The presence of old injuries means that Liu Cuilan was beaten by others earlier. The first thing Zhang Yichi suspected was Liu Cuilan's husband Wang Shimin. If this is true, then Liu Cuilan is also a victim of domestic violence.
Judging from the old injuries on the abdomen, the newly discovered bruises elsewhere may not have been caused during the fight with the murderer.
Did Liu Cuilan run away from home because she couldn't bear the domestic violence?
Zhang Yichi had a lot of questions in his mind.
At this time, footsteps were heard outside, and Zhang Yichi quickly arranged Liu Cuilan's clothes.
"Brother Zhang." Chen Chunsheng ran over, for fear of delaying Zhang Yichi's time, "See if this deal works."
"Okay." Zhang Yichi took the pen and symbolically wrote on the paper, "Thank you."
"What's the matter?" Chen Chunsheng smiled and went in to get a flashlight to illuminate Zhang Yichi again.
Zhang Yichi stood up and stopped Chen Chunsheng: "No need to take the photo, I've almost finished the inspection, let's go out."
"Oh, okay." Chen Chunsheng took two flashlights and followed Zhang Yichi out.
Except for some places that Wang Shimin was not allowed to inspect, Liu Cuilan's head, hands, and feet had been inspected by Zhang Yichi for several hours. He was not a professional and had done everything he could to check. He couldn't tell if he looked any further.
So come.
The investigation of the corpse came to an end, and the two of them walked towards the village committee. At the entrance of the village committee, Wang Shimin was turning his back to them, saying something to the village chief. When the two of them were about to pass, Wang Shimin must have finished talking to the village chief, and hurriedly
He turned around and wanted to go back to the woodshed and continue to look at Zhang Yichi, but saw that Zhang Yichi had come back and stood still.
"Have you finished the investigation?" the village chief asked.
Wang Shimin looked at Zhang Yichi.
Zhang Yichi said: "After the investigation, if you want to bury the body, just bury it first."
"Shimin, let's get busy after lunch." The village chief said to Wang Shimin.
"Oh." Wang Shimin nodded and lit a cigarette.
Zhang Yichi stared at the cigarette, his pupils shrinking. Chen Chunsheng once gave him this kind of money. The tobacco was inferior but cheap. And the person who monitored him by the window last night and left four or five cigarette butts on the ground was smoking this.
cigarette.
Chen Chunsheng passed by several people and entered the house to put things away. He went in with his front legs, and Zhang Nanyang came out with his back legs: "Village chief, uncle, you are ready."
"Wait for Chunsheng, let's go together." the village chief said.
"Going to Wang Shimin's house?" Zhang Yichi asked.
"Yes, Brother Zhang is going with us too," Zhang Nanyang said.
Chen Chunsheng came out, and the village chief said: "Chunsheng, you and Nanyang go over first and help your uncle Shiren. Your uncle Shiren is too busy alone."
"Hey!" Chen Chunsheng responded.
Zhang Nanyang said with a smile: "I can't kill chickens, and I can't do any work."
"Oh, you are just a cultural person, you can't do anything." The village chief said, Zhang Nanyang felt a little embarrassed, "Chunsheng, you go over and help your uncle."
Chen Chunsheng ran away one step ahead of them.
"Let's go too." The village chief then walked away slowly.
Zhang Yichi, Wang Shimin, and Zhang Nanyang followed the village chief.
"Is the firewood shed locked?" the village chief asked a little worriedly.
"It's locked." Zhang Yichi replied.
"oh."
"Brother Zhang, smoke." Zhang Nanyang took out a pack of good cigarettes from his pocket and gave Zhang Yichi one.
Zhang Yichi took the cigarette and was a little surprised: "I remember you don't smoke, right?"
"I'm just distributing these cigarettes to people. Here comes the village chief, Uncle Shimin." Zhang Nanyang diligently went to the village chief, Wang Shimin, to disperse the cigarettes.
"Heh." Zhang Yichi lit up the cigarette and took a puff.
He smoked a lot today, but not a single cigarette in the pack in his pocket was touched.
After a long time, the four of them wandered to Wang Shimin's house.
Wang Shimin's house is also very simple, with three rooms, a fence around it, and some lambs raised.
There was a pool of blood on the ground on one side, and chicken feathers on the ground. It was probably that the chickens had just been handled.
Chen Chunsheng came out of the house with his hands stained with blood: "Uncle Shiren went to call the relatives. Aunt Niu is helping to cook. I just slaughtered the chicken."
"Chunsheng, please move the table out. If you don't have enough, let's borrow it from the neighbors," the village chief said.
Chun Sheng went in again and took out the table and placed it in the yard. There were only three stools in the room except the table. After taking them out, the village chief, Zhang Yichi and Wang Shimin each sat on one, while Zhang Nanyang was waiting for Chun Sheng to borrow another one from the neighbors.
