Breaking Through the Clouds

Time seemed to freeze in the ward. The pale walls, hospital beds, and glass windows all turned into distorted reflectors in a trance, refracting grotesque and dizzying white light.

wow-

The metal impact of the handcuffs broke the deathly silent confrontation. Li Yuxin's hands kept shaking, and her whole body seemed to be falling apart. It took several minutes before she spit out a sentence intermittently amidst the chattering of teeth: "...you...how... …Know……"

"You think that as long as you conceal the truth of He Liang's death, you'll be fine after you've been jailed for the theft for a few months, right?"

"..."

Jiang Ting leaned down and whispered in her ear: "At the beginning of midsummer, July is just around the corner. This sentence means that in the evening of mid-July, the gorgeous sunset falls at [-]:[-] in a certain place, announcing Boyhood ends, the time of punishment begins, and the long night that follows is the entire execution process. ——Do you think that killing He Liang is the end of the punishment? No, far from it. Why don’t you think about why you were picked from the very beginning? Is it just you?"

"..."

Li Yuxin's beautiful face was pale and frightening, and she couldn't help but lose her breath when she made a sound, but Jiang Ting immediately grabbed her hand.

Jiang Ting's three fingers were still wrapped in gauze, and Li Yuxin's hand was also injured in the struggle.Two equally white, slender and bruised hands grasp each other tightly, giving people the illusion that the left hand is holding the right hand tightly.

"Tell me," he said, "and I'll take you out of this nightmare, or you'll never escape from those people for the rest of your life."

"No..." Li Yuxin whispered hastily, "It's not just me..."

"I'm not the first... in front of me, and, and..."

Jiang Ting's eyes flickered.

The metal chain jingled, it was Li Yuxin holding Jiang Ting's fingers even more forcefully, as if she had acquired unspeakable courage from this action:

"But the...two people in front of me, they're both...dead."

died.

Both were killed.

It seems that day and night are reversed, and the scene is replaced.Everything around the ward receded from the girl's eyes, and the scenes repeated countless times in the nightmare gradually invaded the field of vision and swallowed up all senses.

It was the golden-red sunset sinking below the horizon, night rising from the end of the wilderness, He Liang, who was tied up, knelt on the ground trembling.

Ghostly shadows surrounded the open space, and the girl holding the knife was so weak that she couldn't stand, and was erected abruptly.

"Go and kill him," said a laughing voice next to his ear.

"no no……"

"This coward betrayed you for his own life and must be punished."

"Please, let us go, please..."

"Go and kill him, or you will lie down in the ground holding hands with him."

"I can't do it, please, please!..."

The crying girl was forcibly turned away. Under the pit not far away, two rotting corpses held hands and hugged each other. Their empty eye sockets faced the sky, and blackened internal organs and maggots could be faintly seen in the bones.

"Look, this is the fate of not being able to do it." The voice was still smiling, always seemed very happy, and said, "You will bear the punishment together."

You shall be punished together—

The girl burst into tears, and her heart-piercing wailing rose from the wilderness to the sky, gradually becoming the same voice as the desperate sobs in the ward:

"I don't want to kill people, I don't want to kill He Liang, why should it be me?"

"What mistake did we make to be punished, I don't know, I really don't know..."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Jiang Ting wiped away the tears on the girl's face, and said in a low voice, "Listen, when I call the policeman in later, you know the part about how He Liang was killed. How to say it."

"I, I dare not," Li Yuxin choked, "I really dare not, I—"

Jiang Ting said: "You dare. He Liang was indeed killed by you, but there is no proof of his death. No one can prove that you were indeed coerced unless the kidnapper was caught. Do you want to sit in prison for the rest of your life because of other people's crimes?" prison?"

Li Yuxin shook her head like crazy.

"Then do you want to go back to school, let the police apply for meritorious service for you, and restore your reputation in front of all relatives, friends, teachers and schools?"

"..."

Li Yuxin's face was pale, and following Jiang Ting's soft and deep voice, as if bewitched, she nodded at a loss for a long while.

Jiang Ting said, "Then you will know what to do."

Just as he was about to stand up, Li Yuxin suddenly pulled him back as if grabbing a life-saving straw: "Officer, you—why did you help me?"

Jiang Ting didn't answer right away, he didn't distinguish between emotions and anger, and turned his head to look outside the hospital bed after a while.

Through the glass window, Yan Yan was standing in the corridor on the phone in the distance, and it was impossible to hear the movement here.

"...Because the person he really wants to execute is not He Liang, nor Shen Xiaoqi." Jiang Ting turned to Li Yuxin's cold ear, his voice was so small that only the other could hear him: "I am the one who betrayed him."

Li Yuxin's pupils suddenly widened.

The always calm and familiar voice came out from the phone: "It's not He Liang, nor Shen Xiaoqi... I'm the one who betrayed him."

Immediately there was a click in the corridor behind him, Yan Yan turned his head, and saw Jiang Ting standing at the door of the open ward, and said to him concisely: "Come in, she is willing to explain."

