Silver Snow Line [Criminal Investigation]

At one o'clock in the morning, the lights in the Criminal Investigation Team's meeting room were brightly lit.

Zhao Chongyun said: "This hand was cut off no more than half an hour ago, and there is no matching DNA data."
Lu Shaohui pinched his chin with a serious expression: "At present, we cannot be sure whether No. 5 only had one hand chopped off or was dismembered. After all, the bodies of the first four victims were not so severely damaged. Is No. 5 particularly special to the murderer and more hateful?"
"The key is that he sent someone's hand to the doorstep of Master's house. This is a blatant provocation." Xi Ming speculated, "From the calluses on his hand, we can at least tell that the right hand is No. 5's dominant hand. Cutting off the hand... According to the murderer's usual habits, is No. 5 a thief?"

There is a shallow scar on the fingertip in the photo. The scar is located in the center of the thumb. It is almost impossible to detect due to its age. If you don't look carefully, it is easy to confuse it with the wrinkles on the forehead. There is also a very shallow black spot in the center of the scar, like a mole.

Xie Qingfei had just discovered this and was stunned for a moment after hearing Xi Ming's words. He immediately opened the intranet and entered a name. He soon found a missing case reported by the police station three days ago.

"Deng Jinru, female, 29 years old, did not return home immediately after get off work on December 12. Her phone was unreachable. Her parents asked her colleagues and boyfriend, but did not hear from them. The next morning, they went to the police station to report the case. The search for Deng Jinru is still ongoing."

Dai Lin found a recently posted photo of Deng Jinru on her social media platform. Judging from the nail art style on the person's hand in the photo, it does match the severed hand of No. 5.

Zhao Chongyun asked curiously, "Master, how do you know that number 5 belongs to this Deng Jinru?"
Xie Qingfei paused for a moment and said, "I recognize the scar on her thumb. She was my junior high school classmate."
"Oh my god, you remember all this, your memory is quite good." Lu Shaohui said admiringly, "I even forgot the last name of my junior high school teacher."
Zhao Chongyun grasped the key point and asked, "Could it be that the murderer put the severed hand in your house because he knew that you two were classmates?"
"See, that's really a provocation." Xi Ming said angrily, "And this person must have inside information, otherwise how would he know that you are in charge of investigating this case? You haven't officially resumed your position yet."

Only Wei Cheng noticed that Xie Qingfei was a little upset when he mentioned Deng Jinru. She noticed his eyes and gently swept across his lips as hesitantly spoke.

At around six o'clock, the snow shovelers on the street had already started working, and soon the first rays of sunlight came, casting a plain color on the ground.

A group of people stayed up all night again and finally found the last image of Deng Jinru before her disappearance from hundreds of hours of surveillance video.

The location is on a small road called Xiansheng Road, south of Zhuque Lake Park in Tianning District. It is one of the more remote places in Tianning District. On one side are old residential houses with white walls and green tiles, and on the other side are ruins that retain many buildings from the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Because it has not undergone commercial transformation, few tourists come to play around, and most of the residents in the residential area are elderly people, which makes the street exude an old and deserted atmosphere.

It was already dark when Deng Jinru arrived at the area. The dim street lights on both sides illuminated the Republican-era buildings entangled with withered vines. Perhaps because the surveillance was silent, Deng Jinru's lonely figure was set off by the gloomy atmosphere, like a wandering female ghost.

Her pace became faster and faster, and she suddenly disappeared after crossing an empty intersection. A new surveillance camera was called up, and it was half an hour later. Deng Jinru ran out of a downhill intersection in a panic, shouting for help. Her shrill voice was transmitted intermittently through the noisy surveillance equipment, as sharp as fingernails scratching a blackboard, making everyone watching the surveillance camera feel nervous.
Deng Jinru's legs went weak and she was running away on her last breath, as if she was going to trip at any second.

