NOS Chapter 18
by VolareChapter 18 Huangshaling (5)
The tenant used Lin Zhimin’s ID card to come here half a month ago, and half a month later, Lin Zhimin was killed. If the tenant is He Wang, wouldn’t these two cases be connected?
Yu Chunming put on a Band-Aid, frowned and asked, “What does this ‘Lin Zhimin’ look like, can you describe him, grandpa?”
“I only saw him once when he rented the house, roughly… thin and tall, with a long face. I didn’t see him clearly yesterday when he came back, he was completely covered up. Even though he stayed in my house for a day, he refused to take off his mask.” The grandpa replied.
“Does he look like this?” Guan Yao had already quickly pulled up Lin Zhimin’s photo.
The grandpa put on his reading glasses and looked at it for a long time, then replied: “It should be, but it’s been a while, and I haven’t really interacted with him, so I can’t remember clearly. But if you say so… the one who came back yesterday didn’t look much like him.”
“Doesn’t look like him? Where doesn’t he look like him?” Yu Chunming asked.
“The nose, this position,” the grandpa pointed to the bridge of his nose, “the one who came back yesterday had a very straight nose bridge, even the mask couldn’t hide it, just like you, officer.”
This was referring to Yu Chunming, whose nose bridge was straight and upright. Li Xiaotian had even secretly joked that he had Russian blood.
Guan Yao “tsk”ed, turned his head and said in a low voice: “I glanced at him when I came back with that half a head that day, Lin Zhimin’s nose is indeed not as straight as yours.”
Yu Chunming didn’t bother to reply, he pushed Guan Yao aside and stepped forward to ask: “Yesterday morning, after your tenant had a conflict with another person, what else happened?”
The grandpa replied: “My tenant ran away at first. When I saw him run, I thought about calling the police, but before long, he got rid of the person who was lying in wait for him and came back.”
“Came back to do what?” Guan Yao asked strangely, “Also, tell me first, what did the person lying in wait for him upstairs look like and what did he do?”
“This…” The grandpa carefully recalled and said, “I didn’t know there was someone squatting at the corner of the stairs at all at first. The only people living in that building besides me are workers who work here, and they’re not here during the day, so I was the only one who went out to look. Moreover, when I went out, the two of them were already fighting fiercely, and I didn’t know who got stabbed, their arm was bleeding profusely. The stairwell was dark, and I couldn’t see clearly, so I was scared and closed the door. Then after a while, I didn’t hear any noise outside, so I opened the door again. At that time, I saw a tall and strong man standing with his back to me at the entrance of the building. My goodness, his shoulders were terrifyingly broad.”
Yu Chunming immediately took out his phone and placed a section of surveillance video in front of the grandpa: “Look at the man from yesterday morning, does he look like this person in the picture?”
The grandpa’s eyes widened, and he pointed at the phone and said, “Oh my, isn’t this exactly the same?”
The one exactly the same in the grandpa’s mouth was Yi Jun, who had previously spoken with He Wang in the stairwell in Songlan. According to the grandpa, their movements when walking were exactly the same.
But besides that, the grandpa also said that the tenant who went back yesterday morning didn’t look much like He Wang in the surveillance video.
“Between 185 and 188 centimeters tall, weighing 87 kilograms, shoe size 46. If this person who hired Liu Bin and held Lin Zhimin hostage and abused him is really Yi Jun, who was captured in the surveillance last year, then the murderer in these two cases is indeed very likely the same person.” Han Chen said thoughtfully while sitting in the Research and Evaluation room after listening to Guan Yao’s statement. “However, the approval from Songlan hasn’t come down yet. If we really want to merge the cases for investigation, we’ll have to wait a little longer.”
Yu Chunming didn’t reply after listening, he was still sitting on the side staring blankly at the surveillance video that he had already watched countless times last year.
“Are you looking at He Wang?” Guan Yao asked.
Yu Chunming nodded: “He Wang in the video has a relaxed body. In front of Yi Jun, his temperament is neither humble nor overbearing, and sometimes he even reveals a bit of an aggressive look. But the one who ran away from the farmer’s market was timid and cowering. Including when he went to the train station to withdraw money, he often looked left and right, hunching his shoulders, as if he were a thief. Zhang Da’s description is the same. However, if you slow down the movements of the two, they do have some similarities.”
Guan Yao “hissed” and immediately discovered the problem: “The neck, this person likes to touch his neck.”
“That’s right, this person likes to touch his neck, especially the Adam’s apple.” Yu Chunming moved the progress bar, making He Wang, who was talking to Yi Jun, freeze in a turning position. “Moreover, his nose bridge is also very straight.”
