NOS Chapter 16
by VolareChapter 16 Huangsha Ridge (3)
Yu Chunming really did decrease his appearances in front of him. At least for this whole afternoon, Guan Yao didn’t see him again.
Even Li Xiaotian, who usually couldn’t stand Yu Chunming, couldn’t help but say, “Old Guan, what you said before, wasn’t it a bit too much?”
“Too much my ass,” Guan Yao replied with a cold face.
However, although his eyes were fixed on the surveillance video on the computer screen, his mind was constantly circling around the words Han Chen had said.
“I know what’s going on with the letter,” Han Chen said lightly, standing outside the interrogation room at noon. “The matter has spread throughout the Songlan City Bureau. I might as well tell you about it.”
As he spoke, he lit a cigarette.
Thus, Guan Yao heard a secret about Yu Chunming.
According to Han Chen, in January of this year, Yu Chunming received a threatening letter that was highly likely from the Songlan 6.13 dismemberment case’s perpetrator.
The letter was delivered to him on the evening of January 15th. He was already home at that time, and it was late at night. Therefore, apart from the security guard on duty at the gate and the surveillance cameras, no one saw Yu Chunming’s appearance when he immediately chased out after opening the letter in the reception room.
The next day, Yu Chunming handed the letter to Wang Zhen, the captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Municipal Bureau, and it immediately aroused the high attention of the task force. Handwriting experts and trace experts repeatedly appraised it, and several criminal technicians compared the surveillance footage of the sender escaping.
Soon, based on the letterhead of the paper, the fingerprints extracted from the letter, and a series of other information, they locked down a suspicious location. At the same time, they found a person in the vast database of the police system whose fingerprints matched, and this person had been personally recorded by Yu Chunming as a confidential informant.
“That brother used to hang out in underground places in his early years. After being reformed and released from prison, he provided Chunming with useful clues many times, and later he was registered as an informant,” Han Chen said. “After the incident, without asking too much, that brother told everything honestly. He told us that the content of the letter was what Chunming asked him to write, and the letter was also what Chunming asked him to send back to him through several roundabout ways. To tell you the truth, Chunming did this for no other reason than because he had made a major mistake in handling this case. The Municipal Bureau had already removed him from the task force at that time and planned to transfer him away from Songlan. In order to stay in the Municipal Bureau and continue to be responsible for this case, he faked that letter, trying to attract the attention of the leaders by using the method of the perpetrator contacting him. As for this Ge Xiaopei, he should be the last link in the chain of that informant sending the letter through several roundabout ways.”
Speaking of this, Han Chen gave a wry smile: “To be honest, I didn’t believe it at all at first, but Chunming’s informant clearly held communication records with him in his hand. The communication records showed that Chunming even threatened that person, saying that if he didn’t help him, he would delete his already registered informant status. So…”
“So, he was demoted to Za Mu Er,” Guan Yao interjected.
Han Chen thought for a while and replied: “It can’t be considered that, after all, you should have heard of him… what his background is, so the punishment decision researched at that time was to transfer him to logistics. As for coming to Za Mu Er, it was his own request.”
“His own request?” Guan Yao knew very well, “He can’t let go of that case.”
Han Chen sighed: “Whether he can let go or not, it’s meaningless to talk about those things now. I have already submitted the request for a joint investigation. Whether it will be approved in the end depends on the Provincial Department.”
Guan Yao didn’t speak for a long time.
Han Chen’s mood brightened up, and he patted Guan Yao’s shoulder, saying easily and happily: “Let’s go, let’s go in and continue the interrogation.”
But Guan Yao suddenly asked, “But, this morning, we were clearly going to track He Wang’s bank account. Why did we happen to run into this person so coincidentally?”
Han Chen paused, and his gaze gradually darkened.
Yes, isn’t this strange? Yu Chunming sat in that old factory building in Za Mu Er, District 11, Number 35, thinking quietly. Isn’t this strange?
If everyone thought that he had forged the letter in the past, would anyone believe him again because of this now?
Yu Chunming didn’t dare to have any illusions.
He held a cigarette and stared at the track under his feet that had been abandoned for who knows how many years. His thoughts drifted further and further, recalling the first time he set foot here.
That year, he was only five years old, still a thin and short, somewhat malnourished boy.
“Beat that son of a bitch to death!” Several teenagers chased after him, yelling gleefully.
Yu Chunming stumbled and ran, as if he was tripped by something under his feet. With a “thump,” he uncontrollably fell to the ground.
“Hurry up, he’s right here!” A stout teenager rushed up and was about to swing a stick on his back.
