Chapter 40 Catching Clouds
Chapter 40
The forensic laboratory of the Criminal Investigation Corps is not far from the bureau and is a newly built building.
So it’s not very popular.
There was also a smell of pig iron in the corridor, which filled the nose and made people feel dull and painful.
After putting on gloves, Qiao Yue closed her eyes and walked in to look at the body.
"How's the situation?" Her gaze lingered on the pale face of the deceased, which looked cold because the light was too bright.
Medical examiner Han hunched his hands over his shoulders, rubbing his wrist against his glasses. He sighed and said, "Based on bone age prediction, he should be between fourteen and sixteen years old."
Qiao Yue nodded, her heart beating up and down.
Minor.
"The fatal wound was in the neck. The aorta was severed, causing excessive blood loss." The forensic doctor reached out to take a white cloth and covered the body. His tone was filled with indescribable regret. "The multiple scars on the body were caused by violent sexual assault."
Before the pure and clean white cloth covered the corpse, Qiao Yue caught a glimpse of the traces of sin leaking out from the flawless parts.
She felt a little nauseous, turned her back, took off her gloves, and left the laboratory in a hurry.
Standing in the empty corridor made of reinforced concrete, he took a deep breath, trying to drive away the stench that had accumulated in his lungs.
When we arrived at the scene, the rain was getting heavier, the road to the vegetable market became more muddy, and was filled with fishy and rotten smells.
The deceased fell quietly on the yellow tiles of the public toilet.
What caught the eye was a large pool of scarlet blood, seeping into the cracks between the tiles from all directions, outlining the outline of death.
Even though a cordon was set up, the onlookers' sharp and gossipy eyes still fell unconcealed on the disheveled deceased.
Then, an ambiguous sigh was heard from the crowd.
The person who reported the case was a middle-aged man. In the crowded crowd, he even said to the detective with a gloating look, "I came to set up a stall this morning and thought I'd go to the bathroom first, but when I came in, I saw a naked dead person. I was really scared!"
This sentence caused more commotion, and many eyes, some scrutinizing or curious, fell on the dead man's open legs.
That look made Qiao Yue feel sick. These exposed desires were like cockroaches in the dark, gathering together and making people's scalp tingle.
She called her colleagues to ask, "Has the deceased been identified?"
A colleague flipped through the files and explained the situation to her.
The specific identity was not found out, but someone provided a clue that the deceased was an employee of a hair salon on Fengqing Street opposite the vegetable market.
The colleague paused and said, "She was engaged in sex work. We also found out the name of the shop where she worked. It was called Mei Xin Hair Salon."
Qiao Yue nodded and motioned for him to continue.
Fengqing Street is located in the old city. It is dilapidated and backward, and is a piece of plaster in this bright and modern city.
The old city is a mixed crowd, with people from all walks of life, living on the edge of illegality and crime, and therefore filled with all kinds of people.
In such an atmosphere, good people and bad people may be separated by only a wall.
Anyone can be easily infected by this depravity.
Other staff members at the Maxim's Hair Salon also only revealed some brief information about the deceased.
"They don't know the deceased's real name either. Most people in this business are undocumented and don't have ID cards. They only know she called herself Ah Yun." After the colleague finished speaking, he sighed, "Captain Qiao, these people in this store have a strong anti-detection awareness, so they didn't find much specific information."
"I understand. But once they know her identity, the murderer can start by investigating the people Ayun often interacts with. They can ask the people at the hair salon for a list of all..." She wanted to say "customers," but a cold snort escaped her nose. "Then they can carefully investigate everyone who had contact with Ayun last night and bring them all to the police station for strict interrogation."
The colleague responded with an OK, reported some details of the investigation process, and then hung up the phone.
Qiao Yue leaned against the wall, feeling a little cold. She hugged her arms and began to think about the murderer's motive.
The case between the client and the "hair salon girl" was nothing more than a murder of passion.
When she thought of the word "love", and then remembered the cockroach-like eyes, she shook her head, and her disgust for the murderer deepened.
"Have some water."
Forensic Doctor Han held a paper cup and handed it to her politely.
Qiao Yue raised her head slightly, turned her head to look at him, and said, "Thank you."
She took the water, it was hot, and it calmed her down a bit.
"Are you worried about the murderer?" He said, then took a sip of warm water, hoping to comfort himself. But then he felt the words he was about to say were too heavy, so he paused. "The murderer's semen was left in the victim's body, so the DNA results will be available soon."
Qiao Yue's eyes became even darker and she drank the water in one gulp.