"Oh, okay." Yan Yan had no abnormality on his face, and hurriedly said to the phone: "Continue to search and rescue and keep in touch. I will contact you as soon as I have any news." Then he pressed a button, put the phone back in his pocket, He took a few steps forward and hooked Jiang Ting's shoulder: "How is your hand?"

——When he asked this question, he squeezed Jiang Ting's wrist. At the same time, his other hand slid from Jiang Ting's back shoulder to his waist, and gently took off a small thing from the edge of the belt.

It was the monitor microphone that he had pinned on with a hug when he left the ward just now.

"It's okay, it's okay." Jiang Ting looked tired and pulled his hand back: "Don't worry about me."

Yan Xie walked into the ward, turned his face and smiled at him.

This smile is actually a bit weird, but because it is extremely short, no one will notice it.

Li Yuxin was leaning on the snow-white pillow of the hospital bed, her lifeless face finally regained a tinge of blood, when she saw Yan Yan coming in, she immediately struggled to get up, her voice was still very hoarse: "Can you really count me as a meritorious service and send me back to school? "

Jiang Ting sat far away in the armchair on the other side of the ward, with his hands folded on his thighs, like a static and graceful statue.

Yan Xie glanced at him, then looked back and nodded: "Yes, I promise."

——His eyes were quite meaningful, but Li Yuxin didn't notice, she was all focused on the promise.

"I haven't seen what that person looks like." The girl finally squeezed out the first sentence: "I only heard his voice."

Yan Yan narrowed his eyes.

"In July last year, I was dating... He Liang and I were dating. Because of the bad grades in the final exam, my dad scolded people all day at home, so I ran out in a fit of anger, and called He Liang to come out to accompany me... ...The two of us walked straight along the road until it was dark and we were about to leave the county seat. At this time, a car came to take us home."

Li Yuxin swallowed dryly, and Yan Yan immediately asked, "What car? What does the driver look like?"

"It was a silver Hyundai. It was dark and the driver's face could not be seen clearly. He was a man in his 40s and [-]s. Not long after we got in the car... he fell asleep for some reason. "

Yan Yan didn't say a word, in fact, he couldn't say anything.

Two unarmed 16-year-old high school students got into a black car in a daze, their safety awareness was terribly low.

"When we woke up, we were already in the wilderness, there was no one around, it was all mountains and wilderness. We were very scared, but the ground was not working, so we could only keep walking... We spent the next two days in the woods." Li Yuxin couldn't help sobbing: "We didn't have anything to eat or drink, and He Liang was injured, and we all had a fever..."

Yan Yan suddenly heard something wrong: "No one kidnapped you?"

"I didn't—I didn't know that we were kidnapped at all. I didn't hear people say that He Liang's parents received a blackmail call until I came back." Li Yuxin sobbed: "But we really didn't know at the time, it's just that I kept walking and walking in the mountains, and I didn't even see anyone else in the first two days!"

Yan Mao seemed to understand something, but he didn't say it, so he asked, "What about the third day?"

Li Yuxin's expression seemed to be strangled by someone.

"On the third day, we met..." After a long while, she forced out a few words from her throat: "Those people wearing black clothes covering their faces."

—the man in black?

"How many? Are they men or women? How did you meet them?"

"I don't know where they came from. On the third day we climbed to the open space at the top of the hill and passed out. When we woke up, we found these people surrounded by the open space. He Liang was tied up and knelt on the ground, begging , kept begging... I wanted to run but they caught me. I desperately shouted for help, begging them to let us go, but there was a man holding a phone to my ear—”

Li Yuxin's eyes widened, it seemed that so long had passed, and the horror at that time was still deeply soaked in the bone marrow:

"The voice said on the phone that He Liang is a coward who betrayed me and told me to kill him. I cried and begged him not to do that, but he said that if I didn't dare to do it, I would be punished together with He Liang. Like, like..."

Yan Yan asked, "Like what?"

"..." Li Yuxin trembled, and said in a short while, "There is a hole in the ground."

The ward was terribly quiet, and both Yan Xie and Jiang Ting focused their eyes on the girl's face, which was not alive at all:

"In the pit... there are two corpses...a man and a woman, holding hands..."

"He said that if I don't kill He Liang, I will be like that girl in the pit..."

Yan Yan's expression changed completely, he knew what Li Yuxin's words meant: Last year, 712 was not the first time that a series of kidnappings occurred!

Before He Liang, there was at least one other pair of victims!

"...So you killed He Liang?" Yan Yan's mind was buzzing, and he heard his own voice ask.

Li Yuxin dodged to avoid his gaze.

"No," the girl murmured, "I don't know anything, I... I passed out. When I woke up, He Liang was... already dead."

Yan Yao raised his eyes to Jiang Ting, who silently lowered his eyes.

In the ward, only Li Yuxin's trembling breathing and choking were heard. After a long time, Yan Xie nodded slowly and said, "Okay."

——Yan Xie is such a person: he seldom talks nonsense when handling cases, and takes actions to resolve those that can be resolved.

