Jiang Dongliang’s parents were both highly educated professionals, one a doctor and the other a lawyer. Although their combined annual income was nearly a million, unlike wealthy businesspeople, their income was limited and stable. To get their son into a good school, they bought an expensive school district house, nearly depleting their savings. The kidnappers suddenly demanded five million and only gave them two days to gather the money, practically driving them to desperation.
Lin Heyu and Xiao Wang from forensics, dressed in plain clothes, posed as relatives visiting Jiang Dongliang’s home. The room was dim, the curtains always drawn, and the couple sat on the sofa like statues, at a loss. Especially Mother Jiang, who had become haggard and pale, with dark circles under her eyes and prominent red blood vessels visible in her eyes when she looked at Lin Heyu.
“Officer, we really have no way out. Five million in just two days; even selling the house wouldn’t be that fast.” Mother Jiang wiped her tears, while Father Jiang took off his glasses, looking extremely worn out, only able to sigh deeply: “We have only this one son, hoping he would grow up to be a pillar of society, and now this. I’ve prepared for the worst, ready to go with my son. Living is just suffering…”
Mother Jiang clung to her husband’s arm, urging him not to give up, and the couple cried together, their despair evident in their words, making one’s heart ache.
Lin Heyu wasn’t one for sentimental words. He handed over a tissue and, after they calmed down a bit, said, “Bring out the phone that received the call and let our forensics colleague take a look.”
Father Jiang quickly handed over the phone: “The fourth call in the log. We tried calling back but couldn’t get through, so we can only wait for them to contact us. We can’t find them at all.”
Xiao Wang examined it, connected it to his portable equipment box with a data cable, fiddled with it for a bit, then returned the phone: “It’s a VoIP call, usually with randomly assigned numbers. Most virtual call apps on the market don’t show numbers or assign them randomly, making tracking difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
“The principle of this VoIP call is to digitize, compress, encode, and transmit the voice signal through the network, decompress it, and convert the digital signal back into sound. Since it’s not dialed from a real phone, tracking the original number requires interfacing with the carrier and locating the base station with the original number, then narrowing down to the precise location.”
“How long will it take?”
Xiao Wang rubbed his chin: “The longer, the better. Try to keep them talking for half an hour… Hey, Captain Lin, don’t look at me like that. We’re not in a movie; we have to be realistic with existing technology. If we knew the phone’s IMEI or number, we could locate it as soon as it’s turned on. But these conditions are tough; even we find it challenging.”
Lin Heyu raised his eyebrows. According to feedback from families who had privately contacted the kidnappers, they would hang up very quickly, in less than half a minute, to avoid being tracked. Modern crime dramas were too numerous, and criminals had many ways to learn, so their anti-surveillance capabilities almost matched those of legitimate criminal investigators.
The phone rang abruptly, the screen showing a bizarrely arranged number. Father Jiang was startled and looked at Lin Heyu. Xiao Wang put on headphones and gestured, while Lin Heyu mouthed, “Answer it.”
Father Jiang took a deep breath, pressed the answer button, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and his voice dry: “…Hello?”
“Is the money ready?”
“We-we’re raising it. Five million is really too much. Can you give us a few more days?”
A cold laugh came from the other side: “Heh, you think your son has lived long enough.”
Father Jiang was frightened, hurriedly explaining: “No, it’s just that we really have difficulties. We’re borrowing money from others, really at the end of our rope…”
“Borrowing from the relatives who came to your house?”
Father Jiangs face changed, stammering: “Y-yes. How, how did you know? Are you…are you watching our house…?”
The man’s voice on the other side was rough and threatening: “Don’t play tricks. Everything you do is under my watch. If you dare involve the cops, I’ll chop your son up and feed him to the dogs!”
Father Jiang collapsed onto the sofa, trembling. The caller had already hung up, leaving only the busy signal. Holding the phone, his palm sweaty, Lin Heyu asked Xiao Wang, “How was it?”
Xiao Wang took off the headphones and shook his head: “The time was too short, we couldn’t even identify the number.”
“He…he knows…he knows you guys are here…he’s watching our every move…” Father Jiang turned pale, suddenly rushed to the balcony, yanked open the curtains, and opened the window to shout outside, “You bastards! What kind of men go after a kid?! If you have the guts, come and kill me! Come on!”
Mother Jiang hurriedly pulled her husband back, settled him on the sofa, and poured him a glass of water to calm him down. Father Jiang clenched his fists; the hand that had held a scalpel for years now was pale and long, with bulging veins on the back of his hand, showing that he was in a state of extreme anger and agitation, on the verge of losing control.
Lin Heyu squinted, sat next to Xiao Wang, and picked up the headphones: “Play the recording again.”
In this playback, Lin Heyu carefully distinguished the background noise. The other side was very noisy, like a restaurant or a street stall. There were a few sounds of pots and pans clanging, and one or two barely audible car horns. With these fragmented bits of information, it was impossible to determine where the arrogant kidnapper was.
