Animal Detective

Chapter 380: Chapter 313: Not Gaining an Advantage Is a Loss

The town’s hotel.

He Wen Yu woke up a little after seven. After washing up, he got ready to go out and find something to eat.

Shen Xin’s room was right next to his. After a moment’s hesitation, He Wen Yu knocked softly on the door.

He Wen Yu didn’t know what time Shen Xin had gotten back last night, or if he’d even returned at all.

There was no response. He knocked again. Still nothing.

Just as He Wen Yu was about to leave, the door unexpectedly opened.

Shen Xin, still in yesterday’s clothes, greeted him with a sleep-deprived look on his face.

He Wen Yu quickly asked what time he had gotten back last night.

"Almost three, I think."

Shen Xin replied after a moment’s thought, then turned and went into the bathroom to wash his face.

He Wen Yu leaned against the doorframe and asked tentatively, "Judging by your reaction, you didn’t find anything?"

Shen Xin looked at his haggard reflection in the mirror and nodded.

Yesterday, Tian Kui had tracked Duan Dongqiang all the way to the home of the family he was working for.

This family had cleared an area on the mountain to raise chickens and was planning to build a two-room house there, which required hauling construction materials up from the base of the mountain.

To save money, they’d chosen to use a donkey to transport the materials up, trip by trip.

In other words, they had confirmed Duan Dongqiang’s movements from yesterday, but they hadn’t found the murder weapon he had supposedly disposed of.

They couldn’t even confirm whether he had disposed of a weapon at all.

He Wen Yu said, "Oh." After a moment of silence, he offered some encouragement. "It’s fine. It’s only been a day since the murder. We can take our time. We already have a suspect, so I think this case will be fine. We’re not going to let him get away, are we?"

His tone was optimistic.

Shen Xin grabbed a towel, wiped his face dry, and took another look at himself in the mirror.

Sharp and handsome as ever.

"That’s right. We have a suspect. If we let him get away, it would make us police look completely incompetent."

Shen Xin clapped He Wen Yu on the shoulder and told him it was time to eat.

’A solitary old man—does he spend his days watching Sherlock Holmes, or is he binge-watching Detective Conan?’

’He just got lucky that the crime scene was compromised. Otherwise, this case would’ve been closed long ago.’

A bowl of crispy pork noodles and two small "baba" cakes—a full load of carbs—and his energy was instantly restored.

Shen Xin headed straight for the police station.

Unexpectedly, Li Xiaowen had already left.

’He probably didn’t even get a catnap.’

’With that kind of fighting spirit, how could the case not be solved?’

Shen Xin gave Li Xiaowen a call to ask about the situation.

Over the phone, Li Xiaowen’s tone was surprisingly calm. He ended with a simple, "We search."

Several kilometers of road, surrounded by mountains on all sides. A single toss anywhere could make the search feel hopeless.

But the object was out there somewhere. If you didn’t look, you’d never have a chance of finding it.

What if they got lucky?

At the same time, Li Xiaowen also said they were waiting for the DNA comparison results from the donkey dung. As soon as they came in, he would immediately apply for a search warrant for Duan Dongqiang’s house.

If they couldn’t find the murder weapon, they would stick to the original plan.

And it wouldn’t just be a search; there would be an interrogation, too.

They would make it clear to him: ’We’re onto you.’

Shen Xin said, "Alright, I’ll bring Tian Kui over to help with the search."

Since he had decided to stay and help, he couldn’t just stand around idly.

Shen Xin found Guo Jin to see if he could give him a ride.

He could just catch a ride back with Li Xiaowen and his team later.

Without a word, Guo Jin started his pickup and drove Shen Xin to Baijia Post.

During their casual chat on the way, Shen Xin remembered something.

It was about Li Xingping’s car accident.

He didn’t know what Li Xingping had been thinking at the time, but now that he was dead, someone had to be held accountable.

It was true he was a suspect, but that was a separate matter.

It was like a death row inmate on his way to the execution ground. If he got hit and killed in a car accident, even if he was scheduled to be executed an hour later, compensation would still be due.

Now, only Li Xingping’s two children were left. Someone had to step up and help handle things.

Shen Xin felt it was unlikely they could count on the village.

Guo Jin said, "I’ve been thinking about that. The two kids are so young. I’ll talk to Old Fu later and see what we can do."

