Chapter 402
In late autumn, the Yunling Mountains are covered with colorful trees. Except that the weather is too cold and you need to wear more clothes to prevent yourself from getting sick, everything is beautiful.
This is what Cen Lian thought when he was driving in the passenger seat and watching Wuqiu Mountain. When the car turned and stopped on a small road where it could not go any further, he stopped enjoying the scenery.
With people like them carrying bags, boxes and black plastic bags, it is estimated that no one would be in the mood to continue enjoying the scenery.
"I have marked the road along the way, just follow me." Qi Yan identified the marks he left on the trees and became the pioneer of the whole team.
"This mountain road is so difficult to walk, will anyone really take the trouble to carry the body and throw it over?" Qu Zihan was already a little out of breath when she climbed halfway up the mountain.
Even though she often carried a heavy laptop to run in the wild during this period, it was a great consumption for her to climb the wild mountains with a heavy load.
Wang Yuanteng wanted to explain something to Qi Yan, but he coughed a lot. After he leaned against a tree to catch his breath, he said with difficulty, "If the person who dumped the body was also a member of their hiking group, then it is possible to choose this place."
"It sounds reasonable to let the deceased walk to a remote place and then dump the body." Tang Hua held his waist and looked up, "How far is it? How about we take a short break before going over?"
Lin Xiangqi glanced at him with some disdain.
"Brother Wang is not from the police academy, Xiaoqu is a network security, it is understandable that he has poor physical strength, why are you so weak?"
Tang Hua looked at Lin Xiangqi who was walking briskly in the deep mountains and old forests, and his hand holding his waist trembled slightly.
"He had a back injury before and didn't have time to go for physical therapy," Yuan Chenxi was considerate and helped Tang Hua resolve the embarrassment, "But speaking of it, is our current altitude about the same height as the cliff Brother Qi mentioned before?"
We have been walking on the mountain road all the way, and unknowingly climbed to a relatively high position.
Cen Lian raised the telescope and looked into the distance, and found that some bushes were vaguely cut and crushed in the distance. They should be the traces left when the scene was cleaned up before. It seems that the cliff that Qi Yan mentioned is not far away.
"The height is about the same, and the distance is not far," Qi Yan pointed to the front, "At our speed, we can get there in half an hour."
Half an hour was considered to be a boost for everyone. Tang Hua, who originally wanted to take a short break, did not hold his waist, and followed Qi Yan closely to continue to open the road.
Cen Lian looked around with the telescope and found that the vision in this area was relatively poor. Even if someone was hiding in the distance and observing secretly, it would be difficult to find it.
So if the hiking route of Mr. Zhang passed here at that time, it is not impossible that someone was secretly watching and took the opportunity to attack.
But this is a good idea. It is almost impossible to hide in such a deep forest without leaving any trace. If someone has really been observing from a distance, it means that they have found the right place.
Following the marks left by Qi Yan all the way to a cliff, Cen Lian finally understood why Qi Yan always felt that there was something wrong with this place.
"The vegetation on the edge of this cliff is very dense," he realized when Qi Yan told them that this was a cliff, "it's easy to slip and fall down."
"It looks like this from above, I'll take you down later," Qi Yan obviously had some understanding of the terrain here, "below is where I think it might be the crime scene."
The height of the cliff is not particularly high. Qi Yan took them around a small path to the rocky beach at the bottom of the mountain.
It is not difficult to see that if there is a flood in the mountain, the stones under their feet will be submerged by water.
"There are traces of dragging," Wuqiushan squatted down near the riverbed as soon as he came down. "Although the water flow here is usually not large, it should be flooded when there is a mountain torrent."
"This small river between the two mountains will eventually flow into the Han River," Qi Yan said, "but after my field investigation, I think it is unlikely that the body will float all the way to Xingyuan City through the water flow."
This overturned his initial guess.
But Cen Lian was not surprised after seeing the situation here, because this river channel is too narrow, the water flow is too small, and there are many bends and bumps in the middle that are not so obvious on the map. Even if a mountain torrent breaks out, it is difficult for an adult male's body to be washed into the Han River intact through multiple water systems.
"It can be regarded as a kind of accidental success," Cen Lian patted Qi Yan's shoulder, "Although we cannot determine the murderer's method of dumping the body, this is indeed very likely to be the crime scene."
Qi Yan sighed slightly. Although the case was not exactly the same as he expected, it was also considered to be moving forward.
Wuqiushan squatted down and worked for a while before calling Yuan Chenxi. The two began to survey all the places around where there might be traces of dragging.
Cen Lian stood at the foot of the mountain and looked up.
As Qi Yan said, the upper part of this cliff is very confusing, but the vegetation near the river is quite sparse. Most of the plants grow in the area where the sun can shine. Looking up from below, you can even see the traces left by the broken branches.
"We have to take samples from above as well." He looked around and felt that climbing up might be a bit strenuous, so he called Tang Hua and Wang Yuanteng to go back to the top of the cliff together and prepare to take a look at the area with dense vegetation by rappelling.
"Wait, something is wrong," Tang Hua was originally looking for a big tree to fix the rope near the cliff. After walking a short distance, he suddenly stopped, "Come and see, these footprints don't look like the ones left by Brother Qi and his team yesterday."
Cen Lian and Wang Yuanteng looked at each other and came to Tang Hua as quickly as possible.
A few footprints in the mud appeared clearly in front of them.
"No more than two days," Cen Lian gave a more conservative estimate. He even thought that the footprints were either from last night or this morning. "They are the footprints of more professional hiking shoes. No one will wear this kind of shoes when we go out for investigation."
Criminal police often need to go out for field investigation. Most of the time, they wear the combat boots issued. Whether they are comfortable or not is another matter. The main thing is that they don't have to pay for them themselves, and they don't feel bad wearing them when traveling through mountains and rivers.
Professional hiking shoes are more expensive. I haven't seen anyone wearing them when going out for investigation.
"The shoe prints are probably size 44, so we still need to check it." Although Cen Lian has confirmed that these are not the shoes of the investigators, he still needs to make a copy of the shoe prints for comparison out of rigor. "If it is confirmed that they are not the shoes of our investigators, then it is very likely that the suspect has returned to the crime scene."