sincerity of lies

"So you think that An Xinhe and the others must have such a strong motive to kill Tang Jinglong." Ji Xun concluded.

"Correct."

"You make a lot of sense." Ji Xun commented, "This is also a kind of embarrassing ending: women who have lost hope choose to die with the murderer who deprived them of hope. Only the blood of the real murderer can dispel the burning. The poisonous flames of resentment and sorrow burned in my heart. The numb soul stepped out of the old cage and stepped into the prison of the law. From this point of view, Tang Jinglong and the others can be regarded as waste utilization."

"But you don't think so." Huo Ranyin stated, and then suddenly said, "Ji Xun, when you faced Xi Zhigao before, your attitude was very strange. You urged me to take Xi Zhigao away quickly because you simply didn't want to let Xi Zhigao go. Are these women being victimized a second time, or have you foreseen the aftermath at the time, that they are both victims and perpetrators at the same time?"

The captain of the criminal police is always so keen, he has a pair of eyes that can see through people's hearts, as if no matter where or how deep a person's heart is hidden in the chest, they cannot escape his analysis.

The face of Xi Zhigao seen at the bottom of the pit appeared in front of Ji Xun again.

That face emerged from the darkness, and said with a smile, "You thought we killed the baby girl? Why did we kill the baby girl?"

Ji Xun asked Huo Ranyin: "So you think, I want to learn from Poirot. After some inner entanglements of justice and legal principles, I chose not to tell the truth because I sympathized with the criminals?"

"Your actions seem to be like this." Huo Ranyin said calmly, "But you have to be clear, the detectives in novels only exist in novels."

"Ha." Ji Xun smiled perfunctorily, "The detective in the classical book is a god in the reasoning world, and also a bystander and narrator who lacks the past and stories. The audience is human, and human beings will not empathize with gods. So the author always has to design some plots to make the detective look like a person. In the real world, there is no god. Everyone is human and can't take care of themselves. There is not so much sympathy..."

He was absent-minded, his eyes still wandering around Cheng Zheng's house.

He has searched Cheng Zheng's room for an hour or two. He has searched through the boxes, cabinets, bed basement cellar, and even opened every bag that contains things, but he just couldn't find what he wanted. thing.

Where is the thing he was looking for... Does that thing really exist... Or is it all because of his overthinking...

He was sitting, gently rubbing his throbbing forehead with his thumb joints, and his eyes naturally fell on the large desk in front of him against the wall.

There is nothing new about the desk. There is a glass plate on a very ordinary desk. Under the glass are children's pinyin, preschool ancient poems, 26 English alphabets and other picture manuals. These manuals are stacked together, many and thick , so that the outermost booklets are beyond the table, half hanging on the edge of the table.

The first thing he looked for after entering the room was the desk. He opened every cabinet of the desk and checked it. Except for stationery and paper, there was nothing new in it.

But he looked at it, and suddenly realized that he had missed a place and didn't check it.

He sat up straight, pressed his hand in the gap between the picture book and the desk surface, and groped a little... After a while, he found it.

He stood up, lifted the large glass covering the table, and then swept away those miscellaneous picture books. What Cheng Zheng had been hiding all along was finally exposed!

Huo Ran was surprised and said: "... a letter?"

It is a letter.

Lots and lots of letters, one by one, are laid flat on the desk table, hidden under the large glass and the picture booklet.These letters have been aged for a long time, and the envelopes have turned yellow, so the names of the women written on the envelopes have been eclipsed by the years.

Ji Xun finally found what he was looking for.

The last piece of the puzzle of the whole case was put together.

All the mysteries corresponded one by one, and all the mysteries were solved, but Ji Xun was not interested.None of this came as a surprise.He threw himself on the chair, and the chair groaned, but Ji Xun didn't care, and even kicked the ground viciously, shaking the chair that was about to fall apart.

He said to Huo Ranyin: "Want to hear a story? Just tell a story for you alone."

