Silver Snow Line [Criminal Investigation]

After hearing the whole story, Wei Cheng said "Oh" in disappointment.

Then he started to nitpick: "Are you planning to go out like this? Aren't you afraid of getting arthritis from the cold?"
Xie Qingfei asked curiously: "Don't you know there is something called the Bare Legs Artifact?"
"What magic weapon?" Wei Cheng looked confused.
"It's skin-colored leggings. When you put them on, it's like having bare legs." Xie Qingfei didn't have this thing at home, so he looked up a picture online and showed it to him. "Here, it's like this."

Wei Cheng's cognition was greatly impacted, and he looked at the model's demonstration in the picture in disbelief.

"...You really don't know?" Xie Qingfei was also surprised.
"I... I thought all those girls on the street really had bare legs," Wei Cheng quickly recalled in his mind the times he had lost face because of this. He took a few deep breaths and said weakly, "Just last week, I saw my students dressed like this. I couldn't say anything to their faces, so I forwarded a few popular science articles in the group about how much damage cold knees can cause."
"What did they say?"
"You didn't reply to me." Wei Cheng felt quite aggrieved at the time.
Xie Qingfei laughed out loud and scratched his chin: "You are so cute."
Wei Cheng was completely embarrassed and deliberately kept a straight face: "What's so funny? I know now."

Xie Qingfei promised not to laugh anymore, but she was shaking all the time when she changed her clothes. The old clothes she took out of the closet were wrinkled, so she gave the task of ironing them to Wei Cheng, but when he handed them over, he hesitated to speak.
Wei Cheng understood what she meant in a second, and his face darkened a little: "I know this style is called a pleated skirt, and the pleats won't be ironed."
Xie Qingfei held his face and kissed him, praising him: "You are so smart, so great!"
There was no sincerity in her coaxing. Wei Cheng looked at her from behind, thinking that he should not have stood there quietly while she was changing clothes.

After dinner, Xie Qingfei began to read the files of several dismemberment cases in Shengzhou in previous years. Wei Cheng washed the fruit and came over. She generously gave him half of the sofa to sit on. With an adjustable "pillow", she leaned on him as she looked at it, and finally found the most comfortable position after searching for several angles.
Wei Cheng couldn't bear it anymore, so he lifted her arm a little higher to prevent her eyes from sticking to the screen.

"Suspects in dismemberment cases are generally people with a criminal record. Six or seven out of ten are acquaintances, but these people have limited contact with the public. Their cognition, experience and vision not only show that they have a motive for killing on impulse, but also indirectly indicate that the victim and the suspect are probably in the same social class. The forensic doctor said that the deceased's hair had been carefully cared for and his skin was relatively delicate and firm, which shows that the deceased paid more attention to the quality of life. So I don't think the murderer in this case is of this type." Xie Qingfei made a summary and tried to draw a portrait of the suspect based on the current insignificant findings.

Wei Cheng stroked her hair and replied, "The dismemberment incident was not discovered for a month, which is enough to show how secretive he was. Without a strong enough psychological wall, it would be difficult to complete these follow-up tasks."

Xie Qingfei nodded: "Let's just talk about the construction site. It has been suspended for some time due to various problems such as weather and internal funds. No one has been there, which makes it easier for the suspect to bury the body. According to the principle of throwing the body far away and burying it close, he may be someone who lives nearby and is very familiar with the surrounding environment. Secondly, the way he divided the body was precise and strict, which also reflects his personality and habits - calm, cautious, and perhaps a little old-fashioned. And we have no clues about the bones, teeth, and even bloody clothes that we need to confirm the identity of the deceased, which means that he clearly knows how to delay the time of being detected to the greatest extent."

Young and strong, rigorous and steady.

Wei Cheng immediately guessed what she was thinking: "If it is a high-IQ crime, it is more likely that the murder was committed impulsively when there is only one victim, and the murderer is probably over 20 years old. Do you think the suspect might be a student from the university town?"
"Do you still remember the two plastic bags containing the body parts?" Xie Qingfei said, "One bag cost one yuan, which is much more expensive than the supermarket. Moreover, the prices of convenience store products are generally higher than the prices of the same products in the supermarket. If he wasn't a student, he would be really unpredictable."

