Chapter 414 My Little Piece of Land
Chen Yan stood at the door of the detention room with his back to the room.
According to regulations, Lu Xiaoshuang is still a suspect. If investigators want to see her, at least two people must be present, and all conversations must be recorded.
However, in this case, it is better to turn a blind eye. It is definitely not appropriate to write it down.
Chen Yan leaned against the door with his shoulders folded, and couldn't help but smile.
It seems that one of the two bottles of Moutai that Master has collected will have a chance to be opened.
Well, I guess Brother Biao will be happy.
Lu Xiaoshuang vented her emotions through crying.
The crying was different from the crying during the previous interrogation. It was a cry of uneasiness and fear caused by recalling what had happened to her.
But seeing Zhou Yi crying was like a wronged child meeting an adult he could rely on.
After crying, her emotions gradually calmed down.
Only then did she realize that her behavior with Zhou Yi was too intimate.
From childhood to adulthood, she had never been so close to a man other than her father.
Her face suddenly turned red and she struggled to break free from Zhou Yi's arms.
Of course Zhou Yi let go immediately, after all, this was still the detention room of the Municipal Bureau.
"Don't cry anymore?" Zhou Yi asked with a smile.
Lu Xiaoshuang blushed, lowered her head and shook her head.
"It's okay, you are safe now, don't worry." Zhou Yi touched her head and said as if coaxing a child.
Lu Xiaoshuang looked up, her eyes were red and swollen, and her face was also red. It was hard to tell whether it was because of crying or because she was embarrassed.
"Brother Zhou, I... I haven't had a bad influence on you, right?" she asked timidly.
This one sentence made Zhou Yi feel heartbroken again.
She is in such a state, yet she still wonders whether it will affect herself.
"No, we are all upright and have a clear conscience. Didn't you say that a society ruled by law relies on evidence?"
Lu Xiaoshuang hesitated to speak.
Zhou Yi knew she wanted to ask about Xu Liu, but Zhou Yi couldn't tell her anything, so he could only continue to comfort her: "Give me some more time, and today I will go with Brother Yan to verify everything you said yesterday, and you will be able to leave here soon."
Lu Xiaoshuang didn't ask if it was true, but nodded seriously and said, "Well, I believe you."
Chen Yan coughed.
Zhou Yi stood up from the bed.
Someone passed by the door of the detention room.
"Brother Yan, let's go to the interrogation room and confirm the appearance characteristics and other information of several key witnesses. It will be dawn soon, so let's confirm it as soon as possible." Zhou Yi said.
Chen Yan nodded.
Lu Xiaoshuang called out "Hello, Officer Chen" obediently.
Chen Yan smiled and almost blurted out "Hello, sister-in-law."
In the interrogation room, Zhou Yi asked Lu Xiaoshuang some detailed questions. Chen Yan was responsible for taking notes and finally asked Lu Xiaoshuang to confirm and sign.
After questioning, Zhou Yi sent Lu Xiaoshuang back to the detention room and told her that it might take another day or two.
Lu Xiaoshuang showed her usual warm smile and said, "Brother Zhou, don't worry. Sister Qiao also said that I am safe now. You go and investigate the case. I only hope..."
Lu Xiaoshuang's eyes turned red, and she choked up and said, "I hope you can catch the murderer who killed Xu Liu as soon as possible."
Zhou Yi nodded. This was Lu Xiaoshuang. She was so pure and kind. She was not indifferent to Xu Liu's affairs just because she had conflicts with her in the past.
Zhou Yi gritted his teeth and said, "Xiao Shuang, don't worry. This time, I will definitely find the murderer. He can't get away with it forever!"
After watching Zhou Yi disappear from the narrow field of vision, Lu Xiaoshuang returned to the iron bed and sat down. She felt much more at ease.
Zhou Yi is like the anchor in her heart.
But she also had doubts. After all, she was so smart, but she didn't know whether she should express her doubts.
Because she remembered what Zhou Yi had said to her and his concern for her safety.
She seemed to feel that Zhou Yi seemed to have known that he was in danger a long time ago.
And she had a vague feeling of unease, as if she was the one who was supposed to die.
