Criminal Investigation Notes

Moonlight?

According to Qu Ming and Xing Yunhai’s accounts, this Moonlight had some grievances with the Poet.

Lu Junchi still remembered the hint of “Beware of Poet” that Moonlight left for Xing Yunhai before leaving.

He didn’t expect that the person Su Hui mentioned would be him.

Su Hui explained, “I think if our perspectives had been different back then, Jie Qiu would have already been dead, but the person he was investigating would still be alive. If we can get Moonlight to join us, it should save us a lot of time and help us find the other killers faster.”

Among the four Profilers back then, the Prophet had more investigative experience, and the Mockingbird’s female intuition was more accurate. But when it came to it, they were no match for Moonlight.

Moonlight excelled in profiling and was the best ally in this case.

Su Hui said, “Moonlight’s real name is Yao Fei. Among the four Profilers, Moonlight is a very talented person. His thinking has always been unconventional, and our analysis and case-solving approaches are completely different. Sometimes, they even complement each other. But he always takes a different path, so although his profiling accuracy is high, he hasn’t received enough attention within the Municipal Bureau.”

Moonlight was slightly older than Su Hui, had an exceptional memory for various case files, and was somewhat arrogant about his talent.

There was a rumor in the bureau that before the Poet arrived at the Huadu Municipal Bureau, Moonlight had always considered himself the heir to the tobacco pipe. However, after the Poet’s reputation surpassed his, he was aroused with a desire to compete and gradually began to see the Poet as his imaginary rival.

Lu Junchi knew some of these things as well. He had also heard some discussions about the Poet and Moonlight within the bureau. At that time, it was clear that there was more praise for the Poet, and Moonlight’s abilities were second only to the Poet. However, his actions were eccentric and not understood by everyone.

Su Hui’s evaluation of him, on the other hand, was very objective.

Lu Junchi agreed with his approach. At present, any so-called grudges were irrelevant to solving the case. But Moonlight had long left the system. He asked Su Hui, “Do you know where he might be now?”

Su Hui lowered his head and said, “I just happened to expose his pseudonym, as for where he is now… I can only hope that he hasn’t left Huadu in the past two years and hasn’t changed his address…”

Moonlight was Yu Yan’s disciple and had been Yu Yan’s assistant. He had been working at the Huadu Municipal Bureau long before the Behavioral Analysis Unit was established.

For criminal profilers, the ability to analyze personal information through a person’s behavior and language is the most fundamental skill.

Many people had speculated about Moonlight’s identity, but Su Hui almost effortlessly discovered who Moonlight was.

Just as Tao Lizhi could uncover the Poet’s pseudonym, Su Hui knew that Moonlight was Yao Fei, and he believed that Yao Fei must also know that he was the Poet.

They are not considered close colleagues, but they are not strangers who don’t know each other either.

Su Hui remembered flipping through the address that Moonlight had registered with the police before.

The two hurriedly had dinner.

Along the way, Su Hui briefly talked to Lu Junchi about Moonlight’s situation.

Lu Junchi hesitated for a moment and asked, “Moonlight… Why did he leave the bureau later?”

Different people gave him different answers to this question, and he felt that none of them would give him a direct answer like Su Hui did.

Su Hui lowered his head and said, “There was a case that caused Moonlight to be suspended at that time. It was a series of consecutive crimes, and Yao Fei eventually caught the culprit. However, the surveillance showed that he and a team of officers arrived at the scene early. Moonlight instructed the officers to wait and did not stop the culprit in time, resulting in the victim being injured.”

Lu Junchi asked, “Why didn’t he take action? Capturing the criminal is important, but shouldn’t protecting the victim be the priority?”

Moreover, under normal circumstances, a profiling specialist, as an auxiliary role, wouldn’t excessively intervene in operations.

“In his subsequent explanation, Moonlight said he wasn’t sure if the perpetrator and the victim were inside,” Su Hui paused for a moment and continued, “but many people thought Yao Fei did it intentionally. He might have wanted to catch the culprit red-handed, but he didn’t control the timing well.”

Lu Junchi asked, “Do you believe him?”

Su Hui shook his head and said, “I’m also unsure… Yao Fei had a sort of ruthlessness in his ideology. He was a cold-hearted person who believed that only victory mattered, and he could sacrifice everything for it.”

