"Let go of me! I haven't done anything wrong, why are you arresting me?" Zhu Yaming struggled violently.
"Didn't do anything wrong, yet you're running? Come on, let's go to the station and talk," Fang Rui cuffed his hands, noticing several scratches on his knuckles. Although they were scabbed over, it was still clear that they were claw marks.
Xiao Zhang, following Fang Rui's gaze, also noticed the scratches and exclaimed, "Boss, look! There are cat claw marks on his hand, the killer is probably him!"
"Officer, you're slandering me! These scars are from a fight with my girlfriend, not from a cat's claws!" Zhu Yaming immediately protested, though a flash of panic crossed his eyes.
Fang Rui wasn't interested in his excuses. He patted Zhu Yaming's shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll have the coroner verify the source of these wounds later."
Zhu Yaming's face turned ashen.
In the interrogation room, Zhu Yaming sat hunched in the chair, beads of nervous sweat forming on his forehead, but he was trying hard to maintain his composure.
Fang Rui slid the autopsy report in front of him. "The coroner's report is in. They say the scratches on your hand are from a cat, and they're recent. Do you have anything to explain?"
"Officer, I admit I lied. These scratches are from a cat. I got them while feeding stray cats. I panicked earlier because I thought I was involved in something big, so I lied."
"Oh, so you lied out of nervousness?" Fang Rui raised an eyebrow. "But you wouldn't be hiding anything else, would you?"
"No, I really haven't done anything illegal."
"Done nothing illegal? Looks like we'll have to wait for our tech team to recover the data from your computer's hard drive before you tell the truth."
"I..."
Fang Rui tapped the desk, his tone growing impatient. "Fine, I'm not wasting time interrogating you. Once we have all the evidence, we'll let the judge hear your side."
"I'll tell you everything! But abusing cats isn't illegal, right? It's my cat, my private property—there's no law against how I treat it!"
Fang Rui raised an eyebrow, "So, you only abused cats?"
"I even recorded the videos."
Fang Rui motioned for him to continue.
"I uploaded the videos online. I made quite a bit of money off of it."
The tech team quickly recovered the data from Zhu Yaming's computer. Fang Rui watched one video, and in it, a man, whose face was not shown, was using a high heel to repeatedly stomp on a kitten's head. In no time, the kitten's head was battered and bloodied. This wasn't just cat abuse—it was sheer madness.
Although they hadn't caught the true killer, Fang Rui felt that they hadn't worked in vain; they had managed to apprehend a sadistic cat abuser.
After several days of work, Mu Mian was gradually adjusting to her new job.
The investigation into the case remained stagnant. The police had yet to find the fetus the killer had taken, and no viable leads had emerged from the available clues.
The case had reached an impasse.
As usual, Mu Mian left her neighborhood and noticed a large crowd gathered near the square.
"My God, that woman secretly gave birth to a cat in the bathroom! It was that big!" one person gestured, "It's terrifying!"
"Ridiculous, who can give birth to a cat? You're making up stories!" another person retorted.
"Old Chen saw it with his own eyes. That woman died from complications during childbirth. There's even a photo!"
"Stop spreading rumors, you can be arrested for that! The killer killed the pregnant woman and then threw a dead cat on her body!"
Mu Mian overheard their whispers, and a bad feeling washed over her.
"Excuse me, could you let me through?" Mu Mian called out to the crowd, but no one paid her any attention. They remained tightly packed. Growing anxious, Mu Mian, who disliked physical contact with others, couldn't make her way through the crowd.
"Mu Mian, what are you doing standing there?" Fang Rui, noticing her from a distance, walked over.
"Has another victim been found?" she asked.
"See for yourself," Fang Rui gestured for the crowd to clear a path, leading Mu Mian to the crime scene—an abandoned public restroom.
The restroom was surrounded by bright yellow police tape, with officers maintaining order and keeping the crowd back.
The restroom had been abandoned for a long time, the light dim, and the air reeked of decay. Mu Mian entered and saw the deceased, dressed in a loose maternity dress. Her stomach had deflated, like a punctured balloon. Her face was pale, and her hands were bound behind her.
There was an IV needle stuck in her left hand, connected to an empty IV bag. It seemed the killer had tried to keep the woman's vital signs stable with the infusion.
"Mu Mian, you need to take a look at this," Xiao Zhang called out as he greeted her. "The victim is another pregnant woman, and she—she…"
The forensic team hadn't arrived yet, so the body hadn't been examined.
Mu Mian put on the gloves Xiao Zhang handed her, gently lifting the deceased's gown. She took a quick glance, then rearranged her clothes before softly continuing Xiao Zhang's sentence, "It seems like she really did give birth to a cat."
Between her legs was a small red ball, quietly curled up. It was a tiny, bloodied kitten.
The kitten was no longer breathing.
"The killer improved their method," Mu Mian said, looking at Fang Rui. "But they still failed."
Failure meant the killer was likely to try again.
Within an hour, the case had gone viral online.
The first witness to discover the body had posted pictures and videos on their social media. The victim had been a minor internet celebrity with many followers, and the photos and videos quickly spread and became a hot topic.
Li Yan's case had resurfaced as well. With two brutal, bizarre incidents happening in the same neighborhood, it sparked widespread fear among the public.
At the same time, some internet users, eager for a scandal, coined the killer's nickname: "Cat Fetuses."
The public uproar prompted authorities to take the case even more seriously.