CH 136

“En… okay, but,” Gu Xizhou muttered to himself for a moment before warning, “don’t bother the people working on the case.”

“En,” Si Yu nodded at Gu Xizhou and said, “Don’t worry, I know how to behave.”

Gu Xizhou didn’t speak. Squeezing through the crowd, he reached the circle of bystanders and said in a low voice, “Excuse me, pardon me.”

In front of the crowd, Gu Xizhou lifted the caution tape and ducked under, Si Yu following him in. When the other police officers caught sight of Gu Xizhou, they immediately came over, calling, “Team Leader Gu.” 

“Team Leader Gu, You’re here.”

Gu Xizhou waved his hand and strode over to the crime scene. At the crime scene, Xiang Yuan’s face was surprisingly pale, and Gu Xizhou was a little stunned. This guy had seen so many strange corpses, but even his face was pale. No wonder the officer who had called him had stammered for half a day and was unable to tell him clearly about the state of the corpse.

Xiang Yuan saw corpses like this everyday, and even his face went pale.

Gu Xizhou’s gaze swept over the body covered in a white cloth on the ground, walking quickly over to Xiang Yuan, asking in a low voice, “What’s the situation?”

Xiang Yuan choked on his spit when he saw Si Yu following Gu Xizhou over, his brow furrowing slightly, expression paling slightly as he relayed the findings of the preliminary investigation: “The deceased is a child, there is no identifying information on his body, he’s about two years old, and his heart was cut out with a knife.”

Hearing this, the muscles in Gu Xizhou’s back tightened, and he took up the conversation, asking, “The heart was taken out?”

“En.” Xiang Yuan nodded, answering briefly. He fell silent for a moment before he continued, “…There are also some strange notches on the child’s arm which should have been left deliberately by the murderer. The child’s eyes are also gone.”

Hearing that, Gu Xizhou subconsciously walked past him quickly and lifted the white cloth. Seeing the state of the child’s death, Gu Xizhou’s complexion was not good. The notches left on the child’s arm were very strange, and kind of resembled a special symbol. His eyes had also been dug out, his empty sockets oozing blood. 

Gu Xizhou endured the discomfort, replacing the white cloth carefully as he stood up and asked, “Who found the body?”

“It’s a pair of young sweethearts who rent a house here.” The officer pointed to a man and a woman who were trembling, standing a little ways away. “The preliminary investigation said that their cat found it…”

Gu Xizhou listened to the general situation and lowered his eyes looking at the people standing around him. Massaging the space between his eyebrows his gaze swept over the entire street. This street was a small street behind the main avenue. Whether or not it had surveillance was hard to say, but after hesitating Gu Xizhou still asked, “Is there surveillance here?”

“Nothing.” The police officer shook his head. They had clearly already looked into surveillance before Gu Xizhou got there. 

Gu Xizhou ‘en’ed and turned to Xiang Yuan for more information. Xiang Yuan lowered his voice and said, “The liver spots on the child indicate that he can’t have been dead more than 15 hours. The murder must have waited before throwing it in the dumpster. My guess is that it was discarded here in the early morning. There wouldn’t be many people around at that hour. Maybe we should expand our scope?”

Gu Xizhou nodded and said, “That’s all we can do for now. Bring the corpse back and see if there are any missing person reports from the past few days. Have someone visit this neighborhood to see if there are any children missing from here!”

“Yes!”

After Gu Xizhou finished giving orders, everyone went their separate ways. Gu Xizhou turned to Xiang Yuan and said, “Give me the results from the autopsy as soon as possible.” 

“Okay,” Xiang Yuan answered readily.

Gu Xizhou immediately left the crime scene. The body was discovered in a small alleyway. Turning left led him to the main street leading out of the city. On the right was the apartment complex. The first floor was lined with shops. Gu Xizhou thought that these people might have seen something, so he went directly from door to door to ask if anyone knew anything.

