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Chapter 2
Yan Xie, Vice-Captain of the Criminal Investigation Division of Jianning City Public Security Bureau, a 3rd-level police inspector, and a Leo. God gave him the talent of a comedian, but he ran off to become a policeman.
“This freezer? This freezer is used for the ice packs in our kitchen. The manager asked me to get the ice, but as soon as I opened the door, this young man fell straight down and hit me on the spot. I really don’t know anything about this, comrade police. Ah, I was scared enough to pee myself. If you don’t believe me, look at my crotch, it’s still wet!”
The flashlights of the trace inspectors of the sub-bureau flickered one after another, and the technical investigators were busy collecting on-site physical evidence such as fingerprints and footprints. Yan Xie, wearing shoe covers, came over, squatted beside the corpse, and raised his chin.
The sub-bureau’s forensic doctor cautiously greeted the Vice-Captain of the Criminal Investigation Division.
“What’s the situation?”
“The deceased was paradoxically undressed. The corpse was bright red, and there were small blisters at the junction of the exposed part of the corpse and the waistband of the trousers, which were preliminarily concluded to be caused by the phenomenon called hypothermia. It is difficult to judge the exact time of death. In addition, there was bleeding in the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. We’ll have to wait until the detailed autopsy after going back later.”
Yan Xie pressed the corpse with his gloved fingertips and narrowed his eyes slightly. His eyebrows were stretched to his temples, and because of his deep eye sockets and the high bridge of his nose, this angle seemed a little gloomy for a while. Then he said, “That’s not right.”
Yan Xie, the Vice-Captain of the Criminal Investigation Division of Jianning City Public Security Bureau, the team leader of the investigation team, a 3rd level police inspector, and a Leo—He was well-known in the public security system. He had been a police officer for more than ten years, and his various legendary deeds could support ten narrators for years. He was once selected as “One of the top ten most influential figures of the year” by the city bureau.
The sub-bureau’s forensic doctor did not dare to ignore him and hurriedly asked, “What do you think?”
“Paradoxical undressing usually occurs when the body temperature drops, the consciousness is confused, and the temperature center of the thalamus sends a wrong signal, and the person is about to freeze to death—but our naked big brother didn’t take off his clothes in the refrigerator. Did he freeze before he got into the refrigerator?”
The forensic doctor was stunned.
The forensic doctor didn’t answer at that time, and Yan Xie didn’t care about him, saying casually: “Old Wan, block the KTV and the back alleys, let your team find the clothes and belongings of the deceased, and focus on investigating the wallet, keys, mobile phones, etc. These things are of great help in determining the source of the corpse. The technical investigation and monitoring teams pay attention to the disappearance records of the alarm center during this period of time and the next 24 hours. If a big living person is gone, someone will definitely find it.”
Wan Zhenguo, the head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the sub-bureau, dispatched his subordinates according to his instructions, turned around, and said, “I’m worried about something. If he hadn’t sneaked in through the back door, then there would be a lot of people taking his clothes and picking up things in a place like this. I’m not sure if someone has picked up the deceased’s belongings.”
The two of them squatted beside the corpse bag and stared at the young man. Wan Zhenguo thought for a while: “Do you think this person is a thief? He heard someone come in during the theft, hide in the freezer in a hurry, and freeze himself to death accidentally?”
The police have seen many cases of accidental deaths like this, but Yan Xie didn’t answer. After checking for a while, he said, “It’s not like that.”
“Huh?”
Yan Xie pulled down the deceased’s trousers and raised the edge of the logo of the underwear with two fingers: “This fabric is genuine, and it has to be sold for at least four or five hundred at a discount. It’s okay to buy branded clothes and shoes to wear outside. But spending so much money on underwear is a waste of money. If you are so rich and still want to be a ‘craftsman’, it’s too much pursuit, right?”
Wan Zhenguo said “Hey—”, folded his arms, squinted his eyes, and looked at Yan Xie eighteen times, then said slowly, “I say, Vice-Captain Yan.”
“What Vice-Captain Yan? It’s called Division Vice-Captain Yan. Who is your Vice-Captain?”
Wan Zhenguo said: “Okay, Division Vice-Captain Yan, you are really Detective Conan.”
