Chapter 203 Lighter
Zhou Yi looked at the golden lighter in the bag. It was the kind that added kerosene and looked very much like a ZIPPO, but there was no brand information on the shell.
There was a pattern carved on the lighter that looked like a Qilin, but he was not sure.
He squinted his eyes and stared at the lighter in a daze.
He always felt that this lighter looked familiar, and at first he thought he had seen Jin Lei use it.
But when I asked Zhang Ning, he said that Director Jin had quit smoking a long time ago and he had never seen this lighter.
He was about to reach out to take it when he felt someone walking in front of him.
When I looked up, it was Qian Hongxing.
"Mr. Qian, how is the child now?"
Just as Zhou Yi asked the question, Qian Hongxing suddenly tried to kneel down. Zhou Yi was quick to grab the other's arm.
"Mr. Qian, what are you doing?"
Qian Hongxing said excitedly: "Officer Zhou, you saved my son twice. I don't know how to thank you. I can only kowtow to you."
As he said this, he was about to kneel down again.
"No, no, no, everything I did was what I should do as a police officer. You really don't have to do this."
Zhou Yi looked at the tired Qian Hongxing and helped him sit down quickly.
"I...I don't know how to thank you, I..."
Zhou Yi nodded to show that he understood, "I appreciate your kindness, but please don't do this."
This is probably a habit ingrained in the Chinese people. Kowtow to someone and it is the ultimate expression of gratitude, better than a thousand words.
Qian Hongxing nodded repeatedly, feeling as if tears were streaming down his face.
"Is the child okay now?" Zhou Yi asked.
"Everything is normal now, and I hope everything will be fine later."
"Oh, right, I remembered something. That finger!" Zhou Yi quickly took out his phone. "I'll call the police station and have them send the severed finger over. Our forensic doctor took good care of it. If we perform surgery now, it should be reattached."
"Really?" Qian Hongxing was surprised and happy. When he saw his son's bandaged left hand, he realized that the severed finger was not someone else's but his own son's.
As a father, how could I bear to see such a thing? Tears came to my eyes and I felt so heartbroken.
But after calming down, he realized that compared to his life, a finger was nothing.
He had already accepted this fact, but now that Zhou Yi said he could still connect, he was overjoyed.
After Zhou Yi finished the call, he told him that the bureau would arrange for someone to come over immediately and asked him to communicate with Director Qiu to arrange surgery for the child as soon as possible.
Qian Hongxing nodded repeatedly.
"Mr. Qian, you won't blame me, will you?" Zhou Yi was referring to the time when he lied to him that the severed finger was not his son's.
Qian Hongxing certainly understood what he meant and immediately said, "Officer Zhou, if I blame you for something like this, how the hell would I even be considered a human being?"
Although Qian Hongxing's words were harsh, Zhou Yi found them very pleasant to the ears.
"Go quickly, the child has passed the critical period, remember to tell me as soon as possible."
"Okay, okay."
As soon as Qian Hongxing left, Zhou Yi turned his head and found that Jin Lei in the ICU seemed to have woken up and was looking at him with half-open eyes.
Zhou Yi immediately went to see a doctor and entered the ward after thorough disinfection.
Jin Lei was very weak and his face was pale. After all, according to Director Qiu, his bleeding was very serious and the blood he transfused was almost half the amount he needed for a blood transplant.
He was wearing an oxygen mask on his face, and the little white mist rising from it showed how weak his breathing was.
The nurse came in with Zhou Yi, checked the data on the instrument, and said in surprise: "Based on his condition, he shouldn't have woken up so early."
Zhou Yi immediately realized that Jin Lei definitely had something to say to him, so he forced himself to wake up by willpower.
"Director, do you have something to say to me? If so, just blink your eyes." Zhou Yi approached Jin Lei and said.
Jin Lei blinked weakly.
Zhou Yi saw his mouth move, but the sound was too weak to be heard at all.
He put his ear almost to Jin Lei's oxygen mask and heard Jin Lei say with difficulty: "The gun... was lost... in the river..."
Zhou Yi was shocked. Did this mean that Long Zhiqiang hadn't taken the gun? Could it be that Jin Lei had thrown the gun into the nearby river during the fight?
"I understand. Don't worry, Jin Suo. I'll report to Captain Wu right away and get the gun back. You should have a good rest, and we'll take care of the rest."
After Zhou Yi finished speaking, he found that Jin Lei did not close his eyes and his mouth was still moving.
So he came closer again.
"Lighter...his..."
These words, like a thunderclap, exploded in Zhou Yi's mind.
Because he finally remembered where he had seen this lighter.
Because in the previous life, the owner of this lighter had shown it to him personally!
…
In his previous life, Zhou Yi was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Provincial Urban Bureau in 2010.
In 2014, a horrific case occurred in the provincial capital. The case itself was not complicated, but it had a huge social impact.
