Chapter 153: The Eyewitness Who Disappeared
Chapter 153: The Eyewitness Who Disappeared
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Mr. Tao was not the only who did had not expected this. The detectives in charge of this case also had not thought that the kidnappers would be cunning enough to resort to this method in order to get the ransom money. What was even more beyond their expectations was that when they located the tracking device, they found that it was still at scene and the money was gone! The five children who were kidnapped, along with Niu Weiguang, never returned.
Although the police had put in much manpower and resources afterwards, not only did they not find the kidnapper, but even the van that Niu Weiguang drove could not be found. The ransom money had been taken, but the children were not released. In the end, the police were even unsure of the number of kidnappers involved. That year, the case had caused a big stir throughout Qinshan. The leaders of the police force were furious and gave heavily punished the detectives in charge of the case. As the money had been thrown by Mr Tao, he had been beating himself up after all these years. If he had not thrown the money, would the children still be alive?
At that moment, Zhao Yu was listening very carefully. Although he had reviewed the information on the case many times, he still managed to discover a few points which he had not noticed previously. He felt that there seemed to be some areas in the case which did not make sense, and there were slight inconsistencies from what he had previously understood. However, he was unable to figure out what they were exactly in such a short amount of time.
Tsk tsk… Zhao Yu touched the handbag that Mr. Tao passed to him. The money inside had not been touched, and it was now all his! Although he attempted to reject it a few times after that, Mr Tao still insisted to give Zhao Yu the money as a form of gratitude. He had initially thought that this huge sum of money had slipped out of his hands, but the events took an unexpected turn. He never would have imagined that the money would eventually end up in his hands again.
It seemed that his "Dui" hexagram was quite powerful after all. Mr. Tao had also told Zhao Yu that he was working in a bank that year and was holding an important position. The ransom money had been taken directly from the bank vault. Not only were they all new notes, but they were all in running numbers. The police had recorded the numbers at the time, and had also taken pictures of the money and handbag. After the children disappeared, the police had cooperated with the bank to check on these numbers, but nothing had been found. However, no one would have expected that the culprits had not touched the money at all, but had it buried in the collapsed mine pit all along.
Money… Ransom… Zhao Yu thought hard about it and started to feel that there was something eerie about the ransom money. Why did the culprits keep it beside the bodies of the children?
"That year, the police had gone in from every approach. Telephone, fingerprints, interpersonal relationships, etc. had all been investigated!" Qu Ping continued, "But in the end, not even one suspect had been found, and the number of kidnappers was also unknown. The only person who had been listed as the suspect was Niu Weiguang! There were people who had suspected that even if Niu Weiguang was not the kidnapper, it was also highly possible that he had collaborated with the kidnappers in plotting their operation! However…" Qu Ping shook her head and signaled to Liu Changhu, which meant that she finished talking about the case.
"Oh," Liu Changhu quickly pointed at Wang Fei who was standing in front of the big screen. "Now, Chief Wang will talk about the remains!" Hearing this, Zhao Yu quickly composed himself and paid attention. He wanted to know what situation they had encountered during the autopsy. Due to the recent heavy workload, Chief Wang looked pale and a little haggard; however, she still began her explanation professionally and was full of energy.
After the screen lit up, the first thing to appear was a dark gray skeleton. As the size was very small, even a layman could tell that it belonged to a child! "Dear colleagues, we have found a total of five complete skeletons from the collapsed area of the mine pit. DNA analysis has shown that four of them belonged to the children who were kidnapped, namely, Liang Meili, who was nine years old then; Liang Shuhan, who was twelve; Tao Xiao, who was eleven; and Liu Hongxiang, who was ten! Also, there was another body which belonged to the van driver, Niu Weiguang, who had disappeared that year!!" The moment Wang Fei said this, there was an uproar and the agents were all shocked!