Shen Xin nodded, a wave of emotion washing over him as he thought of Li Shi.

Just as he was speaking, the pickup sputtered a few times and died again.

"Hey!"

Guo Jin slapped the steering wheel in frustration, his face a mask of annoyance.

Shen Xin chuckled to himself. ’It’s a police vehicle, after all. Understandable.’

He was about to get out and push when Guo Jin stopped him.

Guo Jin said, "No need. Lao Sun was right. This truck is old. You have to be gentle with it, coax it a little, whisper some sweet nothings to it, and it’ll be fine."

As he spoke, he pressed his palms together and started muttering at the steering wheel.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Shen Xin said he should probably just get out and push.

’This is way too metaphysical.’

"Don’t be a skeptic. This is what Lao Sun always does." After finishing his muttering, Guo Jin took a deep breath and turned the key again.

The engine SPUTTERED a few times and actually started.

Guo Jin’s eyes lit up. "See? It works."

Shen Xin nodded speechlessly and said it would be better to just file an application and get a new vehicle.

It probably wasn’t that Guo Jin was unwilling to spend the money on repairs, but that the truck was simply beyond fixing.

After all, the odometer had maxed out. God knows how many hundreds of thousands of kilometers it had driven.

Guo Jin just shook his head. "Forget it. It’s got four wheels and it still runs. It’ll last another ten years, one way or another."

Before long, Shen Xin met up with Li Xiaowen and his team.

The group of three was searching along the highway toward Wild Sheep Well Village.

When they met, Li Xiaowen briefly explained his plan.

The concrete road leading out of the village was flanked by farmland, so Duan Dongqiang probably wouldn’t have thrown it there.

Once he turned onto the highway, there were mountains on both sides. This was a possibility.

This stretch was almost three kilometers long. Then, a right turn onto a side road led one kilometer to Wild Sheep Well Village.

This section was also next to a mountain, so it was another possibility.

After passing through Wild Sheep Well Village, the route to Ma Bao Gou Village, where he worked, required crossing another mountain, a distance of maybe four kilometers.

This eight-kilometer stretch was likely the range where he would have discarded the weapon.

Li Xiaowen further deduced that he must have done it on his way there, so they would focus on the right side of the road, expanding the search fifty meters out from the highway.

He had assigned nine people to this area, dividing it into sections for them to search on foot.

Li Xiaowen even tried to comfort himself. "It sounds daunting, but it’s only eight kilometers. Look, in the past hour, we’ve already searched over a hundred meters."

"Divided into three groups, that’s three hundred meters an hour. Three kilometers in ten hours. We should be done in about three days."

He had the math all figured out.

One of his subordinates next to him said, "Captain Li, you’re quite the optimist. What if he saw a truck passing by and just tossed it into the back?"

"And you’re assuming that because he’s old, he couldn’t have thrown it far. But what if he didn’t? What if he climbed up the mountain and threw it farther? Who would know?"

Shen Xin nodded slightly.

Indeed, there were too many uncertainties.

Forget about a passing truck. What if he saw a well in the farmland outside the village and just threw it in there?

All of these were possibilities.

Besides, they weren’t even sure what he had thrown.

If it was just a bloody brick, by the time they found it after being exposed to the wind and sun, they probably wouldn’t be able to extract any DNA.

In that case, finding the weapon would be pointless.

Li Xiaowen retorted earnestly, "A truck moves fast. How could he have timed it so perfectly to throw it in? As for your point about him throwing it from farther away, if we don’t find it within fifty meters, we’ll just expand the search to a hundred."

His two subordinates glanced at each other and said no more.

Li Xiaowen told them to head further up, to start from the end of the road and search back toward them. He himself would search this section with Shen Xin and Tian Kui.

Shen Xin simply unhooked Tian Kui’s leash and let him run freely.

If he caught an unusual scent, he would alert them.

Li Xiaowen was defensive in his words, but he probably knew in his heart how difficult this task was. Once his two subordinates were out of earshot, he proactively apologized to Shen Xin for not only delaying his trip but also making him do this exhausting work.

"It’s no problem, Captain Li."

Shen Xin slapped his thighs. "How can you be a detective without a pair of iron legs?"

