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

As soon as the police car escorting Qin Baosheng turned into the entrance of Wangjiagou Village, he began to tremble all over. The shackles scraped against his ankles with a soft, grinding sound. The moment he saw the old locust tree through the car window, this freight station owner, who had tried to remain calm the day before, suddenly slumped into his seat, a faint mark left by his gold ring on the cuff of his prison uniform. "We're here." Zhang Hui, the leader of the team, pushed open the car door. The morning mist, carrying the earthy smell, rushed in, making the May 20th sun feel damp.

Two police officers supported Qin Baosheng's arms as they stepped onto the dirt road. His gaze had barely touched the direction of the Li family's courtyard when he suddenly began to retch violently. The millet porridge he'd eaten yesterday, mixed with bile, spilled from the corners of his mouth, splashing onto the bluestone slabs and leaving pale yellow stains. "Right there," his voice was hoarse from the burning stomach acid, his chin gesturing towards the cornfield, "On the night of May 15th, Zheng Qiang and I had a conflict in that field."

The dew on the corn leaves hadn't dried yet. Zhang Hui instructed the technicians to mark the spot Qin Baosheng had indicated. "Which exact spot?" His laser pointer darted between the swaying corn stalks. Qin Baosheng's Adam's apple bobbed as he staggered to the third row of corn, his feet sinking half an inch into the damp soil. "Right here," he pointed to a faint indentation in the ground. "He parked his truck on the side of the road. When I drove my refrigerated truck over, I got stuck. I honked three times before he rolled down his window."

Technicians immediately used an electrostatic precipitator to extract the ground traces and found two overlapping tire tracks in the depression—the tread pattern of the 42-yard truck tire perfectly matched the tread pattern of the refrigerated truck tire, and perfectly overlapped with the dashcam footage retrieved earlier. "What did he say to you?" Zhang Hui's notebook was already filled with the previous day's statements. Qin Baosheng suddenly raised his voice, as if he had heard those harsh words again: "He said, 'Qin Baosheng, who do you think you are?' and that he would have the fishing port shareholders revoke my operating license!" His fingers drew deep marks on the corn stalks. "I got out of the car to argue, and he pulled a crowbar from the driver's seat and said he was going to break my legs."

The fresh cut surface of the broken corn stalk was still oozing sap, echoing the forensic report's record of "contusions on Zheng Qiang's left finger joints." Qin Baosheng suddenly squatted down, pointing to a clump of trampled foxtail grass: "They were shoving each other right here. He poked me in the chest with a crowbar, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back, and he stumbled and bumped into the corn stalk." Several dark blue fibers were stuck to the broken stem of the foxtail grass. Technicians carefully extracted them with tweezers, and the composition matched that of Zheng Qiang's work clothes.

As Qin Baosheng walked towards the cellar, his steps grew heavier. The iron shackles dragged on the stone pavement with a clanging sound, each step feeling like stepping on fragments of memory. "When he suddenly clutched his stomach and squatted down, it was right next to that bluestone," he pointed to a limestone half-buried in the ground by the roadside, with a 0.5-centimeter-deep dent on its surface. "I thought he was faking it, so I kicked him, and he let out a 'whoosh,' his face turning as white as paper." The trace amount of blood in the dent matched Zheng Qiang's DNA, consistent with the forensic conclusion that "his head struck a hard object when he fell."

The police had pried open the flagstones at the cellar entrance, and a damp, musty smell mixed with the stench of decay hit him. Qin Baosheng coughed violently as soon as he approached, and was only able to stay upright because an officer supported him. "I found the cellar here," he said, his voice trembling with tears, his gaze fixed on the pry marks on the keyhole. "I was panicking. When I saw that the flagstones were loose, I used a screwdriver from the refrigerated truck's toolbox to pry them open." The metal shavings from the screwdriver matched perfectly with the residue on the lock cylinder, and the distribution of sweat and salt in Qin Baosheng's fingerprints overlapped perfectly with the marks on the tool handle.

Standing at the cellar entrance and looking down, the beam of the survey lamp illuminated the damp earthen wall. "How did you get him down there?" Zhang Hui's voice echoed in the cramped space, and Qin Baosheng's body suddenly trembled violently: "I... I dragged him down by the ankles, and his head hit the stone steps with a 'thud'." There was a fresh impact mark on the third step of the cellar, and the remaining skull fragments matched Zheng Qiang's DNA, perfectly corresponding to the forensic report's conclusion of "3×4cm subcutaneous hematoma in the occipital region."

Descending the iron ladder to the bottom of the cellar, the stench of the earth grew even stronger. Qin Baosheng's heel scraped a semi-circular mark on the ground, stopping at the thickest part of the sweet potato vines. "Just leave it here," he whispered, "head in, feet out, left hand still clutching half a corn stalk." The soil beneath the vines showed clear signs of disturbance, perfectly matching Yang Lin's previous record of "loose soil at the dumping location," and the tooth marks on the corn stalk fragment matched the shape of Zheng Qiang's molars.

Technicians sprayed luminescent ammonia along the dragging route identified by Qin Baosheng, and a pale blue fluorescent trail immediately appeared on the ground. "I was afraid of leaving footprints, so I took off my shoes and dragged it barefoot," he said, his soles leaving red marks in the damp mud. "The rope was too tight, and his ankles were rubbed raw, and I wiped away the blood droplets on the ground with my foot." The fluorescent trail perfectly matched the skin peeling marks on Zheng Qiang's ankles, and the direction of the bloodstain wiping was consistent with Qin Baosheng's confession of "wiping with his foot."

Beside a tin bucket in the corner of the cellar, Qin Baosheng suddenly stopped. "I threw the hemp rope here," he pointed to the shadows at the bottom of the bucket. "I was so nervous at the time that my hands were shaking when I tied the knot. It took me three tries to tie the fisherman's knot properly." The fiber residue inside the tin bucket matched the hemp rope found at the scene perfectly, and the knot shape matched the pressure distribution of Qin Baosheng's fingerprints perfectly, confirming his confession of "deliberately tying a fisherman's knot to frame someone."

By the time the identification was finished, the morning sun had already climbed above the treetops, illuminating the cellar entrance. As Qin Baosheng was being led to the police car, he suddenly glanced back at the cornfield, his eyes filled with regret mixed with fear, like a lost child. Technicians were taking photos of the last marker; the corn stalks in the photos were still swaying in the morning breeze, as if one could still see the arrogant truck driver and the angry freight station owner, enacting their final scene on this land.

Zhang Hui closed the notebook. All 27 details of the identification matched the on-site investigation and the forensic report perfectly—from the fibers on the corn stalks to the bloodstains on the stone steps, from the overlapping tire tracks to the shape of the knots, each piece of evidence was like a puzzle piece, now perfectly fitting together to reconstruct that bloody night of the 5th. As the police car drove away from Wangjiagou, Qin Baosheng's sobs drifted through the iron bars of the window, mingling with the rustling of corn leaves outside, like a belated confession.

Less than a week after the Qin Baosheng case concluded, the Criminal Investigation Detachment received another emergency call.

During an inspection of the water storage tanks in your residential community, a body was discovered inside. (End of Chapter)