Madness of the Heart

Just when Mingshu was about to rush to Qingyue Village again, the field team members of the Los Angeles City Bureau sent back a message——

Hou Pao was not in the dormitory of the University of Los Angeles, nor in the rental room he rented.According to Hou Pai's classmates, Hou Pao said in early July that he had taken up work outside and would not stay at school during the summer vacation. The last time he saw Hou Pao was more than ten days ago.

"More than ten days ago?" Ming Shu said: "Then my suspicion is not wrong. When Hou Jianjun went to Luocheng to find Hou Pai, Hou Pai didn't miss him on purpose, but he couldn't see him again. But why did Hou Pao disappear?"

"Hou Pao's disappearance happened in Los Angeles, let us investigate." Hua Chong said, "The car is already waiting downstairs. I have arranged for two trace inspectors. You should leave immediately."

Mingshu looked at Xiao Yuan.

Xiao Yu'an said, "Go."

The police car was speeding on the highway, and Ming Shu looked at the trees and fences passing by outside the window, feeling a sudden tightness in his heart.

What kind of person is Hou Pao?

Was the disappearance just an accident?

Or is it related to Hou Jianjun?

Or is it related to Hou Cheng?

Mingshu's eyes suddenly brightened—Hou Pai's classmate said that the last time he saw Hou Pai was more than ten days ago, and during that time period, Hou Cheng was also in Los Angeles.

Hou Cheng has never explained clearly his whereabouts since he came to Los Angeles.The public monitoring can only prove that Hou Cheng stayed in Fukang District for a period of time.

But if Hou Pao's disappearance is related to Hou Cheng, then what do Hou Cheng and Hou Pao have in common?What is Hou Cheng's motivation?

Hou Cheng has no friends in Qingyue Village, only Hou Jianjun and a few other village cadres care about his life from time to time. Hou Pao is Hou Jianjun's son, and Hou Cheng has no reason to do anything to Hou Pao.

Mingshu shook his head, remembering Hua Chong's confession before departure, "Leave Hou Pai to us to investigate."

He slid down the window and let out a slow breath.

Reasonably enough, Hou Yao should be handed over to the Los Angeles police for investigation. Judging from the current clues, the disappearance of Hou Yao is most likely not related to Hou Cheng, but probably related to Hou Bao's social circle in Los Angeles.

The most important thing before him is to dig out the secrets of Hou Cheng's basement.

The hot wind was blowing in, making the anxiety even more intense. The police officer who was driving looked in the rearview mirror and said, "Ming team, the air conditioner is on, please close the windows."

"Sorry." Mingshu responded, and immediately slid the window up.

He was the one who said there were secrets in the basement, and he was the one who asked to search again, but he was not sure that he would find anything.

Because he was there when the cash was found, he turned the entire basement upside down, and even found the dark room, so there shouldn't be anything missing.

The rotten watermelons and vegetables are absolutely suspicious, Hou Cheng must be hiding something.

When the police car arrived at Qingyue Village, Hou Jianjun was rushing back from the neighboring village.

Hou Jianjun was panting violently while running, and seeing the police car was like seeing a savior, "What happened to my son? Why did he suddenly say that he disappeared? My son will never disappear. He is studying hard at Luo University! "

Ming Shu knew that no matter how many questions he asked now, it would be useless, he still asked: "The last time you went to Los Angeles to find Hou Pao, when you called him, did he turn off the phone, or was he not answering?"

Hou Jianjun's lips trembled, "Yes, it's a shutdown!"

Mingshu's eyebrows tightened.

"He often shuts down the phone, he just doesn't like to answer my phone, and doesn't like to see me, a useless old man." Hou Jianjun explained to himself in vain, "He must be fine, I'm going to Los Angeles, my son will graduate next year Yes, you are a top student!"

Ming Shu sighed and comforted Hou Jianjun, and the trace inspector who accompanied him shouted: "Ming team, let's go to Hou Cheng's house first."

"I'll be right there." Ming Shu answered and turned to Hou Jianjun, "By the way, I have another question."

Hou Jianjun wiped the corners of his eyes covertly, "What?"

Ming Shu asked: "Have Hou Pao and Hou Cheng had any contact in the past?"

"Hou Cheng?" Hou Jianjun was stunned for a few seconds, "No, no."

Mingshu asked: "Are you not sure?"

Hou Jianjun sighed heavily, "Little Paddle, he looks down on me and the people in our village, and basically doesn't communicate with everyone."