Someone in the conference room couldn't sit still first, and the legs of a chair made a crackling sound on the ground, which strangely coincided with Deng Jinru's cry for help.

In a moment, a long and narrow shadow was cast from the uphill slope, and soon a tall man appeared in the picture.
The brim of his cap was pulled down very low, his chin was tightly covered by the mask, and he walked with a big stride, but his left leg was obviously lame. He walked with the feeling of appreciating the final struggle of his prey, and he felt like he was strolling in a garden. Deng Jinru was frantically rushing through the unfamiliar buildings, and finally she slipped on a stone when she rushed out of a narrow alley. She dared not delay for a second to get up. At the same time, the only moonlight in front of her was suddenly blocked by darkness, and the cry for help in Deng Jinru's mouth stopped as if it was cut off, and she actually fell at the man's feet!
The surveillance camera's perspective was from top to bottom, so what everyone saw on the big screen was Deng Jinru's thin figure curled up into a ball, completely enveloped by a huge black shadow.

The next moment, the man leaned down slightly and seemed to make a gesture as if to support her. However, Deng Jinru was already frightened to the point of paleness. As he approached, she fell backwards and fainted.
It was a relief. The man stared at her for a few seconds, grabbed her arm, carried her on his shoulder and prepared to leave. Before leaving, he suddenly looked up.

Xi Ming, who had been holding his breath, finally couldn't help but exclaimed "Oh shit!", and the others also took a breath of cold air.

This person actually looked at the surveillance camera in a hidden place accurately and waved at the camera. Even though he only showed his eyes, everyone could guess that he must have a smug smile hidden under the mask.

The picture froze on his face. After an unknown amount of time, the silence in the room was broken by Xie Qingfei's light cough.

"Two questions," she said. "First, Deng Jinru should have been at home during this time, so why did she suddenly appear on Xiansheng Road? Second, what happened between her and the man in the video that was not captured by the surveillance camera?"
Lu Shaohui brushed off the goose bumps all over his body and stood up, saying, "I'll go ask her family about the situation. Xiao Zhao, come with me to help."
"Yes." Xie Qingfei assigned tasks to the remaining people, and finally it was Wei Cheng's turn, "Come with me."

Wei Cheng parked the car at the entrance of Xiansheng Road. As this was not the main road in the urban area, the snow shoveling work had not yet been arranged. The snow on both sides of the road was piled up to half a palm thick, making it inconvenient to drive or walk.

What Xie Qingfei was more worried about was that snow, like rain, was an irresistible factor that could cover up traces and might erase important clues at the scene.

There was a rustling sound of boots stepping on the snow, and two footprints, one in front of the other, soon arrived at the intersection at the end of the first surveillance camera.
Xie Qingfei wiped off the frost on the road sign, pointed to the direction and asked, "East...west, right?"
Wei Cheng pulled her hand over to dry it, took out a pair of gloves from his pocket and put them on her, and pointed the way: "Go there, it's more stable than the stairs."
He had been keeping the gloves close to his body, and when he put them on, the soft inner layer was still permeated with the residual heat of his body temperature. Xie Qingfei's fingers curled up involuntarily, and he walked silently towards the place he said.

"It seems that when we were in high school, Zhuque Lake had not been rebuilt yet, and Xiansheng Road was more lively than it is now," Wei Cheng said behind her, "One year the school organized an outing here, and we were allowed to see historical relics and so on."
"Well, then go back and write an 800-word review of the visit." Xie Qingfei hated this, "I would rather not participate in extracurricular activities than write such meaningless things."
"That was high school, it was great to be able to go out and have some fresh air, I was quite happy to participate." Wei Cheng recalled the past with emotion, looking at the ruins, he said regretfully, "Who knew that this place is now abandoned." Xie Qingfei climbed to the top of the stairs, turned around and looked at Wei Cheng who was standing below and had the same eye level with her: "Deng Jinru and I used to be good friends, and we were deskmates for half a year, but later we broke up."
Wei Cheng knew that she only brought him here because she had something to say, and he waited quietly for her to continue speaking.
Xie Qingfei blew away the strands of hair hanging on the side of his face in annoyance: "The reason for breaking up is very simple, and it's the kind of reason that I feel embarrassed to talk about."
Wei Cheng helped her smooth her hair: "I won't tell anyone else."

