Chapter 348: The Hidden Fifth Person! Human or Ghost!?

Even if there was blood on it, a butcher would have ground it off. For the knife to be covered in bloody rust stains now could only mean one thing…

The knife wasn’t used by Zhang Jiayu. It was probably Wang Wei.

What would Wang Wei be doing with Zhang Jiayu’s knife?

The only reason would be to stab someone.

“Is this the murder weapon?”

Li Jianye frowned and handed the knife to Xu Huo.

Xu Huo sniffed it. An awful, greasy smell wafted from it—the lingering scent of lard that had seeped into the knife’s crevices and soaked the wooden handle.

Of course, besides that, there was also the metallic tang of human blood.

“Check the handle for fingerprints and run a DNA test against the fire victim, Zhang Jiayu’s wife,”

Xu Huo said.

A few police officers nodded and immediately took the knife to the medical examiner’s.

The remaining officers had to continue searching the house.

They also interviewed the neighbors and investigated the old residences of Qian Hao and the others. Unfortunately, they found nothing.

8:00 PM.

Xu Huo glanced at the sky, let out a weary breath, and said,

“Let’s wrap it up and rest for now.”

…

…

At 8:40 PM, Xu Huo and the others returned to the Jiangsan City Police Department.

“From what we’ve seen so far, the fire at Zhang Jiayu’s house is definitely suspicious.”

“There are traces of human blood on the knife. If there are no surprises, his wife’s death was likely caused by Wang Wei.”

“And he deliberately faked a fire scene afterward to frame someone?”

In the office, the other police officers had gone home, but Sun Jian, Xu Huo, and Li Jianye were still on the clock.

The three of them were reviewing the day’s events.

“It’s possible,” Sun Jian said with a nod.

Fires and floods—always the greatest enemies of a criminal investigation.

Especially the former. It can wipe out all evidence!

‘In my past life, it would’ve been fine. There were surveillance cameras and complex electrical circuits everywhere, making it easy to find the point of origin and the arsonist.’

‘But now…’

‘It’s impossible to trace. Simply impossible.’

‘Not to mention this happened six years ago!’

“But the problem is…”

“What about Zhang Jiayu?”

Sun Jian suddenly spoke up, frowning. “Even if the plan was to frame him, why didn’t Zhang Jiayu come forward and report it?”

Li Jianye paused, exchanged a look with Xu Huo, and then hesitated slightly.

“Six years ago, Shen Fei was only thirteen. Even if a report was filed, there wasn’t much that could be done…”

Sun Jian understood.

But still…

“Then if the plan was to kill Wang Wei all along, why not do it six years ago?”

Sun Jian asked again.

‘Six years ago, Shen Fei was thirteen, and the others weren’t much older. They were physically weaker. A lone adult could have easily killed them.’

‘Why wait until now?’

‘In the “Jesus” case, Sun Jiang waited because someone wanted him to use the time to understand his true intentions.’

‘Second, it was to hit that specific 17-year-old time marker.’

‘This case…’

‘Zhang Jiayu was nineteen six years ago, which makes him twenty-five now. There’s no significant difference. Why kill now?’

“Honestly, in terms of legal consequences, there’s no difference between killing him six years ago and killing him now.”

“But in terms of the difficulty of the murder itself, it would be much, much higher now.”

Li Jianye took a drag from his cigarette, slowly exhaling a plume of smoke.

He was pondering the same question.

But he hadn’t come up with a perfect answer.

Xu Huo, however, wasn’t thinking about that.

‘He was thinking about…’

“Five and a half…”

Suddenly, Xu Huo uttered three words, and Sun Jian and Li Jianye instinctively looked over.

“What about five and a half?”

The two men were puzzled.

“Assuming the incident with Zhang Jiayu was really Wang Wei’s doing…”

“Then the money Wang Wei had came from Zhang Jiayu.”

“But the problem is… these five people endured it for a full five and a half years before they went out on a revenge spending spree!”

“During that entire time, they didn’t spend a single extra penny.”

Xu Huo’s gaze was fixed on this other matter, his brows knitted tightly.

