” If time was fuzzy, then they’d start by confirming the route.
Quite a few animals had seen the man—mostly during the daily school pick-up and drop-off.
His route was generally fixed, only deviating a few times when he stopped to buy something.
Based on their descriptions of buildings and surroundings, Lin Jiangye quickly identified the streets and connected them into a line.
But the moment he saw the shops lining both sides, he felt that on the day he acted, the man probably hadn’t gone this way.
“Why?” a local officer asked, confused. “This is the route we took. It’s the shortest and fastest.”
Lin Jiangye nodded. “It is. But both sides are big stores—meaning cameras.”
If the man kept saying his plan was “foolproof,” there was no way he’d toss a suitcase near a row of shops with surveillance. What if a camera caught him?
The officer still felt it wasn’t impossible. Lin Jiangye didn’t argue. They could confirm it by checking footage later—just that it would waste time.
Thankfully, after questioning the remaining animals, one stray cat offered a new clue:
[The boss saw him too… but the boss doesn’t want to come.]
Boss? The boss of the strays?
Lin Jiangye looked at the orange cat calling someone “boss,” then asked where this boss was. “If they’re the boss, then I should go to them.”
The little orange cat wasn’t happy at all—instead, it looked worried.
Lin Jiangye didn’t even need it to explain. “Don’t worry. Take us nearby first. You can report to your boss. If they agree, then you bring us over.”
A stray “boss” wouldn’t be an ordinary cat—think of the black-cat boss Sangbiao: fearless and able to throw hands.
The little orange cat hadn’t expected the human to be so easy to talk to. Its tail shot up, the tip twitching.
Lin Jiangye handed a portion of snacks to the animals who’d helped, waved goodbye, and followed the little orange cat at an unhurried pace.
He did briefly consider taking some of these strays home—but not now. He’d come back after the case was over.
Meanwhile, Shang Fuyan and Captain Su found the teacher from the twins’ class. When she heard the children hadn’t “gone missing” but had been murdered, the twenty-something teacher’s eyes rolled back—she nearly fainted on the spot.
“How… how could this happen…” She looked like she was falling apart.
Five days ago, when the father reported them missing, she’d had a terrible feeling.
Back then, she’d guessed they might have been abducted… but she’d never imagined they were killed.
“Who? Who would hurt two kids? Feifei and Haohao were good children—they couldn’t have made enemies. Was it their father? Was it because of the mistress? Did he really do this to his own kids?!”
Hearing that, Shang Fuyan’s brows lifted slightly. His gaze sharpened as it locked on her.
“Why do you think the father did it?”
Just because he brought a new woman home a week after his wife died? That proved infidelity, not murder.
And they hadn’t told her the police suspected the father, nor that he’d allegedly abused the kids for years—so why was she so sure?
Shang Fuyan suddenly remembered Lin Jiangye repeating what the big orange cat said: the father abused the children, but when the cat tried to expose their injuries, there was nothing visible.
If the man really left no marks, how had this teacher realized something was wrong?
At that, the teacher froze.
After a long moment, she slowly closed her eyes, as if making up her mind for good—and then spilled everything she knew.
A year ago, she’d already suspected Feifei and Haohao were being abused.
“One time they got their clothes wet playing with water. I took their clothes off to dry them, and then…” She saw it—dense bruises and injuries across their bodies.
She’d wanted to call the police. But the principal stopped her.
After that, she contacted the children’s family. The one who came was the father.
“When he found out, his face didn’t change at all. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or…” She swallowed her suspicion and continued. “When I suggested calling the police, he stopped me immediately and said it would never happen again.”
Afterward, she checked their bodies again—those marks never appeared again. But she still felt something was deeply off.
“After they went missing, I sat down and thought hard about what felt wrong. Now I finally understand—it was their spirit.”
Both Shang Fuyan and Captain Su lifted their eyes. “Spirit?”
The teacher nodded. After that incident, she’d kept watching them closely. Naturally, she noticed their eyes weren’t like other children’s.
At five or six, kids are usually lively—bright-eyed, noisy, full of spark.
But Feifei and Haohao’s eyes grew darker and more numb day by day.
