NOS Chapter 9
by VolareChapter 9: Mopan Mountain (9)
So, why would Liu Bin’s employer pay a high price for him to investigate someone who had been dead for thirty-three years, someone close to Lin Zhimin?
The three of them looked at the statements on the table, all feeling puzzled.
At this moment, the forensic doctor’s analysis results came out. The DNA extracted from Lin Zhimin’s home matched the bloodstains under the hill and the fragmented limbs on Mopan Mountain.
The victim was indeed Lin Zhimin.
In the research and evaluation room, Na Fei, the deputy leader of the trace evidence team, placed the analysis report in front of everyone and said, “The blood residue under the hillside in Zone 3 has been identified through DNA comparison as blood spatter formed when the head of the deceased, Lin Zhimin, was severely hit after falling off the cliff. However, we did not find any other bloodstain residue at that scene. However, in the nearby bushes, the criminal technicians found some relatively obvious drag marks. Unfortunately, there were no footprints left. We suspect that the footprints were covered by the drag marks.”
Yu Chunming took the scene photos of the footprints and drag marks and glanced at them, asking, “What about wild animals? Have any traces of wild animal activity been found nearby?”
Na Fei shook her head: “Currently, no wild animal paw prints similar to those found under the watchtower and around the Forest Ranger Station have been found in Zone 3. However, the Forest Farm has already transferred several infrared trigger cameras, and several of our colleagues are now on the mountain, working with wildlife experts to deploy them.”
Yu Chunming put down the scene photos and looked up at Guan Yao.
“What’s up?” Guan Yao was puzzled by his sudden gaze.
Yu Chunming said, “When interrogating Liu Bin just now, did he say why he refused to go home for so many days?”
Guan Yao frowned: “Liu Bin claimed that he didn’t go home because, after an argument, he secretly went to the driving school alone. As a result, he didn’t find Lin Zhimin. This person was afraid that Lin Zhimin would go to his house to look for him, so he didn’t dare to go back for many days.”
“But Liu Bin’s family not only has a wife, but also a son who needs someone to take care of him at all times. It’s completely incomprehensible that he doesn’t go back just because he’s afraid of Lin Zhimin,” Yu Chunming paused. “Although this person has tried his best to deny that he had a physical conflict with Lin Zhimin, we have reason to suspect that he was the one who pushed the deceased down the hillside.”
Lin Zhimin had no relatives or friends in Za Mu Er, and the driving school located in the suburbs was on the verge of bankruptcy. If he went missing, naturally, no one would report it like Su Xiaoxia did for Liu Bin. Therefore, it wasn’t until today that the police finally confirmed the identity of the deceased.
However, there were still many loopholes in Liu Bin’s statement.
He claimed that he didn’t dare to go home for many days because he was afraid that Lin Zhimin would seek revenge after their argument, but based on the current evidence, he didn’t dare to go home mostly because he had made a big mistake and was afraid that it would be exposed.
But—
“If Lin Zhimin died on the spot, Liu Bin wouldn’t have gone missing for many days, let alone wandered around the driving school every now and then, whether he destroyed the body and erased the evidence or fled,” Na Fei said directly, denying Liu Bin’s statement. “He’s hiding a lot of things, and what he says is full of contradictions.”
Just as Na Fei was analyzing the case, Han Chen walked in with a relaxed expression. He threw Liu Bin’s newly released statement on the table, then turned to smile at Yu Chunming: “He admitted that he pushed Lin Zhimin down the hillside.”
Yu Chunming was not surprised at all: “What else?”
“What else?” Han Chen was puzzled. “What else do you want?”
“He admitted that he pushed Lin Zhimin down the hillside, so what happened next? Did he check on Lin Zhimin’s condition as soon as possible after pushing him down the hillside? Were the drag marks in the bushes left by him?” Yu Chunming asked.
Han Chen narrowed his eyes, opened the statement record form, and replied: “Liu Bin said that after he pushed Lin Zhimin down the hillside, he ran away alone because he was too scared. He didn’t know if Lin Zhimin was still alive, so he didn’t go home for many days because he was worried that he might ask him for medical expenses.”
