Chapter 80 “Yes, according to his cousin…

"Chen Pan, right? I'm from the Longcheng City Bureau. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Can you answer them? If you're really not feeling well, we can come back tomorrow!"

Chen Pan had just woken up and finished a series of examinations. He was receiving an IV and eating the porridge his grandmother had fed him when three police officers in uniform approached him. The middle-aged man in the lead spoke.

"Can't you just a little—"

She felt that she had nothing to fear as she was upright, and she also knew that the current incident in her family had become a big deal, so Grandma Chen, who had always been afraid of such people, stood up for a while.

But just when she wanted to refuse him, Chen Pan, lying on his back with his head covered, reached out and stopped him: "It's okay, grandma, I'm here for work."

After saying this weakly, Chen Pan looked at the other two people standing in the ward and said, "Grandpa, Brother Qin, why don't you take advantage of this time and take Grandma out to get lunch?"

"Okay, then you guys take your time chatting, we'll be back in about an hour." Realizing that they should indeed leave, Qin Yang reached out and pulled up Grandpa Chen next to him, and also called out to Grandma Chen who was standing next to Chen Pan.

"well!"

Grandma Chen was a little helpless, but she finally put down the bowl of porridge in her hand and left carefully.

While Chen Pan was speaking, the three policemen were very quiet.

After everyone else in the room left, the policeman who had spoken at the beginning looked at Chen Pan and went straight to the point. The other two policemen beside him also quickly took out their notebooks and pens.

"Student Chen Pan, can you tell me all your whereabouts on the 28th?" The middle-aged policeman pulled over the accompanying bench and sat next to Chen Pan.

"Yeah!" Chen Pan, his head bandaged, nodded slightly, then slowly said, "The 28th was the last day of our high school entrance exams. We only had one English exam that morning, and it was scheduled a bit late, so it ended at exactly 12:00. After the exam, I ran back to the store to put my things away, then took my usual outing bag and went to the Haohao Restaurant that our class had agreed on long ago, where I had lunch with the other 40 or so classmates. We ordered beef noodles, ramen, and cold noodle lunch boxes, so we ate quickly. We were all done by 1:30 in the afternoon."

He paused for a moment and looked at the policeman in front of him who seemed gentle but actually had very sharp eyes. Then Chen Pan continued: "After lunch, we went to the Black Water Reservoir behind Liuping Town under the organization of the class monitor. It's a bit far from our school, and it took us about forty minutes to get there. When we got there, I followed everyone to pick some wild onions and taste them, and also picked some daffodils to make a bracelet. Afterwards, we slept there, chatted, and ate the snacks and fruits we bought together. Some classmates brought their cameras from home, and we took some photos as well.

By the way, we even washed our hands by the reservoir. Some boys wanted to go swimming, but we yelled at them. This was our last day of junior high. After the end of junior high, about half of our class would choose to work, and some might go to better high schools in the city, so we really cherished this last day. We were supposed to play until four or five o'clock, so there was nothing else to do. But thinking about the future, we all sat in the woods and stayed a little longer.

As Chen Pan spoke, a happy smile first appeared on his face, followed by a timely expression of emotion and nostalgia.

"What happened next?" Knowing that the key point was from now on, the police officer who was questioning him sat up straight subconsciously.

"later--"

Chen Pan slowly put away the smile and emotion on her face. She took a deep breath and then quickly said, "Later, around half past six, everyone started discussing going back. Although it's summer now, everyone knows that it will be late by the time we get back. So after the class monitor counted the number of people, all fifty of us started to leave. This time, around a little after seven, we returned to the village. My family's newly bought house is at the back of the village. Everyone knew that I basically stayed here at night, so they said goodbye to me in advance. After I parted with everyone, I immediately went home."

"What's next—"

"After I returned home, I found that neither my grandfather nor Chen Laoshi, who lived in my house, had returned. Chen Laoshi was considered my cousin and an employee of my family. He had always lived in my house."

Chen Pan explained himself, then sighed and slowly said, "After realizing that everyone was gone, I went to my room to look for my kitten. My kitten has always been kept in my room. Its cat bed, litter box, cat food, and so on are all placed in the small suite of my room. Normally, I lock it in the small room. Every day when I get home, the first thing I do is to quickly go in to see it and then let it out to play for a while.

But when I opened the door that day, I found it was gone. Because it had learned to open the window by itself during that time, I turned around and looked for it elsewhere in the house. After searching for a while, I heard the kitten's meowing coming from the roof of my house. It was only then that I realized it had actually climbed onto the roof by itself.

