Breaking Through the Clouds

The deeper you go in the forest, the more strange the posture of the trees becomes.In mid-air, the huge tree strangled by countless aerial roots is like a corrupt giant, standing slumped and blocking the sun; under the ground, the criss-crossing ground roots are twisted and twisted, covered with slippery moss and lichen, forcing people to look at each other. Be careful when you take a step, or you will slip and fall if you are not careful.

"hiss."

As soon as the gasp sounded from behind, Yan Yan stopped immediately: "What's going on?"

Jiang Ting rubbed his palm vigorously, and saw a long line of big ants crawling on the tree trunk he had just helped up.

"Tell you to help, you've been bitten." Yan Yan grabbed Jiang Ting's arm forcefully, forcing him to tilt his weight to his body, and at the same time reprimanded him in a low voice: "If you don't listen to me, you won't listen to me later. What should I do if I slipped and fell, I have to send you to the hospital quickly - so delicate."

Jiang Ting frowned and said, "It's not that much, and I'm not a little girl."

"Hey, the little girl is not as delicate and fleshy as you are!"

"Why are you talking so much?"

"What I said is the truth summed up by countless blood and tears lessons..."

The two just bickered like this, walking forward with one foot deep and one foot shallow.Not far away, the criminal police led the police dog to open a path in the dense forest, and intermittent cicadas rang overhead.

"Deputy Yan Detachment!" The police trotted forward from the front and said loudly: "We have reached the limit range that police dogs can track, and we can't be sure if we go any further!"

Yan Xie stood still, placed Jiang Dui, who was delicate and fleshy, who couldn't be dropped or touched, and who had to be careful not to be bullied by ants, on the flat and soft fallen leaves, and then looked around.

Here is the real thing. There is no shop in front of the village, and there are similar towering trees and bushes all around. The signal of ordinary mobile phones is gone.Since the police dogs could no longer track down, Shen Xiaoqi and Buwei must have not stayed here, and they did not leave a particularly strong smell among the bushes or on the stones.

The police dog ran over wheezing, Yan Yan squeezed it a few times, took out a piece of beef from his pocket, peeled it, and wanted to feed it, but the police dog, which was obediently squeezed, turned his head and refused to eat.

"Hey, the training was good." Yan Xie boasted casually, and threw the beef cubes to the trainer.

The trainer smiled and fed it again, and the police dog ate it.

"How did the two little kids go to this ghostly place?" Yan Yan narrowed his eyes behind the sunglasses, and said thoughtfully, "This is not the way down the mountain."

"Not only that, it's a million miles away from the only way to go down the mountain!" Ma Xiang turned out from behind the big tree, holding up the map of the forest area: "—Look, they have been walking deeper into the forest , if you calculate the normal pace of fifteen or sixteen-year-old children, it will be so dark here, aren't they afraid?"

"Are there any villages, rivers, etc. in front?"

"There's a ghost, but I don't believe in wolves or foxes."

The trainer half hugged the police dog wagging its tail, squatted on the ground and looked at the policemen, and it was obvious that he was trying to help: "Could it be that you have lost your way completely, or have you been hijacked?"

Yan Mao didn't say a word, and walked around the area for a while before stopping.

"—It's all possible. What do you think, policewoman?"

Jiang Ting was crossing his arms, turning sideways to avoid the ants everywhere, and said "hmm": "It's really hard to speculate at the moment, there are two possibilities."

Ma Xiang couldn't help asking: "How do you say that, police...Consultant Lu?"

Yan Xie immediately glared at him, saying that the policeman only wanted me to scream so hard that he shrank his head from the innocent Ma Xiang.

"If they were hijacked, when did the kidnappers start to look at them? Why did they go deep into the woods instead of the more mobile road? It doesn't make sense. If they are lost, the direction of the road is very straight. There are not many signs of going around in circles, and it does not conform to the normal trajectory of getting lost in the wild." Jiang Ting photographed the ants crawling on his body, and changed the topic: "But the above two possibilities cannot be ruled out. Maybe the kidnappers deliberately brought two It’s hard to tell if a child is going off the beaten track.”

Ma Xiang was puzzled: "But why did the kidnappers do that?"

Jiang Ting asked without answering, "Is Buwei's uncle rich?"

"Uh... According to the information, I have been doing gallery intermediary business in other places all the year round..."

