"I'm also inclined to think it's an affair, but the investigation results show he wasn't having an affair. None of his friends heard he had a new girlfriend, and even his ex-wife said he wasn't involved with any questionable women."

Mao Ji reported the investigation results to everyone. Initially, he suspected an affair too, but the investigation revealed no clues.

"Could it be his ex-wife?"

Su Jiayi's question left everyone speechless, and nobody spoke.

"Does an ex-wife count as an affair? At most, it's rekindled love, but from Mu Xingjuan's tone, she doesn't seem interested in remarrying the deceased."

Mao Ji shook his head, dismissing the idea.

In most cases, when a wife dies, the police first suspect the husband. Similarly, when the husband dies, the first suspect is the wife.

But they've been divorced for three years. Is it necessary for things to escalate to life and death?

"Could it be the ex-wife's affair? The ex-wife found a new partner, the deceased couldn't take it and went to make trouble, and ended up getting killed?" Zhou Man's eyes lit up as she considered the possibility.

Cao Gang didn't refute this after hearing it.

As a detective, you need to hypothesize boldly and verify carefully.

So he looked at Mao Ji and asked, "Has Mu Xingjuan found a partner?"

Mao Ji nodded and said, "She has a boyfriend. From what she says, he runs a mahjong house, but Mu Xingjuan said they don't have much interaction and hasn't heard of the deceased causing trouble at his mahjong house. It shouldn't lead to murder, right?"

"Since there's this possibility, let's investigate and rule it out. I'll leave this to you and Li Xiang."

"Yes."

The police won't give up as long as there's a slightest possibility in the investigation.

After the meeting ended, Li Xiang and Mao Ji went to Mu Xingjuan's clothing store again to ask her about her boyfriend's situation.

When they stated their purpose, Mu Xingjuan immediately denied it:

"It can't be him. We've been together almost every night during this period. It can't be him."

"Together every night? Even on the night of the 10th?"

"Yes, together," Mu Xingjuan confirmed.

"By the way, do you recognize this person?" Mao Ji took out a surveillance photo from the bag, processed for clarity by technical police officers, showing the scene at 2:20 AM on April 10th when the murderer discarded the body, for Mu Xingjuan to identify.

But since it was dark at the time, the picture was still somewhat blurry despite the clarity processing, though much better than before.

Mu Xingjuan recognized the car in the photo at a glance: "That's my ex-husband's car."

"We already know that; tell us something we don't know."

"The photo is too dark, and it's too far; I can't see clearly who that person is."

"Can you tell us your boyfriend's situation? What's his name, and where's the mahjong house?"

Although Mu Xingjuan told them that they were together on the night of the 10th, it's possible they might be covering for each other, so the police needed to verify if they were lying.

"His name is Cheng Jiangbo, he opened the Chengfeng Polang Mahjong House on Xingjian Road, and his phone number is 131***."

Xingjian Road,

Li Xiang and the others located the roadside Mahjong House called Chengfeng Polang and saw the police officers in uniform appearing there. The people playing cards instinctively threw down their cards and left, thinking it was a gambling crackdown.

Li Xiang and his partner couldn't stop the people fleeing in panic, and the Mahjong House was in chaos with tiles scattered, and some bills fell on the ground in a hurry.

The commotion in the store quickly brought out a person.

This man was about 170cm tall, somewhat overweight, and didn't match the body shape of the suspect in the surveillance video from that night.

"Officers, there's no gambling here, I just provide a place for entertainment, not involved in any rake-off."

The owner, also mistaking them for a gambling crackdown, quickly explained.

"Public Security Bureau, are you the owner, Cheng Jiangbo?"

"Ah, yes," Cheng Jiangbo nodded repeatedly in agreement.

"Do you know Hao Lianshan?"

"I know him, Xiaojuan's ex-husband, met a few times. I heard from Xiaojuan he was killed, died miserably, have they caught the killer?"

"That's not something you should inquire about." The case was still under secret investigation; all details had to be kept confidential, not to be disclosed outside.

Then, after Li Xiang and others inquired about his trips during this period, particularly on the 8th and 9th, he was mostly in the store with surveillance footage as evidence; he didn't have a time frame to commit the crime, leading Li Xiang and the others to essentially rule out his suspicion.

Just when Li Xiang's leads were running dry, Captain Cao had good news on his end.

Mao Ji received a call from Captain Cao, telling them to immediately head to an old residential building on Jiang'an Road. The water company had spotted a household with unusual water usage, using up to 7 tons on the 8th and 9th.

Such high water usage clearly exceeded regular residential use, unless someone's tap burst and kept running, it formed such usage.

When Li Xiang and the team arrived at the scene, Cao Gang was already there with the technical police conducting the site investigation.

"Captain Cao, we're here."

Mao Ji walked over to report to Cao Gang, who, upon seeing them arrive, nodded and asked, "How's your side?"

"Cheng Jiangbo had no time to commit the crime, plus his body type is obese, not matching the suspect in the video."

Just as they were speaking, a technical officer approached Captain Cao saying, "Captain Cao, confirmed, this is the first crime scene. Although the suspect cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, we extracted biological sample information from the drain crevice. The house was meticulously cleaned, no fingerprints were found, only some hair, the owner of which needs DNA extraction and comparison, and we found a toolkit under the bed, suspected to be the one the deceased carried out with on the 8th."

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