novelaction Chapter 1174 Construction Site of Oriental Garden Residential Complex
Chapter 1174 Construction Site of Oriental Garden Residential Complex
As Yang Baocheng was being led to the police car, he suddenly turned back to look at the newly filled grave. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he only let out a heavy sigh. Xiao Zhou stood in front of the tombstone, watching the technicians pack all the evidence into boxes. The interrogation records in his notebook were already five pages long, every word imbued with the tragedy of two families.
The investigation has finally come to a close. Yang Baocheng has been formally arrested on charges of intentional homicide and will face severe legal punishment; his cousin, Yang Ming, has been given administrative punishment for failing to report the crime; Li Chengde's sister, Li Chunhua, cried all night holding her brother's portrait after receiving the notification. As Xiao Zhou closed the case file, moonlight streamed through the blinds, casting a soft silver glow on the words "Case Closed."
This bloody incident, triggered by a gambling debt of 50,000 yuan, ended in the most tragic way. The lights in the interrogation room remained bright, but they couldn't illuminate the dark corners of human nature; the cypress grove in the cemetery remained silent, but it forever remembered the evil and lamentation of that night. Xiao Zhou rubbed his throbbing temples and picked up the next case file—criminal investigation has no end, and the pursuit of justice is always on the way.
Less than three days after the Yang Baocheng case was closed, the Criminal Investigation Detachment received another report from the street.
A body was found at a construction site in a residential area.
At the construction site of the Oriental Garden residential complex, tower cranes cast long, thin shadows in the morning light. Amidst the small hills of steel bars and cement slabs, Zhou Jianming, the construction supervisor, slumped at the entrance of a temporary prefabricated house, his dust-covered safety helmet lying at his feet. His right hand gripped his phone tightly, the screen still showing the dial-110 interface, while his left hand repeatedly wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, but he couldn't get it off—just ten minutes earlier, while the excavator operator was clearing the foundation, the bucket suddenly hooked up a body wrapped in a black plastic bag, and the stench of decay instantly filled the entire construction site.
As soon as Li Ming's police car came to a stop at the construction site entrance, a cordon was quickly set up around the foundation. As he approached, stepping onto the muddy construction path, a stench of decay, soil, and cement assaulted his nostrils. Even with a mask on, the nauseating, sour smell was clearly audible. The foundation pit was about 3 meters deep, and the excavator at the bottom remained in its working position. A black plastic bag next to the bucket had been ripped open, revealing a bluish-black limb, with flies buzzing around it.
"Protect the site and prevent any construction workers from approaching," Li Ming ordered in a deep voice into the walkie-talkie, his gaze sweeping over the marks at the bottom of the pit. Shovels, measuring tapes, and other construction tools were scattered around the foundation pit, and the yellow mud on the ground was trampled into a mess. The clearest marks were several mud-covered work boot prints, like chaotic ink blots blooming on the yellowish-brown ground.
Xiao Yang, carrying his survey bag, crawled into the cordon. The beam of his surveying light pierced through the morning mist, drawing a bright line on the plastic bag at the bottom of the pit. "Found a set of size 42 work boot prints," he said, squatting down to measure with a ruler. The pressure surface of the forefoot of the prints was concentrated in the middle, with fresh yellow mud stuck to the edges. "Stride length 72 centimeters, stride width 17 centimeters, stride angle 5 degrees outward, estimating height 170-175 centimeters." The prints extended from the direction of the prefabricated house to the edge of the foundation pit, with a clear pause at the pit's opening. Cement fragments were embedded in the tread pattern of the soles.
Xiao Sun was shining a footprint lamp on the soil at the edge of the foundation pit, where several crushed leaves were stained with dark red marks. "The leaves have fresh crushing marks, and the veins are broken in an irregular shape," he said, picking up a stained leaf with tweezers. "It's about 80 centimeters from the ground, which is the height an adult would be at when bending over to work." Two meters away, in a pile of steel bars, he found a half-smoked cigarette butt. The saliva stains on the filter had dried, but the degree of burning of the tobacco indicated that it had been hastily extinguished, and fragments of cigarette pack paper were scattered around.
Xiao Wang placed the interrogation record book on the hood of the police car. Zhou Jianming's fingers trembled incessantly over the time stamp "6:15 AM on October 8th." "We started work at 5 AM this morning," his voice trembled with tears, the chattering of his teeth particularly clear. "Old Zhang was clearing the foundation with the excavator. He had only dug down less than half a meter when he heard a 'clang.' He thought he had snagged a rock, but when he pulled it up, it was a black plastic bag, and it smelled terrible... When he opened it, there was a person inside..."
Xiao Yang's surveying light flickered at the bottom of the foundation pit. The limbs exposed from the tear in the black plastic bag were highly decomposed, the skin was bluish-black, and some tissues had liquefied. "The body was wrapped in multiple layers of black plastic bags, and the outer plastic bags had obvious friction marks," he observed the damaged area of the plastic bags. "The tear was irregularly serrated, consistent with the characteristics of being torn by the excavator bucket." There was a drag mark in the yellow mud at the bottom of the pit, about 35 centimeters wide, extending from the edge of the pit to the plastic bag. The weeds in the mark were flattened, and black plastic fragments were still stuck to the edges.
"Has any stranger come to this construction site recently?" Xiao Wang's pen drew crooked lines on the paper. Zhou Jianming suddenly slapped his thigh: "Yes! Yesterday afternoon, a man wearing a black hoodie was loitering around the construction site entrance, carrying a black cloth bag, acting suspiciously." He gestured his height, "A bit shorter than me, about 170 cm. His hoodie was pulled down low, so I couldn't see his face. His voice was hoarse, and he asked us when the foundation would be filled."
Xiao Sun made a new discovery in the drainage ditch behind the prefabricated house. A silver button was half-buried in the silt, with four round holes and a worn pattern on the surface, consistent with the common style of jacket buttons. "There was a black fiber wrapped in the buttonhole," he carefully put it away in an evidence bag, "about 4 centimeters long, made of polyester, consistent with the initial judgment of the plastic bag." In the mud at the edge of the drainage ditch, there was also a lighter, with the character "福" (fortune) engraved on the metal casing and fresh fingerprints on the bottom.
Following the drag marks toward the prefabricated houses, Xiao Yang found more clues in a corner where cement was piled up. "There are traces of heavy objects placed here," he said, measuring the marks with a ruler. "They are about 110 centimeters long, 50 centimeters wide, and 4 centimeters deep, with black plastic friction marks on the edges." There were a few drops of dark red stains on the cement bag in the corner, which tested positive after being wiped with an alcohol swab—suspected bloodstains.
Xiao Wang's questions turned to the personnel situation at the construction site. "How many workers do you have at your site? Has anyone been absent from work recently?" He pointed to the list of construction workers, and Zhou Jianming flipped through the notebook: "There are 15 workers in total. They all came to work yesterday. Today, except for Lao Zhang, who was too scared to move, everyone else is waiting on the side." He suddenly remembered something, "Oh right, last week there was a temporary worker named Li Jun. He worked for three days and then left, saying he had something to do at home. He even borrowed Lao Zhang's shovel and didn't return it when he left."