Wei Cheng really didn't know this. He was suddenly diagnosed as a person who "didn't know how to live". All he could do was silently take a cherry from the fruit plate and stuff it into Xie Qingfei's mouth.
"Is it sweet?"
"Yeah." She responded vaguely and took out her cell phone, "I'll make a call."
"Who are you calling in the middle of the night?"
Xie Qingfei found Gan Tian's number and dialed it. Although it was late at night, the call was connected after three rings.

"Hello, I'm a criminal police officer from the Tianning Branch of the Shengzhou Public Security Bureau. Are you Gan Tian?"

The girl's voice, mixed with some mechanical noise, came from the other end of the phone: "Hello, what can I do for you?"
"I came to you to ask about Huang Xuyao. Has she contacted you recently?"
"No, what's wrong?"
"She's missing."
"Ah, what happened? I don't know. I've been at home all this time."
"So when will you go back to school?"
"I'll be back before exam week."
"Oh."

This is consistent with the information provided by the school counselor and Qin Jiashu.

When no more questions were asked, Gan Tian asked, "Anything else?"
Xie Qingfei's thoughts drifted back to reality, and he said calmly, "Is it so late to disturb your rest? I'm so sorry."
Gan Tian said politely: "It's okay, I'll hang up first."
The call lasted less than a minute before a busy tone sounded.

"Didn't they say Huang Xuyao ​​was not missing?" Wei Cheng asked after she hung up.
"He's missing to the public, so I can take this opportunity to see if there's any other inside information." Xie Qingfei looked at his phone, which had gone dark, suppressed the strange thoughts in his mind, and poked his abdominal muscles with his fingers, "I want to eat more."

Wei Cheng took her phone away and pulled her into his arms. Xie Qingfei rested her head on his knees and opened her mouth to wait for him to feed her.
A cherry with water drops still hanging on it was brought to her lips. When Wei Cheng noticed it, he wanted to wipe off the water drops, but he was a second too slow, and she stretched out her tongue to hook it and it just happened to touch his fingertips. Their eyes met, and Wei Cheng was about to smile teasingly, but he found that she had no intention of avoiding it at all. She licked it lightly and raised her eyebrows at him provocatively.

Now is a good time to start.

The two reached a consensus with just a glance. Just as Wei Cheng was about to pick her up, her cell phone, which was left aside, rang tactlessly.

The call from the police station at this time must be bad news.
The rising charm disappeared, Xie Qingfei sighed and fell back, and when he put the phone to her ear, he asked in disappointment: "What's wrong?"
"Thank you, Captain. Someone found a bloodstained women's coat."
Xie Qingfei sat up immediately: "I'll be there right away." Because there is no shortage of discarded furniture, clothing and other daily necessities that can be used after being sorted out at the garbage transfer station, there are often grandpas and aunties picking up cardboard boxes and old clothes. This bloody jacket was sent by an old lady. The blood stains were on the inside back of the clothes and had long been oxidized and blackened. Because the amount of blood was not large and the location was hidden, it was not easy to see at a glance. Even if you saw it, you would think it was another stain and no one would associate it with blood.
The weather has been cold recently, and many people's water pipes have frozen. The old lady didn't rush to wash her clothes, and she kept them in the warehouse. After the police called on the public to collect the body parts, she remembered the clothes she had picked up not long ago. The more she thought about it at night, the more she felt something was wrong. The clothes were obviously not old or damaged, so why was they thrown away? She sent them to the police station overnight.

Xie Qingfei took one look at the style of the coat and immediately matched it with the photo in Huang Xuyao's home.
Two hours later, the forensic doctor gave the DNA comparison results: the DNA from the bloodstains on the clothes was consistent with the DNA extracted from the body parts, and after testing, it was basically confirmed that the clothes belonged to Huang Xuyao.

"Ah? Is Huang Xuyao ​​okay?" Xi Ming, who had just crawled out of bed, had a messy head of hair, and suspected that his mind had not yet returned to normal. "Did she run away for the past month?"

Huang Xuyao, a living person, had nothing to do with the body parts, but there was the victim's blood on her clothes, so it was hard not to connect the two together.

Xie Qingfei asked: "Is the surveillance from the traffic police brigade coming?"
Lu Shaohui said hurriedly: "It's all here. Huang Xuyao's roommate said that she couldn't be contacted since the 3rd of last month, so I checked all the surveillance footage from the 1st to today."
"...It's less than a thousand hours, let's see." Xi Ming rubbed his face, glanced at Wei Cheng and said happily, "There's another strong man, just right. Are you here on your way home from the night shift?"
Lu Shaohui looked at him in confusion, and hesitated to speak.
Wei Cheng pulled his brother's messy hair: "Work."

