Chapter 74 Chapter 74 The First Drawing
Xu An called the local police in Changnan, intending to find Chen Minhui on the national and provincial highways near Changnan and stop him.
Only after finishing this matter did he call Yang Xingping.
Yang Xingping has been tired recently, and when he got on the phone, he heard a noisy voice.
Pei Qing asked: "What happened to you?"
Yang Xingping: "My ex-boyfriend from next door came to see me."
Pei Qing almost forgot about Yang Xingping's neighbor next door.
Pei Qing asked: "What happened to your neighbor across the street? Is he not injured?"
Yang Xingping: "Her ex-boyfriend picked the door lock in the middle of the night. Wait, let's have him detained for a few days."
He didn't say much, just told Pei Qing that he would solve the problem immediately and then go find Pei Qing and Xu An.
Pei Qing and Xu An went to Huaihua Road Police Station first.
The police officer in charge of the missing case gave a different account from Cheng Bailan's.
The police officer said: "At 10 a.m. on September 13, we received a call and went to the vegetable market first. The surveillance camera at the vegetable market was indeed broken, but we asked the vegetable farmers at the vegetable market at the time. They knew Cheng Bailan. The vegetable farmers said that Cheng Bailan had been a little absent-minded recently. Once when she came to buy vegetables, she rode away on the electric bike before the child sat on the back seat. The child was stunned. After more than ten minutes, Cheng Bailan came back in a hurry to look for the child."
Pei Qing: "What happened to Cheng Bailan's family recently?"
Police: “I haven’t heard of it.”
Although he didn't understand why the city bureau was asking about this case, he was relieved that the case was out of his hands. He mentioned what Cheng Bailan's neighbors said: "Cheng Bailan's neighbors said that Cheng Bailan's grandmother wanted to hold her grandson very much. They said that Cheng Bailan's grandmother must have asked someone to take her granddaughter away. But we also checked Cheng Bailan's grandmother and her husband's recent contacts. Cheng Bailan's grandmother doesn't have a smartphone, only an old phone, and usually only contacts her aunts and uncles."
The police took out another stack of transcripts.
"All the relatives in City A are here. We checked and found that no one has an extra child in their family."
Xu An took it and quickly flipped through it, then asked, "Is Cheng Bailan's husband a local?"
The police officer in charge of the case said: "No, he is from Changnan. We contacted the local police in Changnan. They said yesterday that there is no new child in Grandma Cheng Bailan's hometown. They will continue to follow up."
Pei Qing guessed: "Will Grandma Cheng Bailan sell the child?"
The police officer in charge of the case was also troubled: "Mother-in-law Cheng Bailan has a bad temper. When asked, she threw a tantrum and lay on the ground and refused to get up."
To the police from the city bureau, the police complained: "Cheng Bailan can't read. Her life will be hard."
Pei Qing frowned the more he listened.
"So Grandma Cheng Bailan is a big suspect? Where was Grandma Cheng Bailan on September 13th?"
The police officer said, "She was refining lard at home and she showed it to us. All the neighbors upstairs and downstairs knew about it. You can go and see for yourself. Her expression and demeanor told me that she had someone take the child away."
But how did Grandma Cheng Bailan and Chen Minhui know each other?
Pei Qing and Xu An launched an investigation into this.
Grandma Cheng Bailan has been living in Changnan. She came to her son Zhao Dong's house after a physical examination revealed that she had nodules in her lungs.
Zhao Dong and Cheng Bailan were campus sweethearts. Neither of them was from City A. After graduation, they found jobs together in City A, and later got married and had a daughter.
Pei Qing drove Xu An to the downstairs of Cheng Bailan's house.
While driving, the two of them went over the case.
"This case seems like Grandma Cheng Bailan wanted her son and daughter-in-law to have a son, so she took her granddaughter away."
Xu An was not surprised: "These rural old men and women all want grandchildren."
Pei Qing sneered: "It's just that they favor boys over girls. If they hate girls so much, why don't they just hang themselves with a rope?"
Xu An checked the household registration of Grandma Cheng Bailan and Chen Minhui and found that they were in the same household registration.
He patted Pei Qing and said, "Chen Minhui and Grandma Cheng Bailan are from the same hometown. The police officer in charge of the case is right. It should be Grandma Cheng Bailan who asked someone to take her granddaughter away."
Pei Qing was puzzled: "Why would Chen Minhui, an outsider, get involved in this mess? Did Cheng Bailan give him money? He is not afraid of being sued for kidnapping."
Xu An sneered: "If the child's father knew, then Chen Minhui could say that it was the child's father who asked him to send the child back to his hometown. He didn't kidnap her."
After all, we have to check Cheng Bailan’s husband.
The two arrived downstairs of Cheng Bailan's house.
The building has a good orientation and plenty of sunlight.
Several old men and women brought small stools and sat under the shade of the trees.
I saw Pei Qing and Xu An walking upstairs and glanced at them.
"Someone's here again."
"Someone has been visiting the Bailan family every day recently."
“Poor thing.”
"It's bad luck for Bailan to have such a dead old woman as her mother-in-law."
…
The tiny fragmented sounds reached Pei Qing's ears, and he couldn't help but look over.
Several old men and women were fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans.
Xu An turned Pei Qing's head around: "Let's find the neighbors later."
Pei Qing: “Oh.”
She followed Xu An to Cheng Bailan's door.
Xu An knocked on the door, and soon, a sharp female voice came from the door. It was the voice of an elderly woman.