‘Five and a half years. A full five and a half years…’

‘They were sitting on a huge pile of cash, a mountain of treasure, but they couldn’t spend it…’

‘Honestly, a normal person could endure it for two years at most.’

‘Let alone someone with a beastly personality like Wang Wei. Even if he denied it, Xu Huo believed he was the type to spend the money the second he got his hands on it.’

But instead, he forced himself to wait five and a half years before starting to spend it.

“Why is that?”

Xu Huo asked.

Li Jianye froze. His mind was sharp right now, much clearer than it was half a year ago, and he thought of it in an instant.

“Because of fear!”

The three words slipped out.

The character for “endurance” is a knife over a heart.

The knife can be interpreted in many ways. One is that fear of the blade falling makes one guard their heart—and thus, they endure.

Wang Wei was afraid the police would figure out they were behind the arson, so he had to endure.

But the problem is…

After a typical case is closed, the police don’t usually investigate much further. Even for a cold case that’s been officially filed, they’ll look into it for two or three years at most before letting it go.

Not to mention this case, which the police had ruled an accidental fire.

There was no reason, absolutely no reason, for Wang Wei to be that scared!

He’d been in and out of the police station countless times. The police couldn’t have put that much pressure on him.

But the reality was right there in front of them… facts don’t lie!

So…

“The pressure not to spend the money didn’t come from the police. It came from someone else!”

Li Jianye suddenly blurted out, voicing the exact thought in Xu Huo’s mind.

“That’s right. The pressure wasn’t from the police.”

“Was it Zhang Jiayu, then?”

Xu Huo countered.

Zhang Jiayu, the man whose wife died and whose house was burned down.

At this point, it was almost certain he was the fifth person.

His disappearance would certainly create a lot of pressure, since he could have emerged at any moment to kill the four victims.

But the problem was…

“Take a look. This is the medical examiner’s report on the knife.”

Xu Huo handed over the file that had been delivered to him a short while ago.

Li Jianye and Sun Jian started reading, but as they did, looks of shock suddenly appeared on their faces.

They shot their heads up.

“The blood on the murder weapon…”

“It’s Zhang Jiayu’s?!”

The report’s summary was written in stark letters…

The DNA analysis was a high-probability match with the human skin cells extracted from the clothes of Zhang Jiayu provided by the village chief.

And the fingerprint analysis showed they belonged to Wang Wei.

‘Which means…’

‘The person who was stabbed wasn’t Zhang Jiayu’s wife?!’

‘It was Zhang Jiayu himself!’

“With a wound this deep, he would have died for sure without medical treatment. If Zhang Jiayu is dead…”

“Then who is the killer?!”

Suddenly, the office fell silent.

‘Zhang Jiayu… might be dead…’

‘Wang Wei stabbed Zhang Jiayu, not his wife!’

A deep cut from a sharp blade is already difficult to heal, let alone one of this depth. Considering there’s been no sign of Zhang Jiayu around Shuangyue Village, he most likely never received treatment.

If that’s the case, there’s a ninety percent chance he’s dead.

His wife is confirmed dead. The village chief arranged a burial plot for her, and there’s a body in it.

‘As for the possibility that the body isn’t hers?’

‘No, the village chief had the DNA results from the fire department’s test.’

‘So now the question is this.’

The prime suspect in this case is the fifth person, Zhang Jiayu. He has a motive for revenge killing, and his situation could explain where Wang Wei and the others got all their money.

The timeline also fits, and Wang Wei even left his fingerprints on the knife.

‘Under these circumstances, even I would have chosen to kill, to get revenge, using methods even more brutal than in this case.’

‘But the twist is…’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Zhang Jiayu is probably dead!!!’

‘Can a dead man… get revenge?’

Li Jianye was stunned, not even noticing his cigarette had burned all the way down to the filter.

‘This case…’

‘Is getting stranger and stranger!’

“So now we come to the real question.”

“This thing that’s out there killing people right now… what exactly is it?!”

“Is it a person?”

Xu Huo’s eyes swept over the other two men in the room.

“Or… a ghost?!”