Section Two

Section Two is the investigative unit at the center of the Shanghai murder inquiry. Under Deputy Section Chief Li Yan’s direction, its detectives work to identify the victims and establish who is responsible, drawing on forensic findings, interviews, and searches. The case tests the unit not only through its lack of progress but through a persistent institutional tension: Li is responsible for directing the investigation, while Section Chief Huang retains authority over the department and its personnel.

Identity and command

The evidence presents Section Two as a working police department with a chief, a deputy chief, and a group of detectives who meet to share findings. Li leads this investigation, but his assignment does not erase Huang’s position. Huang objects when Li takes detectives from their beds to pursue a line of inquiry that has not been discussed with him, insisting that command authority remains his. Their dispute exposes a practical complication in the unit’s structure: responsibility for a case and control over the people needed to pursue it do not necessarily rest with the same officer.

The investigation also draws attention from beyond the department. At one briefing, Procurator General Yue’s unexpected attendance changes the atmosphere in the room. His presence signals that Section Two’s progress is being watched at a higher level, although the evidence does not establish that he is part of the unit itself. The distinction matters: the detectives conduct the investigation, but their work is subject to scrutiny beyond their immediate command.

Methods and investigative priorities

Section Two’s inquiry combines several kinds of evidence rather than relying on one suspicion. Li reports autopsy conclusions and the four identifications achieved so far, as well as Margaret Campbell’s re-examination of the body found in Beijing. The possibility that dental X-rays might help identify that victim offers a specific forensic avenue. Detectives have also interviewed Jiang Baofu’s course tutors and the caretaker at his apartment block, and searched his apartment. These steps give the inquiry a broad evidentiary base, but they have not yet produced a link between Jiang and the killings.

The unit’s immediate priority remains identifying the women. When a detective raises the possibility that the suspected killer may have needed assistance, Li considers the implications of more than one participant, including the need for someone to administer Midazolam and operate an Ambu bag. He does not allow that possibility to displace the practical task of identification. The exchange shows investigators considering competing explanations while keeping a concrete objective in view, rather than treating an arrest or an arrestable suspect as a substitute for solving the case.

Section Two also tries to turn individual accounts into a pattern. Li brings detectives a description provided by the husband of a murdered acrobat: a man she had seen at different locations before disappearing. Mei-Ling Nien proposes circulating that description to the families of other missing women. Further reports might confirm that the same man had been watching more than one victim, strengthen the pattern, and help identify additional women. In this approach, a witness’s account is not treated as conclusive on its own; its value depends on whether independent information supports it.

Suspicion and the limits of proof

Jiang draws suspicion because of his medical background, his access to the site where the bodies were found, and information gathered from people connected to his studies and residence. Li presents those circumstances as sufficient grounds to bring him in for questioning. They do not, however, establish that he committed the murders. At the detectives’ briefing, Li makes the gap explicit: the team has reasons to regard Jiang with suspicion but no evidence tying him to the killings.

The unresolved question of whether Jiang was in Beijing at the time of one murder illustrates how the unit tries to test a theory against a verifiable circumstance. Jiang says he was at home in Yanqing and did not enter the capital; confirmation from his grandparents could leave the investigators at a dead end, while failure to confirm his account could give them grounds to press him further. The distinction between suspicion and corroboration is central to the inquiry. A theory may fit a suspect’s background and access, yet still fail unless investigators can connect him to a particular crime.

The team’s reasoning also remains open to revision. Earlier, Li considers whether the apparent conspicuousness of a site night watchman might itself be deliberate, and whether the scale and medical character of the crimes imply collaboration rather than a lone offender. These are possibilities, not findings. His response is to acknowledge that the possibility of accomplices deserves consideration while returning the team to identifying the victims. Section Two’s work therefore moves between inference and restraint: hypotheses help direct attention, but they are not presented as proof.

Departmental strain and case leadership

The detectives’ briefing takes place in a crowded, smoky room during a period when the investigation is plainly failing to make the progress its members want. Li presents the accumulated work, including the four identifications and the searches and interviews concerning Jiang, but the central weakness remains: no evidence connects the medical student to the crimes. The meeting ends in a somewhat more optimistic mood after the description of the suspected follower is discussed, yet morale is already suffering. A promising investigative lead can lift the room without resolving the case.

After the other detectives leave, Yue confronts Li with the limited results: four identifications, an incomplete description of a man, and a medical student who cannot be connected to the murders. Li answers that such investigations take time. This exchange places his case leadership under pressure from an official measure of progress, while the detectives’ work still depends on slow identification and corroboration. Huang’s separate challenge to Li’s authority compounds that pressure. Section Two is thus not represented as a frictionless team: its investigation depends on cooperation among detectives, but its leadership is contested both within the department and by officials above it.

Collective reasoning and significance

The unit’s investigation is framed by a contrast between gathering many details and recognizing which detail changes their meaning. Margaret’s re-examination and her later realization that she had overlooked an obvious connection show that outside expertise can redirect the inquiry; her self-criticism is that an excess of information had obscured what the evidence could reveal. Her bus-driver-riddle analogy makes the point through attention rather than a new forensic procedure: a solver can become absorbed in names and numbers and miss what has been present from the beginning. Li responds by looking again at the evidence before him.

Section Two’s narrative role lies in this collective, provisional process. The unit gathers and tests information, while individual insight can expose a blind spot and command pressures can threaten the conditions for sustained work. Its lack of an immediate breakthrough is not treated as proof that the investigation is idle: the detectives have identified victims, examined possible leads, and developed a plan to test a witness description across families. At the same time, the distinction between those achievements and a proven connection to a suspect remains decisive. The department’s investigation advances only when a plausible explanation can be supported by details that withstand scrutiny.