Chapter 10 Clues from a Fishing Forum

Zhang Lin was just about to leave the shipyard when his cell phone rang. Seeing it was a colleague from the police station, he answered the call.

"Captain, we found some clues on a fishing forum frequently used by Jia Wenjun. There's a group dedicated to discussing illegal fishing with bottom cages in the sea. Most of those guys have small wooden boats, which they built themselves. We heard they also have a base, but they don't reveal its location. I'm comparing the backgrounds of the pictures they've posted online, and I estimate I'll be able to figure it out soon."

"Good, find the location as soon as possible, and we'll pay them a visit."

The next day, based on the clues that the technical department colleagues had finally found after working all night, Zhang Lin arrived at a tidal flat on the back of the peninsula.

He and the female police officer, Xiao Xia, disguised themselves as a tourist couple, taking pictures of the scenery with a camera.

This place was quite hidden, after all. It was around a bend and shielded by a peninsula, but if you looked carefully, you could see the yachts docked at the distant pier. And Anna's yacht was at that pier.

At this time, the tide had receded, and wooden boats of all sizes were stranded on the shore. Some of the boats were already blackened and rotten. They looked like retired, abandoned boats that had been repaired. Several fishermen were idle, sitting on the bows of their boats, smoking and chatting. Zhang Lin, pretending to take pictures of Xiao Xia, slowly approached the boats.

The fishermen didn't know what was so special about these broken boats. Zhang Lin slowly walked past the boats, stopping to take detailed photos of any boat that matched the characteristics. Just as he reached the next boat, a scratch on the hull made Zhang Lin's heart jump. He moved closer with the camera and carefully observed it. The scratch was new, and there were traces of white paint on it.

The fishermen watched him. Zhang Lin greeted them with a smile, "Hey there, are you guys using these boats to go fishing?"

"Yeah, are you tourists from out of town? What's so interesting about this boat?" Hearing Zhang Lin's Mandarin, the fisherman subconsciously assumed he was from out of town.

"We're here on vacation. These boats have a sense of history, and they look great in photos," Xiao Xia said.

The fishermen laughed. They didn't know anything about a sense of history, they just thought the two of them were crazy.

"The scenery at the yacht harbor is better, you should go over there and take a look," someone told them.

Zhang Lin looked at the fisherman's boat and said, "Hey, can your boat take us for a spin around the sea?"

One of the fishermen, who was cleaning the cabin, laughed and said, "How far? These boats of ours can't go far, and we don't have a license."

"If you want to take a boat ride, go to the pier over there. There are yachts there," another fisherman said, throwing away his cigarette and getting on board to sort out his fishing nets.

This person had just walked to the boat where Zhang Lin had just discovered the collision marks when he immediately cursed, "Damn it, which bastard scratched my boat?"

When the other fishermen heard this, they all started complaining.

A slightly younger one pointed to the boat behind him, "Mine's been scratched too. What's with these people, they don't even spare these broken boats. If I find out who did it, I'll make them pay."

Zhang Lin quickly walked over to take a look. There were indeed many new scratches on the boat, and even the marks of impact and abrasion were roughly in the same location as the one he had just seen.

Another fisherman said, "It's not just your two boats, several others have been messed with too."

Listening to the fishermen's cursing, Xiao Xia approached Zhang Lin and whispered, "Lin-ge, do you think someone might be trying to cover up the real boat by doing this?"

Zhang Lin looked at all the boats with scratches one by one. The shapes and sizes of these boats were similar to the wooden boat he had predicted. This concealment was very obvious.

Although the other party wanted to make it difficult for them to identify the correct boat, it was also because of this move that Zhang Lin was certain that the boat was among these boats.

The other party had clearly anticipated that they would investigate the wooden boats, so they had made these preparations in advance.

Whoever was behind this was obviously not easy to deal with.

Who exactly was behind this boat, and was it related to Zhao Di being pushed into the water?

At this time, Zhang Lin felt more and more that this matter was strange. Thinking that Jia Wenjun would rather die than admit that the person who pushed Zhao Di in the video was her, Zhang Lin frowned. Perhaps things were not as clear as they seemed on the surface.

Zhang Lin and Xiao Xia slowly walked towards the beach, next to the messily arranged wooden boats.

The two carefully took photos and recorded all the evidence. These boats were uneven, and each boat was basically a wooden hull. The positions of the scratches on the hulls were different. Some were on the sides, some were on the stern and bow. Zhang Lin squatted down to check the several similar boats, and found that each scratch on these boats was sprayed with white paint.

This made Zhang Lin even more certain that this was done by the person who had been on the Shell. Only that person would know that after the wooden boat collided with the Shell, it would leave the Shell's white paint on the wooden boat's hull.

He carefully looked at the waterline on the side of the hulls of these boats. The height from the waterline to the point of impact should be the height from the white paint to the waterline on these boats. Only those with approximately the same height could be suspected. Zhang Lin had taken photos when inspecting the Shell, and Xiao Xia was also standing in the photo. The height from the waterline to the point of impact in the photo was almost the length of her arm.

Zhang Lin signaled Xiao Xia to come over and compare. Through a general observation, he could clearly eliminate two of them. For the remaining three boats, Zhang Lin asked his female colleague to make a flying bird pose at each scratch, keeping her arm as close as possible to the white paint on the boat hull and holding it vertically.

The fishermen, seeing that they hadn't left yet, frequently looked at them.

Xiao Xia winked at Zhang Lin and smiled as she posed.

"Okay, one, two, three, cheese!" Zhang Lin said loudly on purpose, and pressed the shutter.

"Take two pictures of me," Zhang Lin wanted to observe more closely.

When handing over the camera, Xiao Xia whispered to him, "Look at the bow of this boat."

Zhang Lin stepped onto the boat. The moment he glanced at the cabin at the bow, he instantly understood what Xiao Xia meant.

There was a nylon braided rope in the bow cabin, and what excited Zhang Lin the most was that one end of the rope was frayed.

Zhang Lin got off the boat and said to the fishermen not far away, "Hey, is this boat yours?"

The fishermen shook their heads, "No, what's the matter?"

"This boat is newer, we were wondering if we could find the owner to take us out fishing together?"

Someone said, "That person isn't here, if you want to fish, my boat is fine too."

"My wife just likes this boat," Zhang Lin smiled, and whispered to the one who wanted to steal the business, "She's newly pregnant, and has a bad temper. I just go along with whatever she says."

"Oh, I understand," the fisherman also chuckled and said, "Then it depends on your luck, this person doesn't come often, we've never seen them."

Zhang Lin asked, "Has anyone seen them? Do you have the owner's phone number?"

One of them said, "Old Jiang Tou seems to have seen them, but I don't know if he has the boat owner's phone number."

Zhang Lin looked disappointed, but still made an effort to try, "Isn't Old Jiang Tou coming today? Do you have his phone number?"

"Old Jiang Tou has gone out to sea. That old man is very strange, he doesn't take his phone with him when he goes out to sea. If you want to find him, come here tomorrow morning at five or six o'clock and you'll be able to see him."

Zhang Lin thought to himself, *Old Jiang Tou, you better be helpful*, but on the surface, he remained calm, smiled and said, "Okay, thank you, I'll come over earlier tomorrow, and I can also buy some fresh seafood."