Chapter 4: The Style of the Cellar
"No matter how pure the land is, it is bound to breed the most difficult criminals." Wang Zheng sighed in his heart as he looked at the vegetable fields passing by.
Just as Gao Feng said, Wang Zheng and Gu Xia followed the path that the other had pointed out before leaving. After walking for less than ten minutes, they saw white smoke rising in the distance and the smell of food wafting over.
"It's just ahead." Gu Xia pointed to the distance and said, "It should be dinner time now. Look at that smoke, it's caused by the coal stove."
"Does anyone still burn coal now?" Wang Zheng was a little confused.
"Of course, you should not only look at the appearance of the city. The business district of any city is full of commercial smell, but if you have the opportunity to walk around , every city has similar places like this. They generally retain the habits of the past." Gu Xia smiled, with some emotion in his tone. He also came from this era and was familiar with everything.
Soon, Wang Zheng and Gu Xia arrived outside the bungalow and just passed by several police cars. Looking at the man in simple clothes in the back seat of the police car, it was obvious that Gao Feng was ready to start the interrogation.
"It seems that you asked Gao Feng to interrogate him not just to delay him, right?" Gu Xia looked at the women and children standing in front of the bungalow and suddenly understood something.
"I always believe in one thing." Wang Zheng nodded his brow and said, "The real clue may not be in the criminal, but it must be in other people's mouths."
"See the essence through the phenomenon?" Gu Xia was a little surprised. "What on earth have you experienced?"
"Nothing." Wang Zheng said nothing more with a cold face, turned around and walked towards the bungalow.
The layout of the bungalow was more complicated than the two had imagined.
It is not a row of houses extending in parallel, but each bungalow has a wall outside and a heavy iron gate blocking the outside world. Each family has its own small courtyard, with old people sitting at the door to enjoy the cool air and children playing.
In order to save time, the two decided to act separately. Gu Xia was responsible for asking the residents of the bungalow, while Wang Zheng would walk around the area to see if there was a place suitable for imprisonment.
"Imprisonment must meet three conditions. First, it must be far away from the crowd to ensure that no one can hear the cry for help. Second, safety measures must be taken. It is best to have a dog or other pet in the yard to prevent outsiders from coming in. Third, in addition to the house that is open to the public, there must be a more secret location inside."
Wang Zheng walked through the alleys of the bungalow, constantly looking for a place that met the requirements.
Because the gates of each courtyard were tightly closed, the difficulty of searching was increased invisibly. Wang Zheng counted carefully and found that there were exactly eleven courtyards nearby. Excluding those that did not meet the requirements, there were still six that met the requirements.
"Choose one from six?" Wang Zheng said with a wry smile.
Snapped!
The sound of breaking glass was heard not far away, and soon the sound of children playing was heard in the distance. Wang Zheng rushed over and saw a few boys in their teens sitting on the wall, throwing stones at a seemingly dilapidated yard.
"That lunatic isn't home! Come back another day!"
After a while, seeing no response from the yard, an older child complained, then jumped off the wall and prepared to leave.
"Wait a minute!" Wang Zheng quickly ran up to stop the child and asked, "Who is the madman you are talking about?"
"You're not from here, are you?" The boy squinted at Wang Zheng for a moment, then stretched out his hand and said, "Fifty."
"Fifty?" Wang Zheng was stunned for a moment, then he laughed and took out a hundred-yuan note from his pocket and handed it to the other party, "I'll give you double the amount, but you have to tell me the truth about the situation in the yard and that lunatic."
The boy took the banknote, rubbed it to make sure it was real, and then said, "There used to be an old man from our village living in this yard. Not long after the old man died, his son came back to live here. But my mother said that he is not very smart. He plays songs on a loud speaker every night. The songs are all foreign songs that he keeps shouting. He also has a weird smell on him."
"Strange smell?" Wang Zheng asked in confusion, "What smell is similar to it?"
"My dad said it was the smell of not taking a shower." The boy thought carefully for a while and suddenly said, "But I smelled a bit like the smell of my cat when it died a few days ago."
"Rotten smell?" Wang Zheng was shocked and asked, "Does their family have a dog?"
"There was a wolf dog before, it was really cruel, look, this is what it bit me." As the boy spoke, he lifted up his pants to reveal his calves, then sighed, "But later I don't know what that madman was thinking, he killed the dog himself and buried it in the back hills."
Wang Zheng took a closer look and found that there was indeed a depression on the other person's calf, the size of which matched the dog's tooth mark.
"We have all three clues." Wang Zheng nodded in peace, "Kid, take the money and leave quickly. Don't go near this place again. And don't smash people's windows. It's illegal."
"Breaking the law? You're not a policeman." The boy rolled his eyes at Wang Zheng, muttered something nonchalantly, and left with a child of the same age.
Wang Zheng looked at the child's back and shook his head helplessly. He looked around and made sure that there was no one around. Then he imitated the child and climbed up the low wall. He turned over and sat on the top of the wall, looking into the yard.
The yard was even more dilapidated than Wang Zheng had imagined. At the entrance of the empty yard, apart from a stake driven into the ground, there was only garbage and glass fragments scattered all over the ground. There were basically no intact pieces of glass in the house.
The wall was not high, and Wang Zheng turned over and walked into the yard, then gently pushed open the unlocked door. The first thing he saw when he walked into the house was the kitchen.
The kitchen was very simple. Apart from the stove that he built himself, there was only a dish rack that looked quite old. On the left side of the dish rack was a slightly longer table with a kitchen knife casually placed on it, but there was no cutting board.
"He's not very particular about food." Wang Zheng sighed. This also means that the clue is broken.
According to the clues he had obtained before, the murderer should be a person who was very . He knew more than one way of cooking and preparing food. It was absolutely impossible for him to eat in such a dusty place without a cutting board.
There is no point in imitating!
Wang Zheng shook his head, turned around to leave, and then called Gu Xia.
"Professor Gu, I haven't found any useful . How is it going over there?" Wang Zheng asked.
"I haven't found anything here either. Please wait a moment." The busy tone replaced Gu Xia's voice. After a while, his voice reappeared on the phone. "I just found a few places that match the crime scene. I found that the villagers have the habit of digging cellars to store vegetables. I was in the cellar just now, and the signal was not good."
"Cell?" Wang Zheng asked doubtfully.
"Yes!" Gu Xia was stunned and quickly introduced him to Wang Zheng.
It turns out that due to its geographical location, City B will enter a five-month long snow season in the winter. In order to ensure safe travel at this time, the highway into the city will be closed for a period of time, making it very difficult to purchase food.
Therefore, in order to ensure that they would not go hungry, almost every household had a cellar, and some pickled vegetables were stored in the cellar for emergency use.
"I may have missed something." Wang Zheng suddenly said, "I'm in the last bungalow."
After saying that, Wang Zheng hung up the phone and kept stomping around the room. Finally, near the bedroom, he heard a sound that was different from the other concrete floors, similar to that of wooden boards.
"Here!" Wang Zheng's eyes lit up and he immediately squatted on the ground, carefully cleaning the dirt around him, and immediately the outline of the wooden board was revealed.
Crunch!
I lifted it gently with my hand, and sure enough, there was a dark entrance under the wooden board, which should be the way to the cellar. And at the same time when the wooden board was opened, a strong stench came up.
“This smell is…”
Wang Zheng took two steps back and sniffed the air carefully. Gradually, he suddenly had a sense of déjà vu in his heart. This smell was exactly the same as the smell of dead pork that had been exposed to the sun in the cannery for several days!
