One hour earlier—

In the interrogation room, Sensen—Yang Tao—was crying and shouting that he’d been wronged.

“I really didn’t do anything! I only took money to do a job. His death has nothing to do with me! After I got the drawing, I transferred the copyright to the Lin Group. The five hundred thousand was all bonus money. I’m telling the truth!”

Xiao Zhang slammed the table. “A five-hundred-thousand-yuan bonus, and only you got one?”

Yang Tao nodded like a pecking chicken. “Yes. President Lin promised me that once it was done, the money would go straight to my card.”

“Oh, right.”

Yang Tao tried to take his phone from his pocket, but his hands were cuffed and he couldn’t move.

“Officer, my phone has recordings of my conversations with President Lin. Listen to them and you’ll know.”

Xiao Zhang had the officer beside him search Yang Tao. Soon, two phones were taken from his pockets.

“You used two phones at work too?”

Yang Tao’s expression stiffened. “Y-yeah. Is that not allowed?”

“Liar!” Xiao Zhang glared at him. “You’d better explain honestly. What’s with the other phone?”

Of the two phones on the table, one had a chipped, worn case. The other had a clear case with no yellowing around the edges at all.

That meant the phone was new.

Or rather, Yang Tao rarely used it.

Yang Tao looked like he was about to cry again. “President Lin bought it for me. He said if we were going to put on an act, we had to go all the way and not let anyone notice anything wrong. He also bought me a lot of equipment. All the livestreaming gear was from him.”

The officer helped Yang Tao unlock the phone and opened the voice memos.

There were quite a few recordings, each labeled.

Some were chat audios meant specifically for Shi Li.

Others were records of his cooperation with Lin Zedong.

“You’re pretty cautious,” Xiao Zhang said. “Using the new phone your boss bought you to record him. Weren’t you afraid he’d installed tracking software on it?”

He played the first recording, the chat audio prepared for Shi Li.

A sweet, syrupy female voice instantly came through.

The imitation was almost perfect.

It even carried the same slight accent as the “Goddess” in Shi Li’s chat records.

“N-no, he wouldn’t. He took me to the mall to buy this phone himself. He even bought me a lot of clothes.”

At the mention of clothes, Yang Tao lowered his head, cheeks flushing.

Xiao Zhang felt goosebumps rise all over his arms.

Then he played the next recording. Lin Zedong’s voice came through, and Shi Li’s name was mentioned.

Xiao Zhang’s expression sharpened. “Why did it have to be Shi Li’s drawing? Wouldn’t imitating his style have been enough?”

The Lin Group was such a large company. Was it really necessary to go to all this trouble for one illustration style?

And spend five hundred thousand on top of that?

“President Lin has obsessive tendencies. He has a bit of a fixation in that area,” Yang Tao said carefully, his expression hard to describe. “Once he sets his sights on something, he has to get it. And his eye is vicious. After the new product launched, it sold out almost immediately. The heroine in that illustration was a bestselling comic IP. I’ve read it. It’s free, and it’s really popular. Bringing a two-dimensional character into reality to promote products—most of the buyers were actually Shi Li’s fans.”

Xiao Zhang raised a brow. “And how do you know that?”

“My former coworkers said so. And after I got in touch with Shi Li, I realized the heroine in his comic was actually his next-door neighbor. He must’ve had a crush on her. And I think President Lin probably likes that woman too.”

Xiao Zhang was speechless.

In all his years of interrogation, he had actually run into a chatterbox.

No need to ask much—Yang Tao spilled everything on his own.

“Officer, I’m confessing honestly. Take the recordings if you want. I don’t work for the Lin Group anymore, so I don’t have to care about President Lin’s mood. It’s just… can you let me go soon?”

His face was full of ingratiating smiles.

Xiao Zhang’s mouth twitched.

