traces of all things

"Cough cough cough..."

Suddenly there was a coughing sound at the door, Tang Shaoyuan turned his head in a panic, and found that it was Wei Xiongfeng who was half a beat behind him.

Wei Xiongfeng stood at the door and looked at the two people hugging each other in the room, his expression was a bit awkward: "Did I disturb you?"

Lu Zheng looked calm: "No, come quickly, you are the only one missing!"

Tang Shaoyuan: ...

Wei Xiongfeng: ...

That being said, I really can't help but think about it.

The scotch tape starts from the back of the sweater cardigan, and sticks it carefully to the upper part of the back, the armpits, and the upper arms that are bound to be touched during the dragging action, leaving a few dirty-looking tapes.

Lu Zheng pasted the tape on the white paper for comparison, took out an eye-wearing magnifying glass, observed it carefully for a while, then cut out a few small pieces from it, and put them under the microscope.

"How is it?" Wei Xiongfeng asked impatiently.

"Shh-"

Tang Shaoyuan made a quiet gesture to him, Wei Xiongfeng looked up at Lu Zheng's concentrated expression, and quickly closed his mouth like pulling a zipper.

It took a long time to compare and observe, but the two onlookers were nervous and didn't find it difficult.After a while, Lu Zheng raised his head from the microscope, the expression on his face was very calm, and there seemed to be some rough waves in it.

"This," he said, and circled some of the tape with a marker. "It's the blue denim rubbing."

"This." Another circle appeared on another piece of tape glued to the upper arm: "It's a rubbing mark of red polar fleece."

"The last one." A few sporadic small circles appeared on the other arm tape: "It's black plastic particles, it's the traces of the black printing on the clothes."

After drawing a few circles, Lu Zheng raised his head and pursed his lips.

"This shows..." He finally concluded: "Teacher Jiang Yixiang was dragged from the dirt road into the grass by three people. The person who dragged her was wearing a blue denim suit and the other was wearing a red fleece jacket. One is wearing a black print with peeling off."

"Three people..." Wei Xiongfeng was thoughtful: "Wait a minute, the suspicious person that Jia Kaijie and the others saw was wearing an all-white woolen cardigan..."

"So that so-called suspicious person has nothing to do with this case." Tang Shaoyuan said calmly, "Or at least he wasn't one of the three people who dragged the corpse."

Lu Zheng stood up, pacing the office with frowning eyebrows, and after a while, he suddenly stopped in place and let out a long sigh.

"Brother, do you have any ideas?" Tang Shaoyuan asked when he saw the expression on his face change.

"Yes, yes." Lu Zheng bit his lip and shook his head: "It's just that I can't believe it's true."

Lu Zheng's guess still needs an ironclad proof in the end.

Soon, Xue Yiwei, who was notified to take a team of scouts to Wenyuan Boarding Primary School, called Lu Zheng.

"Hey, Team Leader Lu." There was excitement in his voice that could not be concealed: "Sure enough, as you expected, in the closet of Jia Kaijie's dormitory, we found a blue denim jacket, which belonged to Jiang Pengyun. The red polar fleece long-sleeved jacket belonged to Luan Kang, and the cuffs were still stained with mud. A long-sleeved shirt with a black offset logo on a gray background belonged to Shan Jianming. According to interviews with students on campus, On the day of the incident, these three children were indeed wearing three pieces of clothing like this!"

After exhorting Xue Yiwei a few words, Lu Zheng hung up the phone.

The conference room was full of people, including Captain Huang Ying, Deputy Captain Xian Hongru, Geng Zhizhong, Wei Xiongfeng, Tang Shaoyuan, and many investigators who participated in the investigation together.

"The case has basically come to light." Lu Zheng said with emotion: "In our previous investigation, we missed a possible explanation as to why the murderer used his finger to moles the deceased."

Speaking of this, he paused for a moment, glanced at Tang Shaoyuan, Tang Shaoyuan took over the conversation tacitly: "Using fingers, in addition to homosexuality and dysfunction, there is another explanation, that is, the perpetrator is not mature at all— - not yet capable of this!"

