Three people and one ghost solved 43 mysterious cases.

Through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, you can see the shepherd leading the horse, walking slowly on the grassland, and the beautiful scenery of Zangrila.

Inside the floor-to-ceiling windows is a [-]-square-meter study, with an electronic stove buzzing and a gramophone playing classical piano music.

There are two oil paintings on the wall, one is of a man in a suit and leather shoes, and the other is of a beautiful Fijian woman.

There are two cups of tea on the antique tea table. A white-haired old man and a man in black are sitting opposite each other.

"I don't know what life is, but regret has followed me like a shadow for the entire 90 years."

The sound was very strange, coming from an audio transmitter that was stuck to the neck of 93-year-old Qiao Yuanshan.

He had throat surgery a few years ago and now can only speak through an audio transmitter.

He is rich, and this 5000-square-meter castle manor built in the Zangrila Mountains and the dozens of acres of land outside belong to him.

He has been married 7 times, divorced 7 times, and divided his wealth 7 times, but he is still so rich.

He has many children and grandchildren living in various parts of the world. They come to this manor every Spring Festival to have New Year's greetings and dinner with him.

He is also in good health. A doctor and two nurses live in the manor permanently to check his body every day, formulate recipes, and have a fitness coach.

Living to be a hundred years old is not a problem.

But Qiao Yuanshan still has regrets. The regrets do not come from loneliness, emptiness or unfounded depression.

It was something that had troubled him for 90 years.

He said to the fat man invited across the table, "I really want to know if my father killed my mother."

This is a 90-year-old past event.

?

One early morning in 1932, his mother Trillis died from a heavy blow to the head on the sofa in the living room on the first floor of her home.

This is a three-story house built in a wealthy area in the middle of the mountain.

The forensic examination revealed that Trilis died last night. A total of 9 wounds were found on her head, which were caused by some kind of sharp weapon and some kind of blunt instrument, that is, two types of murder tools.

The living room window was broken.

This looks a bit like a robbery scene. For example, late at night, one or two murderers, one with a knife and the other with a stick, broke the glass of the window and robbed the house.

By chance, she was discovered by Cuillis who was drunk on the first floor. In the panic, the murderer killed Cuillis and then fled.

It was Qiao Yuanshan's father, Qiao Hansheng, who called the police.

He woke up in the morning and saw Trilis dead in the living room on the first floor, so he contacted the police.

He explained the situation to the police:

There were three people in their family, him, Cui Lisi, and Qiao Yuanshan who was 3 years old at the time.

There is a servant who comes every morning and leaves in the evening after cooking dinner and washing the dishes.

Last night, Johnson and Trilis had dinner at home, and both of them drank some wine.

He drank a little too much, so he went to sleep in the bedroom on the second floor, while Trilis continued drinking on the first floor.

The son has gone to bed.

Until morning, his son kept crying and woke him up. He went downstairs and found Trilis dead.

"I don't know why this happened." John Hansheng held his head in his hands.

"Do you and your wife have any grudges with anyone?" asked Paulo, the senior detective of K City's major crime team at that time.

This case attracted great attention from the Crime Unit because the deceased, Trilis, was a rich man and a Fiji woman.

"No, how could we have a grudge against others?" John Johnson shook his head.

"So you didn't hear anything last night?"

Logically speaking, Trilis suffered a total of 9 attacks on the head. She would definitely scream and ask for help, and that would definitely make a sound.

"I really have no impression, I was too sleepy." Johnson replied.

"Thank you." Bolo closed the notebook.

He then began investigating the bizarre murder.

But soon, Bolo identified the suspect as Johnson.

There are many reasons for suspicion, the first of which comes from this foreign marriage with great disparity in wealth.

Cui Lisi comes from a noble family in Fiji. She came to K City with her family to do business five years ago.

Trillis had always suffered from asthma, and Johnson was her doctor.

The two gradually fell in love and decided to spend the rest of their lives together. However, Trillis's family objected. How could a young doctor be worthy of our daughter.

But Trilis was determined to be with George Han despite her objections, and they had a child.