He glanced again at the undulating flawless white cloth inside the glass door.
Looking into the depths of the soul of the girl named Ayun.
Every bruise on that scarred body was an accusation.
She should have been at the age of blooming and having endless good times.
But now, the vitality, the future, and the life are all gone.
There is only silent death.
......
As soon as Lin Yufu returned to the team, he went to the anti-trafficking office and asked the colleague he had asked for help before to get Yu Jiayi's household registration information.
"Yu Jiayi does have a twin sister named Yu Jiayun. They were both children of Xinhe Salesian Home. Later, the Salesian Home was closed down, and the sisters were adopted by a couple."
Lin Yu was looking through the information. Four years ago, the couple had a boy, and in the same year they also went to the police station to report the missing persons.
But the registration was cancelled half a month later.
A colleague leaned over and ticked the timeline in the file. "Three years ago, Yu Jiayi went to the Qishan County police station to report that she and her sister had been abducted by human traffickers. However, they couldn't find any missing persons records, so no case was filed. Not long after, they were taken away by relatives, and the matter was left unresolved."
"Relatives..." Lin Yu closed his eyes slightly, and a narrow light shone through his dark pupils.
A common excuse used by traffickers is to pretend to be a relative of the abducted child.
The colleague from the anti-trafficking office gritted his teeth and said with a hint of difficulty, "The county police station was negligent."
A single negligence changed the future of two children.
"Why are you investigating Yu Jiayi's sister?" his colleague asked him.
Lin Yu collected the information, thanked him, and hurried out. It took a long time for the answer to come back: "To confirm some things."
.....
The DNA test results from forensic doctor Han had not come out yet, so Qiao Yue called her colleague to ask if anyone with similar relationships had been found in the list of clients they were about to check.
"There are currently two suspects, both of whom are in custody. One of them has an alibi, but we are still retrieving the surveillance footage for comparison."
Qiao Yue hummed, then turned to ask the forensic doctor, "Will the results be out within three hours?"
She felt relieved after getting a positive answer.
Then she saw a shadow slowly appear on the gray-white wall, and hurried footsteps gradually approached her.
"Junior brother?" Qiao Yue looked at Lin Yu who came hurriedly, a little surprised. "You are returning to the team today?"
Lin Yu walked up to her, took a breath, nodded, and went straight to the point, "Have you found the murderer in this case?"
Qiao Yue shrugged helplessly, "We haven't even found out the identity of the deceased yet."
"Can I go in and see the deceased? If my guess is correct, she is related to the child trafficking case that our team handled before." Lin Yu glanced at Qiao Yue, handed the information in his hand to her, and looked at forensic doctor Han.
"Of course." Forensic Doctor Han pointed to the disinfection room at the corner and asked him to make precautionary preparations first.
Qiao Yue frowned as she looked at the information of Yu Jiayi and Yu Jiayun.
Ayun, Yu Jiayun.
Judging from appearance and age, the information matches perfectly.
After a while, Lin Yu came out, took off his gloves, and his eyes were much darker. "Senior Sister, Yu Jiayi attempted suicide and is still in the hospital. She is suspected of drug trafficking, but she refuses to reveal any clues. I think this will be a breakthrough."
He glanced at the glass door, then came back to his senses, his gaze as sharp as ice.
Yu Jiayi is responsible for drug transportation in the trafficking gang, and Yu Jiayun is engaged in prostitution services in the hair salon. It is not difficult to infer that this is a closely related interest chain.
"Contact our colleagues in the Narcotics Squad." Qiao Yue handed the information to Lin Yu. "We should have caught a big fish this time."
The tiny gears began to run in together by accident, invisibly pulling out a long chain.
…
The bureau already had a special operation to crack down on gangsters and eliminate evil, and the cases of Yu Jiayi and Yu Jiayun received high attention from above.
Homicide, child trafficking, and drug trafficking all point to the same profit chain. The bureau ordered the establishment of a special task force to thoroughly investigate the case.
At noon, Lin Yu and Qiao Yue went to the cafeteria to eat and heard their colleagues from the drug enforcement team chatting.
Someone mentioned Linbei City. Lin Yu raised his eyebrows slightly and walked to a seat closer to the speaker.
"Isn't our special operation in Nancheng this time about cracking down on gangs and eliminating evil? In Linbei, it's about combating drugs and corruption. I heard they seized a batch of new drugs at the train station last week, and they were of very high purity."
Last week, Lin Yu sorted out the timeline and found that the child trafficking case was solved last week.