After a moment’s hesitation, Shen Xin said, "Captain Li, I actually have another method. We could use Duan Dongqiang’s donkey to find it."

’Before, I thought Tian Kui would be enough, so it wasn’t necessary. But given the situation, it looks like I’ll have to fall back on my old methods.’

Shen Xin then explained his idea.

Duan Dongqiang left with his donkey cart. If he stopped on the road to dispose of the murder weapon, the donkey would have seen it.

If he could build up enough rapport with the donkey, he could have it retrace the route. By finding out where Duan Dongqiang threw the object, they could search with a purpose, rather than just throwing manpower at the problem and gambling on luck like they were now.

"Is that even possible?"

Li Xiaowen’s eyes went wide, his face a picture of disbelief.

A single thought ran through his mind: ’That’s a donkey!’

’Even if it’s like Shen Xin said, that donkeys aren’t stupid, that they’re actually smart and would remember where Duan Dongqiang stopped... how would you know? It’s not like it can open its mouth and tell you.’

Shen Xin used the cases of Liu Laibin and Han Xiaolong as examples to prove the feasibility of his method.

In the Han Xiaolong case, for example, Heaven-Howling Dog still clearly remembered who the murderer was after so many years.

Listening to the two case stories made Li Xiaowen’s scalp tingle. Especially the Liu Laibin case—seven people colluded to set a trap, putting on a show for the victim in a seemingly perfect crime, only for it to be cracked by a parrot in the end.

He was stunned for a long moment before muttering, "Shen Xin, I used to think Lao Hu solving cases with divination was unbelievable enough. But you... you’re even more..."

He had a strange look on his face.

Shen Xin was taken aback. "Solving cases with divination?"

’What kind of master was this?’

He asked and found out it was a deputy captain of criminal investigation surnamed Hu, whom Li Xiaowen had worked under in Huaiyi more than a decade ago.

It was a habit he’d developed at some point. Whenever a case hit a dead end, he would try casting a hexagram—for instance, divining which of several suspects was the murderer.

Or he might divine which direction to head for witness interviews.

And believe it or not, he actually managed to solve quite a few cases using this method.

’For real? That’s just incredible,’ Shen Xin thought. ’How is that any different from those people online who use two sticks to find groundwater?’

Li Xiaowen said, "It is incredible, but he really did solve cases that way. Even he couldn’t explain it."

After a moment’s hesitation, Li Xiaowen nodded. "Alright. If you think it can work, then let’s give it a try."

Perhaps because he had seen an even more miraculous method of solving cases, Li Xiaowen was quick to accept the idea.

Li Xiaowen also reasoned to himself that Shen Xin was skilled at training police dogs, so being good at solving cases with animals seemed perfectly normal.

Just then, Zhu Qiuwei called. After hanging up, Li Xiaowen’s expression grew much more serious.

Li Xiaowen said, "Old Zhu found out that during the village-wide relocation and land distribution in ’07, Zhang Kaiyong assigned Duan Dongqiang one of the most remote plots of land because he was the village’s old bachelor."

"Because of this, he complained about Zhang Kaiyong to people quite a bit. When Li Xingping reported him and the town sent investigators to the village, he was very active, spreading rumors that Zhang Kaiyong was lining his own pockets."

"Zhang Kaisheng even warned him and beat him up over it. Then in 2014, when the village was paving the concrete roads, Duan Dongqiang tried to negotiate with the village to have the pavement extend all the way to his compound wall. When they couldn’t reach an agreement, he even obstructed the construction crew."

"He bad-mouthed Zhang Kaiyong behind his back a lot because of that incident, too. So, Shen Xin, I think he has a strong enough motive."

Shen Xin recalled the more-than-a-meter-wide gap between the concrete road and the compound wall outside Duan Dongqiang’s house.

Shen Xin said, "Captain Li, the land distribution was over ten years ago. Could he really hold a grudge for that long? And about paving the road, the area in front of his house probably isn’t public property, right? He wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in that argument."

’The motive is there, but it doesn’t seem that strong.’

But Li Xiaowen shook his head. "No, Xiaoshen. In the countryside, land is everything. And as for paving the road, you have to think of it this way: not gaining an advantage is the same as taking a loss."

"One more thing. Old Zhu suspects Duan Dongqiang has a criminal record."

Shen Xin was stunned. ’A criminal record? For real?’