Zhang Wei, who had been waiting by the phone, received another call from Xie Houming. However, Xie Houming's voice was hoarse and he only asked directly about raising money.
Zhang Wei followed the police's instructions and used the excuse of being prepared as a means of delay, and intentionally or unintentionally said that she had some cash, otherwise she could just send it to him... But a moment later, a strange man's voice came from the other end.
This was the first time the kidnappers revealed their tracks.
"Mrs. Xie... you are very smart. You must have discovered something... It doesn't matter. Your Mr. Xie owes me a lot of money from playing mahjong. About 6 million. It's only natural to pay back debts. Now he is in my hands. Whether you find someone you know or a relative or friend, gather the money as soon as possible and deposit it into my account... Then I will make sure that your Mr. Xie is safe."
Zhang Wei held the microphone and sobbed uncontrollably.
The other party seemed satisfied with this reaction. "Don't call the police, don't call the police, don't call the police. I'll tell you three times about important things. Once I know you've called the police, there's nothing we can do. The person will definitely not come back. You have to be mentally prepared... We will contact you again."
The man spoke in a calm tone with some local dialect, and he was most likely the leader of this kidnapping gang.
At Xie Feibai's home, the police immediately carried out a series of tasks including voiceprint comparison.
Perhaps, the only good news that can be confirmed is that Xie Houming is not in danger of life for the time being.
…
…
Still in front of this hardware store, the boss noticed that the strange student who came to inquire about business had a confused look on his face. He continued to work at the recycling stall, but he stopped talking to him. He could see that this kid was not planning to order a custom iron cage at all.
The hardware store finally closed, and Cheng Ran walked forward aimlessly.
At this time, the lights were just coming on, and the old-fashioned street lamps made the dirty trees on the road look mottled and rugged. The cut-off clues extinguished the ray of hope that he had for solving the case, and this big case suddenly became distant from him again.
The current situation is that he even knows how Xie Houming died, and even knows that the murderer will be arrested in Thailand six years later, and knows that this group of people will kill people in the same way again. However, the most critical weapon in his hand has been lost.
This was an extremely uncomfortable feeling. If he had not grasped the clues at the beginning and had just stood by and watched, perhaps he would not have felt the way he did now.
But he was so close to the hope of breaking the impasse, but lost it. The sense of loss, as if he was watching the lush grassland weathering into a desert, made him feel a bit desolate.
Cheng Ran slowed down his pace.
Then he stopped.
His eyes trembled as they fell on a shop behind a lush banyan tree and a flower bed. The shutter door of the shop had been drawn, but the sign on it clearly read "Lao Zhao's Anti-theft Barriers, Doors and Windows".
Then almost in the next second, Cheng Ran looked towards the southeast corner. It was a small shop outside the post office with "Wang Lin Building Materials" written on it.
However, all of these shops, without exception, had already closed their shutters. It was almost eight o'clock at this time, and these shops generally did not stay open too late.
Cheng Ran suddenly woke up. In his previous life, he had indeed heard of a hardware store at Sanchakou that made custom iron cages. After hearing about this, he subconsciously included the hardware store closest to the center as a suspected location. This was not only his problem. In later discussions, people also pointed the finger at this store, which led to the store being closed directly and its facade being knocked down. Later, the place was demolished. Perhaps the boss had explained it at the time, but what was the use in the face of the sensational social rumors
So in these confusing times, many truths were buried.
Hardware stores do not necessarily have their store names on them, and they are not the only ones that make custom iron cages. Similar to those that make anti-theft bars, doors and windows, building material stores, and grocery stores, they may all take on this kind of work.
There is also this "three-way intersection" road, which, as the name suggests, consists of three main roads, namely East Road, South Road and North Road.
Each of the three roads is about one kilometer long, which means that all similar shops on this road can actually be classified as "hardware stores"!
Cheng Ran's head buzzed, and as soon as the idea came to his mind, he sprinted out, running back and forth along the three roads, and wrote down all the suspected shops.
There are a total of seven stores with similar functions on these three streets!
Although almost all the shops were closed at this time, this was no less than... a ray of hope.
Cheng Ran returned home, feeling that every cell in his cerebral cortex was jumping. He used a piece of paper to simply draw the locations of the hardware stores on these three streets. At the same time, he called Yu Xiao and asked him to lend him his bicycle tomorrow.
Yu Xiao on the phone was excited, "Will you go bike riding tomorrow? Okay... Then I'll ride my bike and you can use my mother's... When... "
"Nine o'clock, let's do something first. Let's find a nearby hardware store tomorrow so I can buy some things..." This kind of store usually doesn't open too early, nine o'clock is about the right time.
“Okay!”
…
Cheng Ran tossed and turned all night and couldn't sleep.
This feeling is just like holding a lottery ticket worth tens of millions and redeeming it the next day.