Everyone in the room didn't look well.

Lu Zheng sighed and continued: "In addition to this, there are two other clues that can prove that the murderer is a minor - first, we measured that the person who rode the bike was at least 1.7 meters five in height, but weighed 130 kilograms Next, in addition to thin people, adolescents who have just entered puberty and started to grow are also likely to have this body type."

"Second, we extracted a small amount of clothing fibers from Mr. Jiang's sweater coat, which were determined to be from three different materials of clothing. These three materials rarely appear on the same piece of clothing, and now The weather at the beginning of autumn does not mean that you have to wear so many clothes, which means that there are at least three murderers who dragged Mr. Jiang together. But if there are so many murderers, a more reasonable handling posture should be to move the victim Lift the whole person up—after all, Teacher Jiang is less than 1.6 meters tall, so she is very petite."

Lu Zheng paused: "This kind of carrying mode can show that the strength of the murderers should not be as strong as that of ordinary adult men, so we can only focus on women and children."

**

The three suspects who together were not a few years older than Lu Zheng were brought to the Municipal Bureau one by one.

The first to be brought into the interrogation room was the leader of the three children, Jiang Pengyun.

Compared with other classmates, his appearance is relatively white and clean, and his height is far beyond the average level of his age group. It may be because his height has jumped too fast, and he looks very thin. Lu Zheng estimated in his heart, He may well be the one who took the bike away.

When placed in the restraint chair, he looked tense, with his hands curled up like chicken feet.

"Student Jiang Pengyun, do you know why I brought you here today?"

Jiang Pengyun's expression changed several times, and finally, as if he had made up his mind, he raised his head and said with a hint of self-deprecation: "I know."

"Then do you have anything to tell us?" Geng Zhizhong gave him a chance to explain himself.

The tall boy was silent for a while in the restraint chair, and finally spoke.

"I did this. I do it alone. It has nothing to do with them."

Lu Zheng and Geng Zhizhong were slightly taken aback, and couldn't help but exchanged a look secretly.

"What's the matter?" Geng Zhizhong didn't follow Jiang Pengyun's rhythm to continue walking.

"I...I..." Jiang Pengyun was a little stuck, but finally swallowed and said, "I beat our homeroom teacher to death."

Killed?

A huge question mark floated in Lu Zheng's heart.

"Can you explain all the details? What day was it? Where was it? How did you kill him?"

Geng Zhizhong's expression also became a little more serious.

"At Xiaocang Mountain a week ago, we originally planned to trick our teacher into going up the mountain, and then tie her up in the mountain overnight, so that she would suffer a lot." Jiang Pengyun can speak fluently now: "Shan Jianming copied books for the exam before. After she saw it, she called her parents, and Shan Jianming's father beat him up, which was quite miserable, and we wanted to avenge Shan Jianming."

At this time, Lu Zheng's brows could hardly bear the desire to wrinkle.

"I asked Jia Kaijie, the counselor in our dormitory, to make an appointment with her, because Jiang Yixiang might not believe it if we made an appointment, so she stopped coming. After she arrived on the mountain, I took a stone from behind her and hit her on the head .At first we thought it was just to knock her out, but she lost her breath, so we hid her behind a rock. Later we went down the mountain, and after returning to the dormitory, I remembered that Jiang Yixiang’s bicycle was still on the mountain road. I was afraid that others would find it strange, so I went back to the top of the mountain in the middle of the night and rode the bike away, rode to the night market and threw it in the alley."

"And then? What did you do next?"

"I..." Jiang Pengyun thought for a while: "After wiping the handlebars of the car, I went back to the dormitory."

"Why are you wiping the handlebars?"

"I watched TV saying that if you leave fingerprints, you will be caught by the police."

Lu Zheng couldn't bear it when he heard this: "You know a lot. You've been trying to hide this before, why did you admit it so readily today?"

"Did you bring Luan Kang and Shan Jianming together?" Jiang Pengyun looked as if it should be taken for granted: "I am their eldest brother, so naturally I have to cover them. I started this matter."

Lu Zheng almost sneered.Geng Zhizhong's morality is deeper than his, even so, he couldn't help showing a strange look on his face.

