You're supposed to be a security officer, what case are you solving?

Chapter 308 She and She!
Outside the post office.

The cicadas in the camphor tree were chirping noisily.

The sun was setting in the west, and the afterglow of the sunset shone into the room through the aluminum alloy windows, dividing the floor into strips of shadow, like iron bars in a prison.

The girl slowly recounted the contents of the letter, while Cai Ting and Maozi quickly took notes in their notebooks.

Yao Weihua smoked half a pack of cigarettes, but his heart was still heavy.

Undoubtedly, 'Yin Hong' knew that the deaf-mute woman could not understand the contents of the letter and needed help to understand what she had written, so she tried her best not to mention the persecution she had suffered in Danan County.

In 95, "Yin Hong" fled Gaowa Township. From then until the end of 97, she sent back a total of eight letters over two years.

The fewest letters were from 95; there was only one, sent in August.

In her letter, 'Crimson' told the deaf-mute woman that her life had settled down.

At that time, she was working at the Danbei Coal Mine, digging coal underground, and had a meal to eat.

In 96, there were three letters. In the first letter, she said that she had started a new life and changed her name, and that she would live like a normal person from now on.

However, in the last two letters, the tone suddenly changed. 'Yin Hong' said that she had jumped from one fire pit to another, and what she thought was a 'new life' was actually facing an endless abyss.

During this period, "Yin Hong" became Yuan Dajun's mistress. She thought she could find happiness, but she didn't expect that Yuan Dajun was just using her to conduct power-for-money transactions.

Yuan Dajun and Ge Qi's perverted behavior tormented her to the point of being neither human nor ghost, as if she had returned to the days more than a year ago in Gaowa Township, where Li Fuzhong and his son treated her in the same way.

Then, in the first half of 97, 'Yin Hong' stopped sending letters. At this time, she began to use Yuan Dajun's younger brother, Yuan Lang, to instigate murder and even personally participated in the murder of Yuan Dajun in order to escape her hellish life.

In the latter half of 97, Yin Hong sent back four letters. She had regained her desire for life. In the letters, she wrote that she had someone who loved her, that she was getting married, and that she would live happily ever after. After everything was settled, she would come back to take her daughter Mengmeng away.

This is the time when she and Zhong Aihua fell in love and got married.

It was obvious that Zhong Aihua loved her. The two formed a family and started a happy life, which was what Yin Hong had longed for and felt was a gift from heaven.

Exactly one month after the last letter, the deaf-mute woman, after ingesting paraquat and enduring the risk of death at any moment, went to Danan County to find her!
Thus, 'Crimson' was plunged into despair once again!

The girl at the post office knew the contents of the letters, but she was unaware of the secrets behind them.

Cat kept wiping away tears until she finished speaking.

Cai Ting wasn't much better off, wiping the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand from time to time.

Yao Weihua lit another cigarette, leaned back on the bench, and remained silent.

Yang Jinwen stared at the tape recorder on the table. The cassette tape inside looked like two black shadows, spinning endlessly...

The girl took a sip of soda and said, "I remember these are the letters. In short, there are eight letters in total. Only the ones from the end of 97 have the most content. I used gestures to explain them to the deaf-mute woman for a long time."

Yang Jinwen cleared his throat and asked, "Did the deaf-mute woman say anything? Or did she send a letter to Annam?"

The girl nodded: "Yes, I sent two letters."

"When?"

"When the first letter arrived, I gestured to her. After she understood the contents of the letter, she asked me to reply for her. I was a little impatient. At that time, I had just started working and was afraid of being criticized by my boss, so I refused her."

She had no choice but to leave. The next day she came back, carrying a basket on her back, and stuffed ten eggs into my hands.

She thought I wanted money. I felt sorry for her, so I told her to wait for me to get off work.

The deaf-mute woman sat outside our post office all day. I couldn't bear to see her like that, so during my lunch break, I wrote her a letter.

"What did you write?"

The girl thought for a moment and replied, "She was afraid I would find it troublesome, so she had me write two sentences. The first sentence was, 'Don't worry, Mengmeng is fine, I will take good care of her,' and the second sentence was, 'You must never come back.'"

Yang Jinwen nodded, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

The girl continued, "She had no money at the time, so she traded eggs for stamps. The second time was in the latter half of 97, when she carried a little girl in a basket on her back to the photo studio."

I happened to run into her on my way to work that day, and she even greeted me.

A week later, at the market, she came to find me, handed me a photo, and asked me to mail it to her.

What kind of photo?

"It was taken at a photo studio. She was holding the little girl in her arms, sitting on a long bench. In the photo, she was wearing new clothes, and the little girl was dressed up very nicely."

Yang Jinwen asked, "So what did she ask you to write?"

The girl shook her head: "She didn't write anything, she just sent a photo. I guess she was afraid of bothering me."

At this moment, Yao Weihua suddenly stood up: "Captain Yang, I'll go check out that photo studio."

