NOS Chapter 8
by VolareGuan Yao almost thought he hadn’t heard correctly. He asked, stunned, “Enmity? What enmity?”
Yu Chunming didn’t continue. He glanced at the breakfast Han Chen had brought and turned his head away.
In the dim light, Guan Yao couldn’t see the expression on his face, only the small section of his neck and the scar at the base of it.
The scar Guan Ning said would be very troublesome if it injured the inside of the ear.
A thin layer of mist formed on the window, gradually blurring the outside world. Yu Chunming quickly opened a small crack in the window to lower the temperature inside the car.
Guan Yao cleared his throat, as if struck by a pang of conscience, and prepared to steer the conversation away. But just then, Yu Chunming suddenly sat up straight.
“He’s here,” he said softly.
Guan Yao tensed and looked up, seeing a hunched, thin figure appear on the side of the street through the thin mist. The figure swayed back and forth for a long time, seemingly observing whether the surroundings were safe.
“It’s Liu Bin.” Yu Chunming signaled Guan Yao to grab the two-way radio.
Guan Yao held his breath and sent the agreed-upon code to the remaining teams.
Although they were far away, the two recognized him at a glance. Liu Bin was still wearing the same red, thin jacket he had worn when he left Longgang Village a week ago. His hair was messy, and his beard was unshaven. He looked like he hadn’t taken care of himself in days.
“It’s strange. He doesn’t go home, just wanders around outside,” Guan Yao said in a low voice.
Yu Chunming kept his eyes on Liu Bin as he entered the driving school before answering, “Either he has a guilty conscience, or he’s afraid of implicating his family.”
“What?” Guan Yao’s eyebrows jumped. “Implicating his family?”
Yu Chunming didn’t answer. He picked up the two-way radio and said to the person on the other end, “The person has gone inside. Have the teams in front keep a close watch. We’ll go around the side and apprehend him.”
After speaking, he nodded to Guan Yao. “Let’s go.”
The morning light was faint. Yu Chunming wrapped his coat tightly, lowered his head, and quickly crossed the wide, uncultivated trail behind the training ground, following Liu Bin all the way and entering the driving school through the side door.
Guan Yao looked back at the three colleagues approaching from the other side, nodded slightly, turned, and came to the outside of the rest area from the side of the low wall.
The unsuspecting Liu Bin was now shrinking his neck, looking for something in the still dark driving school.
“Don’t rush in. See if he’s looking for something or meeting someone,” Yu Chunming’s voice came from the two-way radio.
Meng Changqing, who had edged closer to Guan Yao, said admiringly when he heard this, “Officer Yu is so cautious.”
“Then quickly ask him to be your mentor,” Li Xiaotian fanned the flames from the side.
Guan Yao glared at the two of them fiercely. “Don’t talk!”
Meng Changqing and Li Xiaotian fell silent together.
Right now, Liu Bin had arrived outside the rest area.
This was a small room for driving school instructors and students to wait in. It stood next to the training ground and was a small prefabricated structure. Because there weren’t many students or instructors at ordinary times, there weren’t many chairs in the rest area.
Liu Bin naturally wasn’t here to rest. He walked around the prefabricated structure and stood on the steps at the door, stamping his feet anxiously, looking like he hadn’t found what he was looking for or hadn’t waited for the person he was waiting for.
“Go,” Han Chen ordered, accompanied by the static of the electrical current.
Guan Yao immediately pressed down on Meng Changqing, who wanted to rush ahead, and with one hand on the low wall, flipped into the small yard in front of the rest area.
Thump—
The noise immediately startled Liu Bin. He turned to run, but Yu Chunming, who had approached from the other side, had already pinned him to the ground with a chokehold.
“Master, there seems to be another person over there!” Meng Changqing shouted.
Guan Yao looked up and saw a tall figure flash past the window behind the rest area. He got up to chase, but just then, there were two light “pop” sounds from inside the rest area, like the sound of a short circuit.
A string in Yu Chunming’s mind tightened, and he quickly shouted, “Don’t go! There’s water on the ground!”
Guan Yao braked suddenly and stopped at the door. He looked down and saw that a severed wire was hanging on the door, and a pool of bright, dirty water had collected under the door.
“Damn…” Guan Yao gasped.
In this moment, the shadow that had flashed past the window behind the rest area had disappeared.
“Master, why isn’t there anything?” Meng Changqing circled around, not finding even a ghost. He rubbed his eyes and said softly, “Could it be that I saw wrong?”
Guan Yao quickly went around to the back, but indeed found nothing.
