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

Chapter 1269 Retrieving Building Surveillance Video

To gather more clues, Xiao Wang decided to question the building's security guards and cleaning staff again. He first approached Li Baocun, the night shift security guard. In addition to what he had already learned, Li Baocun added, "Around 9:30 last night, while I was patrolling the B1 level, I saw a person wearing a black hoodie come out of the elevator. He was looking down, so I couldn't see his face clearly. He seemed to be carrying a black bag. At the time, I thought it was an employee working overtime carrying documents, so I didn't think much of it. Now that I think about it, that person might have been the one driving the black car."

Then, Xiao Wang found Aunt Liu, the cleaning lady responsible for cleaning the B2 level. Aunt Liu recalled, "This morning when I went to clean the B2 level, I saw an empty mineral water bottle in the trash can near where the body was found. There was some dust on the bottle, and I thought it was thrown away by an employee, so I cleaned it up. Now that I heard about the case, I realize there might be something wrong." Xiao Wang immediately sent his team to investigate the area around the trash can, but they found no further traces—the trash can had already been cleaned, and no useful information could be extracted.

When other security guards and cleaning staff were questioned, the information obtained was mostly repetitive and vague. Wang, a security guard on the day shift, said, "I haven't seen any strangers frequently entering or leaving the building in the past few days, but a man in a gray coat has been loitering at the building entrance for three consecutive days, as if waiting for someone. I don't know if it's related to the case." Cleaner Zhang said, "I haven't noticed anything unusual, except that the fire escape door on the B2 floor hasn't been closing properly lately. I thought it was broken and even reported it to the property management, but no one has come to fix it."

At 6 p.m., as darkness fell, Xiao Wang led his team back to the monitoring room to continue reviewing the remaining surveillance footage. By 10 p.m., they had finished watching the building's surveillance footage from the past three days. Apart from the black sedan with its license plate obscured and the suspicious person in the black hoodie, they found no other valuable clues.

"Is the deceased's identity still unconfirmed?" Xiao Wang asked his teammate, rubbing his sore eyes. The teammate shook his head: "We checked the building's employee registration information, but there's no one named Chen Feng. We can't contact the science and technology company either; we don't know if it's a shell company. The deceased didn't have an ID card, bank cards, or any other items that could prove his identity. His phone is still charging, and it requires a password to turn on, so we can't access the information inside for the time being."

Xiao Wang sighed, walked to the window, and looked at the bustling traffic outside the building. Although they had found the black sedan with obscured license plates and the suspicious person in a black hoodie, the clues were still limited—the specific model and destination of the black sedan were unknown, the identity of the person in the hoodie could not be confirmed, and the identity of the deceased was completely unknown. He took out his phone and reported the situation to Li Ming: "Team Leader Li, the surveillance footage shows a black sedan with obscured license plates that entered the B2 level parking lot at 9:15 pm last night and drove out at 9:50 pm, heading towards the west of the city; we also found a suspicious person in a black hoodie, but their identity is unknown. We questioned the security guards and cleaning staff, but there were no further clues, and the identity of the deceased cannot be confirmed for the time being."

Li Ming paused for a moment on the other end of the phone before saying, "First, send the characteristics of the black sedan and the physical characteristics of the person in the hoodie to the traffic police department and the surrounding police stations to assist in the investigation; send the deceased's phone to the technical department as soon as possible to crack it and see if we can find any identity information; tomorrow morning, go to the registered address of the science and technology company to verify that the company exists and whether Chen Feng is a real employee."

After hanging up the phone, Xiao Wang returned to the monitoring room. Looking at the frozen image of the black sedan on the screen, he knew that solving this underground parking lot murder case was still a long and arduous task. The vehicle with the obscured license plate, the person in the hoodie, the fire escape door that wouldn't close properly—when would these fragmented clues be pieced together into a complete chain of evidence? Who was the victim? And why did the killer murder him? Countless questions swirled in Xiao Wang's mind. He could only silently hope for a new breakthrough tomorrow.

At 11 p.m., Xiao Wang and his team left the Oriental Building. The lights in the monitoring room were still on, and the screens were still looping past footage, as if silently telling the secrets hidden in the building. Xiao Wang knew that as long as they didn't give up and continued to focus on the details, they would eventually uncover the truth of the case and ensure that justice was served.

Meanwhile, the temperature control system in the Criminal Investigation Detachment's autopsy room remained stable at 16°C, the air filled with a mixture of disinfectant and a slight putrid odor. A refrigerated truck carrying the body from the underground parking lot of the Oriental Building slowly drove into the autopsy tunnel. Two staff members, wearing heavy biosafety suits, carefully lifted the body onto the autopsy table. The body remained in the same curled-up position as when it was found in the parking lot; a small amount of gray floor tile dust clung to its black coat and dark blue jeans, the pockets were turned inside out, and the abrasions on the right hand's knuckles were particularly noticeable under the operating lights.

"Prepare the dissection instruments. First, conduct a surface examination of the body, focusing on recording rigor mortis, livor mortis, surface injuries, clothing residue and attachments, especially abrasions on the finger joints and powder under the fingernails. Make sure these match the samples from the crime scene investigation." Zhang Lin, wearing double-layered latex gloves, spoke through his gas mask, his voice calm and undeniably professional. His assistant, Xiao Lin, had already arranged the dissection trays in order; scalpels, forceps, thermometers, and other instruments gleamed coldly under the operating lights. Specimen bottles beside them contained saline solution and preservatives, ready to collect various samples at any time.

Xiaolin carefully cut open the deceased's black coat with scissors, gradually exposing the upper body. The body was in a state of mild decomposition, with pale skin all over and only a few dark purplish-red livor mortises on the lower back. "The deceased was male, with an initial age of 35-40 years old and a height of 172cm. Based on the tibia length measurement, the error is no more than 0.5cm." Xiaolin measured the dimensions of various parts of the body with a soft ruler while quickly writing on the record board. "Rigoletto is mainly distributed in the jaw, face, and upper limb muscles. The jaw joint movement is restricted, and the elbow joint is in a semi-flexed position. There is slight resistance when pressed, indicating that rigor mortis is in the middle stage of formation, which is consistent with the characteristics of 12-18 hours after death. The livor mortises are dark purplish-red and distributed on the lower back, buttocks, and back of the thighs where no pressure is applied. They can be briefly bleached by finger pressure and have blurred edges, which is consistent with the diffusion stage of livor mortises 6-12 hours after death. However, due to the lower temperature in the autopsy room, the development of livor mortises is slightly slower than in a normal temperature environment."

Zhang Lin squatted beside the autopsy table, gently touching the deceased's finger joints with a dissecting needle to observe the skin's elasticity. "Immediately measure the rectal temperature, compare it with the ambient temperature, and calculate the temperature difference," he instructed Xiao Lin. He then used tweezers to pick up the deceased's right hand fingers and carefully examined the abrasions at the joints under the operating light.