“In short, after the incident, Yao Fei was questioned, and various records showed that he had been around the girl who became a victim three days before. He neither informed the girl’s parents nor the police. Some people suspect that he used the girl as bait. Moonlight, of course, tried to refute this, but his statement didn’t explain this point well.”

It sounded like a massive dereliction of duty.

In the eyes of the leadership, Yao Fei had pursued solving the case but had gone astray.

“Yao Fei… He made some remarks within the police force, such as sometimes sacrifices were necessary to catch bad people,” Su Hui closed his eyes, “As a profiling specialist, he often needed to delve into the darkness and study the psychology of criminals. Perhaps in this process, he was influenced and deviated from his original path…”

Lu Junchi asked, “How was the matter handled later?”

Su Hui replied, “The final decision was to remove his firearm, suspend him temporarily. This matter had a negative impact, so the Huadu police did not make it public, and they didn’t even remove Moonlight’s ID, so many people didn’t know about his suspension.”

He sighed at this point, “Yao Fei believed he was telling the truth, that he was framed, and he had no idea the girl would be the next victim. Later, he directly resigned. His resignation request was approved by the higher-ups.”

Lu Junchi nodded, “The higher-ups must have weighed the pros and cons.”

Certainly, a profiling specialist was valuable, but if their thinking became problematic, their impact and influence would be much greater than that of an ordinary police officer. Despite Yao Fei’s talent, he was an unstable element for the police department. A police officer without the soul of a cop could be a dangerous presence within the department.

Su Hui said, “At that time, Director Tan consulted my opinion as well. I integrated several of Yao Fei’s previous profiles, pointed out some mistakes, and wrote an analysis report. Perhaps Yao Fei saw it as the reason that led him to completely leave the police force.”

Solving many difficult problems, perhaps they can achieve new cooperation.

In this race against time, if they can find Moonlight, it will greatly shorten the time needed to solve the case.

While talking to Lu Junchi, Su Hui thought of Yao Fei again.

When they were at the headquarters, the Poet and Moonlight were often a mystery to each other. They only communicated when discussing problems, and they never wasted words.

Su Hui found it difficult to describe what kind of person Moonlight was. He appeared somewhat lazy but was extremely serious at his core, even enjoying getting caught up in details. He had no friends and no interests or hobbies. His only preference was to be competitive and ambitious. He had a keen sense of crime.

During the profiling analysis, Su Hui was like an external observer, placing himself on the boundary between black and white.

He could understand the darkness more, comprehend it, but he made an effort not to lean towards either side.

Moonlight, on the other hand, was completely different. He embraced the darkness, delving into the psychology of criminals, even empathizing with the killer in order to profile them.

Therefore, his answers would always reveal a bit of darkness, cruelty, obsession, and madness.

He was like a werewolf in the moonlight, appearing as a complete person most of the time, but sometimes transforming into a beast and easily blending into a pack of wolves.

It was because of this that people at the headquarters feared him more.

As people listened to his reasoning, they nodded in approval while remaining cautious, as if he could do something terrible at any moment.

Moonlight was arrogant. He didn’t seek anyone’s approval and didn’t even regard the leaders highly.

His gaze was only fixed on the bad guys.

He was obsessed with capturing them.

But his actions didn’t seem like punishing evil and promoting good; instead, they resembled the self-destruction of an anomaly.

Once, Su Hui overheard Deputy Director Jin talking to Secretary Li, and he caught fragments of their conversation…

“Why did he submit this case again? Doesn’t he know that once a case is closed, it will never be reopened?”

“Just mark it as rejected directly. Look at it optimistically; we don’t have to reexamine it and waste time.”

“He used to only listen to Yu Yan’s words and didn’t regard any of us highly…”

“After all, he was Yu Yan’s disciple.”

“What disciple? He was just a wolf cub raised by Yu Yan… Now that Yu Yan is dead, he’s off the leash…”

Su Hui silently walked past them, knowing that Deputy Director Jin was referring to Moonlight.

Moonlight only listened to Yu Yan’s words. He respected and obeyed his teacher but never bothered to pay attention to the leaders.

