Perfect Crime Chapter 1

It was late April 2022 when the Public Security Bureau of Lingchuan County in Yunzhou, Sichuan Province, received a strange letter.

It was a tip-off, an anonymous report of a supposed murder.

The letter claimed that back in 2009, a man named Zhao Yiming from Shuanghe Town, Lingchuan County, had been killed by his wife, Liu Mei, and that his body was dumped somewhere in a forested ravine or a cave nearby.

The letter named another man, Chen Xiaobo, as Liu Mei’s accomplice.

The police had never heard of any such case before.

But since it involved a possible homicide, the Bureau’s leadership dared not take it lightly.

Deputy Director Zhou Mingyuan immediately called an emergency meeting.

“This letter gives actual names, a rough date, and even a supposed dumping site,” he told the team. “That increases the likelihood that it isn’t just rumor. It could be a real but unreported murder. We need to verify it at once.”

Captain Li Wenhao from the County Criminal Investigation Unit raised his hand. “Director Zhou, I know that area well. I used to be stationed in Shuanghe Town. Please let me handle this.”

“All right,” Zhou agreed. “You’ll lead the operation. Take your men into the mountains and comb the whole area carefully. No spot left unchecked.”

Li assembled over a dozen officers and set out before dawn the next day.

They all knew it wouldn’t be easy, but once they entered the mountains, they realized they had underestimated the task completely.

The forest was old-growth, untouched, tangled with dense foliage and thornbushes.

Finding human remains from thirteen years ago seemed almost impossible.

They hacked through bamboo and brambles with their machetes, pushing forward inch by inch, sweating through their uniforms. Li told the team to focus on ravines, streambeds, and caves, as these were the likeliest places to hide or dump a body.

By sunset, their clothes were torn and their faces scratched, but they hadn’t found a thing.

Back at the Bureau, Li made his report.

Zhou listened carefully, brows knitted, and called another meeting with the division heads.

Li expressed two possibilities:

“Either the tip-off is inaccurate and the body was buried, not dumped, making it nearly impossible to find, or there was never any murder to begin with,” he said.

Others in the room nodded. Team Commander Kou Jianhua added, “If this really happened in 2009, why would the informant report it only now, after thirteen years? What’s the motive?”

The letter’s envelope caught Zhou’s attention. The red printed words in the corner read: “Sichuan Provincial Nanjiang Prison.”

The sender’s name at the end of the letter was Liu Yun.

Who was Liu Yun, a prison staff member or an inmate?

To verify, Zhou called the prison directly.

Soon, they confirmed that Liu Yun was indeed an inmate serving a ten-year sentence for fraud.

He had written the letter to expose the alleged murder of a fellow villager, hoping that by helping uncover a serious crime, he might earn a sentence reduction.

That made his information seem somewhat credible, since fabricating a case for personal gain inside prison could actually result in a harsher sentence.

Moreover, his letter contained remarkable detail: names, location, and motive.

Although Li’s team had found no body, Zhou reasoned that absence of evidence wasn’t evidence of absence. Thirteen years was a long time.

He decided to speak to Liu Yun in person. He also sent Li Wenhao back to Shuanghe Police Station to dig up all registration records for Zhao Yiming and Liu Mei.

When Kou Jianhua later met with Liu Yun at the prison, the inmate seemed nervous but cooperative.

“I only heard about it from someone else,” Liu admitted. “I didn’t know those people personally.”

“Then who did you hear it from?”

“Just some villager back home. I was eating at a small restaurant one time, and someone said a man named Zhao Yiming had gone missing years ago after catching his wife cheating. They said she killed him with her lover, a man named Chen Xiaobo, and they dumped his body in the mountains.”

“Did that villager see anything himself?”

“No, no, he just heard it from others. Everyone in town used to gossip about it.”

Kou leaned back, exasperated. “So all this is just hearsay?”

“I….I only hoped it could count as a meritorious report,” Liu stammered. “They said useful information could reduce sentences. So I thought I’d give it a try.”

“A try,” Kou repeated, half-amused, half-annoyed. “Your try nearly sent ten officers up a mountain for nothing.”

Meanwhile, Li Wenhao had returned from Shuanghe.

His findings were equally baffling.

There was no record of anyone named Zhao Yiming, Liu Mei, or Chen Xiaobo in the local population database. Nobody by those names had ever been registered as residents or as missing.

How could three supposedly local people leave behind not the slightest trace?

Perhaps, Li thought, they weren’t locals after all. He ran a nationwide ID search but again found no exact matches.

“A man can die, but his records remain,” Li said in frustration. “Even if deceased, a person’s registration wouldn’t simply vanish, certainly not all three.”

He and Kou concluded that the case probably didn’t exist.

Zhou, however, wasn’t convinced.

“Director Zhou,” Li argued, “the names don’t exist, the informant only guessed, there’s no report of any missing person. It’s all just rumor.”

Kou agreed. “Liu Yun’s a convicted fraudster. Why expect honesty from him now?”

Zhou tapped his fingers on the desk, thinking.

“Yes, but he also knows lying could worsen his sentence,” Zhou said slowly. “That means he probably didn’t invent it; he truly heard it somewhere. Which means there was a rumor.”

“Even if so,” Kou shrugged, “it’s still just gossip. Should we keep digging?”

Zhou studied the letter again, silent for several minutes.

Finally, he looked up. “Rumors often start from a grain of truth. Let’s not dismiss this yet. It involves a human life.”

Li sighed. “But we couldn’t even confirm the names. Where do we start?”

“Zhao is a common surname in Shuanghe,” Zhou replied. “Maybe the names were misheard. Zhao Yiming could be Zhao Yijun or Zhao Qingming. Let’s go there quietly and ask around.”