soldiers in front

Xiao Jiang died, and was killed by someone.

Tonight, the night sky in Weining is as dark as a dry well. The more you look down, the darker it becomes. The cold wind blowing from the depths of the well is like a girl's low cry.

Ji Zheng rushed to the police station immediately after receiving Min Chengzhou's call. When he entered the police station, the lobby on the first floor was already crying. Those were Xiao Jiang's parents.Xiao Jiang is the only daughter in the family. Her parents are still very young, but they suffered the pain of bereavement when they were less than 40 years old.Ji Zheng had never met Xiao Jiang's parents, but it did not prevent him from recognizing at a glance that the woman who cried until she almost fainted was Xiao Jiang's mother in the corridor where several policemen were standing.

He looked at it from a distance, and there was no past.

A male policeman first discovered Ji Zheng and told Min Chengzhou, so Min Chengzhou left the pair of parents who were still crying in front of the forensic room and walked towards Ji Zheng.

Min Chengzhou looked gloomy: "Why don't you go and have a look?"

Xiao Jiang's body was parked in the forensic room, but Ji Zheng didn't want to see Xiao Jiang's appearance after death, and said, "No."

He sat down on the bench by the wall, took off his glasses, wiped his sweaty forehead from running just now, and asked, "What's going on?"

Min Chengzhou sat down beside him, and sighed before speaking: "A woman named Zhai Ya reported the case to Jiang Yiyi's friend. The crime took place in a restaurant under renovation. Zhai Ya said that Jiang Yiyi was there Some money was invested in the restaurant, and Jiang Yiyi helped to watch the renovation. Last night, Jiang Yiyi died in the restaurant under renovation."

Ji Zheng remained silent, his gaze as calm as cold water fell on the ground, listening to Min Chengzhou continue.

Min Chengzhou paused before continuing: "Last night at eight o'clock, Jiang Yiyi received a call from the furniture company. The workers had delivered the tables and chairs needed for the restaurant to the restaurant door. Let Jiang Yiyi go to open the door. We checked the street. According to the street corner video, Jiang Yiyi arrived at the restaurant at 23:56. At [-]:[-], the worker who delivered the tables and chairs left the store. Until two hours ago, Zhai Ya went to the store to order and found Jiang Yiyi corpse."

Ji Zheng pinched his cold and stiff fingers and said, "Isn't the murderer a delivery worker?"

Min Chengzhou said: "The first thing we suspected was the workers, but we investigated and found that a total of six workers delivered the goods. According to the company's regulations, the team leader among the workers, in order to prevent the goods from being damaged after they left, the customer shifted the responsibility to the transporter. The phenomenon of the company, so the team leader will stick a camera on his chest when moving the goods. The camera records the whole process from seeing Jiang Yiyi to leaving the store. They didn't do it. And they can give each other an alibi, they After delivering the goods to Jiang Yiyi, I went back to the company dormitory to rest."

"Little Jiang...the time when Jiang Yiyi was killed."

"Eleven to 11:30 last night."

Ji Zheng asked: "The worker left at nine o'clock, why did she stay until eleven o'clock?"

Min Chengzhou scratched his hair: "This is also what we find strange. The scene after the incident was roughly the same as when the workers left, so Jiang Yiyi didn't stay in the store to do some cleaning. If so, why did she stay in the store?" In the store?"

Ji Zheng looked at him: "Waiting for someone?"

Min Chengzhou glanced at him: "I checked Jiang Yiyi's cell phone, and she didn't contact anyone to meet in the store."

Ji Zheng pondered for a moment and said, "Can I see the photos of the scene?"

Min Chengzhou was very happy: "Yes, follow me."

Ji Zheng followed him upstairs to the captain's office. Min Chengzhou took out a stack of photos from a locked drawer and handed them to him: "They are all photos from the scene."

Ji Zheng took the photo and took a few steps back and sat on a sofa opposite the desk, while looking at it, he asked, "What is the cause of death?"

Min Chengzhou collapsed in the leather chair behind the desk: "Preliminary identification shows that the deceased drank a solution mixed with cyanide. And we found a beverage bottle containing cyanide residue at the scene."

Ji Zheng suddenly raised his eyes to look at him, his dark eyes were filled with cold air.

Min Chengzhou and him looked at each other, forced a smile, and said, "Yes, 'poison killing' is usually a common method used by female criminals."

Ji Zheng lowered his eyes silently, looking at the photo in his hand.He flipped through two photos, and still couldn't help seeing Xiao Jiang's appearance after his death; in the scene photos taken by the police, Xiao Jiang was wearing a ginger dress, lying peacefully on a wooden table that was originally filled with furniture. Inside the box, both hands were placed on the lower abdomen, even 'holding' a handful of fake flowers. The wooden box was one meter high and two meters wide, and Xiao Jiang was lying in it, like lying in a coffin... .