“So Lin Zedong had you deceive Shi Li’s trust. You used AI synthesis to disguise yourself as the heroine in his comic and approached him. After you got the drawing and copyright transfer agreement, what did you do?”

Yang Tao widened his eyes. “Once the money came in, I changed careers and started livestreaming. I realized these shut-ins love uniforms—all kinds of uniforms. Making money off them is way better than being a designer.”

He was, after all, a workplace rookie.

As someone who spent plenty of time online, the moment the president called him into the office, he had prepared to record everything.

He had done it in case the boss denied it later.

Otherwise, wouldn’t his five hundred thousand go up in smoke?

The money had come from a legitimate source, so Yang Tao couldn’t be charged for that.

But his later livestreams had violated Sang Ning’s portrait rights.

More importantly, throughout Yang Tao’s interactions with Shi Li, the two of them had never met offline.

In other words, Yang Tao had never been to Ping’an Apartments.

Even after the interrogation ended, Yang Tao was still sniffling and crying.

Xiao Zhang immediately left the interrogation room and sent the recording to Gu Yezhou’s phone.

He rolled his eyes. “I seriously suspect that guy was born the wrong sex. How does he cry more than a woman?”

“How else would he become a female streamer?” the interrogator beside him said faintly.

Clearly, he’d also been annoyed half to death.

Meanwhile, in the technical squad—

Old Chen and several officers had come in early without even eating breakfast. They quickly began testing the easels, paints, and the pile of miscellaneous items Gu Yezhou’s team had brought back from the third floor of Ping’an Apartments the night before.

“Master, there’s a fingerprint on the easel that doesn’t belong to Shi Li.”

They had expected to find nothing.

After all, although the items had been moved from the second floor to the third, the killer had very likely worn gloves while carrying them. Most of the traces left behind belonged to the victim himself.

“Run it through the database. See who it belongs to.” Excitement filled Old Chen’s eyes.

Shi Li was a shut-in. There weren’t many people who had frequent contact with him.

If someone else’s fingerprint appeared on the easel, there were only two possibilities.

Either that person was very close to Shi Li.

Or the killer had accidentally left it while moving the items.

“No way… Why are there stinky socks here too? This killer really knew how to move stuff. Shame he didn’t start a moving company.”

The technician running the fingerprint comparison had just sat down when the wheels of his chair rolled and accidentally caught on a line of thread.

He looked down.

It was actually a pair of black socks.

Old Chen kept staring straight ahead.

After looking at the socks on the ground for a long moment, he bent down and picked them up.

He examined the loose threads, turning them this way and that, then placed them into the machine for testing. Right after that, he found the fiber Sang Ning had previously asked him to analyze.

His eyes lit up. “So that fiber came from this pair of socks.”

The technician pouted. “Then the victim was really miserable. He had stinky socks shoved into his mouth before he died.”

Old Chen: “…”

After running the database comparison, the technician still found no result.

“Master, could this fingerprint belong to Li Xiaoqiang?”

“Compare it.”

Old Chen paused, then added, “Compare it against everyone around Li Xiaoqiang. Include Lin Zehui from last night, and Lin Zedong as well. A businessman’s fingerprints should be easy enough to find. No need to go to them in person.”

“Is that necessary? Li Xiaoqiang could hit Shi Li with an ashtray, and this whole pile of stuff was found in the floor he rented. Obviously he’s the killer. This fingerprint is probably his too…”

The technician felt his analysis was perfectly reasonable.

“I told you to do it, so do it. Why so much nonsense?” Old Chen snapped, glaring at him.

If the real killer was Li Xiaoqiang, why hadn’t he simply confessed to everything?

Instead, he only mentioned the ashtray.

In the interrogation record, there was nothing about him moving the victim’s belongings.

Old Chen’s guess was this:

Since the killer had moved everything out of the victim’s apartment, either blood traces had been left on those items…

Or the killer had touched something, hadn’t had time to clean it, and couldn’t remember exactly what it was.

So he moved everything.