…
The sky brightened and it was May 9th.
The tenth day since the great incident of this life took place.
Although compared with the previous life, due to the clues brought about by various changes in the case, there has been great progress compared to the previous life.
But this also comes with greater mysteries and logical gaps.
There are three most important things right now.
First, help Lu Xiaoshuang clear her suspicion.
Second, find Xiao Bing.
Third, find out the man who supports Xu Liu.
Zhou Yi and Chen Yan first went to the bus company, which was the easiest to check. The bus company had a schedule, and they could easily find out who was the driver and conductor for Route 68 that day.
Coincidentally, these two people were on duty today, so Zhou Yi and Chen Yan found them with Lu Xiaoshuang's photo and asked them to identify her.
The driver was not sure, but the female conductor said with certainty that the girl got on the bus at Hongda Station at 1:00 p.m. on the 30th and sat in the seat next to him in the aisle.
She also remembered that when she got off the bus, because there were not many people on the bus at that time, she was counting the change, and a one-dollar coin fell, and it was Lu Xiaoshuang who picked it up for her.
After picking it up and handing it to her, the car stopped at the station and Lu Xiaoshuang got off.
Zhou Yi asked the other party to sign the transcript, so that it would have the legal effect of an eyewitness.
After coming out of the bus company, Chen Yan asked Zhou Yi whether to go to the restaurant first or to the area near your home first.
Zhou Yi thought for a moment and said, "Let's go to my place first. It's not even nine o'clock yet, and restaurants usually open late, so let's go last."
Chen Yan nodded and stepped on the accelerator.
After arriving at the Ergang dormitory, Zhou Yi felt a little troubled standing at his door.
Lu Xiaoshuang said that the aunt selling apples was pushing a tricycle, which meant that she was not a fixed vendor but a mobile vendor, so it was impossible for her to set up a stall here every day.
Mobile vendors will move to wherever business is good, so how can we find them?
Moreover, he and Chen Yan had also checked the alley next to the Ergang dormitory. After all, the time interval was very long, and it was an open road, so it was impossible to extract footprints.
There wouldn't be any witnesses, if there were, they would have called the police long ago.
However, traces of being bent and struggling were found in the one-meter-high weeds on the side of the road.
Chen Yan almost crawled on the ground looking for clues. His hard work paid off and he finally found a footprint that was less than a quarter of the size after clearing away the weeds.
The reason why it is less than a quarter is because only the front part of the footprint is embedded in the soil, deep in the front and shallow in the back.
Chen Yan called Zhou Yi over to take a look. After examining the footprint, Zhou Yi said, "The front end of this footprint is so deep, it must have been left with great force. I guess the murderer was holding Xiao Shuang hostage, and she struggled so hard that the murderer accidentally left it with his force."
Chen Yan nodded. "Yeah, and because it was covered by weeds all around, the killer didn't notice it. To be honest, I almost missed it just now."
Zhou Yi immediately took out his cell phone and called the technical department, asking them to send someone over immediately to collect evidence and samples.
While waiting, the two continued to look for clues nearby. Zhou Yi found a rotten apple in a dry drainage ditch near the wall of the Ergang dormitory.
Although it is impossible to confirm whether this is one of the apples Lu Xiaoshuang bought at that time, the fact that only one was found means that the other three must have been picked up by someone.
People from the technical department came and extracted the information about that quarter of the footprint and took some soil samples for archiving.
They said that judging from the size of the footprint, it was probably left by a male, but the specific size and sole lines need to be further restored after they return, after all, there is too little information about this footprint.
After finishing this, Chen Yan checked the time and asked Zhou Yi, "What should we do next? Are we just going to sit here and wait for the aunt who bought the apples to show up?"
Zhou Yi touched his chin and thought about it. It was indeed not a good idea to just wait like this.
When I looked up, my sight passed over the solid courtyard wall and saw the tube-shaped building where I lived.
Zhou Yi clapped his hands and thought to himself, "You're so silly. This is my home, my own piece of land."
There were people from Ergang everywhere around, and no one witnessed Lu Xiaoshuang being held hostage. Doesn’t anyone know about the aunt who bought the apples?
