With the leads he uncovered, Jiang Zhengkai was able to successfully apprehend a rather immoral doctor.  However, the murder case was still stuck in a quagmire.  Yu Di’s confession confirmed Jiang Zhengkai’s intuition, that he was not the killer.  Furthermore, the simple fact was that Yu Di didn’t have time to commit those murders.  Besides long hours at the hospital and having multiple affairs, he had little time for anything else, much less commit a series of five murders.

It was now two months since the first murder, yet Jiang Zhengkai still had nothing to tie the five murders together, save for the fact that ten people died while having s.e.x.

Another week quickly went by, yet the status of the case was still at a standstill.  However, a piece of bad news would soon find its way to Jiang Zhengkai.  That morning, Zhang Nan called Jiang Zhengkai over the phone and said, “Inspector Jiang, there’s a situation.  I don’t know how to put it…”

“Don’t worry, you can tell me, Zhang.”  By now, these two had gotten much more familiar with one another due to all the time they spent working together on the murder case.  As such, Jiang Zhengkai now dispensed with Zhang Nan’s t.i.tle when speaking to him.

“It’s like this.  In the past three days, there have been no women working in the alley,” Zhang Nan said anxiously over the phone.

“That’s great news!” Jiang Zhengkai responded without thinking before the real implication of Zhang Nan’s news sank in.  His mouth then opened to the size of a chicken egg, “Wait, are you saying they’ve all quit working?”

“That’s right!” Zhang Nan said helplessly over the phone, “I already spoke to A-Shun.  He said it’s not that the women don’t want to work, but rather that they are afraid to work.”

“Ah, I see,” Jiang Zhengkai said with a wry smile on his face, “Hey Zhang, could you do me a favor and convince those women to go back to work?”

Zhang Nan went silent on the other side of the line for a long time before finally responding, “So yeah… Jiang… I guess I’ll give it a shot.”  Zhang Nan thought for a long while on how to respond.  On the one hand, he didn’t want to refuse Jiang Zhengkai.  On the other hand, there was no way he could do what Jiang Zhengkai asked him to do.  How could a police officer possibly go and try to convince a bunch of women to keep working as prost.i.tutes?

Jiang Zhengkai placed the handset back in the receiver and sat at his desk with hands clasped  by interlocking fingers.  He rubbed his hands together for what seemed like the better part of a day.  He knew ordering Zhang Nan to convince the prost.i.tutes to go back to work was a ridiculous request.  Ever since the oldest profession in the world came into existence, there probably has never been a constable or lawman who proactively implored prost.i.tutes to continue with their profession.

After pondering over the situation for half an hour, he finally gave up and called the telephone number of Yao Tianyu’s a.s.sistant.  “h.e.l.lo, Zhang Qian.  This is Jiang Zhengkai,” he said over the phone.

“Hey, Brother Jiang.  What can I do for you?” Zhang Qian cheerfully asked through the telephone.

“Could… could you check to see if Commissioner Yao is available?” Jiang Zhengkai stammered.

“He’s available.  Are you looking for him?  Why don’t you just call his direct line?”  asked Zhang Qian.  She could tell Jiang Zhengkai was acting a bit weird today.

“Oh right.  So… umm… how is his mood today?” Jiang Zhengkai probed.

“He’s in a pretty good mood today.  Hehe, you screwed up again, didn’t you, Brother Jiang?” asked Zhang Qian, which was immediately followed by laughter that sounded like silver bells ringing.

“No!  I… it’s just that… oh, forget it.  I’ll call him myself,” said Jiang Zhengkai.

Although he told Zhang Qian he would call Yao Tianyu right away, he ended up playing with his phone for a full fifteen minutes before he summoned the courage to call his boss and mentor.

“h.e.l.lo, Yao Tianyu,” Yao Tianyu’s voice came loud and clear over the telephone.

“Commissioner… Commissioner Yao,” stuttered Jiang Zhengkai.

“What’s going on?  Why are you being so polite today?  What is it?  Spit it out!” Yao Tianyu roared in rapid fire succession.

“There’s a situation I want to report, sir,” Jiang Zhengkai braced himself and said to Yao Tianyu.

“Speak!” came the crisp order from the other side.

“The Ju’an Road murder case, I’ve… I’ve made some progress,” Jiang Zhengkai softly probed.

“Good man!  You’ve finally made progress.  Tell me, what leads have your uncovered?”  Hearing this from Jiang Zhengkai made Yao Tianyu very excited.  After all, this was a big case, and having the lead investigator telling him that progress has been made obviously made him very happy.

“Well… I don’t have any leads yet, and… and the prost.i.tutes… they’ve stopped working…” Jiang Zhengkai practically closed his eyes as he said these words.

Yao Tianyu paused for a long time before finally exploding in fury, “You son of a b.i.t.c.h!  How is prost.i.tutes not working my problem?”