Han Chen couldn’t help but lean closer to look, his voice a little weak: “Could it be that this person is really He Wang? Zhang Da from the San Kuang said that he went back and forth perhaps because he was hiding from someone. If he is He Wang, then in the year or so he has been missing, wouldn’t he have been hiding from someone all the time?”
“Guesses can’t give a conclusion, there has to be evidence.” Yu Chunming looked at the gradually brightening sky outside the window and asked, “Have the criminal technicians who surveyed the scene returned? When will the bloodstain distribution in the stairwell and the DNA identification results be out?”
Although the people here were urging him urgently, Na Fei, who had rarely followed the task force to the scene, was still standing in the corridor of the San Kuang Family Compound examining shoe prints and traces of fighting. She carried a huge camera on her back and looked at a row of claw marks left on the wall with some puzzlement.
“That’s not right…” Na Fei said to herself.
Meng Changqing was responsible for maintaining order at the scene. Hearing the voice behind him, he quickly turned around and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Na Fei tilted her head: “It looks like there should have been more than two people in the conflict here.”
“More than two people?” Meng Changqing also stretched his head to look, “I heard the grandpa downstairs say that he only saw two people.”
“He only saw two people,” Na Fei replied, “after the fight happened. Because he was scared, the grandpa closed the door, but what happened after he closed the door?”
“After closing the door…”
“There’s a clear scratch mark on this wall. According to the reaction experiment and identification just now, there’s a splatter-shaped bloodstain directly below the scratch mark. Based on the size of the scratch mark, it should be a bloodstain caused by the rupture of the scalp capillaries after a person was pressed hard against the wall, which was then scraped off with a scraper during the scene cleanup. The splatter-shaped bloodstain on the ground was left at this time.” Na Fei gestured with her hand, “The height matches perfectly, so my guess shouldn’t be too far off.”
“But?” Meng Changqing accurately predicted her next sentence.
Na Fei smiled: “But, on one side of the top step of this staircase, which is only one meter away from this scratch mark, we found a long five-finger print.”
The sky wasn’t completely bright yet, and the light in the stairwell was dim. Even if ordinary people approached, it would be difficult to find where she was talking about.
Meng Changqing opened his mouth wide and widened his eyes. Finally, under Na Fei’s guidance, he saw five prints that were almost hidden on the dirty wall: “Is there anything wrong with this claw print?”
“Based on the basic reactions of the human body, if you were pressed here, how would you resist?” Na Fei asked.
“Me?” Meng Changqing replied, “I would definitely try my best to push him away.”
“But, from this position, if you successfully push the person away, then the other person should directly hit the stairs. Given the physique of the two people, it’s questionable whether this dilapidated handrail can still exist. But look, the handrail not only exists, but there’s not a single crack or damage on it. On the other side of the wall, there’s a finger print that’s receding backwards. That can only mean that another person rushed up from downstairs and knocked away the person restraining the injured person pressed against the wall. Then, the hitter was hit back, and the whole person leaned back uncontrollably, reaching out to try to control the body, but ultimately left five finger prints on the wall. Unfortunately, the owner of this five-finger print should have been wearing gloves, so we couldn’t extract any fingerprints.” Na Fei said, and then smiled again, “However, this is just my guess. It’s hard to say what the scene was really like, but the fact that the stairs are intact is indeed questionable.”
Meng Changqing didn’t care so much and immediately praised: “Officer Na, you’re amazing.”
“It’s just a little guess. We still have to go back and let Chunming and the others check the surveillance to see if any suspicious people entered through the main entrance during that time yesterday morning. Of course, if the person came from the back door and we couldn’t extract any other DNA from the scene, then this clue will probably be difficult to verify, because the footprints on the ground were cleaned very thoroughly.” Na Fei said.
The truth was exactly like that. The forensic doctor did not extract any extra DNA from the scene, and it was difficult to determine how the prints left on the wall were left. At the same time, the surveillance showed that after 10:30 yesterday morning, only two old workers who had lived here for many years entered the main entrance of the San Kuang Family Compound, and they were quickly ruled out as suspects.
Besides these, another bottleneck also appeared.
——The DNA of the bloodstain owner in the stairwell did not match any of the DNA extracted from He Wang’s home a year ago. As for Zhang Da’s house, the cautious tenant did not leave a trace, except for himself.
That evening, Yu Chunming heard the voice of Wang Zhen, the captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Songlan Municipal Bureau, after a long absence.
The call was made to the office landline. Han Chen pressed the speakerphone, but the two sat on the side without saying a word. Guan Yao looked left and right, and had to step forward and say, “Captain Wang, what do you mean by saying that He Wang’s identity information can only be traced back to thirty years ago?”