"Have enough money to spend [-] million?"

"That's definitely not wow." Ma Xiang winked at Yan Yan with his elbow: "The only master who can spend [-] million is here."

Yan Yan immediately said sensitively, "Go! What are you doing?"

Jiang Ting turned a blind eye to their small actions and said, "That's right. If the kidnapper asks for 1000 million or even 2000 million, it can be said that it is for money, and the sky-high ransom without any room for counter-offering can only show his purpose. The two children themselves from the very beginning represent the worst of all predictions."

Although he had a premonition in his heart, Ma Xiang couldn't help being excited when he said these two words: "—Tear the ticket?"

Jiang Ting said, "Execution."

Behind them, more police officers followed one after another and began to spread around, searching, trying to find clues such as footprints.Yan Xie watched the backs of the dark blue uniforms disappear into the bushes, and suddenly repeated the two words: "Execution."

He turned his head and looked directly at Jiang Ting from behind the sunglasses: "Execution is an act of punishment for a crime that has already been convicted, that is to say, a crime can only be punished if the crime is committed first—what is the crime of the Shen family?"

"Hey!" Ma Xiang raised his hand first: "White-tailed sea eagle?"

It can't be blamed for these criminal policemen always mentioning the white-tailed sea eagle. It is true that the blood of this national first-class protected animal is too stimulating to them, making people think about it when they have nothing to do.

"I said why do you keep mentioning it..." Yan Yan frowned, and before he could finish speaking, Jiang Ting interrupted him almost without any hesitation: "No, it has nothing to do with Shen Xiaoqi's parents."

"what?"

"If I were a kidnapper and wanted to punish the Shen family for a certain behavior, what would I do?" Jiang Ting paused under Ma Xiang's confused gaze, "I will kidnap the child first, and ask for a The amount that the Shen family would go bankrupt but not give up directly, for example, 800 million. After the Shen family made a lot of money to get 800 million, I cut off Shen Xiaoqi's finger and sent it to me, and then increased it to 200 million——Shen Xiaoqi and grandpa Grandma, grandpa and grandma, seven aunts and eight aunts... After everyone has gone bankrupt and collected 200 million, I will cut off one of his ears and ask for an additional [-]."

"The so-called boiling a frog in warm water is to let the frog watch me add firewood to the fire. Do you still want the child to live? If you want to live, keep adding more. Eight hundred, one thousand two, one thousand five , two thousand... The Shen family couple was gradually driven to the point of incomparable madness, despair and grief, but they never knew whether they would take back the child after collecting the ransom next time, or continue to receive a certain part of the child. "

Yan Xie said: "Psychologically Ling Chi."

"Yes," Jiang Ting agreed, "If the kidnappers used psychological methods, then we can be sure that the target of the execution is an adult, but it is obviously a different situation now."

"..." Ma Xiang held back for a long time, and finally squeezed out a sentence: "Consultant Lu, you are too scary..."

Jiang Ting laughed: "Actually, there will be no such case. But at least you can be sure that the kidnapper is not me."

"Then suppose the target of the kidnapper's punishment is Shen Xiaoqi himself, including Bu Wei." Yan Xie's thinking changed: "Two students who have just finished the high school entrance examination, Shen Xiaoqi just got his ID card, and Bu Wei is not even 16 years old. Social participation is very limited, and what crime is it possible to commit that deserves execution?"

This question is on point.

A few people didn't speak. The police dog trainer blinked and tentatively said: "Didn't you just say that the little girl's parents died and she was adopted by her uncle... Could it be that the little girl's social relationship is more complicated? It has something to do with love killing?"

Yan Xie and Jiang Ting looked at each other, and they both saw hesitation in each other's eyes.

There are too few clues and time is running out, even if Sherlock Holmes is alive again, it is difficult not to be at a loss.

"Although Buwei is described by her classmates as a well-behaved and obedient girl, this possibility cannot be ruled out. After all, her appearance belongs to the rare category among the crowd." Jiang Ting stamped his feet to shake the ants off, and raised his head to ask: " Buwei's guardian hasn't been contacted yet?"

Yan Mao spread his hands, turned around and shouted: "Old Gao——!"

Gao Panqing was far away on the command vehicle: "Hey!"

"It's really not easy for you criminal investigators," the police dog trainer looked back and forth at the two of them in admiration: "Look at this brain, it's like participating in the strongest brain every day."

