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

“There’s someone in the cellar…” Li Guojun’s trousers were still covered in wet mud from the cellar, and his knuckles were white from gripping the hoe handle so tightly. “I went down to get some sweet potatoes, and my foot slipped and I fell into the air. What I touched wasn’t soil… but cold flesh.”

Yang Lin leaned down the wooden ladder, the beam of his surveying lamp piercing the darkness of the cellar, casting flickering spots of light on the damp earthen walls. "Male corpse, curled up on its side," his voice muffled through his mask, the measuring tape in his hand wedged between the body and the cellar wall. "3.2 meters from the entrance, partially obscured by sweet potato vines, with dark ring-shaped marks on the neck, and fragments of clothing indicating dark blue overalls." Yang Sen was scanning the cellar floor with his footprint lamp, two size 42 rubber shoe prints clearly visible, the pressure surface of the forefoot uneven, stride length 65 centimeters. "These footprints extend from the entrance to the body, the gait unsteady, stride angle 8 degrees, with a clear inward turn, estimating a height of 165-170 centimeters."

Wang Shuai placed the interrogation record book on the millstone, the pen tip hovering over the words "Li Guojun, male, 52 years old, villager of Wangjiagou". "When was the last time you went down into the cellar?" Li Guojun suddenly pointed to the lock on the cellar entrance: "Last Wednesday, it was fine when I locked the cellar door, the lock was newly replaced, and no one else had the key except me." His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, "This morning at seven o'clock, I wanted to take some sweet potatoes to town to sell, and when I opened the lock I found pry marks on the key ring, but I didn't pay attention at the time, and when I went down I stepped on... stepped on that thing."

Yang Lin's tweezers picked up a piece of workwear covered in dirt, the fabric with torn edges. "The fibers are stretched and deformed," he observed against the light, "It wasn't torn by vines, it looks more like it was torn when someone dragged you from behind. The fabric is 70% cotton and 30% polyester, common in construction workwear." Yang Sen found a half-smoked cigarette butt next to the body. The lip print on the filter was blurred, but the degree of burning of the tobacco indicated it had been extinguished: "Hongtashan brand, cigarette butt length 2.8 cm, deep smoke, DNA on the filter is being tested."

Wang Shuai's questioning shifted to the area around the cellar. "Have any strangers been loitering around here these past few days?" His pen traced an arc on the paper. Li Guojun suddenly slapped his thigh: "Yes! Last Saturday evening, I saw a man in dark blue overalls wandering around the cellar, asking if we were selling sweet potatoes. He spoke with a non-local accent, and was about my height, less than 1 meters." He pointed to the path outside the courtyard wall, "He just followed this path. At the time, I scolded him for wandering around aimlessly, but now that I think about it..."

Yang Lin's investigation light stopped in the corner of the cellar, where there was an overturned tin bucket, its sweet potatoes scattered all over the floor. "There are dents on the bucket," he observed with a magnifying glass, "and fresh soil clings to the edges of the dents, matching the friction marks on the ground, indicating that it was pushed over—possibly by the deceased struggling." Yang Sen found a button next to the tin bucket, round with two holes, made of brown resin, with dark green fibers stuck to it, different from the composition of the sweet potato vines—possibly from the suspect's clothing.

“The village’s surveillance cameras are only at the village entrance,” Wang Shuai said, flipping through the records provided by the village secretary. “But at 7:15 p.m. last Saturday, the cameras captured a man in dark blue overalls entering the village. His build matched the characteristics estimated from his footprints. He was carrying a black canvas bag and was walking with a slight limp.” Yang Lin suddenly noticed something on the corpse’s wrist and carefully picked it out with a probe: “It’s a piece of thin hemp rope with a very special knot, like a fisherman’s knot—this kind of knot is rarely seen in rural areas.”

Li Guojun suddenly remembered something, turned around and took out a shovel from the house: "I dug this out when I was turning over the soil in the vegetable garden next to the cellar the day before yesterday." He handed over a rusty key with the number "302" engraved on it. "At the time, I thought it was something I had lost before, but now I see..." Yang Sen took the key and found that the soil on it was exactly the same as that in the cellar, and there was also a trace of engine oil.

As the technicians began securing the scene, Lu Chuan's gaze fell on the tampered lock lug. "A new lock, the tool used to pry it open was probably a flathead screwdriver," he said to the officer beside him. "Check the migrant workers from the village and surrounding areas in the last three months, focusing on those who are 165-170 cm tall, have mobility issues, and have experience in fishing or construction." The faint crowing of roosters drifted from afar, mingled with the murmurs of villagers, as if concealing the final cry for help from the deceased huddled at the bottom of the cellar, seeping into the morning mist of Wangjiagou along the damp soil.

As Wang Shuai closed his notebook, Li Guojun was still muttering about the icy touch. "It was like touching a piece of frozen meat," the old man's voice trembled, "soft and a little elastic... Just thinking about it now gives me the creeps." Yang Sen suddenly found a lighter in the grass outside the courtyard wall, with the words "Fishing Port" on the windshield—it seemed to have some secret connection to the fishermen tying hemp ropes.

On the dirt road outside the police cordon, the police car's engine was still idling. Lu Chuan gazed into the darkness deep within the cellar and suddenly said to the officer beside him, "Investigate the nearby fishponds and construction sites, especially the workers who suddenly disappeared after last Saturday." The wind swept through the cornfield in the distance, carrying the scent of earth, as if hiding the identity of the deceased in dark blue overalls, waiting to be picked up from the sweet potato vines.

Lu Chuan instructed Yang Lin and Yang Sen to expand the area of ​​the site inspection in order to make more discoveries.

The morning mist in Wangjiagou hadn't yet dissipated. Yang Lin moved across the vegetable patch outside the Li family's courtyard, stepping on his surveying treadmill. The beam of his surveying light pierced through the moisture, drawing bright lines on the soil. "Expand the radius to 50 meters," he said into the walkie-talkie, the anti-slip treads on his boots grinding neat diamond-shaped marks into the damp soil. "Focus on checking for tool marks and areas of unusual disturbance, and look for non-native vegetation debris and metallic reflective spots."

Yang Sen was squatting beside the stone steps leading to the cellar, the blue light of his footprint lamp illuminating a size 42 rubber shoe print. He used a scale to measure the forefoot of the print: "Senior, the pressure distribution of this footprint is very special. The pressure on the inner side of the forefoot is 30% greater than on the outer side. The stride length is 65 centimeters, and the stride width is 12 centimeters, which matches the characteristics of an inward-turning gait." He took out plaster powder and sprinkled it evenly around the print. "This three-dimensional footprint is 0.8 centimeters deep, 0.2 centimeters shallower than the one in the cellar, indicating that the suspect was carrying less weight when he left—he may have discarded something after committing the crime."

The two followed the trail of footprints towards the western end of the village. The corn stalks along the roadside showed obvious signs of lodging, and fresh cuts at the broken ends were still oozing sap. "The corn stalks broke by bending," Yang Lin said, picking up a broken stalk with tweezers. "It wasn't natural lodging; it was forcibly broken by a lateral force. There are dark green fiber remnants at the break, which preliminarily matches the fiber composition found in the cellar." (End of Chapter)