Mingshu nodded, not intending to waste any more time, and was about to leave when Hou Jianjun said, "But when Xiao Pao was still young, I went with me to Hou Cheng's house to deliver soup, rice and fruit."

A village cadre arrived by car and urged Hou Jianjun to get in the car quickly. Hou Jianjun looked at Mingshu worriedly: "Xiao Pao will be fine, right? You will definitely find him, right?"

Ming Shu pursed his lips tightly, facing Shang Hou Jianjun's red and cloudy eyes, he suddenly didn't know what to say.

Poor parents in the world.Even though he was thrown into the country by his son and looked down upon by his son, this old father is still proud of his son and hopes that his son will be safe and successful.He didn't know what happened to his son, so he could only ask the police, "Your son will be fine."

It seems that after hearing these words, his son will really be safe and sound.

But Mingshu couldn't answer him.

The Los Angeles police will definitely find Hou Pai, but no one can guarantee whether Hou Pao is dead or alive.

The car drove Hou Jianjun away, Mingshu stood there for a while, and walked quickly to Hou Cheng's home.

The searchlights illuminated the dark basement like daytime, and all the items were moved to the yard. Two hours later, nothing new was found.

The trace inspector turned off the searchlight and began to do the luminol test in the basement.

"How is it?" Mingshu asked.

"There is a large area of ​​blood on the ground." The trace inspector said: "But it is not yet possible to determine whether it is human blood."

"Large area?" Mingshu hugged his arms and thought for more than a minute, "I'll go down again."

Fang Yuanhang shouted from behind, "Master, there is nothing down here."

"I don't believe it." Mingshu said, "There must be more, but we haven't discovered it yet."

The trace inspector looked at each other, and had to follow Mingshu into the basement again.

Mingshu avoided the luminol reaction area, at first he leaned against the base of the wall to check inch by inch, and then he almost lay down on the dirty ground.

There were wooden boards on the walls of the basement earlier, but now the wooden boards have been removed, and there is a small gap between the wall and the ground in some places.

The gap is too narrow, and limited by the angle, it is actually difficult for the eyes to see into the gap.

Mingshu clung to the base of the wall in a very awkward posture, and after walking half a circle around the basement, he suddenly said loudly: "Let's see if this spot is blood!"

The trace inspector rushed over immediately, Mingshu stood up, moved his sore neck, and instinctively found the key evidence.

"Yes!" The trace inspector said excitedly, "I'll take it back for inspection right away!"

The process of waiting for the test results was very long. Mingshu took a small bench and sat at the entrance of the basement with his right hand resting on his forehead, calmly sorting out the clues.

Watermelons, vegetables, boxes placed in a mess, and domestic garbage are all blindfolds, and Hou Cheng is covering up what happened here.

There were a lot of blood stains on the floor that could not be seen by the eyes, indicating that Hou Cheng had washed the floor with water.

The spot of blood in the gap was something that Hou Cheng failed to discover, and it was an important evidence left behind by the victim.

This is a murder scene, and Hou Cheng killed a person here.

Is it the young man who used to live in Hou Cheng's house?

If yes, where is his body?

Hou Cheng was a very insecure person. He killed the tenant in his basement, but did not dispose of the body immediately, but temporarily stored the body in the basement.Home is Hou Cheng's safe zone. Hou Cheng believes that as long as the body is taken out of the yard, it may be found no matter where it is placed.

But when the smell of the corpse became more and more obvious, Hou Cheng realized that if the corpse was not moved out, the consequences would be disastrous.

Hou Cheng was forced to transfer the corpse, and it was only possible to transfer the corpse from one safe area to another.

Mingshu stood up, and the field overgrown with weeds appeared in his mind.

It was the only place Hou Cheng could control outside of home.

There is another doubt.

Hou Cheng is a suspense writer, so he must know that water cannot completely wash away the blood stains.

Why are there so many bloodstains in the basement that can be detected by the luminol reagent?

Those bloodstains are also blinders?

Mingshu couldn't wait any longer, and rushed to Guadatian together with the criminal police who came to assist.

July is the season when a large number of watermelons are on the market. The melon fields in Qingyue Village are thriving, but Hou Cheng's melon fields have not been taken care of for a long time and are suspiciously barren.

A cordon was pulled up outside the melon field, and the criminal police were searching the field with police dogs under the scorching sun.

The villagers stopped working and gathered outside the cordon, watching curiously and discussing loudly.

"I heard that Hou Cheng killed someone?"

"Impossible, Hou Cheng is a wooden man, how could he kill people?"

"Then what are the police looking for?"