Jiang Ting didn't take it seriously, "I'm not a criminal investigator, I'm only responsible for picking up bourgeois wool."

Trainer: "Huh?"

"Brother Yan——!" Gao Panqing poked her head out of the command car door: "The Municipal Bureau has found Buwei's guardian, and is sending her uncle to the farmhouse in a police car! And Director Huang sent Shen Xiaoqi's computer search records Already!"

At least the work on the technical investigation has made some progress, and everyone's spirits are lifted.

"Yeah, our specialty is not search and rescue, and we're just adding to the chaos here, so go back to the car." Yan Xie said, "Look at you, Consultant Lu, who's about to be overwhelmed by ants."

Jiang Ting was displeased: "It's all the bean paste buns you bought this morning..."

"Stop saying a few words," Yan Xie sneered while forcibly hooking his shoulders: "Eating sweets all day is just attracting bees and butterflies. What does it have to do with me?"

At 02:30 in the afternoon, the command vehicle stumbled and stumbled in the forest, like a strong man who was drunk, making everyone miserable.

"Mobile phone communication, WeChat payment, social software chat, web browser search and all other records are all here. Originally, this file was hundreds of megabytes. Fortunately, Director Huang, who rescued the suffering, highlighted the key points for us."

Gao Panqing opened the compressed file package and handed the notebook to Yan Xie.

Sure enough, the screen was full of dense data, and all the secrets in Shen Xiaoqi's computer were spread out in the sun, as if a corpse had been carefully dissected, whether it was the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and other viscera, or the hidden parts that were difficult to talk about, all were contained in the anatomy. Anyone on the stage can watch.

Ma Xiang poked his head over from the back seat, followed Yan Mao to read a few pages, and sighed: "This is the biggest hidden worry in my heart since I became a policeman."

The city bureau driver was driving ahead, and Yan Yan was concentrating on browsing the search engine records. Jiang Ting was weak and prone to motion sickness, and was sitting on the co-pilot with his head up to ventilate and doze off.Gao Panqing was the only one in the whole car who responded to Ma Xiang: "Hey, are you the only one who has hidden worries?"

"Old Gao, you look down on people so much. Do I not look like a young man with a slender heart?"

Gao Panqing said: "Okay, what are you worried about, young man? Buddy help you solve it."

"There's no need to solve the problem, just promise to help me." Ma Xiang coughed, and said with emotion: "In our business, good and bad depend on each other, and life and death are unpredictable. What if one day I fight against crime and He sacrificed heroically to protect the people. Please, colleagues in technical investigations, please hold your hands high. Don’t touch my alien computer that was saved by saving money, especially my DEFGH disk and several terabytes of various resources... ..."

"..." Gao Panqing squinted at him from the corner of his eyes for a while: "Then you burned it?"

Ma Xiang covered his chest with his hands, with tears in his eyes, and after thinking for a long time, he solemnly said: "Before you burn it, you can make a copy for Deputy Qin next door. After all, we are old teammates who have been cheating for many years. I feel bad if I don't leave some spiritual legacy for this society." .”

Gao Panqing couldn't help nodding with an "ohhhh" expression on her face, turned her head for a while, and murmured: "...you guys are still cheating on playing a love game."

"Boss Gao, won't some of the search records be missed because of turning on the privacy mode or instant clearing?" Yan Yan asked suddenly.

"Director Huang said no, what's the matter?"

"That's kind of weird."

Ma Xiang and Gao Panqing leaned over curiously, and saw Yan Yan pointing to a line in the densely packed records on the screen: "On May [-]th, Shen Xiaoqi searched for the first time using Tianzongshan Raiders as a keyword. There is no search record about travel, not even keywords such as 'summer resort', 'jianning surrounding attractions', 'cheap free travel'. He didn't follow any Weibo like Jianning scenery, Jianning For accounts such as Toutiao and Meilijianning, the search records on the web and Weibo cannot be recovered, but the browsing records did not find anything related to Tianzong Mountain; it feels like this child suddenly came up with the idea of ​​"I am going to Tianzong Mountain". No other options existed, without hesitation at all."

"Hmm..." Ma Xiang, a teenager with Internet addiction, said with experience: "Most children nowadays use mobile phones."

Gao Panqing also agreed: "What if I read the recommendation from WeChat Moments?"

