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

The morning mist hadn't yet dissipated, and the valley of Wolf Valley was filled with a burnt smell, mingled with the fresh scent of pine needles, creating a suffocating atmosphere. Li Fenghuai, leaning on his jujube wood cane, stood shivering outside the warning line, the collar of his sheepskin coat damp with cold sweat. His flock grazed on the distant slope, the lead sheep occasionally glancing in their direction, its copper bells jingling in the silent valley.

“Officer, I really didn’t mean to…” Li Fenghuai’s teeth chattered, and the head of his cane poked small holes in the muddy ground. “Around five o’clock this morning, I was herding my sheep this way when I heard a crackling sound coming from the valley. I thought it was some kid playing with fire. When I got closer, I saw… I saw that thing burning in the fire, and I was so scared that I forgot to herd my sheep…” He suddenly covered his face, and cloudy tears seeped through his fingers. “The fire was frighteningly red and crackling. Even now, thinking about it makes my skin crawl.”

Lu Chuan's gaze crossed the police line and landed on the charred corpse in the center of the valley. The body was curled up, its entire body charred like a burnt log, the joints of its limbs twisted at unnatural angles, and the surrounding thatch was burned down to blackened roots, the ashes swirling in the morning breeze. "Yang Sen, check the environmental footprints first," he whispered into the walkie-talkie, his boots grinding shallow pits into the damp mud. "Pay attention to the unburned areas at the edges of the burns; there might be complete footprints there."

Yang Lin was already crouching beside the body, the beam of his investigation lamp piercing through the thin mist, illuminating the ashes on the ground. "The body was completely charred, with about 60% loss in combustion," he said, using a ruler to measure the distance from the body to the nearest fire. "It's 3 meters. There are unburnt pine branches around the fire, about 5 centimeters in diameter, as if they were deliberately piled up." Yang Sen's footprint lamp swept across the slope, revealing a size 42 sneaker print clearly visible in the mud. The pressure surface of the forefoot was 15% larger than that of the heel, and the stride length was 70 centimeters. "This footprint extends from the valley entrance to the body and then turns back, the gait is steady, not like a panicked escape."

Wang Shuai placed the interrogation record book on his lap, the pen nib pausing on the words "Li Fenghuai, male, 67 years old, shepherd." "When was the last time you came to this mountain valley?" His pen cap was covered in grass seeds. Li Fenghuai suddenly pointed to the old locust tree at the valley entrance: "The day before yesterday afternoon, I was sheltering from the rain under the tree. I didn't see anyone, nor did I smell anything strange." His fingers trembled in the morning light. "This morning at 5:15, I had just passed the locust tree when I saw smoke rising from the valley. I thought it was a wildfire, but as I got closer, I realized it was… a person…"

Yang Lin's searchlight stopped at the corpse's wrist, a metallic sheen faintly visible beneath the charred skin. "There's a ring here," he said, carefully parting the ashes with tweezers. A deformed silver watch was revealed, its crystal shattered, the hands stopped at 11:05. "The strap is stainless steel, and there are some dark blue fibers clinging to the molten edges—not clothing fibers, but some kind of fabric." Yang Sen suddenly noticed a piece of plastic in the ashes, with jagged burn marks on its edges: "It looks like a fragment of a gasoline can, with '92#' markings on it."

"Gasoline fuels combustion?" Lu Chuan's gaze shifted between the plastic fragments and pine branches. "Killing someone and then setting the body on fire, that's ruthless." He noticed something unusual about the corpse's neck; there seemed to be a depression under the charred skin. "Yang Lin, check the neck for any ligature marks or sharp instrument wounds. The charring might be covering up the fatal injury." Yang Lin gently probed with a probe and shook his head: "It's burned too thoroughly; the soft tissue has shrunk. There's no obvious damage visible on the surface. We need to go back to the lab for an autopsy to confirm."

Wang Shuai's questioning shifted to the details of Li Fenghuai's discovery of the body. "How did the fire start?" His pen traced an arc on the paper. Li Fenghuai suddenly stood up, gesturing the shape of the flames: "The flames were about half a person's height, burning around that thing, like...like someone poured oil around it, otherwise the thatch wouldn't have burned so fiercely." He suddenly remembered something, "I saw an iron bucket next to the fire, burned down to half, all blackened, I don't know what it contained." Wang Shuai immediately asked Yang Sen to investigate, and sure enough, they found half an iron bucket in the ashes, the inner wall had residual gasoline smell, which matched the composition of the plastic fragments.

Yang Sen's footprint light found a new clue at the valley entrance—a size 39 women's leather shoe print parallel to a size 42 sneaker print, with a stride length of 55 centimeters and the toes pointing towards the body. "These two footprints were left at the same time," he said, fixing the shoe prints with plaster. "The soil moisture is the same, and the freshness of the indentations is consistent, indicating that two people were here together." Yang Lin found a pearl earring next to the women's shoe print, with the word "Tiffany" engraved on the metal setting and slight burn marks on the surface: "It must have fallen in a panic; the pearl has melted."

Lu Chuan stared at the charred corpse, suddenly noticing that its right hand was clenched into a fist. "Pry it open and take a look," he said to Yang Lin, gently squeezing the charred fingers with tweezers until something white appeared between them. "It's paper!" Yang Lin's voice was filled with excitement as he carefully removed the piece of paper. Although the edges were charred, the words "IOU" and "Zhang San" were still legible, the ink having turned brown under the high temperature.

"Does anyone usually come to this valley?" Wang Shuai's notebook was already three pages full. Li Fenghuai sat on a rock, stroking his goatee. "Besides us shepherds, there are some mushroom pickers. Very few people venture deeper into the valley. Last month, I saw a man in a suit loitering at the entrance of the valley, carrying a black leather bag, acting suspiciously. I thought he was looking for some treasure..." He suddenly slapped his thigh. "That's right! That man was wearing shoes that were around size 42, and the footprints you described are similar!"

Yang Lin's searchlight stopped at the unburnt area at the edge of the fire, where there was a palm-sized fragment of fabric, dark blue nylon, with a warp and weft density perfectly matching the fibers found on the corpse's wrist. "This fabric has a coating, like the material of a windbreaker," he said, placing the fragment into an evidence bag. "The molten edges dripped, indicating it burned upright—it might have been the clothing the deceased was wearing." Yang Sen, meanwhile, found a half-smoked cigarette butt behind some rocks at the valley entrance; the tobacco wasn't completely burned, and it was a "Chunghwa" brand. The DNA from the filter had already been sent for testing.

As technicians began clearing the scene, Lu Chuan's gaze fell upon the charred corpse. The identity of the deceased, why he had been burned to death in this remote mountain valley, who owned the two footprints and the pearl earring… these questions, like the mist hanging over the valley, weighed heavily on everyone's hearts. In the distance, sheep bleated, Li Fenghuai's cane tapped monotonously on the ground, sunlight pierced through the thin mist onto the ashes, and the truths swallowed by the flames seemed to seep out, little by little, dark red blood from the charred remains. (End of Chapter)