Some.
Not long after, Chun Sheng came back carrying a pile of stools: "Brother Nanyang, there is a table next door with four or five stools."
"Okay, lift it slowly, don't be in a hurry." Zhang Nanyang looked concerned about Chen Chunsheng.
Zhang Yichi understood what Chen Chunsheng meant. There were too many things for him to carry. Seeing that Zhang Nanyang was unwilling, he stood up and said, "Let's go, I'll go get it with you."
"Let's go, Chunsheng. Didn't my legs feel a little sore from walking just now?" Zhang Nanyang got up quickly when he saw this, "Brother Zhang, just sit down. I'll just go with Chunsheng."
Zhang Yichi sat down and watched the two of them go to the neighbor's house.
"In Nanyang, it's so easy to show off just because you have some culture." The village chief said disdainfully, holding a cigarette in his mouth. "At that time, we had to collect money from our village to go to high school in the town. We said we were studying there.
I was stuck, but I couldn't even pass the university entrance examination, but I was too ambitious to look down on ordinary jobs, so I came back to teach in the village."
"The conditions in the village are poor, and it is not easy to cultivate talents." Zhang Yichi said, "It is also a good thing to come back and teach the children. In the future, if you can get out of the mountains, try to get out of the mountains."
"There is a very good one out there, and our village is not lacking anything." The village chief seemed to have his own opinion.
Zhang Yichi did not have any argument with the village chief in this regard.
Not long after, Chen Chunsheng and Zhang Nanyang came back with their things. They set up two tables in the yard, enough to seat about ten people. Zhang Yichi shared a table with the village chief and Wang Shimin, and Wang Shiren brought his relatives back to sit at the table.
At another table.
Wang Shiren and Chen Chunsheng helped Aunt Niu and worked for more than half an hour before the food was served.
Zhang Yichi and Wang Shimin sat on either side of the village chief. The village chief served them wine: "Shimin, this has happened. Don't be too sad. The person who killed Cuilan is a police officer."
Comrade is here, so you can rest assured."
Wang Shimin said nothing, and so did Zhang Yichi.
"Come, have a drink." The village chief raised his glass.
Zhang Yichi raised his glass to the village chief and Wang Shimin, and then took a sip of white wine.
His mind is a little confused now and he is still figuring out the situation.
Wang Shimin probably had domestic violence against Liu Cuilan, and Zhang Yichi prefers to think that Liu Cuilan left because she couldn't bear the domestic violence.
As for the murderer, among the people he has met so far, none of them can fully match the characteristics of the murderer. Isn't the murderer not among this group of people and still hiding in the village?
"Village chief, how many people are there in our village?" Zhang Yichi asked.
The village chief took a piece of chicken leg and said, "There are more than 150 households in our village, with about 800 people."
"How many men are there?"
"More than five hundred," the villager said.
"So many?" Zhang Yichi was a little surprised.
He thought that the number of men and women in the village was almost even, with some slight fluctuations at most, but he did not expect that there were so many more men than women in the village.
"Not much." The village chief still felt that it was not much. "When the boy grows up, he can support me. What can the girl do? She has to go out. It's very useful."
"Ah..." Zhang Yichi understood.
It turned out to be because of the concept of favoring boys over girls. As for how to achieve such a large ratio of men to women, he did not choose to ask further.
"Wang Shimin." Zhang Yichi called.
He originally wanted to call Shimin brother, after all, the other party was more than ten years older than him, but because the other party may have domestically abused Liu Cuilan many times, and this morning he also mentioned that he would marry Liu Cuilan later with the money left over for the funeral.
This made him feel uncomfortable and had a bad impression of his daughter-in-law, so he simply called her by her first name.
"Why don't you see Liu Cuilan and her family?"
Wang Shimin was engrossed in eating steamed buns when he suddenly stopped when he heard Zhang Yichi's question.
"Cuilan and her family are not in our village." The village chief explained with a smile, "Their family is far away. They married from far away."
"Does her family still know that she was killed?" Zhang Yichi asked again.
"Then you have to write a letter." The village chief said.
Zhang Yichi had more and more doubts in his mind, which made him have no intention of eating: "How did you meet each other and get married after being so far away?"
With two places far apart and one in the mountains, why did Liu Cuilan come here to marry Wang Shimin, who was in his forties and had accomplished nothing? She also had to endure domestic violence.
"Ah..." The village chief took a sip of white wine.
"We know each other on a blind date," Wang Shimin replied.
"That's right." The village chief agreed, "Isn't there something wrong with Cuilan's brain? They just fell in love with each other during the blind date. Shimin gave his in-laws a lot of gifts, and they also felt that someone was right about this stupid girl.
It’s not easy, so I agree.”
Zhang Yichi said nothing.