Min Chengzhou asked: "What did you see?"

Ji Zheng stared at the photo closely, and said for a long time: "Sense of ceremony."

Min Chengzhou nodded, and said: "Yes, the sense of ritual. The murderer puts the person into the wooden box after the murder, and also puts the dead person lying in the coffin, a typical sense of ritual." He sighed again: "Using hydrogen |The killing of chemical objects, with a sense of ritual, and it was done cleanly, without leaving any traces on the scene. This murderer may not be the first time to commit a crime."

Ji Zheng put the photo aside, looked at Min Chengzhou and asked, "Do you have anyone you suspect?"

Min Chengzhou said: "There is no object of suspicion, but there is a scope of suspicion."

Ji Zheng asked: "Women?"

Min Chengzhou raised his index finger: "One, female." Then he raised his middle finger, "Second, acquaintance." Finally, he put down his hand and added: "I can meet Jiang Yiyi in the store, and let Jiang Yiyi drink alcohol mixed with hydrogen | Drinks, definitely not strangers meeting for the first time."

Ji Zheng said: "Didn't you find it on the drink bottle?"

"If so, would I be so worried?"

"What about the video? There are no clues in the video?"

"That street is full of newly-built commodity buildings. Like Jiang Yiyi's store, most of them are in the state of renovation, or they haven't been sold yet, and there are no cameras installed at all. To check the video, you can only check it from the street. .That range is too big."

There was a knock on the door of Min Chengzhou's office, and a male policeman shouted outside: "Captain Min, are you there?"

Ji Zheng heard that, in order not to disturb Min Chengzhou's work, he got up and walked to the window and looked out with his back to the door.

Min Chengzhou said: "Don't knock, come in."

A young policeman with bushy eyebrows and handsome eyes pushed the door in, with a rush and a sense of stupefaction on his body. He looked at Ji Zheng standing in front of the window, and asked Min Chengzhou in a low voice: "Captain Min, who is this?"

Min Chengzhou said: "The family of the deceased. Why are you here?"

The young policeman raised the evidence bag in his hand: "There is a discovery, Team Min."

Min Chengzhou: "...Why are you holding it so high? Put it in my hand."

"oh oh."

The young policeman handed the evidence bag to Min Chengzhou, and said in a low voice: "It was found from the nail of the deceased. We have all seen it. It seems to be a diamond. It's not cheap. It's still a pink diamond. But I don’t wear such expensive jewelry, I suspect it’s not the deceased’s. Team Min, what do you think? Is it the deceased’s or the murderer’s? But the deceased had manicures, is it possible that they fell from her nails? But it doesn’t make sense, How did something that fell off her nails end up on her fingernails—”

Min Chengzhou patted the evidence bag containing a pink diamond the size of a pin nose on the table, looked at the male policeman and said earnestly: "Xiao Dang, did I tell you to focus on what you say? You know why I always Do you limit your speaking time in meetings? Because if you fucking let it go, you can talk about my funeral. And you can do stand-up comedy for me while helping me carry my coffin."

Dang Hao: "Hey? Team Min, you're swearing. You often teach us not to swear, but to improve our quality."

Min Chengzhou lifted his chin towards the door with a straight face: "Get out."

"Oh."

Dang Hao turned his head and walked out of the door. When he reached the door, he turned around and said, "Captain Min, I still don't think that diamond belonged to the deceased, because the deceased's fingernails didn't have—"

Min Chengzhou picked up the plastic teacup on the table and threw it at him.

Ji Zheng turned to Min Chengzhou when he heard the sound of closing the door: "What diamond?"

Min Chengzhou showed him the diamond in the evidence bag: "This one."

It was a pink diamond not much bigger than the nose of a needle. It was obviously an ornament on some jewelry, and with Xiao Jiang's income, it was not something she could afford.

Ji Zheng also felt that it might be something left by the murderer, but this diamond is not a whole, but an individual stripped from the whole. The shape of the whole cannot be judged from the individual alone, so this diamond is of little value.

When going downstairs, Ji Zheng saw Xiao Jiang's parents again. Xiao Jiang's mother had stopped crying. She was sitting on a chair in front of the forensic room in a daze. There is a lot of noise, her only world is gradually collapsing in front of her eyes...

Ji Zheng wanted to go to comfort her, but he knew that his words would also become noise in her ears, so he left.

