Chapter 51 Fire, Murder, and Burial (Revised)
Gu Yiliu quickly went to notify the forest police.
"Which location?" The forest police officer who received the report had just asked Gu Yiliu when his colleague said, "No need to ask, it's Heishan in the suburbs. You can already see thick smoke."
Gu Yiliu looked up and was shocked to see thick smoke billowing in the sky. He wondered how intensely the smoke must be burning.
"Officer Gu, the fire has spread for miles! Come and save us!" The pine tree's cry for help could be heard again.
"There are pine trees all around me, so a fire can start right away and spread very quickly!"
Gu Yiliu remembered the green sparrow's plea for help; it was also trapped inside the fire, and she had to go to the scene.
The forest police responded on motorcycles, each carrying a water tank. Upon arriving at the scene, they were met with a scorching fire, and many locals were also involved in the rescue efforts. Without a word, the first group carried water tanks up the mountain to fight the fire, while the rest searched for water sources, connected hoses, and quickly began the rescue operation.
Gu Yiliu, knife in hand, followed behind everyone, climbing the mountain to clear a firebreak while asking the system to check where the two green sparrows were.
“Walk another 800 meters to your right front.”
Gu Yiliu looked ahead at the raging sea of fire. She swallowed hard. "They're not dead, are they?"
"No."
"Will my special ability work against this fire?"
"You can only guarantee that you won't be burned to death."
That makes sense; it's not like she has water-based powers. She could easily break in by hardening her entire body.
Gu Yiliu hesitated for a moment, then turned around and carried a water tank belonging to a forest police officer on his back. There were exhausted civilians and exhausted forest police officers around him. Since the fire was not yet stable, they could rest when they were tired and then another person would take their place.
Gu Yiliu sprayed water at the sea of fire, and as soon as the fire subsided a little, the people behind her saw her rush in.
"!"
Everyone was startled by her; she was incredibly brave to run into the fire.
Everyone could only do their best to put out the fire outside so they could rush in and rescue people.
In reality, the fire was so intense that they couldn't possibly rush in, but Gu Yiliu did. All the forest police officers worked tirelessly to fight the fire.
Gu Yiliu was unaware of the situation outside. The further she went in, the smaller the fire became. It was hot inside because many trees had already been burned to charcoal. With just that heat, a person could be burned after a few minutes, and would definitely die after half an hour.
Gu Yiliu turned the water tank to its maximum, used his supernatural ability to form the water into a ball, and then accurately threw it at each tree. Each tree hit extinguished the fire.
Targeted fire suppression. Gu Yiliu was very satisfied.
The crackling sound was like the fire's last struggle.
Gu Yiliu spent 10 minutes getting to the green-feathered sparrow.
The two green sparrows were clever; they buried themselves in the soil, but they were choked by the thick smoke and almost fainted. If Gu Yiliu had arrived any later, they would have been completely dead.
"Chirp chirp!" Officer Gu, you've finally arrived!
Gu Yiliu picked them up from the soil and stuffed them into his arms, saying, "Hang in there."
"Chirp!" A green sparrow poked its head out of her pocket and delivered a bombshell.
Officer Gu, one of the three people you asked me to keep an eye on is dead.
Gu Yiliu looked stunned. "What did you say?!"
The green-feathered sparrow nodded in a human-like manner.
"How long has he been dead?"
"Chirp chirp!" I don't know.
They really didn't know. The green-feathered sparrow felt a bit negligent. The two of them had been waiting near Brother Shan's cat kennel, following them every day for the first few days, but later they discovered that every time they went up the mountain, they were looking at the yellow cypress trees, and they didn't know what they were observing.
This happened several times. Afterwards, they would follow from a distance while the three of them went up to look.
One day, they saw Shan Ge and Jiang Yiliang being chased down the mountain in a panic, and they didn't know what had happened. It wasn't until they followed Shan Ge and Jiang Yiliang back to the cat shelter that they realized one of them was missing.
The day after they came down the mountain, they ran back to the city, and the animals continued to follow them. All they knew was that Quan Zhushan and Jiang Yiliang kept changing places to stay. After staying in the city for 6 or 7 days, this morning, when the sky was still foggy, they saw Brother Shan and Jiang Yiliang go out and go back up the mountain.
They saw Quan Zhushan and Jiang Yiliang searching for something in the mountains, and that's how they found the grave. Then the two of them burned paper money in front of the grave, saying they were sorry and that they could no longer stay in Yaohai City, but they would help him avenge his death.
The green-feathered sparrow chirped and told Gu Yiliu what had happened.
Gu Yiliu hummed in agreement and then asked it again.
"You've never seen a murderer?"
