Chapter 551: Guarding The Tree Stump Waiting for Hares[1]

Xu Xiaodong became tense and listened carefully. The footsteps stopped at the door before turning away quickly. Xu Xiaodong jumped up and ran out in pursuit.

He ran into a small alley following the direction where the sound of the footsteps had vanished. Looking around, there wasn’t anyone around. At that moment, laughter came from the alley behind him. Chen Shi said, "I was testing your responsiveness."

Xu Xiaodong became deflated. "Brother Chen, why did you give me a scare all of a sudden?!"

Chen Shi raised his hand. He had bought some snacks and drinks. "I was afraid of your being bored alone, so I came to keep you company.”

"It’s not too boring, it’s just..."

Chen Shi entered the house. Looking at the dark house, he asked, "Why don't you turn on the lights?"

"I'm afraid that I’ll alert them."

"You’re too upright! If someone really came to look for the victim, they would walk away if the lights weren’t turned on!"

Chen Shi turned on the lights, drew the curtains, sat down and opened the bag. He took the food and drinks out one by one. He said, "This guy's interpersonal relationships aren’t easy to investigate, and the friends he associated with aren’t good people. They’re all snakes and rats."

"I’m puzzled. He also graduated with a four-year undergraduate degree. How did he turn out like this?"

"It was because of gambling. I heard that his family background was pretty good. Ever since his father died, he couldn't get rid of the bad habit of squandering money. He lied that he was working outside of the city. In fact, he was just aimlessly living out his days, waiting for the day it all ends. The family couldn't afford this spoilt brat. He went around everywhere to borrow money from his friends and all of his more respectable friends cut ties with him.”

"Brother Chen, you won't leave tonight, right?"

"I'll stay and keep you company. You wouldn’t have any backup if you’re here alone."

Xu Xiaodong was moved.

In fact, Chen Shi had come directly from the bureau. The preliminary autopsy results of the victim, Sun Jun, had just come out. There was a lot of alcohol in his stomach, which contained anesthetics. He had undoubtedly been murdered.

Chen Shi paced back and forth in the empty house. Xu Xiaodong played Honor of Kings[2] on the sofa. He said, "Brother Chen, why do you keep walking around? Do you want to play with me for a while?"

"Play it by yourself. I'm recreating the process of the crime."

Chen Shi imagined what the situation back then was like. The furniture in the house was neat. The murder process shouldn’t have been too intense. The murderer was an acquaintance. After anesthetizing Sun Jun, he hung him on the beam.

Chen Shi looked up and there were signs of friction on the beam of the house. A lot of dust had been found on the cloth that had strangled Sun Jun. The murderer shouldn’t have been able to hang Sun Jun up alone. They would have first looped a rope around Sun Jun’s neck, pulled it up, and then tied the other end of the rope to the window frame.

Sun Jun's arm had been slightly dislocated and there were fragments of trouser fabric in his fingernails, which showed that he had been struggling violently.

After that, the murderer stamped footprints with Sun Jun's shoes on the chair and pushed it over behind the body, forging the illusion of suicide.

If the murderer was a single person, they should be someone who is familiar with Ah Qiang and not so familiar with Sun Jun, so he had only forged Ah Qiang’s suicide note. But why did they have to make it look like a suicide?

Take Ah Qiang for example. If the murderer had slaughtered him and placed him in the house, the corpse might not have been discovered for a few days, and the investigation would have been more difficult.

The motive of the murderer was definitely related to Ah Zhen's death. The “suicide” method showed the aspiration of the murderer, causing the two to die in the same way as Ah Zhen, returning an eye for an eye.

After thinking about this, Chen Shi searched around the house, and Xu Xiaodong asked curiously, "Didn’t Captain Lin already search the place?"

"I’m seeing if anything is missing."

When he opened the closet, he found a piece of clothing that looked like what the first murderer was wearing, so he laid it out on the bed and took a few photos.

Then he found more than a dozen IOUs in a CD box. He showed them to Xu Xiaodong. Xu Xiaodong was still playing his game. He said anxiously, "I'm almost finished with this round. It was hard for me to make a comeback. Please be accommodating.”

