Breaking Through the Clouds

On the border of Province S, Tongshan.

Yan Mao got off the car late at night and slept in a bed in the duty room of the County Public Security Bureau. At dawn the next day, chief forensic doctor Gou Li finally arrived with a technical team.As soon as it was dawn, several people yawned and cheered up, and followed the only Santana police car in the police station to swing up the hill.

Qi Sihao's frenzied mind may have been awakened by the freezing cold in the mountains recently, and he repeatedly said that he could stay at the local police station and wait for them to go down the mountain to meet up.Although Gou Li didn't understand why the leader of the Qi branch from Gongzhou appeared here, he envied Qi Sihao that he could stay at the foot of the mountain to enjoy the fire, and he couldn't wait to change with him.

"I have such a thick layer of fat all over my body. I fed them and offered them food and drink throughout the spring, summer and autumn, and they rewarded me like this! When the fat is used up, I will hate it!" Gou Li was heartbroken and wrapped himself up The blanket huddled in the car: "Old Yan!"

Yan Yan sat by the open car door and smoked: "What are you doing?"

"Aren't you cold in this dress?!"

Yan Xie was wearing a police scarf uniformly issued by the Public Security Bureau. The fabric of the dark gray slim windbreaker was very valuable at first glance, and the exquisite tailoring outlined a lean figure. Hearing the words, he said casually: "Because the density of muscle is higher than that of fat. Big, so the cold resistance index is not the same."

Gou Li: "..."

Outside the car window is the precipitous winter jungle in the mountains. The on-site technical team, local police, forest police and dozens of police dogs dispersed in a rush, and searched deep into the mountain road in all directions.

"I've always had a question." Gou moved his butt a little closer, and gestured to the distance: "You said that our country is so big, and there are so many high-risk and unstable floating population like Teng Wenyan; if any criminal kills someone , throw the corpse into the remote mountains and old forests, as long as no one confesses it in ten or eight years, will it never be found?"

Yan Mo glanced at him strangely: "How could that be?"

Gou Li returned an innocent stare.

"No matter how unstable the floating population is, there are always social ties. As long as there are clues left, someone will find the disappearance. Besides, throwing corpses, in the true sense, ordinary people in remote mountains and old forests can't go there at all. Transportation and human resources are limited. The objective conditions such as corruption and corpse corruption will form all-round restrictive factors." Yan Yan held a cigarette between his fingers and pointed to the dense forest where dogs bark in the distance: "Even if a criminal group with money, people, and firepower like a drug trafficking organization , It is absolutely impossible to achieve a traceless corpse dump. Look at the place we are in now, although it is indeed relatively remote, it cannot be regarded as a primitive jungle at all."

Gou Li murmured thoughtfully.

"The rut marks of the cross-country convoy, the great damage to the bushes on the ground, and the witness memories of the local residents... The more Xing Xing mobilizes people to throw corpses in the forest, the more traceable clues will be left behind." Yan Yan threw the cigarette butts at his feet, and followed along. Foot crushed: "There is no such thing as a truly traceless crime. It only depends on the extent to which the police force is invested and the stage of criminal investigation technology."

As if to confirm his words, suddenly the car's walkie-talkie buzzed, and the two turned their heads at the same time.

"Attention all teams, all teams pay attention!" The voice of the on-site trace inspector came from the channel: "Large-scale man-made destruction of vegetation was found at 012 meters in the direction of 600 o'clock in the number 012 search area, repeat, number 600 search area three The situation is found at [-] meters in the direction of o'clock, please follow up! Over."

Yan Xie and Gou Li looked at each other, picked up the walkie-talkie: "Understood, let's follow!"

·

The morning mist in the woods slowly dissipated, and the sky finally passed through the treetops, illuminating the gray forest hills.The police car was parked at the foot of a hill not far away, and several local policemen surrounded the open space with shovels, struggling to dig out the soil covered with half-rotted leaves.

"Yes, yes!" Someone suddenly called out: "Forensic doctor, call Director Gou here!"

A corner of the fabric was faintly exposed in the pit, the shovel stopped immediately, and Gou Li hurried over with two intern forensic doctors.At this time, he didn't care about the cold anymore, took the shovel with his own hands and squatted in the pit, and slowly dug out the hard objects under the floating soil - sure enough, after a few shovels, a hand that had become bones suddenly appeared in front of everyone. in sight.

"Be careful! Lift it out gently!"

"one two three!"

After three full years of grievances without seeing the light of day, the two bodies were finally dug out one after another and exposed to the broad daylight.