Wang Zhen flipped through the information on the other end: “He Wang’s ID card was issued by the Liang’an Police Station in Fangping District, Sui City. I had them check it, and this ID card was uniformly processed by Sui City at that time.”
“Why would it be uniformly processed?” Guan Yao asked, puzzled.
“The reason is very simple,” Wang Zhen replied, “This He Wang is a victim rescued by the Sui City police in the 8.19 operation that year. Have you heard of the 8.19 operation? At that time, the South conducted a series of special arrests targeting human organ trafficking, and He Wang was one of the young people who almost had their kidneys cut out. At that time, the first generation of ID cards had just begun to be processed, and there was no information network at that time. He Wang claimed that he didn’t know where he lived, didn’t know who else was in his family, and no one specifically investigated for him, so he got this ID card.”
Hearing this, Han Chen looked at Yu Chunming and hesitated to open his mouth: “Master, do you mean that this He Wang… maybe wasn’t originally called He Wang?”
“Yo, Xiao Han?” Wang Zhen had excellent hearing and immediately recognized Han Chen’s voice. He laughed, “I heard that you and Lao Liang are in charge of this case. You didn’t say anything just now, so I thought I heard wrong.”
Han Chen gave a dry laugh, his eyes involuntarily drifting towards Yu Chunming.
But Yu Chunming was still calm and composed, as if the person on the other side was just Han Chen’s master, not his master.
Guan Yao was also a little strange, why this person wasn’t speaking, but then he heard Wang Zhen on the other end say: “Chunming is also in Za Mu Er, have you seen him?”
“I…” Han Chen tentatively gestured to Yu Chunming, but Yu Chunming pretended not to hear and looked like this matter had nothing to do with him.
Han Chen had to answer for him: “I saw him, he’s doing fine.”
Wang Zhen should have been silent for a moment, because the buzzing sound in the landline didn’t stop. But when he spoke again, he said: “I’m sorry, the signal was bad just now.”
Landline, where does it get a signal from? Guan Yao looked at Yu Chunming.
But Yu Chunming had already leisurely lit a cigarette.
“Alright, the only information I have on hand right now is this. Wait until tomorrow, when the leader who is supervising this case on our side brings the approval, other messy things can be summarized.” Wang Zhen said cheerfully, “You two over there pay attention to staying warm, the temperature is going to drop.”
After speaking, with a “beep” sound, the phone hung up.
——”You two,” Wang Zhen knew that Yu Chunming was sitting on the side.
Li Xiaotian, who was listening in, tried to figure out something from this strange atmosphere. But Yu Chunming took the lead in standing up, changing his previous taciturn demeanor. He asked Guan Yao, “Is there anyone squatting at the train station?”
“Yes,” Guan Yao replied, “The people from the Huangshaling Police Station have been guarding it. Let’s wait for their news.”
“Has the railway department returned any ticketing information for He Wang?” Yu Chunming asked again.
“The railway department didn’t find anything,” Guan Yao paused, “However, in the middle of the night, when I heard Zhang Da say that his tenant initially used Lin Zhimin’s ID card, I suddenly remembered something.”
“What is it?” Yu Chunming looked at him.
“This Lin Zhimin bought a plane ticket at the end of last month, from our Za Mu Er Changlian to Songlan Qingshuanghe, but in the middle of this month, this plane ticket was refunded by him.” Guan Yao said.
Yu Chunming quickly grasped the key point: “Was this plane ticket refunded by him, or by that tenant who is suspected of being He Wang?”
Guan Yao raised his eyebrows: “What I wanted to say is this.”
Since Lin Zhimin is very likely acquainted with He Wang, and when renting Zhang Da’s house, it is unknown which of the two ultimately presented even Lin Zhimin’s ID card, then is the purchase and refund of this plane ticket also related to He Wang?
No one can guarantee it.
Yu Chunming’s mind turned: “Has Lin Zhimin’s death certificate been issued? Has his identity information been canceled?”
“Not yet,” Shu Wen answered loudly from the other end, “His only direct relative is abroad. We just notified them yesterday. According to his son and ex-wife, it is estimated that it will take a few more days for them to come back.”
“That’s good,” Yu Chunming said, “If this person is really He Wang, then he himself should also understand that as a suspect in that case last year, his every move is being closely watched by us, and he definitely won’t take risks now. Now that the Mopan Mountain dismemberment case happened less than a week ago, and we have kept the case very secret, no one knows that the one who died on the mountain was Lin Zhimin except for the people involved in the case. Perhaps the person suspected of being He Wang doesn’t know that Lin Zhimin is already dead, nor does he know that we have grasped relevant information. Then, in order to leave Za Mu Er, he might use Lin Zhimin’s ID card again.”
“In that case, we must not let him run away.” Guan Yao immediately replied.