Yan Xie’s expression didn’t change: “Don’t flatter me. I know that the comrades in the sub-bureau have always respected and admired me…”
Wan Zhenguo said: “Wherever you go, people will die. Someone can even get into the freezer and freeze to death when you sing a K. Could it be that you killed this person? Hurry up and confess so that we brothers can go home and sleep.”
Yan Xie slapped him on the back of the head and scolded him with a smile: “Bah!—With your brother Yan’s methods, if I kill someone, can you still find out?” saying that he took out his cigarette and wandered out.
“The surveillance camera that connects the back door of the kitchen to the back alley is always broken. Except for illegal parking, there is usually no one there. There are only two trash cans. Over time, I will be too lazy to repair it…… No, comrade police, you’re telling me to repair it. What is it doing, waiting to take pictures of illegal parking? That’s the traffic police’s business!”
“Stealing? We keep all the precious drinks in a special wine cellar. What’s there in the back kitchen to steal? Yes, I have never seen this person before, and he is not a regular customer. Our store consciously abides by the law. We don’t even sell blended wine with an alcohol content of more than 40%. Comrade police, tell me first, this person already died in my shop; do we still have to lose money?!”
The KTV has been emptied and cordoned off, and the police officer from the Criminal Investigation Division of the sub-bureau was taking Yang Mei’s statement in the hall. Yan Xie walked over with a cigarette in his mouth, and the police officer immediately got up: “Vice-Captain Yan, you can sit here.”
Yan Xie snorted and was about to sit down when he suddenly caught a glimpse of someone not far away, and his action paused.
A young man in a wheelchair, who was facing him sideways, was being questioned by a police officer.
The singing and dancing hall that had just been cleared was full of mess, and the years of heavy powder and the smell of tobacco and alcohol had not dissipated yet. The solitary stage lights came from the other side, giving rise to the man’s dark hair, eyebrows, and excessively pale skin. His temperament, which was extremely incongruous with the surroundings, was particularly unexpected.
Yan Xie nodded with a cigarette butt: “Who is that?”
The police officer told Yang Mei to answer.
“…..” Yang Mei, who was still worried about losing money, swallowed her saliva. Her voice became slightly softer, and then she said, “He’s my fiancé.”
The police officer’s pen fell on the group with a clatter.
Yan Xie’s expression remained unchanged: “Why is he sitting on a wheelchair?”
“He used to live in the county. Later, he came to Jianning to find me. There was a car accident on the road, and he was in a coma for a while. He woke up recently, and it is not convenient for him to move…..” Yang Mei raised her hand unnaturally, “He just got out of the hospital today and temporarily settled in the dormitory upstairs.”
Yan Xie looked at Jiang Ting for a moment: “Which county are you from?”
Yang Mei said the name of a county. Yan Xie hummed, and said, “Your county is quite outstanding.”
Yang Mei felt guilty and didn’t understand what he meant. Then she saw Yan Xie get up and walk over.
“Did you see the deceased wandering in the back alley?” the policeman asked while recording: “What did you see? What was the deceased doing at the time? Hey, Vice-Captain Yan!”
Just as the policeman was about to stand up to give up his seat, Yan Xie pressed his shoulder back and took the half-written record. Holding the cigarette butt in his hand without raising his head, he said: “Continue talking.”
Jiang Ting looked at Yan Xie, then turned his gaze away calmly.
“…He seemed to be waiting for someone at the time.”
Policeman: “Oh?”
“We didn’t talk; we just made eye contact. He was wearing a blue jacket and had a black backpack, kind of like a school bag. I just glanced at it from a distance, and then he walked away immediately. He was looking quite anxious.”
The sub-bureau’s investigator came with an evidence bag: “Vice-Captain Yan! We found something by the trash can in the back alley. Let me show you first!”
Yan Xie took it over and saw that in the evidence bag was a blue jacket, “No wallet, cell phone, or keys?”
The investigator shook his head.
“Have you found a black backpack?”
The investigator wondered, “I searched back and forth several times, but this jacket is the only thing we found.”
“Okay.” Yan Xie picked up the evidence bag and handed it to Jiang Ting, asking, “Did you see this one?”
Jiang Ting didn’t answer; he just glanced at it and nodded.