Time was tight and the task was heavy, so those who could be pulled over to help were assigned tasks. The surveillance content was not enough to cover today, but focused on the period before the 10th of last month. Several people worked together and finally found Huang Xuyao's whereabouts at dawn.

She did take a private car back to Jinchuan, and the person who picked her up was her father. The criminal investigation team immediately contacted the local police in Jinchuan, and received news at around nine in the morning that Huang Xuyao ​​was currently living at her grandmother's house, accompanied by her mother. She was fine, with no problems.
Lu Shaohui asked: "Are you sure it's her?"
"I saw it with my own eyes. She was alive and kicking," said the police officer on the other end of the phone. "She came out to eat breakfast. The neighbors all called her Yaoyao. She looked exactly like the one in the photo."
"Well, please continue to watch her and contact me if there is any movement."
After that, he drank a cup of black coffee, but his body had long been immune to it, and he couldn't hold on for two seconds before he began to snore. Xi Ming, who had just taken a nap, was awakened by the sudden snoring. He saw Xie Qingfei and Wei Cheng leaving the door one after the other, and they seemed to be in harmony. He thought he was probably still dreaming, so he mumbled something and fell asleep again.

Xie Qingfei went to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water. When she turned around, she felt her waist a little sore. She thought it was because of her old habit of sitting and watching the surveillance video all night. She hesitated whether to confess in front of Dr. Wei and get leniency or resist and get severity. When she came out, before she could say anything, Wei Cheng suddenly took off his coat and wrapped it around her waist.

Xie Qingfei touched his butt subconsciously, remembering that there was such a relative at home, and sighed irritably: "I don't remember the date."
"Your cycle is not regular." Wei Cheng touched her hair and said, "Wait a moment, I'll go get something."
In less than ten minutes, he came back with the bag. Xie Qingfei went into the bathroom to change his pants and stuffed the dirty clothes into the bag. His coat was draped over her elbow.
Wei Cheng was about to reach out to take it, but she pulled him back: "I have my own coat too."
Wei Cheng blinked in confusion, but Xie Qingfei suddenly seemed to think of something and glanced at his lower back.
"You saw my pants were dirty, so you took off your clothes to cover them for me. If someone else is in this situation without noticing, people around her will usually do the same." Xie Qingfei unfolded the coat in her arm. It was not stained with her blood, but she pointed to the inside of her back and said, "If you tie the coat to your waist, the blood will be stained here."

The two hurried back to the office to wake everyone up. After Xie Qingfei finished his guess, Lu Shaohui said, "The last person the deceased came into contact with before he was killed was indeed Huang Xuyao."
"Who else can she be close to?" Xie Qingfei dialed Gan Tian's number again and turned on the speakerphone.
After three rings, the other end picked up on time.

"Hello Gan Tian, ​​we spoke last night. I'm a criminal police officer from the Tianning Branch."
The girl responded in a gentle voice: "Hello, what can I do for you?"
"Do you remember where you were and what you did on the 3rd of last month?"
"I don't remember, what's wrong?"
"When is your period?"
The other party was silent for a moment, then said, "What did you say? The signal is not good here, and I can't hear it clearly."

Xie Qingfei repeated the question again, but she really seemed to not hear clearly, and replied with the excuse that her signal was bad.

Xie Qingfei: "Then we'll talk again when you return to school."
Gan Tian: "I will go back before the exam week."

Xie Qingfei paused for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Do you miss me?"

Several people around her looked at her in surprise, wondering why she suddenly said such words to a strange girl.
Gan Tian's reply shocked everyone. She changed her polite tone and responded in a sweet voice: "Of course I miss you. Don't you miss me?"
Xie Qingfei said: "I've been playing basketball recently and many girls want my WeChat."
Gan Tian smiled sweetly: "Humph, I know you won't give it to me."

Xi Ming shook off the last bit of sleepiness, shook Lu Shaohui's arm and mouthed words frantically: What do you mean!
His doubts were soon answered.

Xie Qingfei also found this ridiculous, so he took a breath before continuing to ask, "Has Huang Xuyao ​​contacted you recently?"
Gan Tian: "No, what's wrong?"
Xie Qingfei: "Gan Tian, ​​are you missing?"
Gan Tian: "Ah, what happened? I don't know. I have been in my hometown all this time."

(End of this chapter)