But this place was only a few steps away from the birch forest under Mopan Mountain. If there really was someone here, they probably had already slipped into the forest and disappeared without a trace.
When he turned back to the front room, Yu Chunming had already pulled out his handcuffs and lifted the secured man from the ground. Han Chen also came forward at this time. He hadn’t seen the figure behind the rest area, so he naturally didn’t understand why Guan Yao had rushed inside.
“It doesn’t look like it was cut deliberately. It looks like the circuit is aging,” the man said, crossing his arms.
Yu Chunming had already handed Liu Bin over to Li Xiaotian. Ignoring the presence of everyone else, he stepped forward, grabbed Han Chen, and scolded, “Are you blind? Didn’t you see someone in the back? Why did you give the order to apprehend him just now?”
Han Chen was confused by Yu Chunming’s scolding. He asked strangely, “Where was there someone?”
Everyone present, whether near or far, couldn’t help but look at each other when they heard this. Due to the angle, some of them had seen the figure behind the window, and some hadn’t, but Han Chen just happened to be the one who hadn’t seen it.
His face was a little embarrassed, but he restrained himself from lashing out at Yu Chunming, just frowned and straightened his collar, and turned to his colleagues. “Get a few people and take a look around the forest behind. If there’s someone…”
“If there’s someone, they would have run away by now. Do you think you’d have a chance to chase them?” Yu Chunming said angrily. He glanced into the rest area, stepped over Han Chen, and said to Li Xiaotian, “Take the person back. Let the forensic technicians come and investigate the scene.”
“Does this place need a scene investigation?” Han Chen asked, raising his voice as he chased after Yu Chunming.
Guan Yao was still standing in place, examining the room along with the pool of dirty water. He casually replied, “There are obvious signs of a fight inside. If the forensic technicians come, they might find blood residue.”
Yu Chunming coldly glanced at Han Chen and didn’t say anything else.
Guan Yao then moved away from the pool of dirty water with lingering fear. He smiled at Han Chen, pulled Meng Changqing, who was still poking his head everywhere, and caught up with Yu Chunming.
Back at the station, the interrogation began. Liu Bin wasn’t a tough nut. As soon as he sat on the interrogation chair, the man was so scared that he wet his pants.
“What did you drink yesterday? This urine stench is really strong,” Guan Yao said, fanning the air and directing Meng Changqing, who was watching from the side, “Find someone, find someone to get him a change of pants, so he doesn’t catch a cold.”
“Sit down.” Who knew that before Meng Changqing could stand up, Yu Chunming walked in, went straight to the desk without looking at anyone, and pulled out the chair next to Guan Yao.
Seeing that there was no hope of changing his pants, Liu Bin “whimper”ed and cried.
“Police officers, I, I didn’t commit a crime. I really didn’t commit a crime.” He shook his handcuffs, making them rattle. “I was just momentarily blinded by greed, so, so I took that job.”
“What job?” Guan Yao didn’t understand what the man was saying.
Yu Chunming also looked up from behind the computer and looked at him. “Job?”
Liu Bin was taken aback, his voice trembling slightly. “You, you’re not arresting me because I took that job, are you?”
Yu Chunming and Guan Yao exchanged a look, not betraying anything.
Guan Yao said, “Then… tell us in detail about this job you took.”
Liu Bin seemed to be an honest man. He trembled and put on an appearance of knowing everything and saying everything.
The man confessed that everything he did was for the sake of getting medical treatment for his mentally challenged son, Liu Shuangxi.
“That person promised me that as long as I investigated the matter clearly, they would give me 500,000 yuan in one go. 500,000 yuan, police officers, where have I ever seen so much money?” Liu Bin said with a bitter face. “I knew that taking such jobs online was unreliable, but, but I desperately needed the money, and, in the beginning, the employer didn’t ask me to do anything… illegal or disorderly.”
“Approaching someone in a private capacity and then investigating their background, isn’t that illegal or disorderly?” Yu Chunming said coldly.
Liu Bin stammered, “Mainly, mainly it’s because that person and I aren’t completely strangers. We both used to work at No. 2 Timber Factory back then. After the factory closed down, he even took me to do business for a few years.”
The person Liu Bin mentioned was named Lin Zhimin, the driving school instructor, also the person he called his employer who wanted him to investigate.
“At first, they just wanted me to find a way to inquire from him about an old colleague who had also worked at No. 2 Timber Factory for several years. I often heard him mention that person when I did business with Old Lin in the early years, so I took this job,” Liu Bin paused. “But who would have thought that no matter how much I inquired, I couldn’t find out anything, and, and I even made Old Lin suspicious.”