On October 21, 2014, the provincial capital fire department received a 119 fire alarm call from a residential community, saying that a serious fire had occurred in the community.
The fire brigade immediately rushed to put out the fire.
The fire broke out in a household on the fourth floor of the community. The fire was very serious and had spread to all directions.
The fire brigade tried their best and finally put out the fire after more than two hours of fighting.
But the fire has already caused serious casualties.
The house that caught fire was Room 402 of the building. Firefighters found four charred bodies in Room 402, three adults and one child.
The fire also spread to 502 upstairs, causing a fire in 502 as well.
Two firefighters risked their lives to rescue a child from the fire in Building 502 and rushed him to the hospital for emergency treatment. However, an adult inside also died.
A fire caused four deaths, one person suffered serious burns, and many others suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation.
This was an extremely serious fire accident. The matter was reported to the higher authorities overnight and finally reached the provincial government.
The province attached great importance to this case and immediately asked the municipal bureau in the provincial capital to assist in the investigation.
The main purpose of dispatching the Municipal Bureau was to conduct on-site technical investigations, cooperate with the fire brigade to determine the cause of the fire, and restore the process of the fire.
However, no one expected that after repeated investigations and confirmations by the Municipal Bureau's Technical Squadron and the Fire Brigade, they finally determined that the fire was caused by arson, because the source of the fire was found in the living room near the main entrance of Room 402, and it was confirmed that the fire was caused by a combustible material similar to gasoline.
What's even more terrifying is that after the forensic doctor conducted a detailed autopsy on several of the deceased in Room 402, it was found that the heads and other parts of the bodies of the four deceased had suffered varying degrees of blunt force trauma. The most seriously injured was an adult male whose skull was severely fractured. No smoke particles were found in his respiratory tract, which confirmed that the adult male had died before the fire started.
The other three deceased suffered injuries to varying degrees, but smoke particles found in the respiratory tracts of their bodies confirmed that all three died after the fire broke out.
One of the deceased was a little boy about ten years old.
The results of the on-site investigation and forensic examination showed that this was not a simple accidental fire, but a case of home invasion, murder and arson of an extremely serious nature.
The Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Provincial Urban Bureau immediately took over the case, and Zhou Yi was one of the main criminal police officers involved in the case.
The police found out that a family of four, a couple, an elementary school-aged son, and the mother of the male owner, lived in Room 402 where the fire broke out.
The identity information matches the forensic autopsy results, and it can be basically confirmed that they are a family of four from 402.
The police then found relatives of both the host and hostess, and further confirmed the identity of the deceased through DNA testing.
The family at 502 upstairs are completely irrelevant people who were innocently involved in this case.
The victim of the 502 incident was an adult female. The forensic autopsy confirmed that the cause of death was excessive smoke inhalation and that she had not suffered any other injuries.
The person who was rushed to the hospital was a five-year-old girl with severe burns. She was admitted directly to the ICU. The doctor said that with such large-scale burns, organ failure and death could occur at any time.
Based on the information, police determined that a mother and daughter lived in Room 502. The girl's father had died in a car accident six months earlier. The mother would leave the girl at a private daycare center in the same complex while she went to work, and would pick her up after work in the evenings. They were a hard-pressed couple.
However, he ended up in a desperate situation due to an unexpected disaster.
In 2014, mobile Internet had begun to rise, and the news of the fire quickly spread on the Internet. The life and death of the little girl and the solving of the case touched the hearts of countless people.
Zhou Yi and his colleagues quickly launched an investigation. Based on the fact that the door lock was not violently destroyed but the victim's family suffered serious injuries before their death, they suspected that the crime was committed by an acquaintance and the motive was revenge.
Therefore, the investigation focused on the social relationships of the male and female hosts, mainly to find out whether the victim had ever had conflicts or disputes with others, or had any abnormal economic transactions.
Soon, a suspect was identified.
Zhou Yi and his then-partner, Lu Zhengfeng, were responsible for investigating the male host's social connections. They began by investigating his work. The male host was a workshop supervisor at a factory in the provincial capital, responsible for the daily management of a workshop and considered a grassroots leader.
After visiting the factory, they locked on a worker named Zhao Yong.
According to responses from several workers in the workshop, about a week before the incident, Zhao Yong was caught red-handed by his supervisor for slacking off at work and playing games in the toilet. At that time, Zhao Yong was fined in accordance with factory regulations and was also publicly criticized within the workshop to serve as a warning to everyone.
Zhou Yi and his colleagues believed that the 21-year-old young man was a major suspect, so after finding out where Zhao Yong rented, they immediately went to arrest him.
But when they arrived at the shared apartment that was crowded with more than 30 people and filled with bunk beds, they did not find Zhao Yong.
After asking his roommate, we learned that Zhao Yong had not returned for two days.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
