Chapter 461: Chapter 454: Why Can’t She Be Found
The Police Station arrived quickly. Tian Xinhua was also there, and Xu Menglai came too, but judging from Xu’s expression, he seemed more interested in the spectacle.
"Hong Kong guests encountering issues in Huangyuan County, how would we explain that to our superiors?" Xu Menglai said with schadenfreude.
"Vice County Magistrate Xu, are you hoping for the guest to have an accident?" Sisi couldn’t help but take a stab at him. Tian Xinhua couldn’t rebuke him, but being a woman, she had fewer reservations.
Challenged by Sisi like that, Xu Menglai wanted to retort immediately but was held back by a middle-aged man in a green uniform beside him, signaling him to calm down.
This middle-aged man was Duan Hongjun, the deputy director and head of the criminal investigation team at Huangyuan County Public Security Bureau, who had a good relationship with Hu Dingkun and was also a military man who had transferred into civil service.
For this investigation in Liu Village, Hu Dingkun had called him in advance, asking him to cooperate fully with Tian Xinhua, to prioritize the bigger picture, and avoid personal grievances. This was why he had just stopped Xu Menglai. Meanwhile, he felt somewhat disdainful towards Xu Menglai, viewing him as too immature!
With the Hong Kong guest involved, they would all be reprimanded. Did Old Xu think only Tian Xinhua would be penalized by the higher-ups?
Sisi handed over the list she had noted down earlier to Duan Hongjun and expressed her suspicions about Liu Chunshan, emphasizing his criminal past.
Duan Hongjun was aware of this Liu Chunshan. Although the case had taken place in the provincial capital, one of his comrades had participated in that case, and his comrade had found the crime scene truly horrifying.
Moreover, his comrade suspected that Liu Chunshan was psychologically unstable. Can a normal person decimate his wife like cutting a watermelon? But at the time, his comrade was just a runner; his words carried no weight, and eventually, Liu Chunshan was deemed to have committed the murder in his sleep.
Now with a suspect in mind, Duan Hongjun immediately summoned Liu Chunshan. However, Liu Chunshan, who had very strong mental fortitude, repeated the same sentence no matter what Duan Hongjun asked him: "I was just carrying firewood back in a basket."
He repeated this dozens of times, even his tone unwavering, and his facial expressions remained unchanged; his pupils, heartbeat, and pulse remained exactly the same.
"Can’t get anything out of him, Liu Chunshan has maintained from the start that he was only there to carry firewood," Duan Hongjun said frustratingly to Tian Xinhua.
"Then detain him for now. We can’t allow him any chance to flee. Separate those villagers who had left as well," Tian Xinhua said calmly.
Liu Chunshan was detained alone in Secretary Liu’s woodshed, while the other villagers were held in the village committee, though Duan Hongjun claimed it was for the police to gather information. Still, these honest villagers were terrified out of their wits. Only Liu Chunshan continued to eat and sleep as usual, unnervingly calm like someone not quite normal.
"I still think Liu Chunshan is the most suspicious, but my men and I have searched the surrounding mountains and slopes near the scene thoroughly, finding no clues. Logically, he shouldn’t have been able to hide a body too far within one hour!"
Duan Hongjun, with a furrowed brow, suddenly seemed to remember something. He stood up, gestured to his subordinates, and walked out, asking Secretary Liu to take him to Liu Chunshan’s house.
The group walked up the small hill. In the woodshed, Liu Chunshan stood by the window, leisurely watching Duan Hongjun and others, the corners of his mouth slightly turned up. Sunlight streamed through the window bars onto his face, flickering intermittently, casting a somewhat eerie light.
Liu Chunshan’s house is quite large, a standalone residence with three cave dwellings, backed by a small hillside, and a very large dirt courtyard in front, quite open, but a bit far from the village, giving a sense of isolation from the village.
"After Chunshan came back, he hollowed out these three cave dwellings, saying that living on the mountain the air is good. He lives here by himself, does not interact with the villagers, only his parents come over when they have time, even his own elder brother doesn’t come here," Secretary Liu explained.
"Comrade police, do you suspect Chunshan? I feel that Chunshan is not that kind of person; although he is a bit cold, he follows the rules every day and does not do bad things," pleaded Secretary Liu for Liu Chunshan.
"Whether it’s him or not, we won’t know until we investigate," Duan Hongjun coldly retorted in an official tone, scaring Secretary Liu into silence immediately.
The three cave dwellings were tidied up very neatly, not resembling a bachelor’s home; the left cave was a study with a bookcase and a desk, some books on the shelf, and some papers and pens on the desk. The middle cave was a bedroom, and the adjacent one served as both a kitchen and living room.
Duan Hongjun, together with several subordinates, carefully searched the three caves but found nothing. As the sun was almost setting, He Chunfeng’s face grew darker and darker.
Returning from Liu Chunshan’s house without success made Duan Hongjun doubt if the direction he initially pursued was wrong, but apart from Liu Chunshan, other villagers seemed even less likely!
Adhering to the principle of leaving no stone unturned, Duan Hongjun still went to a few other households to investigate. Those families, terrified, cried and blurted out everything they knew without much questioning from Duan Hongjun. However, all these were irrelevant to the case, which further confirmed their non-involvement in He Shishi’s disappearance.
That day, they did not return to the county town but stayed at Secretary Liu’s house. Sisi called the school to ask for leave; with He Shishi’s fate unknown, she was not in the mood to attend classes.
After detaining Liu Chunshan and the others for 24 hours, Duan Hongjun had no choice but to release them. When the others walked out of the village committee building, their legs were weak, and they hugged and cried together; only Liu Chunshan still walked back as usual, with his sleeves rolled up and at a leisurely pace.
hours had passed since He Shishi’s disappearance. In these two days, they closely monitored Liu Chunshan, whose life was very regimented.
He got up at eight in the morning, after brushing his teeth and washing his face, he would cook breakfast at the stove, finish breakfast by eight-thirty, then carry a large bamboo basket to the hillside to gather firewood, return at ten-thirty with the firewood, cook lunch at eleven-thirty, take a nap at one in the afternoon, wake up at two-thirty to read in the study, cook dinner at four-thirty, and go to sleep promptly at eight in the evening.
His daily routine was exactly the same, to the minute, like a well-wound robot.
"Damn it, this Liu Chunshan is really a freak, He Shishi must have been hidden by him," Qiao Xingbang felt a chill all over his body.
Everyone knew that Liu Chunshan must be related to He Shishi’s disappearance, but they had no evidence, neither eyewitnesses nor physical evidence, and He Shishi was not found in Liu Chunshan’s house either.
Where exactly did Liu Chunshan hide He Shishi?
Duan Hongjun called for a police dog from the Public Security Bureau, which had sniffed He Shishi’s clothing, but the dog just kept circling around the set, and the farthest search point was only ten meters away from a latrine in a small mountain hollow.
It seems that this must be the last place He Shishi appeared, obviously, He Shishi must have been moved to another place, but why can’t the police dog find it?