Chapter Eighteen: The Discovery of the Corpse

  "On the second day after the '1225 Christmas Murder Case', Zhang Qiang also disappeared. He had never disappeared without a reason before, and every time he went somewhere, he would always inform Wu Hui. This time, his sudden disappearance made Wu Hui feel that something was off."

  Jing Ran and Zhang Qiang's successive disappearance made Wu Hui's mind greatly disturbed, causing significant deviations in his reasoning and side writing, making the case take many detours. Fortunately, he finally calmed himself down, but no one knew what method he used to calm himself down.

  Fortunately, under Wu Hui's repeated investigations and narrowing down the scope, they finally found the suspect they thought was the culprit at that time. They discovered Zhang Qiang, who was on his last breath, and after multiple treatments, he regained signs of life and slowly recovered.

  Jing Ran and Zhang Qiang are the two most important people in Wu Hui's life, so no matter what he doesn't want them to get hurt. Now that Zhang Qiang is back, Jing Ran is still missing, all he can do is protect Zhang Qiang well and continue to look for Jing Ran's whereabouts.

  The weather is getting colder and colder, as if it's going to snow. The police who are still searching for Liu Chong haven't found anything useful in the past few days. I've been eating poorly and my body can barely withstand the cold. The small team sent to investigate the supermarket also hasn't brought back any useful news.

  Guo Yining paced back and forth in the room, while Wu Hui was much calmer, just sitting there, staring out the window without saying a word. If Zhang Qiang were here, he would definitely understand that Wu Hui's heart must be extremely anxious at this moment.

  It has been four days and the weather is getting colder. If it snows, will Han Xue and Wang He still have a chance to survive?

  Kuo Yin-ning had just finished listening to the report. This was already the last group call he received today. Was it still a complete loss for today?

  Guo Yining hung up the phone and looked at Wu Hui, who was sitting there without saying a word. Just as he was about to speak, Wu Hui's mobile phone rang, and Wu Hui took it out to see that it was a message from Zhang Qiang.

  Since Wu Hui sent Zhang Qiang back, he hadn't seen Zhang Qiang send him a message for two days. Due to being busy with the case, he temporarily forgot about this matter. It wasn't until he received Zhang Qiang's text that Wu Hui realized Zhang Qiang hadn't contacted him in two days.

  Zhang Qiang's text message was very brief, only a few words, "East head of Zhangwangzhuang Village small shop", seeing these few words, Wu Hui instantly understood that Zhang Qiang still didn't listen to him and went to investigate the clue himself.

  Wu Hui showed the text message to Guo Yining, who immediately understood Zhang Qiang's meaning. He called up Fang You and Wang Hua, and the four of them drove to Zhangwang Village at full speed.

  Zhang Wang Zhuang is a village adjacent to the national highway, although it's not very developed, but the economy is still good. In this village, there is only one small grocery store, which is located at the east end of the village. It's run by a widow with her child. Because it's hard for a woman to raise a child alone, people in the village like to buy things from this small grocery store.

  Wu Hui and his friends stopped their car at the entrance of a small grocery store, which was actually just a small house with not many things inside.

  The shop owner, who had heard the noise, walked out from behind the curtain and saw that the four men standing in the house were strangers. The shop owner was stunned, wondering why there had been unfamiliar people coming to her small grocery store for several days.

  To ease the shop owner's tension, Guo Yining took out his ID card and said, "Don't be nervous, we are police officers. Have there been any strangers or suspicious people coming to your place in the past few days?"

  "Someone asked me this question before." The shop owner felt a bit relieved when he heard that the person was a police officer, "He also came by car and asked the same questions as you."

  "A bit shorter than me, with slightly long hair, permed and dyed brown?" Wu Hui heard the shopkeeper say someone had come to ask about it, and hastily told her Zhang Qiang's appearance, wanting to confirm if it was indeed Zhang Qiang.

  "It was him, a pretty good-looking young man. He bought some things from me and asked me that question earlier. I told him that previously, there was indeed an outsider who came to my place to buy things, buying a huge amount of stuff, almost enough to clear out everything in this house." She had just restocked when she encountered a wealthy person who basically bought up all the food here.

  Wu Hui was anxious, hoping he could still catch up with Zhang Qiang. He went alone to find Liu Chong, and it would definitely be dangerous. "Then which direction did he go?"

  "I told that man, the one who bought something from me went east, and he also drove his car east." The shop owner pointed to the direction they both left.

  "What's on the east side, do you know?" Guo Yining wanted to know if there was a place to hide on the east side.

  "What's there, about two miles away? There's a chaotic grave mound, we rarely go there." The shop owner thought these outsiders were strange, why they liked to run to such places. If she didn't know that Guo Yining and the others were police officers, she would have thought they came to rob graves.

  Fang You saw Wu Hui's anxious expression and hastily urged them to hurry up and get going, "Alright, thank you, Captain Guo, let's set off quickly."