Gu Xizhou pulled out his police badge and asked some of the shopkeepers closest to the garbage can, “Hello, I’m a police officer. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Yes, yes of course.” 

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Gu Xizhou’s gaze swept over the interior of the vegetable shop. The shop’s shelves were piled with all sorts of fresh food. It was obvious that there was no one inside. Gu Xizhou was a little surprised, but he still asked, “There’s no one here at night?”

“No one,” the middle-aged woman answered, shrinking back into the small chair as if she didn’t want anyone to notice her.

The woman pointed in front of her and said, “We live in a house we rented in the neighborhood, not in the vegetable shop. There are six people in our household. We can’t live here.” 

Gu Xizhou ‘en’ed and continued to ask, “You must get up early to sell vegetables. Did you see anything?”

The woman was silent for a while, thinking Gu Xizhou’s question over seriously, before replying, “The vegetable market opened at five this morning. The vegetable market is in the opposite direction of the shop, so I wasn’t here this morning. But, when I left with my husband, I looked back down the street, and I didn’t see anyone.”

In the end, Gu Xizhou didn’t get any useful information out of the woman. He thanked the woman and was about to leave when the woman said, “Officer, if you really want to know, the guard might have seen something. If someone entered or exited the neighborhood he would have opened the gate for them!”

Gu Xizhou nodded, “Thanks.” 

Gu Xizhou asked around, but he didn’t find any useful information. There were no missing children in the neighborhood, and there was no one in the vicinity.

In the end, Gu Xizhou ended up looking for the guard the woman was talking about. At noon the guard was at home eating lunch. He was having fish for lunch and you could smell the aroma from far away. It seemed that this guy’s skills were pretty good.

Gu Xizhou secretly thought as he walked in. The guard caught sight of an unfamiliar face and shouted, “Hey, who are you looking for?”

The door was open so Gu Xizhou just walked in. He walked over to the table in front of the open door and pulled out his police badge, “There was a murder approximately two hundred meters form here. I wanted to ask if you’d seen anyone suspicious.” 

The man was wearing a short floral striped shirt and shook his bald head, setting down his chopsticks to reply, “No, there was nothing out of the ordinary last night. To tell the truth, I heard that someone died, and I’m pretty scared.”

“I heard the child died a very miserable death, is that true?” The bald man asked curiously in a low voice.

Gu Xizhou didn’t answer his question and continued asking about the basic situation, “Is there a surveillance camera here?”

The bald man rubbed his head and said, “No, the neighborhood didn’t put one in for us, but I already said that!” 

Gu Xizhou didn’t find any useful clues and left the neighborhood through the gates. Si Yu, who had been following Gu Xizhou the whole time without saying a word, suggested, “Eat something first?”

Gu Xizhou glanced at the time. It was already one. He was also a little hungry. Today wasn’t very exciting, but to have just come out of the mission world to be met with this kind of case, that child’s death was really too horrible. “Okay, what do you want to eat?”

Si Yu lowered his gaze and pointed to a family shop ahead of them and said, “Here, ba.”

Gu Xizhou glanced inside the shop and gave Si Yu a strange look. This shop… was really greasy looking. Ultimately, Gu Xizhou didn’t say anything and followed Si Yu in. 

Ordering two bowls of noodles, Gu Xizhou bowed his head, eating unhurriedly. The flavor was very bland. It had the taste and texture of chewing wax. After eating two bites Gu Xizhou put down his chopsticks. He really had no appetite.

He looked across the table at Si Yu and saw that he was eating very slowly. After waiting a while, two men walked through the door.

“That son of a bitch keyed Laozi’s car again, and Laozi came to see which silly dragon wanted to make life hard for Laozi.” A tall man came in swearing as he chatted with his companion.

“Pu, just try looking for the fart, ah. Your neighborhood doesn’t have any surveillance!” The tall man’s companion said disdainfully, “This neighborhood isn’t very nice. Why don’t you move to a different neighborhood, ah?” 