"Brother Yan, come with me." Zhou Yi said as he walked towards the Ergang dormitory area.
His family lives in the first tube-shaped building, and Uncle Ma's duty room is downstairs.
"Uncle Ma."
"Hey, isn't this Zhou Yi? I haven't seen you for a while."
Zhou Yi took out Lu Xiaoshuang's photo and asked, "Uncle Ma, have you seen this girl?"
Uncle Ma took a closer look and said, "Isn't this the girl from your family? I must have seen her before."
"It's my fault. I didn't ask clearly. Did you see her come to our house the day before Labor Day?"
"The day before Labor Day? I didn't seem to notice. What's going on?"
"It's okay. Uncle Ma, please lend me your pot and shovel."
A few minutes later, Zhou Yi took the pot in his left hand and the spatula in his right hand, and knocked on them as he walked, making a deafening banging sound.
Everyone at home was startled, and they instinctively thought that it was Zhou Jianguo ringing the gong again.
They all ran out to see what was happening, and found out that it was not Zhou Jianguo, but his son Zhou Yi.
"Hey, the ancestors of the Zhou family used to beat the big gong. If the father doesn't beat it, the son will do it."
Due to layoffs, many people are staying at home, after all, it is not possible to find a new job immediately.
Everyone wants to see what Zhou Yi is going to do.
Zhou Yi looked around and felt that it was almost time. He stood where his father had stood not long ago and shouted, "Dear uncles and aunts, you are all my elders. You have watched me, Zhou Yi, grow up. I need you to do me a favor now. This is very important to me."
Someone standing on the balcony said, "Zhou Yi, if you have anything to say, just tell me. If anyone bullies you, your Uncle Wang will support you."
Someone nearby laughed and said, "Old Wang, come on, Zhou Yi is a police officer, and he still needs your support. Can you support him with your herniated disc?"
Randomly, Zhou Yi asked three questions.
1. Does anyone know the aunt who sells apples on a tricycle at the door? She is about 45 years old, about 1.55 meters tall, a little fat, has a mole on the left side of her chin, and speaks with a local accent.
Second, did anyone find three apples and a red plastic bag in the alley next door on April 30th?
Around 2:00 PM on April 30th, has anyone seen Lu Xiaoshuang?
Sure enough, mobilizing the masses was the most effective method, and progress was soon made.
Someone accurately provided the name of the aunt selling apples. It turned out that she was a family member of a laid-off worker from a steel company. Knowing the name made things easier.
Then an old lady came running over and asked Zhou Yi, "Is it illegal to pick up apples?"
Zhou Yi knew that it must be the old lady who picked up the apple, so he quickly said that it was not illegal.
Sure enough, around three o'clock in the afternoon on the 30th, the aunt came back from outside and picked up three apples when passing the alley next to her. Two of them fell on the road and one was in a red plastic bag.
Zhou Yi and Chen Yan were very excited and took a statement from the aunt and asked her to sign for confirmation.
The old lady asked hesitantly, "Picking apples is really not illegal? If I sign, you won't arrest me, right?"
Zhou Yi and Chen Yan were at a loss for words, and the old lady finally signed after much persuasion.
At this time, the aunt who had already left came back.
Said: "Well, Zhou Yi, I remembered, I picked up something."
When Zhou Yi and Chen Yan heard this, they immediately became excited and asked what it was.
The aunt said, "A bag of white flour."
"White flour?" This confused the two of them. They had never heard of flour in the clues of the case.
Zhou Yi asked, "Auntie, where did you pick it up?"
The old lady pointed to the alley next to her and said, "It's in that alley."
Zhou Yi was even more puzzled. What a coincidence! He asked again, "Was it also picked up on the afternoon of April 30th?"
The aunt shook her head and said, "No, I picked it up yesterday."
Zhou Yi was speechless for a moment: "Auntie, you are so lucky. Go out for a walk more often in the future. As long as you don't pick up valuables, it's not illegal. Go ahead."
Apart from the small vendors and picking apples, the only thing left was whether anyone had seen Lu Xiaoshuang.
