Chapter 388: Locking in the Suspect
It was late at night and everyone was asleep. After Zhou Yi turned Lu Xiaoshuang over, he sat down in a chair.
There are three beds in this ward. Lu Xiaoshuang's bed is at the outermost position near the window and can get sunlight.
The provincial capital in 1997 was much more developed than Hongcheng.
Looking down from the more than ten-story inpatient building, the provincial capital is a sea of lights at night, and there are endless cars on the road.
Of course, this was originally the city center, and its prosperity is incomparable to Hongcheng.
Zhou Yi looked at the night view outside the window, feeling as if he were in another world.
In 2010, he was transferred there because of his outstanding performance in a major cross-provincial case and was noticed by the leaders of the Provincial Urban Bureau.
Under normal circumstances, being able to transfer from a prefecture-level city to a provincial capital basically means good career development.
But unfortunately, in the second year after being transferred to the provincial capital, he offended some people because he solved a major case.
The person he arrested was a famous entrepreneur and the brother-in-law of a certain leader.
Zhou Yi was actually handling the case according to the normal procedures, but as a newcomer he had no idea how complicated the situation was. In the end, this incident affected his promotion.
After all, that leader was quite vindictive and found ways to make things difficult for him.
Some friends also advised him to give a gift to the person and apologize so as not to affect his work and future.
Zhou Yi’s way of dealing with it was to break off friendship with anyone who advised him against it, as people with different ideals cannot work together.
Fortunately, three years later, the leader was imprisoned for well-known reasons, and no one targeted Zhou Yi anymore.
Zhou Yi also became much more tactful after that.
But the good times didn't last long. In 2016, the young captain incident happened.
If Zhou Yi had relaxed his principles at that time, not only would he not have been transferred to the Archives Department later, he might have even been able to take advantage of the situation and rise to prominence.
Unfortunately, although he had become a little "smooth", when faced with the final bottom line, he still chose to stick to the oath he had sworn under the police badge.
So he became Old Zhou, who organized the files.
And all this seems like a dream to him now.
Because less than two months ago, he was in the provincial capital, but it was a provincial capital in another time and space.
He rested his hands on the windowsill and his head on his hands. Through the window, he could even clearly point out where the provincial department was, where the municipal bureau was, and where his home in the provincial capital in his previous life was.
"Rebirth? Or are those memories just a long, fleeting dream?"
Zhou Yi, who had recovered, couldn't help but think about one thing.
It's about the grand case.
In the previous life, a grand case occurred on May 6th, and the deceased was Lu Xiaoshuang.
In this life, the grand crime occurred on April 30th. Although I don’t know whether Captain Wu and his team have confirmed it, the deceased is most likely Xu Liu.
Before leaving Hongcheng, Zhou Yi also clearly told Wu Yongcheng that he suspected that the deceased might be Xu Liu.
In fact, he did not connect Xu Liu with the deceased, but regarded Xu Liu as a suspect in the murder of Lu Xiaoshuang. After all, there had been clear conflicts between them before, and she should be the culprit who cut Lu Xiaoshuang's sweater.
But after confirming that Lu Xiaoshuang was still alive and Xu Liu's student ID was on Lu Xiaoshuang, Zhou Yi began to wonder whether the deceased was Xu Liu.
Because Xu Liu and Lu Xiaoshuang are both students of Hongda University, and they even have the same major and roommate.
Judging from the information, Xu Liu and Lu Xiaoshuang are similar in height and weight.
As for appearance, although Zhou Yi has never seen Xu Liu in person, but putting aside his personal emotional filter towards Lu Xiaoshuang, objectively speaking, although Xu Liu's appearance is not bad, it is still not as good as Lu Xiaoshuang.
It is certain that Xu Liu is good-looking. Judging from the statements of Mo Youyou and Gao Xiaofang, Xu Liu is a rather arrogant person and claims that his family is very rich.
Then she should probably have some pursuit and sense of superiority in terms of material conditions, that is to say, she must care more about dressing and makeup than Lu Xiaoshuang.