But it was certain he wasn’t in the mountains; he had left Southern Cheng’an Mountain and reached an inhabited area.
.
[02/19, 09:13, Haijing City’s Ring Expressway]
The Jiang couple each pushed a suitcase filled with bundles of brand new yuan notes. A new yuan note weighs about 1.15g, and five million yuan weighs over 100 pounds, equivalent to the weight of an adult. Plus, the kidnappers didn’t want sequential numbers, so they had to run all over Haijing’s banks to gather the ransom.
Haijing’s criminal investigation team members were in another car, following them. Zou Bin was driving, and their destination was Dongqiao Town. In less than half an hour, before reaching Dongqiao, the SUV ahead suddenly signaled and changed direction.
“Hey? Why did they change direction?” Zou Bin quickly followed the turn.
Wen Huabei said, “The kidnappers probably changed locations. Suspects in kidnapping cases are extremely cautious. In the neighboring province’s case, they changed locations seven or eight times in a row, spending the whole day and running out of gas.”
As soon as he finished speaking, their colleague monitoring the road conditions in real time from the office reported that the kidnappers had deviated from the original route. At the same time, Father Jiang called with a new card, speaking in a low voice: “Officer, they changed the location to Xianzi Lake.”
Xianzi Lake is on the outskirts of Haijing City. It was developed into a wildlife park in recent years. Although it wasn’t a holiday, there were still many families going for a day trip to Xianzi Lake, causing some congestion. Their two cars squeezed into a small road, moving very slowly.
Another message came from Father Jiang: [Now heading to Dingqiao Village]
“Are these people just playing with us?” Zou Bin reentered the destination into the GPS, “This is out of Haijing and into Fushui!”
Fushui City is Haijing’s neighboring city. Lin Heyu stared at the map on his phone, swiping his thumb and index finger to zoom out. Further south of Fushui were Dongxiang and Tongjian, and below that, a highway crosses two provinces to Nanyi.
Lin Heyu’s eyelid twitched, feeling that Nanyi was their real destination.
After struggling out of the small road, the red SUV turned onto the highway. The road ahead began to show signs of congestion again. Wen Huabei craned his neck to look: “There’s no accident; why is it so slow?”
After driving another fifty meters, they found that the police had set up a checkpoint at the toll station, inspecting passing vehicles one by one.
“Captain Lin, it’s our people. Should we give them a heads-up to let us through?” Zou Bin asked.
Lin Heyu crossed his arms: “No, we’ll wait for the security check.”
Information came through the radio, confirming that the kidnappers’ car was heading towards Dingqiao Village. Lin Heyu patted Wen Huabei’s shoulder: “Xiao Bei, you’ll get off soon. They might change locations again.”
“Huh?” Wen Huabei was confused, “I get off? And then you guys follow them while they change locations? What am I supposed to do?”
Lin Heyu’s gaze fixed on a rusty sign for a slaughterhouse not far ahead: “If I’m not mistaken, the child isn’t here.”
The SUV ahead stopped at a fork in the road. Lin Heyu received a message from Father Jiang: [Captain Lin, they told me to leave the money in the abandoned slaughterhouse ahead, then drive to Yangshan Stone Factory. What should we do?]
Lin Heyu had anticipated such a trick. He contacted his colleagues, but unfortunately, they still hadn’t traced the phone signal’s location. He instructed them to follow the kidnappers’ instructions and leave the money, with Father Jiang or mother staying behind. Then he told his team to inform the local police station to quickly set up a perimeter and make sure to catch the kidnapper collecting the ransom.
Zou Bin, carrying Lin Heyu, continued to follow the SUV to the stone factory. Zou Bin glanced at Lin Heyu through the rearview mirror and sighed: “Captain Lin, you’re really something!”
Lin Heyu looked down, speaking calmly: “It’s normal.”
“If I could predict things like you, it would be so satisfying to catch criminals, saving so many detours!”
Lin Heyu found it amusing. Had he never taken detours? Back in police school, the detours he took were like winding mountain roads. After graduation, he made many rookie mistakes but just never talked about them. With his accumulated case-handling experience and frequent interactions with criminals, spending all his time studying their psychology and methods, he naturally understood them better than his own family.
He seemed to remember someone from his student days who had never taken detours—a classmate from police school who was too smart and looked like a weak scholar but was incredibly strong in combat. They didn’t get along and even fought once…
What was his name again? He… He something?
Lin Heyu rubbed his temples, feeling he really needed to find time to visit the hospital; his memory was getting worse.
__________
Author’s Note:
Lin’s brain: I really don’t take the blame for this. It’s not my fault for not remembering He Wei; it’s his fault.
At this point, because He Wei’s storyline has completely shifted, the events with Lin here don’t exist.
Lin: More and more non-existent memories