The colleague continued, "Linbei is taking this case very seriously. They reportedly set up a special task force overnight to investigate the source and transportation routes of the drugs."
Just as Lin Yu was about to join the conversation, he heard another person interrupt, "Speaking of drug control and anti-corruption, do you remember the previous director? Isn't he a recognized pioneer in drug control and anti-corruption?"
"Teacher Zhou Zongqi, right? Who wouldn't remember that? The Tang family case back then was a major case that shocked the entire nation. How could it possibly be forgotten?" The speaker sighed. "But Teacher Zhou didn't rise to prominence after that. Instead, he became the director of our bureau. That's a demotion, no matter how you look at it."
Someone snorted and laughed. Because they were within the system and well-versed in certain unspoken rules, they vaguely said, "A tall tree attracts the wind."
Everyone who was talking at the table was silent for a moment.
Lin Yu and Qiao Yue fell into deep thought at the same time after hearing Zhou Zongqi's name.
Outsiders all thought that Zhou Zongqi should have been very proud of solving the Tang family case.
Lin Yu still remembered what Zhou Zongqi said to him a long time ago: "Good people also feel guilty."
"In this world, we always have to sacrifice the necessity of a few people in exchange for the peace of mind of the majority."
The direct reason for Zhou Zongqi's resignation was the pressure caused by psychological trauma, which had seriously affected his judgment ability.
He said he could no longer be considered a police officer.
Lin Yu did not ask any further questions. A policeman who was regarded by the world as the embodiment of justice, what else could he be if he was not a policeman.
The Tang family case shocked the whole country at that time. The mastermind Tang Tianya colluded with bureaucrats to smuggle drugs and sell organs. Each case was a sensational case.
He was sentenced to death, leaving behind his pregnant wife and eight-year-old son.
The wife was forced to commit suicide by taking poison by numerous victims. Before her death, she went to the police station to report the case, but no one paid any attention.
Tang Tianya's son Tang Ze was sent to an orphanage and later adopted by Zhou Zongqi.
After raising Zhou Zongqi until he was sixteen, Tang Ze pushed his three-month pregnant wife down the stairs, causing her death.
Tang Ze jumped into the river and was also pronounced dead.
Good people can also make mistakes.
Even if you do good things, you cannot avoid retribution.
Because the good and bad in this world are both contradictory and interdependent.
The colleagues resumed the discussion. "I heard from Captain He that Director Zhou is part of the anti-drug task force established in Linbei this time, and the public security department has also planted several undercover agents."
After hearing this, Lin Yu came back to his senses and looked towards the table of people who were discussing loudly.
Qiao Yue spoke before him, "Is Director Zhou involved in this special investigation team?"
The colleagues looked at her and Lin Yu, said hello politely, and nodded, "Our department said that there is a possibility that the case in Linbei is related to the case we are handling."
Yu Jiayi's case also involves drugs, and the new type of drug was discovered in Linbei just last week. Putting all these clues together, it is hard not to arouse suspicion.
Qiao Yue sighed and poked the rice. "Master clearly said that he would no longer be involved in the case. Is the Linbei case so important?"
Lin Yu no longer had any appetite as he was thinking about the relationship that would develop between Linbei and Nancheng in the future.
Yu Jiayi's confession will become crucial testimony.
"Senior Sister, I'm going to the hospital this afternoon to meet Yu Jiayi."
Qiao Yue nodded, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Will you tell her about Yu Jiayun when you see her?"
Lin Yu paused while collecting the dishes and chopsticks, "If necessary."
"Then take this file with you. It may be helpful for the interrogation and confession. Show it to her if necessary." Qiao Yue took out a folder from her briefcase and handed it to Lin Yu.
He thanked me and took it, then opened it and took a look while driving to the hospital.
This is the closing report of the Yu Jiayun case.
The murderer has been apprehended and confessed to the crime.
Not long after meeting Yu Jiayi, Lin Yu began to understand why Qiao Yue asked him to take the file with him and said that it would be necessary.
He parked the car and took the direct elevator to the seventh floor of the inpatient department, Room 702, where Yu Jiayi was staying.
Before entering the ward, Lin Yu made some mental preparations and suppressed a little bit of compulsive momentum.
He wanted to avoid making Yu Jiayi feel oppressed as much as possible.
Yu Jiayi's eyes became more and more indifferent as he entered, and her whole body exuded a sense of alienation as if she was out of the matter.
Mature beyond her years, this was Lin Yu’s first impression of her.
"Yu Jiayi, I'm Lin Yu, a criminal police officer from the First Criminal Investigation Team." He made a brief self-introduction, then began to look at her calmly.