Seeing Yao Tianyu’s first round of explosion had subsided, Jiang Zhengkai immediately followed up with his question, “So… Commissioner Yao, if… if they don’t work, then I’m afraid the local residents… they will end up dying like the last murder, so… do you think we could organize some kind of a sting operation?”

“I’m not organizing s.h.i.+t!” Yao Tianyu yelled into the microphone as he slammed the handset back into the telephone receiver.  Jiang Zhengkai knew that Yao Tianyu was probably angrily pacing back and forth in his office right now, just like a caged wolf prowling back and forth at the zoo.

Not ten minutes later, Zhang Qian called, “Brother Jiang, what did you tell the old man?  He looks like he’s ready to bite someone’s head off right now.”

“I didn’t say anything!  What are the boss’s instructions?”  Jiang Zhengkai knew Yao Tianyu must have thought up of something to help him.

“Commissioner Yao said that he will order all married police officers to report for duty at the alley, starting with dual police couples, no exceptions.  He also told me to ask you if he should report there as well?” Zhang Qian unloaded this torrent of information on Jiang Zhengkai.

“No… that’s not necessary.  The missus is too old to be standing on the street like that.”  Jiang Zhengkai then playfully said to Zhang Qian, “Haha, thank the old man for me, sister.”

For the first time since the advent of prost.i.tution in China, the police has taken the lead spurring on the s.e.x trade.  Of course, the only reason why Jiang Zhengkai and Yao Tianyu executed this operation is because they were at their wits’ end.  After all, the fifth murder involved a pair of law-abiding citizens, not law-breaking prost.i.tutes and johns.  If it came time for another murder, and there were no prost.i.tutes and johns on the street, that might just mean the killer would once again target innocent local residents.  Anyway, n.o.body knew what would happen, so the best course of action was to prost.i.tute away!

Seeing the alley was full of staged activity, Jiang Zhengkai and Zhang Nan both breathed sighs of relief.  “Are there many johns out there tonight?” asked Jiang Zhengkai.  Even though there was plenty of fake activity, there was still the possibility of a very real murder.  As such, Jiang Zhengkai needed to be extra vigilant because it ain’t no joke to have more people dying.

“Don’t worry, there aren’t that many,” Zhang Nan said with certainty, “We have placed surveillance cameras at each position where our colleagues are stationed.  We have also a group of officers a.s.signed to watch over the others.”

“Ok, good,” Jiang Zhengkai nodded, “In that case, our people will put in the extra s.h.i.+fts during normal times, and then bureau headquarters will swap us out once we think we are due for another murder.”

“Ok, no problem, Inspector Jiang,” Zhang Nan agreed.

Time flies when you’re having fun, and before you knew it, the police had already been playing “prost.i.tution” in this alley for a week.  Of course, they weren’t really engaged in the business of prost.i.tution.  It was more of a “by us, for us” operation.  What that meant was husbands would “hire” their own wives.  A week went by without another murder occurring.  According to the frequency of the previous murders, the alley was already past due for another murder.  Jiang Zhengkai was starting to get frustrated.  He had to consider the possibility that someone had leaked information on their sting operation.

Nevertheless, not having any more murders was something that he should be grateful for.  At the end of the day, it was a good thing to not have to worry about adding two more skeletons to the sub-bureau’s morgue.

This morning, Jiang Zhengkai stayed in his office.  He went back and reviewed the case files of all five murders.  Since there hasn’t been a new murder, then perhaps he could find something useful in the old cases.  First of all, the pattern of one murder every half month has been broken.  The time elapsed since the last murder was well over twenty days.

As of now, the only thing tying all of these murders together is the fact that ten people died while having s.e.x.  Otherwise, the first case involved Xiaomei and an unknown male victim, with Xiaomei being one of A-Jiao’s friends.  The second case involved A-Hua and Yin Tao, with A-Hua being one of A-Jiao’s friends.  The third case involved A-Li and Liu Nanquan.  According to A-Shun, A-Li and A-Jiao were acquaintances.  The fourth case involved A-Xiu and an unknown male victim.  Although the police was able to confirm A-Xiu’s ident.i.ty, they have still been unable to identify the male victim.  The fifth case involved Yin Zhumei and Zhu Yuping, two local residents.  All in all, it appeared that the first four cases were all related to the s.e.x trade, and the female victims were all acquainted with A-Jiao, so did that mean A-Jiao was somehow connected to those first four murders?

At this point in his thought process, Jiang Zhengkai plopped back into his chair.  He was driving to Ju’an Estates every night for the last few days, waiting for A-Jiao to come back home.  He didn’t know if he did this out of professional necessity or because he missed A-Jiao.  He didn’t believe A-Jiao was an active partic.i.p.ant in these murders, but evidence showed that she had a personal relations.h.i.+p with four out of the five female victims.  Something told Jiang Zhengkai that if he wanted to crack the case, he had to find A-Jiao.