The heavy rain washed the cracks on the top of the air-raid shelter, and the hem of Su Chen's white coat was covered with mud. He raised the scalpel and pointed it at the sky. The light spots reflected by the blade formed the incomplete longitude and latitude coordinates on the cave wall. Tang 꿦 used the compass to calibrate the direction and suddenly pointed to the southeast corner: "The ground is gathering yin, so there must be something hidden!"
Qin Feng squatted in the puddles, scraping away the moss with a tactical dagger to reveal a map of Ming Dynasty coastal defense carved on the stone wall: "This... this is a map of secret passages for military supplies for the anti-Japanese war during the Jiajing period." He turned up the headlights, and the emblem of two crossed swords appeared in the light - exactly the same as the wax seal behind the deceased's ear.
"The system detected saltpeter and sulfur residues." Su Chen wiped the cave wall to take samples, "No gunpowder, but the composition ratio of black powder." He suddenly paused, and the tip of the tweezers picked up half a piece of celadon fragments, "Dragon-patterned porcelain from the Jingdezhen official kiln. This glaze formula was lost during the Wanli period."
---
When the investigation reached the Yangtze River wharf, Tang 꿦's fortune-telling pennant was blown into a mop by the river wind. He squatted on the deck of an abandoned cargo ship, gnawing on a duck neck, and suddenly kicked a rusted cargo box. The moment he pried open the lid, a salty smell hit him in the face - thirty broken Mazu statues were piled up inside, and each statue had jade fragments embedded in its eyes.
"This... this is the old trick of using a statue to transport poison!" Qin Feng scanned it with an ultraviolet light, "but... but there are seaweed fossils at the bottom of the box, indicating that it has been soaked in water for at least ten years."
Su Chen scraped the sediment from the skirt of the Mazu statue, and under the microscope, rattan pot shells and deep-sea bacteria emerged: "They came from the waters near the East China Sea oil and gas fields. There was an oil tanker called Changming that lost contact in 1987 in the area."
---
In the archives of the Maritime Administration, Tang 꿦 used duck bones as bookmarks. Qin Feng turned to the crew list of the Changming, and his fingertips stopped at a name marked with a red circle: "Zhang Hai, second mate, native of Quanzhou, Fujian..." He suddenly pulled over the oil sample that Su Chen was analyzing, "Yes... compare this person's fingerprints!"
The system prompt sound pierced the dust: "The scurf tissue extracted from the oil is 99.7% compatible with the DNA of the murderer in the 1987 Quanzhou murder case." Su Chen unfolded a copy of the forensic report, "The murder weapon in the murder case was a Qing waist knife, and the handle was wrapped with the same double-knife cross emblem cloth strip."
---
In the courtyard of the old house in Quanzhou, Qin Feng caressed the knife marks on the blue bricks. Tang 꿦 pried open the secret compartment behind the ancestral tablet, and the yellowed family tree recorded the shocking truth: Zhang Hai's real name was Lin Zongyao, a descendant of Lin Feng, a famous general who fought against Japanese invaders in the Ming Dynasty. The double-knife emblem was actually the mark of the firearms battalion of Lin's private soldiers, which was absorbed by Xieshengtang as a smuggling guard team in the late Qing Dynasty.
"This... this is not an ordinary drug case," Qin Feng's flashlight scanned the last page of the family tree, "This... this is a five-year-old gang drug trafficking network!"
Su Chen scraped sawdust from the ancestral hall's beams and detected residues mixed with marijuana and opium: "They used the ancestral house as a temporary warehouse, and there were signs of modification in the cellar under the shrine."
---
When Tang Xiao opened the cellar door with a fire extinguisher, a musty smell mixed with a pungent chemical smell. Three pottery jars were neatly arranged, and the mouths of the jars were sealed with blood-soaked talisman paper. Qin Feng opened the nearest pottery jar, and inside it was a dried baby corpse curled up, holding a bronze double-knife emblem in his arms.
"This... this is the fortune-telling of the ghosts in the black magic!" Tang 꿦 took three steps back, "Using the souls of dead babies to protect the smuggling routes!"
Su Chen's scalpel opened the talisman paper, and the cinnabar writing turned out to be a code in reverse cutting. After the system deciphered it, it obtained a string of GPS coordinates, and the location was displayed as a replica of the "Changming" ship sailing on the high seas.
--
When the coast guard intercepted the target ship, Tang Xiao lay on the edge of the deck and vomited. Qin Feng kicked open the door of the captain's room, and the ink on the latest page of the nautical journal was not dry: "July 15, midnight, double swords returned to the sheath." The electronic clock showed that it was midnight on the Chinese Ghost Festival.
Su Chen found a compartment in the fuel tank, and a laser scan showed that it was hollow. Tang 꿦 used a fire axe to split the steel plate, and thirty gold-plated Mazu statues emerged under the searchlight, each with a lotus seat engraved with the Lin family emblem.
"This... this is to revive the Changming drug trafficking line!" Qin Feng tore open the crown of the statue, and heroin capsules fell like rain. "Use... use folk beliefs as a cover!"
---
The closing operation was scheduled for dawn. When the drug boats surrounded the freighter, the captain suddenly ignited the fuel pipe. Tang Xiao grabbed the high-pressure water gun and sprayed it. The water rushed open the cockpit floor, revealing the welded iron box - inside was the "Sea Defense Secret Records" written by Lin Feng five years ago, recording all the secret routes.
"It turns out...it turns out this is the real stuff!" Qin Feng turned the yellowed pages, "Now...now the drug dealers are copying the ancient smuggling route!"
Su Chen used liquid nitrogen to freeze the burning point and found a fresh double-knife tattoo on the captain's neck: "It's not a legacy, someone is deliberately imitating the historical crime model."
---
At the press conference, Tang secretly swapped the evidence photos and replaced the double-knife emblem with his own WeChat QR code. Qin Feng discovered something unusual when he was filing: the fiber test results of the paper of "Sea Defense Secret Records" showed that this "ancient book" was actually produced in 1998.
"The system traces back to the renovation records of the Lin Clan Ancestral Hall," Su Chen's white coat reflected the blue light of the computer, "in 1997, a cultural relic dealer donated a batch of 'Ming Dynasty ancient books.'" He magnified the monogram on the donor's signature, which was a variation of the double-sword crossing pattern.
The rainstorm came again, and the three stood at the Quanzhou wharf and looked into the mist. A rusty fishing boat was slowly leaving the harbor, and the faded flag on the bow was unfurling in the wind, revealing half of the double-sword emblem.
(The dark tide always surges outside the sunlight)
--