Silent night.

In the cold winter, even the mosquitoes are gone, the sounds from the outside world, people from the outside world are all blocked out of the doors and windows. In this simple house, there are only him and Ji Xun.

They are now about to share a secret that only the two of them know.

"Hurry up and decide." Ji Xun urged Huo Ranyin, "You don't want to listen to me, so go home and sleep. I want you to take me home - you just promised yourself."

Huo Ranyin raised his eyebrows, but after a while, he still pressed down slowly: "Listen."

He was very curious and wanted to know what else Ji Xun had seen in this case that he hadn't seen.

Everything revealed is the truth.

Ji Xun spread all the letters on the table. The letters here are divided into two types. One type has the same handwriting, but there is only a woman's name on the plain white cover;

But there is one thing in common. All envelopes have neither a mailing address nor a delivery address.

Ji Xun randomly picked up one, but didn't open it. The letter "Chen Meilin" was twirling back and forth at his fingertips.He looked at the pile of books piled up in Cheng Zheng's room and began to tell his story - among those stacked books, besides various educational books, there were actually professional medical books.

"Once upon a time there was a man, he should be a doctor. For some reason, he ran to a remote mountain village. Everyone here has the same surname, so they are also extra united. They unanimously and enthusiastically accepted this doctor. ——Doctor is good, professional talent, can save lives at critical moments.”

"The doctor lives here, and he knows the secrets of the village: all the women here are bought from outsiders, and the neighbors who are warm and cheerful during the day turn into devils at night, and the wailing of women can be heard every night in the small mountain village—— The cage-like mountain range surrounding the small mountain village was smeared with the blood of the woman who wanted to escape.

"This is a barbaric, desolate, ignorant, and sinful place outside the law, a place where troublesome people emerge from poor mountains and rivers.

"The doctor didn't choose to leave. Why? Because the villagers blame their crimes on their sins here, but there is no crime on him anyway; this is a place outside the law, yes, he is also a person outside the law, otherwise why would he be so young at such a good age? Here, give up work, give up the convenient life in the city, and run all the way to this small place that doesn’t shit?”

Ji Xun said all the way here, he took a breath, he stopped for a while, organizing his words.

It didn't take too long to organize, and Ji Xun quickly started again. He chewed on words, trying to tell all this as fairly as possible.

"He is a silent bystander. He absolutely does not have the guts to tear up the evil deeds here to save those poor women, but at any rate he has not joined forces. But from the very beginning, there was an accident. The only woman in the village who could deliver babies There may be difficulties in childbirth, but he is the only doctor with medical knowledge except for this woman in the village. There is no way, he can only deliver for this difficult woman.

"In the village where no baby girl survived, the only girl finally survived. Her name is Xi Lei."

"The other children died, but this little girl who was under his invisible protection survived, trembling but safe and healthy like a cluster of faint but real flames—hope—survived."

"So, he, the only foreigner, became the hope of those women."

"His remaining conscience and fresh Xi Lei made him suffer physically and mentally. Finally, he let go of the women's private pleading over and over again, and agreed to half of them."

"As a messenger for them, the premise is that the address is not revealed, and they cannot be rescued."

The letter twirling between Ji Xun's fingers was opened, and Ji Xun pulled out the letter paper from it.

"'Mom and Dad, long time no see. I didn't run away from home after arguing with you, and I was dragged into the car...'"

Ji Xun read the letter and paused for a while before continuing:

"'I gave birth to a daughter the year before last, but she is gone; I gave birth to a son last year, and she is alive. I don't run away, and he doesn't lock me up anymore...I'm just crippled, tired from work, and can't get enough to eat...Mom and Dad, I miss you, can we still meet in this life?'”

Ji Xun closed the letter.

There are still many, many letters on the table, many, many blood and tears, condensed on a thin piece of paper.