Yu Chunming did not deny the content of Han Chen’s interrogation. He just turned his head and raised his chin at Na Fei: “You’re right, Liu Bin is hiding a lot of things, and the statement is full of contradictions. As for the point of the contradiction, it’s probably…”
“Liu Bin has hidden an important person, an important person who must have been involved. This important person may be his employer, or perhaps an accomplice who knows the truth,” Guan Yao interjected.
Yu Chunming raised his eyebrows and looked at him.
Guan Yao continued: “Since Liu Bin claimed that he didn’t provide first aid to Lin Zhimin as soon as possible, who left the footprints and drag marks under the cliff? Also, Liu Bin’s tiptoeing appearance in the driving school this morning shows that there’s something fishy. So, during these days when he was missing, he frequently went to the driving school at the risk of exposing himself. Was he waiting for someone, or looking for something?”
Speaking of this, Guan Yao turned his gaze to Han Chen: “Deputy Han, what about the figure in the window? Is there any result?”
Han Chen’s face was a little unsightly.
After all, the figure flashed by, and by the time they actually chased after it, it had long disappeared. Not to mention catching a living person. Za Mu Er’s infrastructure construction was not good in the first place, and the surveillance cameras in the suburbs were not fully installed. The so-called figure simply could not be captured.
Therefore, Han Chen was a little displeased by Guan Yao’s sudden questioning. He closed the statement record form and said, “In any case, I have already reported it to Team Leader Liang. This case is probably that Liu Bin and Lin Zhimin had a physical conflict on the hillside due to a disagreement, and Liu Bin accidentally pushed Lin Zhimin down the cliff, causing him to be seriously injured. As for why there were no traces of wild animal activity under the cliff… I judge that Lin Zhimin did not lose his ability to move at the time, and those blurred drag marks can also be said to be crawling marks, maybe he left them himself.”
“That’s not unreasonable. In that case, please ask Officer Han to find the clothes Lin Zhimin was wearing when he died and have them identified,” Yu Chunming said indifferently.
Guan Yao laughed.
The deceased’s clothes, bones, and human tissue structure, including the head, have not been found to this day. With so many doubts, Han Chen didn’t go into it. His desire to close the case quickly was a bit obvious.
But that’s right, Za Mu Er’s environment is harsh, and Han Chen, a criminal police officer from Songlan Municipal Bureau like Yu Chunming, has now been transferred to the Jin A Lin Mountain Bureau, which is already considered “aggrieved.” How could he be willing to stay in Za Mu Er, this small border city, for a long time?
“Officer Han, didn’t you graduate from the Police University with a degree in Criminal Investigation? How come your investigation ability is not as good as that of the local police officers?” Na Fei asked with a smile.
Han Chen still looked calm and composed. He pointed to the statement record form that had already been signed and fingerprinted by Liu Bin, and said: “I’m just making a simple inference. The specifics still depend on the support of your criminal technicians. However, the trace evidence team doesn’t seem to have made any major progress today, right? Also, how come you haven’t sorted out the timeline of the surveillance video yet?”
This remark was extremely inflammatory, and Guan Yao couldn’t help but look at Yu Chunming’s expression, but Yu Chunming seemed not to have heard it, and was always focused on studying a map of Mopan Mountain.
“Liu Bin’s activity trajectory in the past seven days will not exceed this range,” he said thoughtfully.
Guan Yao turned his head.
Yu Chunming’s voice was not loud, obviously not speaking for others to hear, but specifically to Guan Yao. He pushed the map aside, took a piece of paper, and began to draw on it: “Longgang Village, the watchtower, and the driving school are on a straight line, and the cliff where the bloodstains were found is also within this range, while the Forest Ranger Station is far away. Therefore, the human tissue found at the Forest Ranger Station is likely to have been left by wild animals traveling through the forest, and was not caused by humans. And under the hillside, in addition to some footprints that are difficult to identify, no traces of wild animal activity have been found. So now we can designate this as the first scene.”
Guan Yao unconsciously moved closer and closer to Yu Chunming.
“Then, we can designate the watchtower, which has obvious ‘cleaning’ marks, as the second scene.” Yu Chunming put down his pen. “Assuming that Lin Zhimin did not die after falling off the cliff, how did he get from the first scene to the second scene? Assuming that Lin Zhimin was already dead after falling off the cliff, then who took him, and in what form, to the second scene?”
