what's weird

The weather at the end of October was still unbearably dry. A few big trees on the side of the road lost their leaves early. A kite with a broken string was entangled in the branches and fluttered. A wild cat ran from nowhere and hid under the window and howled hoarsely. Hearing this made people feel sullen for no reason.

In the office, Gu Yizhi flipped through the thick stack of documents on the table, frowning so worriedly that his brows were twisted into Sichuan characters.Colleague Wang Hao walked in from the door, saw his expression, and couldn't help asking: "How is the case going?"

"It's still the same." Gu Yizhi leaned back and sighed heavily.

The dossier was spread out on the table, and a photo was clipped inside. The girl on it had her eyes wide open and her mouth wide open. The skin on her arms and legs was covered with animal-like scratches, showing a horrible death.

Four months ago, a bizarre murder occurred in Yicheng. The deceased was a 19-year-old female college student Gao Tingting. She was found dead in a garbage dump in the suburbs.

According to the investigation, Gao Tingting has the habit of running at night, jogging on Binjiang Road for an hour or two every night.The road is close to the river, and the scenery is pleasant. There will be many people walking and playing there in the morning and evening. To ensure the safety of pedestrians, the road administration department has installed multiple cameras on this road.After receiving the alarm from the masses, the Public Security Bureau quickly set up a special case team to conduct a detailed investigation of Gao Tingting's life circle, and retrieved the surveillance video of that night.

The video shows that Gao Tingting appeared on the screen at [-]:[-], running while listening to music as usual, but she stopped suddenly after running for a while, as if she was talking to someone.That location was in a blind spot of surveillance, and Gu Yizhi retrieved the surrounding videos, but found no suspicious traces.Immediately afterwards, Gao Tingting left the footpath, ignored the passing vehicles and crossed the road, and disappeared from the surveillance video. When she reappeared, she was already a temperatureless corpse thrown into the garbage dump.

According to the forensic autopsy, Gao Tingting died of suffocation, with obvious scars on her neck, and no trace of sexual assault on her body, that is to say, she was strangled to death.

Gao Tingting is a student of the English Department of Yicheng University. According to her classmates, Gao Tingting is a very gentle person. She has never quarreled with others. She usually has no other hobbies except running at night. Her love life is very simple.

Gu Yizhi investigated the pedestrians who appeared in the video that night. An aunt in her 50s said: "I often see her running in this area, all alone, and I don't see a friend to accompany her. It's sure to be watched."

"Did you find anything unusual the night she was killed?" Gu Yizhi asked them.

"Anomaly? No, our law and order is very good, otherwise, so many people would come out for a walk every day." The aunt said excitedly, for fear of causing trouble to her upper body.

There was no breakthrough discovery, and the case fell into a stalemate for a while. Just when Gu Yizhi was at a loss, the second murder happened.

The deceased was Zhang Xiaoyan, an ordinary working girl who lived in a rented house in a village in the city. According to eyewitnesses, Zhang Xiaoyan had been talking to someone in the house that night, laughing very happily. Some people thought she was too It was noisy, and she knocked on the wall to give a warning, but she didn't expect that she jumped from the upstairs soon.

"Comrade police, it's none of our business!" A big sister pulled Gu Yizhi and explained eagerly, "The big guy just made a joke and asked her if she was hiding a man in the house, or why she was so happy , I didn't expect her to jump off the building, and we didn't do anything!"

"Who is that person in her room?" Gu Yizhi asked.

"I only heard her talking there, but I didn't hear the second person." The eldest sister knocked on the wall while talking, "It's really strange to say, our wall is divided by wooden boards, and usually even a needle can be dropped from the next door." I can hear you clearly, why did you only hear her that night?"

The police conducted a detailed search of Zhang Xiaoyan's residence. In this small partition of less than ten square meters, there was nothing unusual except for clothes and daily necessities.It can be seen that Zhang Xiaoyan is a very disciplined person in life, and her only skin care product is the unknown face cream whose writing is blurred.

The investigators collected two fresh fingerprints. Through comparison, they were indeed Zhang Xiaoyan's. That is to say, there was no second person in the room on the night of the incident.

So who was she talking to that night?

After several days of investigation, there was still no progress in the case. Various signs showed that Zhang Xiaoyan met the characteristics of suicide, but there was no decisive factor to decide the case.The bureau notified her family, but no one came to deal with the funeral. Until now, Zhang Xiaoyan's body is still placed in the cold morgue.

Gu Yizhi was overwhelmed by the occurrence of two murders in a row. Unexpectedly, a third murder occurred a month later.

The deceased this time was a company white-collar worker named Irene. She stayed in the company to work overtime on the night of the incident. She was found dead in the elevator by the security guards watching the night. When she died, her eyes were bleeding and she had a strange smile on her face.Through monitoring, it was discovered that Irene walked out of the office at [-]:[-] p.m. and glanced behind when entering the elevator, as if she was talking to someone, but there was no one in the place where her gaze stayed in the screen.After entering the elevator, she fixed her makeup in the mirror and looked up at the camera from time to time.

"I thought her behavior was weird. No normal person pays attention to the camera like her." The security guard said, "It just so happened that the inspection time was up, so I wanted to see what was going on. I didn't expect that when the elevator opened, She died there."

The monitoring screen freezes on the weird smiling face that Irene showed when she looked up at the camera for the last time, and then the screen turns into snowflakes.

"What's going on?" Gu Yizhi played it back several times, but it was still the same.

The security guard shook his head innocently. After more than a minute, the screen finally reappeared, but it had jumped to the scene when the security guard found the dead body and called the police. The most critical record in the middle disappeared.

