This is undoubtedly a bit embarrassing. The person involved in this tragedy is standing in front of us alive, and he is crying silently. And none of us know how to comfort this person. Although more than ten years have passed since this incident, the grief in Lao Xia's heart may never have diminished in the slightest.
Some things can't be passed in a lifetime. If it passes, Lao Xia will not escape. He came from the south to the small city on the 18th line in the north.
Lao Xia shrugged his shoulders, no one could tell that Lao Xia was crying. This is a very sad, very wronged crying. This is a kind of crying like a child, who is obviously sad to die but suppresses himself not to cry. The cold wind swished over, and the snowflakes were slapped on our faces, making me feel even colder.
Captain Zhou didn't think of this either, he looked at us, and then at Lao Xia's back. As if to comfort Lao Xia, Captain Zhou pretended nothing happened and continued: "But Lao An was soon arrested, and a year later, Lao An was deprived of his life because of his crimes."
I understand Captain Zhou's meaning. His subtext is to tell Lao Xia that Lao An has already been sanctioned and paid his family's life. But even so, even if Lao An died ten times, what's the use? Perhaps in the fire that year, Lao Xia also died, so there would be no pain.
To live is pain, but to live there is hope.
Unexpectedly, Captain Zhou found out Lao Xia's identity last night. What was also unexpected was that Lao Xia had indeed been a butcher.
So could Lao Xia be the murderer? In order to vent the grief in his heart, Lao Xia chose to kill people. And looking at Lao Xia's appearance, if it wasn't for Lao Xia's heart, Lao Xia is the kind of person who would never show his true emotions in front of others.
If you don't explode in silence, you die in silence.
But now there is not the slightest evidence to point the finger at anyone in this dismemberment case, and now we have too few clues. The short brown hair and the red nail polish on the toenails were sent for inspection by Captain Zhou, and it might take a few days for the results to come out.
This kind of efficiency is really too slow, but there is no way. The interesting thing is that in such a slow-paced city, everything seems to be slow.
Lao Xia just stood in front of us for a few minutes, and then, nothing happened, he continued to walk forward. Still walking silently, as if what we experienced just now was just a dream, as if nothing happened just now.
According to the time, more than forty minutes have passed, and we will soon arrive at Tougouzi Village. We were not chatting on the way, but walked quickly with Lao Xia.
After more than 20 minutes, we finally arrived at Tougouzi Village. Due to the heavy snow, there was no one on the road. It was quiet all around, and every household had their doors and windows closed. There were no wild dogs or pheasants in the village, not even a cow or a donkey.
We walked on the road and didn't hear the barking of the guard dog, it was very quiet.
Looking at the wall made of earth bricks, we felt like we had walked into an abandoned village.
Lao Xia pointed to the gate of the village committee, and then shouted: "Come in!"
Before we had time to say anything, Lao Xia turned and left.
Looking at Lao Xia's back, we feel lost.
Outside the office of the village committee, the village head greeted us in a wheelchair. His legs were drooping, and he also looked like a disabled person. This is an old man who looks to be sixty years old, his face is full of wrinkles, and his eyes become two creases when he smiles. He smiled and said, "Captain Zhou, are these three from Dongxing City? My name is Wei Shengfeng. Because I am older, they chose me as the village chief."
I quickly waved my hand and said, "Cun Zhang, we are here this time to investigate the case."
Wei Shengfeng nodded, and came to us in a wheelchair. He stretched out his hand, wanting to shake hands with me.
I quickly stepped forward to shake hands with him, and he said, "It's too cold outside, come inside."
A few of us nodded and filed into the house.
The size of this office does not seem to be large, but it is small and well-equipped. A black patterned desk is placed directly opposite the door, looking simple yet elegant. There are pens, ink, paper and inkstones and other stationery tools on the table, and a tea set beside it is steaming.
On the wall behind the desk, there is a pair of words, which are four big characters——It is rare to be confused.
Looking at the handwriting, it wasn't everyone's handwriting. Looking carefully at the stamp, it was discovered that this handwriting was written by Wei Shengfeng himself.
Next to the table and against the wall, there is a bookcase.
I frowned, walked to the bookcase, looked up, and found that the books on this floor were all introductory books on economics and finance. There is a bookmark on one of the books, which shows that these books are not used to decorate the appearance and be elegant. The old village chief has actually read them.