"Cheng Zheng took out the letters one by one. In order not to reveal the address, he took these letters with him and left them at the door of the women's parents. Some of the women's parents replied."

Ji Xun said, looking at the letters with various contents written on the cover.

"The parents of the rest of the women did not. It may be that the letter was not delivered; it may be that it was delivered but the parents decided not to reply for various reasons; no matter what, even after so many years, there is still no woman who escaped from here. But they are dark Therefore, a small window has been opened in the world. At least some of them can quietly communicate with the outside world, even if this communication lasts for a year or two."

"In this case, Xi Lei has grown up, she is a very lucky girl." Ji Xun said with a blank expression, "In this village, she is neither controlled nor become public property. The women here and Cheng Zheng, have worked hard to protect her, teach her, so that she can grow wings and fly away from here."

"Xi Lei did it. The girl who flew out should never come back here. Everyone who helped her fly out said so. So she left the village without looking back, and came to Ning City. Staying in Ning City... She could have done it. But she was killed.

"Xi Lei's death, not only the hope of the women here collapsed, but also Cheng Zheng's paradise—Cheng Zheng's false and fragile paradise of conscience. So he, who has been timid for 30 to [-] years, under the trend of anger, did One thing."

"He killed Lu Ping and Tang Jinglong."

Ji Xun began to slowly narrate the story that Huo Ranyin had already told, "On the 18th, he brought a colorful plastic bag and knocked on Lu Ping's door. That day was the first seven days of the dead Xi Lei. He walked in and claimed to be Tang Jinglong. He sent someone to help Lu Ping take care of the first and last. He may tell Lu Ping that it is not enough for you to move. Once the police come to this house with suspicion, the DNA left by the traces of life here for many years will be ironclad evidence, so you'd better call The moving company came and destroyed everything and turned it into a rough house.

Lu Ping, who was already guilty of killing someone, followed his advice and used his mobile phone and account to make an appointment to place an order for moving and cleaning for the day after tomorrow.Cheng Zheng then asked him, or killed him, to make an appointment with Tang Jinglong in the name of Lu Ping to meet Tang Jinglong near the parking lot of Tanwei Building on Xinglin Road around 19 o'clock on the 9th.

Tang Jinglong could miss everyone's invitations, but he wouldn't miss Lu Ping's. The first time he was injured by Zeng Peng, he wanted to go to the flower and bird market to meet Lu Ping quietly, let alone Lu Ping's active invitation.Tang Jinglong also knew that it was best not to let the police see his contact with Lu Ping, so on the 19th, after he withdrew the money and dealt with Xu Xinran, he sneaked to the appointment place deliberately avoiding the cameras.

Everything could not escape Cheng Zheng's careful planning. He successfully killed someone and kidnapped Tang Jinglong to go home.

And these were all noticed by the women who were traveling in the same car. "

Ji Xun paused, as if pondering over and over again the mentality of the women at that moment, gestured in the air with his hands for a while, and then proceeded cautiously.

"In the beginning, it was probably the gold powder that was stained on the Spring Festival couplets on the back seat of the car.

It rained on the night of the 18th, and it was impossible for Brother Daming who was traveling with him to notice such small details, nor would he care where Cheng Zheng went.But the women who are in charge of purchasing new year's goods have some doubts in their hearts. How could Mr. Cheng, who has always been careful, get wet the Spring Festival couplets placed so far away?

In addition, there is Lu Ping's dismembered head. These cautious Cheng Zheng will not throw them in Wushan, but will only bring them back to the small village.In order to prevent the corpse from decomposing and emitting a foul smell, there must be a device like activated carbon or refrigeration to preserve it. This kind of package was not there the day before. It is not small, and it is likely to be noticed by the women in the company.

On the 19th, Tang Jinglong, who was stuffed in the back of the car and unconscious, was very big, and the contents inside were naturally transferred to the front seat of the car. The car was full of people, but the back box was empty but did not put anything in it. Although the women were silent at this time , but most of them are vaguely guessed.

