Chapter 374: Chapter 357 Coffin Lid _2
Mr. Yang clapped Mr. Zhao on the shoulder, his voice earnest and profound as he said:
"Buddy, Zhu Xingxing really cares about you. When we suspected there was a bomb just now, she was the first to throw herself towards you. You know what’s in her heart, right? Don’t string the girl along anymore."
Mr. Zhao nodded, pulled down his mask and looked at Mr. Yang.
"Don’t worry, Mr. Yang, I know what to do. Even if she beats me up every day for the rest of my life, I’ll accept it. After all, she was willing to risk her life to be with me. What more could I ask for? When I get back, I’ll discuss setting the date with our families. I’m not Zhou Xiaozhou."
Mr. Yang coughed, and Mr. Zhao’s movements halted, he quickly retracted his hand.
"I’m not Zhou Xiaozhou. I don’t have his brains nor his abilities. But as long as we’re careful, we can still do our jobs well. Let’s not waste any more time. Everyone’s waiting out in the backyard. Let’s go check the next room."
Mr. Yang nodded and also let out a sigh of relief.
When they turned around, Zhou Ning and Xu Dayuan were indeed standing at the door.
"Wow, the leaders are here. Just wait, there’s one more room we need to check."
Zhou Ning glanced at Mr. Zhao and chose not to expose his evasion.
"Not just one room, but also the attic. Didn’t you see there’s still a section of the stairs going up?"
Mr. Zhao nodded.
"Forgot to mention that. I’ll go check the next door."
Saying this, the two hurried out directly to the neighboring room. This door wasn’t locked, and it opened with a push. Inside, like the previous four rooms, it was empty with no furnishings. A sweep with Luminol yielded nothing.
However, on the western wall, there was a door. Between this door and the room door were many fragmented footprints. Mr. Zhao realized why there were so few footprints from the front to the back door of the first floor—the entry had been from the west side.
This door had a hidden lock, but from the inside, it could be opened. As the door opened, it revealed a metal staircase going downwards, concealed on one side by a column of the small building. No wonder it had not been seen from the front; the angle was very secretive. However, there was no longer any value in inspecting this area, so they quickly exited.
Following Zhou Ning’s gesture, the two went directly up to the attic. Just as they reached the top, Mr. Yang stopped in his tracks, and Mr. Zhao peeked his head around him but saw nothing unusual.
"What’s the matter, Mr. Yang?"
Mr. Yang moved forward, clearing the stairwell, and only then did Mr. Zhao come up. Now he could see the full extent of the attic. It was an uninterrupted space without partitioned rooms. Hanging down from near the three window openings were chains with handcuffs attached, and on the far west side, there was a rack with whips, rattan sticks, chains, and a bench on the floor.
This was akin to a torture room from a spy drama, with patches of black marks on the cement floor. There were pools of blood, splattered droplets, and drag marks—every kind of trace imaginable.
"This is simply hell on earth."
Mr. Zhao nodded, giving Mr. Yang a nudge.
"No time for sentimentality, let’s get to work. We need to sample every suspected spot of blood, and there’s a lot of ground to cover. I’ll go call for help."
By then, Zhou Ning had also come up, taking in the scene at a glance, and quickly went back down to give instructions. Sun Gaotie and several detectives came up to assist, but Zhou Ning pulled Xu Dayuan back down the stairs.
"Director Xu, I guess we’ve found the primary crime scene. Other than this property being somewhat inexplicable, there is another question: where’s the ransom money?"
Xu Dayuan stood with his hands on his hips, casting a glance at the garage on the north side of the two-story building. He had observed upon entering that aside from the little building, this was the most suspicious place.
"I get what you’re saying. I’ll have someone dig up this garage and take a look. If the money isn’t hidden inside the small building, then this is the next most suspicious place. But what I don’t understand is, after taking the ransom, where did he hide the motorboat when he left?"
Liu Yongxin, with hands clasped behind his back, glanced next door.