After lunch, Wang Shimin didn't drink too much, unlike yesterday when he drank heavily and cried and cursed his mother after drinking. The two Wang brothers talked with their relatives, and Chen Chunsheng wanted to send the village chief home. Zhang Yichi planned to stay and follow Wang Shimin.
The people were looking for clues, and Zhang Nanyang said that he would follow Zhang Yichi.
Zhang Yichi entered Wang Shimin's house. It was very simple, with nothing valuable and no trace of a new marriage. It seemed that not only funerals, but also happy events were held very simply.
After all, his family was poor, and Zhang Yichi tried his best to understand.
After checking at Wang Shimin's house, Zhang Yichi found nothing.
This instead aroused his suspicion.
The two have been married for three months. How come there is nothing belonging to Liu Cuilan at home? There are no photos and no clothes. It is as if Liu Cuilan has never lived in this home.
There must be something hidden in it.
Even if it has nothing to do with the murderer, there must be some secret between Wang Shimin and Liu Cuilan.
"Brother, what are you doing?" Zhang Nanyang followed Zhang Yichi in a circle.
"Nothing, let's go." Zhang Yichi still didn't directly ask Wang Shimin why there wasn't even a trace of Liu Cuilan's presence in Wang Shimin's house. He said hello and went straight out of the yard.
"Where to go now?"
"Just walk around the village and get to know the terrain." After speaking, Zhang Yichi looked up and looked left and right, "There is another place that is higher. I will go there later."
Zhang Yichi wanted to find a high point overlooking the entire village, so that it would be easier to understand the village.
"I know where it is." Zhang Nanyang said, "But it's so sunny in the middle of the day. After going around to soak up the heat, why don't you go to my house and sit for a while? I happen to have something I want to tell you, Brother Zhang."
"What's wrong with you?" Zhang Yichi looked at Zhang Nanyang who was smiling.
"Eh."
Zhang Nanyang didn't explain what it was because he probably didn't want to talk about it yet. Zhang Yichi didn't ask deeply, he just stared at Zhang Nanyang's eyes and agreed to his request.
Zhang Nanyang was overjoyed and took Zhang Yichi to his home.
The two arrived not long after they left.
Zhang Nanyang's home was quite simple. He opened the door and asked Zhang Yichi to come in.
Zhang Yichi walked in and saw that the interior was clean and tidy. The desk on one side was filled with books. He found a stool and sat down: "Are you the only one at home?"
"My parents left early. They left when I was in junior high school. People in the village helped raise money for me to go to high school." Zhang Nanyang also sat down, looking very sincere.
"What do you want from me?"
Zhang Nanyang didn't say anything. He got up and went to the table to pull out a few books and showed them to Zhang Yichi: "Brother Zhang, look, even though I was admitted to college, I still read when I came back. Look at these notes. They are full of notes."
of."
Zhang Yichi took the book and flipped through it symbolically. It was indeed full of notes.
"I have been studying hard. These are all, I have taken full notes." Zhang Nanyang went to get the books on the desk.
It seems that only these books can prove that he is still working hard and learning over the years.
"If you have anything to say, just tell me." Zhang Yichi had piles of books in front of him.
"Uh..." Zhang Nanyang was a little excited, "I, I just want to get out of the mountains, find a decent job, and live in a big city from now on."
"Is it difficult to get out of the mountains?" Zhang Yichi was puzzled, "You have a high school diploma, so you should be able to go out and find a job, right? Didn't you say that Wang Shiren has gone out to work? He can go out, why can't you?"
"That's different, Brother Zhang!" Zhang Nanyang became a little anxious, "Uncle Shiren worked as a migrant worker to move bricks. How can I, an educated person with a high school diploma, go out to move bricks like him? I have been doing this all these years.
I’ve been reading and studying, but there’s something in my stomach!”
Zhang Yichi understood that Zhang Nanyang wanted to find a good job outside through him: "I am a policeman, how can I help you?"
"Then the police have lost their respect in the town. Who wouldn't give the police some face? Brother Zhang, your connections are wider than those of us in the mountains. Please help me find a decent job. I am teaching or something.
Either way, I can recite these books by heart..."
Zhang Nanyang kept chattering, trying his best to show off his strengths and make Zhang Yichi like him.
"I'll give you a suggestion. Listen to it and see if it works." Zhang Yichi interrupted Zhang Nanyang.
Zhang Nanyang listened.
"You first get out of the mountains, don't have any requirements for work, even if you do the most basic work, at least you have already got out. Gradually you gain a foothold outside, then continue to improve yourself, and try to find a better job
Work and climb up." Zhang Yichi gave Zhang Nanyang advice, "I'm just a little policeman, I really can't help you with this, and if you always want to go out on your own, you must first get a decent job.
, I guess you won’t be able to get out in this life.”
Zhang Nanyang was discouraged and slumped on the chair.