"Do you dare to speak to Captain Lin like this?"

"I know that Brother Chen is very nice!"

Chen Shi didn't accept his sweet-talk and took away his mobile phone directly. Xu Xiaodong looked dejected. Chen Shi said, "When you have the skills one day, you can play games while talking to others about the case. Currently, you don’t have the capital to be naughty.”

"Okay... Wow, so many debts!" Xu Xiaodong picked the IOUs up. "100,000, 130,000, 200,000, how much did he owe?"

"Wait!" Chen Shi picked up a sheet with the name “Liu Qin” written on it. "He owes Liu Qin 200,000?"

"There’s more. He owed 300,000 yuan to Gu Daqiang. Those two have only been working for three years. Could they be so rich?

"They work in marketing and sell raw materials. It's not surprising that they have that much savings... Are you looking regretful that you have entered the wrong field?"

"No, no!" Xu Xiaodong denied repeatedly. However, he was thinking in his heart that they were younger than him, but had made so much money.

Xu Xiaodong said, "Didn’t they say that he fought with Gu Daqiang? Why did Gu Daqiang still lend him money?"

Chen Shi shrugged. "Everyone is dead, how can I know?"

"Can you return the phone to me...?"

"If the phone runs out of battery, how can I contact you?"

"I brought the charger."

"Okay, I give up!"

Xu Xiaodong retrieved his phone happily, continued playing that round of the game, and actually won. He said, "Doesn’t Brother Chen get bored when he investigates cases?"

"I'm very excited to investigate these kinds of odd cases!"

"You don’t get excited for ordinary minor cases, right?"

"Yes, I have no interest at all."

That night, the two fell asleep there. When they got up the next morning, Chen Shi, who was putting on his clothes, said to Xu Xiaodong who was still in bed, "I’ll continue to investigate the case during the day. I’ll come here at night. You’ll stay on guard here the whole time. Do you understand?"

Xu Xiaodong said in a daze, "Mm!"

"Don't ‘mm’. Repeat my words!"

Xu Xiaodong repeated Chen Shi’s words completely. Chen Shi only left after ensuring that Xu Xiaodong had remembered his words.

A task force had been set up for this case. The clues to be investigated were very complicated. They had to follow up with a lot of people that had hung out with the victims. The main reason was that Ah Qiang had too many friends and Sun Jun had too many enemies. However, there wasn’t much of an intersection between the two.

The only intersection, Liu Qin, had long been excluded as a suspect.

Old Zhang said, "According to one of Sun Jun's gambling buddies, he had his fingers chopped off by a gang boss six months ago because he was cheating. Then the humiliating thing was tattooed on his forehead."

Lin Qiupu asked, "What is this gang boss called?"

"The gambler didn't know. They only knew that his nickname is ‘Brother Bian’, and that he runs an underground casino."

"Old Zhang, contact the local police to see if this man has a criminal record and where he operates the casino. Don’t alert him yet after you’ve found this out."

Lin Dongxue said, "I met a classmate of Gu Daqiang yesterday. He said that when the two were fighting, Sun Jun had mocked Ah Qiang for picking up another person’s discarded girlfriend. Gu Daqiang got physical and Ah Zhen cried. Gu Daqiang left with her. Sun Jun and Gu Daqiang were from the same department, but their other classmates aren’t based locally here. I will see if I can contact them by phone today." Then Lin Dongxue's cell phone rang and she glanced at it. "Captain Lin, Liu Qin is outside right now. He said that he was afraid of becoming the next victim and asked for protection!"

"Got it!" Lin Qiupu nodded. "Your phone needs to be put on silent mode the next time we have a meeting."

1. Meaning: Waiting for a stroke of luck. Story behind it: There was once a farmer working the field when he saw a hare break its neck on a tree stump. The farmer decided to give up farming and just wait by the tree-stump. He believed that he could pick up other hares that would inevitably run into the tree again. However, he never saw a hare run into the tree again.

2. Also known as King of Glory.