I don't know if it was like this during life or after death, Teng Wenyan and Wang Rui lay flat on the plastic sheet, holding hands, their bodies covered with mud, and their hollow skeletons stared straight at the gloomy sky.The clothes they were wearing had been damaged beyond recognition. Only Wang Rui's top could barely be seen to be blue. Teng Wenyan was wearing an unidentifiable round-neck dress and worn-out sneakers on his feet.

After the criminal camera clicked and took the photos, Gou Li asked people to lay out the survey board, so that all non-technical personnel stood far away from the pit and did not come in. Then he put on a new pair of gloves and took the forensic box brought by the assistant. He squatted next to Wang Rui's body and inspected it for a while.

"The victim's head was hit, and the occipital of the corpse's skull had both concentric circles and radial fracture lines, which are typical characteristics of depressed comminuted fractures. The center point of the concentric circles is very clear, and there is no interlaced truncation phenomenon between the radial lines, and they extend all the way at the same time. To the top of the head; therefore, it is preliminarily inferred that the murder weapon should be a stone or a metal blunt instrument, and there was only one blow."

Gou Li signaled his assistant forensic doctor to help him turn the body over, and after a while he raised his head and said, "Although there were fractures of the vertebral spinous processes from C6 to T1, it should have been caused by the victim falling on his back when he was pushed into the pit. Brain Injury."

While he was doing the inspection, his assistant quickly took notes.There were so many people at the autopsy site, but apart from the birds in the forest, no one moved or spoke around.

"The murderer's attitude towards the victim was quite rough. After hitting the skull, he pushed it into the pit immediately. Either he was very confident that the victim would be killed on the spot, or he didn't care about the possibility of being buried alive." Gou Li stood up and exhaled: "In short, it's a Killed, the murderer was cruel and cold-blooded and had great arm strength. Judging from the length of the feet and the length of the tibia, the victim was 1.7 meters tall before life, and the height of the murderer should be estimated from the angle of the attack... um..."

"Less than 1.8 meters five, about [-] kilograms, is a rare ambidextrous person." Yan Xie said lightly.

Gou Li said "Huh?", "How do you know?"

Yan Mo's eyes were gloomy, and he didn't answer.

Not only did he know, but he had fought the perpetrator three times.

Gou Li saw that he didn't want to talk, so he shrugged his shoulders and stopped asking. He walked to Teng Wenyan's bones and half knelt down. He took some samples of the soil and fabric attached to the bones, and suddenly let out a soft snort.

"what happened?"

"... very clean, too clean."

The local policemen at the scene didn't understand, and they all showed confusion.

"The skull is intact, so the possibility of being hit is ruled out; the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage are intact, and they were not strangled to death. The ribs, long bones, pelvis...even the spinous process bones have no obvious damage." Gou Li looked at Teng Wenyan's body and said suspiciously : "She was not roughly pushed down the pit like the male victim, but was carefully transported to the bottom of the pit and gently laid flat on the ground."

The assistant couldn't help asking: "Then what is the cause of death?"

Gou used the pliers to carefully remove the attachment, and gestured to the bone between the eyebrows: "Here."

The assistant was stunned—the round hole was clearly a bullet hole.

"The murderer's method of killing the female victim and the way he handles the corpse is completely different from that of the male victim, all of which show an obvious emotional connection." Gou Li shook his head and said, "It's really strange, probably the weirdest mentality I've ever seen The murderer is ranked in the top three."

It's not weird at all, Yan Xie thought, but there was no emotion on his face.

For K of Spades, the executed male image projects himself—the self he loathes, regrets, and wishes to destroy, and the executioner is Jiang Ting's stand-in when he was a boy.

He carefully selected beautiful and excellent girls to perform dramas that filled his inner shortcomings. It is normal to have an emotional connection with the actor who plays Jiang Ting, even for a failed double like Teng Wenyan.

But the most critical question has not been answered: Why did Teng Wenyan be chosen?

At what point does this hair-washing girl with only elementary school education overlap the image of Jiang Ting in the heart of Spade K?

"How about Lao Yan?" Gou Li raised his voice and asked, "What do you say now?"

Yan Yan came back to his senses: "Take a trace inspection and look around for any clues, preferably the bullet casings left at the bottom of the pit. I'll get back to the car and call the bureau to report."

Gou Li waved his hand.

·

Maybe I've had too many calls with Director Lu during this time, and the most recent contact list is the extension number of the director's office.Yan Yan didn't think much about it, this task was assigned by Director Lu himself, so it's okay to report directly to him now, so he just dialed out, but after a long blind tone, it was transferred to the voicemail.