The tall man complained dramatically, “Other neighborhoods must have parking! Parking is only available in this neighborhood!”

“Who says there’s no surveillance? My car’s been keyed three or four times already so I bought a little voyeur’s camera and put it up in a tree inside the neighborhood!  This time I’ll catch that damn kid for sure!”

The tall man swore and the two people also didn’t lower their voices while talking. Anyone in the restaurant could hear them clearly, and Gu Xizhou’s heart jumped violently. He turned to give Si Yu a strange look.

Si Yu cleaned his ears, “See what I’m doing? These noodles aren’t tasty, and I don’t want to eat them.” 

Gu Xizhou: “…”

Si Yu directly ignored Gu Xizhou, pointing to the tall man next to him, “Aren’t you going to ask?”

Gu Xizhou thought for a moment before getting up and walking over to the two men, knocking on the table softly. “Sorry to disturb you. I heard you saying you got a small camera?”

“Ah? What, la? Laozi…” The tall man was suddenly interrupted by someone else and was a little displeased. But, after seeing Gu Xizhou, he was startled by the look in his eyes and his mouth that originally wanted to spew profanity was forced to say stiffly, ‘Is there something wrong?’ 

Gu Xizhou lowered his voice, “Is the neighborhood you’re talking about the one next to this one?”

The tall man nodded, “Yes.”

“Someone died today,” Gu Xizhou said, taking out his badge and glancing at the man, “Can the little camera you installed see the entrance to the neighborhood?”

Seeing Gu Xizhou’s ID, the man’s face changed slightly. Because he’d discovered that someone had scratched his car early this morning and taken it in to be repainted, he didn’t know that someone had died. He thought for a moment and said, “It’s installed inside the neighborhood, so it can’t see outside.” 

Gu Xizhou was about to speak when Si Yu came over and said casually, “I can’t find any clues for the time being, so I can’t let any possibility go.”

“En,” Gu Xizhou nodded.

The tall man hesitated before saying, “Okay, ba.”

Gu Xizhou followed the man into the neighborhood to get the camera and used the power from the guard room, borrowing a computer from the same place to watch the footage from that night. 

“WTF, you actually put something like this in the neighborhood, boy?” The bald-headed guard said, swearing at the tall man.

As soon as he opened the footage, Gu Xizhou was disappointed. The direction the camera was pointing was clearly the interior of the neighborhood. There were three cars at the entrance to the neighborhood, and the one in the middle was the tall man’s car.

They watched the video attentively. Around 11 p.m a child appeared holding something, scratching the tall man’s car several times. The tall man scolded them angrily, “This child deserves a beating! This kid must live in the neighborhood!”

The guard glanced at it and said, “It looks like the kid who lives in building two.” 

The tall man curled his lip and said, “Just wait, I’ll stick up an announcement right away. Let his parents come to me and admit his mistakes. Heng! So hateful!”

Gu Xizhou didn’t care if the man caught the child. He reviewed the footage from the whole night from start to finish. This surveillance camera caught more than a dozen people entering or exiting the neighborhood in the middle of the night, but in regards to the situation outside, it was of no help.

Gu Xizhou was disappointed. Next to him, Si Yu pointed to the screen and said, “At 4:38:21 a.m. someone walked by outside, and this person was not from this community.”

“What? There was someone, I didn’t see it, ah!” The tall man said. 

Si Yu said quietly, “Look at the rear-view mirror of the car on the right. The mirror is facing the lamp at the entrance. Every time someone walks by they will block the street light and the mirror will darken. This also happens at 4:38:21, but no one from the neighborhood went out at that time. The power won’t automatically cut off until dawn, so it isn’t because they are flickering, it’s because someone walked by.”

Gu Xizhou immediately fast-forwarded the video. If the exact time could be determined, the range of time could be greatly reduced. After watching the surveillance video, it really should be someone passing by…

Gu Xizhou glanced at Si Yu, pulling out his phone to call his colleagues to tell them to reduce the range of time for their investigation.