Cuillis' family reluctantly accepted it, bought a mansion, gave birth to a child, and the two began to live a married life.

But this marriage is not as loving as it seems on the surface, but there are some crises.

The second reason for suspicion is the confession of a woman named Xiaomei.

Xiaomei is a nurse in the hospital. Under questioning by Paulo, the senior detective of the crime team, Xiaomei admitted that she had an affair with Qiao Hansheng.

And Qiao Hansheng mentioned to Xiaomei more than once: I no longer love Trilis and I want to divorce her.

The third point of suspicion is that the injuries Trilis suffered were all from the head, caused by two types of injuries.

One was 5 blunt force attacks, probably from sticks. These injuries made Trilis unconscious.

One was a sharp weapon, probably a very sharp machete. These four knives killed Trilis.

Sharp knife?

The inference written by Bolo is that the murder weapon was an iron rod and a machete.

John Johnson was also at the scene when the crime occurred. How could he not hear Trilis' cry for help? How could you not hear the sound of broken glass?

Moreover, the broken glass outside the window, the glass fragments were all outside the house, and a shoe print was found under the glass window. The shoe was a size 42 leather shoe.

John Johnson wears size 42 shoes.

Based on the above, Qiao Hansheng is suspected of committing a major crime.

Boro speculated that the incident went something like this:

George Hansheng fell in love with Xiaomei and wanted to divorce Cuilis, but he also wanted to get Cuillis' property.

Then the idea of ​​killing Trilis came up.

At the time of the incident, he deliberately made Trilis drunk, then found a stick and hit Trilis on the head five times, knocking her unconscious.

Use another sharp machete to kill Trillis.

He deliberately used two tools to confuse the public and make the police mistakenly believe that the murderers were two people.

Then Johnson broke the glass of the window and took away some valuables-the pearl necklace worn around Trilis' neck, creating a crime scene that looked like a robbery.

Afterwards, he threw away the two murder weapons, returned to the house, went to the second floor and fell asleep, and got up early the next morning to call the police.

"So, you are the murderer." Bolo arrested Johnson.

"I'm not! I didn't kill Trilis!" John Johnson shouted that he was wronged.

"Leave it to the judge!" Bolo said, "Johnson, you can't escape."

A month later, the court heard the murder case that shocked the city.

Due to Trilis's noble status, her family also believed that Trilis was killed by Johnson and hired the best lawyer.

And nurse Xiaomei testified in court, insisting that Qiao Hansheng had seduced her.

In that era, betrayal of love was an extremely shameful act. Public opinions abounded, digging up various gossips to portray Johnson as a bad man.

This gave both the jury and the judge the first subjective impression of being biased, sympathetic to Cuillis' experience, and thinking that there was something wrong with Johnson.

John Johnson also hired a lawyer. He told the lawyer, "I really didn't kill my wife."

The reason why the lawyer was willing to take on John Johnson's case was to become famous.

After all, this case was too sensational.

"Are you and Xiaomei together?" the lawyer asked.

Johnson lowered his head, "I...I just often complained to her. One day I was very tired, and she happened to sit on my lap, so...we kissed for a few minutes, but I quickly pushed her away, I have been avoiding her ever since.”

After hearing this, the lawyer thought to himself, it’s over, this is true.

The lawyer and John Johnson analyzed the situation and said, "In this case, if you insist that you did not kill your wife, you will definitely die and there will be no fight."

He said that the disparity in marriage, Xiaomei’s confession, your cheating, the size 42 shoe prints left at the scene, public opinion, and the other party’s lawyer—a top lawyer invited from Fiji, his experience is enough for you to be Sentenced to death. It is impossible for me to have defended him. There is no lawyer in the entire city of K with this level of experience.

"What should we do?" Johnson asked.

"Do you want to die?"

Johnson shook his head.

The lawyer lowered his voice, "Then you can only do as I say and insist that you have narcolepsy."

"narcolepsy?"

The lawyer came up with a solution, which was to seize a doubtful point: why did Johnson sleep so hard? It was because he had narcolepsy.

