Chapter Nineteen: Independent Case Cracking

  At Guo Yining's nearly crazy driving speed, they arrived at the place Wu Hui said, where far away, there was indeed a large area of red soil.

  Wu Hui saw Zhang Qiang's car stopped not far away, although Guo Yining slammed on the brakes, but due to excessive speed and inertia, it slid out several meters.

  In the midst of the yellow sandstorm, Wu Hui jumped down from the car and rushed towards Zhang Qiang's vehicle. It seemed that his own inference was not wrong, as Zhang Qiang had also discovered the thing stuck to Han Xue's finger.

  The car door was open and the key had not been pulled out. Zhang Qiang was nowhere to be seen on the driver's seat. Zhang Qiang had vanished.

  Wu Hui quickly searched around for Zhang Qiang's footprints, but unfortunately the wind was too strong today, and this place was mostly sandy soil. Even if there were footprints, they would have been covered by the sandstorm.

  Guo Yining knew that Wu Hui was worried about Zhang Qiang, but judging from Zhang Qiang's haste when he left, it seemed that he had discovered something and didn't even have time to turn off the engine before chasing after his target.

  Wu Hui had to calm himself down quickly, he squatted down, grabbed a handful of the red soil that only belonged to this place, and ground it with his hands. This was the same kind of soil as on Han Xue's body, which meant that Han Xue had been here before.

  Looking around, there is no place to live in this area. Why did Han Xue come here? Did she run out or was she brought here by Liu Chong?

  If she had been to this place, she must have left some traces. Wu Hui ran up the hill and looked down at this place. This place was small, if there were any traces, he would definitely see them.

  As expected, on the back of the mountain slope, he saw many messy footprints. Wu Hui didn't think twice and slid down from the mountain slope, regardless of whether he would get hurt or not, and regardless of whether this extremely clean-freak person's clothes were stained with mud or not, just hoping to quickly find clues and find Zhang Qiang.

  Kuo Yining and others saw Wu Hui sliding down from the mountain slope, startled, thinking that something had happened to him, and hurriedly ran in the direction he slid.

  When Guo Yining ran to the back of the hill, what he saw was Wu Hui with a dusty head and face squatting there observing some footprints in front of him.

  "What is this?" Guo Yining saw at a glance that these were two different footprints. From the difference in size and the point of impact, it could be inferred that they were a man's and a woman's footprints.

  "If I'm not mistaken, Han Xue was hiding here at the time, and later Liu Chong found her and dragged her back. You see, there are signs of dragging here." Following Wu Hui's direction, Guo Yining saw a broken trail to the west, which should have been left by the dragging, but under the influence of wind and sand, only a very short distance was left.

  Wu Hui inferred that at the time, Liu Chong must have been busy taking Han Xue back, so he didn't have time to clean up these marks. Looking at the direction of his dragging, it should be in the west.

  Just then Zhang Qiang saw something, why was he in such a hurry to drop the car and leave on foot. Looking at the footprints nearby, I didn't find Zhang Qiang's footprints. He should not have found this place. Then how did he infer the direction of Liu Chong?

  Wu Hui began to regret driving Zhang Qiang away. If he hadn't driven Zhang Qiang away, he wouldn't have gone missing. Now it's too late for regrets, the most important thing is to find him as soon as possible.

  Wu Hui didn't say another word and got up to run west, Guo Yining saw Wu Hui who seemed to have lost his normal judgment, hurriedly pulled him back, "Get in the car!"

  Hearing Guo Yining's shout, Wu Hui finally reacted and realized that if he ran like this, it would be much slower. They still had a car, so he quickly jumped into the car, stepped on the accelerator, and sped westward.

  Since Guo Yining and Wu Hui have been working together for so long, he has never seen Wu Hui be so abnormal. He sat in the passenger seat, tightly grasping the armrest, and at this moment, Wu Hui gave him a really scary feeling.

  Fang You sat in the back and didn't dare to speak, only hoping that Zhang Qiang was okay. Because he didn't know what crazy things Wu Hui would do if something happened to Zhang Qiang. Although he hadn't been in contact with Wu Hui for a long time, he could feel it, Wu Hui was someone who would do very crazy things.

  Wu Hui quickly cleared his mind, Zhang Qiang's forte was cyber investigation, if he could find Liu Chong's hiding place, he must have known it from the internet, Wu Hui wasn't as proficient in the web, but he understood Zhang Qiang's approach to cracking cases.

  "Fang You, use Liu Chong's or his family members' names to cross-search with the surrounding areas and see if you can find any useful information." Wu Hui said while driving and observing the surroundings, instructing Fang You.

  Fang You responded with a sound, took out his mobile phone, carefully searched for clues, and indeed found through search that there was a village 1 kilometer west, called Liujiacun. It was the place where Liu Chong's parents got married, and after Liu Chong was born a few years later, they moved to the city to live, and this old house was left empty.

  Wu Hui turned on the GPS and entered the address, heading towards Liujiacun Village. He had previously investigated the house where Liu Chong's parents used to live after they started working, which was allocated by the school. However, he surprisingly forgot to investigate where Liu Chong's parents lived before that.