"And then what? You went up to the roof?" The policeman asked again with a straight face, looking into Chen Pan's eyes motionlessly.

Chen Pan looked up at him, and then there was some obvious fear and regret on his face: "Yes, my ladder is right next to it. I used to go to the roof with my grandfather to pull weeds and sweep snow. When the weather was hot, we often went up there to dry things, so I am not afraid to go up there. My little one is a well-behaved child. When I went up to catch him, he didn't run around, and I caught him quickly. But I don't know what happened. When I turned around to leave, my feet slipped, and in the blink of an eye, I fell heavily on the pile of things behind me. At that time, I only felt a headache, and then I lost consciousness.

When I woke up again, thunder was already breaking outside. I was able to yell a few times, but the thunder was so loud that no one inside could hear me. The rain came incredibly fast that day, almost immediately after the thunder. Only then did I realize the blood pouring from my head. My body and head ached, and I knew immediately that my condition was serious. Remembering what I'd learned in school, I didn't move. My limbs were weak, and I didn't seem to have the energy to run.

I lay there to calm down for a while, waiting for the rain to completely sober me up. Later, I stopped wasting energy and yelled. I lay down and touched the half-broken tile next to me, and then started knocking regularly. I knocked for about ten minutes, or maybe half an hour. Anyway, at that time, I didn't know the time anymore, I could only knock subconsciously. I was-I thought I was going to die, but fortunately, the rain outside was a little lighter at that time, and I knocked twice more vigorously at that time, and soon I was discovered by my grandparents. I-"

Chen Pan's face was filled with obvious excitement. The monitoring equipment beside her began to show obvious fluctuations. Soon, the monitoring equipment began to beep.

"Calm down, don't get excited!!"

"Should we call a doctor?"

"Shouldn't we use it?"

The three policemen who had been calm all this time suddenly became frightened, stood up quickly, and surrounded Chen Pan to persuade him.

"I'm fine!" Chen Pan began to take deep breaths subconsciously again, but after just a few deep breaths, her tears flowed out: "As soon as she found me, my grandma burst into tears on the spot, and I was protected by everyone and started waiting for the ambulance. When I was in the ambulance, I was actually still conscious. But when the doctors and nurses started asking about my condition in the car, and when my grandparents looked at me and started crying again, I lost consciousness again when I was about to answer. And when I woke up again, it was just now.

Uncle Police, if I were given another chance, I would definitely not be so willful again. I really didn't mean to do that, and I never expected to fall from that place. If I had known I would end up like this, I would never have gone up there.

"Uncle police officer, I've already learned from my grandparents why you're here. Believe it or not, I really didn't see Li Chengcai that night. My fall had nothing to do with Li Chengcai. I really wasn't paying attention at the time, and I think I slipped slightly, and then I stepped on the tiles and fell straight down. As for Li Chengcai, although we had some conflicts, it didn't seem to have escalated to the point where he harmed me, and I harmed him."

"I understand, I understand. Tell us about the conflict between you and Li Chengcai. Or rather, the conflict between your family and the Li family!"

He handed Chen Pan a few tissues, looked at her gradually stabilizing electrocardiogram, and sent away the nurse who had instinctively come over to check after hearing the noise in the room. Then the leading police officer began questioning again.

"Okay!" After trying hard to calm herself down, Chen Pan told him everything about the conflicts between her and Li Chengcai, that is, all the conflicts between her family and the Li family.

There was the peculiar car accident on Little New Year's Day in 1992, and the sudden fire at her house during the 1992 Spring Festival. That same year, her family went to the Li family to buy cement, but ended up being out of stock in all of Chenjia Town, forcing them to go elsewhere. And then there was the time last May Day, when the Li brothers showed up at her doorstep, unbelievably giving them something. When they refused to accept it, they drove their car into the bus they were on, stopping it to deliver something and making all sorts of nonsense.

This time, Chen Pan even told the police about how he accidentally learned about the Li family's situation and secretly called to report them. He also told the police about the incident when a few hooligans suddenly came to his shop when it first opened.

Later, when she said that Li Chengcai, who had returned to Liuping, began to follow her blatantly at school, and went to her family's pancake shop and tried to grab her hand to talk, the police finally understood what she was saying.

"You mean, he initially blamed your grandmother for moving, causing him to hit the concrete fence directly because there was no obstacle in front of him, so after he was discharged from the hospital, he began to target your family for no reason? After targeting you twice, he unexpectedly took a fancy to you and started to set his sights on you?" asked the police.