The lawyer bribed a doctor and issued an appraisal report proving that Johnson suffered from narcolepsy.

During the trial, Qiao Hansheng faced the cross-examination by the other party's lawyer and insisted that he was sleeping and was unaware of everything. He had narcolepsy and slept too much.

This situation originally created many doubts, and it was impossible to prove who the murderer was. After all, the murder weapon could not be found.

At the same time, the lawyer also created the argument that Xiaomei suffered from delusion, believing that the female nurse only had a one-sided crush on John Johnson.

He was acquitted based on the benefit of the doubt, I was successful, and I was about to become the hottest lawyer in town.

In the courtroom, the lawyer held the pen in his hand, looking forward to the moment when the verdict would be announced.

Unexpectedly, on the last day of the case trial, everything changed.

The defense attorney for the other side dug up documents showing a doctor who faked narcolepsy, and the doctor admitted to lying.

This completely reversed the case. The jury and the judge no longer believed all of Johnson's previous testimony and believed that he was a person with evil intentions.

Finally, the judge said, "I declare John Johnson guilty of murdering his wife Cuillis and sentence him to death, which will be executed immediately."

One evening in 1932, under the last ray of sunset, John Johnson was pushed to the execution ground and hanged on a hemp rope in the presence of the Cuillis family.

Is it like a cloud of smoke in the blink of an eye?

The only person left who cares most about this matter in the world is Qiao Yuanshan, the son of George Hansheng and Trilis.

He was only 3 years old at the time of the incident and was unaware of it.

But that impression was very deep. He believed that his parents loved each other and never quarreled.

He did not believe that his father would kill his mother.

He started investigating this case since he was 30 years old, and he hired many private investigators.

The first overturn of the verdict was in 1962.

Bring Boro, who is over 60 years old, and the dead judge who pronounced the case to court.

Qiao Yuanshan hired a whole team of lawyers.

The legal team had reasons to sue these two men.

Since Cuillis died in 1932, she was also a famous Fiji noble. In K City at that time, foreigners controlled power.

The legal team has reason to believe that it was because foreigners put pressure on Paulo, the senior detective of the crime team at the time. He couldn't stand the pressure, so he forced nurse Xiaomei to fabricate the story about her relationship with Qiao Hansheng.

Boro used unfair means and created some perjury.

Regarding this point, the lawyer also provided supporting evidence. There are other case bases for Boro's violent law enforcement.

In 1942, an Englishman named Peter was murdered in a cinema, and Boro was responsible.

At that time, Boro captured a 40-year-old thief who was a habitual offender. Boro used torture to get the thief to confess.

The case was solved quickly within 72 hours, and the thief was executed.

But this happened ten years later:

One day in 1952, before he died of illness, an Englishman named David, perhaps because he was about to meet God and wanted to atone for his sins, David admitted in front of his family that he had killed Peter in the movie theater. The reason was that the two had always been at odds. Then he made a sign of the cross on his chest and closed his eyes.

Therefore, the thief died in vain.

The legal team believes that Boluo is a problematic policeman. He was pressured by foreigners and had no choice but to "false" Johnson as the murderer.

Again, the legal team did their homework.

They believe that there was something wrong with the judge who originally tried the case. The judge was influenced by too many public opinion reports.

One key point is that the judge once accepted an interview with a reporter before the trial.

The reporter asked the judge, "What do you think of Johnson's case?"

The judge's response at the time was, "This man is the murderer and he should be hanged."

That interview report is based on black and white evidence.

This proves that the judge had already labeled Johnson guilty before the trial.

This is extremely unfair.

In 1962, the case of Qiao Hansheng's murder of his wife was tried again.

The people suing were the well-known Paulo, who was in his 60s, and the dead judge.

The case caused a sensation in the city. After two years of lengthy evidence collection and Qiao Yuanshan spending 1000 million on the legal team, the court made a verdict.

Since the benefit of the doubt was given to the defendant, John Johnson, who had been dead for more than 30 years, was found not guilty.

Logically speaking, the matter would end here.

But it seems that after winning this time, another thing happened.