After being silent for a while, Jiang Pengyun showed a trace of uncertainty that could not be concealed again, as if thinking of something, he emphasized: "By the way, I am not yet 14 years old."

This time Lu Zheng really made a "hoo" sound.

After Jiang Pengyun was taken out of the interrogation room, Lu Zheng shook his head and leaned on the back of the seat with an expression of disbelief: "Am I getting old? What are these kids thinking?"

Geng Zhizhong seemed a bit speechless, but he soon showed a puzzled look: "Lu, there is something wrong with this child's confession."

"Yes." Lu Zheng nodded and said, "He said he stoned Jiang Yixiang to death, but according to Shao Yuan's previous autopsy, the cause of her death was suffocation caused by wet mud on her face, and sexual assault on her. It was also carried out during his lifetime. Could it be that someone violated Jiang Yixiang after these students left?"

Soon, they got the answer to this question.

Shan Jianming didn't say a word in the face of the police's questioning, and he still looked childish. Luan Kang, who was the youngest among them, shook off all the things he knew without asking much.

"When we saw Teacher Jiang died, Jiang Pengyun said, everyone has a share in today's matter, and no one is allowed to speak out, and then we dragged Teacher Jiang into the grass, and her pants fell off. Yes." When Luan Kang spoke, his tone was even a little innocent: "Shan Jianming said that he wanted to see if the place where the girls peed was really the same as the one on TV, so he picked it twice."

Hearing this, Lu Zheng gritted his teeth uncontrollably: "And then?"

Luan Kang thought for a while, then trembled as if he was a little scared: "I saw that Teacher Jiang's face was covered with blood, and I was a little scared. They all said that there are ghosts on Xiaocang Mountain. I was afraid that the teacher would come to me after he died. I used the method of killing ghosts on TV."

"...What way?" Geng Zhizhong's voice seemed to float from the sky, and Lu Zheng felt that his spirit had begun to become trance.

"I poured out the water from the kettle and made some mud, and wiped it on Teacher Jiang's face."

Luan Kang still seemed a little ignorant: "I heard that if this happens, ghosts will go to reincarnate and won't stay in the world to harm people."

**

The case finally came to light.

However, all investigators were unacceptable to this result.

"So, when these three children thought Jiang Yixiang was dead and dragged her into the grass, and one of them committed an obscene act out of curiosity, Jiang Yixiang was still alive, right?" Wei Xiongfeng's eyes were a little dull Looking at the playground of Wenyuan Primary School.

"Then, it was one of the children who was afraid that the teacher would turn into a ghost, and hoped that the teacher could reincarnate properly, so she smothered her face with a thick layer of mud, and then suffocated the incapacitated Teacher Jiang to death, right?" Wei Xiongfeng Shaking his head slowly: "Team leader, did you tell him how Jiang Yixiang died?"

Lu Zheng shook his head, his eyes full of vicissitudes: "What do you want me to say? I can't open my mouth at all. I'll leave everything to Boss Geng."

The two stood silently at the edge of the playground, Wei Xiongfeng clicked to light a cigarette, and silently began to puff.

It is already school time, and there are many children playing on the playground, each of them looks so innocent, lively and carefree, which is very different from the suffocating atmosphere in their corner.

"Jingle Bell……"

The mobile phone in the pocket on the side of the leg vibrated. Lu Zheng took out the mobile phone and saw the three characters "Tang Shaoyuan" flashing on the screen.

"Hello? Shao Yuan?" Lu Zheng picked up the phone: "Did you identify any problems at the scene?"

Today is the finishing work of the case. The Municipal Bureau took a few students to the crime scene to identify the murder scene. Tang Shaoyuan also accompanied him. Looking at the time now, it seems that it is not the end yet.

"Brother, something went wrong." Tang Shaoyuan's deep and hurried voice came from the receiver.

"In the woods on the hillside of Xiaocang Mountain where the crime took place, our investigators found a black travel bag. After opening it, there was something inside—"

Speaking of this, Tang Shaoyuan's voice paused: "...it's a human torso."

Volume Six