I looked at Captain Xing and said, "Actually, you already have the answer in your mind, but you just want to find me to confirm it, right?"
Captain Xing shook his head and said, "I don't know. I just think the two cases are very similar, but I don't know if our goals are the same."
I said in a deep voice: "The first case you mentioned should have happened near Guan's company. You found a body without a head."
"In the second case, you found the head of a taxi driver near Yingshan Temple."
"The third case was in the warehouse of Corning Hospital. There was a simple wooden man with a head attached. Am I right?"
Captain Xing's eyes lit up: "You are indeed tracking down the murderer!"
"It can't really be called an investigation! So far, I haven't had a direct confrontation with the other party, and I don't know what our goal is."
I looked up at Captain Xing and said, "Can I ask a few questions?"
"I will tell you everything I know." Captain Xing nodded. "That case has tormented me for more than 20 years, and I have also been investigating it privately for more than 20 years. Now, the murderer has finally appeared, but I am afraid that I will still watch him slip away! Since you can help me, there is nothing I can't tell you."
I looked at him and asked, "Has there been any similar cases since the Wooden Man case?"
"No." Captain Xing shook his head. "I have been working in the criminal police team for more than 30 years. During my time working there, there has only been one case."
I quickly asked, "What about pushing it further?"
Captain Xing said, "I had the same idea as you at the time, and I went to the Archives Bureau to investigate the old archives. There were indeed several similar cases during the Republic of China, which caused panic among the people for a while."
"The police department at the time classified the case as murder by bandits and even executed several bandits. But I don't think so. They were just covering up the truth." Captain Xing said, "After the police in the Republic of China executed the bandits, similar cases never happened again. It wasn't until 20 years ago that the Wooden Man case appeared again."
I couldn't help but whisper to myself, "This is the wrong time!"
Generally speaking, ghosts will not kill people for no reason, especially when they kill people in the same way, most of them are performing some kind of ritual or for cultivation. This way of killing is actually a cycle, a cycle similar to eating, and the time should be roughly equal.
From the Republic of China until 20 years ago, there was a period of hundreds of years in between, which is totally inconsistent with the pattern of ghosts killing people.
I continued to ask, "You found the heads of the father and son, but did you find their bodies?"
Captain Xing said: "We have found half of it!"
I was puzzled and asked, "What does half mean?"
Captain Xing said: "We conducted a large-scale search along the way and finally found their bodies in a cave. The flesh on the bodies was removed piece by piece and neatly stacked beside the cave, but their bones were nowhere to be found."
"We used police dogs to search for the remaining bodies, but the dogs lost their target after a short distance. Until now, I still don't know where the bones of the father and son were taken."
I nodded and said, "Do you have any clues?"
"Rather than saying there was, it's better to say there wasn't." Captain Xing said, "I investigated the whereabouts of the owner of that household. The day before he got into trouble, he went into the mountains with his coworkers, saying he wanted to pick pine cones to sell. There were two people who went into the mountains, but he was the only one who came out. He said he got separated from his coworkers."
Captain Xing said: "I also looked for another worker at the time, and finally found the body of that man beside a stream in the mountains. The body was well preserved, except for a stab wound between the eyebrows, which was also fatal."
I looked at him and said, "Didn't you find anything in the mountains?"
"I didn't find anything." Captain Xing shook his head and said, "Over the years, whenever I had free time, I would go to the mountain and search the mountain as if I were investigating a case. My aunt is a fairy, and she told me that places with mountain spirits and water monsters will be somewhat different from other places, so I have been looking for suspicious places in the mountains. Over the years, I can say that I have traveled all over the mountain, but I didn't find anything."
I pressed on, "Did you ever check the local chronicles?"
"We checked!" Captain Xing said, "Apart from its dangerous terrain, the mountain is actually not very famous. It doesn't even have a proper name. Hundreds of years ago, there weren't even any bandits there."
"There have never been any bandits?" I said in a deep voice, "That's what's wrong."
The bandits in the Northeast were once rampant, and there were countless gangs of all sizes on every mountaintop. The mountaintops with dangerous terrain, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and close to villages and towns were especially the bandits' first choice.
The fact that there are no bandits on that mountain only means that there are places on the mountain where bandits dare not set up camp.
Although the bandits were not well-known, there were many capable people among them. Some of the most capable bandit advisors were not only smart, but also good at fortune-telling. They would calculate the good and bad luck when selecting their gang members, and they also set the rule of not competing for territory with mountain spirits and water monsters.
