"The killer's been found!"
He grabbed his jacket and dashed out of the haunted house, caring about nothing else, heading straight for the West City police station.
His first date in life had taken place in a haunted school — with a vengeful ghost in red.
That first date held no joy or excitement. All it brought was learning about a girl's tragic past.
Falling from a tall building, crumpled in a pool of blood, pain lancing through every part of her body — and yet she wasn't dead!
She watched her killer walk away with a smile on his face, chatting and laughing. The truth was buried. Her dance shoes slowly turned red, and a kind-hearted girl became a hateful, vengeful spirit.
He took a taxi to the West City police station and ran inside.
"Captain Li is in the room on the left." Ah Yong was standing guard outside and recognized Chen Ge at once.
"Thanks."
He pushed open the door. In the modest office, only Captain Li was inside.
"You're here. Sit down."
The moment Chen Ge saw that Captain Li was alone, a very bad feeling washed over him. "Is the killer confirmed? Last time you said the pool had been narrowed down to three people."
"We found him. It's this one." Captain Li pulled a file from the drawer, opened it, and took out a photograph. "His name is
The photo had been captured from surveillance footage. In the image sat a gaunt, thin man at a roadside stall, several bottles of beer heaped on the filthy table in front of him.
"Are you sure?" Zhang Ya had once reconstructed the original scene in the dance studio mirror. The face had been too blurred to make out, but the general build of the person had been visible.
At the time, the main culprit in the mirror had been quite fat — a far cry from the man in the photo.
"We initially listed him only as one of several suspects and focused our investigation on the PE teachers and outside personnel at the West City Private Academy. But during our interviews, Sun Meijing — Zhu Xiu's ex-wife — inadvertently let something slip."
"What did she say?"
"She's tight-lipped and didn't say much, but we found a photo she'd posted on a website a long time ago."
Captain Li took out his phone. On the screen was a staged couple's photo.
The woman was plain-looking but had kept her figure well. The man looked somewhat younger, heavyset with a round face and large ears — his weight was estimated at around a hundred and eighty jin.
"That man is Zhu Xiu from five years ago."
Comparing the two photos, after losing weight, Zhu Xiu looked like an entirely different person.
"In five years, Zhu Xiu lost a full sixty jin. That caught our attention. After digging deeper, we found that this man had no steady occupation, spent money lavishly, and — most importantly — appeared to suffer from a shoe fetish."
Captain Li produced a third photograph. "After Zhu Xiu's father passed away, Sun Meijing divorced him. The house was transferred to her name, and he's been renting ever since."
"We tracked down his landlord and stood outside his place under the pretense of checking the internet cables. The room was a mess, reeking of a foul odor. Under his bed were several pairs of women's shoes."
The third photo had been taken covertly, documenting the state of Zhu Xiu's room.
"Occupation, body type, fetish — it all lines up! Nine out of ten, it's him!" Chen Ge gritted his teeth. A person like this belonged behind bars, facing the full weight of the law.
"All of this only proves he had the motive and the means — it doesn't prove he's the killer. We need a complete chain of evidence before we can make an arrest." Captain Li rubbed his temples. "I've got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"