“WTF, is this okay?” The tall man who had taken the video looked at the handsome man in front of him with a dumbfounded expression. He really couldn’t comprehend the structure of this man’s brain, and could only sigh, “This observation power! Fucking genius!” 

Because the video was of value, Gu Xizhou made a copy to take with him. Gu Xizhou got in the car and looked at Si Yu and said, “Why haven’t you gone back yet?”

“To be your chauffeur. You have a lot of places to go today,” Si Yu said lightly.

“En?” Gu Xizhou raised his eyebrows.

After two in the afternoon the wind was warm. Gu Xizhou and Si Yu barely said a few words on the way back and returned to the police station quickly. 

As soon as Gu Xizhou walked through the door of the police station, he saw one of his colleagues stick his head out from the second floor, greeting him, “Team Leader Gu! We found someone suspicious on the surveillance!”

Hearing that, Gu Xizhou ran up to the second floor, and the officer from the technology department hurriedly put a computer in front of Gu Xizhou, saying, “Team Leader Gu, look, this is from our investigation of surveillance footage from the surrounding area. On Lotus Road at 4:02:58, a man passed by carrying a black plastic bag like there was a person in it.”

Gu Xizhou moved closer to the computer, bowing his head to watch the screen. A man dressed in plain black clothes, his face covered with a scarf, carried a black plastic bag. The effort required to carry the bag was a little strenuous, and he was walking in a hurry!

“Based on the footage, we can only determine that it’s somewhere in the suburbs…” The officer said, circling an area, “The person disappears somewhere within the vicinity of Liulichang.” 

To be precise, there was no factory in the vicinity of Liulichang suburb. Liulichang was its old name. In the eighties a family opened a glaze factory before moving away, but out of habit, people in Ningqing still called it Liulichang.

Gu Xizhou, “Has anyone been reported missing in Liulichang?”

“No.”

Seeing his colleague shake his head, Gu Xizhou thought about it, and after thinking it over for a while, he still decided to send someone to make the trip. 

This time, Gu Xizhou didn’t take Si Yu’s car, but took one of the station’s cars with a few of his colleagues and everyone discussed the upcoming trip.

“Gu Ge, President Si’s car is still following us.” One of the officers whispered to Gu Xizhou. Because he had eaten with Si Yu before, the officer could recognize his car.

In the middle of assigning tasks to everyone, Gu Xizhou glanced in the rear-view mirror and said quietly, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Why is President Si following us? Is he looking for Team Leader Gu?” Lao Guo asked. 

The Bentley followed them unhurriedly, not far behind them. Gu Xizhou said vaguely, “En, something like that.”

Seeing that Gu Xizhou didn’t want to continue discussing this matter, they didn’t continue to ask invasive questions. The officer who was driving opened the navigation and said, “We’ll be at Liulichang in twenty minutes!”

After they’d been driving for a while, they finally saw the four characters Liulichang. All the houses in the vicinity were farm houses interspersed with low income housing. There were lots of migrant workers who came to work from all over the country in the area, some of which worked in the shoe factory nearby.

There were lots of people, it was very chaotic. 

After getting out of the car, everyone followed Gu Xizhou’s instructions and went in pairs of two to investigate, asking if there were any missing children from the area. Gu Xizhou sent off the last two people and tilted his head to look at the Bentley parked by the curb. He went over and knocked on the window, and the window rolled down immediately.

“What are you doing?” Gu Xizhou asked.

“I’ll send you home later.” 

“That’s not necessary. You should go home and rest,” Gu Xizhou said after thinking about it.

Si Yu turned off the car and pulled the parking brake, opening the door as he said, “No, I want to stay with you for a while. Anyway, don’t worry about me, I’ll just wait for you, okay?”

Gu Xizhou, “Okay, ba…” You’re so sappy, you win.