Jiang Baofu’s Side Business

This thread traces how Jiang Baofu’s medical ambition, isolation, and appetite for money make him a suspicious witness before he admits to helping conceal the murdered women’s bodies.

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The Student on Night Watch

An Unusual Guard Li Yan and Nien Mei-Ling find Jiang Baofu in a hut at the New York-Shanghai Bank construction site. He explains that he works there part-time while studying medicine, and presents himself as eager to help the investigation. Skills and Opportunity Jiang talks readily about autopsies and hopes to become a surgeon or forensic pathologist. His medical knowledge, access to the site, and inability to explain why he failed to notice the burial make him a person the detectives cannot dismiss. Affluence Without Explanation His television, good clothes, gloves, and subscription to an American medical journal appear inconsistent with his claim that his grandparents cannot afford to support his studies. The mismatch turns an odd encounter into a serious line of inquiry.

A Reputation for Unease

The Student Others Avoid Jiang’s teachers describe him as exceptionally gifted with a scalpel but preoccupied with bodies rather than patients. At the university, he lingers around pathology work and appears more interested in surgical technique than in the people medicine is meant to help. A Pattern of Isolation Detective Dai and others describe Jiang as creepy, talkative, and morbidly interested in the investigation. His caretaker says he lives alone, rarely acknowledges anyone, and leaves an unsettling clinical smell in his apartment. Suspicion Is Not Proof The clues reinforce one another, but they do not establish that Jiang committed murder. Li Yan recognises the difference between a disturbing personality and evidence, even as the student’s proximity to the scene and apparent money keep him under scrutiny.

The Sterile Apartment

Order Without Warmth Li Yan and Nien Mei-Ling search Jiang’s immaculate apartment after learning he has gone away for several days. Medical diagrams, surgery recordings, and a collection of televisions fill the rooms, but there are few signs of ordinary social life. Obsession on Display The space suggests a young man who has built his daily world around medical knowledge and controlled routines. The surgical videos deepen the impression that Jiang is fixated on the mechanics of operations, yet the room offers no clear evidence tying him to the murders. A Missing Connection The detectives still cannot account for his spending or his unexplained absence. The apartment sharpens their concern but leaves the central question unanswered: whether Jiang is a killer, a witness, or someone exploiting his unusual access for another purpose.

The Bracelet and the Lie

A Personal Possession Investigators discover a jade bracelet bearing a character meaning “Moon” hidden in Jiang’s apartment. He admits that he had once bought a bracelet for a girl he admired in Yanqing, but his hesitant explanation raises doubts rather than settling them. A Convenient Release Li Yan allows Jiang to leave because there is not yet enough reason to hold him. The choice reflects Li’s insistence that suspicion alone cannot justify detention, though he orders Jiang not to leave Shanghai without permission. The Bracelet Finds Its Owner Detective Dai later traces the bracelet to Ji Li Rong, a missing university student whose father had called her Moon since infancy. Her parents confirm the object is hers, and the discovery ties Jiang’s apartment to one of the victims without yet proving how the bracelet came to be there.

Bodies for Cash

A Confession of Disposal Confronted with the confirmed bracelet and his work history at Shanghai World Clinic, Jiang admits that he found body parts in its freezer. He says he was not allowed into the operating theatre and denies taking part in the killings. The Burial Arrangement Jiang explains that he accepted money to transport and bury bodies at construction sites where coming concrete would conceal them. He recalls several separate dumps, including sites in Zhabei and Zhoujiadu, raising the known number of victims far beyond the bodies found at Lujiazui. Complicity Without the Full Crime He describes cutting up the bodies after they were already dead and presents the work as paid disposal rather than murder. His account makes him culpable in concealing the crimes while leaving investigators to determine who performed the operations, who employed him, and how many victims remain undiscovered.

On the night the investigation visits the construction site

During the first days of interviews at the university and headquarters

The day investigators search Jiang Baofu’s apartment

After forensic officers find the bracelet in Jiang’s apartment

After the clinic connection and bracelet identify Jiang as a suspect