Yu Jiayi was half lying on the hospital bed, with a quilt covering her body, revealing her skinny wrists.
Her head was wrapped in a thick layer of white gauze, which looked bulky and contrasted sharply with the slender lines of her face.
After Lin Yu came in, she looked away and stared at the gray sky outside the window without saying a word.
Most of the questions had been asked by colleagues in the drug enforcement team. Lin Yu couldn't find any words to say and just looked at her silently.
After a while, Yu Jiayi spoke, looking at the folder in his hand. "What is this?"
Lin Yu took a deep breath and said, "The final report of the Pingyi Vegetable Market murder case."
She uttered a soft "oh" and rolled her brown eyes. "Is it related to me?"
Lin Yu was speechless. He put the folder away and avoided answering her question. "About drugs..."
"Is it related to me?"
The sound Yu Jiayi suddenly made was as sharp as broken glass.
Lin Yu was standing, and because of his tall stature, he seemed to be looking down on her.
Seeing her tear off the calm mask, she raised her eyebrows slightly, and her eyes became sharper.
"Has the murderer been caught?" Yu Jiayi stared at him, and her lifeless eyes now turned full of hatred.
"First, tell me about the source and the distributor of this batch of drugs, and then I'll tell you..."
"Has the murderer been caught?"
Lin Yu was interrupted by her. He rubbed his eyebrows and repeated what he had not finished.
But Yu Jiayi didn't listen at all, all her attention was on the folder.
"Why did you separate from your sister?" Lin Yu restrained his emotions and asked her in a calm tone.
"I thought... I thought..."
Yu Jiayi said these three words while crying, and her tight disguise was completely broken by the word "sister".
Lin Yu sighed secretly and ignored her sorrow.
He shifted his gaze and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.
Perhaps due to moisture, dark blue water marks appeared on the gray-white wall.
Like mottled tear marks, like broken lines.
Yu Jiayi thought Jiayun was really sent to a good family and escaped from suffering.
Zhang Jinzhi clearly told her that as long as she helped him transport goods and recruit new people, he would arrange a stable career for Yu Jiayun.
It's ridiculous that she and the desperado are asking for the safety of her relatives.
But he didn't expect to push Yu Jiayun into another level of hell.
She was so young and ignorant of the world, but she died in the most humiliating and dirty way.
I don’t know how long she cried. The detective not far away didn’t even look at her, nor did he interrogate her or question her. He just remained silent.
As if sharing the grief with her.
After a while, Yu Jiayi looked him straight in the eye and stretched out her hand. "Let me see the document."
Lin Yu's gaze fell on her hand, and a ray of light flashed in his dark eyes, then quickly disappeared.
He shook his head.
"Show me, and I'll give you the testimony and clues you want."
Yu Jiayi turned back into the haggard and mature person she used to be.
"You don't have to hide it. I saw it all in the news. I just wanted to see what Ah Yun looked like in the end." Yu Jiayi licked her lips and even smiled gently. "I haven't seen her for two years."
After hearing the second half of her sentence, Lin Yu was distracted and slowly handed the folder to her.
Yu Jiayi flipped through the case statement and the murderer's confession, and finally her eyes fixed on Jiayun's pale face.
She stretched out her hand and carefully traced Yu Jiayun's frown, closed eyes, and bitten lips.
This face, which was very similar to his own, was filled with pain.
She is dead.
The person you thought about and wanted to protect died earlier than you.
How ridiculous.
Yu Jiayi closed the folder, but found that she couldn't cry.
There is no greater sorrow than a dead heart.
She blinked her dry eyes and looked at Lin Yu, "Ask."
The clues provided by Yu Jiayi were about the drug transportation route, which was almost identical to Lin Yu's guess. This batch of drugs was indeed related to the batch from Linbei.
"Zhang Jinzhi is our supervisor. He tells us where to do the packaging and turnover."
Lin Yu paused while recording, "Zhang Jinzhi?"
Seeing his surprised look, Yu Jiayi sneered twice, "Isn't he a celebrity in your drug rehabilitation center?"
Lin Yu lowered his eyes and recalled the information he had learned from his colleagues in the drug enforcement team.
Zhang Jinzhi is a drug dealer hated by the anti-drug team and is still on the run.
Lin Yu continued to interrogate, "Do you know the source of this batch of new drugs?"
"We are just responsible for the branch line of transportation. The more we know, the faster we die." When Yu Jiayi mentioned the word death, her tone was surprisingly relieved.