Guan Yao “tsked” and said: “Also, Liu Bin is thin and small, like a mouse, while Lin Zhimin was tall and strong when he was alive. In my impression, he’s not much different from you and me. If Liu Bin killed and dismembered the body, can his physical strength keep up?”
“That’s right, this is also a major doubt.” Yu Chunming pushed the drawing away and got up and said to Guan Yao, “Let’s go. It’s not interesting to stay in the office. Bring Meng Changqing and Li Xiaotian with you. Let’s go around under Mopan Mountain together. Maybe we’ll find something unexpected.”
Na Fei immediately got up: “I’ll go too.”
Yu Chunming raised his eyebrows, and then immediately said very politely to Han Chen: “Then I’ll have to trouble Officer Han to interrogate Liu Bin again.”
That afternoon, Guan Yao watched Yu Chunming successfully shake off Han Chen and come to the foot of Mopan Mountain with the Linchang Police Station police officers who didn’t seem to like him very much.
Meng Changqing was very happy. The police officer he had been thinking about was also there, but obviously, Na Fei currently had no interest in this baby-faced child.
After walking out of a hardware store outside the driving school, Meng Changqing said with a sullen face: “Master, why is she always following Officer Yu and doesn’t even look at me?”
Guan Yao chuckled: “That police officer is Yu Chunming’s junior sister. If she doesn’t follow him, who should she follow, you?”
Meng Changqing said dejectedly: “I wish I was as tall and long-legged as Officer Yu… But, Master, you look pretty good too. Why are you still single?”
Guan Yao resisted the urge to kick the child in the butt: “What are you thinking about all day long, you little youngster? Maybe that police officer just doesn’t like you, this younger brother type of man. She likes…”
Speaking of this, Guan Yao suddenly froze. Na Fei wouldn’t like Yu Chunming, would she?
That’s really strange, Guan Yao thought to himself. What does it have to do with him if Na Fei likes Yu Chunming? Why did he subconsciously break out in a cold sweat when this thought suddenly popped up just now?
Meng Changqing also noticed the fleeting alienation on his master’s face. He stretched his head over and carefully looked at Guan Yao’s slightly flickering eyes at this time: “Master, you wouldn’t… like that police officer too, would you?”
“What?” Guan Yao immediately raised his voice.
Yu Chunming and Na Fei, who were walking in front, immediately turned around and looked at him.
“Cough…” Guan Yao touched his nose unnaturally, “I…”
“Come here, there’s a car wash shop owner here who is quite familiar with Lin Zhimin. You and I come to this one, and Xiao Meng follows Na Fei to the front.” Yu Chunming wasn’t very interested in listening to his explanation.
Guan Yao took a deep breath and, under Meng Changqing’s probing gaze, quickly walked to Yu Chunming’s side.
This car wash shop owner, who was said to be quite familiar with Lin Zhimin, had been opening a shop next to the driving school where Lin Zhimin worked for almost five years. Because of frequent contact, the two quickly became friends and often met in their spare time.
But—
“I haven’t been in contact much in the past six months,” standing in the car wash shop, the owner recalled carefully, “I used to see him every two or three days, but later their driving school’s business was bad, and they couldn’t find a student every ten days or half a month. Lao Lin started going out to solicit customers. Especially in the past six months, the two of us have basically never seen each other again. I don’t know what he’s busy with.”
“What about the people around him?” Yu Chunming asked as he took notes.
“Around him… there’s no one.” The owner shook his head. “His parents died early, his wife ran abroad ten years ago, and his son followed. He should be the only one here in Za Mu Er.”
Yu Chunming closed his notebook and nodded: “Do you know Qian Guowei?”
“Who?” The car wash shop owner looked confused.
“Qian Guowei,” Guan Yao repeated from the side, “Like Lin Zhimin, he’s also an old-timer from the No. 2 Timber Factory. He died in a big fire. Have you heard of him?”
“How could I have heard of that?” The owner waved his hand. “I’m from Qing Shuanghe, Songlan. When I came to Za Mu Er, how long had your factory been closed?”
“Didn’t Lin Zhimin mention it in front of you? Qian Guowei was his childhood friend,” Guan Yao asked again.
The owner scratched his head: “I really don’t remember. Lao Lin doesn’t have many friends, and I don’t know his old colleagues very well.”