"?" Yan Yan thought for a while, then dialed the number of the secretariat and asked, "Is Secretary Zhang there?"

Secretary Zhang is the first secretary of Bureau Lu. For some reason, the person on duty who answered the phone sounded a little nervous, and said, "Secretary Zhang...Secretary Zhang has something to go out."

"What about Bureau Lu?"

"Boss Lu didn't come today."

--not coming?

Yan Mo was a little stunned, and asked: "Director Lu went out for a meeting? When will you return to the office?"

"No, I don't know." The answer on the other end of the phone stuttered, and he asked: "Is there something important for Team Yan, do we have to talk about it right now?"

In fact, it is common for Director Lu to go out to meetings with his secretary, but for some reason, a certain nerve deep in Yan Mao's mind slightly moved, and a trace of inexplicable shock gradually pervaded.

"...No, it's nothing." He coughed and said, "I'll call again later."

The operator on the other end hung up the call immediately.

Yan Yan sat alone in the car for a while, flicking his phone repeatedly, feeling unnaturally restless.Through the window of the car, you can see Gou Li and the others busy around the pit. The police dog is dragged by the police, and no one has noticed it for the time being.

After hesitating for a moment, he sent a WeChat message to Jiang Ting:

【are you awake?what did you eat? 】

A few minutes passed, and Jiang Ting did not reply.

"Old Yan—! Discovered!" Gou Li straightened up and waved to the police car from a distance.

Yan Xie looked at the time, it was less than nine o'clock in the morning, maybe Jiang Ting hadn't woken up yet.

He took a breath, deleted the wechat just now, put his phone back in his pocket, and got out of the car door.

·

"Mineral water bottle." Gou Li stretched out his stomach and put his hips on his hips, sweat dripping from his forehead, he stood at the bottom of the pit and lifted up an empty plastic bottle that was covered in mud and turned yellow, and shook it at Yan Yan: " Sure enough! The 'signature' of a repeat murderer may be late, but it won't be—ah!"

Although he sighed, the local police didn't know the details of the June [-] serial kidnappings, so they were very surprised when they looked at the empty water bottle.Gou Li didn't explain much, and put the plastic bottle into the evidence bag to signal to the assistant to keep it, and continued: "There are no bullets, no shell casings, the forest weather and humidity have caused great damage to the scene, and no footprints or living things with identification value can be found. Examination is over. There is no way, two of you come over and help me lift the bones up, and do further autopsy after going down the mountain."

The police from the local police station quickly responded, hula-la down several people.Yan Xie took off his jacket and rolled up his cuffs. He also wore gloves and shoe covers and went down the pit. He ordered the police to lift Teng Wenyan's body as flat as possible by lifting up the corners of the plastic sheet.

slam-la-

As soon as the plastic sheet was moved, dust and sand fell down, and Yan Mao's eyes unconsciously fell on the clothes on the surface of the bones, and suddenly he was taken aback: "Wait a minute."

The police didn't hear it and kept walking.

"Wait! Stop!" Yan Yan shouted, "Put her down!"

Everyone turned their heads, and the police were taken aback, at a loss, and hurriedly put the plastic sheet back on the ground.

Gou Li came over: "Old Yan, what's the matter with you?—Hey! What are you doing!"

Yan Xie was about to turn over the corpse, but Gou Li pulled him away and almost slapped him on the head: "You're going to die! What do you want!"

"Turn her over for me, quick!"

Gou Li didn't understand why at all, but seeing Yan Yan's stern eyebrows, he immediately asked the assistant forensic doctor to come over and carefully turn the fragmented bones over, exposing the back.

Just now when Yan Xie returned to the car to make a phone call, Gou Li had already glanced at the back of the corpse, cleaned up the floating soil on the surface, and left only dried and condensed mud, so after the corpse was turned over, the back of the clothes was exposed in full view. , and Yan Yan's suddenly constricted fundus——

Teng Wenyan was wearing a two-piece dress, with a light-colored round neck and short-sleeved top, and a light red pattern printed on the fabric on the back that was almost hard to recognize.

——It was a semicircle covering the horizontal line, and a few red lines faintly radiated from the semicircle.

Even to the most associative adults, this is just a child's stick figure of the rising sun.However, at the same time as his eyes met, Yan Xie suddenly closed his eyes, and another identical undershirt appeared in the back of his mind—the child's bloody shirt left behind after Ajie sniped the [-] anti-drug scene.

The clothes that Jiang Ting wore in the orphanage back then.

"What's wrong with you, old Yan, have you found out?"