"It's none of my business, I didn't touch anything!" The security guard waved his hands and explained nervously.

Gu Yizhi asked his colleagues to take him to make a record. He copied the video and looked at the small USB flash drive in his palm. He felt that he had fallen into a maze that he could not get out of. Until now, he is still there. Wandering in the maze, can't find a way out.

"Yizhi, do you think these three cases are related?" Wang Hao asked after pouring a glass of water on the table.

"On the surface, these three people are of different ages, different occupations, and their life circles have nothing to do with each other, so there seems to be no connection." Gu Yizhi frowned and said, "But before they died, they all talked to someone who didn't show up , and that’s the biggest common denominator.”

"You mean the murderer is the same person?" Wang Hao looked surprised.

"It's not sure yet, but it's very possible." Gu Yizhi pondered for a moment, then raised his eyes and asked, "How's the Technical Investigation Division doing? Any news?"

"Not yet, but according to what they say, the possibility of recovering the video data is very small." Wang Hao said helplessly, "Three murders occurred in four months, and even the superiors are in a hurry. You see, this document has just been released. , and urged us to solve the case quickly! Yizhi, now that the captain is not here, we will point all the fingers at you."

Gu Yizhi has been in the criminal investigation department for three or four years, and his excellent case-handling ability is highly valued by the bureau. Since captain Qi Zhen was assigned to investigate cases in other places last month, he has become the backbone of the team.He took the red-headed document and scanned it, threw it on the table casually, and said angrily: "No, I want to live a few more years!"

As soon as the voice finished speaking, the phone rang, and Wang Hao who was nearby picked it up and said "Hello". After a while, his face gradually darkened.Gu Yizhi sat up straight unconsciously, and his intuition told him that something must have happened.

"A female corpse was found by the riverside."

Hang up the phone, Wang Hao said.

Binjiang is the mother river of Yicheng. It has been silently guarding this forest city for thousands of years. Its beautiful scenery has become one of the symbols of Yicheng. There are countless people walking along the riverside every day. In the meantime, the murder scene was surrounded by three floors and three floors of onlookers.

Gu Yizhi ordered his colleagues to set up a cordon to keep the onlookers out of the line. While wearing gloves, he asked the police who arrived at the scene in advance: "How is the situation?"

"The deceased was about 20 years old, female, and had no obvious wounds." Walking beside him was a young policewoman, An Hui.

"Have you notified the technical investigator and the forensic doctor?" Gu Yizhi asked.

"Well, it should be here soon." An Hui said.

Gu Yizhi nodded, walked to the corpse and squatted down, reached out and lifted the white cloth covering it.

It was just at sunset, and the setting sun sprinkled a layer of golden light on the beautiful Binjiang River. At the moment when the white cloth was lifted, Gu Yizhi saw a cloud of black mist disappearing from the female body in an instant.

Gu Yizhi took a step back subconsciously, and looked up at Anhui inquiringly.

"Huh?" An Hui looked blank.

"Didn't you see?" Gu Yizhi looked strange.

"See what?" An Hui scratched her head, "Yizhi, are you talking about this corpse? We checked it before you came, and there is nothing on the corpse that can prove the identity of the deceased."

The female corpse was lying on the river embankment, her body was already white and swollen by the river water, her wet hair covered half of her face like a weed, and the onlookers stood on their tiptoes to see what was going on, and some of them even raised their mobile phones Ready to take pictures, Gu Yizhi put the white cloth back on and asked, "Where's the reporter?"

"Wang Hao is taking notes for him." An Hui said.

"Notify me when the results of technical investigation and forensic medicine come out." Gu Yizhi got out of the cordon, and the crowd subconsciously separated, and several people who took pictures quickly hid their mobile phones in their pockets.Several news reporting vehicles were parked on the side of the road, and the reporters rushed towards here with their cameras on their shoulders. Gu Yizhi frowned, avoiding them and walking in the opposite direction.

The night gradually shrouded, and the street lights on both sides of the street came on one after another. Gu Yizhi walked slowly along the street. Under the dim light, his shadow was dragged along for a long time. The breeze blew through the leaves and made a sound. He took off the police badge and put it in his pocket. A long sigh of relief.

He is a very casual person, and he doesn't like to wear a police uniform with his hands and feet tied up. For this reason, he was criticized by his superiors. In the end, the captain made a concession and asked him to wear a police badge when he usually goes to work.

Probably because of the murder case, the number of people walking by the riverside decreased significantly tonight. Gu Yizhi leaned on the railing, took out his lighter and prepared to light a cigarette, when a beam of fire suddenly lit up on the embankment not far away, and two figures appeared In his sight.

It was so late, who would still be there?

That area is the lowest part of the river embankment. After years of erosion by the river, it has been covered with moss and seaweed, which is prone to accidents. The government specially erected a warning sign there to remind people to pay attention to safety and try not to approach it. Enthusiasts, very few people go there.

Gu Yizhi frowned, the fire had already been extinguished, and the burnt smell of paper wafted in the air.He vaguely saw that they seemed to be talking, and the shorter one took something from the other hand, hugged it in his arms and hurried up the steps.It was only October weather, but that one was wearing a knee-length windbreaker, covered his body tightly, hurriedly walked, and buried himself in a passing car.

Before the car disappeared into the night, Gu Yizhi secretly wrote down the license plate with the help of street lights.

"Can I borrow a fire?"

The sudden voice startled Gu Yizhi, and subconsciously stepped back a few steps, only to realize that the man standing in the low-lying place had come behind him at some point.He stood in the shadows, his black suit seemed to have merged with the night, only the outline of his facial features could be vaguely seen, his eyes were like stars, and he looked at Gu Yizhi with a smile.