"Oh, what is buried in the field? It's too scary. My field is right next to it!"

"I'm still neighbors with Hou Cheng!"

"Hey, I just said why this year's harvest is not as good as in previous years. I dare say that Hou Cheng has done something bad!"

"You are superstitious..."

The search continued until evening, when two skeletons wrapped in rags appeared side by side in the middle of the melon field.

"Fuck!" Fang Yuanhang exclaimed, "Why are there two?"

There was no forensic doctor at the scene, so Mingshu squatted by the corpse pit, observed for a while and said, "No, this may not be the victim we are looking for. These two shrouds have been placed here for a long time, I guess more than ten years .And the arrangement of these bones doesn’t look like they were buried here and decayed naturally, it’s more like they have been transferred here after they have become bones.”

Fang Yuanhang was horrified, "Then who are they? Why did they appear in Hou Cheng's field?"

The surrounding villagers couldn't see the situation in the field clearly, so they chattered endlessly.

"It seems that something has been dug up?"

"I dare not watch it!"

"My child often goes to Hou Cheng's house to play. It scares me to death. I won't let him go if I beat him to death!"

Mingshu stood for a long time, and said, "They may be Hou Cheng's parents who have passed away long ago."

Fang Yuanhang said: "Master, are you kidding me? Did Hou Cheng bury his parents in the field? Or did they bury them in the field after they were boneless? Watermelons grow in the field every year? Is he sick?"

"Look at the position where the bones are buried." Mingshu said: "In the center of the diagonal line. In some villages, the center of the diagonal line represents nobility, which means praying for blessings. Are they Hou Cheng's parents? Just look at the cemetery outside the village and you will understand."

Qingyue Village has fully promoted cremation in the past ten years. There are many private tombstones scattered on the hills outside the village, all of which are burial tombs from the past few decades.

The government called for cremation, but instead of rehabilitating the burials of the past, they were preserved as a place of mourning for generations.

The village cadres brought Mingshu and his party to the tomb of Hou Cheng's parents, and persuaded them: "Death is the most important thing, and the death is the most important thing. Don't touch their family's tomb."

Fang Yuanhang asked: "Master, do we really want to open this tomb?"

Ming Shu walked around the tomb twice, shook his head, "No need."

The village cadres breathed a sigh of relief.

Fang Yuanhang was puzzled, "Then how do you prove that the people in Hou Cheng's field are his parents?"

"This tombstone is very old, surrounded by weeds, and has not been repaired for at least five years." Ming Shu stared at the blurred writing on the tombstone, "Hou Jiangfeng, Xu Hong. Their photos are all lost."

Fang Yuanhang turned his head and understood, "Hou Cheng is very filial. The room where his parents live on the second floor has been cleaned spotlessly. It is impossible for a person like him not to love his parents' tombstones, let alone the photos he lost. No matter. There is only one reason the tombstone is so dilapidated now—”

Mingshu nodded, "The bones of Hou Jiangfeng and Xu Hong are no longer here."

The trace inspector squatted beside the tombstone, raised his head and said, "There are traces of being opened."

At this moment, Mingshu received a call, and the results of the blood test were finally released. The invisible blood stains that appeared on the basement floor of Hou Cheng's house were pig blood, while the trace blood stains in the crevices were human blood.

Mingshu was sure, and asked, "Can I extract DNA?"

The other end of the phone said: "Yes!"

Mingshu didn't rush back to Los Angeles immediately, but just made a phone call with Xiao Yu'an.

"If nothing else happens, the blood in the basement belongs to a young man who stayed at Hou Cheng's house. Hou Cheng spent a lot of time in the basement, cleaned it many times, covered up the smell of corpses with rotten vegetables and fruits, and even used pig blood to mislead us, but everything He didn’t notice that there were old bloodstains in the crevices.” Mingshu said: “The tenant has probably been killed, but I have no idea how Hou Cheng will deal with the body. I thought Hou Cheng would bury the body in the field, but only the bones of Hou Cheng's parents were found in the field."

Xiao Yuan interrupted, "The bones of Hou Cheng's parents?"

Mingshu told Xiao Yu'an his own analysis, and said: "Hou Cheng should have serious psychological problems, he has a deformed love for his parents."

Xiao Yu'an said: "However, Hou Pao is unwilling to do even the most basic filial piety to Hou Jianjun. From this level, they are completely opposite."

Mingshu asked: "Xiao Ju, why did you mention Hou Pao suddenly?"

"I just thought of it suddenly." Xiao Yu'an said, "The police in Los Angeles searched for a long time and found an important clue."

