Chapter 281 - 279: I Saw Where It Is
Chapter 281: Chapter 279: I Saw Where It Is
A day passed, but they hadn’t found any related cases.
After work, the team was still gathered in Zhuang Yanzheng’s office.
They were discussing the locations they had already ruled out and deciding where to investigate next.
Su Miaoyi sat off to the side, watching and listening to them.
She didn’t speak, but her presence was so strong it was impossible to ignore.
As they talked, they would glance at her from time to time. It felt as if they were taking an exam, and she was the teacher who liked to watch students as they worked.
Su Miaoyi leaned back into the sofa, her gaze lowered, barely moving.
Gradually, everyone stopped looking at her so often.
So no one noticed that for a few minutes, something was wrong with her.
"Alright, let’s keep investigating for now," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
"Yanjing Village," Su Miaoyi said suddenly.
Her voice wasn’t loud or inflected, but the four of them jumped.
"What?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked.
"Yanjing Village." Su Miaoyi picked up a nearby pen and wrote the two words on a piece of paper. "Number 11, Ninth Row."
Zhuang Yanzheng took the paper, stood up, and left the office to have someone look it up—which Yanjing Village it was, where it was located, and if there were any related cases.
"You saw something?" Chu Xingrou asked.
"Yes," Su Miaoyi said. "In the vision I saw this morning, the man who was hit on the back of the head didn’t die right away. I don’t know if he died later."
"In the scene I saw, it was already daylight. The man was being lifted into an ambulance, and many people were around helping. As he was being put into the ambulance, he opened his eyes for a moment and saw the address plaque by the door. It said ’Yanjing Village, Number 11, Ninth Row.’"
"I saw it from the man’s perspective," Su Miaoyi said. "Perhaps some other villagers found him during the day, called for an ambulance, and took him to the hospital."
"Did you see the woman?" Yan Cheng asked.
"Not from the man’s point of view," Su Miaoyi said.
"They would have definitely called the police in a situation like that," Chu Xingrou said.
Su Miaoyi said no more, waiting for news from Zhuang Yanzheng.
About ten minutes later, Zhuang Yanzheng returned.
"The system found two places with that name, both within our search area," Zhuang Yanzheng said. "I’ve already contacted their local police departments. We’ll have to wait a bit."
And that wait turned into over an hour.
Since it involved an out-of-jurisdiction case, Zhuang Yanzheng had to coordinate with them.
He filed reports and submitted requests.
After going through the whole process, he finally got to see the case information.
"It’s a three-year-old case from Yanjing Village in Chang City." Zhuang Yanzheng spoke as he handed out the printed files. "The couple at Number 11, Ninth Row, Yanjing Village. The man is Tian De, fifty-six years old this year. The woman was Gao Hui, fifty-four when she died. The couple has a son, Tian Liang, thirty-five, who works in Chang City."
"So Tian De is still alive," Su Miaoyi said.
"But his mind is gone," Zhuang Yanzheng said. "Brain damage. He doesn’t know anything anymore. He’s in a nursing home now."
Su Miaoyi looked down at the files in her hands. There was too much information, so she flipped toward the back.
"According to the case file, on the morning of August 12th, three years ago, their neighbor, Tian Hai, went to Tian De’s house to borrow an electric scooter. After knocking on the main gate a few times, he opened it and went in himself..."
As soon as Tian Hai entered, he saw Tian De lying on the ground.
He immediately rushed over to check on him and found blood around his mouth and nose. There was also blood on the back of his head and on the ground, but he was conscious.
His eyes were moving, and he was breathing.
But he didn’t respond when called.
Tian Hai was startled and quickly shouted for Gao Hui inside the house, but no matter how many times he called, there was no answer.
He rushed home to get his wife, then quickly called for an ambulance.
By the time the ambulance arrived, he had already called on other neighbors to come and help.
Since they hadn’t seen Gao Hui, Tian Hai’s wife and a few other neighbors tried calling her.
They thought she might have gone out.
But when they called, they heard her phone ringing inside the house.
A few of them went inside.
And discovered Gao Hui’s body.
At the time, they were all badly frightened.
Gao Hui was lying on her side on the floor, her face covered in blood. Her mouth had been grotesquely stitched shut, her hands and feet were bound, and there was more blood on the ground.
A tongue had been tossed aside nearby.
Yan Cheng looked at the autopsy report from the time.
Zhuang Yanzheng showed them the crime scene photos taken by the police.
Looking at the photos, Chu Xingrou felt her own mouth begin to ache.
The killer seemed to despise the victim. Stitching someone’s mouth shut is already a form of torture meant to vent rage, but the way it was done was exceptionally cruel.
Piercing through flesh and skin, again and again.
"What’s this?" Su Miaoyi showed the photo to Zhuang Yanzheng. "A number?"
Zhuang Yanzheng looked at the photo, at the "1" written in blood.
Gao Hui’s body was in the corner between the wall and the bed. On the wall, near the bed, was what looked very much like the number "1".
"Yes." Zhuang Yanzheng showed her a photo from the second case.
The photo showed a well—a large one that looked very old.
’It seems the two cases I saw happened in the same place, the same village.’
On the edge of the well was a "2," which looked like it had been written in chalk.
"Are there any other cases?" Su Miaoyi flipped to the end of the file, but there was nothing else.
"Just these two," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi didn’t say anything.
’I have a bad feeling about this. If there were really only two cases, there would be no need to label them ’1’ and ’2’. It’s very likely there are more.’
"When did the well-jumping case happen?" Lu Zhishen asked while flipping through the files in his hand.
There were too many files; he couldn’t get through them all.
Plus, the record-keeping format was different from what they used in Jinghai.
He wasn’t used to it.
"A little over two months after Gao Hui’s case," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi looked at the information on the man who had jumped into the well.
Tian Dajiang, male, fifty-five years old. He lived alone and was unmarried.
’He’s a few years younger than I judged from his voice.’
"Initially, the police wanted to close it as a suicide by jumping, but the number on the well drew their attention. So they later investigated it as a homicide and performed an autopsy."
"The case file doesn’t mention anything about a ghost face," Chu Xingrou said.
"Right," Zhuang Yanzheng said. "Gao Hui and Tian Dajiang are dead, and Tian De’s mind is gone. The three people who saw the ghost face are all unable to provide that information. The file doesn’t mention any surveillance footage; the village probably doesn’t have a good camera system. Villagers go to bed early, so no one’s out at night."
"Does this here mean that Tian Hai and Tian De’s houses are next to each other?" Chu Xingrou asked.
"Yes."
"In the vision Sister Miaomiao saw, Tian De’s dog was barking ferociously for a long time. Tian Hai’s family should have heard it, right? Didn’t they come out to check?" Chu Xingrou said.
"No." Su Miaoyi had just found the part of the file that answered her question.
It said that Tian De’s dog often barked at night.
It would bark at the slightest sound from any of the nearby houses.
Gao Hui had mentioned selling the dog several times.
But Tian De couldn’t bear to part with it, so he kept it.
It barked frequently at night, and they could often hear Gao Hui yelling at it.
So the neighbors were used to it.
The file also mentioned that Tian De’s dog had been poisoned to death...