Tang Jinglong was kidnapped and returned. Cheng Zheng's family did not have a basement where he could be detained unlike other villagers. He could only deal with this trouble as soon as possible, so even though they returned to the village in the early morning, Cheng Zheng took Tang Jinglong up the mountain that night.

The women, or An Xinhe in this case, followed him to see everything.

He buried Tang Jinglong's body and Lu Ping's head and left, while An Xinhe waited for Cheng Zheng to leave, dug up the ground, and checked Lu Ping's body.

Lu Ping died of boric acid. An Xinhe, who had some medical knowledge, saw the clues on the corpse. She was also familiar with Cheng Zheng's home, ruled out some other lethal drugs, and quickly deduced the cause of death.

She had a certain understanding of Lu Ping, knew that this was a carpenter, and guessed that the carpenter's head was cut off by a tool, and the most suitable thing in the carpenter's house was a chainsaw.

An Xinhe and the other women reburied these corpses. In the following days, they may use various excuses to enter and leave Cheng Zheng's house, and exchange the objects that Cheng Zheng touched Tang Jinglong that day with their own.Among them, there must be the weapon that cut off Tang Jinglong's head.

Cheng Zheng didn't realize that these women had already discovered his secret, and he might even be happy about the frequent contacts of the women, because he had to make sure that he would always appear in front of the village crowd until the 23rd to ensure that he was not there. Proved to be flawless.

According to his plan, the plan progressed peacefully all the way until Lu Ping's body was found, and he answered your inquiries at Zeng Peng's home without any timidity.I think, he actually saw the handcuffs that day, and it was precisely because he knew you were a policeman that he deliberately explained his timeline in detail.He knows you're going to check it out, and if it's done, he'll be innocent. "

Huo Ranyin frowned, and refuted the incongruity brought up by Ji Xun: "Cheng Zheng has always appeared in front of you and me with a gesture of resignation. He could explain it deliberately, or it could be a habit of being cautious. Nothing decisively illogical."

"Yeah." Ji Xun responded lightly, "Of course not, because it's not him, it's An Xinhe, it's the women who show illogical flaws, and it's the one who is deeply rooted in your heart and everyone's heart, women. The strongest motive for murder."

Huo Ran was surprised, he immediately reviewed his chain of thought, tried to rearrange the order, and put his index finger on his lips involuntarily.

At this time, during the narration process, Ji Xun, who had been spreading his five fingers and intersecting his fingertips cos Holmes, pulled out a finger, pushed Huo Ranyin's finger away, and waved it in front of his eyes: "Okay, don't think about it, what are you doing?" Your own broken finger? Just listen to me, I won't lead you into a ditch-"

He joked.

"You have to repay the kindness of saving your life at night, right? You even gave me artificial respiration."

With that said, Ji Xun quickly got to the point, leaving no extra time for Huo Ranyin to react.

"You didn't see it, of course it was unexpected."

"I came here today for the sole purpose of investigating Xi Lei's secrets about Tang Jinglong. Tang Jinglong's plans are intertwined, and he even arranged Lu Xiaoen's surgery at the right time, which is enough to prove that Xi Lei did not immediately use it as a threat after grasping the evidence. Tang Jinglong. During this long period of time, Xi Lei has no reason not to discuss this secret with someone. Cheng Zheng is Xi Lei's teacher. He is the first choice after discussion.”

"So I used Tang Jinglong's death to test Cheng Zheng. And this was noticed by An Xinhe. After I came out of Cheng Zheng's house, the atmosphere in the village had changed. An Xinhe was obviously the leader of the women here. At the behest of my friend, every woman in the village is watching me, causing me to feel that my eyes follow me wherever I go. And this is the first level of the development of the matter. They did not act more aggressively at this time, because I'm not a policeman. An ordinary person, just be sent away."

