Seeing the crime scene flashbacks made me the darling of the police station.

Could Chapter 283 be the work of someone known to the victim?
The body showed signs of having been moved after death, so the search area on the mountain was expanded.

The mountain was illuminated entirely by flashlights.

Lu Zhishen stood on a small hillside, shining his flashlight down the hillside.

Su Miaoyi walked to his side and looked down as well.

"Brother Lu, what's wrong?" Chu Xingrou asked.

“The grass here shows signs of being trampled,” Lu Zhishen said.

It was completely dark when Su Miaoyi and Chu Xingrou shone their flashlights on the marks on the grass and looked into the distance.

"The grass is leaning this way, something was dragged over from a distance," Lu Zhishen said.

"Let's go take a look." Su Miaoyi said, avoiding the areas where the grass was crushed as she walked down. Once she reached the bottom, she turned back and said, "I'll go by myself, you don't need to go."

"It's okay." Lu Zhishen also got off the bus. "I stopped feeling dizzy after getting off."

"I'm fine too," Chu Xingrou said. "I'm all better now. It's good to move around more to warm up."

The three of them walked down the path where the grass had been pressed down.

After walking for quite a while, we finally stopped in front of a cornfield.

"They grow corn here too?" Chu Xingrou shone her flashlight around. "I didn't know corn could be grown on the mountain."

“It seems so; corn can be grown on the mountain,” Lu Zhishen said.

“There are signs that this place has been disturbed,” Su Miaoyi said, pointing to the ground.

Chu Xingrou approached and took a few photos.

Lu Zhishen squatted down and looked at it: "It looks like some trace has been erased."

Chu Xingrou picked up a stick from the side and scratched it a few times on the ground, making marks similar to those on the ground.

“There are some here, and there are some here too.” Lu Zhishen followed the traces on the ground for a while until he reached a patch of weeds and rocks, where the traces disappeared.

“Footprints,” Su Miaoyi said.

The marks on the ground were piece by piece.

“These are two rows of footprints,” Chu Xingrou said.

They're in patches, too densely packed.

Two rows of footprints make sense.

“Only the murderer would erase the footprints. Two rows of footprints. Two murderers?” Chu Xingrou said.

"The distribution of these locations makes it seem as if the murderer returned to the scene and deliberately cleaned up the footprints," Su Miaoyi said.

“Hmm,” Lu Zhishen said, “I think it also looks like the footprints left by the murderer when he returned to the scene. Coming from that side, it’s all rocks and weeds here, so he couldn’t have left any footprints.”

"So this is the primary crime scene?" Chu Xingrou said, shining her flashlight around and following the trail back.

Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen looked around and then turned back.

“If the murderer deliberately erased the footprints, then the murderer knew that the police had the footprint information,” Lu Zhishen said. “He knew that the police were using footprints to find people. The murderer was someone from the surrounding area.”

“But the police already have the footprint information, so what’s the point of him erasing it?” Su Miaoyi shone her flashlight around.

The road was not easy to walk on; one step at a time, one had to avoid the tracks.

Lu Zhishen thought what she said made sense.

"Sister Miaomiao, there's a sickle here," Chu Xingrou called out to them.

The two walked over quickly.

The sickle was lying in the cornfield. Chu Xingrou shone her flashlight on it but didn't go any further in.

There were no footprints in the cornfield.

“It looks like it was thrown in,” Lu Zhishen said.

After examining the sickle, Su Miaoyi turned to look at the grass behind her. Much of it had been flattened.

Some were cut off.

“If the deceased was mowing the lawn in this spot,” Su Miaoyi said, shining her flashlight in the direction they had just walked past and then returned from. “The murderer came from that direction.”

"Judging from the way the grass was crushed, the deceased didn't seem to have struggled or resisted much," Lu Zhishen said, looking at the small area of ​​fallen grass.

The deceased may have struggled and resisted, but the movements were not significant, and it is likely that he was quickly killed by the murderer.

Chu Xingrou crawled into the cornfield and retrieved the sickle: "There are definitely no footprints inside."

"Judging from the scene, it looks like the murderer walked over from that direction, killed the victim, dragged the body up the hillside, hung the body up, came back, erased the footprints, and then left the same way."

“This place isn’t exactly open, but if someone stands here cutting grass and comes from over there, it’s too obvious. You can see them from ten meters away,” Chu Xingrou said. “Wouldn’t the deceased have run away if they saw someone wearing a black robe and a ghost mask?”

Su Miaoyi shook her head: "What if it's someone we know?"

Chu Xingrou was stunned for a moment.

"The appearance of the number '4' may be related to the murder involving the ghost mask, or it may not be related at all. It may be a misleading number, or the murderer may be trying to pin this case on a previous one so he can escape punishment," Su Miaoyi said.

Chu Xingrou nodded.

“If it’s an inside job, then all of this can be explained,” Lu Zhishen said. “The victim, Wan Shuang, was unprepared. The murderer approached and killed her when she wasn’t paying attention.”

Chu Xingrou nodded again.

“Wan Shuang is quite heavy. Dragging a corpse up that hillside and then hanging it from a tree requires a lot of strength,” Lu Zhishen said. “In that case, wouldn’t the murderer be more likely to be male?”

“I should be able to drag it too,” Chu Xingrou said.

Lu Zhishen looked at the two of them and then nodded: "Then we should still screen both men and women."

“Let’s go back and check the fingerprints on the sickle,” Su Miaoyi said.

After searching the mountain, Su Miaoyi and the others went to Tian Wu's house.

There are only the two of them at home.

Their child is already married and lives far away; the earliest they can get back is tomorrow.

Tian Wu's family raises three sheep.

According to Tian Wu, Wan Shuang went out to tend to the fruit trees in the morning.

The location where the body was found was his family's orchard.

It's his land.

I usually get up early to tend to the fruit trees, and before I come back, I always cut some grass for the sheep.

It also matches the places they found.

Duan Wenrui asked Tian Wu if he and Wan Shuang had any enemies in the village, or if they had offended anyone.

Tian Wu said no, he has a good relationship with everyone.

The police then interviewed the neighbors.

Everyone says the couple are nice people and get along well with everyone in the village.

"They are both very nice people. They have been neighbors for many years and everyone gets along very well without any conflicts. Tian Wu is known as a good-natured person in the village. His wife is also a very nice person, with a sharp tongue but a soft heart. She is willing to lend a hand to anyone in need and will definitely not offend anyone."

"A sharp tongue but a soft heart?" Su Miaoyi looked at the woman next door.

When the woman met her gaze, her heart skipped a beat; she was a little afraid of her eyes.

"What do you mean by 'sharp tongue but soft heart'?" Su Miaoyi asked.

"She just likes to nag. She's gotten used to it over the years, she'll even nag about the dogs on the street," the woman said. "In our village, it's perfectly normal to talk about this today and that tomorrow, you talk about my family, I talk about your family."

(End of this chapter)