  Wu Hui and his group were driving, much faster than Zhang Qiang walking, I believe when they arrived, Zhang Qiang should not have taken any dangerous measures.

  Worried and disturbed, Liu Chong and Wu Hui got off the car at the village entrance and walked towards the village on foot. The sky was already dark, and the villagers had all gone to sleep. The village was quiet, as if no one lived there.

  According to the address of Liu Chong's home, Wu Hui ran quickly and found a tile house not far from the village entrance. The house had been uninhabited for many years and was already somewhat dilapidated.

  Wu Hui and several others climbed over the wall and in the darkness, Wu Hui immediately spotted Zhang Qiang hiding under the window.

  Zhang Qiang was startled by the noise and turned his head to see that it was Wu Hui and the others, so he slightly put his mind at ease.

  Wu Hui saw that Zhang Qiang did not take any action, and his hanging heart slightly put down, walked to Zhang Qiang's side and gave him a white eye, meaning this matter is not over yet, after dealing with the matters here, we will settle the total account later.

  Zhang Qiang smiled wryly and pointed to the window, where Wu Hui and others were looking in through the dirty glass.

  Liu Chong was crouching in the main hall burning yellow paper, and the ashes of the burnt yellow paper were drifting randomly due to the draft in the room. Wang He lay beside him, and Wu Hui judged that Wang He was still alive by his slightly rising and falling chest.

  "Look!" Fang You suddenly discovered that there was a hemp rope tied around Wang He's neck, and one end of the rope was held in Liu Chong's hand.

  The reason why this night was so quiet was heard by Liu Chong, although Fang You had lowered his voice.

  "Come out!" Liu Chong hastily threw down the yellow paper in his hand, hugged Wang He in his arms, with one hand grasping a knife and pressing it against Wang He's neck.

  As soon as Fang You spoke, Guo Yining's heart secretly cried out that things had gone wrong.

  Guo Yining saw that Wang He was in danger, so he stood up and prepared to go in. Wu Hui stretched out his hand to hold him back, pointing to the window of the house on the east side, where the window was open.

  Guo Yining immediately understood Wu Hui's meaning, and Wu Hui first went in to comfort Liu Chong. Then Guo Yining climbed in through the window of the east house and seized Liu Chong at the right moment.

  Guo Yining nodded and mouthed to Wu Hui, telling him to be careful.

  "You're impulsive, I'll take you out now!" Wu Hui was worried that Liu Chong would suspect again, so he stood up and walked to the door of the main hall, gently pushing it open. The door wasn't locked, and after slowly opening it, Wu Hui entered the main hall.

  Liu Chong saw that the person who came was Wu Hui, and immediately understood that he absolutely did not come alone. "Is there anyone else? I know you can't be here alone. Come out, or I'll kill her."

  "Don't be impulsive, it's out, isn't it?" Fang You stood up and was about to go out, but was pressed down by Zhang Qiang. He stuck half of his head out the door, looking at Liu Chong inside, with a smile on his face.

  "Come out!" Seeing Zhang Qiang's exposed head, Liu Chong did not put down his guard. He wanted Zhang Qiang to stand beside Wu Hui as well, and he wanted to see the movements of both of them clearly.

  Wu Hui heard Zhang Qiang's voice and his head buzzed. He thought it would be Fang You who came out, but he didn't expect Zhang Qiang to take the initiative to come out.

  "Hey buddy, don't be nervous, we're not cops, we won't do anything to you." Zhang Qiang raised his hands and slowly walked towards Wu Hui's side.

  "Don't lie to me, weren't you with a policeman? Where is that policeman now? Is he hiding somewhere waiting to ambush?" Liu Chong remembered that the person who was with Wu Hui was a policeman, but at this moment he did not see that person.

  "You're talking about Guo Yining, aren't you? He was deceived by your clever strategy and is now searching for you tens of miles east from here." Wu Hui quickly took over the conversation, not wanting Liu Chong's attention to shift to Zhang Qiang.

  Recalling that those police had no idea about his plan, Liu Chong sneered, "That group of foolish police, wanting to catch me, is simply impossible."

  Wu Hui continued along Liu Chong's words, hoping to delay the time as much as possible and create an opportunity for Guo Yining. "That's right, those police are indeed a bit stupid. Otherwise, you would have committed the crime ten or so years ago, and they still haven't found the murderer until now. They're really quite stupid."

  "You must have searched my room and found Van's rib bone?" Liu Chong was extremely clever, from Wu Hui's words he realized that they had already found Van's remains.

  Wu Hui glanced unintentionally at the house to the east, but still didn't see Guo Yining's figure, so he continued to speak, "That's right, but there's one thing I don't understand. If you can destroy Fan Ze's corpse, why would you leave behind a rib bone and give yourself evidence of murder?"

  "At that time, I was going to destroy it all, but then I remembered a story my sister told me, saying that a man's rib is a woman, so I kept it. Every night before sleeping, I would take a look at it, and it felt like I was looking at Liu Hui, only in this way could I fall asleep." As soon as he mentioned Liu Hui, Liu Chong's eyes were filled with sadness. His beloved sister had died on the operating table, all because of Fan Ze's fault. Even if he killed him a thousand times, ten thousand times, it wouldn't be enough to quench his hatred.