If the father is innocent, then who killed the mother?

The second overturn was in 1982.

Qiao Yuanshan asked a private detective to find out that before the incident, a door and window repairman was hired at home. The repairman was later imprisoned for another robbery and murder case and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The repairman at that time was over 70 years old.

Qiao Yuanshan asked someone to go to the prison and ask the repairman if he had killed his mother back then. The repairman actually admitted that he had.

Qiao Yuanshan thought there was a turn for the better and immediately asked the court to reverse the case.

Unexpectedly, the repairman came to the court and laughed like crazy, "It was me, I was the one who killed her. I was greedy for Trilis' beauty, violated her, and then killed him."

But this is not true, Trilis was not violated before her death.

The repairman said he killed her with a hammer, but was vague about how he killed Trillis.

He is also old. Sometimes he says yes, and sometimes he says he has forgotten.

Soon, his testimony was rejected by the court. The repairman was not the murderer, he was bragging.

Anyway, he was already serving a life sentence for another murder, so he wanted to make himself more famous by confessing to the next one.

No matter what kind of infamy or notoriety it is, it is still a name that will last forever.

Another point is that this repairman is very thin and wears size 40 shoes, not size 42.

The most dramatic thing was the outcome of the trial. In 1983, after a year of trial, the court finally found Johnson guilty again as the murderer.

After the trial results were announced, Qiao Yuanshan requested another appeal.

But the evidence is getting slimmer.

Time continued to pass by, and no matter the judge, Paulo, nurse Xiaomei, or later the repairman who died of illness in the prison, they were all no longer alive.

Not to mention the evidence, all gone.

No matter how powerful the legal team is, there is nothing they can do, and Qiao Yuanshan keeps burning money, which is useless.

He is the only one in the world who cares about the outcome.

This mystery troubled him all his life. He did not believe in love and all seven marriages failed.

Now he is 93 years old. Doctors say he can live to be 100 years old. No matter how good his health is, he still knows his destiny.

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In 2022, a luxurious and spectacular estate in Zangrila.

The shepherds and cows outside the floor-to-ceiling windows are like the beauty of a fairyland on earth.

There are two portrait oil paintings hanging on the wall of the house. One is of father Qiao Han, a handsome and charming doctor.

One is of Fiji mother Trilis, a beautiful and elegant Fiji woman.

Qiao Yuanshan stared at the oil painting for a long time, then came to his senses, with an audio device stuck to his neck, and turned to ask the fat man sitting opposite, "Can you let me meet my father, Qiao Hansheng, who has been dead for 90 years?"

The fat man is the manager of the "See You Again" agency. He can open the ferry door and allow the living and the dead to meet for 3 minutes and 56 seconds.

The fat man understood this after listening to Qiao Yuanshan's statement.

He understood that Qiao Yuanshan's purpose in wanting to see his father was simply to ask his father in person whether he had killed his mother.

The fat man said to Qiao Yuanshan, the meeting you want is very easy, and I can agree to it, but the result may not be what you think.

I'm going to say something very realistic, don't be angry.

If, if your father, Qiao Hansheng, really killed your mother.

Then even if you meet him, ask him personally. You are his son. If he really did it, he would never admit it in front of you. If he didn't do it, he would tell you that he didn't kill anyone.

Therefore, the answer you will most likely get is that John Johnson tells you, son, I was wronged.

The answer is the same as it was decades ago.

"I know this." Qiao Yuanshan paused and said, "But - do all the dead people live in the City of Missing?"

"As long as there are people in the world who miss you, the deceased will always exist in the city of miss."

"I heard that there is also a colleague of yours in the City of Missing, right?"

The fat man nodded, "There is a ferryman from the City of Missing."

"That's great." Qiao Yuanshan pursed his lips and smiled, "Since everyone in this case is dead and missing the city, then please ask your colleague to help me find the real culprit."

Now the fat man understood that the purpose of Qiao Yuanshan's coming to him was to reverse the case in the real "underworld".

Qiao Yuanshan handed over a blank check, "Write the numbers on it yourself. No matter what, please tell me the truth."