Yang Jinwen nodded, understanding that Yao Weihua didn't want to hear any more.

Maozi quickly added, "Old Yao, I'll go with you." Yang Jinwen reached out and turned off the recording.

The girl asked, "Is there anything else you want to ask?"

Yang Jinwen thought for a moment and said, "Are you sure there was a letter in the second half of 97 that said if you wanted to find her, you should go to Shaping Town in Jiangcheng?"

"Yes." The girl nodded: "At that time, the deaf-mute woman asked me to write down two addresses for her. I thought to myself, she can't read, so there's no point in writing them down."

But then she thought that if she wanted to go in the future, she could ask people for directions along the way.

One is the address of Danan County in Qin Province, and the other is Shaping Town in Jiangcheng.

"Thank you, you've been a great help to us."

"Don't mention it, thank you for buying us soda."

Yang Jinwen stood up and said goodbye to her.

He and Cai Ting walked out of the post office. Although the weather outside was very hot, Yang Jinwen felt cold.

Gaowa Township is not a large place, but the streets are crowded.

In the 90s, rural towns were bustling with people during market days. Some well-known large enterprises developed from factories established in rural towns, which shows the prosperity of rural towns at that time.

Zongjiang County is famous for its noodles, and Li Fuzhong's family makes a living by pressing noodles in a mill. They are considered wealthy in the village, otherwise they wouldn't have bought 'Yin Hong' from human traffickers.

Cai Ting followed Yang Jinwen and asked, "Captain Yang, 'Yin Hong' has come to adulthood in Gaowa Township. Where is her hometown? Will she go back to her hometown? Or has she gone to hide in Jiangcheng?"

Yang Jinwen remained silent for several minutes before speaking, "Let's not talk about the case for now, let's just take a stroll."

Cai Ting nodded: "That works too."

Despite saying that, Yang Jinwen still went to the photo studio in the township.

Yao Weihua and Maozi helped the boss watch the shop, while the boss developed photos in the darkroom.

Yao Weihua asked, "Captain Yang, are we going to Jiangcheng?"

Before Yang Jinwen could reply, Maozi said, "Let the Deyang Criminal Police Detachment investigate. We won't get involved."

He was just saying it in anger; after all, anyone would feel sympathy for 'Yin Hong's' plight.

Cai Ting sighed, "If they really find 'Yin Hong,' she will definitely face the death penalty."

Yao Weihua sighed, "It's a family annihilation case. You all know what kind of case it is. The Deyang Criminal Police Detachment will issue an arrest warrant soon. Even if we don't look for her, she will be caught sooner or later. It's just a matter of time."

Furthermore, the case is not yet fully resolved. Where did 'Yin Hong's' daughter, Mengmeng, go? Was she taken away, or did something happen to her?
And why would a deaf-mute woman drink paraquat, even at the cost of her life, to find 'Crimson'? What was her purpose?
"This is such a big case, the Deyang Criminal Investigation Detachment will definitely keep investigating it. There's no statute of limitations for this case."

Cat cursed, "These beasts are all damned! 'Crimson' was driven to this state by them! She was able to survive several times, but they drove her to the brink of despair."

Yao Weihua said, "Li Fuzhong and Li Mian deserve to die, but why did she kill that child, that Li Dai? Why?"

Yang Jinwen took out a cigarette and handed it to them. After they lit it and took a puff, he said, "So we must find 'Crimson' and get to the bottom of the case, especially since so many people have died."

Cai Ting shook her head: "She hated these people so much that she didn't even have a gun on her, so she used a machete to kill them. Tell me, what kind of state did that drive her to?"

Yao Weihua blinked: "Should we tell the Deyang Criminal Police Detachment about what we found out today?"

"Tell me your ass," Cat said. "Who do they think they are? When we arrived, they weren't cooperating. But when they saw that the family annihilation case was the murderer we were looking for, they went into overdrive arresting people, afraid that we would find them first."

Yao Weihua nodded: "Brother Cat is right."

Yang Jinwen thought for a moment and said, "Sister Cai, buy tickets to Jiangcheng for tomorrow."

"Okay, should we notify Captain Li and the others?"

"Tell him that if he asks us where we're going, don't answer him."

“Of course.” Cai Ting nodded.

A short while later, the owner of the photo studio came out of the darkroom. When he saw that there were two more people, he was stunned for a moment, and then handed the photo to Yao Weihua.

“A while ago, the police asked me for photos, so I looked through my archives and found the negatives of the photos I took of the deaf-mute woman. I still have this one.”

Yao Weihua took the photo and handed it to Yang Jinwen. Several people gathered around to look at it together.

The background of the photo is inside the photo studio, on a wooden bench, where a deaf-mute woman is holding a little girl named Mengmeng in her arms, happily facing the camera.

She sat at one end of the bench, not in the middle; the other end of the bench seemed to be reserved for someone else.

Without a doubt, she hoped that 'Crimson' could sit with them and take this photo.

(End of this chapter)