Yu Chunming covered his mouth with both hands. He gritted his teeth, trying not to let the cries escape from his mouth. But what he didn’t expect was that the pain didn’t arrive as expected. A tall and thin shadow blocked in front of him.
“What did I say last time? Have you forgotten, you little bastards?” A familiar voice came from above.
Yu Chunming carefully opened his eyes and saw the boy standing in front of him.
The smoke gradually dissipated, dispelling the cold smell of rust. Yu Chunming, who revisited the old place more than 20 years later, chuckled and said to the puddle of water on the ground, “Idiot, ten people were beating up the two of us. It would be strange if our faces weren’t swollen like pig heads in the end.”
The reflection in the water moved with the wind, without answering.
He patted the dirt on his clothes, put out the cigarette, and got up to walk out. Just then, the phone rang.
A string in Yu Chunming’s mind moved, and he quickly flipped out his phone. But when he saw the caller ID, the expectant expression on his face gradually faded.
The person who called him was Yu Huan, and the note was two words: sister.
“Big brother?” Before he could put the phone to his ear, a cry of urgency came from the other end.
Yu Chunming frowned and asked, “What’s the matter?”
The person on the other end breathed a sigh of relief: “You finally answered my call.”
Yu Chunming obviously didn’t want to talk to her any more. He opened his mouth and said: “If you’re okay, I’m still busy here…”
“Don’t hang up, don’t hang up!” The girl on the other end shouted, “I have something to say!”
Yu Chunming was a little helpless: “What’s the matter?”
Yu Huan, his sister, a little girl who had only been working for less than two years, tentatively asked on the phone: “Big brother, I’m on vacation next week. I want to go see you.”
Yu Chunming immediately refused: “Why are you coming to see me? I don’t have time.”
“Why don’t you have time? Is being a police officer at the police station busier than being a criminal police officer? Besides, Mom is also in Za Mu Er. I’m not just going to see you,” Yu Huan coquettishly pleaded in a carefree voice. “Big brother, let me come.”
Yu Chunming, a police officer who interrogates criminals all year round, couldn’t he hear his sister’s subtext? He asked very ruthlessly: “Since you’re not here to see me, can I still stop you? Tell me, is it Auntie who won’t let you come?”
Yu Huan was silent, and after a long time, she replied: “It’s Dad who won’t let me come.”
Yu Chunming held the phone and didn’t speak for a long time.
That’s right, Wang Meng followed the principle of “just be happy” when raising children. Yu Huan wanted to go wherever she wanted, and she never cared. Only that father of hers always liked to point fingers.
“Big brother…” Yu Huan said in a low voice, “I just spent too much of my salary this month and don’t have money to buy a ticket or book a hotel. If I ask my second brother, he and our dad are like wearing the same pair of pants. He won’t let me come either. Big brother, please, I beg you.”
Yu Chunming was as cold as iron: “I don’t have time. You should stay in Songlan and don’t run over here on your own.”
“What do you mean by running on my own?” Yu Huan said unhappily, “I’m so old. How can I be running on my own? I’m just… just broke.”
Yu Chunming just wanted to get rid of his sister as soon as possible. He said: “It’s useless to beg me. I don’t have any money either.”
After speaking, he hung up the phone directly.
Outside the factory building, sparrows flew by, flapping down a piece of tree leaf that had not fallen when the frost fell the day before yesterday. It happened to fall on Yu Chunming’s shoulder.
He sighed, swept away the fallen leaves, lowered his head, and walked out quickly. But at this moment, the keenly perceptive police officer suddenly discovered something unusual.
—At the entrance of the factory area, there was a tire track that had not appeared when he came in.
Yu Chunming’s eyes narrowed.
The tire track was obviously left by a bicycle. First of all, not to mention whether there are many people riding bicycles in Za Mu Er, just looking at whether there is any population in this abandoned factory area, it is rare for a bicycle track to appear here.
Especially since Yu Chunming didn’t hear any movement outside at all.
He looked at his phone and confirmed that it was 6:30 in the evening. The sky in Za Mu Er was almost completely dark. If it weren’t for the small street light at the entrance of the factory area, he might not have noticed the track.
Perhaps someone had come while he was answering the phone. Yu Chunming didn’t want to think too much, but he couldn’t help but follow the direction of the car track.
Out the door, turn right, and walk a few more steps. The track gradually disappeared. Yu Chunming stopped at the street corner, with a wry smile on his face.
However, the next moment, something under the factory wall instantly attracted his attention.
It was a stone standing on the edge of the track. From a distance, it looked unremarkable, but after getting closer, Yu Chunming discovered that under the stone, there was a letter without a secret opening.
“Are you sure you have never read the contents of that letter?” Guan Yao asked again, sitting in the interrogation room.