After asking around, there were no results. After everyone visited all the merchants around the driving school, they didn’t get any useful information.
One thing was clear, though: in the past six months, Lin Zhimin, whose whereabouts were originally fixed, had become erratic.
In the evening, sitting in the barbecue restaurant at the corner of the back door of the driving school, everyone who had been running around all afternoon let out a long sigh.
Li Xiaotian kept his face tight and said in a strange tone: “After running around with you all afternoon, I haven’t finished writing the fire prevention and disaster reduction report for my area, and I haven’t done the ledger…”
Yu Chunming didn’t say anything.
Guan Yao raised his hand and called the boss: “Order something.”
Meng Changqing smiled at Na Fei and said, “Officer Na, this restaurant’s cold noodles are especially delicious. Actually, the barbecue is also good, but we don’t have time today. I’ll treat you sometime.”
Li Xiaotian knocked Meng Changqing on the head: “Eat, eat, eat, all you know is eating, you naan-eating bag.”
“So what if I know how to eat? I’ve been hungry all afternoon…” Meng Changqing said aggrievedly.
“The car wash shop owner said that Lin Zhimin frequently took on private jobs because he washed his car more often. The hardware store owner said that Lin Zhimin stayed in the rest room behind the driving school all day long because there were no students and the training car didn’t need maintenance, so he saw Lin Zhimin less often. The store owner said that Lin Zhimin would come out to buy a lot of daily necessities because he always lived in the driving school and rarely went home.” Yu Chunming said to himself, “So, why is Lin Zhimin still living in such a simple place in the driving school when there are no students and he has gone out to take on private jobs?”
“Think about it after returning to the station, let’s eat first.” Guan Yao kindly interrupted him, so as not to cause Li Xiaotian to explode.
Yu Chunming didn’t seem to hear him, and turned to ask Na Fei: “What do you think?”
Na Fei was about to open her mouth when Li Xiaotian immediately said loudly from the side, “Boss, add more chili to my bowl of cold noodles!”
“Me too!” Meng Changqing raised his hand.
“Eat less spicy food, you’ll get acne,” Guan Yao said, and glanced at Yu Chunming, who was still frowning and thinking about something. “What about you?”
But Yu Chunming obviously didn’t notice Guan Yao. He took out a lighter and was about to light a cigarette.
“Hey, hey,” Guan Yao called out, “The boss’s kid is doing homework over there, didn’t you see? Let’s go, go, go, go out and smoke.”
Yu Chunming was stunned, and only then did he look up and see the two elementary school students behind the counter. He stood up and said with a cigarette in his mouth, “Sorry.”
After saying that, he really listened to Guan Yao and went out to smoke.
It was getting colder outside now, and the sun set early. The road was already dark. Yu Chunming stood in front of the barbecue restaurant for a moment, then turned and walked into the alley outside the back kitchen.
The road surface in the alley was wet, slippery and dirty. There were several greasy swill buckets in the corner, filled with a lot of unprocessed food scraps, which were already a little sour.
Yu Chunming twitched his nose and couldn’t help frowning.
“I’m sorry,” the proprietress, who came out of the back kitchen to dump garbage, said with an apologetic smile. “A few days ago, something happened to my family temporarily, and we closed the shop for a few days. These kitchen waste haven’t had time to be disposed of. When I opened it today, oh my, luckily it’s cold, otherwise it would have maggots.”
Most of the ingredients in this barbecue restaurant are freshly cut. Half a cow is hung at the door of the restaurant. Whichever piece the customer wants each day, they chop off that piece. The remaining bones are either taken to the countryside for disposal or sold to those who specialize in collecting swill.
But now, because the store has not cleaned up in time, a lot of messy beef bones and muscles are piled up in the swill buckets, from time to time emitting a disgusting smell.
Yu Chunming had a cigarette in his hand and couldn’t smell it clearly, but the string in his mind suddenly tightened. He couldn’t help but walk forward quickly and asked, “You… which day did you close the store?”
The proprietress rolled up her sleeves and was about to move the swill bucket. She replied: “About… three days ago, my father-in-law fell in the countryside, and his hip bone was broken, oh really…”
“Don’t move!” Yu Chunming suddenly shouted, “Put down the swill bucket, there’s a problem inside.”