Chen Pan replied, "I don't know exactly what he was thinking, but his family was so against us, and that was the only reason we could think of at the time. Also, when he got into a car accident, my family took the opportunity to ask his father for fifty yuan. We thought it was the money he used to pay for nearly hitting my grandmother and scratching her pants and shoes, but maybe others saw it as evidence that we were taking advantage of his situation to rob his family. And as for his feelings for me, I don't think it was love. I felt like he was just bored and was deliberately looking for trouble with my family.

Anyway, ever since he got into that car accident in front of my grandmother, my family seems to have somehow offended his family. He's inexplicably ruined my reputation, and I don't want to be treated inexplicably by him, so I secretly called the reporting number without anyone knowing. Because of these little things, our two families seem to have a feud for no apparent reason.

Anyway, after he came back this time, he looked at me strangely. But after my grandma scolded him that day, he started to behave a little more normally, so I didn't bother with him anymore and let things continue as they were. I always felt that even if we had conflicts, it didn't seem to be that serious. At most, he would chase me and scare me, or he would create some opportunity for others to misunderstand me and damage my reputation again. It wouldn't be too extreme. But according to what you said, he should have come out to look for me the night I got into trouble, right?

After explaining everything, Chen Pan began to ask questions in return.

"Yes, according to his cousin, he left Longcheng and headed straight for Liuping at noon on the 28th. His intention at the time was probably to find you. We later found other witnesses who confirmed that he was indeed driving near your home that night. As it turned out, you accidentally fell from the roof of your house around 7 o'clock, and he has been missing since that day."

When questioning, the police stared at Chen Pan's facial features with eyes that seemed to see through everything.

Chen Pan was slightly stunned, and then he showed an expression of sudden enlightenment: "I was wondering why my little cat suddenly appeared on the roof of my house that day? Uncle policeman, even if my cat could run out through the window before, it would never go up to the roof. The door of my house is always open during the day. When my cousin leaves in the evening, she doesn't lock the door, but directly uses a big lock to lock it. Because she knows that there is basically no one there during the day, and she also knows that we will be home soon.

To prevent any of us from forgetting our keys when we get home, she usually just padlocks the door. Could it be that Li Chengcai knew about our situation and snuck in, placed my kitten there, and then placed beads and smeared it with rapeseed oil, deliberately trying to get me down? If that's the case, you must catch him and make him compensate us for our losses. My grandparents said my hospital stay cost over 20,000 yuan. I can't suffer this in vain; someone must be held accountable for this."

As Chen Pan spoke, she subconsciously moved her body, and the machine beside her started beeping again at the right time.

"No, this kind of thing requires us to investigate thoroughly. It's not something you can just guess about. Anyway, you should have a good rest during this period. We will definitely give you a result on this matter." Knowing that she was overthinking like her grandparents, the middle-aged policeman comforted her again.

No matter what the police suspected, Chen Pan was indeed injured that day.

The wound on the back of her head was consistent with falling and hitting something. The doctor's diagnosis also described the wounds on the back of her neck as obvious scrapes and abrasions, which could have been caused by scraping her neck and back against something sharp after falling, or secondary injuries caused by carelessness when people moved her.

But because of the rain, both Chen Pan's roof and her backyard were in a state of disrepair. It was such a chaotic scene that no one could tell if the injury on her back was from a previous incident or if it was a result of scraping her while being carried out.

Anyway, no matter what people speculate, based on the amount of bleeding and injuries Chen Pan suffered that day, she really couldn't do anything else that day.

But was what happened to her that day an accident or was it intentional? Unless an eyewitness came forward, they would most likely not find any evidence.

The middle-aged policeman stood up and comforted Chen Pan, asked Chen Pan to sign his name on the transcript they wrote, and then left immediately.

Before they came to ask Chen Pan, they had just received news that someone had found Li Chengcai's red motorcycle in the river downstream of Heiquan.

They wanted to rush back immediately and continue looking for Li Chengcai. They wanted to confirm whether he was alive or dead. The most important thing now was to find him.

"Captain Wang, the Li family has contacted a professional salvage team, and he has also applied to open the floodgates to drain the entire Black Spring."

The middle-aged captain had just left Chen Pan's ward when a colleague who was waiting outside immediately spoke to him.

Chen Pan, who had just spoken a lot, was still trying to remember if she had said anything wrong. Suddenly, she heard the report from outside, and her body froze. Then, her cheeks, which had originally had a little color, quickly turned pale.