Yan Xie returned the evidence bag to the investigator: “Take it to the technical investigators, and by the way, tell the trace investigators to take a print of the fingerprints on the inside of the freezer door to compare with the deceased. If they match, the deceased came in by himself; if they don’t, the door of the freezer was closed for him by someone else. The nature of the matter would completely change then.”
The investigator ran away in a hurry. Yan Xie turned around but didn’t say anything. He just looked at Jiang Ting condescendingly.
The policeman who took the statement was a little stunned, Jiang Ting didn’t speak, and the surrounding space suddenly became quiet. After a while, Yan Xie lit a cigarette and asked: “What happened to you?”
“Car accident.” Jiang Ting replied calmly, “I crashed into a truck while speeding.”
“Can you still stand up?”
“The doctor said it would take a while to recover.”
Yan Xie nodded, narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, and suddenly asked, “Have I seen you somewhere before?”
Jiang Ting faced his inquiring gaze and made a blank expression.
“What is your name?”
“Lu Chengjiang, it’s written in the transcript.”
Yan Xie repeated: “Lu, Cheng, Jiang.”
The atmosphere became very weird for a while. Yan Xie’s face was hidden behind the cigarette smoke; no one knew what the Vice-Captain Criminal Investigation Division was thinking about. Even the police officer from the sub-bureau just blinked and stood there at a loss.
Not far behind them, Yang Mei finished giving her statement and walked over to this side nervously.
“Still clouds cover the sky, the rain is heavy, dusk falls across the land, and the plateaus become the river1“Ting Yun” is a poem written by Tao Yuanming, a writer during the Jin and Song Dynasties. This poem is divided into four chapters, the main purpose of which is to think about relatives and friends, write about drinking in spring, and sharing the wine with relatives and friends. The poem fully expresses the poet’s deep yearning for his friends through the description of the natural environment and the feeling that he cannot drink and talk freely with his friends. Here is the link for more information:
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%81%9C%E4%BA%91/1891779..” Yan Xie rubbed his chin and suddenly said, “Good name.”
Yang Mei’s footsteps stopped suddenly.
Jiang Ting replied firmly, “Thank you, officer.”
“Okay, let Old Wan take over the team.” Yan Xie gave the record back to the police officer, turned around, and walked back: “The body will be transported back to the sub-bureau for autopsy, and all personnel involved in the case can be summoned at any time. Xiao Ma!”
Ma Xiang, his subordinate, was talking to the sub-bureau’s technical investigator when he heard this and immediately ran over: “Hey! Brother Yan!”
“Drive the car, let’s go home.”
“——Hey, officer?” Yang Mei was very surprised and subconsciously reached out to stop him: “Are you going home?”
Yan Xie said coldly: “Hey, yes, I haven’t paid you yet. Bring the POS machine and give me an invoice. Ma Xiang, you remind me to call the 315 Consumers Association tomorrow……”
“Don’t, handsome!” Yang Mei, who loves money like her life, was immediately persuaded: “I’m very embarrassed for disturbing you in the middle of the night. How can I ask for your money?! No, no, no, don’t! Take it back and go home! No! Take—back—go—!”
Yang Mei shoved the card back to Yan Xie with the posture of a disaster-stricken victim forcefully shoving soft boiled eggs to the liberation army, and said with a warm smile o her face: “Oh god, look at you….. I actually wanted to ask, when will the investigation results come out, and how sooner can we get an explanation for this?”
Yan Xie took out a few banknotes and threw them on the bar counter: “Ask the sub-bureau.”
“You’re not handling this?”
“This case doesn’t involve guns or drugs, so it won’t be able to get on the city bureau.” Yan Xie waved his hand and walked straight to the gate. Without turning his head back, he said: “Of course, if it involves guns and drugs, it’ll be the end for this black shop—Ma Xiang, leave!”
……….
Yang Mei stayed where she was, watching the police carry the body away and block the scene. When everyone was gone, she wanted to cry without tears: “What’s the matter, Brother Jiang? Brother Jiang?”
Jiang Ting crossed his fingers and said nothing. Under the dim light of the KTV, she saw the sharp line of his chin along the side of the neck, winding all the way into the neckline of the shirt.
After a while, he said hoarsely, “I’ve seen him.”
Yang Mei didn’t react: “What?”
“Yan Xie.”
