Chapter 161: Going Out for a Walk

At the Nancheng Police Station, Qi Fei retrieved the personal effects of the late Ye Ming using the case file number provided by Li Jianjun.

Inside two cardboard boxes the size of shoeboxes were nothing but notebooks and blueprints.

As Wu Shanqiu took them out one by one, she remarked, "If you didn't tell me these belonged to a late criminal police officer, I'd think they belonged to some scientist."

"Ye Ming calculated the tides and ocean currents many times. It seems the murder cycle he finally left in the lunchbox was derived from these." He flipped through the densely written notebooks; the oxhide covers were frayed and pilled from constant handling, and the handwritten characters for "Ye Ming" on the covers were barely visible.

If not for the discovery at the Nancheng Old Church and the support of the killer's murder cycle left behind by Ye Ming, it would have been nearly impossible for the officers of that time, including Li Jianjun, to see the connection to the Dongji Island case based solely on the clues from Dongji Zhen back then.

"Hmm?" When Qi Fei saw the content on the last page, he couldn't help but pry open the binding to take a closer look. The content ended abruptly after the November tidal analysis for Dongji Island, and he could faintly see the remnants of a few pages hidden within the binding.

It wasn't that Ye Ming hadn't recorded it completely; it was that the subsequent content had been torn out by him.

A little further away on the table, the greasy aluminum lunchbox seemed to emit faint, fragmented whispers that only Qi Fei could hear, as if beckoning him to open the box.

His fingertips traced the jagged edge of the torn notebook page, lost in thought.

He then silently took the lunchbox and retrieved the slip of paper with the name "Xu Chunxia" written on it. It also had jagged edges from being torn, and when he held it up against the torn page, it matched perfectly.

Ye Ming had torn out the subsequent content, hidden Xu Chunxia's name inside the lunchbox, and entrusted it to his most trusted wife.

It seems this Xu Chunxia is not just a simple potential victim.

In the sunlight, the hair at Qi Fei's temples glinted with gold. Looking at the page in his hand, he asked as if in passing, "How is the search for Xu Chunxia going?"

Upon hearing this name, Wu Shanqiu sighed heavily: "Don't even mention it. Old Li was absolutely right. A few of my teammates and I went through the 1983 missing persons files until our eyes were going blind, and we still didn't see the name Xu Chunxia. Brother Fei, to be honest, I'm starting to doubt my own sanity. Could Old Ye have written it wrong? I've seen names like Xu Hongxia and Xu Chunxia in the missing persons list, but just not Xu Chunxia."

With Wu Shanqiu's muttering in his ear, Qi Fei closed the notebook. In the sunlight, something on the back cover caught his attention: a drop of spilled red candle wax, which faintly shimmered with a gilded luster in the light.

Qi Fei picked up the notebook and sniffed it. Despite the passage of time, amidst the musty smell of the paper, he could faintly detect a light scent of sandalwood—in his ears, he seemed to hear Zhong Kui's soft explanation regarding the Da Baoen Si and the Liuli Ta treasure orb—in 1983 Nancheng, there were few temples with such flourishing incense, let alone ones with such a strong connection to this case.

"I was narrow-minded," Qi Fei muttered.

Wu Shanqiu was confused, listening from the side: "Brother Fei, what are you talking about?"

"Who says the deceased must appear in our police station's records? What if, except for Ye Ming, everyone else thought she died of natural causes?" Qi Fei said. ===== CHAPTER 162 =====