Yan Yan's chest rose and fell slightly and quickly under his shirt. He waved his hand to indicate that he was fine, took a few pictures of the corpse, and then walked up the pit without saying a word.Gou Li was quite worried, and chased after him and asked loudly, "Are you okay, hello!"

"I need to make a phone call to confirm." Yan Yan said hoarsely: "You guys go ahead first."

The buzzing doubts and discussions soon faded away, Yan Xie's brain was in a mess, and he walked to the police car in the distance and took out his mobile phone, and dialed Jiang Ting's number almost reflexively——

Did you know that Teng Wenyan was born in the same orphanage as you?

How many years can you recall the information about the orphanage where you were kidnapped together with the K of Spades?

Numerous questions turned into sharp knives tearing at the sulcus of the brain, but the screen of the phone had just displayed dialing, and before the dial tone sounded, Yan Xie was suddenly woken up by the throbbing pain in his forehead, and suddenly pressed to hang up.

The air seemed to be frozen, and it took an unknown amount of time before the noise and footsteps of the crowd penetrated, and gradually came from the scene in the distance.

Yan Xi lowered her sharp eyes, her gaze was cold, staring at herself reflected on the surface of the phone screen.

After a long while, his Adam's apple twitched, he turned on the phone again, and called Ma Xiang from the WeChat list:

"Help me find out if there was an orphanage near the Tongshan area of ​​Province S 20 years ago," Yan Xie pressed the voice message button, and said in a low voice, "Send me the detailed address after you find it."

·

The bones of the victim who had been wronged for three years were carried out of the pit, wrapped up, and ready to be loaded down the mountain for further detailed autopsy at a funeral home in a nearby county town.Gou Li took the trouble to instruct the new trainee forensic doctor to maintain balance of strength and move as carefully as possible. Then he personally covered the bones in the trunk of the car with a white cloth, recited a few words of Amitabha, and slammed the car door.

The assistant rushed over quickly: "Goutou, your phone is ringing!"

"How many times have you said your head before adding your voice!" Gou Li took off his gloves and took the phone: "Hello, Bureau Wei?"

The call signal in this place is very mediocre, and the background on the opposite side is very noisy. Gou Li walked a few steps around the open space, only to hear Deputy Director Wei asking in a deep voice on the phone: "Are you alone? Is Yan Yan by your side?" ?”

Looking around on tiptoe, Gou Li saw Yan Xie standing more than ten meters away, with his brows furrowed and his head bowed, not knowing who he was texting.

"It's on the side, I'll call him?" Gou Li casually raised his feet and walked there, but he was stopped by the voice on the phone as soon as he finished speaking: "Don't, stop!"

"What?"

Deputy Director Wei took a deep breath before he stabilized his unusually sharp tone:

"You remember it for me. Don't tell Yan Xie a word of what I say next, and don't let him know anything before returning to the city bureau."

"I'm in the hospital now, something happened to Bureau Lu."

Gou Li's eyelids twitched instantly!

"Bureau Lu was attacked near Yan's house. Because the area was remote at the time of the incident, the sanitation workers found out and called the police until early this morning. All of us are in the hospital now and just out of danger."

"..." Gou Li's lips trembled as soon as he opened his mouth: "Who did it?!"

In the corridor of the hospital, Deputy Director Wei looked at the open door of the ward. Several experts from the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Provincial Department and Yu Zhu from the Municipal Bureau were surrounding the bed, watching Director Lu slowly open his cloudy eyes. She couldn't hide her anxiety.

Lu Ju seemed to have aged more than ten years overnight, with an oxygen mask on his ashen and swollen face, and every time he made a sound, he exhaled a puff of white air: "...I saw his face, no... absolutely no Admit my mistake..."

Before the words fell, a cough broke out in his chest, everyone screamed, and several experts turned pale: "Who is it? Who is it?!"

"Huh, huh, huh..." Ju Lu panted heavily, and said hoarsely: "It's Gongzhou, the one who died of drug prohibition in Gongzhou—"

"That Jiang Ting."

Time stopped suddenly, and the pointer quickly retreated, returning to ten hours ago——

The world is constantly rustling, and the remote back alleys are invisible in the rainy night.Vehicles passed by on the street in the distance, blurred lights flickered, and shiny puddles were trampled to pieces in an instant.

The hem of Jiang Ting's black coat was lifted up with his steps, his cold and white face was covered under the black umbrella, and when he turned quickly, he heard only a clear "clang!"

The pocket knife he always carried was thrown by the trash can, the blade fell to the ground with a clang, and a trace of blood slowly melted away with the dirty water, gurgling to the sewer not far away.