Chapter 4: The Butcher

  Wu Hui discovered that there was a problem with one of the men who was with Sun Wenping, as he was slightly taller than ordinary people. Through image processing, Wu Hui found that this person's hand was somewhat different.

  This person has thick and large palms, with many calluses inside the palm. It is likely that he often grips something tightly, resulting in these calluses from constant force. Looking at the tiger's mouth position, there are multiple scars, which should be accumulated injuries over the years.

  "This is a hand that wields a knife." Wang Si-ting knew a lot about the human body, and from the information provided by the scene, she inferred, "This person should be a butcher."

  Wu Hui agreed with Wang Si-ting's inference, and knew that he was a butcher who had not been used yet. He needed to find more clues. At this time, Wu Hui discovered that there was something strange on his clothes. "That's right, it should be... look at what's stuck on his clothes?"

  "It seems to be wet paint, and there are stripes with the same spacing. He must have leaned against something." Wang Si Ting discovered that the stripes on his body had a hairy, scattered shape, which should have been stained with paint without him knowing it, and then he leaned against another place, causing friction.

  "What does this spacing look like? I feel like I've seen it somewhere before, but I don't know where." Wu Hui pointed at the paint-like substance on the man's body, feeling like he had seen it somewhere before.

  Wang Siting suddenly remembered that there were many chairs in their neighborhood that provided rest for people, and the backrests of those chairs were just like this horizontal bar shape. "Park benches, do you think they look like park benches or community benches?"

  Wu Hui agreed with Wang Si Ting's analysis and compared it with the previous day's footage, discovering the problem. "That's right, very similar. Look again at the footage when they first appeared, he was wearing this same outfit, but there was no paint, yet this time it appears, only one day apart, I think we should be able to roughly guess the time and distance."

  Wu Hui discovered that the problem was a recent missing person case. The location of the disappearance was the subway station, and the time was February 1st, which was also the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, or Small New Year's Eve. The missing person was a 26-year-old woman named Qin Pei. After graduating from university, Qin Pei had not found her ideal job, so she stayed at home and worked as an online writer, earning some pocket money and at least not having to ask her family for living expenses.

  Qin Pei spent most of her time at home and rarely went out. How did the human traffickers target her, and how did they make their move?

  At 10:37 on February 1st, Qin Pei left her home, which is just opposite the entrance of Metro Line 2. After entering the subway station, Qin Pei also entered the surveillance area.

  From the surveillance footage, it can be seen that Qin Pei wore a light yellow top that day, carrying a black backpack with rivets and wearing blue jeans and camel-colored snow boots, with earphones in her ears.

  After entering the subway. She directly swiped her transportation card to enter the station, and soon the subway she was taking arrived. Since there weren't many people, it wasn't crowded, and she smoothly entered the carriage and sat down.

  "Wait, look here!" There were no surveillance cameras inside the subway, so it was unclear what happened inside. However, from the surveillance footage at the subway station, it could be seen that there were two people sitting on either side of Qin Pei. Looking at the silhouettes of the two individuals, Wu Hui felt a strong sense of familiarity, especially with the man's silhouette, which was exactly the butcher they had been looking for.

  Wang Siting recognized the figure from behind. "Butcher? If this woman isn't mistaken, it should be Sun Wenping. They might have gotten on at the last stop, but how did they know Sun Wenping would take this train, and how did they know she'd sit in this seat? Isn't all of this a bit too coincidental?"

  Wu Hui asked Wang Si Ting to retrieve the previous footage. "We retrieved the footage of Sun Wenping leaving home before, you see she always appears in this carriage when taking the subway, this carriage is at the front, there are fewer people sitting here compared to other carriages, she chose a less crowded carriage, it became one of her habits."

  "This point can be explained, but she definitely wouldn't just take this bus, so how did those two know and deliberately leave this seat empty?" Although the explanation made sense to some extent, there were still many coincidences that couldn't be explained.

  Wu Hui lowered his head and took the mouse from Wang Si Ting's hand. "Let's take a look at Qin Pei's departure time again. Most of the time, it was around this time, and she always got off at a fixed bus stop. This made the suspect discover the pattern. And did you notice that there were two people who appeared beside Qin Pei? One person is missing, and another man went somewhere else. If I'm not wrong, that person must be near Qin Pei. He told the other two people about Qin Pei's departure time, and then they inferred which bus Qin Pei was likely to take."

  Sure, here is the translation:

  As expected, just like Wu Hui had guessed, in the subway hall, I saw another relatively slender man. After seeing Qin Pei standing in the waiting area, he made a phone call.

  "Let's go, we're going to the subway station." Wu Hui didn't seem to be discussing with Wang Si Ting, but rather giving orders.

  Wang Siting also didn't find anything wrong, stood up, picked up her coat and bag, and left the office with Wu Hui.

