freenovelworld Chapter 1026: The clues have gone cold, but a new discovery has been made.
Chapter 1026: The clues have gone cold, but a new discovery has been made.
But things backfired.
The late autumn air in the machine factory was thick with the smell of rust and machine oil. Xiao Wang entered the workshop for the third time; sparks from metal cutting still flew everywhere, but they couldn't illuminate his increasingly serious expression. Holding the updated visit list, he walked towards the workers who were adjusting the machine tools, the voice recorder in his work pants pocket already activated.
"Master Chen, last time you mentioned that Li Baocun took on a part-time job. Think about it again these past few days, have you seen any new leads?" Xiao Wang stepped aside to avoid the roaring conveyor belt and raised his voice to ask. Master Chen took off his greasy gloves, and the black grime embedded in the wrinkles fell off with the movement: "Really, nothing. Old Li is a tight-lipped man, he never talks about private matters. But..." He suddenly lowered his voice, "About half a month ago, I saw him arguing with Old Zhou from the warehouse at the factory gate. Both of them looked unwell, but I didn't hear what they were saying."
This detail gave Xiao Wang a jolt. He immediately found Zhou Jianguo, who was organizing cleaning agents in the warehouse. The neatly stacked industrial-grade bleach bottles on the shelves reflected the light, revealing his evasive eyes. "That day? We just had a couple of arguments about the handover of work." Zhou Jianguo wiped the shelves, the rubber gloves screeching against the metal. "Old Li insisted on checking the expired supplies, I thought it was unnecessary, so we exchanged a few words."
Xiao Wang reviewed the factory's surveillance footage frame by frame. The footage showed that Li Baocun and Zhou Jianguo did indeed have an argument on the evening of September 2nd, but two minutes later, they left separately and never interacted again. Even more disappointingly, the warehouse entry and exit records showed that Zhou Jianguo had never improperly used cleaning agents in the week before and after the incident, and his attendance records perfectly coincided with the time of the incident.
The interviews continued to delve into the night shift workers. In the dimly lit break room, Lao Zhao, who was on night duty, tore open a package of instant noodles. Amid the rising steam, he scratched his disheveled hair and recalled: "Lao Li liked to stay in the power distribution room when he was on night shift, saying it was quiet there. But last month, he seemed to be hiding from people while making phone calls. Once, I pushed the door open and he hurriedly hung up, looking particularly grim."
Xiao Wang immediately retrieved the surveillance footage from the power distribution room, but unfortunately, that area was a blind spot for the cameras. He then checked Li's saved call records. Among the thousands of messages, besides those from family and colleagues, there was indeed an anonymous number that frequently contacted them in September, but tracing showed that it was a one-time virtual number and could not be located.
"Could it be a personal grudge?" Team member Xiao Chen flipped through his thick notebook of interviews. "There are so many people in the machinery factory, there must be some conflicts that we haven't uncovered." Xiao Wang shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the "Safety Production Model Worker" banner on the wall—an honor that Li Baocun had received for three consecutive years. They visited all the workshops and work groups, and even dug out employee files from ten years ago. Li Baocun's work evaluation was always "diligent and down-to-earth" and "helpful."
When the investigation extended to the homes of retired employees, the old factory director's words gave them a glimmer of hope. The old man tremblingly took out a yellowed photo from a wooden box: "When Xiao Li first joined the factory, he was very close to a young man named Zhang Qiang. Later, Zhang Qiang was fired for theft and said he wanted revenge before he left..." Xiao Wang immediately checked the files, but found that Zhang Qiang's contact information had long been invalid, and his registered address was an abandoned urban village.
In the damp, moldy alleyways of the urban village, Xiao Wang and his team went door-to-door asking around. Small advertisements from over a decade ago were still pasted on the mottled walls, but the residents' answers were all the same: "Zhang Qiang? He moved away a long time ago. I heard he's doing quite well outside." When they found the dilapidated little house Zhang Qiang used to rent, the landlady clicked her tongue and recalled, "That kid came back later in a luxury car, but he didn't go inside. He just stood at the door for a while and then left."
However, when Xiao Wang tried to track Zhang Qiang's whereabouts by checking traffic surveillance footage, the system showed that the vehicle had already been deregistered. The trail went cold again, like a stone thrown into a deep pool, creating ripples before sinking into endless darkness.
However, Xiao Zhou's investigation has made progress.
In the monitoring room of the machinery factory warehouse, Xiao Zhou pressed the pause button heavily on the monitor. On the screen, a white van stained with dark red dirt was parked diagonally at the rear loading area. The rusty iron gate was reflected in the van's window, and the license plate was deliberately obscured by black tape. He leaned closer to the screen and saw that the passenger window was half-rolled down, and a man with a tiger tattoo was holding a cigarette, the ash flickering in the twilight.
“Go back and analyze frame by frame,” Xiao Zhou told the technician. When the footage was rewound to 7:53 PM on September 8th, it was clear that the van's tires had run over a puddle, the splashing water mixed with black mud—a perfect match to the tire tracks found in the alley below Li Baocun's apartment building. He immediately pulled up the surveillance footage from the neighborhood supermarket three days prior, juxtaposing the two images: the same angle of the dented car body, the same silver wheel rim trim, and even the faded lucky charm hanging on the rearview mirror was identical.
"Check the vehicle registration information!" Xiao Zhou circled the three coordinates where the van appeared on the whiteboard. The center of the triangle circled in red was Li Baocun's house. However, the vehicle management office's feedback was like a bucket of cold water: the owner, Wang Gang, 42 years old, ran a seafood wholesale business, the vehicle had passed its annual inspection, and there were no traffic violations. Even more troublesome was that the surveillance footage from the time of the incident showed that Wang Gang's van was indeed parked downstairs at his father-in-law's house in the suburbs, and he himself was drinking with relatives in the courtyard. The lively scene at the table was completely captured by the dashcam.
“The car owner has a perfect alibi, but this car couldn’t have appeared at two key locations out of nowhere.” Li Ming tapped the projection screen at the case analysis meeting, and the photo of the van cast a shadow on everyone’s faces. “Focus on investigating Wang Gang’s social connections, especially those with whom he has had financial dealings or conflicts in the past six months.”
When Xiao Wang and his team visited the seafood market, the salty sea breeze, carrying droplets of melting ice, hit them in the face. The stall owners all had a remarkably consistent opinion of Wang Gang: "An honest man, he works from dawn till dusk selling fish, and he never gives credit." It wasn't until they reached the back door of the cold storage that a porter, wiping sweat, revealed: "Brother Wang suddenly bought a used SUV last month, saying his van wasn't enough space. But I saw him park his old car in the south parking lot, and he always had the keys with him. Isn't that strange?"
In a dilapidated parking lot in the south of the city, Xiao Zhou, wearing latex gloves, opened the back door of a van. The van floor was covered with a brand-new plastic sheet, with scattered dark red marks still remaining in the corners. "Nluminol!" As soon as he finished speaking, Xiao Sun raised the reagent spray, and the interior walls of the van instantly lit up with a dense, eerie blue fluorescence, resembling a strange starry sky under the fluorescent lights.
“The splatter pattern matches high-speed ejection, indicating an artery rupture.” Xiao Sun squatted down and picked up half a black hair with tweezers. “The hair root is intact; send it for DNA testing immediately.”