Especially after their mother died… she felt their eyes fell completely into darkness. Like all hope had been swallowed.
She didn’t know why. She asked, but the children kept their mouths shut. She couldn’t get a single word.
Now, she realized they weren’t “well-behaved”—they were numb.
The teacher’s guilt kept rising. She clutched her hair, trembling.
If she’d realized sooner—if she’d told their mother before she died—would the outcome have changed?
If she hadn’t listened to the principal back then—would it have changed?
But she did nothing… even though she’d already—
Just as she started to break down, a warm hand settled gently on her shoulder.
“This isn’t your responsibility.”
She looked up through tears. Captain Su sighed to herself, silently cursing that man’s entire bloodline, and continued comforting her.
“This isn’t your responsibility. The children were hurt at home—that’s their family’s responsibility. When they went missing and the case wasn’t thoroughly investigated—that’s our responsibility as police.”
A teacher can only protect children within the school gates. She can’t protect them after they leave.
Once the teacher calmed down, she explained why she’d suspected the man: “Also… whenever he came to pick them up, I could tell the kids didn’t want to go home.”
That feeling is rare in small children. Most kids are the opposite—they can’t wait to go home.
But those two… they’d rather stay alone at school than go home.
The teacher described many small observations. Her carefulness was exactly why she’d suspected the man had bad intentions.
“I just… I always thought maybe he simply didn’t like children. I never thought…”
She cut herself off, sinking again.
If she hadn’t suspected him deep down, she wouldn’t have blurted out that it must’ve been the biological father.
“So… was it really him?”
Facing her hopeful eyes, Shang Fuyan and Captain Su both fell silent.
Seeing their reaction, the teacher lowered her head and cried quietly.
After getting substantial information from the kindergarten, Shang Fuyan called Lin Jiangye. Coincidentally, Lin Jiangye’s side had also finally found where the suspect dumped the suitcase.
They met at a small bridge. Below it was a manmade canal, and the water had risen a lot—forget a suitcase, a full-grown person could fall in and drown.
“That cat boss saw the suspect dumping the suitcase.” From start to finish. The cat didn’t know what was inside, but it saw the act.
Lin Jiangye scanned the area. It was an old district; most residents were elderly. None of the nearby shops had outward-facing cameras.
If they wanted direct proof, the police would have to go door-to-door until they found a human witness.
“This time, I can’t get you direct evidence,” he sighed.
Captain Su shook her head. “You’ve already helped us tremendously. You’ve eliminated so many possibilities. Without you, we might’ve been running in circles for ages.”
Still, she worried: what if they asked everyone, and no one saw anything?
If that happened…
“Deputy, take people and start knocking. If you get anything, call me immediately!” She ordered, and her team moved at once.
Shang Fuyan told Lin Jiangye everything they learned at the kindergarten. After listening, Lin Jiangye’s first reaction was, “So… that rusty tin box probably held the tools he used to abuse the children in the past.”
Bloodstained—he’d been brutal.
The teacher discovered it, so he stopped leaving marks on the kids’ bodies and abandoned his old “weapons.”
But if that’s the case, why didn’t the children tell their mother? Were they too scared—or somehow unable?
“I might have a clue,” Captain Su said, approaching again with her theory.
“This household wasn’t traditional. The wife worked outside, the husband stayed home. The mother was an executive at a foreign company—busy, traveling constantly. Every trip was at least a week, sometimes two or three months, and most of it was overseas.”
The kids rarely saw their mother. Even if they wanted help, she couldn’t rush back immediately.
“And… they spent too little time with her—so little they couldn’t fully trust her. I suspect the father also said many bad things about the mother, which is why the children ended up like that.”
Lin Jiangye put himself in the children’s shoes, and a heavy ache spread through his chest.
The group sighed, steadied themselves, and began combing the bridge area for anything at all.
But there was nothing.
The suspect had clearly exploited the spring flood season. Otherwise the suitcase wouldn’t have traveled from upstream to downstream so smoothly.
If nobody had been fishing along the Tongji River, the suitcase might’ve been swept out to sea and never found.
They all frowned. Since the scene gave them nothing, all they could do now was pray for eyewitness testimony—and for the interrogation in Yue City.
Not long after, two updates came in: one good, one bad.