Lin Yu looked up at her and caught a sense of relief in those brown eyes.
"At......"
"I need a cigarette." Seeing that he had almost remembered, Yu Jiayi suddenly changed the subject, "Go buy me some, and I'll tell you about the rest."
"You're still a minor, and you're injured." Lin Yu rejected her and added, "Smoking is bad for your health. You have to know how to protect yourself."
As if she had heard a joke, Yu Jiayi covered her stomach, laughed intermittently, and looked up at Lin Yu.
Seeing his serious look, she laughed even more wantonly, and finally said coldly through her teeth, "Bullshit."
Lin Yu frowned slightly, and what he was about to say was interrupted by her again.
"Protect yourself. You just asked me why I broke up with Ayun. Wasn't it all because of you police officers?"
"They keep saying they want to protect us, saying we're minors, but tell us, why are we still being trafficked?"
Lin Yu thought of what his colleague from the anti-trafficking office had said: "The county police station was negligent."
An unresolved case of dereliction of duty plunged two children who regarded the police station as their lifeline into the abyss.
Unable to utter any words to explain, he took a deep breath and stood up.
"I only want Baishahe cigarettes." Yu Jiayi looked at Lin Yu's back and said casually, "I'm not used to the others."
Lin Yu didn't look back, nor did he respond to her. He walked out of the ward in silence.
The ward became quiet again, as quiet as death.
Yu Jiayi tore off the photo of Yu Jiayun from the folder and held it tightly in her hand.
Then she threw back the quilt, got out of bed, walked to the window, and saw the murky black clouds rolling like waves.
"Sister, I really like clouds. They look white and they can fly."
Yu Jiayi recalled the days when she and Yu Jiayun lay on the rooftop of the welfare home and watched the clouds.
At that time, the sky was clear after the rain, and white clouds were floating in the blue sky.
Blown by the breeze, it changes shape from time to time, drifting here and there, so free.
The clouds were thick white and hung low, as if they were within reach.
Like a dream from a fairy tale.
"Sister, I want to catch the cloud."
"What are you doing with the cloud?"
"Become wings and let us fly too."
Yu Jiayi's sight drifted farther and farther, falling into the rolling dark clouds in the gray sky.
It turns out that clouds don’t have to be pure white.
"Sister will catch clouds for you."
Yu Jiayi jumped on her back.
The feeling of weightlessness made her feel free.
The rolling dark clouds became flatter and flatter in sight, and then gradually stopped, like a gray-black oil painting.
Yu Jiayi remembered a book she had read, Hugo's Les Miserables
The cover of the book was a picture of a thick, dark cloud, which was engraved into her heart like a brand.
Everything in the world gradually became still, even the sound of the wind became weaker and weaker, and finally solidified in the ears.
She thought that she had jumped on her back, and her soul would be carried upwards by the wind.
The clouds in heaven should be white.
But she knew that she would definitely go to hell.
But the real hell only exists in the human world.
Thinking about it this way, it seems that there is nothing to be afraid of, and nothing worth remembering.
Yu Jiayi stretched out her hands upwards, opened her eyes wide with a smile, and looked at the sky and the floor that were getting farther and farther away.
Then, amid the rumbling thunder, everything finally became completely quiet.
Everything is settled.
......
Lin Yu ran around all the newsstands and convenience stores near the hospital, but couldn't buy the Baisha River cigarettes that Yu Jiayi wanted.
As I turned to leave, the newsstand owner stopped me and said, "Young man, you smoke Baishahe too. A little girl came to me the other day and asked about it. I saw she was underage, so I didn't sell her anything."
Yu Jiayi asked, which means she knew Lin Yu definitely couldn’t buy it.
He remembered the relief in those brown eyes and the slight smile of relief.
The strange feeling in my heart gradually rose up, like a rolling undercurrent.
A thunderstorm is coming and the air is filled with damp vapor.
Everything is enclosed in the same place, binding people into boredom and suffocation.
When the thunder sounded, Lin Yu suddenly came to his senses and ran towards the hospital.
The heavy rain poured down in an instant.
It was one step too late after all.
The blood mixed with the rain reflected the gray sky.
A picture of despair spreads out.
Thoughts: This chapter is a major turning point in the first chapter. I buried the foreshadowing in the previous chapter, and it is also a major turning point for Lin Yu.
Thanks Youran. I was really worried that this chapter would discourage everyone. This is my first time writing a criminal investigation, and the more I write, the more I feel like I'm a bit antisocial. But I think the so-called good and bad are just different standpoints. I want to convey this idea rather than whitewash it.
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