"Chirp!" I've never seen it before, but Brother Shan and Jiang Yiliang should have.
Gu Yiliu hummed in agreement. "Where are the murdered people buried?"
"Chirp! Chirp!" It's buried nearby, look at that grave over there.
Gu Yiliu looked around and found a small hill-like grave under a tree.
It was covered in black ash.
"Dian Dian, is that really a grave? Is Ban Dawei buried there?"
"Yes," Dian Dian said in a heavy voice.
Gu Yiliu walked to the grave, said "I'm sorry," and then dug up the grave. But he only dug halfway up before a foot was exposed.
"hiss!"
She gasped. She looked around carefully again and found no scraps of paper or ashes around the grave; they had probably been burned to ashes in the fire.
Gu Yiliu immediately turned around and walked back, only to bump into two people who rushed in from the sea of fire outside.
Gu Yiliu stopped in his tracks. "Go call the police! Someone's dead!"
"What?!"
"Which one is it? Take me to see it quickly."
Gu Yiliu: "They're not our people. This is a burial site."
Gu Yiliu guessed that Quan Zhushan and Jiang Yiliang might have started the fire, since they had burned paper money at the grave. If they meant to leave, then they must also mean they meant to avenge Ban Dawei. They wanted to use the police to help them find the murderer.
If it weren't for the fire, the body might never have been discovered.
After a few years, without anyone noticing, the clues will all be lost, making it even more impossible to find the murderer.
But why didn't they just go to the police station to report it?
Gu Yiliu sighed. The reason was actually easy to understand. If the murderer killed Ban Dawei, he would definitely kill Quan Zhushan and the other two. These three must have witnessed what the murderer was doing, which is why they were silenced. Therefore, they dared not risk their lives.
Even if they dared, they might be mistaken for murderers. They were even less willing to take the risk.
Upon hearing Gu Yiliu's words, there was a moment of chaos at the scene, but it quickly returned to order.
"Three people are coming. Two will protect the scene, one will go back to the city to report the fire, and the rest of you will continue fighting the fire." Xiao Hong, the forest police commander who organized the rescue, arranged the people in an orderly manner.
Gu Yiliu: "I'll go put out the fire."
She has superpowers to help her, so she can put out the fire quickly; she has to go and help put out the fire.
Xiao Hong nodded, having no objection.
Half an hour later, Tang Shishen arrived at the scene with a forensic doctor. Reporters were also present. Some of the people who had spontaneously come to help fight the fire left when they heard there were dead bodies, and murdered ones at that.
It's normal for reporters to find out when word spreads from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred.
The scene was divided into two groups: one to fight the fire and the other to dig up the bodies.
The forensic doctor examined the body and concluded, "It can be determined to be homicide. The time of death was about a week ago. There were fatal wounds to the chest and head, and the cause of death was excessive bleeding."
Tang Shishen: "How did you get the head wound?"
Forensic expert: "He was hit multiple times by a heavy object."
"He was probably beaten to death during a conflict with someone." But what the conflict was, no one really knows.
Gu Yiliu squeezed her way to the front of the crowd. By now the fire had subsided, and she had some free time. "Captain Tang, check where his friends are. I think I've seen this guy before."
Tang Shishen looked up. Seeing Gu Yiliu, he had a feeling that he had known all along.
He always felt that wherever Gu Yiliu went, a case or incident would occur.
Perhaps this is Gu Yiliu's law. In a few seconds, Tang Shishen thought a lot and decided to pay more attention to whether this was true in the future.
"You've seen him before? What's his name?"
“Ban Dawei, he and his friends set up a cattery.”
Cattery? Tang Shishen suddenly realized where Cat Brother came from.
What are his friend's names?
"Quan Zhushan, Jiang Yiliang."
Photos were taken at the scene, and the body was carried down the mountain and transported back to the police station.
Tang Shishen sent people to find Quan Zhushan and Jiang Yiliang.
But when they went to the two people's hometown to look for them, they found nothing.
The two disappeared without a trace.
"DianDian, do you think I can find them using the teleportation portal?"
“You can try,” Dian Dian said, not saying no. “But there are so many people in the world with the same name, it might not be able to transmit the message accurately to you.”
“I think it’s definitely possible. Could it be that all those people with these two names also have a friend named Ban Dawei who was murdered?” Gu Yiliu was very confident.
"..."
Dian Dian fell silent, something it hadn't expected.
Its thinking is getting more and more rigid! Ugh, how did it become so stupid!
Gu Yiliu was unaware of the system's internal collapse. She silently chanted and then opened the teleportation portal.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a toilet.
"..."
She opened the door and went out.
The men's restroom is next door.
Just as she was wondering if the two of them were in the restroom, she saw two people walk out of the restroom together.
