On an April night, as spring rain drizzled on, the city lights still shimmered—yet, on its outskirts, a strange wave of "disappearances" was quietly spreading.
Within just one week, three male ride-hailing drivers mysteriously vanished after accepting late-night requests. The final GPS updates all showed the same status—"Trip Completed"—yet the drivers themselves were nowhere to be found. After their families reported them missing, the police's preliminary investigation revealed a pattern: all incidents occurred between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., and all vehicles belonged to the same ride-hailing platform.
The case quickly caught the attention of the Criminal Investigation Bureau's Major Crimes Unit. Lu Chenzhou immediately formed a task force and contacted forensic expert Su Wanqing for technical support.
The first vehicle was found in an underground parking lot. It was clean, with no signs of forced entry. The key was still in the ignition, but the owner, Li Zhijun, had disappeared. Dressed in a white protective suit, Su Wanqing crouched beside the driver's seat, inspecting every crevice with a high-beam flashlight.
"There's long hair caught in the back seat." She carefully extracted a black, lightly scented strand and then swabbed the surface of the seat."There's residue of ether here," she said, looking up at Lu Chenzhou. "It's a common anesthetic. Inhalation for about five minutes would render someone unconscious."
"So the driver was drugged inside the vehicle." Lu Chenzhou frowned. "It doesn't look like a violent abduction… more like a lure."
The other missing vehicles were soon found—same situation: spotless interiors, no struggle, but all had traces of long female hair and chemical agents like ether or sedatives.
Further, each driver had received a suspicious message before vanishing—a "bonus request" from a rider offering extra pay for a trip to a suburban location.
"Extra money, late-night route… These drivers took the bait for the sake of a little more income," Su Wanqing muttered. "This wasn't random—it was premeditated."
Even more suspiciously, the tech team retrieved dashcam footage that contained a chilling video.
In it, a woman in a red dress and dark sunglasses sat silently in the back seat, her expression cold. She held a small bottle resembling a car air freshener. A few minutes later, the driver began rubbing his eyes, breathing heavily, and eventually slumped onto the wheel, unconscious.
The vehicle then steered itself toward an abandoned industrial area, disappearing into a camera blind spot. Tracking the route, every car led to the same final destination: a waste processing plant in the city's western suburbs.
After undergoing renovations last year, large sections of the plant had been shut down—making it a surveillance blind zone. Lu Chenzhou immediately led his team to the site.
The night rain drizzled on. The air reeked of rot and acid. Su Wanqing, in a raincoat, trudged through the mud alongside detectives. Inside a rusty old shipping container, they finally heard faint cries for help.
"Help… is anyone there?"
They flung open the door—inside were the three missing drivers, barely conscious. Their hands and feet were tied, mouths sealed with duct tape. Though weak, they were still alive.
"Call an ambulance!" Su Wanqing rushed forward, checking vitals to confirm their condition wasn't critical.
"Who did this?" Lu Chenzhou asked.
One of them trembled, voice hoarse:"A woman… She came every night, fed us… said we 'owed her a home'… She's insane…"
The clues pointed to a female suspect with medical knowledge—someone capable of sedating and restraining physically stronger men.
Through platform data and driving history, police quickly identified the suspect: Xu Yating, 42, owner of a private psychological clinic. Divorced.
Six months earlier, her ex-husband had been exposed for having affairs with multiple female passengers—leading to the collapse of their marriage. The drivers she had targeted had all previously served those women.
"She wasn't after her ex," Su Wanqing said softly, scanning Xu Yating's psychiatric history. "She projected her hatred onto these drivers, blaming them for 'destroying' her marriage. In her mind, trapping them was a way to regain control—locking them inside a symbolic 'cage of a broken marriage.'"
That night, police arrested Xu Yating at her residence.
She showed no resistance. In fact, she smiled faintly as she was taken away."You don't understand… They deserved it," she whispered. "They turned me from a happy wife into a woman no one loves. I just wanted them to feel what it's like… to be abandoned, trapped, tormented."
Lu Chenzhou watched silently as she was escorted into the police vehicle.
"She wasn't born a monster," Su Wanqing murmured beside him. "She just mistook vengeance for redemption."
And she knew—in her journey as a forensic pathologist—she would meet many more "creators of tragedy" like Xu Yating. Behind every autopsy report lay not just the truth, but also the darkest shadows of human nature.
The wind and rain did not stop.And beneath the city's glowing lights, peace remained only an illusion.