Finally, there was a guy from the building behind who said that when he was riding his bike, he saw a girl walking out of your building. He didn’t remember the exact time, but it was in the afternoon.
After finding almost all the witnesses, Zhou Yi took Chen Yan directly back to Yigang dormitory to inquire. They happened to meet Grandpa Zhou Asi who was playing chess with a few old men downstairs.
Several old men were retired workers from a steel company. As soon as they heard the name, they said she was the wife of so-and-so.
Zhou Yi and Chen Yan followed the map and finally found the auntie selling things on the roadside.
After revealing her identity and explaining her purpose, the aunt pointed at the photo in Zhou Yi's hand and nodded repeatedly, saying that she remembered this girl and that she came to ask for directions on the afternoon of April 30th.
"I didn't intend to ask her to buy my apples. I thought she wasn't well off, as her schoolbag was covered in patches. But she took the initiative to ask me if the apples were hard, saying her grandmother was old and had bad teeth, and she was worried she wouldn't be able to chew them if they were too hard. I picked out a few crispy ones for her, and she ended up buying four."
"Auntie, let me ask you another question. When the girl asked for directions, did you see her go into the alley next to her?"
The aunt nodded and said she saw it.
This was within Zhou Yi's expectations, because under normal circumstances, as long as people are not busy, they will instinctively pay attention to whether the person they are pointing to is going in the right direction.
Zhou Yi quickly asked again, "Did you see anyone nearby follow this girl into the alley?"
Auntie thought for a moment and said, "I'm not sure about that. It seems like someone turned into the alley behind this girl, but he came from that end."
It was an unexpected surprise that there were witnesses.
Zhou Yi hurriedly asked how tall the man looked and what his body shape was like.
But in the end, the aunt said that her eyesight was not very good and she had chronic glaucoma. Everything she saw from a distance was blurry. She only knew that it was a person wearing black clothes, and she could not see anything else clearly.
This was like pouring a bucket of cold water on Zhou Yi and Chen Yan. After all, this person was most likely the murderer who kidnapped and knocked Lu Xiaoshuang unconscious.
How can one not feel helpless when there are witnesses but they are unable to provide useful information?
Finally, after confirming the aunt's ID card information, he asked her to confirm and sign, and asked her to leave a contact information, because there is no possibility of contacting her to review the situation later.
Up to this point, Lu Xiaoshuang's confession has been basically confirmed, although she was unable to provide relevant evidence from the time she was knocked unconscious to the time she was discovered.
However, since 1996, the presumption of innocence has been officially written into the law. However, the habits and cognition of criminal investigators in the actual process of handling cases are still slowly adjusting.
However, the nature of the task force itself is different from that of regular cases. It is being watched from all sides, so every move must naturally be more cautious.
Take these witnesses back and put them in front of several leaders. The rest depends on what the leaders think.
As for the restaurant that Lu Xiaoshuang mentioned, it should actually be part of the investigation into Xu Liu's clues.
The clue itself is not complicated. It is nothing more than taking Xu Liu's photo and finding the hotel's front desk and supervisor to confirm.
The first is to confirm that Lu Xiaoshuang did not lie about this clue.
The second is to confirm that Xu Liu is indeed planning to interview for a part-time waiter position.
Then we can conduct further investigation based on the last two points of analysis mentioned by Zhou Yi.
But Zhou Yi wanted to investigate this line. In addition to checking all the information about Lu Xiaoshuang so that he could feel at ease sooner, he also wanted to investigate the sexual harassment of the foreman that Lu Xiaoshuang mentioned.
In the previous life, when the task force was investigating Lu Xiaoshuang’s social relations, they found this restaurant called Haoyunlai.
But it was just a routine investigation, because Lu Xiaoshuang had actually only worked here for a month and a half. The restaurant owner and the foreman both confirmed that she resigned and left before the Chinese New Year. They were not surprised because they knew she was a college student working part-time.
No one in the hotel saw her again. After the task force confirmed some information, they ruled out the suspicion of anyone related to the hotel. After all, it had been so long and there was no motive.
The investigation in the previous life did not mention any information about sexual harassment. It was either some very mild physical contact, commonly known as molestation, or the incident was relatively covert and no one else knew about it except the foreman and Lu Xiaoshuang.