"Actually... a girl in my class lost her pen. She said her father brought it back from abroad and it was quite expensive. The head teacher had to check our schoolbags one by one, and finally found it in my bag. My motive for committing the crime is also easy to judge. It's nothing more than that other people's parents would remember to give gifts to their children, but I don't know where my parents are, so they don't care about me, an insignificant daughter, so I feel jealous or something like that. In most cases, I won't get angry because of slander, but facing this kind of 'caught red-handed' situation, self-incrimination is inevitable. What would you do if you encountered this situation?"

Wei Cheng: "It's just a pen. I will buy one for everyone in the class to prove that this kind of gadget is not worth stealing."
Xie Qingfei actually laughed, praised the "young master for being generous", and said: "My first thought coincides with yours. Because although I have lacked love, I have never lacked money. I can definitely win people over with money."
Wei Cheng didn't think this matter would bother her, so he asked, "But you didn't do that, so how did you solve it in the end?"
"It's really hard to solve the problem of spilling dirty water on yourself, even if you take a shower ten times." Xie Qingfei said, "So I chose to call the police directly. What I can be sure of is that there is absolutely no fingerprint of mine on the pen. This is the most direct proof. Of course, I also thought that they might say that I deliberately wiped off my fingerprints when I stole it, but the thief didn't think so far ahead. Besides, calling the police was a spur of the moment decision. Even the class teacher didn't expect me to do this, so there must be that person's fingerprints on the pen. How bold can a junior high school student be? She confessed without the police coming."

Wei Cheng: "Deng Jinru."

"This is the only thing I didn't expect. She just stole the pen because she liked it, and put it in my schoolbag when we were about to be checked. At that time, there were holes in the partitions of our desks, and it was common for classmates to take the wrong things." Xie Qingfei shrugged, "Deng Jinru didn't even look at me when she admitted it. I don't know if it was because of guilt or just because she felt embarrassed. We never said a word to each other again, and this friendship ended without a clear farewell. Maybe it was affected by this incident, I didn't want to make friends with other people later."

Xie Qingfei bit his lip and sneered, "Perhaps just like the Barnum effect can be applied to all kinds of pseudoscience of self-evaluation, I often feel that I am a person who easily accumulates psychological stress reactions due to unpleasant things. The so-called indifference may also be what you say in your profession. I unconsciously develop the habit of establishing a psychological defense mechanism. From the perspective of the object, I comfort myself not to take it seriously, but in fact I will be affected to some extent."

Wei Cheng said: "Everyone is like this, even me. After living for so many years, who doesn't have a past that is difficult to touch?"

"I didn't think about this problem before, but I've suffered a lot. When I think about it occasionally, I still feel that I'm pretending. If you're unhappy, you're unhappy. Why do you have to act as if you don't care at all?" Xie Qingfei's tone was much more relaxed when she said this. She had never revealed these words to anyone. "After so many years, I thought I had forgotten the existence of this person and this incident, but after seeing the scar on her hand, I remembered her name in an instant. Maybe she was really an important friend in my heart, and I have never let go of her betrayal."

I didn't pursue it at that time, but now I look at the same problem from an adult's perspective and can better understand the other party's feelings. This is not even a deliberate frame-up, but people subconsciously chose to protect themselves when facing a crisis. No matter if she is Deng Jinru's friend or a passerby, she lost not because of her identity, but because she was not as important as Deng Jinru herself. Who can expect a 14 or 15-year-old child to be more responsible?

