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

Chapter 1187 The Corpse at the East Suburb Cement Plant

Looking at the complete chain of evidence, Li Ming nodded in satisfaction: "Now the evidence is conclusive. Zhou Jianming's confession is completely consistent with the results of the on-site investigation and physical evidence testing. This case can now officially enter the prosecution stage." He picked up Deng Yong's portrait and said softly, "Master Deng, you can rest in peace now. The murderer will definitely receive the punishment he deserves."

Eleven days after the Zhou Jianming case was closed, the Criminal Investigation Detachment received another report that a body had been found in a pile of materials at the East Suburb Cement Plant.

At this moment, the morning mist at the East Suburb Cement Plant had not yet dissipated. Grayish-white cement dust floated in the air, settling on the black dust-proof netting of the material piles like a thin layer of frost. Storage keeper Li Zhiqian slumped on the cement ground beside the material piles, clutching his phone, which he had just used to call the police. The screen still displayed the "call ended" message. His rubber boots were covered in cement dust, and his trousers had been ripped by wires caught in the piles. Half an hour earlier, he had been checking the material inventory as usual. He had just climbed onto the third pile of cement clinker when he saw a light-colored sleeve peeking out from under the dust-proof netting. Lifting it, he found a curled-up female corpse. Terrified, he tumbled and fell, dropping his walkie-talkie to the ground.

Li Ming's police car had just stopped outside the cement plant gate when the tires crunched over the cement dust-strewn pavement. He opened the car door, and a stench of cement dust and damp earth hit him. The rotary kiln in the distance was still rumbling, its roar adding to the oppressive atmosphere. "Immediately set up a cordon, seal off the area within 50 meters of the material piles, and prohibit any personnel from approaching," Li Ming ordered in a low voice over the walkie-talkie. His gaze swept across the scene before him—five piles of cement clinker formed a small mountain; the third pile, where the body was located, was on the east side of the plant, near the wall, surrounded by broken wires and fragments of old dust netting.

Xiao Yang, carrying his investigation bag, was the first to crawl into the cordon. The beam of his investigation light pierced through the morning mist, drawing a clear bright line on the body. "Female body, preliminary age estimate 25-35 years old, height approximately 160cm," he said, squatting beside the pile of materials, carefully removing the dust net covering the body. "She was wearing a light pink long-sleeved dress with tear marks on the hem and obvious ripped wrinkles at the neckline; her feet were bare, with ring-shaped ligature marks on her ankles and minor abrasions, suggesting she had been restrained before death." The body was curled up in a side-lying position, her right hand tightly clutching half a piece of white fiber, with small amounts of cement ash and reddish-brown soil embedded in her fingernails, clearly different from the grayish-white cement clinker in the pile of materials.

Using a footprint light, Xiao Sun examined the ground around the material pile. A thin layer of dust covered the cement, clearly preserving multiple sets of footprints. "I found a set of size 38 women's leather shoe prints," he measured with a ruler. "Stride length 58 cm, stride width 12 cm, stride angle 3 degrees inward, consistent with the gait characteristics of a woman around 160 cm tall. The edges of the prints show fresh wear, and the sole pattern is inlaid with cement clinker particles, consistent with the particle composition of the material pile where the body was located." Three meters away from the body, near a wire, he found another set of size 42 men's work boot prints. "Stride length 70 cm, stride width 16 cm, stride angle 4 degrees outward, estimating a height of 170-175 cm. The shoe prints show concentrated pressure on the forefoot and obvious drag marks on the heel, suggesting the man had been carrying heavy objects at the scene."

There was an irregular tear in the dust netting at the top of the material pile. Xiao Sun used tweezers to pick up a fiber from the edge of the tear: "The dust netting is made of polyethylene. There are obvious tear marks at the tear, and the edge fibers are broken, which is not due to natural aging damage." He compared the fiber with the half-section of white fiber in the corpse's hand. "The two are made of the same material, so it is speculated that the corpse was thrown into the material pile through the tear." On the cement ground directly below the tear, there was a light brown wiping mark, about 30 centimeters long. "The wiping direction was from the wall to the material pile. The edges of the mark were blurred, so it is speculated that it was left when the corpse was dragged. The residue needs to be extracted and its composition needs to be tested."

Xiao Wang placed the interrogation record book on the hood of the police car. Li Zhiqian's fingers repeatedly rubbed the date "6:20 AM on August 15th," his knuckles turning white with tension. "I arrive at my post at 5:8 every morning, first checking the factory gate, then verifying the material inventory one by one," his voice trembled with tears, the chattering of his teeth particularly clear in the morning breeze. "Today, when I got to the third pile, I saw a section of the dust net bulging out. I thought it was just the wind, so I climbed up to try and straighten it. But when I pulled, I saw a person underneath... She was wearing a pink dress, motionless. I reached out and checked her breath; she wasn't breathing. I was so scared that I immediately called the police!"

"Have any strangers entered or left the factory recently? Or have you seen any suspicious vehicles or people?" Xiao Wang's pen slid quickly across the paper. Li Zhiqian suddenly looked up: "Yes! Yesterday afternoon around 4 p.m., a man wearing a black jacket drove a silver van into the factory area, saying he was there to pick up scrap. I registered the license plate as required and let him load and unload in the scrap area. But not long after he went in, he drove around to the material pile. I was checking the accounts in the duty room at the time and didn't pay much attention. Now that I think about it, his behavior was a bit suspicious." He tried hard to recall, "The man was probably in his 30s, about 1.7 meters tall, wearing a black baseball cap, and spoke in a low voice. The last four digits of the license plate he registered seemed to be '36,' but I can't remember the exact number."

Xiao Yang's investigation light lingered on the tear in the body's skirt, where he discovered a dark hair tangled in the fabric fibers: "The hair was about 15 centimeters long, black, and relatively soft, with remnants of the hair follicle at the root. It wasn't the deceased's hair," he said, carefully putting it away in an evidence bag. "There was an empty white plastic bag in the dress pocket with serrated tears at the opening and a small amount of brown powder on the inside, which needs to be sent to the lab for analysis." In a crevice at the bottom of the pile of materials, he also found a silver earring, round with signs of oxidation. "The earring was quite delicate, not the kind of jewelry commonly seen in industrial sites. It was probably an item the deceased carried with her that got stuck in the crevice when it fell."

"Is anyone on duty at night? Is there surveillance here at the material pile?" Xiao Wang continued to ask. Li Zhiqian shook his head: "I'm the only one on duty at night, mainly watching the main gate. There's no surveillance here at the material pile. The leaders said it wasn't necessary and a waste of money," he pointed to the guard room on the west side of the factory area. "It's more than 200 meters from the guard room to the material pile. It's dark at night, so I don't usually come here unless there's a special situation." He suddenly remembered something, "Oh right, around 10 pm last night, I heard a muffled 'thud' from the factory wall. I thought it was just the wind blowing over a waste bin, so I didn't go out to check. Now that I think about it, could it be..."