Otherwise, just based on the charge of sexual harassment, he will be brought back to the task force for interrogation for at least 48 hours!
In this life, this information came from Lu Xiaoshuang's mouth, so Zhou Yi naturally had to investigate it carefully.
Both publicly and privately, this foreman must pay a price!
Originally, the two of them thought that it was just time for lunch, so they might as well go have a meal and find out more about the situation.
But when he really stood at the door of Good Luck Restaurant, Zhou Yi suddenly lost his appetite.
This Haoyunlai Restaurant is an authentic Northeastern restaurant. It is not large in scale and its decoration is in a strong large floral quilt style, which is gaudy and tacky.
The corners of the sign at the door were covered in grease stains, which made people feel sick just by looking at it.
"Forget it, I won't eat. I don't have an appetite just looking at it. Let's just go in and ask. After that, we'll find a clean noodle shop and have a bowl of beef noodles." Zhou Yi said.
Chen Yan nodded and walked in with Zhou Yi.
Although it was dinner time, there were not many customers inside, only a few tables scattered around.
The lady at the front desk was wearing heavy makeup, the powder on her face was almost enough to paint the wall.
Seeing the two people come in, he raised his eyelids and asked indifferently, "You two?"
Zhou Yi walked over and showed his ID: "From the Municipal Public Security Bureau."
When she saw the police ID, the elder sister quickly stood up and said politely, "Hey, two leaders, please come in."
Then he shouted inside: "Dabao, there are guests."
Zhou Yi said, "We are not here to eat. We want to find out more about the situation from your foreman."
When she heard that they were not here for dinner, the eldest sister's face instantly drooped.
At this time, a fat man about 1.7 meters tall and not very good-looking came over with an impatient look on his face, yelling, "Sister, guests are here, so what are you calling me for?"
Then he saw Zhou Yi and Chen Yan at the door.
It is obvious that the appearance of the two sides is completely unequal. One is a tall and upright criminal policeman, and the other is a wretched, ugly fat man.
But the fat man looked at the two of them with disdain.
The fat man pouted and asked, "Just the two of you? Why don't you just come in and sit down when you're ready to eat? What's so pretentious about having to wait for someone else to come out and treat you?"
The lady at the front desk ate some sunflower seeds and said, "I'm not here to eat. I'm a police officer. I want to ask you something. What bad things have you done again? I'm telling you, I'm not going to clean up your mess this time."
When he heard that it was the police, the fat man's face changed instantly, and the disdain in his eyes immediately turned into a hint of fear.
Although the fat man immediately pretended to take out a cigarette case to avoid Zhou Yi's sight, Zhou Yi saw his eyes and thought, wow, it seems that this is a person with a criminal record.
The fat man said innocently, "Sister, I've been very honest recently. I just played mahjong and drank with them. I didn't do anything."
Zhou Yi didn't want to listen to her nonsense, so he took out Lu Xiaoshuang's photo and asked, "Have you seen this person?"
The fat man's facial features twisted together, he looked at it and said, "I think... I think I've seen it before..."
"There was a female college student who worked part-time here for over a month. Don't you remember her?"
The fat man looked at it again, nodded and said, "It seems to be true, sister, come and take a look."
The lady sitting at the front desk stood up, looked at the photo and said, "That's Xiao Lu. Business is busy at the store, so I asked her to work overtime. But she told me she couldn't go home if it was too late. I said if she couldn't go home, she could stay at the store. She could just push some stools together and sleep."
"In the end, she refused and just ran away. I was so angry." The eldest sister said with a frown.
The fat man continued, "Oh, I remember now. Didn't you deduct fifty yuan from her salary for absenteeism? I saw her hiding in the corner of the kitchen crying secretly."
The fat man and the elder sister laughed out loud, as if it was something very interesting.
The eldest sister even mocked her, "You're still a college student, but you still have to serve dishes for me."
Zhou Yi's anger level instantly reached its maximum.
But the eldest sister was completely unaware and was still madly courting death. She asked Zhou Yi, "What's going on? Was she the one who got killed recently?"
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