Eyes that are the same as those of evil

Chapter 87 The Case of Burning the Corpse 5
By continuing to think along these lines, we can basically deduce the whole story.

The deceased and the murderer No. 1 had a struggle and fight on Ghost Ridge Slope because of something. The deceased was injured and ran uphill.

At this moment, the second murderer, who was also the driver, hit the deceased with his car. Thinking he had killed someone, he panicked and fled the scene.

During the time the driver fled, it was unknown what happened between the first murderer and the victim. Shortly afterward, the driver secretly returned, presumably having checked the victim's condition and concluding that he had indeed hit and killed someone. He then poured gasoline on the body, set it on fire, and pushed it down the hillside to destroy the evidence.

After the driver left, the first murderer reappeared and watched as the victim, who had been barely alive, was burned alive on the hillside.

Therefore, the death was caused by two people working together.

Zheng Yan believed this guess was closest to the truth and promptly revised the main direction of the investigation.

"We need to find the driver quickly and ask him if he noticed anything different when he hit the person and when he went back to check on the deceased. If there is a dashcam, we might be able to find out the existence of the first murderer."

"The people investigating the murder weapon have expanded their search to the forest on Ghost Ridge Slope. If they're lucky, they might be able to detect the biological information of the murderer, number one."

"The technical team should find out that fan's registration information as soon as possible. I don't believe that so many people in this case could use fake identities."

"Also, the most important thing now is to find out the identity of the deceased. We have found another clue about the identity, so we need to speed things up."

According to the mysterious fan's post, the deceased was a poor construction worker with a mentally ill son and a seriously ill grandson. Despite his advanced age, he was still working on construction sites to earn money to pay for his grandson's medical treatment.

Zhang Wenwu was unaware of the existence of Murderer No. 1 and only thought that the murderer was the driver who caused the accident. So in the video, he regretfully expressed that if the driver had not been so depraved and had chosen to call the police, perhaps the deceased could have survived instead of being in this state, which made the Zhou family's miserable life even worse. He even named the video "The Depraved Case of Burning a Corpse".

With this new clue, Xiao Chen and Tan Ming quickly got busy again.

After investigation by the local police station, only one of the six people named Zhou Qiaox perfectly matched all the clues.

Zhou Qiaoan was born in 1974 and lives in Sanlin Town. She has a son with mental problems and a sickly-looking child.

He usually works as a bricklayer at a construction site in the city and goes home in the evening, but he didn't go home last night and hasn't been seen since.

The criminal investigation team immediately went to Sanlin Town to conduct interviews and investigations, while Xiao Chen stayed behind to check the surveillance footage at the traffic police department.

On the way to Sanlin Town, Zheng Yan received a call from Lao Li, who said that the autopsy results were in.

"The deceased had indeed been injured before his death, on his head, which resulted in a skull fracture. The murderer must have used a lot of force at the time."

"Can the type of weapon be deduced from the skull wound?"

Old Li: "We can only tell that it's most likely a blunt weapon, not the blade side."

"Okay. How about DNA testing?"

"It's still a long way off," Old Li said wearily. "Even the most effective pericardial blood test takes several hours, let alone the condition of this corpse. It's questionable whether we can even get a result by tomorrow."

Zheng Yan could only say, "Let's speed it up as much as possible. We've already identified the deceased and need to do a DNA comparison with the family as soon as possible."

Although an ID card was already provided, just as Tan Jia suspected, the ID card might belong to someone else, or it might have been deliberately placed on the victim by the murderer. Therefore, it could not fully prove the victim's identity and would require surveillance footage and DNA testing for confirmation.

Upon arriving in Sanlin Town, the aroma of dinner wafted from the streets.

You can even smell which dish it is by taking a deep breath.

After getting off the bus, Tan Jia suddenly had a strong urge to go back and eat a bowl of braised beef noodles.

If Lin Zhiyue asks her again when she gets back in the evening if she has eaten, she should say she hasn't and then go in for a free meal. Judging from the Lin family's wealth, the aunt's cooking should be quite good.

"Green Little Wolf, keep up," Zheng Yan called to her. She smacked her lips, rubbed her hair, and followed.

Zhou Qiaoan's home is at the end of the street in town. The front door of the house is open, and the vegetable stall is set up on the steps in front of the house. Inside, covered by a long cloth, is the area where the family of five cooks and eats. They live on the second floor.

The people selling vegetables and cooking are Zhou Qiaoan's daughter-in-law and wife, two women more than twenty years apart in age, their faces etched with the same hardships.

They didn't talk to anyone, silently doing their own thing. Occasionally, while they were busy, they would turn their heads to look at their home, where a child was sleeping and a man had his feet tied with a rope.

Tan Jia glanced over and noticed that the tied-up man was peeling garlic. Hearing the noise, he peeked out from behind a pile of boxes, then with a blank expression, he withdrew. He had long hair and looked to be about thirty years old. He was alone and quite far away from the child.

The criminal investigation team approached, identified themselves, and explained their purpose. The two women didn't stop what they were doing. They weighed the vegetables and handed them to the customer, then served the stir-fried dishes before wiping their hands and walking up to them.

"Please sit down, please sit down."

Zheng Yan didn't sit down. He looked around the house and asked in a deep voice, "Yu Lan, is that right? Your husband, Zhou Qiaoan, hasn't come back since he left home last night?"

"Yes, we still haven't seen him."

"Do you know when he left? What did he go there for? Who did he go with? Where did he go?"

Yu Lan, who is fifty years old, shook her head: "I don't know. We were all asleep at night. I only heard him go out. I thought he was getting up to go to the bathroom, so I didn't pay attention."

"Didn't you look for him? I heard it was only when the police came to ask that you realized something was wrong?"

Yu Lan sighed, looking at the two sickly people in the house, her cloudy eyes filled with exhaustion: "We're too busy. He's a grandfather now, we don't need to worry about where he goes."

After pausing for a moment, she cautiously asked, "Has something happened to him?"

Zheng Yan simply said, "We still need to investigate to confirm. Do you know what he was wearing yesterday? What's his hairstyle like recently? Perhaps you have any recent photos of him?"

There was no photo, but Yu Lan knew what Zhou Qiaoan was wearing when she left.

“I wash all his clothes. A dark gray plaid shirt is missing from his wardrobe. His pants are black. His hair is unkempt, just a buzz cut, and it's all white…”

The last sentence made her suddenly burst into tears.

She wiped her eyes with her not-so-dirty sleeve and said in a trembling voice, "He just had an accident, didn't he? You can just say it. I've heard enough bad news in my life, I can hold back."

How can anyone bear to do this?

Zheng Yan was in a heavy mood, but after a moment of silence, he still gave a brief explanation.

Upon hearing that Zhou Qiaoan might have been hit by a car and her body burned to the bone, Yu Lan stared blankly for a long time, seemingly lost in thought.

After a long pause, he asked, "Is it really him? Was he hit by a car? Have you found the driver who hit him?"

Tan Ming answered the questions he could, and then asked, "Do you know who Zhou Qiaoan has a grudge against? Or who she has had a serious conflict with recently?"

Yu Lan shook her head slowly.

Zheng Yan wanted to ask more questions when his phone suddenly rang. It was Xiao Chen calling.

"Team Leader Zheng, we've found the car that scraped the guardrail last night, and also a person who walked into Ghost Ridge Slope. His build looks a lot like Zhou Qiaoan."

"In addition, the technical team said that the identity of the fan who submitted the article to Zhang Wenwu has also been found out. It's someone you would never expect."

The book has been renamed; it's now more serious in style, so don't think you've come to the wrong place!
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(End of this chapter)