Ge Xiaopei’s brain was almost a mess. He repeatedly assured: “I really haven’t read it. I’m just a messenger. What would I do reading that stuff for no reason?”
“Write down the account information of the boss who asked you to send the letter,” Guan Yao took a piece of paper and put it next to Ge Xiaopei’s hand.
Ge Xiaopei dawdled and wrote an account name, an address, and a phone number crookedly: “It’s this person. I used to deliver things to a coffee shop near this address according to his requirements. He said that was the location of his company. I was still in contact with him two days ago. He asked me to squat at the train station to pick up passengers every day this week, saying that some relatives might need me to pick them up after a while.”
“Your boss asked you to squat at the train station to pick up passengers every day?” Guan Yao instantly became alert.
Ge Xiaopei nodded woodenly: “Yes.”
“Okay.” Guan Yao beckoned to Li Xiaotian, who was standing at the door, “That’s it. You guys send him to the detention center.”
After Li Xiaotian responded, he pulled him and winked: “Old Guan, Officer Yu is back.”
Guan Yao hesitated for a moment, and still said: “I don’t give a shit. He can go wherever he wants.”
But after saying these words, he couldn’t help but quicken his pace towards the office.
However, Yu Chunming, like before he left, was still sitting in his seat, as if nothing had happened, staring at the surveillance video that had just been assigned to him.
Guan Yao looked at him and felt like something was stuck in his chest.
For the next whole day, in addition to the criminal technicians who continued to survey the Mopan Mountain site, almost everyone in half of the task force plus the Linchang Police Station were squatting in front of computers, searching through the vast sea of videos for the man who left the train station on an electric tricycle.
Unfortunately, nothing was gained in the end.
By the evening of the next day, when the city’s surveillance had almost been screened, Guan Yao received feedback from Songlan.
—There is a problem with the account information provided by Ge Xiaopei.
“There’s a problem?” Guan Yao pulled on the phone line and stood in front of the printer to look through Ge Xiaopei’s confession record from yesterday.
The colleague on the other end of the phone replied: “There is indeed a problem. The real name registered in the account background is Liu Genxiong. There are 26 people with the same name and surname in Songlan. After our investigation, the one who can match lost his ID card a year ago, and the account was created after he lost his ID card. Also, that address, No. 99 Tianxing Avenue, Tianxing Avenue only goes up to No. 87. There is no such thing as No. 99. The phone number can be dialed, but it is a new number purchased by the owner a month ago. As for who used the old number… If you need anything else, send an application back later, and we can ask the telecommunications company to investigate.”
Guan Yao’s eyebrows jumped, and he couldn’t help but look at Yu Chunming.
Yu Chunming didn’t pay attention to Guan Yao’s eyes at all. He was propping his forehead with his hands, looking down, looking a little listless.
“I know, thank you,” Guan Yao hung up the phone gently.
“Yu Chunming…”
“Officer Yu?” Just as Guan Yao opened his mouth, Na Fei stood at the door of the research and evaluation room and called. She waved to Yu Chunming, “The thing you asked me to check yesterday has results.”
“Coming right away,” Yu Chunming rubbed his brow, got up, and followed Na Fei to the stairwell.
Na Fei pulled out a comparison chart from the stack of documents in her hand: “I asked a teacher who specializes in studying vehicle tracks. Based on the width of the tracks and the patterns on them, he inferred that this is likely a 28-inch bicycle, which is what we commonly call a ’28-inch bar’.”
“28-inch bar?” Yu Chunming asked strangely, “Who still rides a 28-inch bar now?”
“I’m not sure about that,” Na Fei said, “But… if it’s a 28-inch bar, it should be much easier to find. Moreover, that teacher also told me that the tires seem to be a little flat. It doesn’t look like someone can ride it. It’s more like someone pushing it.”
Yu Chunming took the comparison chart and looked at it for a long time, frowning.
Na Fei smiled: “I won’t ask you why you asked me to identify this thing. I will also keep this secret for you, but I have a condition…”
“What condition?” Yu Chunming asked, reaching for a cigarette.
Na Fei glanced at Guan Yao, who was half-heartedly watching the surveillance video, and asked in a low voice: “Why have you been hiding it from Officer Guan?”
Yu Chunming had already put the cigarette in his mouth. He replied perfunctorily: “I can’t be bothered to explain.”
“What do you mean you can’t be bothered to explain? Tell me the truth,” Na Fei said with a straight face, “Is it because of that explosion, or because of that letter?”
Yu Chunming paused as he was about to light the fire, then took off the cigarette and said seriously: “I didn’t hide it from him. He just didn’t recognize me.”