Chapter 161 Pursuit

Chapter 161: The Motive

Luo Kaiyang fell silent for a moment before asking in confusion, "They were after the baby?"

He found it incomprehensible. "If the killer liked children and wanted a baby, they should’ve waited until at least six or seven months, right? The child was just over three months—there’s no way it could survive such a brutal extraction. What could they possibly gain from this?"

The team pondered intensely but couldn’t fathom what use a dead fetus could serve.

Even if the goal was child trafficking, the baby would need to be alive, wouldn’t it?

Shen Qingye’s expression darkened—this was exactly what puzzled her.

According to the Music Box, after killing Zhou Xiangyun, the killer had almost immediately performed a crude cesarean, extracting the fetus. They had seemed triumphant afterward and even made those remarks…

Clearly, the baby had been the target.

But why? What was the motive?

"If you can’t figure it out, don’t dwell on it," Yue Lingchuan tapped the table. "Right now, we have limited leads. Theories alone won't solve this. Let’s deploy the team and investigate based on the list Ge Weiqing provided."

Shen Qingye regained her focus. He was right—speculation wouldn’t help. Since the killer knew Zhou Xiangyun, there must be some clues among her colleagues and friends.

Yue Lingchuan deployed the team: "Xiao Shen and I will go to Zhou Xiangyun’s company. Lao Zhou, take Brother Zhengyi and investigate Ge Weiqing’s workplace. Jiang Cheng, you and Kaiyang will separately examine the close friends of the couple."

He braced his hands on the table and scanned the room. "Any objections?"

Everyone stood up immediately, unanimously agreeing before dispersing to act.

·

Zhou Xiangyun had worked at an advertising company—not particularly large, but stable in the industry.

She was part of the project team and had been with the company for several years, having been promoted to team leader just last year. The job involved frequent interactions with other companies, often requiring client entertainment involving alcohol. However, since Zhou Xiangyun started trying to conceive, she had avoided such occasions, mostly staying in the office and rarely attending business dinners.

Her supervisor was a middle-aged man in his thirties. Initially startled by the police visit, he was completely bewildered as to the reason—until they explained. His face went blank. "You’re saying… what?"

Shen Qingye repeated herself. The man looked dazed. "How… how could this happen without warning?"

"Xiao Zhou—she—" He blinked, at a loss for words, his mind reeling with disbelief.

Shen Qingye said, "We’re here to investigate the case. Manager Zheng, did you interact with Zhou Xiangyun quite regularly?"

Zheng quickly refocused. "Interact… quite regularly, yes."

He collected himself, thinking carefully. "In the earlier years, it was normal. After her promotion last year, she became my immediate subordinate, so we saw each other more and got to know each other better."

Yue Lingchuan asked, "What kind of person did you think Zhou Xiangyun was?"

"Xiao Zhou…" Zheng pondered. "Capable, sharp, and most importantly, personable. As I recall, she was well-liked by colleagues. I never heard of any major conflicts."

"Really?" Shen Qingye pressed. "In all her years here, there were no disputes at all?"

"Well…" Zheng hesitated. "There were occasional minor conflicts. But she had a professional approach to conflict resolution. Work was work, personal was personal. She didn’t hold grudges, so any issues were resolved within days."

"Overall, everyone had a good impression of her."

He let out a hollow laugh. "That’s why I was so shocked when I heard the news… How could something like this happen without warning…"

Shen Qingye considered this briefly before asking, "How widely known was her pregnancy at the company?"

"Most of them, I suppose?" Manager Zheng said. "Pretty much everyone was aware."

"After all, she was involved in projects and often had to attend client dinners and business networking. Recently, she stopped going out and started working only in the office, so there had to be an explanation."

"Besides, she told everyone when she first started preparing for pregnancy, so everyone was aware."

In that case...

Shen Qingye drummed her fingers on her hand and asked him to call in the colleagues who were especially close with Zhou Xiangyun.

The two of them sat in the office Manager Zheng had specially prepared, as staff members filed in one by one. They asked what Zhou Xiangyun was like normally, whether she had conflicts with anyone, if anyone in the office disliked her, and finally, about the relationship between Zhou Xiangyun and her husband...

After questioning everyone, the answers pretty much matched the manager's, with no suspicious points uncovered.

Shen Qingye had some suspicions about who the killer might be and had been keeping a close eye on the female colleagues, observing their words, actions, and appearances, but none matched the description from the music box clue.

Just as they were about to conclude that no useful leads would come from this side, one female colleague's reaction made Shen Qingye pause.

"Xiao Zhou and her husband had a pretty good relationship, right?" the female colleague said. "In all the years I've known her, I rarely heard her complain about her husband. Sometimes, when he wasn't too busy, he'd even come to pick her up after work. I've bumped into them a couple times, and they seemed really happy together."

"As for enemies... there shouldn't be any, at least not in our company."

At this point, she suddenly stopped mid-sentence. Shen Qingye immediately looked at her. "What is it? Did you remember something?"

"Well..."

The female colleague hesitated for a moment, hemmed and hawed for a while before finally saying, "It's just... I suddenly remembered that someone once pursued Xiao Zhou."

Hearing this, Shen Qingye immediately glanced at Yue Lingchuan and said gravely, "Tell us exactly what happened. Go into detail."

"Actually, there's not much to say," the female colleague composed herself and explained. "We had a project before, and the person we were coordinating with was a manager from another company. That manager seemed to have a thing for Xiao Zhou—he was very attentive to her during work and even tried to pursue her for a while."

"But Xiao Zhou gave him the cold shoulder and never responded. After some time, the guy eventually gave up."