Chapter 41
On the night Luo Hongmin was murdered, the place where Xiang Siling and her daughter Qian Sitian lived was called Yingzhushan Xingye Tent Camp. The campsite is located on a flat area near the top of the mountain and can be reached directly by car. Although it is called a tent camp, there are actually more than ten luxurious and spacious yurt rooms, fully equipped with air conditioning, floor heating, bathroom, and starry sky ceiling. Xiang Siling and her daughter live in yurt No. 1, which is located at the very edge of the camp, with no obstructions, the best view, and is also the farthest from the crowded tent area and public area.
Chen Pu and Li Qingyao went to the bar in the public area first, because Xiang Siling was last seen there that night.
The waiters and bartenders at the bar were all impressed by a beauty like Xiang Siling.
Chen Pu asked: "She was in the bar all night?"
"Yes, she sat by the window, and many people invited her to drink and dance."
"Did she agree?"
"Some agreed, some didn't. Beautiful women have the right to be picky."
"She left around 9 o'clock?"
"right."
"How do you remember it so clearly?"
The bartender smiled and said, "She's so pretty, everyone would pay more attention to her. And when she left, she said hello to us and said she was going to take the kids back to sleep. She was very gentle and polite. Police officer, why are you repeatedly investigating Miss Xiang? There won't be any problems with her, right?"
"Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask. Just answer whatever I ask. Do you know how much she drank that night?"
"It must have been a lot. She ordered four or five cocktails from me, and I don't know how many more she drank, including those offered by others. The drinks I mixed were very strong. She must have been drunk. When she left, she could hardly walk steadily."
Chen Pu and Li Qingyao looked at each other, and Li Qingyao asked, "She stayed in the bar all night, where is the child? Did she bring her child with her?"
The waiter replied: "No, our camp has taken this into consideration and has set up an indoor children's playground with special care. She left the child there and can just pick him up at the appointed time."
Chen Pu and Li Qingyao went to Si Ling's room again and asked for the waiter. Because the police had asked once before, and Xiang Siling was very good-looking, the waiter was impressed.
"Do you deliver breakfast to your room?"
"Yes, this is a service specially provided for VIP guests of the yurt. Some guests want to get up early to watch the sunrise, and some guests want to get up late. We will deliver meals according to the time requested by the guests. Of course, guests can also eat in the restaurant, and the set meals are all the same."
"What time did Xiang Siling ask you to deliver the food?"
The waiter had looked through the order record the last time the police came to investigate, and remembered it clearly: "7:30."
"Didn't she get drunk the night before? Didn't she ask you to deliver the food later?"
"I confirmed with her whether we should send the baby later. She said the baby wakes up at 7 o'clock every day, so we should send the baby at 7:30 to avoid starving the baby. All mothers should do this. Even if they cannot get up, they should wake the baby up. The little girl is very polite. She keeps saying thank you to the auntie at the age of 3. She is as beautiful as her mother and will definitely be a great beauty in the future."
"The previous transcript says that you saw Xiang Siling in the room at 7:30 in the morning?"
"yes."
Chen Pu hesitated for a moment and asked, "Who opened the door for you that day?"
The waiter was stunned for a moment and replied: "Yes...Oh, it was her daughter who opened the door."
"Who took the plate? Her daughter? Or did Xiang Siling come out to take it?"
The waiter thought for a moment and replied, "I can't remember. Maybe I brought it in and put it on the table, or maybe Miss Xiang came out to get it. But I definitely wouldn't give the tray to a child. It's quite heavy."
"If you can't even remember this, then do you remember where you saw Xiang Siling in person? At the door or in the room?"
The waiter frowned again, looking as if he was racking his brains, and finally said with certainty: "In the room, I should have sent the tray in."
Chen Pu pointed around: "When you saw Xiang Siling, where was she standing? By the bed? By the window? In the bathroom? Or sitting at the table?"
The waiter was stunned and replied, "I can't remember. It's been more than a week. I serve different guests every day, so it's impossible for me to remember clearly. But I remember that she was... supposed to be in the room."
——
Chen Pu asked the waiter to leave first, and he and Li Qingyao continued to walk around.
