SFTD -Chapter 197 A Severed Thumb (Part 27)

Liu Da patted Zhou Hai on the shoulder. “Hai Zi, don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Xiao Hu will be here any minute!”

Before he even finished speaking, the door opened and Xiao Hu walked in from outside, unable to hide the smile on his face.

But the moment the door opened, two officers happened to be escorting someone past the doorway. As the door swung shut again, Zhou Hai finally saw the man’s face clearly—it was Pang Chuanhai, the same man he had blasted in the face with a fire extinguisher.

Following the killer’s instructions to dispose of the body, even unknowingly, meant temporary detention was unavoidable. After all, he had also slashed that female student’s cheek. Yet the look in his lowered eyes made Zhou Hai narrow his gaze slightly.

Although Pang Chuanhai appeared dazed on the surface, the instant he lowered his eyes, there was actually a trace of killing intent hidden within them. That icy gaze sent chills through anyone who saw it.

Just as the door was about to close, Zhou Hai quickly stepped forward and shoved Xiao Hu aside. The three people outside heard the commotion and glanced over slightly. By the time Pang Chuanhai raised his head again, that blank, confused expression had already returned.

Xiao Hu, standing behind Zhou Hai, didn’t understand what he was doing, but he still raised a bag and waved it toward Liu Da.

“Guess what I found?”

Liu Da lifted a hand, stopping Xiao Hu from continuing. Seeing Zhou Hai act so strangely, he knew Zhou Hai must have noticed something.

Zhou Hai merely glanced at the three men before casually looking toward the stairwell, as though speaking to himself.

“Chu Menghan still hasn’t come back?”

Then he shut the door.

Neither Liu Da nor Xiao Hu asked questions. Zhou Hai frowned deeply and closed his eyes in thought for a long time. When he opened them again, he had already regained his composure.

“I don’t know if I saw wrong, but tell the detention center to keep a blood sample for screening. And arrange a single room for Pang Chuanhai too—one with hidden surveillance.”

Liu Da looked at Zhou Hai for a moment, then called the detention center and relayed his instructions.

Xiao Hu stood awkwardly to the side until Xu Biao wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“So, buddy, what did you find? Hurry up and tell us.”

“Oh, I found the killer’s phone.”

That single sentence instantly grabbed everyone’s attention.

“The killer’s phone?”

“To be precise, the phone used to send the WeChat instructions.”

Xu Biao slapped Xiao Hu on the back.

“Quit dragging it out and spit it out already! Do you know how anxious we’ve been?”

Xiao Hu placed the bag on the table. Inside was a blackened object so badly damaged it was impossible to tell what it originally was. Then he turned on the computer.

“This is the phone I found. It was discovered inside a rainwater drainpipe near the main teaching building at Agricultural University. After all of you left, I went up to the rooftop to take another look.

Since Forensic Doctor Zhou believed the killer returned afterward to clean things up, then he must have stayed on the rooftop at some point.

And the best way to destroy a phone is factory reset, smash it, then soak it in water. So I brought people to carefully search the rooftop. In the northwest corner, we found some transparent glass-like fragments.

Then I crouched by the edge of the roof and looked down. If the killer had thrown the phone off the building, the officers searching downstairs would’ve found it already. But they didn’t.

So there was only one more hidden and reliable place left—the rainwater pipes. It rained yesterday, after all, so there’d definitely be standing water inside.

So we cut open the pipes one by one and eventually found the phone. Once it got into my hands, restoring it was easy.”

The three of them stared at Xiao Hu.

Xu Biao glanced at Zhou Hai and Liu Da, knowing both men had been forcing themselves to patiently listen to the entire explanation. He raised his hands and gave a token round of applause.

“Very impressive. And then? What did you find?”

Faced with such perfunctory praise, Xiao Hu lost all enthusiasm for showing off and simply turned the computer toward them.

“The message received earlier, along with every instruction sent afterward, all came from this phone. There were also frequent calls between it and Mu Ya’s phone.

But aside from that, no second phone number ever appeared on this device.

And I also traced the killer’s movement route. I turned them into several maps based on time periods. I’m not sure whether they’ll help you.”