Xiao Jiang's death didn't really have any impact on him, at best it was just another assistant, but out of human nature, he regretted and mourned Xiao Jiang's death.And he doesn't know why, for Xiao Jiang's death, he has a specious guilt, which is vague and inexplicable, he has no reason to feel guilty about what happened to Xiao Jiang, because he has never hurt Xiao Jiang , but he really couldn't let go of Xiao Jiang's death.As if it was his fault.

He returned home with a heavy heart. The house was deserted, empty and bright.When he was changing shoes at the porch, he saw Aunt Wu's slippers at the door, but Aunt Wu's coat was gone.He was worried when a text message from Aunt Wu arrived. Aunt Wu said she was selling fruit downstairs and asked him what he wanted to eat.

After reading the text message, Ji Zheng didn't reply, took off his coat and walked to the bathroom.He rolled up his sleeves and was about to wash his hands when he suddenly heard a movement in the bathroom separated from the bathroom by a sliding door, and the light in the bathroom was on, and a figure appeared on the frosted door.

"Xiao Que?"

He looked at the bathroom door and yelped, but a whimpering cat answered him.

Ji Zheng opened the bathroom door and saw Bian Xiaoqu kneeling by the bathtub filled with water, the egg yolk was pinched by her neck and pressed into the water, her limbs were still thrashing violently.

Ji Zheng violently pushed aside the side stalks, and picked up the drenched egg yolk from the water: "What are you doing!"

Sitting on the wet bathroom floor, Bian Xiaoqu looked at Ji Zheng with a pair of indifferent eyes, with a gloomy expression that Ji Zheng had never seen before.

"It scratched my skirt."

Bian Xiaoqu said quietly.

Egg Yolk lay in Ji Zheng's arms and coughed out water, trembling all over.Ji Zheng hugged it tightly, looked at Bian Xiaoqu regretfully and angrily, still couldn't bear to blame her, and said: "The skirt is pregnant, I will buy you a new one, but you can't do this to the egg yolk."

Bian Xiaoqu stood up from the ground and sneered: "It's just a beast, so what if I kill it?"

Ji Zheng looked at her in disbelief: "What did you say?"

Bian Xiaoqu said: "I lied, it didn't scratch my skirt, I just wanted to kill it." She looked at Ji Zheng gloomyly, and said in her emotionless voice: "I said I hate it , if you don't send it away, then I'll kill it."

After finishing speaking, she left the bathroom. Ji Zheng stared at her back, dazed for a long time, until the egg yolk called out in his arms, then took the egg yolk back to the bedroom and dried it with a hair dryer.

When he was blowing hair on the egg yolk, Aunt Wu came back, and Aunt Wu walked to his bedroom following the sound of the hair dryer: "What's wrong with the egg yolk? Why is it wet?"

Ji Zheng turned off the hair dryer, wiped the egg yolk's body with a blanket, and said with a smile, "I just took a bath for it."

Aunt Wu touched the egg yolk as usual, but the egg yolk squeaked into Ji Zheng's arms. Aunt Wu felt very strange: "The egg yolk doesn't look right."

Ji Zheng forced a smile and said, "Let's make dinner."

Bian Xiaoqu didn't come out for dinner, and she didn't open the door when Ji Zheng brought her food.Aunt Wu comforted Ji Zheng: "Little girls are like this. They lost their temper at me just now. Just buy her a gift tomorrow."

After dinner, Ji Zheng and Aunt Wu went back to their rooms. Ji Zheng sat on the bed and leaned against the head of the bed, opened his notebook and kept searching for information related to Bian Xiaoqu's illness.He can no longer tell which Bian Xiaoqu is the current Bian Xiaoqu, and Bian Xiaoqu keeps calling him 'Brother Ji' but regards him as his lover. The two personalities of Bian Xiaoqu seem to be constantly switching, even There is a tendency to merge...

As the night gradually deepened, Ji Zheng checked the information until the early morning, and he closed the computer when his eyes were so sore that it was difficult to open them.

He closed the computer and was about to turn off the desk lamp and go to sleep, but there was a knock on the door.

"......Who?"

Aunt Wu said, "Doctor Ji, it's me."

Ji Zheng sat up and put on his glasses: "Come in."

Aunt Wu walked in, covering her right face with a few tissues.

Ji Zheng asked: "What happened to your face?"

Aunt Wu sat down on the sofa beside his bed, lowered her head while hesitating to speak, and after a long silence, she put down her hands covering her face, and smiled shyly at Ji Zheng.

When Ji Zheng saw it, his eyes sank instantly.

Aunt Wu had two long and thin wounds on her face, as if she had been cut twice by the tip of a knife.

Ji Zheng asked: "What's going on?"

