freenovelworld Chapter 1054 Sanitation Worker Zhao Dehan
Chapter 1054 Sanitation Worker Zhao Dehan
In the office, everyone sat together, a thick stack of investigation documents in front of them. "Sun Bingfang has a complete alibi for the night of the incident," Xiao Wang said, rubbing his temples. "No obvious problems have been found in any of Yuanfang Building Materials' business operations; the previous leads seem to have all gone cold."
Team member Xiao Li was somewhat dejected: "Then haven't we been working for nothing these past two days? What should we do next?" Xiao Wang pondered for a moment, then said firmly: "It's not a waste of time; at least we've ruled out a wrong direction. Let's re-examine the clues, starting with the deceased's social relationships. As an ordinary sanitation worker, what could have led to his murder? There must be crucial details we've overlooked."
Outside the window, night fell, and the city lights gradually came on. Inside the Criminal Investigation Division's office, the lights remained on, and Xiao Wang and his team members threw themselves into a new round of investigation. They knew that the road to finding the truth was fraught with difficulties, but in order to give the deceased some closure, they could not afford to slack off in the slightest.
The case took a turn for the better when Xiao Zhou conducted interviews and investigations with sanitation workers.
During the investigation, they discovered a sanitation worker named Zhao Dehan who had been away from Zhang Hui for the past few days. They focused their attention on him, and the investigation did indeed uncover some clues.
Rain streaked across Xiao Zhou's goggles, his knuckles white from gripping the visitation logbook tightly. The sanitation station's changing room reeked of damp, sweaty sweat; thirty-seven orange work uniforms hung neatly, except for the empty space beneath the metal plaque bearing "Zhao Dehan." "Old Zhao was acting strangely three days before he disappeared," said his old coworker, Old Wang, rubbing his cracked hands, dirt still embedded in his fingernails. "He was always staring blankly at his phone, and when he answered calls, he'd hide in the toilet, and when he came out, his face was paler than plaster."
Xiao Zhou immediately retrieved Zhao Dehan's call records. Among the densely packed numbers, a local number ending in "4444" appeared frequently in the two weeks before his disappearance. When the technical department traced the number to a disposable phone card registered under a false identity, the investigation team raided Zhao Dehan's rented apartment that night. The beam of a flashlight swept across the mottled paint on the walls, and the yellowed calendar page for November 12th was heavily circled in red pen, with the four crooked characters "Fight to the Death" written in pencil next to it.
“His wife took their daughter back to her parents’ home last year,” the landlord said, picking at the chewing gum on the doorframe. “I heard Old Zhao has gambling debts.” Xiao Zhou squatted down and pulled a metal box from under the bed. Inside, besides a few yellowed photos of construction site accidents, was a tattered ledger. Turning to the first page, the handwriting on the page read, “July 15, 2022, Boss Wang paid 50,000 yuan as hush money,” which was repeatedly thickened. The latest record stopped at “November 10, 2023, final ultimatum.”
The visit to Zhao Dehan's relatives led to an even deeper mystery. In a low-rise house on the outskirts of the city, Zhao Dehan's brother, his eyes red with tears, said, "My brother was honest his whole life, but he got into gambling. Half a year ago, he suddenly said he wanted to quit gambling and even borrowed 30,000 yuan from me." When Xiao Zhou showed the old man a photo of the flame tattoo on the deceased's waist, the old man suddenly coughed violently: "This...this is what he got at an illegal tattoo parlor when he was eighteen. They said it could ward off disaster..."
The clues provided by the sanitation station colleagues were even more fragmented. Young Li remembered Zhao Dehan repeatedly saying before his disappearance, "I'll stop after one more big heist"; Old Zhou, responsible for garbage collection, revealed that Zhao had been acting suspiciously towards the suburbs on the day he disappeared. Xiao Zhou marked this information on a map, and when all the red dots were connected, the endpoint pointed to the abandoned Hongxing Machinery Factory—the very property under Sun Bingfang's name that was about to be demolished.
"Focus on checking the area around the machinery factory." Xiao Zhou tapped on the map during the morning meeting, while the projector displayed satellite images on the whiteboard. Three teams of team members, armed with metal detectors, ventured deep into the overgrown factory area. When Xiao Sun's equipment emitted a piercing horn in Workshop No. 3, the team struggled to dig through the cobweb-covered concrete floor. Inside a rusty iron box lay Zhao Dehan's work ID, its edges still stained with dried blood.
However, the search of the machine shop yielded nothing. Technicians repeatedly tested the DNA remaining at the scene, but apart from Zhao Dehan's, there were no other biological traces. Xiao Zhou stood in the center of the dusty workshop, staring at the mottled slogan on the wall, "Safety in production is of paramount importance," when he suddenly noticed the electrical distribution box in the corner—the fresh pry marks on the keyhole stood out starkly against the rust.
When the team members pried open the electrical distribution box, bundles of cash were scattered all over the floor. Tucked inside an oil-stained ledger was a group photo: Zhao Dehan was standing in front of the construction site with his arm around a man wearing sunglasses; the crane in the background clearly bore the number of Yuanfang Building Materials. "Investigate this person!" Xiao Zhou pointed to the photo, his voice echoing in the empty factory. But when the investigation team found the construction site manager in the photo, he had already submitted his resignation three days prior. Surveillance footage showed him disappearing from the high-speed rail station with a suitcase, never to be seen again.
At this point, a new autopsy report brought even more complex mysteries. Zhang Lin held up the X-ray: "The deceased had three old fractures in his ribs, which had healed for more than two years, consistent with the characteristics of a fall from a height at a construction site." He pulled up the dental test data: "The amalgam filling used contained special trace elements. This formula was only used by the Second Municipal Hospital before 2018."
While reviewing the hospital's dental records, the nurse pulled out a yellowed file: "Zhao Dehan did receive treatment in 2017, but..." She suddenly frowned, "He was accompanied by a man in a suit at the time, and he paid all the bills by card." When Xiao Zhou asked to see the card transaction records, the system showed that the bank card was cancelled the day after the transaction, and the account holder information was also forged.
In the dead of night, amidst a torrential downpour, Xiao Zhou returned to Zhao Dehan's rented apartment. A flashlight illuminated the wall, revealing a hidden compartment behind a faded poster. A beam of his flashlight swept across the space, revealing several candid photos: at a groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project, Zhao Dehan, wearing a hard hat, was lurking in a corner, the camera pointed at the stage—where Sun Bingfang was smiling, holding scissors, with a backdrop behind him proclaiming "Construction by Yuanfang Group."
However, when Xiao Zhou rushed to Wang Jun's office with the photos, he was told that Wang Jun was on a business trip abroad, and his itinerary had been reported three months in advance. On the other end of the international call, Wang Jun's voice was weary from jet lag: "Zhao Dehan? I don't know him at all. Are you sure you haven't made a mistake?" Xiao Zhou clutched the photos tightly; raindrops dripped down the umbrella ribs, leaving dark stains on the four gilded characters of "Yuanfang Group." This game of uncovering the truth seemed to have only just begun.
The turning point came during one of Xiao Wang's investigations.
On the fourth day after the incident, Xiao Wang squatted on the moldy floor of Zhao Dehan's rented room, the beam of his flashlight sweeping across the worn edges of the metal box under the bed. As he lifted the lid for the seventh time, his fingertips suddenly touched the rough edge of a lining—beneath the yellowed pawn ticket, half a crumpled bank transfer slip peeked out, the blurred words "Honest Lending" in the remitter's column barely visible in the cold light.