Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

A deathly silence fell over the scene, broken only by Wang Kai's heavy breathing and the distant sobbing of the river. His shoulders trembled violently, as if suppressing immense pain. "The steel pipe almost slipped from my grasp; I was afraid he'd take the opportunity to escape," he suddenly crouched down, his knee slamming heavily onto the gravel, the handcuffs clanking. "So I stepped on his back, raised the steel pipe, and slammed it down again, once, twice... until he completely stopped moving." His voice trailed off, the last few words almost vanishing into the wind.

Lu Chuan's flashlight beam remained fixed on the scratch, the metallic glare forcing Wang Kai to close his eyes. "So when you cleaned up the scene later, you overlooked this spot?" Lu Chuan's question struck like a hammer blow. Wang Kai's body jolted, a bitter smile appearing on his face. "I bleached it three times, but the scratch is too deep. It's like the sins in my heart, impossible to wash away." He raised his tear-streaked face, gazing at the silver scar on the rock wall, his voice filled with despair, "From the moment the steel pipe was smashed down, I knew I could never go back."

On the way back, Wang Kai suddenly asked to see the wild rose bush one last time. The officer released his handcuffs and let him closer. Trembling, he plucked a dew-kissed petal and gently sniffed it. "Pengcheng loved this flower; he said it looked like his ex-girlfriend's lipstick color." Before he could finish, tears welled up in his eyes. "I shouldn't have taken his valley, and I especially shouldn't have... shouldn't have used the climbing rope he gave me to kill him."

As the police car drove away from the valley entrance, the morning mist gradually dissipated. Wang Kai gazed at the familiar mountains through the car window; the once-adventure hotspot now bore only the marks of crime. His forehead pressed against the glass, leaving a blurry, damp mark, while the wind of Falling Eagle Valley swept through the empty riverbed, carrying what seemed to be Li Pengcheng's unfinished sigh.

The follow-up work on the case will take some time, but Lu Chuan has received new case details again.

Demolition site in Donghuan Village.

As the excavator's iron arm froze in the morning light, Zhang Jianguo's hands were still gripping the control lever tightly. Rusty-colored soil crumbled from the gaps in the bucket, revealing half of a pale lower leg—the skin covered in dark brown lividity, the nylon rope wrapped around the ankle leaving deep indentations in the damp mud. He staggered off the machine, his work pants knees splattered with mud, and his trembling fingers pressed the emergency number three times before finally dialing: "Hurry! There's someone buried in the ground in the Donghuan Village demolition area!"

Twenty minutes later, Lu Chuan's police car rolled over the pile of rubble, its siren startling the crows circling the ruins. As the police cordon was being set up, Wang Shuai was already trying to calm the pale-faced Zhang Jianguo. The driver wiped his face with his greasy hands, leaving several black streaks: "I was just digging the foundation normally, the bucket suddenly got stuck, I thought it was reinforced concrete." He suddenly gagged, the acid from his stomach splashing onto the cracked cement floor, "The flesh on my legs was all bloated, and there was mud stuck under my fingernails."

Yang Lin squatted at the excavation site, the white light of his survey lamp cutting through the damp morning mist. The body was curled up on its side, with a noticeable indentation in the skull, and the skin around the wound was turned inside out, covered with fine brick and stone particles. "Blunt force injury, probably struck by a brick or stone." He used tweezers to pick up the corner of the deceased's clothing; dark red scabs of blood had congealed on the fibers of the gray-black coat. "The time of death was more than 72 hours, and the degree of decomposition is consistent with burial."

Yang Sen was surveying the site, the red light of the laser rangefinder flickering among the rubble: "The burial site is located 50 centimeters below the foundation of the former No. 23 residential building. There is construction waste and broken porcelain pieces in the fill soil, which is consistent with the characteristics of demolition work." He suddenly pointed to the edge of the bucket, "Team Leader Lu, we found suspected bloodstains. We need to perform a luminol reaction." The technician immediately stepped forward and sprayed the reagent. The iron-gray metal surface instantly glowed with a ghostly blue fluorescence, like an eerie tear stain in the morning light.

Wang Shuai found a crucial clue in the excavator's cab—a few gray-white hairs were scraping against the inside of the mud-covered safety helmet. "Master Zhang, when was the last time you cleaned the cab?" he asked, holding up the evidence bag. The driver, staring at the hairs, suddenly widened his eyes: "Three days ago! The demolition office requires us to clean up after work every day. There were definitely no these things that day!"

Lu Chuan squatted beside the body, his gloved fingers brushing aside the deceased's disheveled hair. A faded silver pendant slipped from the collar, the faint letters "LC" engraved on it. He turned to his team members and ordered: "Investigate the missing persons of the past week, focusing on elderly people living alone. Yang Lin and Yang Sen, continue to expand the search area. Wang Shuai, go to the demolition office to retrieve the construction logs and personnel lists."

Yang Sen's metal detector suddenly beeped, and he unearthed half a toothed metal pipe from under the rubble two meters from the burial site—tissue fragments remained in the recessed part of the pipe wall. "It looks like a broken part of a fire hydrant; the irregular shape of the edges matches the victim's wounds." As he put the evidence into a sealed bag, a trace of dark red touched his fingertip. "The bloodstains here haven't completely dried; they might be from secondary injuries."

At this point, the documents Wang Shuai brought back from the demolition office plunged the case into mystery. Construction logs showed that the area where the body was found should have been leveled three days prior, but Li Erzhu, the worker responsible for the site, had been absent from work for two consecutive days, and his phone remained switched off. Even more strangely, surveillance footage showed a van with its license plate obscured by mud entering the demolition area on the night of the incident, and leaving twenty minutes later, with obvious drag marks on the tarpaulin hanging from the van.

Lu Chuan stood outside the cordon, watching Yang Lin and Yang Sen don their protective suits, headgear, masks, and latex gloves, like soldiers preparing to enter the battlefield. He said in a deep voice, "The situation on site is complex. There's a lot of movement of people in the demolition area, and many signs of construction. We must be extremely careful; any clue could be a breakthrough." The two nodded, carrying their survey kits, and stepped into the area filled with rubble.

Yang Sen took out the 3D laser scanner first. After adjusting the equipment, the red laser grid began to interweave on the site. "First, we need to build a 3D model. This will allow us to accurately record the position and spatial relationships of all objects on site, avoiding damage to the original state during subsequent surveys," he explained to Yang Lin, while operating the instrument. The scanner emitted a slight hum, converting every detail of the site into data.

Yang Lin then took out a multi-band light source and began scanning the ground inch by inch, starting from the excavation pit where the body was found. "Switch to the ultraviolet band and see," he said, adjusting the light source. The ordinary soil on the ground showed different fluorescent reactions under ultraviolet light. "There are patchy fluorescent areas here, possibly traces of some kind of liquid that has dried." He squatted down and gently brushed away the surface soil with a small brush. "But demolition sites often have oil stains and paint, making it difficult to determine if they are related to the case." (End of Chapter)