[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner":3,"chapter-the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-70":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Nation's Forensic Medical Examiner",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2326765,4551,"Chapter 70","the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-70",70,"\u003Cp>Dusk.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though the rain had only slightly lessened, Liu Wenkai got behind the wheel and hit the road.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Further verification could be left to the detectives coming up behind him; as a frontline officer, his job was to find a direction and charge forward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fine raindrops, driven by the wind, slapped against the windshield like spurts of urine, making the view alternately clear and blurred.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, there were few cars on the road; Liu Wenkai pushed hard, focused entirely on driving, and arrived at his destination much faster than the navigation suggested.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The destination was a hot pot restaurant with two floors for business; the parking lot below was packed with vehicles, as many people braved the wind and rain just to eat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before stepping out, Liu Wenkai turned to the other three in the car: “Our target is Zhou Lei’s girlfriend, Wang Na. She’s currently the prime suspect, but we’ll start with questioning. Watch for any men near Wang Na. If she’s the killer, consider she may have an accomplice—women who plan and carry out murders alone are extremely rare. Also, disposing of a body requires strength and equipment.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The front-seat detective, Zhang Enze, said: “Keep an eye on the kitchen equipment too—look for anything that could be used to dismember a body. The upper half of the corpse hasn’t been found yet.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yeah, watch for slicers, choppers, anything like that,” Liu Wenkai added.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your last line gave me goosebumps,” Zhang Enze complained. “Just secure the scene, move fast on arrests—damn, we’re still short-handed. We should’ve posted guards at both exits.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We’ve got no choice today—the team can’t spare anyone. The highways are closed, and even if we asked for help from Qinghe City, they wouldn’t send anyone.” Liu Wenkai could’ve waited until tomorrow—after all, the body had been floating for days, and if the killer hadn’t fled before, there was no reason he’d vanish today.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after years handling major cases, Liu Wenkai knew that sometimes, coincidences really were just that—coincidental.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides, weather was unpredictable. The conditions looked bad now, but they were still manageable for our team—we had enough to carry out the mission.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If we waited until tomorrow, who knew if the weather would get worse? A storm heavier than today’s could make arrests impossible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That’s also why he refused to wait outside—too uncertain. He decided to move inside the complex hot pot restaurant to make the arrest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, there was another main reason: today’s operation wasn’t a confirmed arrest—it was primarily an investigative questioning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai was just bracing for questioning to turn into an arrest. Still, in this weather, if the suspect ran, catching them would be nearly impossible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The four of them disguised themselves as customers and sat down inside the restaurant. Liu Wenkai didn’t order anything, just said he was waiting for someone, dismissed the server, and whispered: “Wang Na’s at the front desk, the cashier near the door. I’m going to find the manager and get us a private room, then ask Wang Na to come over. Xiao Zhao, follow me.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai used the server to locate the manager, then waited with Xiao Zhao in the back corridor’s break room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhang Enze and the other detective sat at a private table ten meters away, separated from the front desk by fake vine partitions—they had a clear view of the kitchen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a long wait, Wang Na finally rose and headed toward the back corridor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhang Enze and the other detective immediately followed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They smoothly led Wang Na into the corridor, shut the door, and trapped her inside a small storage room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Tell us—what’s your relationship with Zhou Lei?” Liu Wenkai’s eyes gleamed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This girl, barely twenty, no matter how many escape rooms or murder mystery games she’d played, Liu Wenkai was confident he could break her open—make her understand what it meant to have stared into the deepest darkness, and how such eyes pierced lies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Zhou Lei was my ex-boyfriend,” Wang Na frowned. “The red envelopes he sent were voluntary. Reporting me after we broke up? That’s low.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai frowned—this act felt too real.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhang Enze asked: “When was the last time you saw Zhou Lei?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What’s this about?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The police are asking you questions—answer properly. If you don’t want to talk here, we’ll take you to the station,” Liu Wenkai snapped back, shifting to a more aggressive interrogation tone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Na glanced around—no coworkers to help—and said: “More than a week ago. I can’t remember exactly.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Where did you meet?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Here at the restaurant. He came to see me. I told him we were done, stop being clingy, and sent him away.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Did you argue?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No. What’s this really about?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai studied Wang Na’s expression, then decided to go for the big reveal: “Zhou Lei is dead. You didn’t know?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Dead?” Wang Na looked shocked: “Really dead?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai frowned again: “What do you mean, ‘really dead’?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I mean… I mean…” Wang Na hesitated a few seconds. “A couple days ago, Zhou Lei sent me a message saying he was going to kill himself. I thought it was disgusting—he was just doing that whole ‘cry, scream, threaten suicide’ routine. So I blocked him…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What did he say? Show me.” Liu Wenkai urged.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Na hesitated, pulled out her phone, opened her WeChat blacklist, selected Zhou Lei’s avatar—a woolly mammoth squirrel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A line of text appeared before them:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I can’t hold on anymore. Life has always been cruel to me, and now it’s lost all color. I once believed everything would get better—you were once a rainbow in my life, but now you’re not anymore. I’m leaving. No one will probably ever know. Just like Skratt got his nut—it’s meaningless now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai and Zhang Enze exchanged glances, both falling silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This message was a textbook suicide note, and from a detective’s perspective, Wang Na’s reaction didn’t seem like a lie.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What does ‘Skratt got his nut’ mean?” Zhang Enze asked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Skratt’s the squirrel from Ice Age—it’s a Hollywood animated movie. That squirrel keeps chasing a nut but never catches it,” Wang Na said, now realizing the gravity of the situation and speaking more carefully.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai was frustrated: “He sent you a message like this—essentially a farewell letter—and you still blocked him?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I… I never thought he’d actually kill himself. I thought he just picked up some dramatic trick from somewhere. He always seemed so cheerful…” Wang Na whispered. “If I’d known, I’d have talked him out of it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Wenkai sighed heavily, as if he’d just stared into the abyss once more. He pulled out his notebook again and spoke slowly: “How was his relationship with his parents? Have you met them? Does Zhou Lei have any other relatives?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even with a farewell note, it didn’t prove suicide—there was still the matter of the dismemberment to resolve.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Na whispered: “I never met his parents. I heard they divorced long ago and each remarried. Zhou Lei never went home for holidays—he was raised by his grandmother. She passed away two years ago.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This added further evidence for suicide. Zhang Enze silently shook his head and asked: “Did you ever talk about any meaningful places? Especially along Taihe River?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wang Na thought for a moment: “He really liked the Traveler’s Bridge there. He once said he wanted to buy a house near it.”\u003C\u002Fp>",1227,"2026-06-20T18:55:00.150Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","4daeefa9919adbdf29d8d79afe9c34c7203fd30f6e84e8e9131d65bf0b841f6b","the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-71","the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-69",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-cover.jpg"]