The two stood outside the yurt, looking at the surroundings. It was a bit chilly on the mountain at night. Li Qingyao hugged his arms, touched his cold arms, and asked, "Do you think she was drunk that night?"
Chen Pu put one hand in his trouser pocket. He didn't feel cold, just cool. He replied: "I don't know. Everyone can pretend to be drunk. Of course, it's possible that he is really drunk."
Li Qingyao smiled faintly. Later, Chen Pu asked the waitress about that part, which made her realize what it means to unravel a mystery. She asked again: "Do you suspect that Xiang Siling was not in the room at 7:30 in the morning and the waiter remembered it wrongly?"
"It can't be said that I remembered it wrongly. Waiters deliver meals every day. It's a repetitive, boring job that doesn't require much thought. Usually they deliver the meals, smile, say a few standard service phrases, and leave. Waiters are unlikely to pay attention to where the guests are, and they won't even look up at the guests. Even if you ask the waitress now who was in the rooms where she delivered meals this morning, I think she will definitely not remember. Unless something special happened that left a deep impression on her - but obviously that didn't happen that day.
If I were Xiang Siling, I would only need to use some tricks to forge an alibi. For example, I could leave the water in the bathroom running to pretend that someone was taking a shower; or let my daughter tell the waiter that mom was still sleeping; or even use a mobile phone to play her recorded voice in the room and say "leave the breakfast there". In addition, children that young usually cannot leave their mothers. In the waiter's vague and repetitive memory of the morning, there was probably an impression that someone was in the room. So when we asked her if she had seen Xiang Siling, she would think she had.
We have encountered this several times before where the eyewitness did not intentionally provide false testimony; he just had a fuzzy memory and subjectively thought he saw it. Therefore, the waiter's testimony was not convincing enough. This is called memory illusion. Do you understand what I mean? ”
"Nonsense, there is nothing you say that I can't understand."
Chen Pu smiled: "Yes, yes, you are the smartest one in the team." He noticed that she was shivering: "Cold?"
"A little bit." She glanced at him, "Why, you want to take off your clothes for me? Your T-shirt is all sweaty, and I won't wear it even if I'm freezing."
Chen Pu was wearing the same short-sleeved shirt as her, so of course he couldn't take it off and give it to her, otherwise where would he put his image as a people's policeman? He pointed at her with his finger: "Wait, I'll get some clothes, don't wear them if you dare."
He turned and left like a gust of wind, and Li Qingyao simply went into the yurt to stay warm. Not long after, he came over with a black short-sleeved T-shirt and said, "This is all I have in my car, do you want to wear it?"
Li Qingyao never suffered a loss. He took it and smelled it. There was only a slight smell of fresh laundry detergent. Chen Pu's face turned black: "It's clean! Do you dislike me so much?"
Li Qingyao put on the T-shirt and said, "I dislike all men who sweat a lot."
Chen Pu immediately retorted with a very unfashionable remark: "Can someone who doesn't sweat be called a man? Boiled chicken, pretty boy, fresh meat, which kind do you like?"
Li Qingyao: "Who knows? Maybe I just don't like men."
Chen Pu no longer wanted to talk to her.
However, despite the bickering, I have to say that my sister looks good in that big, loose men's T-shirt, which is a bit weird. She usually likes to wear fresh and pastoral colors, disguising herself like a simple and elegant lily. It was the first time that Chen Pu saw her wearing black. Although she was 165cm tall, the hem of her T-shirt still reached above her knees, and her thin arms and legs were swaying.
Li Qingyao also looked himself up and down, and raised his head calmly: "I know very well that I can handle any style. Stop being stunned and continue talking about the case. So, what we are facing is Schrödinger's Xiang Siling. That night, she may be drunk, or not; she may be in the room, or not."
Chen Pu was amused by her statement and smiled slightly. He said, "That's right. From Mingya Lake to Yingzhu Mountain, her alibi is perfect. Maybe it's all true, or maybe it's all false."
"What you said means that our trip was in vain and we didn't prove anything."
"No. Do you remember what I said when I went to see my master before? Whether it was the casual move of disguising as a wanted criminal to disrupt the police's sight, or the van prepared months in advance, the escape route planned in the vegetable market, and the perfect suspect who was sent to us but could not be found - all proved that the real murderer this time, or now we should say the mastermind, is an expert among experts.
