when the moon whispers

Chapter 441: Accomplice - Similar (Part )

Six accomplices in the case
Eighty-six Similar (Part 1)
The field service vehicle that had been hit several times by Song Yike a while ago was parked by Chen Rui in front of the wall of the police station. The temporarily rented K3 had obviously been repaired and modified with a lot of hammering. The exhaust pipe hummed noisily all the way, and the inconspicuous body of the car was covered with a layer of dirt condensed from rain. Even the free-range village dogs passing by on the street looked down on it and raised their hind legs to pour some stinky liquid on the tires.

The weather in Sheng'an had not yet become really hot. A few rain clouds that had not yet completely rained were piled up in the sky, and then penetrated through the half-rolled down car windows and poured heavily into the car.

Chen Rui propped his arm against the car window and drove away Da Huang, who was about to mark the front and rear wheels once. He looked up and saw Song Yike, who had been hit by an iron frame and couldn't get up from the kang a few days ago, slowly coming out of his small broken yard, holding his ribs. He then wandered to the small house a few steps away and gently knocked on the glass window of the convenience store behind the house.

When Song Yike walked, he always hunched his shoulders unintentionally, looking listless and listless. When not talking to anyone, he always tilted his head and stared intently at the ground under his feet. The back of his head seemed to have eyes, and he quietly held the bundle of incense handed from the rear window of the convenience store. After taking three or five steps, he suddenly turned around. It was impossible to tell whether his face was alert or not, he just stared blankly in the direction of the health center at the intersection. It was hard to tell whether his eyes were on the police car behind him that was leisurely patrolling the main road, or on his muddy and dusty van.

Chen Rui subconsciously laid his seat flat and leaned back, staring at the gray ceiling for a few seconds, and suddenly remembered that when he rented the car, he deliberately chose the car windows with anti-peep film. He smiled at himself, slowly adjusted the seat back, knocked on the steering wheel twice, and waited until the thin and lonely figure disappeared in the narrow alley at the end of his sight. Then he closed the car door quietly, groped in his pocket, and walked to the store that had secretly modified the backyard wall of the house. He knocked on the sliding plastic steel window on the wall that had recently been replaced with cement glue but had not yet dried.

The shop owner was a middle-aged woman who loved to dress up. Her nails looked fresh, and she was very careful when opening the small window. She was busy watching short videos on her phone, and with a gloomy face, she looked out the window and said a few words impatiently: "...Are you annoying? My house is so small, and the offerings are piled together. If one of the incense sticks breaks, it won't kill you! Every time, it's three yuan a bundle. What kind of bicycle do you want--"

The boss yelled a few times to vent his anger, and then raised his eyelids while scrolling through the paid skit on his hand. Then he lowered his eyes and tightened his voice, looking at the police officer's ID card held in front of her, and dryly restrained the emotions on his lips: "Uh - police comrade, my business is small... the business of 80 cents per stick of incense... I won't blow you to me -"

"I'm not in charge of industry and commerce. Don't be nervous. Just do your business as usual... Get a pack of cigarettes..." Chen Rui paused for half a second, then raised his hand to wipe the surgical scar on his throat, "Get a lighter and a bottle of water."

The boss was stunned, blinking his eyes and scanning Chen Rui's somewhat gloomy face. He hung up his phone, turned around and walked around, then turned around and picked up a bottle of fake brand mineral water. He leaned against the windowsill and handed it to Chen Rui, raising his eyebrows slightly: "Police comrade, are you here to investigate the case? Is that kid with a criminal record doing something sneaky again? You can't smoke after your throat surgery. My man is the same as you, with a similar problem. He refused to listen and insisted on smoking after the cure, and he sent himself away early - don't waste this money~"

"I wouldn't show my ID if I wasn't investigating a case." Chen Rui readily accepted the offer and evaded the boss's excuse of treating him to a meal. He politely took the water and paid for it. "From what you said, that kid often comes here to buy incense?"

"Not often. He hasn't lived here for long, but everyone in the neighborhood knows that he was in jail. We don't know what the specific crime was, but the old residents don't like him very much..."

The boss held his cheek and leaned forward, looking at both ends of the alley as if to confirm: "That kid is listless all day long, and I don't know what he is thinking about. He doesn't talk much to people. I have opened this small window here for such a long time, and I only heard him speak a few times when he came to buy incense. He was picky when he took the incense, and he had to get a whole bundle without any broken ones... I replaced it for him twice and it didn't work. Later, I opened the package and gave him a new one before he was reluctant to give up. It was the same just now. He stared at it and checked it. I thought he found that the incense was damp halfway-" The boss muttered something, and was embarrassed for two seconds before he made up for it: "...It's not serious, it will definitely not delay the burning."

"Heh..." Chen Rui only raised his eyebrows when he heard this. He didn't say much and snorted coldly, "I heard that you guys are not familiar with him. The village committee may only know his general origin. Who is he burning this incense for? Is there a grave on the mountain nearby? Have you heard him mention it?"

"How can I bring this up when we haven't even talked?" The boss shook his head and thought for a while with a hoarse voice. "Anyway, when I can't sleep at night, I often see him going out early and coming back late to work in the city. Last time - oh no, it should be the time before that. I can't remember it clearly, but it happened once, and it didn't seem to be too long ago... Anyway, he came back from work in the middle of the night that day and walked past my window with his head down... Then it must have been the early morning, right? He came back from somewhere and stood under my window knocking. It wasn't even daybreak yet, but he said he wanted to buy some incense to burn. I don't know what he was doing..."

------

"There are no surveillance cameras in the village lanes. Chen Rui dragged that lady around and talked to her for a long time before he realized something was wrong—" Gu Xing probably had another cigarette in his mouth, and his voice was a little unclear as he leaned on the receiver: "Plus, you ran into the driver of a minibus when you were at the job market, and you accidentally discovered that the guy didn't recognize people... So, the night Chai Qing was killed, the man in black who probably took the bus back to the control area on time, and the man in black who smashed the window of the store in the early morning to try to create evidence of his alibi, were two different people."

Jiang Mo's eyebrows tightened, and he raised his eyes to see Shao Jie quietly standing in front of the half-open door of the disposal room. He sighed softly, thought for a moment, and asked suspiciously: "Xue Yilian and Security Guard Xiao Song? They are similar in size... but... they are sleeping so groggy in the middle of the night, can the boss's words be trusted?"

"Almost certainly. Chen Rui checked the dashcam of the police car that was on duty that day—" Gu Xing coughed twice as if rubbing a flame and refilled his cigarette: "Isn't Song Yike's hearing not very good? When he walks with his head down, his head will be slightly tilted... But on the night when Chai Qing was murdered, there were two figures, one in front and one behind. Although the one who came back first walked in the same posture as Song Yike, it was obvious that she didn't have the habit of tilting her head. The figure who was used to tilting her head was the one we caught in the corner of the road surveillance when we were tracking down Tu Siyao."

Jiang Mo's heart sank as if he had settled down, but he held his breath for some reason: "Letian'er, Zhou You is with you. Should I go to support Officer Chen?"

"Lin Yu and Huang Xingjun have gone there, but I don't think they can provide support—"

Gu Xing coughed and gasped as he finished the second half of the sentence: "After Chen Rui reported the incident yesterday afternoon, he said he would keep an eye on security guard Xiao Song. After Tu Siyao disappeared today, I have been trying to contact him, but I have not been able to find him... I heard from Lin Yu and Huang Xingjun that the car he rented is still parked next to the clinic, but he is missing."

Due to work and health reasons, I will be working on another day~
"I walk slowly without noticing how deep or shallow the mountain is, the birds singing along the way will take me home."