  After a few people got on the car, Guo Yining quickly started the car and drove east towards the village. "Don't worry, Zhang Qiang won't find Liu Chong that easily, we'll definitely catch up with him."

  Because it was a village, there were few cars passing by. On the way to the village, Guo Yining saw a row of tire tracks and knew they belonged to Zhang Qiang's car. Following these tracks would definitely lead him to Zhang Qiang.

  As expected, at the place where the shopkeeper said was Luanyanggang, they saw the marks of a car that had stopped there before. Wu Hui hastily got out of the car and searched around, but all he could see in Luanyanggang were withered branches and rotten leaves, and couldn't tell which direction Zhang Qiang had gone after getting off the car.

  Guo Yining had four people search separately to see if there were any clues left by Zhang Qiang.

  This place is probably where people in the village used to bury their relatives, but after decades have passed, with the passage of time, it has gradually been forgotten.

  Wu Hui carefully searched for any signs, hoping to find some valuable clues.

  "Captain Guo, Captain Guo, we've found something!" Upon hearing Wang Hua's shout, several people quickly ran in the direction where Wang Hua was.

  In a chaotic burial ground, I saw Han Xue, her eyes wide open, mouth slightly agape, as if she wanted to say something, her head tilted, leaning on her right shoulder.

  Wu Hui crouched down to examine Han Xue's body. From the corpse, he could tell that Liu Chong was now in a state of fury and had lost his patience. At this moment, Liu Chong was extremely dangerous. Looking at the trampled dry leaves around the body, Zhang Qiang should have also discovered the body, observed it for a while, and then left again.

  Guo Yining made a phone call to inform Wang Siting, asking her to bring people over, then asked Wang Hua to stay at the scene and protect it well, waiting for Wang Siting.

  Wu Hui and three others got on the car and continued searching for Zhang Qiang.

  "Wu Hui, don't worry for now. Zhang Qiang must have found some clue and left, if he hadn't found any clue, he would have stayed to continue searching. You calm down first, there must be some details that you missed. Think carefully." Wu Hui comforted himself while looking at the scene, a lot of things will be overlooked when one's mind is in disarray.

  Guo Yining is right, Zhang Qiang must have discovered something. What exactly did he see? Wu Hui made an effort to calm himself down and think back to Han Xue's corpse again.

  Her eyes were wide open, her mouth slightly ajar, her head tilted to the side and resting on her right shoulder. Her hands hung down at both sides of her body, her legs were spread apart, and she was fully clothed. What exactly was different? What did Zhang Qiang see or take from the corpse?

  Wu Hui replayed the situation of Han Xue in his mind over and over again, then carefully replayed each part of her body, trying to find the clue that Zhang Qiang had discovered.

  Wait, fingernail, yes, there was a dirty thing on the little finger of Han Xue's right hand. Wu Hui saw it at that time, but he was worried about Zhang Qiang and thought it was dirt from the corpse in the chaotic tomb. Now thinking back, it doesn't make sense. The chaotic tomb had withered branches and yellow mud, but the thing on Han Xue's little finger was red, a red mud.

  "I get it, the direction was wrong, heading west is not heading east. Liu Chong intentionally threw the body in the opposite direction." Wu Hui quickly took out his phone to search for places with red soil in the city.

  Liu Chong was worried that he would be monitored and photographed when buying things in the supermarket, so he chose a small supermarket in the village. However, he overlooked one thing: usually, villagers don't buy that many things at once.

  He is an outsider and then buys so many things, he will definitely be remembered.

  However, Liu Chong was a very clever person and he should have thought of this too. So he deliberately walked east to disrupt the police's investigation direction.

  As expected, Guo Yining and the others found this small village, and from the mouths of the villagers, they inquired about Liu Chong's direction after he left. Liu Chong was worried that the police would see through his plan, so he threw down Han Xue's body in the direction he was heading east, allowing the police to further confirm that Liu Chong was indeed somewhere on the eastern side of the village.

  Unfortunately, he overlooked one thing - when he was dragging Han Xue's body, her fingers touched the red soil that only existed in one place.

  "How did you know it was west?" Fang You didn't understand how Wu Hui knew that Liu Chong's location was in the west and not in the east.

  Wu Hui told Fang You about his discovery earlier, and then shared his analysis. Through a mobile network query, he found that there was only one place with red soil, which was on a hillside 15 kilometers away from Zhang Wang Zhuang, where there was a patch of red soil.

  Through navigation inquiry, Guo Yining found a slightly closer route and hoped to find Liu Chong before Zhang Qiang arrived.

  Kuo Yining drove quickly on the uneven road, and the people in the car were shaken so hard that they could only hold tightly to the armrests, feeling as if their internal organs were about to be rearranged.

  Guo Yining turned the car around on the small road, and just when Wu Hui and others were about to vomit, the car turned onto a slightly wider road. It was an earth road, but it was still relatively stable, and Wu Hui adjusted his posture slightly.

  Due to the high speed of the vehicle, a thick layer of yellow dust was raised at the place where the car left.