Concrete Jungle

On March 21, 2026, Building No. 3 in Haiyu City, abandoned unfinished for twenty-one years, was demolished. Eleven seconds later, the building came down. In the rubble, a chunk of concrete revealed part of a human shinbone through its broken face. Criminal investigator Zhou Yan arrived at the scene. The forensic examiner estimated the bone belonged to someone aged eighteen to twenty-two, about 1.55 meters tall. The person had been lying on their side, curled up, facing east. Someone had put her there. She hadn't fallen in. The pouring records were clear: the foundation slab had been sealed in November 2005. But the earliest disappearance around the construction site happened nine months later. Worse, there was the matter of time. The statute of limitations for intentional homicide was twenty years. From the day she disappeared, only 147 days remained. On the concrete's inspection log, a line had been added in the supplemental notes, each stroke neat and ruler-straight: "Night of November 19. Work halted due to rain. About two cubic meters added at the southeast corner of the foundation slab. Zhou Chang'an." That was his father's name. And his father had fallen from the scaffolding at Building No. 7 and died sixteen years ago. Her name was Li Ying. She was nineteen. She clutched her work badge and wore the silver ring her mother had given her. Two words were engraved inside it. Stay safe.