Chapter 51 Bizarre Disappearance

Through Officer Miao Cheng's description, Zhou Yi gained a fundamental understanding of the missing person case.

Zhang Hui's date of disappearance was recorded as March seventeenth, though the more accurate time should be the night of March sixteenth.

This was because that was the last time she was seen by anyone else.

Both Zhang Hui and Xu Jiaguang were forty-six years old this year. They lived in Room 401, Building 4, of the Donghai Residential Community, and had an eight-year-old daughter named Xu Xinxin.

Zhang Hui was a sales clerk at the Red Sun Grocery Store. According to her neighbors and colleagues, Zhang Hui was a formidable woman with a sharp tongue. Her interpersonal relationships were rather poor, leaving her with no close confidants.

Xu Jiaguang, on the other hand, had a completely opposite personality. He was gentle, good-natured, rarely lost his temper, and always wore a smile.

He worked as a mechanic at an auto repair shop. According to his colleagues, he was a classic pushover—diligent at work and notoriously afraid of his wife.

The family was a typical representation of a dynamic where the wife was dominant and the husband was submissive.

On March sixteenth, after finishing her shift as usual, Zhang Hui went grocery shopping and picked her daughter up from school.

Since it was their daughter Xinxin's eighth birthday, she also bought a six-inch cream cake from the bakery opposite the community.

Xu Jiaguang returned home at five-thirty. Afterward, the family happily ate dinner, cut the cake, and finally lulled their daughter to sleep.

However, the next morning, when Xu Jiaguang woke up, he discovered that his wife Zhang Hui was gone.

He initially assumed she had gone to work early, but strangely enough, the leather shoes she usually wore were still placed on the shoe rack by the doorway.

He searched the entire apartment, but there was no trace of his wife. Even her grocery store work uniform was neatly hanging on the clothes rack.

Xu Jiaguang stated that although he felt puzzled, he was in a rush to send his daughter to school, so he did not pay it too much heed.

After dropping off his daughter, he went to work at the auto repair shop.

At noon, feeling somewhat uneasy, Xu Jiaguang went to the shop's office, borrowed the telephone, and called the grocery store.

To his surprise, he learned that his wife had not gone to work at all that day.

Only then did he realize something was wrong, and he hurriedly requested leave to search for her.

Riding his motorcycle, he searched almost every place he could possibly think of, yet found nothing.

In the end, exhausted, Xu Jiaguang walked into the Qishan Road Police Station and filed a missing person report.

"After receiving the report, we immediately dispatched officers."

"We inspected the scene, took statements, and conducted interviews with the surrounding residents."

"Since the night of March thirteenth, no one has seen Zhang Hui, not even the community security guards."

"As no suspicious clues were found at the scene, we could only proceed according to standard procedures."

"As you two know, for a missing person case to be officially filed, it must meet certain criteria."

"This Zhang Hui is an adult, and the duration of her disappearance is not yet long enough to meet the filing standards."

When Miao Cheng said these words, he looked somewhat helpless, likely because Xu Jiaguang had caused quite a fuss over the matter many times.

Much like Li Youqiang's missing person case, without any signs or clues of foul play, no major disputes or conflicts with others prior to the disappearance, and an adult missing for less than three months, it simply did not meet the criteria for official case registration.

As for Li Youqiang's case, Zhou Yi only had Chen Yan help inquire about it because he suspected a potential connection to drug trafficking.

"We completely understand the family's state of mind, but nothing can be accomplished without rules and standards."

Miao Cheng spread his hands and let out a sigh.

"To be fair, though, Zhang Hui's disappearance is indeed rather strange. She didn't take her documents, valuables, or anything else, and just vanished inexplicably. It's far too bizarre."

Qiao Jiali asked, "Have you checked the trash cans in and around the community?"

"Trash cans?" Miao Cheng was stunned, failing to catch her meaning.

Zhou Yi understood instantly. Qiao Jiali was hinting at the possibility of corpse disposal, or even dismemberment.

"Sister Qiao, that possibility is slim. There are no large garbage processing plants near the Donghai Residential Community. Sanitation workers collect and process ordinary garbage bins every day; it's impossible that they wouldn't notice anything."

"Besides, on my way here today, I saw several scavengers. Even if the body had been dismembered and scattered around, it couldn't have gone this long without someone calling the police."

Only then did Miao Cheng understand, his expression shifting. "Dismemberment? You guys haven't already discovered something, have you?"

"I was just asking casually. Don't be so tense, Old Miao."

"Your Major Crime Unit has been mobilized; are you really saying you don't have any major leads?" Miao Cheng asked skeptically.

"Officer Miao, were Xu Jiaguang and Zhang Hui in a second marriage?" Zhou Yi asked.

Miao Cheng asked back in surprise, "How did you know?"

"Oh, it really is? I was just guessing. Since they are both forty-six years old, yet their daughter is only eight, the probability of it being a second marriage is rather high."

Zhou Yi indeed had guessed, but there was one more thing he hadn't mentioned: the differences across eras.

In the era before his rebirth, marrying and having children in one's thirties in the twenty-first century was completely normal, and the more economically developed an area was, the more widespread this phenomenon became.

However, in the eighties and nineties, especially in a less developed small city like Baicheng, the social environment and conceptual understanding remained very traditional.

A man unmarried by thirty-seven or thirty-eight was considered an aging bachelor, and anyone willing to marry him would most likely be a divorced woman with children and little capability to make a living.

Such a marriage resembled a transaction more than anything else: the aging bachelor gained sexual resources, while the woman found someone willing to help raise her child.

Often, once the child reached adulthood and gained the ability to survive independently, they would divorce.

As for older maidens unmarried by thirty-seven or thirty-eight, the only men they could marry in this era were even older bachelors, disabled men, or stepping into a second marriage as a stepmother.

Judging from the circumstances of Xu Jiaguang and Zhang Hui, neither clearly fit this norm.

Thus, the likelihood that both of them were in a second marriage was relatively high.

"I wonder if you've investigated their previous marital relationships. My guess is that the two of them had an affair while still married, divorced respectively, and then formed a reconstituted family," Zhou Yi said.

Miao Cheng widened his eyes and said in disbelief, "Well, I'll be damned. You hit the nail right on the head."

Standing beside them, Qiao Jiali was both triumphant and astonished. Could this kid actually practice fortune-telling?

"Old Miao, was I bragging or not?"

Miao Cheng gave Zhou Yi a thumbs-up, then said, "We learned from Zhang Hui's ex-husband that Zhang Hui and Xu Jiaguang were former junior high school classmates. They had puppy love back in junior high and dated for several years until they started talking about marriage."

"However, Xu Jiaguang's family conditions were poor, and he couldn't produce the bride price that Zhang Hui's parents wanted, so they broke up. Later, it seems during a class reunion, the two rekindled their old romance and had an affair that led to divorces. Zhang Hui had a daughter with her ex-husband, and custody was awarded to the ex-husband upon divorce."

"Although the case hasn't been officially filed, we still conducted background checks on Zhang Hui's interpersonal relationships during our routine inquiries, which is how we found out about these matters."

Curious, Miao Cheng asked, "By the way, Officer Zhou, how on earth did you figure that out?"