Good news: they found an eyewitness—and the witness even had a dusk video from that day, clearly capturing the suspect’s movements.
Bad news: the suspect ran. Current direction unknown, location unknown.
“I told people to keep an eye on him!” Captain Su was furious. To be safe, she’d arranged surveillance. How could he still slip away?
The two officers hung their heads. They didn’t want this either. They tailed him to the high-speed rail station—then he got off mid-journey, timing it right before the doors shut. They had no time to chase.
“His counter-surveillance is strong… We might’ve been spotted while tailing him…” Their voices got lower and lower, and Captain Su nearly fainted from rage.
Even Shang Fuyan didn’t expect an accident like this.
At first, when they found the suitcase, no one treated the father as a suspect.
Only after the autopsy report and the family background surfaced did suspicion turn toward him.
But he’d clearly been prepared, hyper-vigilant—otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten off halfway and shaken two police officers.
Captain Su forced a deep breath, then asked through clenched teeth, “Which station? Did you contact the local station?”
The officers looked bitter. “Captain… you forgot. He was still only ‘the victims’ family,’ not a suspect.”
Without evidence, they couldn’t just call a station and order an arrest.
The only thing that could directly point to him—the video—had just been found. The diary and the bloodstained tools were still pending forensic confirmation.
But now they had it.
Captain Su slapped a hand over her face, inhaled again.
“Now we can. Evidence is solid. In the ‘children stuffed alive into a suitcase’ case, the suspect is the biological father—Shi Licheng.”
The two officers immediately moved aside to contact the station where he’d gotten off.
As soon as the local police heard a suspect had exited at their high-speed rail station, they pulled surveillance footage.
They found quickly: he bought another ticket—to a different city.
“Chase!”
“Chase!”
Not only Yueyang City police—Yue City police joined as well.
But when they reached the station at his supposed destination, he wasn’t there. He’d pulled the same trick—getting off mid-route again.
So they pulled the bus’s internal camera footage.
Halfway through, he demanded the driver stop.
The driver refused. The man tried to attack him. Left with no choice, the driver opened the door.
The suspect got off on a national highway about to merge onto the expressway. There was a village nearby—but as for cameras… probably none.
“Not necessarily,” Shang Fuyan said, trying to steady everyone. “Some villages install cameras now—so if an elderly person collapses at home, someone will know.”
Lin Jiangye didn’t waste words. He took Tianheng and Bixi and drove straight toward that highway.
It was over 200 kilometers from Yueyang City—two to three hours by car.
At that time window, scent wouldn’t vanish completely.
It was Tianheng’s turn to shine.
Hearing it was finally going to help, Tianheng’s tail began wagging excitedly.
But before that, it had a question.
[Human… can the wolf bite him to death?]
Can it? Can it? This kind of bad human doesn’t deserve to live, right?
Lin Jiangye’s temple twitched hard. He grabbed Tianheng’s muzzle, squeezing until it whined and started acting cute.
“No. Not allowed. Can’t do it. I can’t just stab him to death, and you definitely can’t.”
Off to the side, both Shang Fuyan and Bai Zhengwen looked helpless.
They were police, not hitmen—stop talking like you’re going to execute someone the moment you’re annoyed!
When other people talked about “killing someone,” it was usually just an exaggerated figure of speech.
But for Lin Jiangye, it was… painfully literal. (:???)
He huffed, sulking a little as he hugged Tianheng’s head, muttering to himself.
He rarely actually killed anyone—most of the time, if he could leave a suspect alive, he would. But Shi Licheng… calling him a “beast” would be an insult to beasts.
A thing like that, being dragged into court and sentenced, felt like it would dirty the bailiffs.
Shang Fuyan couldn’t help laughing. He reached out and pinched Lin Jiangye’s cheek—only to get kicked in response.
Unfortunately, Lin Jiangye missed.
Shang Fuyan caught his ankle and lifted his leg up with one hand.
“You didn’t land the kick.”
That slightly teasing, almost flirtatious tone immediately drew Bai Zhengwen’s attention.
In the rearview mirror, he caught the look between the two in the back seat—and his heart gave a small jolt.
…Were these two up to something?