The most important thing is that there is no way to get to the ground. Will there be any deviation from the expected facts? Will it be another mistake? Perhaps this incident did not happen at all. Why did the criminals use an iron cage? It was to facilitate the detention of the victim so that they could be transferred at any time. This was a plan for a protracted war and to get a lot of money from the victim's family. The other party used to be a human trafficker and had strong anti-reconnaissance capabilities. This is also the reason why they were able to move around in later lives without being caught by the police. But the victim was still killed. This is probably because the large-scale police action in the previous life made them realize that it might be difficult to carry the victim and transfer flexibly, so they killed him. Then there is no need for an iron cage. There are many ways to kill the victim directly.
What if these changes occur in this life? Then we will really miss the opportunity.
Do the best you can.
It was almost difficult to wait until dawn. In fact, Cheng Ran went out at eight o'clock. Observing on the street, he found that most of the building material shops were closed, and only one was opening its roller shutter door. Cheng Ran went up to ask and found out that no one had ordered dog cages recently.
Back at the compound, Yu Xiao had just come out of the house pushing his bicycle. He was stunned for a moment, "So early?"
His family lived on the first floor, and two bikes had been pushed out. One was his mountain bike, and the other was a women's bike that his mother used to buy groceries. There was a vegetable rack hanging on the front bumper. Yu Xiao generously pushed the women's bike to Cheng Ran, "You ride this one!"
Cheng Ran didn't bother to waste time talking to him and just rode out on his bike. Yu Xiao was completely in the dark and had no idea what Cheng Ran was up to, so he had no choice but to follow him on his bike.
Cheng Ran rode along three roads repeatedly. He rode around first, but found very few shops open and no clues.
By the time they rode the third lap, it was almost ten o'clock in the morning, and Yu Xiao was full of doubts, "Your family is going to buy a dog, why are you asking about a dog cage..."
As a result, Cheng Ran suddenly stopped. They were riding on the sidewalk. At this time, Cheng Ran jumped off the bike, raised the bike stand, and parked the bike aside.
Yu Xiao saw that Cheng Ran seemed like a different person.
At the street entrance in front, next to the store with the sign "Fangzhou Wujiaohua", there was a van parked. The van seemed to be used for transporting fish, and a strong fishy smell could be smelled from a distance.
From the back of the car, one could see two men on the driver's seat and the front passenger's seat. In the shop, two men, about 1.7 to 1.8 meters tall, were carrying an iron cage out of the shop.
The iron cage was lifted into the raised back of the van. A man with a face full of pits and short hair handed two hundred-dollar bills to the boss with his hands wearing dirty cotton gloves and said in a cold voice, "No change."
Another man wearing a jacket had deep wrinkles on his face and looked at Cheng Ran who was walking over with a faint smile.
Cheng Ran felt his heart stop, as if all the blood in his feet had been drained out. He walked into the store and said to the boss, "Boss, do you have any hexagonal screws? My faucet is broken..."
Then Cheng Ran seemed to lose his balance and bumped into the man in the jacket.
“I’m sorry…” Cheng Ran raised his head and was about to apologize.
"You idiot, you don't have eyes." The man in the jacket raised his hand and slapped him! There was a loud and clear bang.
On this side, the hardware store owner took the money and heard that he would not give change, with a strong smile still on his face. On the other side, the two people in the van were staring at this sudden scene through the rearview mirror.
Yu Xiao, who was sitting on his mountain bike with one foot on the ground waiting for Cheng Ran, was completely stunned.
Cheng Ran covered his face and stepped back two or three steps. Half of his face was swollen. The slap from the calloused man was so powerful that Cheng Ran's lips were scratched. He looked at the man in the jacket with horror.
The man in the jacket tucked his waist and looked at Cheng Ran who was beaten back with a cold gaze, "You son of a bitch, you are so blind... I will kill you..."
The pit-faced man next to him put his arm around his shoulders and half-pushed him into the van, "Let's go, let's go! Why are you getting mad at a young boy..."
The two men slammed the door and got into the van, then started the van.
During the whole process, Cheng Ran felt that the people in the car were looking at him through the rearview mirrors on both sides of his ears.
The shop owner curled his lips and said nothing.
When the van drove out from the South Road, Cheng Ran immediately stepped forward, looked at the road, then turned and walked towards Yu Xiao who was watching the car from the back.
"Are you okay..."
Cheng Ran put his hand down. Although his face was swollen, the fear he had just felt had completely disappeared. He was so calm that Yu Xiao was scared. He spread Yu Xiao's hand and wrote a string of numbers on it with a pen.
"Just now I saw something was wrong and tried to hit the man. He had a gun on his waist..."
Yu Xiao looked at Cheng Ran and felt that a strange world had opened up before him. Why could he be so calm
"Call my cousin right away. The license plate number of the car is Rong G32155. It went south, which should be the direction of Sancha Lake, Lu Lake, and Heilongtan Reservoir... Hmm, what road, what road... Daxing Road... Call right away and ask my cousin to put the search direction there!"
Cheng Ran started the bike.
"You, what are you doing..."
"It's possible that the other party's license plate number is a fake one. They will change it along the way... and Daxing Road leads to several lakes, and there will be forks in the road. I want to see where they are going!"
"Cheng Ran, you're going to kill yourself!" Yu Xiao's face turned red.
Cheng Ran pointed to the burning swelling on his face and said, "I got slapped in the face... for nothing!"
Please! Ticket! Ah!