Yang Mei was stunned, only to see Jiang Ting frown slightly. Then he said: “Five years ago, in a major case jointly handled by Gongzhou Jianning under my command, this person went alone and encountered a drug dealer with a gun. He killed him on the spot with a wine bottle. At that time, he sat on the stage at the celebration ceremony, and I sat below the stage and looked at him from a distance. Later, because of this incident, he was promoted to be the Vice-Captain of the Criminal Investigation Division.”
Yang Mei’s heart skipped a beat.
“This person doesn’t play cards according to common sense; I used to……”
Yang Mei asked, “What was it?”
Jiang Ting paused for a long time, then he said, “I don’t agree with him being promoted to be the Vice-Captain because of this, but I still admire the man himself.”
Being a woman, Yang Mei felt that Jiang Ting seemed to have hidden some of the inside information. But what was hidden, and why did he not mention it? Yang Mei waited for a long time, but Jiang Ting didn’t speak anymore. So she could only say: “Fortunately, fortunately, this case did not fall into his hands…..”
Jiang Ting pushed the wheelchair with both hands and turned around. As if foreseeing something, he shook his head: “Maybe I should have listened to you and stayed in the hospital for a few more days.”
The Grand Cherokee, with its lights turned off, sped down the slightly empty streets late at night. Yan Xie sat on the front passenger seat. He turned on the light and looked at the photos of the scene one by one, then suddenly raised his head and looked ahead thoughtfully.
Ma Xiang glanced at him while turning the steering wheel: “What’s the matter, Brother Yan? Do you want to eat noodles to sober up?”
Yan Xie didn’t answer and suddenly asked, “Did you see that person in the wheelchair?”
“Oh, Brother Yan, I knew you were going to say this. Don’t worry, that kind of sickly beauty is not the popular type right now. You will always be the number one police officer of the Jianning City Bureau in our hearts…..”
“Don’t you think he looks familiar?”
Ma Xiang was stunned, “No.”
“But I feel like I’ve seen this person somewhere.”
Yan Xie closed his eyes and opened them again after a while. He searched hard in his mind but found nothing. In his chaotic memory, a trace of indescribable heart palpitations, accompanied by a strange taste spreading from the base of his tongue, appeared. He felt that there had been a looming back but unreachable, but in a flash, this thought sank into the abyss of memory.
After a long while, he took a deep breath and murmured, “But I can’t remember it.”
……….
At the same time, the suburbs
At the end of the wasteland was a sea of city lights. The night wind blew over the top of the mountain, the stars in the distance were bright, and the gauze-like Milky Way crossed the sky from overhead.
“Dubhe, Mizar, Alkaid, and the Big Dipper. Going down the arc of the bucket handle is Arcturus, the first-class bright star in the constellation Shepherd. If you look down, that white star is Spica.”
The girl turned her head and looked at her lover, her beautiful eyes filled with admiration: “It’s so bright!”
“Yes, Spica is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, 260 light-years away from Earth.”
Her lover paused for a while, as if thinking about something, then a smile appeared on the corners of his lips:
“In ancient times, this star was said to be the head of the twenty-eight constellations. It was brave and decisive and could fight well. But you know what? No matter when you observe it, Spica is pure white, just like a virgin, with no flaws.”
His voice was low, mellow, and gentle, like a slightly drunken night wind. The girl was bewitched and showed a trace of courage. She suddenly took a half step forward, raised her head, and said in a trembling voice, “You…..”
At this moment, the car’s satellite phone rang.
The man smiled and motioned for her to wait a moment, then turned to the off-road vehicle and answered the phone: “Hello?”
The girl hesitated for a moment and followed. Her lover was half hidden in the shadows, and she couldn’t see the expression on his face. She could only hear the words on the opposite side of the microphone: “……the situation of patient No. 538, after……”
After a moment, he said, “I see.”
He hung up the phone and stood by the door for a while.
In the distance, long and short insects sounded in the grass, and the fragrant air of spring and early summer swept across the plains and rivers, brushing the girl’s long, soft hair.
After an unknown amount of time, the man turned to look at her and said, “It’s time to go back.”
“But you said that tonight…”
Her lover was still very gentle: “Get in the car.”
The girl pursed her lips but didn’t dare to refuse, so she stepped forward gloomily.
Under the night sky, a modified H2 crossed the undulating wasteland and drove toward the vast sea of lights at the end of the horizon.
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