"what?"

"Hou Pao's so-called 'receiving jobs' is actually working as a bartender in a nightclub in Fukang District."

Mingshu was really taken aback, and at the same time thought that Hou Cheng was being controlled by the security detachment in the nightclub in Fukang District.

"Leaving aside Hou Pao, the investigation here is going well, and the truth will probably surface soon." Xiao Yu'an's tone slowed down, "As long as the DNA can be extracted, we can do a nationwide comparison of missing persons. .Even if the body is not found for the time being, we have one more key clue."

Hou Cheng was taken to the interrogation room, his attitude became more and more arrogant, "What do you want to ask me again?"

"My team members searched your basement." Xiao Yu'an said, "Guess what they found?"

The lines on Hou Cheng's forehead trembled slightly, "How many times have you searched my basement? You don't need to lie to me. If you can find something, you won't ask me like this now."

"You are really confident." Xiao Yu'an smiled, and put an appraisal form on the interrogation table, "There are bloodstains left in the basement."

Hou Cheng didn't panic, "Blood? Are you sure it's human blood?"

Xiao Yu'an asked, "It's not human blood, what kind of blood would that be?"

Hou Cheng's gloomy gaze lingered on Xiao Yuan's face, and Xiao Yuan looked at him unmoved.

Half a minute later, Hou Cheng smiled, "You guys have already found out, it's pig blood."

"You mean on the ground?" Xiao Yuan tapped his finger on the appraisal form, "Yes, the ground is pig blood. But why is there pig blood in a basement? There is still a large area of ​​pig blood. You killed pigs in the basement ?No way?"

Hou Cheng's eyelids twitched violently, and his wrinkles fluctuated.

"I told you last time that the more you try to cover up your crimes, the easier it is for you to show your flaws." Xiao Yuan changed the subject, "But you suspense writers are used to setting up reversals, and it's not that you will do this. Strange. Of course, in the book it is interlocking, and it is exciting to reverse and reverse, but in reality..."

Xiao Yu'an paused, "The more complicated your situation is, the more clues I have to solve it. Do you understand?"

Hou Cheng sneered, "If you had discovered something, you wouldn't be talking nonsense with me here now."

"Okay, let's stop talking nonsense." Xiao Yu'an said: "Pig blood is a blindfold you set up, but you didn't expect that you didn't clean up the blood left when you committed the crime. In the gap between the floor and the wall."

As he said that, Xiao Yu'an stretched out his right hand and compared the size of the bloodstain, "You installed wooden boards in the basement, if you don't remove these wooden boards, you will never see this bloodstain. Even if you remove them, you need to be more careful, to see it. So you don’t notice it, which is normal.”

Hou Cheng opened his mouth, his eyes suddenly changed.

"Are you scared?" Xiao Yu'an stood up and continued to look at him while pacing around the table, "You should know that with the current criminal investigation technology, DNA can be extracted even from old blood. If you hurt me in the basement, Or who the murderer is, I will know soon."

Hou Cheng didn't say a word, and a fierce light shot out from under his slack eyelids.

"One more thing." Xiao Yu'an suddenly stood still, with his hands resting on the edge of the table, "Because of this blood, my team members searched your melon fields."

Hou Cheng's pupils tightened, "You guys!"

"Isn't this in line with the logic of the investigation? Assuming the basement is the first scene, how would you deal with the victim?" Xiao Yu'an said, "You will bury him in your melon field, because that is your safe zone."

Hou Cheng gritted his teeth.

Xiao Yu'an said: "Unfortunately, we did not find the victim, but found two sets of bones in the center of the diagonal line of the melon field."

Hou Cheng's mood changed drastically, and he roared suddenly: "I will kill you! I will kill you!"

Xiao Yuan took a step back, "You are so excited because they are your parents, right?"

Hou Cheng bowed his back high, like a wild beast, "Why do you dig my field! Why do you let my parents rest in peace!"

"It was you who made your parents restless!" Xiao Yu'an said sharply, "It was you who dug them out of the burial tomb; it was you who committed crimes and exposed their bones to the eyes of the world!"

Hou Cheng hugged his forehead, "You are talking nonsense! I just want to be filial!"

"Then your way of showing filial piety is really unique." Xiao Yu'an condescended, and his attitude suddenly became harsh, "I will not let go of every evil you have done."

That night, the DNA information in the old blood was extracted, and after comparison, it was confirmed that it belonged to Yang Nanke, a young man from Lucheng who disappeared three years ago.