Yan Yan shook his head, before he had time to say anything, Jiang stopped his head in the front row and said, "Jianning is a famous tourist city, and there are many scenic spots around it. Even if you read the recommendations, it is not possible to ignore them completely when planning the itinerary. Any other options, unless he has some kind of obsession with Tianzong Mountain."

Yan Xie raised his legs, winked at Ma Xianggao Panqing, and said in a low voice, "Learn from others."

Ma Xiang replied with the same low volume: "I know you two are a loving couple, so don't show off."

Gao Panqing was more upright: "Obsession? What could be the situation? Consultant Lu?"

Jiang Ting kept his eyes slightly closed, raised his chin slightly, and kept his head on the back of the chair motionless.

"Consultant Lu?"

"..."

Everyone's eyes were burning, and at the end of their sight, Consultant Lu's weak voice came slowly: "There are many kinds of situations. Maybe there is a certain saying about Tianzong Mountain among the classmates, maybe important relatives and friends have been there, or..."

With a sudden cry, he opened the window.

Everyone: "???"

Yan Yan became suspicious, and was about to step forward to check, but suddenly saw Jiang Ting sticking his head out of the window like lightning, and immediately said: "Ugh—"

Everyone: "..."

Consultant Lu, who has always been elegant and calm, was finally crushed by motion sickness.

·

In the farmhouse compound, the breakfast hall was converted into a temporary operational office.

"I really don't know anything, are you sure my niece was kidnapped?"

A fat man in a suit and leather shoes sat in front of two policemen, his face was covered with sweat, and he kept wiping with a handkerchief like a cultural person, but he wiped more and more:

"No, I haven't received any extortion text messages at all—yes, I haven't seen her since the day before yesterday, but I'm usually out of town, and I call this child at most every week, and I'm not her real father! What? You said the kidnapper wanted 200 million?! Fuck it, I really dare to ask for it. I don’t even have [-] million! No! — To tear up the ticket? No, police officers, you don’t understand. I have a conscience..."

squeak-

Suddenly the door was pushed open, and the two policemen stood up immediately, only to see Ma Xiang enter the room one after another: "Where's the water? Where's the water? Quickly bring the ice water! Hurry up!"

Ma Xiang led the way, Gao Panqing followed behind, and Yan Xie personally supported the pale Consultant Lu. His posture was like a few people picked up a wild giant panda on the way back, and all the stars supported Jiang Ting to the chair. sat down.

"Why is there not enough ice?" Ma Xiang took the water that the police hurriedly handed over, and turned to hand it to Yan Yan.I saw that the fearless head of the public security system, the famous rich second-generation Yan deputy detachment, quickly rolled up his sleeves left and right, and personally served Jiang Ting with water.

The police carefully asked: "What's the matter?"

"Motion sickness." Ma Xiang covered half of his mouth and explained in a low voice: "Team Yan's private consultant is in charge of the IQ of this case. Halfway through the analysis of the case, he failed, and he has not been able to finish the second half of the sentence until now."

"Oh..." The policeman had an incomprehensible look on his face.

Jiang Ting waved his hand weakly, signaling that he would stop drinking, and rubbed the space between his brows wearily.

Only then did Yan Yan unscrew the cap of the mineral water bottle, and signaled to Ma Xiang to lift the vertical electric fan up to Jiang Ting to blow vigorously, until Consultant Lu could be revived with full blood and catch the kidnappers from the vast mountains and forests in an instant. until it comes out.Then he finally stood up and asked the policeman, "What's the matter?"

"Deputy Yan!" The police saluted, pointing at the fat man in a neat suit, "This is the uncle of the kidnapped girl Buwei, Wang Xingye, who was sent by the city bureau just now."

In other words, apart from the weeping Shen family's parents, the case finally reached a key family member.

Yan Xie said some polite words, just as he reached out his hand to shake it, suddenly he saw that the fat man named Wang Xingye had a wrong expression.

——His hands froze in mid-air, his gaze passed Yan Yan, and stared straight at Jiang Ting not far away; for a moment, his eyes seemed to see a ghost alive.

Caught off guard, Yan Xie's heart sank slightly, and then he squeezed Wang Xingye's hand more vigorously:

"Mr. Wang?"

"Ah...ah? Police officer?"

Yan Yan stared at him calmly, and asked softly after a long while: "What are you looking at?"