traces of all things

sunset.

Lu Zheng sat quietly in the laboratory, watching Tang Shaoyuan hold clay and countless small pillars of different lengths, and glue them together on a replicated skull bit by bit.

His expression was very focused, as if what he was holding was not a skull, but an exquisite work of art.

The base will be done soon.Tang Shaoyuan's slender fingers had covered the terrifying skull with small pillars symbolizing different thicknesses of skin and fat layers. At first glance, it seemed dense and frightening.

This transitional phase didn't last long either.

In Dayu County before, Lu Zheng also saw Tang Shaoyuan revealing his skull restoration, but he took Wei Xiongfeng outside to investigate and visit, and did not witness how the 3D avatar on the computer was made.

Now I have the opportunity to see a human face gradually take shape under Tang Shaoyuan's skillful hands.

Now Tang Shaoyuan is filling in the texture of the human face. He carefully applied the skin-colored clay little by little in the gaps between the small pillars. A small pointed face gradually appeared between his fingers.

Lu Zheng took a deep breath nervously.

Tang Shaoyuan was concentrating on the restoration, but he didn't hear it. After filling the face, he went on to make the details of the eyes, put on the eyeballs, and finally took a small watercolor pen and traced along the eyebrows. Shape the bone and outline the eyebrows.

Before the lips had time to paint, Lu Zheng's hands were already trembling.

so similar.

The restored skull in Tang Shaoyuan's hands looks exactly like the female version of Lu Zheng—a baby face with a pointed chin, long eyebrows, and a pair of big round eyes. Slightly masculine, people would believe that Tang Shaoyuan was making a statue for Lu Zheng.

At this point, DNA has become unnecessary.

The old female corpse in the two sacks was Lu Zheng's biological mother, Cuiping.

**

After Tang Shaoyuan took the sample, he went to do the DNA of another bone, leaving Lu Zheng alone in the evidence room, trying to find certain clues from the bone.

No clothes were found in the sacks where the two corpses were. According to Lu Zheng's guess, his mother Cuiping's clothes should have been burnt because the corpses of his mother were burned after death. It was because they hadn't worn clothes when they were put into the sack, otherwise they wouldn't have decomposed to the point where there wasn't even a scum left.

The two bags were very old and dark, with almost no visible material. It took Lu Zheng a lot of effort to clean the middle of the bag little by little with a small brush.

These two bags look like they should be white in their original color, with some patterns in the middle.The material is the most common woven bag in the countryside, and the bag is tied with six strands of hemp rope, which is very strong.

Lu Zheng rubbed off the dirt on the knot, and observed it carefully with a magnifying glass.

This is a very special way of knotting. The hemp rope is wrapped around the mouth of the sack, then pulled in from above, and then tightened. The knotting method on both bags is the same.

Seeing this, Lu Zheng put down the magnifying glass in his hand, turned upside down the two bags containing the bones, and inspected them inch by inch.

In the bag containing Cuiping's body, near the corner, Lu Zheng found some dark brown remnants of rotting plants, which looked like grains.This is not surprising. In his memory, the case happened in a crop field. The smell of burning straw floating in the air was very strong, and it was normal for a small part of it to be rolled into the sack.

But things wrapped around these plants are not very common anymore.

With sharp eyes, Lu Zheng spotted a small piece of reflective object stuck in the gap at a glance. He quickly and carefully peeled off the stain on it with tweezers, put on an eye-wearing magnifying glass, and took a closer look at the small thing that was half a centimeter in size.

This reflective little thing is flake-shaped, with an arc shape on one side and an obtuse angle on the other side. The shape is very regular. Under the magnifying glass, there are radial lines. Perpendicular to these lines, two clear ripples can be seen.

This is……

Lu Zheng frowned for a moment.

**

Two hours later, the case discussion meeting room of the Dashui Township Public Security Bureau.

Tang Shaoyuan is sharing some of the new results of the autopsy with Officer Xiao Hu and others.

Of the two corpses found in the well in Yujia Village, one has been determined to be Lu Zheng's biological mother, and the other is an adult male. Because the murder time was relatively short, Tang Shaoyuan successfully extracted DNA from the bones, but in the DNA bank There are no related records.

"There is another characteristic of this skeleton." Tang Shaoyuan put a photo in front of police officer Xiao Hu: "I measured it. The deceased should have long and short legs before he was alive, and he would wobble a little when he walked."

Police officer Xiao Hu bit his lip, very distressed: "There are no reports of missing men with similar characteristics in the surrounding four or five villages."

"Let's wait for senior brother. Look at the results of his traces and physical evidence." Tang Shaoyuan suggested: "At present, we can only draw so many conclusions from the bones."

Officer Xiao Hu had no other choice, so he nodded, but he didn't have much hope in his heart: "Actually, we have organized people to check the well just now, and there is nothing at the bottom of the well, no murder weapon or clothes. , I really can’t think of any other clues to be found…”

"He'll find it."

Suddenly a determined voice sounded beside him, Police Officer Xiao Hu turned his head in surprise, and saw Tang Shaoyuan got up at some point, standing by the window, looking in the direction of the laboratory in front: "Others may not be able to, but If my senior brother, there is definitely no problem."

Officer Xiao Hu: ...

Are you not afraid of being slapped in the face when you talk so full?