She narrowed her eyes and realized that it really was Quan Zhushan and Jiang Yiliang.
She left the green-feathered sparrows behind. These sparrows were fairly observant.
She let them keep an eye on the two of them. Then, after finding out where she was, she went back.
Located in Huidong City in the south, it is adjacent to the Special Economic Zone.
She didn't tell Tang Shishen directly where the two were. She just asked him to try posting missing person notices and distributing their portraits.
In that bustling city, it's easy to spot them.
“I’m afraid the murderer might have seen them too. As you said, the three of them are inseparable. If the murderer wanted to kill all three people, he might have killed them before we did after seeing the missing person notice. And the two of them might have seen it themselves, so they would have hidden.”
Gu Yiliu: "That's how it should be. On one side is death, on the other is protection. They didn't kill anyone, so they'll definitely come to the police station on their own."
After listening, Tang Shishen immediately realized he had been hesitant. "Alright, we'll do it your way!"
"Go contact the newspaper."
Gu Yiliu nodded, and as soon as he left the police station, he ran into Han Yi.
"What are you doing here? Don't you have to go to work?" After Han Yi rented a courtyard for her last time, she went back to work.
Han Yi looked her up and down, breathed a sigh of relief, and his expression softened a little, but he quickly became stern again. "Let's go back first."
"You go back first, I'll go to the newspaper office."
Han Yi nodded and watched her leave. Only after she left did he return to her rented apartment.
When Gu Yiliu returned from the newspaper office, Han Yi had already prepared a meal and was waiting for her.
"What brings you here?"
"Oh, I plan to transfer to Yaohai City ahead of schedule." He wouldn't feel at ease if he wasn't transferred there.
-----------------------
Author's Note: Here it is! The "Wanted" section at the end of the first draft of the novel was wrong; I should have written it as a missing person notice. [Shrug] I've added over 300 words.
Pre-order now for "Deeply Bound to a Master of Historical Fiction"
Synopsis: This story is also known as: "The Scheming Father and Daughter in a Historical Fiction [1960s]"
When Jiang Yulu opened her eyes, she found herself and her father transported to the 1960s.
The story begins in hell mode: she marries a female military officer after her father's marriage, but the officer's two sons dislike her and are determined to drive her and her father away.
The wealthy stepmother has both money and power, and neither the father nor the daughter wants to give her up.
The wealthy stepmother cares about the father but completely disregards her stepdaughter, even declaring, "You can only choose one: your wife or your daughter!"
Jiang Yulu gritted her teeth and, in order to avoid being kicked out and to further solidify her relationship with her father, conspired with her father to scheme against Zou Jingpu, the son of her wealthy stepmother's direct superior and a notorious figure in the military.
A man and a woman were found lying alone in bed. Faced with the wrath of her wealthy stepmother, Jiang Yulu clung tightly to the man's back, her doe-like eyes filled with fear and grievance.
Zou Jingpu, who held a high position and was indifferent to women, never expected that he would end up being bitten by the rabbit right next to him.
He was furious, convinced she was a scheming woman. The organization instructed him to acknowledge Jiang Yulu as his girlfriend, and he did.
Zou Jingpu made up his mind not to ask any more questions beyond the necessary greetings.
But Jiang Yulu and what she did for him were constantly mentioned in his ears.
Winter is coming, so I knitted him a sweater by hand and brought it to him.
He said he wanted to eat the snacks he ate when he was a child, so she made them for him by hand and delivered them to his desk the next day.
She took care of his mother day and night when she was sick, and even his picky mother praised her a thousand times.
And so on... Sometimes Zou Jingpu thought that if she could always be like this, he would treat her better.
After his opinion of her changed, he thought of taking her to the movies, but unexpectedly stumbled upon her having a private conversation with her father.
She asked, "Dad, did you bring it up? Does your rich stepmother want to have a child with you?"
"...I didn't mention it. If I had, she would probably have wanted a divorce, and your stepmother probably wouldn't have wanted you either."
"So, how are things going between you and Jingpu?"
She said, "Don't even mention it, it's so difficult."
“Your stepmother said she wanted the scarf I knitted. I’ll knit an extra one and give it to her in your name, how about that?”
"OK."
Zou Jingpu's face turned as black as ink. It turned out that everything she had done for him was done by her father. How ridiculous that he had always thought it was she who had done it for him.
He watched coldly as she tried to please him. Soon, the father and daughter's scheme was exposed, and he and she were quickly cut ties. He thought she would come to him crying and begging. He thought that if she cried, he wouldn't be angry with her. Who would have thought that she would turn around and start contacting other people?
"Jiang Yulu, am I dead?" he sneered.
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