"I don't know how the murderer found out about this, but I can roughly guess that he felt that I was bullied and that he and I had a similar psychological process, so he wanted to know my attitude towards Deng Jinru now," Xie Qingfei was still able to analyze rationally at this time, "I think Deng Jinru is still alive."

Deng Jinru should have been kept alive and imprisoned by the murderer since she disappeared, which can explain why the severed hand was still fresh last night. The murderer greeted the surveillance camera, obviously knowing that they would find this place, and he was very familiar with their investigation steps.

Wei Cheng suddenly asked something irrelevant: "You don't want to be with me because you're afraid that I will betray you in the future?"
Xie Qingfei was stunned for a moment, and before she could speak, he refuted this statement himself: "It's probably because I can't make up for the sense of security that you have been deprived of."
Xie Qingfei was inexplicably at a loss for words.
She knew that Wei Cheng did not feel safe from her, but she did not consider that she was also timid. The contradictions eventually formed a closed loop, which made her laugh and cry.
Seeing that she was speechless, Wei Cheng knew that she agreed.

He didn't know how she could still laugh. He felt sorry for him, but more importantly, he felt sorry for her. He pulled the knot on her scarf in anger and said, "Coward."
Xie Qingfei coughed and wanted to grab his collar. The two of them started a fierce "fight" with each other. The half-frozen snow on the ground was kicked away. Xie Qingfei paused and hurriedly grabbed Wei Cheng's hat and said, "Blood."

There are several drops of blood of similar size on the brick and stone floor under my feet. When blood drips from a wound, clothing, weapon or other object, if it is not hit by external force in the middle, it will form a circle on the smooth horizontal ground and will not disperse. The higher the drop height, the larger the circle size.

Wei Cheng looked down and frowned: "Deng Jinru's?"
"Not sure." Xie Qingfei recalled Deng Jinru's posture in the surveillance video, "She didn't look injured when she ran down here."

Other locations on the ground were also cleared from under the snow, and other passive bloodstains were found. Based on the distribution of their shapes, it was determined that they came from the southwest.
The two men searched their way forward and found a long-abandoned warehouse. On the outer wall was a stone tablet with the words "Historical and Cultural Protection" embedded in it, but the words had been eroded by wind and were no longer clear.

Xie Qingfei pushed the door of the warehouse, which was locked from the inside. Wei Cheng walked over from the window and shook his head at her: "Should we call them over?"
Xie Qingfei picked up a branch from the ground, poked it into the crack of the door, fumbled for a few times and pushed the bolt open, and the heavy copper door was pushed open at once.
Wei Cheng: “…”
"If you weren't a policeman, it would be too dangerous," he said.
Xie Qingfei: "If I weren't a policeman, I wouldn't have the time to learn this stuff."

A musty smell hit him in the face. Xie Qingfei turned on the flashlight and shone it inside. The space inside was not big, and the ground was gray. As the beam of light came in, obvious dragging marks appeared. The sole of his shoe was hit by a foreign object. Xie Qingfei looked at his feet and picked up a half-broken nude nail. He continued to walk along the traces and finally found a string of bloodstains on the wall at a high altitude close to the ground.

"How strange." Xie Qingfei said.
"What's wrong?" Wei Cheng squatted down beside her and saw the string of coagulated blood spots. "Judging from the color, it should be left by Deng Jinru on the night she disappeared."
“This is fake.”
"why?"
"The diameter of the blood drop is less than one millimeter, which means it was produced under high-speed impact," Xie Qingfei said, "Only a gunshot wound can cause this kind of blood stain, so it's impossible."

Wei Cheng checked other places on the wall and found nothing unusual.
"Since the bloodstains are fake, and Deng Jinru was not injured during the half hour when the surveillance was missing, this is not the scene where she was imprisoned and her hand was cut off. What was the purpose of the murderer forging bloodstains to lead us all the way here?"
The wind knocked on the bronze door and made a whimpering sound, and the echo lingered in the space like whispers.
Xie Qingfei asked strangely: "Test me?"

(End of this chapter)