After all, Lu Xiaoshuang is just an ordinary female college student who dresses simply and has no makeup on.
Maybe Xu Liu will leave a better impression on most men after putting on makeup and dressing up.
The victim has changed in this life, which means that the murderer may not have originally targeted Lu Xiaoshuang.
It is a relatively precise and large group of female students with certain labels, so the victim in this life changed from Lu Xiaoshuang to Xu Liu.
If this is the case, then my appearance may have changed Lu Xiaoshuang's life trajectory.
According to the secret and unknown developments in the previous life, Lu Xiaoshuang should have had frequent and secret contacts with the murderer. Eventually, for some reason, the murderer controlled Lu Xiaoshuang on the night of May 3rd and carried out the murder and dismemberment.
But in this life, this "Cheng Yaojin" showed up halfway. His frequent contacts with Lu Xiaoshuang and Lu Xiaoshuang's absolute trust in him led to Lu Xiaoshuang not following the same life trajectory as in the previous life and had no contact with the murderer.
The murderer did not have to be Lu Xiaoshuang, but a beautiful female college student like Lu Xiaoshuang, so his target became Xu Liu.
Of course, whether in the previous life or this life, the murderer's behavior must have been initiated proactively, with obvious malicious intent.
Although the motive and reason are still unknown.
As a result, the victim in this life has changed.
As for the time of the crime, it is normal for the time of the crime to change after the victim changes.
Because Xu Liu is not Lu Xiaoshuang, the two have different personalities and are bound to have different behaviors and cognitions, which led to the dismemberment case happening prematurely.
From the perspective of this world, there has never been any grand case like the murder of Lu Xiaoshuang, only the grand case of the murder of Xu Liu.
The grand case of Lu Xiaoshuang's murder exists only in Zhou Yi's mind.
This case is completely different from the cases Zhou Yi encountered before.
In the Du Xiaolin case, it was Du Xiaolin who died in both the previous life and this life.
The same is true for the Zhang Hui case, the only difference is that Zhang Hui was defined as missing in her previous life.
The reason why the Qian Lailai case changed was because Zhou Yi's first rescue of Qian Lailai reactivated the Long Zhiqiang gang, which had originally given up on kidnapping. In the previous life, even if Sun Kun hadn't kidnapped anyone, Qian Lailai would still have been doomed.
The occurrence of these cases is completely consistent with the trajectory of the previous life.
Only in grand cases is it completely different.
But this is just Zhou Yi's guess.
Even if it was as he expected, there were still a lot of unexplained doubts in this case.
The biggest question is why there has been such a huge change in the method of handling corpses.
It’s just that the deceased was changed from Lu Xiaoshuang to Xu Liu. There is no reason to make the situation so complicated.
He handled the case in his previous life with the same method of more than 300 yuan, but he was still not caught by the police and is still at large.
Why should the deceased be cut into a thousand pieces in this life and their DNA be destroyed in such a perverted way as frying?
What is the purpose of destroying DNA?
Xu Liu is a college student. If she goes missing, the school must call the police within a week at most.
If the victims are people with chaotic social relationships, such as nightclub ladies and prostitutes, it is understandable that the damage to DNA would delay detection.
And if the murderer changed his target after he intervened, then why did Lu Xiaoshuang disappear inexplicably?
After being missing for almost thirty hours, he strangely reappeared in an abandoned mine in the north of Hongcheng.
And from what Mo Youyou said, it was very obvious that someone had maliciously deceived Lu Xiaoshuang into leaving under his own name.
Zhou Yi thought of a possibility, that is, the incident of deceiving Lu Xiaoshuang and throwing her into the abandoned mine and the murder and dismemberment of Xu Liu were actually two unrelated things.
But Xu Liu's student ID card was found on Lu Xiaoshuang.
It is impossible for Lu Xiaoshuang to steal a student ID or take one by mistake.
This student ID card ties the two things together again.
But the problem here was so bad that Zhou Yi couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried.