Zhao Yu was no exception. He had not thought that the result of the skeleton analysis would be like this! If Niu Weiguang had also been killed by the kidnappers, it still seemed reasonable, but...why was there a body missing? Zhao Yu compared the information and realized that there was no Liang Sisi among the names which Wang Fei had mentioned. Liang Sisi had started first grade that year and was only seven!
Why…What about Liang Sisi? Was she not harmed or was her body not found?
"Among the five sets of remains, there was no information obtained regarding Liang Sisi." Wang Fei continued, "According to the latest update, that collapsed area of the mine pit has already been cleaned up thoroughly, and no other remains have been found! The engineering team has already sent out a professional search team to search nearby mine pits. We will need to wait to see if there are any other results.
"This is the handbag found by Comrade Zhao Yu, and it contains the ransom money from that year." Wang Fei introduced, "We’ve already done a thorough examination, but the time elapsed was too long, and the item has been severely damaged. We were unable to get any useful evidence from it anymore!"
Oh… Zhao Yu touched the handbag. It seemed like the money was no longer be usable evidence, which was why it had been returned to the owner so quickly. As the handbag had valuable bills in it, the agents present all looked enviously at Zhao Yu and exclaimed how lucky Zhao Yu was. Not only had Zhao Yu picked up money, but the money had even been gifted to him by the owner. Although there was only two-hundred thousand RMB inside, they were all old notes in running numbers. They could be sold for at least five-hundred thousand or more in the open market. Wouldn’t this young chap suddenly strike it rich?
However, Zhao Yu had not thought very much about this. His thoughts were still on the remains. He could not figure out why there was a set of remains missing.
The screen changed again with Chief Wang Fei’s control, and a picture of the five sets of remains appeared. "We’ve already analysed all the remains" Chief Wang explained. "Due to the time elapsed and water erosion, we were unable to determine the real cause of death of these people; however, the remains were scattered all over, and there were obvious signs of an explosion and landslide, and we’ve also found sulfur nitride content in the rocks. The evidence shows that there had indeed been an explosion at the scene, and the explosion caused the mine pit to collapse.
"We’re only unable to determine if these people had been buried after they died or they had died from the explosion! We’ve also found some coarse fabric near the remains. After analysing, we’ve already determined that it was a type of old hemp rope material. We suspect that the victims could had been tied up by this type of rope, and the rope was still on them when the explosion took place." When Wang Fei said this, the hearts of all the agents present felt heavy. There were four children among the victims. The culprit used such a cruel method to kill them, it was really infuriating.
The screen changed again and the picture was now that of larger sized remains. "These are the remains of Niu Weiguang." Wang Fei pointed at the screen and said, "We found other issues with his remains! There is an obvious stab mark on Niu Weiguang’s left ribs. One of the ribs had been broken directly, and the other two beside it had clean cuts. We can deduce that Niu Weiguang had been stabbed by something sharp before he died. This place was very close to the heart. Although the heart had not been stabbed directly, death was very likely!" After Wang Fei finished, the agents started discussing among themselves again.
Zhao Yu heard someone beside him whisper, "Since Niu Weiguang is dead, it seems like he’s only an innocent victim. He shouldn’t be related to the kidnapping case, right?"
"That’s hard to say!" another person said. "What if he had been killed because they couldn’t agree on how to split the ransom money?"
"That’s right!" someone said. "I heard that Niu Weiguang has been suspected as being one of the kidnappers all these years. His whole family had even been chased out of Mianling Town. I wonder if he has any family members coming to claim his remains?"
The one who spoke first sighed and said, "One case has caused so many broken families. I wonder who exactly were those evil kidnappers! I’ve just heard that the victims’ families publicly stated a reward outside! The reward money is ten million! Brothers, let’s buck up! It’s time to change our destiny!" These people were discussing when the conference room door suddenly opened and a person walked in.
After Bureau Chief Luan Xiaoxiao saw the person, she quickly signaled for him to come to the front. After Liu Changhu saw him, he also stood up and led this person to the seat beside himself. Zhao Yu turned and saw that this person was not only someone that he knew, but was the original team leader of Team A—Mao Wei!!