  Upon arrival at the station where Qin Pei was sitting, Wu Hui went directly to the surveillance room. After showing their police IDs, the staff in the surveillance room retrieved the footage from the time period they were looking for. Through the thin man's phone records, they found that Sun Wenping and Tu Fu were waiting in the waiting area at that time.

  The two of them sat there motionless until they received a phone call, which should have been the one telling them that Qin Pei was ready to board. Then the two stood up and walked to the waiting area for the first car.

  After entering the carriage, the two sat down. The butcher, due to his tall stature, occupied the space of two people. At that moment, a man who looked like he was on his way to work walked over and was about to sit down but after taking a glance at the butcher, he meekly went to another carriage to sit instead.

  This can also explain why there was an empty seat in the carriage when Qin Pei got on, it was a seat that the butcher had reserved especially for her.

  Wu Hui inquired about the time of departure for that subway train on that day, and then boarded it with Wang Si Ting. They sat in the same carriage as Qin Pei at the time.

  When they found Qin Pei's seat, they indeed found some paint scratches on the chair surface, which could be 100% confirmed that the person sitting there at that time was Butcher.

  At that time, when Qin Pei got off the car, Sun Wenping was also getting off with her, which has been seen in the surveillance video. Later, the butcher followed closely behind, and he and a relatively thin man were walking together, following far behind Sun Wenping.

  The four of them then disappeared from surveillance and were never found again.

  Wu Hui took out his mobile phone and dialed a number, "Hello, Captain Guo, I want you to check if there were any newly painted benches around Qin Peizhou on January 31st, the day before Little New Year's Eve, and on Little New Year's Eve itself. Specifically, I'm looking for dark red oil-painted long chairs."

  "Alright, I know." Guo Yining didn't ask Wu Hui the reason for doing so, he believed that Wu Hui's actions must be related to the case.

  According to Guo Yining's investigation, it was indeed found that a long bench with paint scratched off by Mi Fen was discovered in a square one kilometer away from Qin Pei's home. One of the benches had its paint scratched off, and after retrieving the surveillance footage from that time, due to it being nighttime, it was unclear who the person sitting on the bench was. However, judging from his tall back silhouette, it should be Butcher without a doubt.

  Guo Yining then investigated nearby small hotels to find where the three of them were staying.

  The inn is relatively informal and does not require checking ID cards, as long as there is an ID number. Sun Wenping and the three of them will definitely choose to stay in such a place.

  In one of the inns, according to the boss's recollection, Sun Wenping and three others did stay at this inn for a week, but they had already checked out. Through their registered ID numbers, it was completely scribbled and could not be investigated for any value.

  However, the boss of the store provided an important piece of information: all three people were not locals, and their accents were all from the Sichuan-Chongqing area, which greatly narrowed down the scope of their investigation.

  With the strong support of the police in both Sichuan and Chongqing, the identities of the two were soon investigated.

  The man called Li Dazhuang, who was referred to as a butcher by Wu Hui Cheng, is from Tiantai Village, Yuanba Town, Cangxi County, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province. He left home five years ago to work and has had no contact since. His father is a butcher, and before Li Dazhuang left to work, he often helped his father with the pig slaughtering business.

  A relatively thin man, Wang Si, was from the same village as Li Dazhuang. He was a lazy person who often stole and robbed, and had a mistress in the village with whom he kept in touch from time to time. He had also gone out to work with Li Dazhuang before.

  Guo Yining decided to have Wang Hua lead a team to Tiantai Village to look for someone close to Wang Si, and see if they could catch Wang Si by following the trail.

  Three days have passed and Wang Hua still hasn't sent back any news. Wu Hui sat in the conference room, constantly thinking about the whole case in his mind, he always felt that something was missing.

  When Wang Si Ting came back, she saw Wu Hui sitting there with his arms around him, motionless. It was already past lunchtime, and he still hadn't eaten. Fortunately, she had packed two portions of food when she went downstairs earlier. "Haven't eaten yet? I brought some for you, eat a bit."

  Upon hearing Wang Si Ting's voice, Wu Hui forced a smile and still couldn't understand. He gave up thinking about it and decided to eat something instead. "Thanks, I didn't think I was hungry until you mentioned it, but now that I smell the aroma, I feel hungry."

  Wang Si Ting put a piece of meat into Wu Hui's bowl, then picked up a piece of vegetable for herself. "Actually, you don't have to worry so much, I think Wang Hua should be back soon. Isn't there a saying that no news is good news? I believe in Wang Hua."

  Wu Hui saw that Wang Si Ting didn't have much of an appetite, so he also gave her a piece of meat. He thought it was probably because of the case, and decided not to think about it anymore, just eat well. "Not bad, you're right, don't just eat vegetables, eat more meat, this way you'll have energy for the scene."

  For Wang Siting, who often dissects corpses, she isn't really interested in meat, but she's not a vegetarian either. She just wants to maintain her figure as a woman, "I'm on a diet!"