Tang Shaoyuan was really not that afraid. Through the window, he squinted his eyes, and saw a slender figure coming out of the laboratory quickly, crossing a short corridor bridge, and directly from the three steps Jumping up and down, he came to the office here, holding a file bag in his hand.

Quietly admiring Lu Zheng's striding strides for a while, Tang Shaoyuan watched him walk into the gate of the building he was in before turning his head, raised the corner of his mouth and said to Xiao Hu: "I'm right, right?" , Sure enough, it’s here.”

**

Before Tang Shaoyuan finished speaking, the door of the conference room was hastily pushed open by a person. The person who came in was slender and frowned. It was Lu Zheng.

Police officer Xiao Hu didn't notice Tang Shaoyuan's peeping behavior at the window, and when he saw that Cao Cao and Cao Cao were coming, he opened his mouth wide in surprise.

"Any new discoveries, brother?" Although Lu Zheng's expression was not relaxed, Tang Shaoyuan had always understood his various small expressions, and he still found the correct information from his eyes.

Lu Zheng nodded, dragged a chair and sat down, and took out the contents of the document bag one by one.

"The physical evidence at the scene is only two sacks. I inspected the sacks and found two clues that may be useful." Lu Zheng took a deep breath and began to put some photos and evidence bags on the table: "The first , the two murders should be committed by the same murderer."

Police officer Xiao Hu smelled a signal from his determined movements that the detectives were about to start high-energy, and hurriedly leaned over to listen.

"First, look at the two bags." Lu Zheng clicked on two photos, which are close-ups of the pattern in the center of the cleaned sack: "These two bags, although the pattern in the middle is no longer clear, but the nine figures below the pattern The code is still very clear - this is the mark that only regular fertilizer manufacturers will have."

While talking, Lu Zheng touched a post-it note and wrote down two strings of numbers.

"Hmm...it seems the same?" Xiao Hu scratched his head, a little confused.

"That's right, you see, the two letters in the middle are the production serial number of the fertilizer, and the last four digits are the limited sales area. Assuming there is no connection between the two cases, it is a coincidence that the two murderers They all chose to use the bags used to hold chemical fertilizers to store the corpses, which at most can only explain the problem that the last four numbers are the same, and the two letters in the middle are separated by more than [-] years. If the murderer happened to come across the same batch Is it a bit too predestined for the fertilizer bag?"

Police officer Xiao Hu nodded again and again, and was amazed: "Is this murderer a bit too nostalgic? You still have the fertilizer bag from more than [-] years ago?"

"Good question." Lu Zheng praised: "This may also be a clue, but we don't need it yet. Apart from the coincidence on the bag, there is another detail that can also prove that the murderer is the same person, and at the same time It provides us with a new direction of thinking—that is, the second point I want to say, the murderer is likely to be engaged in a fishery-related industry."

"Fishery?!" Officer Xiao Hu suddenly became excited: "Leader Lu, are you sure?"

"At least [-] percent, or I can be [-] percent sure that the owner of this bag has something to do with the fishing industry, but I don't rule out the possibility that the bag is not the murderer himself." Lu Zheng saw Xiao Hu saying so. Excited, I couldn't help being curious: "Is there anything special about being in the fishing industry?"

"Oh, Team Leader Lu, you don't know now." Police officer Xiao Hu looked very happy, shaking his head and said: "There is a large area around our Dashui Township, and fish farming is not popular! The murderer planted the land , That’s nothing unusual, nine out of ten residents of Dashui Township have planted fish, but I can’t think of anyone who has raised fish.”

Lu Zheng and Tang Shaoyuan nodded yes, indeed, the fertilizer bag shows that the owner of the bag should live in a part of Dashui Township. If there are few people raising fish in this part of the country, the scope of the murderer's investigation can be greatly reduced!

The two exchanged a look of surprise, and Lu Zheng took out the last two items in the file bag in his hand.

"This is the knot we saw on the woven bag containing the corpse." Lu Zheng turned the transparent bag with the knot inside out so that Xiao Hu and the others could see the whole picture of the knot: "It's not common, is it? Few people use this kind of knot in their daily life. This kind of knot has a scientific name called Fisherman’s Knot. As the name suggests, it is more popular among fishermen. Once this kind of knot is tied, it is very difficult to untie it. , are generally used by fishermen to fix hooks and other objects.”

Tang Shaoyuan picked up another knot on the side and observed it, raised his eyebrows and raised his eyes: "These two bags are tied with this kind of fisherman's knot."

"That's right." Lu Zheng smiled: "It's hard to attribute this to a coincidence, right? Especially when few people in Dashui Township are engaged in fishing."

At this time, Xiao Hu became more and more excited as he listened, and he wished he could go out and visit the suspects with his brothers in the next second, but seeing that there was still one thing in Lu Zheng's hand that hadn't been displayed, he urgently urged: "Except for the fisherman's knot, Is there any evidence from Group Leader Lu that proves that the murderer has something to do with the fishing industry?"

Seeing that he was in a hurry, Lu Zheng didn't hold back, and directly put the last thing on the table.

This is a transparent evidence bag. At first glance, there seems to be nothing in it. You can only see it if you look closely. It is a small piece of grayish and slightly reflective flakes, less than half the size of an adult's little fingernail.