“Suspicious?” Guan Yao asked. “Why suspicious?”
Liu Bin replied in a low voice, “Because the person the employer wanted me to inquire about was called Qian Guowei, and this person died many years ago…”
According to him, this “employer” was just an online friend he had met on a social media platform. After they had chatted for some time, the other person learned of Liu Bin’s address and identity, and then entrusted him to investigate a driving school instructor named “Lin Zhimin.”
Liu Bin had interacted with Lin Zhimin in his early years and was now in urgent need of money, so he quickly agreed to the other party’s commission.
However, after Liu Bin agreed, this employer had new requirements.
“I remember that Old Lin said that Qian Guowei was his childhood friend, and they grew up together. It’s just a pity that Qian Guowei died early, and Old Lin even took care of his old mother’s funeral. In theory, he shouldn’t suspect anything if I ask him about Qian Guowei, but I didn’t expect that he would think I had some ulterior motives,” Liu Bin lowered his head and sighed. “And, my employer is also very strange. You say, if they want to inquire about Qian Guowei, they should just inquire about Qian Guowei, but I don’t know why, some time ago, they suddenly asked me to find a way to steal Old Lin’s ID card and bank card. Police officers, I, I can’t do that kind of thing!”
“You just say, did you do it or not?” Guan Yao asked, frowning.
Liu Bin shrank his head and answered weakly, “In order to get the money, I had no choice but to bite the bullet and do it, but… I was discovered by Old Lin.”
“And then?” Yu Chunming glanced at the crime scene photos next to him. “What did you do?”
“I… I had an argument with him,” Liu Bin said in a weak voice.
How did you argue?
Liu Bin said that the two of them had crossed Mopan Mountain that day, driving the training car to a nearby village to drop off students, and on the way back, Lin Zhimin suddenly began to question him, asking why he was always indirectly mentioning Qian Guowei. Liu Bin was bad at speaking, and the two of them started arguing after only a few words.
As for the location of the argument, it was precisely the hill in District 3 where the blood was discovered.
“Actually, I didn’t want to argue with him. He kept badgering me and asked me a bunch of strange questions. I…”
“What questions?” Yu Chunming interrupted.
Liu Bin began to stammer. “I don’t remember clearly. Anyway, they were all related to Qian Guowei. I’m not familiar with Qian Guowei. I don’t even remember what he looked like anymore. I didn’t pay attention to what Old Lin asked.”
“So, because you couldn’t answer, you ultimately angered Lin Zhimin, is that right?” Yu Chunming asked again.
Liu Bin timidly nodded. “He said I was lying to him. I, I really don’t know. How could I lie to him? But Old Lin didn’t believe me.”
Yu Chunming took a crime scene photo from the materials and handed it to Meng Changqing. “Take this and let him identify it, to see if the argument happened in this place.”
Before Meng Changqing could hand the photo to Liu Bin, the man, who had only glanced at it, immediately admitted, “It’s here, it really is here.”
Guan Yao added, “Was it on the steep cliff, or below the steep cliff?”
“The, the steep cliff…” Liu Bin answered in a low voice.
“Besides arguing, what else did you do?” Yu Chunming took out an evidence photo of the severed hand and gave it to Meng Changqing. “Did a physical conflict occur?”
“Physical conflict, there was no physical conflict!” Liu Bin immediately denied.
Yu Chunming didn’t answer. He gave a look, ordering Meng Changqing to place the evidence photo of the severed hand in front of Liu Bin.
Liu Bin was shocked, almost jumping up from the interrogation chair.
At twelve o’clock noon that day, Task Force Leader Liang Chong and Han Chen entered the interrogation room to relieve Guan Yao and Yu Chunming. The two, finally able to catch their breath, sat on the only small sofa in the office, speechless.
Li Xiaotian stepped forward to inquire. “How is it? Did he confess?”
“Confess my ass.” Guan Yao leaned back, extremely annoyed. “He just repeats those few sentences over and over again. First, he said there was no physical conflict, and then he said he just accidentally pushed Lin Zhimin. Before we came out, his confession had already changed to neither a physical conflict occurring nor him pushing Lin Zhimin to the ground.”
“He’s quite difficult to deal with,” Li Xiaotian said, sighing as he flipped through the records.
At this moment, Yu Chunming suddenly opened his mouth. “Who is Qian Guowei?”
Guan Yao, who was sitting on the side, paused. Then, his originally relaxed expression gradually became serious. “I heard about this person a long time ago.”
Yu Chunming turned his head to look at him.
Guan Yao pondered and said, “Qian Guowei was one of the victims of the 9.24 fire thirty-three years ago.”