“Who is it?”
Pei Qing stood at the door and watched it open from the inside. An old man with gray hair and wearing an apron stood by the door.
She looked at Pei Qing and Xu An with her triangular eyes for a while.
"Who are you?"
Xu An: "Police! Is Cheng Bailan home?"
“No.”
The woman with triangular eyes said unhappily and tried to close the door.
Xu An pushed his foot against the door.
Pei Qing cooperated and squeezed in through the crack in the door.
"you--"
Pei Qing pulled her arm and said, "Auntie, why are you in such a hurry? We are not in a hurry. Just do your thing and we will wait for Cheng Bailan to come back. You must be Cheng Bailan's grandmother, right?"
Grandma Cheng Bailan snorted angrily: "What's wrong with the police? What's wrong with the police! Can they just barge into other people's houses at will..."
She was about to fall to the ground, and Pei Qing hurriedly took out the law enforcement recorder in his hand and pointed it at Grandma Cheng Bailan.
"Look, I didn't do anything. You can't blame me. I'm broke and I don't have any money to compensate you."
Xu An pushed the door of Cheng Bailan's house open, and Cheng Bailan's crying could be heard from upstairs and downstairs.
"The police are bullying me! They are not humane and bully an old woman like me from the countryside. They have no conscience. Head of the family, you left early. Look, people in the city are bullying a widow like me..."
Even if Pei Qing was holding a law enforcement recorder, he couldn't stop the old woman from sitting on the ground.
Xu An stood at the door, watching the old woman rolling around in a rage.
Pei Qing has begun to sympathize with Cheng Bailan.
I didn't do anything.
Isn’t it just waiting for Cheng Bailan to come home?
This old woman must be hiding something.
The old woman screamed so loudly that Pei Qing had a headache and fled to the corridor immediately.
Xu An followed suit and retreated.
With a "bang", the door of Cheng Bailan's house was slammed shut.
Pei Qing: The old woman got up quite quickly.
When he reached the stairs, Pei Qing discovered that the door of his neighbor opposite had been left a crack.
There is a little head hiding behind the door.
Um?
Pei Qing walked over and saw that it was a little boy, about five or six years old. When he saw Pei Qing, he did not hide, but opened the door a little.
"elder sister."
The little boy whispered, "Here's some candy for you."
He handed the White Rabbit candy in his hand to Pei Qing.
Pei Qing took it and looked, no matter how old the child was, he was cuter than the old woman in the room.
The little boy glanced at Pei Qing, then looked at the tightly closed door opposite him, and opened it a little.
He spoke in a very low voice, as if he was afraid of attracting other people's attention, and said to Pei Qing: "My mother said that you can come in, but you can't be seen by the grandmother across the street, otherwise she will scold you."
He moved cautiously as Pei Qing and Xu An walked in.
When he walked in, Pei Qing first saw the woman sitting on the sofa.
She sat on the sofa with a bandage on her leg and called her son over.
"Go do your homework."
The little boy looked visibly dispirited and walked into the study with heavy steps.
The young woman then asked Pei Qing and Xu An to sit down.
"Comrade police, why are there new people here today? Where are those policemen from the past two days?"
She pressed on, "Could it be that the old woman scolded him and he didn't want to come anymore? Did you find the child?"
Pei Qing: “Looking.”
There was no news. The young woman was a little disappointed, but she still asked Pei Qing and Xu An to sit and wait.
"Bai Lan has gone out to look for the child. She will definitely be back at noon. There have been quarrels in their family these past two days. You just wait at my house."
Pei Qing: "Are you familiar with Cheng Bailan?"
Young woman: "We used to be colleagues, but then Bai Lan changed jobs."
Then you can find out about Cheng Bailan's mental state.
Pei Qing: "I heard from the market that Cheng Bailan has been in a bad mood these days. Are you sure her daughter was lost in the market?"
This was Pei Qing's doubt this morning.
Young woman: "I don't know either, but the child was definitely lost along the way."
She saw Pei Qing, waved at him, and whispered, "Bai Lan had a miscarriage last month and hasn't recovered yet. How can she recover with that mother-in-law? I've told Zhao Dong several times to send his mother home as soon as possible, otherwise this family will break up sooner or later. Zhao Dong is a coward and dare not say anything."
Pei Qing: "Why did you have an abortion? Is the child in poor health or do you not want a second child?"
Young woman: "Bai Lan is a little stubborn. When she just gave birth to her daughter, her mother-in-law made a fuss. Later, she went back to her hometown. I didn't expect it to happen again this time! She doesn't want a second child. If she has a second child, her daughter will have to stand aside. She definitely doesn't want that."
Pei Qing understood. Cheng Bailan had aborted the child herself, but she didn't want a second child. How did she get pregnant?
Pei Qing speculated, maybe her useless husband did it on purpose.
What kind of life is this!
Now, all the indications from the police station and the surrounding neighbors indicate that Grandma Cheng Bailan is a high suspect.
But how did she find Chen Minhui without any cell phone contact?
Is there another middleman?
Suddenly, Xu An's cell phone rang.
It was a call from Changnan.
"Officer Xu, yes, the child has been found. The license plate number is correct. The driver's name is Chen Minhui. He said that the child's father asked him to take the child back to his hometown. It was not kidnapping. This is bullshit! The child screams when he sees anyone. He is so scared. Hurry up and notify the child's mother to come and pick him up."
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