It was precisely because of Moonlight that many people at the headquarters held a skeptical and even hostile attitude towards behavioral analysis and psychological profiling.

Su Hui felt that as a profiler, someone who understood criminal psychology, he sometimes couldn’t accurately judge the people around him. When the distance between people grew, he could achieve precise profiling.

However, when someone became too close, with emotional factors involved, he couldn’t come to a conclusion.

For example, he still didn’t know whether Moonlight’s actions in that final case were intentional, unintentional, or if he was set up.

During that case, Moonlight consistently denied any wrongdoing, but the police had encountered too many cunning criminals who lied. Perhaps he was like the child in the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

His peculiar behavior in normal circumstances made people not believe him when something really happened.

Was it possible that in one or two moments, Moonlight turned dark and actually used that girl as his bargaining chip?

Or perhaps everything was just a coincidence, and he happened to be there, coincidentally not saving the girl before the incident occurred.

Perhaps only Yao Fei himself knows about this matter.

Lu Junchi’s car parked below a residential building. The two of them got out of the car, and Lu Junchi looked up and glanced at the address Su Hui had given him. He spoke, “The lights are off.”

It’s very likely that Moonlight isn’t home, or maybe he has already moved out.

Su Hui tightened his grip on his cane and said, “Let’s go upstairs and have a look.”

It was an old-fashioned residential building with poor soundproofing. Walking in the corridor would create a gentle echo. The two of them climbed up to the fourth floor, and the door was closed. Lu Junchi knocked on the door, but there was no response. He knocked heavily a few more times, still without any sound.

“He might not be here… Do you remember his phone number or anything?” Lu Junchi asked.

Su Hui shook his head. He had only incidentally written down this address.

At that moment, the door across from them suddenly opened. A middle-aged woman stood there, in her forties, with a well-rounded figure and curly hair. Her gaze was somewhat cautious. “Who are you looking for?”

Seeing the situation, Lu Junchi immediately asked, “Auntie, is there a tenant living here named Yao Fei?”

The woman looked them up and down and then said, “He hasn’t been back here recently.”

Upon hearing her response, Su Hui felt a bit disappointed.

Lu Junchi continued to ask, “Do you have his phone number? We need to find him regarding something.”

The woman shook her head.

Lu Junchi noticed her wariness and explained, “We’re not bad people; we used to be his colleagues.”

After saying that, he briefly displayed his police officer identification.

“Former colleagues?” The woman suddenly looked at Su Hui and asked, “Do you like reading Poetry?”

“What…” Su Hui didn’t catch it clearly for a moment.

“Poetry, lines of Poetry,” the woman repeated.

“I do like it…” Su Hui didn’t understand what she was trying to do. He hesitated for a moment and replied truthfully. Since he referred to himself as a Poet on his ID, it was natural for him to like lines of Poetry.

“Just wait a moment.” The woman went inside, and after a while, she came back with a Poetry collection and handed it to him. “Yao Fei didn’t terminate the lease with me. He said he would be away for some time and paid me a full year’s rent upfront. He left me a book and told me that if any former colleague who liked Poetry came looking for him, I should give this to them.”

Lu Junchi hurriedly asked, “Auntie, do you know where he went? When did he leave?”

The woman shook her head. “He left six months ago. I couldn’t reach him on his phone, and I don’t know where he went.”

Lu Junchi asked another question, “Auntie, do you know what kind of work he did in the past two years?”

The woman replied, “Work? He didn’t tell me, and I don’t know anything else. I called his phone, but it’s been turned off.”

“Has anyone else come to look for him besides us?”

“No, there hasn’t.” The woman completed her task and hurriedly closed the door.

Su Hui furrowed his brow slightly as he looked at the book in his hand, which was a collection of modern Poetry.

The outcome of this investigation was different from what he had imagined.

Six months ago…

Wasn’t that around the same time he encountered Lu Junchi?

Why did Moonlight leave this book for him? What does it mean?

Where did Yao Fei go during this period?

Could it be that a long time ago, he already knew that they would come looking for him?

Su Hui tightened his grip on the book and suddenly realized that after that time, it was the day he met Fu Yunchu, followed by Qin Yongchen and An Yuci…

Could Moonlight be that old friend of his?