The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1064 begins the first case analysis.

"This looks a bit like it!" At four in the morning, Xiao Chen's sudden shout broke the silence. Everyone gathered around his workstation. The screen displayed the missing person file of a 42-year-old truck driver, 178cm tall, with a burn scar on his right shoulder. "But he was wearing work pants when he went missing, which doesn't match the mountaineering gear of the deceased." Xiao Zhou pulled up photos of the physical evidence for comparison, "And he has a pierced left earlobe, which the deceased didn't." The spark of hope was instantly extinguished. Xiao Chen angrily slammed the enter key and mechanically continued to turn to the next page.

Liu suddenly started cursing in the corner. He was in charge of checking the investigation notices from the five surrounding cities, and the form in front of him was now completely messed up in red pen: "The document from the neighboring city is formatted haphazardly; the gender of 12 out of 37 records is incorrect. Do they think we're contestants on a guessing game show?" He loosened his tie, leaving a deep red mark on his neck. "I should have had the technical department develop an intelligent comparison system. Manually sifting through data is less efficient than using an abacus to land on the moon."

As the morning light crept through the blinds, the office was a mess. Instant noodle boxes were piled into a crooked tower, coffee stains blurred into eerie patterns on documents, and discarded A4 sheets of paper were scattered on the floor like snowflakes. Xiao Zhou stared at the 58 newly pasted sticky notes on the whiteboard, each marked with a possible clue, only to be crossed out in red pen. At the very bottom, heavily written in marker, were the six words, "Identity unknown," which glared glaringly in the morning sun.

"Let's call it a day." Xiao Zhou's voice was hoarse, unlike his own. "Let's cross-check all the data one more time, focusing on the list of outdoor sports club members." He rubbed his throbbing temples, glancing out the window at sanitation workers sweeping fallen leaves, and suddenly realized that the city had already awakened, while they, trapped in the labyrinth of data, remained in the deepest darkness before dawn. The sound of keyboard typing resumed, mixed with suppressed sighs. This battle against time and nothingness—when would the dawn finally break?

The next morning, the morning light pierced the blinds of the Criminal Investigation Division's meeting room, cutting out alternating stripes of light and shadow on the surface of the long table. Li Ming slammed a heavy stack of case files onto the table, the sound of metal clasps striking the surface startling the officers who were struggling to stay awake. The projection screen slowly lowered, and a cool blue-white light instantly enveloped the entire room, illuminating every tired yet tense face.

First, Xiao Yang introduced the situation of the on-site investigation.

“Let’s look at the 3D model first.” Xiao Yang’s laser pointer moved across the virtual scene on the rooftop of the Haorui Building. The red dot suddenly stopped at the ventilation duct. “The point of the deceased’s fall is offset by 30 degrees from the trajectory of the bloodstains, indicating that there was a violent tug before the fall.” He switched to a photomicrograph, where the scratches on the rock wall were clearly visible after being magnified 200 times. “These parallel scratches are 8.3 millimeters apart, which perfectly match the metal teeth of the deceased’s carabiner, proving that he had tried to grab onto something fixed.”

The technical difficulties were fully exposed during the footprint analysis. "The torrential rain blurred 90% of the shoe prints," Xiao Yang pulled up a comparison image, where the remaining half of the shoe print appeared particularly thin under the grid ruler. "But from the remaining heel, we can determine that the murderer was wearing a size 42 hiking boot, with an X-shaped serrated sole pattern—a design sold in only three outdoor stores in the city." He suddenly cut the screen to the bushes beneath the body. "The most puzzling thing is this oil stain. Spectroscopic analysis shows it contains toluene and ethylene glycol, which are not components that should be found in hiking gear; it's more like industrial machinery oil."

Xiao Zhou lifted the box full of printing paper, the rustling sound of the paper jarring in the quiet conference room: "We've screened the national missing persons database three times, and out of 137 people who match the age, height, and build, 129 have been ruled out." He held up a photo of a man with a similar jawline to the deceased. "This 41-year-old outdoor leader seems to match, but his passport shows he was mountaineering in Nepal during his disappearance."

Old Zhou couldn't help but interject, "What about those handwritten records? There might be some that slipped through the net in records before 2018." Little Zhou shook his head with a wry smile and pulled up the scanned documents: "I've tried it. In the handwritten registrations, vague descriptions like 'height approximately 178cm' and 'age around 40' account for 63%, which are impossible to match accurately." He suddenly pointed to a glaring red annotation in the spreadsheet, "What's even more troublesome is that 23 families of missing persons refused to provide DNA samples, insisting that their loved ones were just working away from home."

The scene of the autopsy table was projected onto the screen. Zhang Lin's voice was calm and mechanical: "The penetrating wound to the victim's right lung was the fatal wound. The blade pierced the pulmonary artery at a 45-degree angle, causing instantaneous hemorrhagic shock." He pulled up a microscopic image, and the ruptured blood vessel wall showed a jagged tear under the lens. "Notice these burn marks. The surface temperature of the murder weapon exceeded 200°C, indicating that the murderer may have heated the knife before committing the crime."

The age determination sparked heated debate. "The bone wear on the pubic symphysis indicates a age of 42-45," Zhang Lin said, holding up a CT image where subtle bone growth in the pelvis was clearly visible. "But the degree of calcification in the pulp chamber points to a age of 38." He suddenly showed a 3D model of a cross-section of a tooth. "The key is this wisdom tooth. Its impacted state caused compensatory wear on the adjacent teeth. This special occlusal relationship accounts for only 7% of the population, and it may be a breakthrough for identification."

"Could it be a revenge killing disguised as an accident?" Old Zhou's cigarette butt sparked in the ashtray. "The deliberately staged fall marks at the scene, and the cut climbing rope, are all leading us to think that it was an accident." His speculation triggered a chain reaction, and the atmosphere in the conference room instantly became tense.

Xiao Zhou raised a question: "If it was a revenge killing, why not just dump the body directly? Why go through all the trouble of arranging it on a cliff?" He pulled up a map, with red circles marking five similar locations where the body was found. "These places are all far from surveillance cameras, so the murderer was obviously very familiar with the terrain."

Li Ming suddenly interrupted the argument, pushing the oil-stained evidence bag to the center of the table: "Regardless of the motive, this oil stain of unknown origin is the most solid clue at present." He tapped his finger heavily on the industrial zone on the map, "There are no more than 20 companies in the city that use this kind of mixed oil. We must complete the visits before dawn tomorrow."

The final decision was made in the morning light: Xiao Yang would lead a team to investigate outdoor equipment stores, focusing on tracking sales records of X-shaped serrated hiking boots; Xiao Zhou would form a task force to target the uncooperative families of missing persons; and Zhang Lin would delve into the unique wear characteristics of teeth, attempting to find matches in dental databases. As the meeting adjourned, Li Ming gazed at the rising sun outside the window and wrote on the first page of his notebook: "Every lie requires hundreds of details to support it, while the truth is often hidden in the most deliberate concealment."

The autumn rain was drizzling down. Xiao Yang wrapped his coat tighter and pushed open the glass door of the 78th outdoor equipment store.