Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 310 Hidden Knife (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Zhang Xianglan said that Li Youqiang's Tibetan knife had a chip on the handle, which Li Youqiang had chipped himself. He was very distressed at the time, and later he glued the chip back on.

Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for me to be wrong.

Zhou Yi nodded. It's normal for handicrafts to have similarities when they are mass-produced.

But something as unique as a gap can't be so coincidental.

"Officer Zhou, he must have killed my son Youqiang! You have to do justice for me!" Zhang Xianglan cried, grabbing Zhou Yi's hand.

"Don't worry, I'll go ask that vendor." Zhou Yi looked around and said, "You rest here for now, and I'll have them release you once things are cleared up."

If it is confirmed that the Tibetan knife truly belongs to Li Youqiang, then the nature of this matter changes.

Zhou Yi went outside, found the old policeman, and asked him where the vendor was now.
The old policeman pointed to the next room and said, "Nothing's on it, and it's locked up too. Shall I open the door for you?"

“Let’s proceed with the interrogation. Could you please lend me a hand? The current situation does involve a murder case that is currently under investigation,” Zhou Yi said seriously.

Upon hearing the words "murder case," the veteran policeman's expression changed drastically, and he immediately nodded in agreement.

"Oh, there's something else. Did your colleague bring back all the things that person was selling at the stall?"

"Yes, a whole bag of them."

"Please take me to see it, and then give me an evidence bag."

Zhou Yi pushed open the door and walked into the interrogation room of the police station.

The old policeman was already sitting inside, opposite a dark-skinned, thin man who was yawning and complaining with a wronged expression.

"No, why are you messing with me? I just set up a stall to sell some things, and this crazy woman came up and started scratching me, saying I killed her husband. She must be mentally ill. Go find her, I'm so tired."

Zhou Yi was holding an evidence bag containing a short knife less than 20 centimeters long.

Actually, when Zhou Yi found this knife earlier, he immediately recognized it as a factory-made handicraft.

In other words, it's obviously fake; it's just an ordinary dagger with some exotic patterns on the handle and scabbard, and some old copper-green lacquer applied.

The problem is that not only has the paint peeled off, but the patterns on the knife are also clearly machined.

However, there is indeed a gap in the handle, with obvious signs of being repaired with glue.

No wonder Zhang Xianglan was so certain.

"What is this?" Zhou Yi asked, sitting down and holding up the bag in his hand.

The vendor instinctively replied, "A knife."

But then he immediately realized something and changed his tune, saying, "No, no, these are antiques, antiques, everything I sell is an antique."

"Antiques?" Zhou Yi sneered. "Do you know what the penalties are for illegally selling controlled knives?"

The vendor was terrified. "Officer, this is really a knife... oops... no, no, this is really an antique, from the Western Zhou Dynasty."

"Western Zhou Dynasty? Why don't you just say it's from last week?" Zhou Yi slammed his hand on the table and snapped, "Tell me honestly, where did this thing come from?"

"I found it...I picked it up."

"Found it? Where did you find it?"

"In that little hill park."

Zhou Yi frowned: "The park?"

Then he turned to the older policeman and asked, "Is there such a place?"

"Yes, it's in the west of the city. The park is quite big. There are many mountains in Anyuan."

Zhou Yi nodded and asked the vendor, "Where exactly did you find it?"

The vendor scoffed and said, "How could I possibly remember? It's been so long."

Zhou Yi glared at him and said, "Think! Think carefully! If you can't remember, you can sit here all night and keep thinking. I'll let you go back to sleep when you remember."

The vendor immediately backed down, because Zhou Yi's demeanor was clearly no joke. "Okay, let me think, let me think."

After struggling for a while, the vendor finally managed to recall the location where he had found the knife two weeks ago. It was probably on a hill about 70 or 80 meters north of the park, past a pavilion.

The old policeman explained that Xiaoqiushan Park is just a bunch of small hills that just happened to be put together.

Zhou Yi pointed at the other person and said, "Take us to identify the scene tomorrow."

The vendor was bewildered: "Comrade, I just picked up a knife, it's not like I'm committing such a serious crime. Besides, it's raining..."

"So what if it's raining? I'm telling you, you still have to go even if it's raining knives."

Zhou Yi weighed the evidence bag in his hand. He had to hand it over to Pan Hongjie tomorrow. He figured the fingerprints were probably impossible to trace, as it was difficult to leave complete fingerprints on this kind of patterned surface. Besides, if it had really been picked up for two weeks, quite a few people had probably touched it.

The main purpose is to check for bloodstains on the blade.

"Also, what is your relationship with Li Youqiang?" Zhou Yi asked casually.

He wanted to observe the other person's subconscious reactions.

"Li Youqiang? Who is Li Youqiang?" "Think again carefully, don't tell me you don't know him."

Upon hearing this, the vendor thought about it very seriously for a long time, as if he were constipated, and finally said innocently, "I really don't know anyone with the surname Li who has this name."

"What about Fu Daqing?"

“Fu…” The vendor shook his head repeatedly, “There’s no such surname in our area.”

Zhou Yi looked at the information provided by the old policeman. The vendor was a local from the suburbs of Anyuan, thirty-five years old, with nothing suspicious about him, and he couldn't see any connection between him and Fu Daqing.