Zhou Hai looked at the phone, now nothing more than a lump of charred black debris, and pressed his lips together. There was no way to recover fingerprints from something like that.

As he stared at the maps one after another, Zhou Hai kept thinking, but his thoughts were a complete mess. His left eye began aching faintly again.

Xu Biao patted Zhou Hai on the shoulder and looked toward Liu Da behind him.

“Liu Da, it’s already this late. Let’s stop here for today. Zhou Hai hasn’t slept in two days. His body can’t take it anymore. We’ll continue tomorrow. None of the clues connect right now anyway.”

Liu Da glanced at his watch.

“It’s already this late? Hurry up and go. Anyway, the lab results aren’t back yet, so we’ll just wait. If you collapse from exhaustion, I’ll be the one suffering. Then I won’t have anyone competent left to order around!”

The oppressive atmosphere among the four men eased slightly, and everyone left.

The next morning, under Lu Xi’s strict orders, Zhou Hai was personally driven to the center by her. Xu Biao saw them from afar and felt like he’d just been force-fed a huge serving of PDA as he watched the little white Polo drive away.

“Teacher Xixi really is great!”

Zhou Hai walked in quickly, the smile at the corners of his mouth not yet faded.

“How’s the investigation into Mu Ya’s boyfriend going?

“Still no news from Chu Menghan?”

Xu Biao curled his lips.

“I just got here too, haven’t even asked yet. You’re worse than Liu Da—basically Huang Shiren himself.”

Zhou Hai ignored him and rushed straight up to the third floor. The moment he reached it, a plump figure in slippers was already standing outside the door. She snorted irritably at the two men and threw a thick stack of reports at them.

“I quit! I’m going to sleep! If either of you makes me work nonstop for another forty-eight hours, hmph!”

As she spoke, she waved her fist threateningly, yawned, and shut the door.

Xu Biao grinned.

“To be honest, we’re seriously lacking lab technicians. Director Pang refuses to hire more people. Look how exhausted Sister Zeng is—it’s outrageous.”

Zhou Hai knew Xu Biao was deliberately saying it loudly enough for Sister Zeng to hear, so he didn’t respond and instead started flipping through the comparison reports.

Sure enough, once Xu Biao finished speaking, the sound of footsteps moving farther away came from inside the room. Xu Biao patted his chest in relief.

“Good thing I reacted quickly, otherwise I would’ve been done for. Let’s go.”

Before Zhou Hai could even react, Xu Biao had already dragged him back to the office.

The moment they entered, Zhou Hai’s phone rang. He set down the reports and answered. It was Xiao Hu.

“Forensic Doctor Zhou, I already sent the detention center surveillance link to Xu Biao’s email. He just needs to log in. You can view both previous recordings and the live feed.”

“Whose footage is there?”

“Both Zhu Mingtao’s and Pang Chuanhai’s. Liu Da said I should prepare everything properly so you wouldn’t make me run around again.

“Alright, I’m going to sleep now. Don’t call me this morning.”

Xu Biao’s shoulders shook silently with laughter. One after another, everyone was acting as if Zhou Hai were some plague god to be avoided at all costs. Looks like “Fa Hai’s” terrible reputation had really spread far and wide.

Just as Zhou Hai turned around, Xu Biao sat down in front of the computer.

“I’ll open the link. Hai Zi, which footage do you want to see?”

“Let’s go through both of them.”

Xu Biao naturally had no objections. He opened the link, found the two video files from last night, and played them side-by-side in fast-forward on the computer.

Both men had been placed in solitary rooms. Under the dim corridor lights, everything was clearly visible. Neither of them slept after midnight.

Even Xu Biao couldn’t stay seated after seeing that. He stood beside Zhou Hai in front of the monitor, each of them watching one screen carefully.

Thirty minutes later, Zhou Hai suddenly slapped Xu Biao on the shoulder.

“Stop!”

Xu Biao jumped in fright but still paused both videos immediately.

He knew Zhou Hai must have noticed something.

His throat tightened nervously as he turned around, widening his tiny eyes at Zhou Hai.

“What did you find?”