Then there are a few sofas, a small tea table is in the middle of the sofa, and a water dispenser is heating water.
There was no chair behind the desk, and it seemed he couldn't sit on one. The old village head held up the tea set with one hand, and with the other hand, he shook the wheelchair to the tea table, put the tea set down gently, and then took out a few small teacups from the drawer of the tea table.
"I don't have anything good to entertain you, so it's good to drink some hot tea to warm your body." The old village chief said to us slowly while washing the cup with tea: "I told Lao Xia to send you When we get here, let's find that Li Danan, the one who saw the corpse first."
We nodded.
The old village head poured tea for us. After drinking a warm cup of tea, our bodies and hearts warmed up.
Then, a familiar voice came out: "Come in!"
The door was pushed open, and a dark-skinned man came in with a gust of cold wind. It seemed that this was Li Danan. He was forty years old and looked at us with some restraint. When I saw his arm, I realized that the man's left and right hands were gone.
"The village head." He called out.
Lao Xia closed the door from the outside, and then left again, not knowing where he went.
"Sit down, Li Danan. When people ask you something, just say what you want. Don't be nervous." The old village chief motioned Li Danan to sit in front of us.
Li Danan sat down and showed a shy smile.
I nodded slightly at him, and then asked, "Li Danan, what time did you see that foot yesterday?"
Li Danan quickly replied: "Yesterday, it was afternoon, maybe five or six o'clock in the afternoon. I didn't have a watch, so I didn't look at it carefully. But it was getting dark at that time, maybe it was six o'clock."
"Then the corpse you saw was on the side of the road?" I continued to ask.
"Yes, yes!" Li Danan said: "I saw it on the side of the road. When I came back from the village and walked into the village, I saw a foot on the side of the road. At that time, this person showed a foot. feet, I think someone might have drunk too much and fell asleep on the side of the road."
Li Danan paused, and continued to speak: "When I came back, the heavy snow had just stopped. But that person had already been covered in the snow. I didn't know if she was still alive, so I went over to have a look. This should be a woman. Yes, she painted her nails, I touched her feet, they were frozen hard, this person must be dead..."
As he said that, Li Danan looked at us and saw that he looked a little timid, as if he was afraid that we would regard him as a murderer. But it seemed impossible. Li Danan didn't have two hands, so it was impossible to use a machete.
"Go on." I said to Li Danan.
Li Danan nodded and continued: "There was no one on the road at the time. I was a little scared, so I called the police and left. When I got back to the village, I told the village chief about it. Then the village chief let I'm waiting today, don't run around."
I took a sip of tea and asked, "Let me ask you, did you see other people's footprints?"
Li Danan thought about it for a while, and then said: "No, no. When I found the feet, I looked around, and there was no one, and there were no footprints. I was alone on the road. I have never encountered such a thing in my life. things…”
The snow had stopped at that time, and it seemed that the murderer had been away for a while.
I continued to ask: "Are there any scattered socks or shoes around at that time?"
"No!" Li Danan shook his head: "There is really no such thing."
It seemed that when Li Danan arrived at the scene, the murderer had already disappeared. Judging from this, the murderer had been away for some time.
I nodded to Li Danan, and then said, "Okay, we've finished asking all the questions we want to ask. If you think of any new clues, you can tell the village chief."
Captain Zhou said: "Li Danan, then you should go back first."
Li Danan nodded, turned around and walked outside.
Captain Zhou turned his head and said to me: "Then the situation is more obvious. The murderer should have thrown the body around four or five o'clock, or he didn't have enough time to leave."
I shook my head and said to Captain Zhou: "No, the time may be earlier. The amount of snowfall in an hour at that time should not be enough to cover a person's footprints."
"But there is a problem here." Captain Zhou scratched his head and said, "The murderer can't fly, and he will leave footprints wherever he walks. Although the previous footprints were covered by snow, what about the footprints that passed behind? Where did he go? Could it be that he chose to walk into the village in order not to let the footprints reveal himself? After all, there are footprints on the snow in the village, and no one will pay attention to them. And a pair of footprints suddenly appearing in the mountains will definitely make people suspicious of."
"Otherwise, the direction is opposite, but Li Danan will definitely find a pair of footprints facing him." Captain Zhou continued.
I frowned, Captain Zhou was right, but as long as we walked into the village, or directly across the field, we couldn't find any footprints left behind by the murderer in such a large area.