What happened in the village today, in Ji Xun's narration, is like peeling an onion, analyzing it layer by layer.

"When Da Gao and Xiao Gao came, the situation changed again. The women were already at war. Seeing them, they immediately came out with a plate of fruit to test them. The two mallets bent down to reveal the outline of a gun. Therefore, the women It is confirmed that the two policemen who came behind are policemen. Since Zeng Peng’s arrest for drug trafficking has never been revealed, they never thought that these two policemen were escorting Zeng Peng. Cheng Zheng."

"An Xinhe discussed with other women, and they decided to take the blame for Cheng Zheng.

"Taking the blame is not something you say casually. If you want the police to believe it, you have to have something that the police must believe. They have to tell lies that are more true than the truth."

Ji Xun raised his eyes and looked at Huo Ranyin.

"So, An Xinhe made a big fuss, emphasizing the cemetery on the mountain inside and out, which aroused my suspicion; then he convinced the men in the village that there were policemen mixed in with the team who came to move the grave, and they were here to investigate those dirty things in the past The men then turned their faces and refused to recognize anyone, which aggravated my suspicion. At this time, I chose to go up the mountain to investigate, and I happened to enter An Xinhe's urn——I dug up the bodies of many baby girls, and I dug up An Xinhe and the others. The motive of the collective crime. As mentioned earlier, this is a collective motive that no one can question."

"This is a powerful, appalling, non-negligible motive that they have voluntarily told the police."

"They don't hesitate to dig out their own pain many years ago, and use this motive to hide another motive.

"They want to take the blame for Cheng Zheng——

Ji Xun sneered, this motive really made people laugh.

"Just because Cheng Zheng delivered the letter for them."

"After staying in the desert for a long time, every drop of water is precious; after being stuck in the dark for a long time, a little light is enough to make people worship. Cheng Zheng is hypocritical enough, cowardly enough, he is nothing. There was a small hole in the cage for ventilation, so these women were willing to repay the kindness with their lives-they were not destroyed to death. They were like moths, in order to protect the last hope, moths rushed to the flame and turned into fuel. "

"Okay, the story is over." Ji Xun said.

This is not a good story. After hearing this story, the listener may only get a blank emptiness.

"Where's the evidence?" After a long time, Huo Ranyin asked.

"There is no evidence." Ji Xun said directly, "At this time, all the clues have overlapped under the arrangement of An Xinhe and others. In this case, it is possible for An Xinhe and others to kill people, and it is also possible for Cheng Zheng to kill someone."

"Conjectures without evidence are conjectures." Huo Ranyin said.

"Yes." Ji Xun laughed, "So this is just a story. But Captain Huo, as a criminal police captain who looks at the evidence and handles the case, how do you choose in this story without evidence?"

"The scales are out."

Ji Xun draws a symbol in the air.

"Cheng Zheng is on the left, and An Xinhe and the others are on the right. For so many years, because of the unknown crimes he committed, Cheng Zheng has watched everything indifferently, and what he has done is false and insignificant; An Xinhe and the others have suffered for so many years. After so many years of abuse, when the truth of all the crimes is revealed, they actually want to go to jail with those who threatened to persecute them. They also have children. After the children do not have a father like an animal, they will not have to work hard to raise them Mother."

"Now, Captain Huo," Ji Xun asked interestingly, "Who do you choose? Choose An Xinhe and them. Although women's bodies have been imprisoned for a long time or even executed, their hearts are satisfied and free; choose Cheng Zheng, Cheng Zheng commits crimes on purpose. The crime of homicide, the women committed perjury, and the previous plot of infanticide will not be erased. Their sentences may be light, but their hearts are painful, and they will not even be able to sleep peacefully for the rest of their lives. I am afraid that they are the ones who killed this The only man who helped them give them hope.

"Now, tell me, what kind of result do you want to choose? Who do you want to kill Tang Jinglong and Lu Ping?"