I feel that Xiang Siling's alibi has the same flavor as the entire murder case: specious, suspicious in every way, but flawless.
I originally thought that if Xiang Siling was the mastermind, she might not have been at the scene and remotely controlled the man in the flowered shirt to kill people. Now, I feel that such a master, who planned for such a long time and made a sophisticated killing plan, would most likely not use other people to make the final move. ”
Li Qingyao said, "First, she can kill him herself to relieve her hatred, and second, she won't be able to implicate her accomplice. Unless she kills her accomplice as well."
"That's right."
"But Captain, I agree with what you said. But please face the reality - we still haven't found any evidence that Xiang Siling killed her, or even evidence that she was at the scene that night."
"Didn't I say that for this case, I want to figure out the story first, and the evidence will come naturally. You can't be impatient when fighting with such a master. And isn't Lao Ding investigating the evidence line? There are so many people, and Lao Ding is not just there to eat and do nothing. This time I am not the main person in charge of the case, and I don't have a specific task. Instead, I am free. Let's continue investigating, still assuming that Xiang Siling is the real murderer. We have already gone halfway around her path that night, and there is still a little left."
"You mean, we have to go from Yingzhu Mountain to Mingya Lake to kill people, just like she did that night?"
——
The two went to ask the campsite operator and learned that there was no public transportation down the mountain and that all guests coming to the campsite had to drive themselves. The nearest minibus to the city center stops at a town 2 kilometers away from the foot of the mountain. There are three night buses, with operating hours at 10:30, 12:30 and 3:00 respectively. This night bus route was opened mainly to facilitate villagers who have emergencies or medical treatment at night. Usually, almost no one takes this bus.
Chen Pu and Li Qingyao looked at the night bus route map and found that there was a stop halfway, only 3.5 kilometers away from the east side of Mingya Lake.
The two looked at each other. Was this another coincidence?
The camp parking lot surveillance had already been checked and it was found that Xiang Siling's car did not leave all night and she had not been to the parking lot. In addition, before Chen Pu arrived at Yingzhu Mountain, he asked Yan Yong to check the surveillance footage on the two downhill roads of Yingzhu Mountain that night - he did not dare to order Lao Ding around again, for fear that he would get angry. There were only a dozen or so cars coming down the mountain at night, and Yan Yong had already replied: Xiang Siling was not found.
In other words, Xiang Siling did not drive any vehicle down the mountain that night.
At this time, Li Qingyao's gaze stopped on the row of yellow shared bicycles outside the camp management office, which were provided to backpackers living in tents. Chen Pu also looked over and patted Li Qingyao on the shoulder: "Let's go, choose one, can you ride a bike?"
Li Qingyao: "Do you think my leg is lame?"
"Can you please talk properly?"
"Can you please stop asking stupid questions?"
It's not that the two of them always have the mood to bicker. They have been investigating since dawn and it is already 9:40 at night. They are very tired. But this point in time is a good opportunity to simulate Xiang Siling's path that night. The two of them were bickering at this time, but they had a tacit understanding between them, which helped them to refresh themselves and relax, making the journey less tiring.
Chen Pu asked Yan Yong to mark several surveillance locations on the map in advance, and consulted the camp staff for some detours. To simulate this, the two rode at their fastest speed, rushing down the mountain at lightning speed. 45 minutes later, the two men, sweating profusely, successfully bypassed all surveillance cameras on the road and arrived at the minibus station in the town, exactly 5 minutes before departure time.
It was late at night, the lights in the town were sparse, and there were almost no people on the streets. The minibus station is right on the roadside at the entrance of the town. It looks very shabby and can probably seat about sixteen or seventeen people. A skinny man in his fifties, wearing a T-shirt that had been washed so badly that its original color could not be seen, and shorts, was sitting in the driver's seat smoking. Seeing them, the driver was stunned. Chen Pu stepped on the pedal, and there was no passenger in the car.
"3 yuan per person." said the driver.
Chen Pu scanned the code to pay, then sat in the double seat behind the driver's seat with Li Qingyao. ⑥
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