Li Yan Appointed to Lead the Shanghai Body Case Investigation

The Appointment and Its Stakes

The appointment comes during a conversation with Director Hu, with Huang Tsuo present and largely silent. The adviser describes the case as a severe embarrassment because it has been broadcast around the world, and warns that the publicity could damage Shanghai’s inward investment. He wants a prominent solution quickly, achieved under the same public scrutiny that has exposed the crime. The emphasis falls not only on the victims or the investigation’s demands, but on the city’s reputation and economic confidence.

Li is careful not to claim certainty. Asked for his thoughts, he says it is too early to reach conclusions. The adviser accepts the restraint, then makes clear that the mayor wants Li to take charge. Li initially says he will need permission from his superiors in Beijing. Director Hu answers that the arrangement has already been approved by Beijing’s police commissioner: Li has been lent to Shanghai for the duration of the investigation. The role is not an advisory one. The mayor wants him to lead the inquiry and holds him personally responsible if it does not reach a satisfactory conclusion.

That condition changes the meaning of the appointment. Li is given authority, but also made the visible bearer of failure in a case already defined by public exposure. He recognizes that his presence has stirred resentment in Huang and that Yue, the procurator general, is similarly cool toward him. The task therefore begins with both external pressure and internal friction: Li must produce results while working among officials who have reason to regard his elevation as an intrusion.

Campbell as a Forensic and Public Choice

Li’s first request is to employ Margaret Campbell, an American pathologist. He explains that pathology will be paramount given the nature of the case, and argues that Campbell has far more experience than Dr Lan. His reasoning is practical: the investigation requires specialized expertise, and Campbell has worked in China, so she understands how the local system operates.

The request also answers the political circumstances Director Hu has described. Li points out that a high-profile Chinese-American collaboration would be good public relations. His proposal therefore joins forensic judgment to the demand for a public-facing resolution: Campbell is valuable as an experienced pathologist, and her involvement can present the inquiry as capable of bringing international expertise to bear. Huang begins to object, but Director Hu silences him and asks Li to justify the request. After hearing the case, Hu agrees that Huang and Yue will facilitate Li’s requirements. The exchange establishes that Li’s leadership will involve negotiation as well as investigation.

The Investigation’s Early Reasoning

As the inquiry proceeds, Li’s position requires him to distinguish suspicion from proof. In one discussion, he considers whether a night watchman might be implicated, but warns that the apparent simplicity of the theory could itself be misleading. He also entertains the possibility that the crimes reflect a disturbed individual, recalling Campbell’s half-serious allusion to a psychopathic surgeon. The suggestion remains a possibility, not a conclusion.

Detective Dai then raises a practical difficulty: if the victims were operated on while alive, someone else may have been administering midazolam and using an Ambu bag. Li acknowledges that he had not considered this. The implication shifts the working picture from a solitary perpetrator toward a possible collaboration, even as the number and identity of those involved remain unknown. Li does not allow that speculation to displace what he treats as the immediate priority: identifying the victims as quickly as possible. His response reflects the discipline required by his appointment: alarming hypotheses matter, but they must not replace actionable investigative work.

From Victims’ Names to a New Clue

The investigation’s demand for identification later becomes personal through the account of Chai Rui, a twenty-two-year-old known as Cherry. Li tells Campbell that she had worked as a club hostess, lost that job after her drug use became known, and had a young daughter whose whereabouts were unknown. A box of belongings was all that remained of a life that had previously been only one unidentified case among the bodies.

Campbell’s reaction shows what identification changes. Knowing a victim’s name and that she had a child makes the loss harder to keep at a professional distance. At the same time, the new detail redirects her attention: she realizes that the fact Chai Rui had a child may matter to the pattern connecting the victims. She admits that too much information had obscured the obvious, and compares the lapse to a bus-driver riddle in which attention to numbers and stops hides what is already in view. Beside the autopsy table, she asks Li to look again at the evidence and consider what connects the women beyond coincidence.

The appointment does not itself solve the case, but it establishes the conditions under which that recognition can emerge: an inquiry led by Li, supported by Campbell’s pathology, and pressed to identify individuals rather than reduce them to a public scandal. The case’s political visibility makes speed and reputation unavoidable concerns; its progress depends on resisting the same narrowing pressure and attending to the details that give the victims’ lives investigative meaning.