#I am supposed to add the caveat that @bisouette is doing their best

[dragoncityinteriordesign]

When Zhao Yunlan finally goes to investigate Lin Jing's potential treachery, he does so by comparing the empty bag that the syringe should have been in to the log sheet. Thanks to @bisouette's crackerjack language skills, I have some translations of the log sheet:

Column headings: (serial) number, evidence origin, evidence name, amount, case progress/situation, results, inspector

#095-097: Drunken Murder Case; sharp knife, fruit knife, long knife; case confirmed; Inspectors Wang Zuojun, Da Qing #317-[323]: Kong Jing case; syringe, drill, feather duster, steel saw, steel [something], rope, electric saw; case confirmed; Inspector Da Qing [...]: glove; case awaiting confirmation; Inspector Bai Jinyuan [...]; case confirmed; Inspector Zhu Hong [...]; case confirmed; Inspector Zhao Zhugang

And then the bag itself, with explanatory notes:

Case name: Kong Jing case Evidence name: syringe with needle Collection location: old street [something something] building Investigating unit: SID Collector [the one who found it]: Lin Jing Sealer [person who sealed the bag?]: Da Qing Deliver-er [person who passes it on]: Receiving analyst: Receiving analysis unit:

Well, that's all nice and -- wait a minute, who the hell are Wang Zuojun, Bai Jinyuan, and Zhao Zhugang?

And now we're at the reason I originally asked @bisouette to look at this for me. I've mentioned before that my grasp of Chinese is beyond shaky, but by this point in the process, I can reliably read the names of all the main characters -- and these are not the names of the main characters.

Obviously the numbering system is nonsequential, which means that Wang Zhojun might be an employee from any time in the past decade, as long as Da Qing's been around. However, two of them have been busy recently: This is from episode 27; the Kong Jing case (AKA the Great Personality Caper) was episode 25. That means that somewhere in the interim, in the midst of wrangling Da Ji, SID also logged in at least eight new pieces of evidence, only three of which correspond to a case managed by someone we know.

On a meta level, I figure these are probably the names of some of the people who worked on the show, and those trusting fools figured no one would ever care enough to look closely. Ha! I sure showed them.

But when it comes to in-universe explanations? Go wild.

Theory 1: SID takes in all the weird shit anyone finds in Dragon City. Wang Zuojun, Bai Jinyuan, and Zhao Zhugang are employees of some other division, who, in the course of doing their otherwise mundane jobs, came across ooky spooky objects. These objects were collected and delivered to SID HQ, with the names of the original investigators preserved for future reference.

Theory 2: Despite what we see in the show, we are expected to understand that SID is actually a much larger division. All those "new" employees we see at the end have been there all along. However, Zhao Yunlan has chosen not to notice them, and we, experiencing the world through his protagonist's perspective, have not either.

Theory 3: Zhao Yunlan has concocted an entire roster of fake employees in an attempt to keep the funding coming in, and needs to keep putting their names on things to justify it all to payroll.

The possibilities are endless! And that's even without scratching the surface of what a Drunken Murder Case would entail, why it would be supernatural enough to warrant SID involvement, how that specific knife trio was involved, and whether those knives are or are not now being used for cutting up little fish in Lao Li's kitchenette (it's okay, he washed them real good first).