Now he can only hope that Hongcheng will make some major discoveries next, preferably the kind that can directly identify the suspect.
But it's a bit embarrassing, after all, the task force found nothing in the previous life.
Fortunately, Lu Xiaoshuang is still alive. As long as she wakes up, she might be able to provide some very valuable clues to help solve the case.
Especially the person who deceived her in his name, he wanted to know whether this person was Xiao Bing!
The dismemberment case must be investigated because it is a real murder case.
Lu Xiaoshuang's case must also be investigated. He cannot let this person go for both public and private reasons.
He gently held Lu Xiaoshuang's hand and said softly, "Xiaoshuang, I promise I won't let you get into danger again."
Late at night, the moonlight was gentle, shining on the two of them.
Lu Xiaoshuang's fingers moved slightly.
…
Zhou Yi felt a slight pain in his neck as he slept on the edge of the bed. This was mainly because the edge of the bed was too low. He couldn't stand bending down for a long time.
In a daze, he felt as if someone was touching his hair.
He looked up sleepily and saw Lu Xiaoshuang looking at him with her eyes open.
He thought he was still dreaming because he was confused in his sleep, but Lu Xiaoshuang smiled weakly at him, which made him realize that he was not dreaming.
"You're awake? That's great, you finally woke up, I was scared to death." Zhou Yi woke up all of a sudden, stood up and said in surprise and joy.
Lu Xiaoshuang was obviously still very weak. She wanted to speak, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out.
Zhou Yi grabbed his hand and said excitedly, "Don't move. You're still very weak. I'll go call a doctor."
Zhou Yi was about to leave, but found Lu Xiaoshuang's hand trying to hold him back.
Zhou Yi quickly comforted her softly, "It's okay, we're in the hospital, you're safe, no one can hurt you. I won't leave, I'll always be with you, don't worry."
Hearing this, Lu Xiaoshuang finally let go of her hand, tears streaming down her face.
But Zhou Yi had already hurried to find a doctor.
He called the doctors and nurses and followed them into the ward.
Suddenly someone patted his shoulder from behind.
Zhou Yi stopped and turned around to see a strange middle-aged man.
He was about to ask a question when the other party spoke first, "Are you Comrade Zhou Yi?"
Knowing himself? He was even more confused.
"I'm Zhou Yi, may I ask who you are?"
The man showed his ID. "I'm Xiang Jie from the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Provincial Public Security Department."
Provincial department? Corps?
Zhou Yi was shocked. Why would someone from the provincial department come to him?
Xiang Jie said with a serious expression: "Comrade Zhou Yi, thank you for your hard work. You can go back to Hongcheng now."
"What? I still have to take care of things here..."
Before Zhou Yi could finish his words, Xiang Jie interrupted him, saying, "Lu Xiaoshuang will be handed over to our task force for custody."
"Special task force??" Zhou Yi was even more confused. He had never heard of a special task force. And what the hell was a guard?
He suddenly felt a huge and inexplicable panic in his heart, because he suddenly remembered that in his previous life, there was a person named Xiang Jie among the members of the Hongda case task force. The information at that time only recorded that this person was from the Serious Crime Investigation Detachment of the Provincial Department's Criminal Investigation Corps.
"Officer Xiang, what is going on? Can I call my boss?" Zhou Yi said as he took out his cell phone.
But Xiang Jie's words made his fingers, which were about to dial, freeze instantly.
Xiang Jie said, "It's better not to. Comrade Wu Yongcheng is now a member of the special task force. You have no right to ask him about the case because you are not on the task force list."
"What?" Zhou Yi felt his head buzzing. He had only been away from Hongcheng for two days, so how did things turn out like this?
Xiang Jie's next words shocked Zhou Yi again. The degree of shock he felt was no less than when he received Shi Tao's call on the train that day.
Xiang Jie leaned forward and whispered in Zhou Yi's ear, "For Captain Wu's sake, I can only reveal one piece of information to you. Lu Xiaoshuang has been identified as a suspect, so you'd better cooperate."
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