If it wasn't that the bandit's master noticed something wrong, then it was that the bandits encountered ghosts in the mountains and were driven down.
Captain Xing was surprised and asked, "You mean, the murderer must be in the mountains?"
I shook my head and said, "That's just my guess. I can't confirm anything before I go up the mountain."
I had nothing more to ask, so I just shut up.
Captain Xing asked, "You came here to surrender yourself this time, so you must have another purpose, right?"
"It's just to clear my name." I said bluntly, "The police have issued a warrant for my arrest. I know I can't escape, and I also know that no one will believe what I say, so I can only think of a way to let you see the true face of the ghost."
I pointed to the next door and said, "Chen Lei is the target of the ghosts. As long as Chen Lei is alive, they will come to kill people again. You have seen the facts, and you will naturally be able to clear my suspicion."
"Asshole!" Xiao Le, who had been sitting on the side without saying anything, finally couldn't hold it in any longer. "You led the ghosts to the criminal police team. What if something happens?"
I said disapprovingly: "This is the only solution."
Captain Xing waved his hand and said, "As long as you can prove your innocence, I can let you go. But you have to help me investigate the case."
"Boss, you can't..." Xiao Le exclaimed, "This is against procedure! If you let him go, you will at least be expelled from the police force, and maybe..."
Captain Xing waved his hand and said, "Xiao Le, you are my subordinate and also my apprentice. If this is the last time I teach you, then remember that we are police officers. No matter how others view us, police officers must persist as police officers."
Captain Xing stood up and said, "I don't want to talk about big principles. I just want to tell you that I owe justice to that family of three for twenty years. I will never be at peace until this case is solved."
I looked at Captain Xing and said, "This case may cost you your life. Aren't you afraid of death?"
Captain Xing looked me straight in the eye and said, "You deal with ghosts day and night, aren't you afraid of death?"
I smiled at each other and said, "If you don't want to cause any casualties to the criminal police team, gather everyone here to avoid accidental injuries. It would be best if you could get a few police dogs here."
"No problem!" Captain Xing quickly gathered the six criminal police officers on duty in the conference room, and transferred four police dogs from the police dog team and scattered them in the yard.
The Criminal Police Team occupies a large area, and the materials I have on hand are not enough to set up warning arrays at each intersection, so I can only call in police dogs to guard each entrance. Dogs are very spiritual, and in the absence of magic tools, using police dogs to guard the gate is also a good choice.
After I arranged the police dog, I asked Captain Xing to bring the surveillance video connected to a laptop into the conference room and assign people to take turns watching the video.
It was not until around one o'clock in the morning that someone saw a car approaching the gate of the criminal police team on the surveillance camera.
The car stopped and a lawyer got out of the car and pressed the video doorbell. Captain Xing nodded to Xiaole, who then took the intercom and went to another room. Xiaole's voice soon rang in the video: "Excuse me, what can I do for you?"
The man said in a hoarse voice: "I am a lawyer from the Guan Group's Legal Department. I am here to bail out Mr. Wu Zhao. Please open the door for us."
I gently waved my hand to Captain Xing, who said into the microphone, "Tell him no."
Xiaole's voice soon rang out: "No, Wu Zhao is involved in a criminal case and is not allowed to be released on bail. Please go back!"
The lawyer's voice sank: "I have the right to see my client. Open the door for me."
Xiao Le said again: "I'll say it again, Wu Zhao is not allowed to be released on bail, and he can't see a lawyer at this time. You should go back!"
The lawyer angrily said: "I want to see your leader and file a complaint against you..."
I made a silent gesture to Captain Xing and pointed at the screen. He immediately said into the phone, "Don't talk!"
Xiao Le pretended to have left the reception room, and did not say a word no matter how the other party shouted. The lawyer outside the door was so angry that he raised his hand and hit the doorbell twice.
"Move the camera over here, quickly!" After I made the urgent arrangement, the police sitting in the conference room immediately turned up the video to the maximum. I also clearly saw that there was a piece of wood in the lawyer's sleeve.
What was supposed to come finally came!
Although Captain Xing was trying to suppress his excitement, he still couldn't control the trembling in his voice: "Mr. Wu, what should we do now?"
What should I do? I was also thinking about what to do. The other party dared to come to the police station to kill people, so they must have come prepared. Now who should greet the wooden man at the door
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Thank you all for your support, and stay tuned for the next episode!
Thank you Doudou for the reward! (To be continued)