But as long as he is willing to speak, every word he speaks is a nail, and after being nailed to death, it will never be changed by external forces.

Jiang Ting breathed a sigh of relief silently, but it didn't show on his face.He didn't seem to see the sharp gaze that Yan Yan glanced at for a moment, the muscles on his face were still relaxed or even relaxed, and he asked Li Yuxin in a calm manner: "What happened later, did these people let you go?"

Li Yuxin shook her head, and when she opened her mouth, she heard the sound of teeth creaking and colliding: "No, no, no. They drove several off-road vehicles, moved He Liang to one of the vehicles, and drove me down the mountain in the dark... After going down the mountain I was sprayed with something on my face by them, and I fell asleep suddenly. When I woke up, a whole day had passed, because when the sun was setting again, I saw an off-road vehicle parked on the top of the hill, and they took He Liang ——Pull He Liang, who is motionless with his eyes closed, out of the car..."

The girl spoke incoherently and wanted to hug her head, but she could only struggle with the handcuffs in vain:

"A big hole was dug in the ground...they put He Liang in it, put it in it..."

"Then they filled the hole with soil... ahhh!"

Her nerves stretched to the limit like filaments finally broke, and she let out a sharp howl like a ghost.

Yan Yan raised her hand and pressed her brows tightly, relying on this movement to slowly digest the huge amount of information in Li Yuxin's words just now, and sighed hoarsely amidst the girl's tragic cry for a long time.

"The executioner is not a single person, but an organization with perfect mobility. The leader of the organization targets young men and women who love each other, kidnaps them and throws them into the wilderness, and makes extortion calls, sends bloody clothes, and informs them of the execution time. The two hostages struggled to survive, and then when the execution time came, they forced the girl to kill the boy, and if the girl didn't dare to do it, she would kill both of them at the same time, and they were buried together hand in hand."

Yan Yan shook his head and took a breath: "This sense of sacrifice and ritual feels like a cult, but I don't know what the so-called 'betrayal' and 'coward' mean."

Jiang Ting didn't speak.

Yan Yan pondered for a moment, then suddenly raised his chin at him: "Hello."

"Ok?"

"Why do I feel that this organization is a bit similar to the drug cartel behind Feng Yuguang's case? Could it be the same group?"

Although it was a question, Yan Xie's extremely oppressive ending seems to be vaguely hinting at something, making Jiang Ting lower his gaze.

Looking at his slightly sided cheeks, a long, beautiful streamline was formed from the eyelashes to the tip of the tail, which felt a bit cold and difficult to approach.

"Actually I was thinking of another thing," he said suddenly.

Yan Yan said "Huh?"

Jiang Ting ignored him, "Li Yuxin?"

The girl didn't know whether she was stupefied or collapsed from crying, the wailing had gradually subsided, and turned into twitching of her body from time to time, she raised her embarrassed face upon hearing this.

"You said that when the kidnappers forced you to execute He Liang, there were two corpses of a man and a woman in the pit next to it, but after He Liang died, he was buried on another hillside a whole day's drive away?"

Li Yuxin bit her lip and nodded.

Jiang Ting turned to Yan Yan: "Although I can't figure out why he had to be buried in another place, is it possible that the kidnappers are using He Liang's body to intimidate the next pair of hostages?"

——This is indeed too easy to associate, and Yan Xie realized it before Jiang Ting finished speaking: "Tianzong Mountain!"

"Ma Xiang!" Yan Xie took out his mobile phone and dialed the number, and spoke very quickly: "The kidnapper is not an individual but a gang. Immediately notify the Municipal Bureau to send someone to call the police who entered and exited from 7:16 noon to 12:12 night on July [-] last year. All the mountain roads in the hinterland of Tianzong Mountain are monitored, the target is the cross-country convoy, and if you find it, notify me immediately!" Then she covered her phone and asked Li Yuxin: "Can you still remember any landform features where He Liang was executed, and the place where He Liang's body was buried? Any information? This is critical! Every detail must be given to the police!"

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Li Yuxin trembled and said, "Yes."

——She was suddenly so sure that not only Yan Yan, but also Jiang Ting were very surprised.

"There is a large fiery red tree on the hillside where He Liang was buried. They forced me to stand in the open space and watch the pit being filled. The man told me on the phone—"

"'I thought you were a poultry rolling in the mud, but who knew you would have the life to see this piece of phoenix tree'." Li Yuxin had a look of sarcasm and despair on her face: "That's my life, this time For the first time in my life, I saw the Phoenix Forest with my own eyes."

Yan Yan raised his phone in astonishment: "Ma Xiang..."

"Yes! - Hey Brother Yan? What's the matter, Brother Yan?"

"I'm with you, Consultant Lu, and I seem to know why the kidnappers used the blood of the white-tailed sea eagle this time." Yan Xie paused and said, "Also, notify the Provincial Department and Lu Bureau to use aerial photography to survey the entire Tianzong Mountain The place where the kidnappers are going to kill Shen Xiaoqi is a phoenix forest."