Then Zhou Yi asked a few more questions, which basically confirmed that this person had no connection with Fu Daqing and Li Youqiang, and that the knife was most likely found by chance.

However, the downside is that two weeks have passed, and with the continuous heavy rain, there are probably no clues left at the scene.

"Well? Is this guy a murderer?" the old policeman asked excitedly as they left the interrogation room.

"From what we can see so far, he shouldn't be involved in the murder case, but this knife is a different story. We'll have to trouble you guys tonight to keep him locked up. Tomorrow I'll report the situation to Captain Pan of the Municipal Bureau, and then we'll take further action."

"Alright, we grassroots officers will follow your arrangements," the old policeman said with a smile.

"Oh, what about Zhang... Zhang Xianglan? Should we release her first?" Although Zhou Yi didn't say what the murder case was, the experienced policeman knew that if the vendor was really involved in the murder, then Zhang Xianglan's case wouldn't be a fight, and her cries of killing her husband wouldn't be considered insanity, but rather that she was a victim.

Zhou Yi thought for a moment and said that she should stay here tonight and listen to Captain Pan tomorrow.

Before leaving, I went to see Zhang Xianglan again.

Zhang Xianglan asked emotionally if that person had killed her husband.

"It doesn't seem so at the moment. The knife was found. We will conduct further investigations tomorrow. Ms. Zhang, thank you for discovering such an important clue. Please leave the rest to the police. I'm sorry to trouble you to stay here tonight. After the formalities are completed tomorrow, I will have them take you to the station."

Zhang Xianglan could not hide her disappointment, but she still nodded with tears in her eyes.

When Zhou Yi left the police station, there were two people handcuffed in a corner to the side; they were a man and a woman, both disheveled.

As Zhou Yi passed by, the man looked up and seemed to recognize Zhou Yi as his "neighbor" across the hall. A look of confusion immediately appeared in his eyes. How could he come and go so freely?
The old policeman immediately shouted, "What are you looking at? Behave yourself!"

The man quickly squatted down.

Fortunately, the police station and the hotel were not far apart, and Zhou Yi walked back with an umbrella. Judging from the force of the rain hitting the umbrella, it seemed that the rain had indeed subsided a lot.

Back at the hotel, Zhou Yi fell asleep immediately.

I slept soundly until dawn, only to be woken up by my own hunger. Looking out the window, I saw that the rain had stopped.

Although there was no sun and it was still gloomy outside, it made him feel much better than the torrential rain and the mud splattered all over the world.

After having breakfast, and seeing that it was almost time, I called the office phone number that Xia Yu had left for me.

When Xia Yu heard that Pan Hongjie had clues about Li Youqiang's case, he immediately gave him the phone number.

Zhou Yi reported what happened last night to Pan Hongjie. When Pan Hongjie heard that he had discovered the hidden knife that Li Youqiang had been carrying, he was immediately invigorated and arranged to meet Zhou Yi at the Xiping Road Police Station.

Zhou Yi tidied up and found that the shoes she had put on the radiator were dry, so she changed into them and went out.

He arrived at the police station first, and the old policeman was still there.

Zhou Yi greeted him, asking, "You haven't finished get off work yet?"

"Hey, I didn't have anything to do back home, so I was waiting for you," the old policeman said with a smile.

About twenty minutes later, a police car drove into the police station, its white body splattered with mud.

The rain has indeed stopped, but the ground is still wet. When Zhou Yi came over earlier, he stepped in mud several times.

Pan Hongjie and Xia Yu arrived, along with Chen Dejiang, a veteran police officer from the second team.

After Pan Hongjie arrived, he first interrogated the vendor to confirm that he had no connection with Li Youqiang. Then he prepared to take him to Xiaoqiushan Park to point out the place where he found the knife.

Pan Hongjie shared Zhou Yi's idea: although Li Youqiang's cause of death was not a knife wound, the knife was something he always carried with him and had appeared on the mountain. Therefore, it was possible that the place where the vendor found the knife was the primary crime scene where Li Youqiang was murdered.

Zhou Yi said, "Captain Pan, the deceased's family is still being held."

"Let her go, let her go. Why lock her up?"

Zhou Yi pointed at the vendor and said, "When the family saw the knife, they lost control and hit him."

"Oh..." Pan Hongjie thought for a moment and asked, "Did he fight back?"

Zhou Yi nodded: "I've returned it."

"Oh, a fight, huh?" Then he turned to the vendor and asked, "Do you want to handle this as a fight and detain both of you for five days, or do you want to reconcile, point out the location, and go home?"

"Needless to say," the vendor nodded vigorously, his face contorted with a mournful expression, "I want to go home."

Pan Hongjie laughed and said, "Alright, let it go."

Just as Xia Yu said before, there aren't many cases in An Yuan, and major homicides happen very infrequently, so now that this case has occurred, the higher-ups are paying extra attention to it.

Moreover, the case has been filed for several days, but the investigation has not made any substantial progress. Many things were found out by Hongcheng. He was extremely anxious.

He doesn't care about such trivial matters.

(End of this chapter)