"Actually, I don’t think we need to dwell on this question. As long as he quickly transported the bag of ransom money home, no one would care if he discarded the motorboat near the seaside here, given that the neighbor is a yacht and motorboat seller. Surely many sample products must have been displayed here in the past; after all, such items couldn’t be placed just anywhere in the yard, right?"
Zhou Ning nodded.
"Maybe we thought too much at first, he might not have bought a motorboat but just borrowed one from next door. Moreover, he might not have come back here immediately after getting the ransom, but instead found a safer seaside to transfer the goods onto a car, and dealt with the motorboat afterwards,"
As this idea was voiced, Xu Dayuan paused, then suddenly slapped his thigh.
"Indeed, that’s possible. We’ve been overthinking it. That retired comrade mentioned that when they arrived, they didn’t find any suspicious motorboats in this area, so they didn’t uncover any valuable information. We don’t need to fixate on whether he landed on Nan Island.
After all, if you go southeast from here, it’s not far to the scenic area. Even if you bypass the scenic area and travel about ten kilometers, you reach Yangkou. Along the coastline all the way there, you can land. There’s no way to investigate these routes. We’ll know everything after interrogating Lou Sanfeng later.
I’ll have someone find an excavator and a bush hammer to pry up the garage floor. Then I’ll push for an expedited search of the property and land records. We don’t need to clarify anything else, as long as the evidence matches up."
Zhou Ning nodded, and Xu Dayuan quickly went to make the arrangements. Soon, they borrowed an excavator from nearby.
The garage was just a framework, not a fully enclosed building, which made it easy to operate the bush hammer. At intervals, they quickly broke the concrete floor, and the excavator moved in to clear away the rubble.
Xu Dayuan, with his sharp eyes, noticed what seemed like wooden boards under the rubble and immediately had the machinery push aside the large chunks of concrete. The team hurried over, cleaned up the boards piece by piece, and a large coffin was revealed.
Such a sight shocked the many detectives on the scene, with Mr. Wang exclaiming in surprise.
"I say, this is a crime scene, why does it look like we’re conducting an archaeological dig?"
Xu Dayuan glanced at him sidelong and waved at the people behind him.
"Don’t just stand there, get tools and open the coffin lid quickly."
At his command, everyone hastily took turns using crowbars and axes. In no time, the nails on the coffin lid were violently pried off, and they pushed the lid open together, revealing the contents inside.
Four large black bags, each neatly arranged inside, and a dark green backpack with a pentagram and a line of words on it:
Qindao Municipal Government 1999·Spring Festival, this bag matched the one found in the Pear Orchard wardrobe from the March 4, 2000, kidnapping case.
Zhou Ning made a call, asking for Yang Xuetong and his team to come down. They quickly collected samples from the bags, then lifted each bag out one by one. Each weighed around fifty kilograms, with the green backpack being slightly lighter.
However, each bag had varying degrees of decay, and upon careful opening, they found bundles of blue Hua currency inside, some of which were noticeably damaged.
Xu Dayuan squatted down, took one look inside, and let out a long sigh, then dialed Mr. Hu’s mobile phone directly.
"Boss, you better find me some bank personnel quickly, we’ve found five bags of cash. Judging by the packaging, this should be the ransom from two cases, and the amount is huge. There is some damage, so we need professionals to clean and count it."
On the other end of the phone, Hu Guangjian exclaimed in surprise.
"That was fast, weren’t you still checking the first crime scene? How did you find it there so quickly?"
Xu Dayuan hummed twice, clearly dissatisfied.
"Boss, did you actually hear what I said? Get to it, please. Also, what’s the deal with Yu Xiulian’s land? Have the land and property department given you any results yet?"
"You’ve got some nerve, talking to me like that, don’t worry, it’s been checked. According to the information from the land bureau, the transfer was handled by an agent; Yu Xiulian didn’t show her face from the beginning to the end.
Moreover, after our investigation, we found out that Yu Xiulian went abroad and married a foreign national, but she passed away in 2009, leaving no children or heirs. However, her household registration has not been canceled in China."
Xu Dayuan paused.
"Eh? Does this mean that although she married abroad, she didn’t apply for a green card, but her visa did not expire?"