Aunt Wu stretched out her left hand, spread out her palm, revealing a few needles lying in her palm, and said, "I found this in my pillow."

Ji Zheng's eyes trembled, he took the needle over, his jaw was tense again, and he said: "Is it Xiao Que?"

Aunt Wu looked at his expression and said hesitantly, "It's not necessarily true, it might be..."

She couldn't concoct any other possibility, and she lost her voice as she spoke.

Ji Zheng sent her back to the room, changed her into a brand new bedding, and stood at the door of Bian Xiaoqu for a while after leaving Aunt Wu's room.He really wanted to wake up Bian Xiaoqu and question her why she put needles in Aunt Wu's pillow, but he could think of Bian Xiaoqu's answer.

'If you don't drive her away, I'll kill her. '

This is Bian Xiaoqu's answer.

Ji Zheng stood outside Bian Xiaoqu's door for a long time, until his legs were stiff and his body felt chilly before returning to the bedroom.He thought he wouldn't be able to sleep that night, but he was so tired that he fell asleep groggyly in the second half of the night.

After an unknown period of time, he heard the girl's weak cry while he was half asleep and half awake. After confirming that the cry was not an auditory hallucination, he immediately woke up, as if he had had a nightmare.

His heart was beating wildly, he listened carefully to the cry, and found that the sound came from outside the door.

He put on a coat and opened the bedroom door, followed the direction of the sound from the dark living room to the bathroom, and found that the bathroom light was on, and a figure appeared on the frosted glass door.

Ji Zheng held the handle of the bathroom door to breathe a sigh of relief, then slowly opened the door, and saw Bian Xiaoqu sitting in the bathtub without water, hugging his legs, and crying.

Ji Zheng walked over slowly, squatted by the bathtub, and gently touched her knee: "Xiao Qu?"

Bian Xiaoqu raised his head, revealing a beautiful face soaked in tears.

The moment Ji Zheng saw her eyes, he knew Bian Xiaoqu was 'back'.

The gloom and coldness in Bian Xiaoqu's eyes disappeared, and she was sad and bewildered, hesitant and helpless at this moment.She choked up and said, "Brother Ji, I seem to have had a nightmare. I...I hurt a lot of people."

Ji Zheng noticed that blood was oozing from the palm of her right hand. He opened Bian Xiaoqu's hand and saw a few needles lying on her palm.He took those few needles out of Bian Xiaoqu's hand, and hugged her into his arms: "It's just a nightmare, it will be fine when I wake up from the dream."

Bian Xiaoqu hugged him tightly and cried bitterly in his arms: "I dare not sleep, I am afraid I will become like that again, I don't want...don't want to hurt others."

Ji Zheng's heart was also bleeding, and he stroked Bian Xiaoqu's hair lovingly: "You didn't hurt anyone."

"I know I'm sick, and I've been hurting others. Brother Ji, I don't want to be sick. I want to live with you in a healthy way. I really don't want to be sick."

Bian Xiaoqu kept crying, as if she was struggling on the verge of life and death in pain, she sobbed and said, "I'm worried that I will hurt you one day, what if I hurt you, I really don't want to hurt you woo woo woo woo .”

Ji Zheng could only hug her tightly: "You won't."

Bian Xiaoqu cried bitterly: "Brother Ji, can you promise me one thing?"

"what's up?"

"If I hurt you, you must lock me up. I know people like me should be locked up in a mental hospital. Can you send me to a mental hospital? You are the only person in this world who treats me well , is also my favorite person, I would rather kill myself than hurt you, please, please promise me."

Ji Zheng's throat seemed to be choked by an invisible hand, and he said with difficulty: "No, Xiao He—"

Bian Xiaoqu firmly grabbed his clothes: "I beg you, you must promise me. Otherwise, I will kill myself while I am still awake!"

"You trust me, I'll figure out a way."

"No time! Really no time! I can't control myself... no time!"

Later, Ji Zheng himself didn't know what kind of mood he was in when he said the word 'good', he hugged Bian Xiaoqu in a heartbroken and dazed way, as if he was about to say goodbye to her.

But Bian Xiaoqu was relieved, she was even very happy, she fell asleep in Ji Zheng's arms, after falling asleep, she whispered a word silently; there is no time.

Ji Zheng carried her back to the room, covered her with the quilt, sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her sleeping face, which seemed to be full of worries, and did not leave Bian Xiaoqu's bedroom until a twilight appeared in the sky beside the bed.

He went back to the room and found the old mobile phone from the drawer. This mobile phone stored the contact information of many acquaintances and friends who had met him once, or had not seen each other for a long time, and would never meet again in the future.

He opened the address book and found an old classmate whom he thought he would never contact again——Pan Yue.