C6 The Case Was so Coincidental

Xiao Chennai glanced back at the retreating figure and realized he had been too hasty. His eagerness on this first case was palpable.

Shaking his head, he opened the car door and said to the two people behind him, "Back to the station!"

Meanwhile, in Unit 9's archive room, Cheng Sheng hadn't shown up that morning. Being new to the team, he still had paperwork to complete.

He reported to Sunn Limin's office as usual. The two had previously collaborated on busting a drug den.

"Sheng! I almost forgot about you. I remember telling you something back then, and here you are!" Sunn Limin said, setting down his old, still-smoldering pipe as they sat together on the office sofa.

Cheng Sheng was clad in his usual black casual wear, seemingly comfortable in his signature style.

"What, you're not happy to see me at the station?" Cheng Sheng quipped with a grin.

Their laughter filled the office, lightening the mood.

Despite their age difference, the two were close friends, the kind of bond that seemed to be forged by those who've faced life and death together.

Sunn Limin, with a warm smile, picked up the teapot and began to pour. "How could that be? Come on, I'll take you out for a meal!"

As Sunn Limin filled the cups, he watched Cheng Sheng with animated interest.

Cheng Sheng was genuinely tempted by the offer, but duty called, and he couldn't pull himself away. With a sense of resignation, he said, "You've made the offer, and I'd love to take you up on it, but I've got work to do. I need to sort out all the files on the floor of Unit 9!"

After taking a polite sip of the tea Sunn Limin had poured, Cheng Sheng got ready to leave.

Sunn Limin set down his cup and chuckled, "Alright then, next time it's on me. Get back to work."

He had no choice but to accept the situation. Cheng Sheng, after all, had spent years undercover; his professional integrity was intact.

Sunn Limin's thoughts drifted to that dark night when he had his gun at the ready, poised to forcefully breach the door and capture the notorious and brutal drug lord, Master Jiu.

Unbeknownst to him, a miniature bomb had been placed at the entrance. If Sunn Limin had taken just one step inside, it would have been akin to stepping through the gates of death. He would have been lucky to escape with his life, let alone without serious injury.

In a crucial moment, Cheng Sheng fired a warning shot, preventing Sunn Limin from entering. However, this act put Cheng Sheng in danger, as Master Jiu took him hostage and fled the province.

Ultimately, leveraging his extensive experience and working in tandem with Sunn Limin, Cheng Sheng managed to break free and apprehend not only Master Jiu but also his entourage of drug traffickers.

Back at the office, Cheng Sheng swiftly moved a box onto the desk.

This box, apparently containing criminal cases processed by officers outside, had been stored in the now reactivated Unit 9's vacant office.

With Unit 9 back in business, it was imperative to sort through the contents, tidy up the office, and send the case files to the archives for storage.

Clunk!

Cheng Sheng accidentally knocked a file to the floor and carefully picked it up.

"Hmm? This name seems familiar... It's..."

Upon opening the file, Cheng Sheng recognized a few names. Three, in particular, struck him as oddly familiar, as if he had encountered them before.

He frantically searched the desk, convinced they were close at hand.

"Got it!" Cheng Sheng exclaimed, holding a report from a recent case briefing. It listed the names of three victims from a van murder case.

Yet here were the full names of these women. Why would these three unacquainted women appear in the same file? Was there an underlying secret?

This couldn't wait. Cheng Sheng dashed out of the office with the file and approached a policewoman at her desk outside.

Breathlessly, he inquired, "Officer, could you tell me when this case was filed?"

The policewoman reviewed the file and responded indifferently, "Oh, that case? It's almost like a bad joke from a few days back. A guy hired three escorts and ended up dying from AIDS. His mother, who's over sixty, insisted on filing a report with us, demanding we arrest these women for seduction. Isn't that just laughable?"

Beside the policewoman, another petite beauty blinked and chimed in, "Exactly, if we go by that logic, then all the young ladies are criminals, haha..."

The two women giggled behind their hands.

Cheng Sheng rose to his feet, clutching the case file, lost in thought. He had an intuition that he needed to show this lead to the chief.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Arriving at the second floor, Cheng Sheng rapped on Sunn Limin's office door.

"Come in!"

With a grave expression, Cheng Sheng entered. Sunn Limin looked up, surprised. "You again? Here to scrounge a meal?"

Sunn Limin set his pen down into the holder, his face breaking into a smile as he stood.

Approaching the desk, Cheng Sheng extended the file with a sigh, his dark eyes intense. "I'm not here for a meal. Please, take a look at this first."

He was increasingly convinced that the deaths of the three women were suspicious.

Their demise was not just tragic; their hair had been savagely removed, suggesting a deep-seated hatred.

Thinking about the bald appearance of the women post-mortem, it seemed clear that the killer had acted deliberately.

Sunn Limin skeptically picked up the file, glanced at it, and frowned, preparing to hand it back to Cheng Sheng.

"Did you notice the names?" Cheng Sheng said, pushing the file back with a resolute gaze.

Reluctantly, Sunn Limin set aside his newspaper and gave the file another thorough read. He remembered it vaguely; that old lady had caused quite a stir at the station before.

"This... These are the names of the victims from the Bread Chariot Murder Case? What a coincidence!"

Adjusting his glasses, Sunn Limin's mouth fell open in astonishment, shooting a glance at the composed Cheng Sheng.

"Notify Chen and Hua Ning to return!" he exclaimed.

Sunn Limin put the file down and reached for his phone.

At that moment, Xiao Chennai and the others arrived.

Hearing her name as she entered, Hua Ning quickly asked, "What's going on?"

Observing the troubled expressions of the two men, Hua Ning settled onto the couch and downed a cup of tea in one gulp, exuding a tomboyish vibe.

"You're back just in time. Take a look at this case—the defendant's name matches the ones found dead in the van!"

Sunn Limin stood up and handed the file to Cheng Sheng, instructing him to share it with the group.

"Really?"

Hua Ning moved closer to Xiao Chennai, while Jian Chenyi also approached, browsing through the file. Sure enough, they spotted the names of three individuals.

"What are the odds? A vendetta?"

Hua Ning gasped, grabbing the file. The case hadn't been taken on by the police, and it couldn't even be classified as a criminal case.

Xiao Chennai folded his arms, pondered for a moment, then sat down with a calm demeanor and said firmly, "We need to pay a visit to the person who reported this."

The reporter, Jiaang Mei, a resident of Greenfield Village in Snowbush, was a widow whose son, now in his thirties, had never married.