Chapter 300 - 298: Did Not Return
Chapter 300: Chapter 298: Did Not Return
Su Miaoyi had met Tian Ming before. Although her current personality didn’t know what he looked like, she knew he was Tian Min’s father.
There were only two women in the house.
So where were Tian Ming and Tian Min’s two younger brothers?
"Where did Tian Ming go?" Su Miaoyi asked the woman.
However, the woman seemed frozen with fear. She sat in the chair, unable to come to her senses, and wouldn’t say a word no matter what they asked.
So they turned to Tian Min.
Tian Min anxiously gestured with her hands, but none of them could understand her.
Duan Wenrui said, "Nothing unusual was found at the front or back doors."
This meant he hadn’t met with trouble at home and been taken away by someone.
After speaking, he turned to a police officer beside him and said, "Go find someone who can understand her sign language."
The officer went out.
Chu Xingrou said, "Can she type on a phone?"
It was as if a switch had flipped in Tian Min’s head. She hurried to find her phone, went to another room to grab it, and returned to start typing.
[My dad went out to play cards. He left this afternoon and hasn’t come back yet.]
Duan Wenrui read her typed words aloud, then asked, "Why didn’t you tell the police something so important? Aren’t you worried that he hasn’t returned?"
Last night, they had gone door-to-door before nightfall to warn everyone.
They hadn’t gone door-to-door again tonight. Instead, they just made an announcement over the loudspeaker telling everyone not to go out after nightfall. The patrols began as soon as it got dark.
"It’d be better if he died out there," the woman in the chair suddenly said. "He’s always out all night, never coming home. We don’t see him for days on end. It makes no difference whether he’s here or not. Who knows if he’ll come back. If he’s not scared and doesn’t take this seriously, then he can just die outside. It’s not like anyone can control him."
Everyone looked at her.
Tian Min typed: [This is my mother, Yue Hong.]
[My father often doesn’t come home at night. He probably went to someone’s house to play cards. If he doesn’t come back tonight, he should be back during the day.]
"He dares to go out and play cards at a time like this?" Duan Wenrui said. "Call him and tell him to come back."
"I don’t have his number," said Yue Hong.
Tian Min found Tian Ming’s number and dialed it.
The first call rang until it disconnected automatically.
The second call also rang until it disconnected.
Tian Min typed again: [My dad doesn’t answer his phone when he’s playing cards. He finds it annoying.]
"Do you know where he went to play?" Su Miaoyi asked.
Tian Min shook her head.
"Go to the village committee and make an announcement over the loudspeaker. Tell him to come home immediately, wherever he is. And go check that house we went to last time," Captain Duan ordered.
"Could he have gone to another village?" Lu Zhishen said.
"Drive to the surrounding villages and look for him," Duan Wenrui said. "It should be obvious if someone’s playing cards this late at night. The house will be noisy and the lights will be on. Go ask around."
"What if we run into a gambling den?"
"Arrest them on the spot."
"Yes, sir."
"What about your two younger brothers?" Su Miaoyi asked Tian Min.
Tian Min: [They both work in the city. They’re not home.]
Lu Zhishen said, "I saw bedding in the small room to the west. Who does it belong to?"
Tian Min: [It’s my dad’s. He often doesn’t come home at night, so when he comes back during the day, he sleeps in that small room. On the rare occasion he comes back in the middle of the night, my mom says he’s too noisy. They’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for over ten years.]
"Can you tell us what happened?" Su Miaoyi asked.
Tian Min: [I don’t know either. I was sleeping when that song suddenly started playing outside. It was very loud. I was terrified, so I came to this room to get my mom. We were both really scared. Then someone knocked on the door. We thought it was the killer, so we locked the door to that other room and hid in the closet together.]
"Didn’t we leave our contact information when we came by last night? We told you to call if anything happened," Captain Duan said.
"We were scared to death. Who would think to make a phone call?" Yue Hong said.
Tian Min stood to the side without typing anything.
"What’s the situation on the street?" Su Miaoyi asked Duan Wenrui.
Duan Wenrui looked at the officer next to him.
He said, "We patrol in pairs, walking back and forth along this street. Based on the timing, the song must have started just two minutes or so after we walked past this house."
"We all rushed back. The speaker was in a haystack by the door with the volume turned to maximum. We pulled it out, turned it off, and set it on the ground. Because it was right at their doorstep, Captain Duan knocked on their door as soon as he arrived."
"You didn’t see anyone suspicious?" Chu Xingrou asked.
"No. We were patrolling back and forth the whole time, so we’re certain no suspicious individuals appeared. There were no footprints or other traces left at the scene, either."
"Hiding a speaker in a haystack while they were patrolling back and forth... if it was placed there tonight, it would have been too obvious. It definitely would have been discovered," Chu Xingrou said.
"So it was placed there a while ago?" Su Miaoyi said.
"What is this haystack used for?" Lu Zhishen asked.
Yue Hong didn’t speak.
Tian Min typed: [It’s used as kindling. For cooking fires. But we have a gas stove now, so we use it less. The hay has been piled there for almost a year, and we still haven’t used it all up.]
Su Miaoyi glanced at Tian Min, then at Yue Hong, before asking Duan Wenrui, "I’ve noticed many homes in the village have firewood stocked up. Is it all for cooking?"
"It used to be more common. Now, gas is more popular, so people don’t really burn firewood in the summer when it’s hot. It’s more common to use it for fires in the winter," Duan Wenrui said.
Su Miaoyi was silent for a moment.
’So the person who placed the speaker knew this hay wasn’t used often.’
’Then again, you could probably tell whether the hay was used regularly just by looking at the surface of the pile.’
"But this kind of speaker needs someone to press play, right?" Chu Xingrou said. "Someone has to push a button to start it. But no one suspicious was seen."
The speaker was about twelve inches wide.
Wearing gloves, Su Miaoyi and the others pressed the play button on the speaker.
The sound that suddenly blasted out was incredibly loud.
It was even louder inside the house.
Tian Min and Yue Hong were so startled they both covered their ears.
Su Miaoyi turned the volume down.
After examining it, they confirmed it could only be played by pressing the power button on the speaker itself; there was no remote control function.
The song played continuously as they studied it.
It played a total of seven times before the song stopped.
Then it looped, starting again from the very beginning.
The speaker was silent for almost a minute before the sound started.
"After it’s turned on, there’s almost a full minute of silence before the song starts," Lu Zhishen said. "The killer could have turned on the speaker right after the patrol passed by the door, then left. A minute later, the music starts. By the time the patrol hears it and runs back, that time delay gives the killer a chance to get away."
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