Chapter 70

On the night Luo Hongmin was murdered, Xiang Siling and her daughter Qian Sitian lived in a place called Yingzhu Mountain Xingye Tent Camp. The camp is located on a flat land near the top of the mountain, and cars can drive directly there. Although it is called a tent camp, there are more than ten luxurious and spacious yurts, equipped with air conditioning, floor heating, bathroom, and starry sky ceiling. Xiang Siling and her daughter lived in Yurt No. 1, which is located at the edge of the camp, with no obstructions, the best scenery, and the farthest from the crowded tent area and public area.

Chen Pu and Li Qingyao went to the bar in the public area first, because Xiang Siling was last seen there that night.

The waiters and bartenders at the bar were all impressed by a beauty like Xiang Siling.

Chen Pu asked: "She was in the bar all night?"

"Yes, she sat by the window, and many people invited her to drink and dance."

"Did she agree?"

"Some agreed, some didn't. Beautiful women have the right to be picky."

"She left around 9 o'clock?"

"Correct."

"How do you remember it so clearly?"

The bartender smiled and said, "She's so pretty, everyone would pay more attention to her. And when she left, she said hello to us and said she was going to take the kids back to sleep. She was very gentle and polite. Police officer, why are you repeatedly investigating Miss Xiang? There won't be any problems with her, right?"

"Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask. Just answer whatever I ask. Do you know how much she drank that night?"

"It must have been a lot. She ordered four or five cocktails from me, and I don't know how many more she drank, including those offered by others. The drinks I mixed were very strong. She must have been drunk. When she left, she could hardly walk steadily."

Chen Pu and Li Qingyao looked at each other, and Li Qingyao asked, "She stayed in the bar all night, where is the child? Did she bring her child with her?"

The waiter replied: "No, our camp has taken this into consideration and has set up an indoor children's playground with special care. She left the child there and can just pick him up at the appointed time."

Chen Pu and Li Qingyao went to Xiang Siling's room again and asked the waiter to come. Because the police had asked once before, and Xiang Siling was outstanding in appearance, the waiter was impressed.

"Do you deliver breakfast to your room?"

"Yes, this is a service specially provided for VIP guests of the yurt. Some guests want to get up early to watch the sunrise, and some guests want to get up late. We will deliver meals according to the time requested by the guests. Of course, guests can also eat in the restaurant, and the set meals are all the same."

"What time did Xiang Siling ask you to deliver the food?"

The waiter had looked through the order record the last time the police came to investigate, and remembered it clearly: "7:."

"Didn't she get drunk the night before? Didn't she ask you to deliver the food later?"

"I confirmed with her whether to send the baby later. She said the baby wakes up at 7 o'clock every day, so we should send the baby at 7:3 to avoid starving the baby. All mothers should do this. Even if they cannot get up, they have to wake the baby up. The little girl is very polite. She keeps saying thank you to the auntie at the age of . She is as beautiful as her mother and will definitely be a great beauty in the future."

"The previous transcript says that you saw Xiang Siling in the room at 7: in the morning?"

"Yes."

Chen Pu hesitated for a moment and asked, "Who opened the door for you that day?"

The waiter was stunned for a moment and replied: "Yes...Oh, it was her daughter who opened the door."

"Who took the plate? Her daughter? Or did Xiang Siling come out to take it?"

The waiter thought for a moment and replied, "I can't remember. Maybe I brought it in and put it on the table, or maybe Miss Xiang came out to get it. But I definitely wouldn't give the tray to a child. It's quite heavy."

"If you can't even remember this, then do you remember where you saw Xiang Siling in person? At the door or in the room?"

The waiter frowned again, looking as if he was racking his brains, and finally said affirmatively: "In the room, I should have sent the tray in."

Chen Pu pointed around: "When you saw Xiang Siling, where was she standing? By the bed? By the window? In the bathroom? Or sitting at the table?"

The waiter was stunned for a moment, and replied: "I can't remember, it's been more than a week. I serve different guests every day, so it's impossible for me to remember clearly. But I remember that she was...supposed to be in the room at that time."

-

Chen Pu asked the waiter to leave first, and he and Li Qingyao continued to walk around.

The two stood outside the yurt, looking at the surrounding environment. It was a bit cold on the mountain at night. Li Qingyao hugged his arm, touched his cold arm, and asked, "Do you think she was drunk that night?"

Chen Pu put one hand in his trouser pocket. He didn't feel cold, just cool. He replied: "I don't know. Everyone can pretend to be drunk. Of course, it's possible that he is really drunk."

Li Qingyao smiled faintly. Later, Chen Pu asked the waiter about the part that made her see what it means to unravel the mystery. She asked again: "Do you suspect that Xiang Siling was not in the room at 7: in the morning, and the waiter remembered it wrongly?"

"It can't be said that I remembered it wrongly. The waiter delivers meals every day. It is a repetitive, boring job that doesn't require much thought. Usually, they deliver the meals, smile, say a few standard service phrases, and leave. The waiter is unlikely to pay attention to where the guests are, and they won't even look up at the guests. Even if you ask the waiter now who was in the rooms where she delivered meals this morning, I think she will definitely not remember. Unless something special happened that impressed her - but obviously that didn't happen that day.

If I were Xiang Siling, I would only need to use some tricks to forge an alibi, such as leaving the water in the bathroom running to pretend that someone was taking a shower; or, I could have my daughter tell the waiter that her mother was still sleeping; or even use a mobile phone to play her recorded voice in the room and say, "Put the breakfast there." In addition, such a young child usually cannot leave his mother. In the waiter's vague and repetitive memory of the morning, it is very likely that there is an impression that someone was in the room. So when we asked her if she had seen Xiang Siling, she would think she had.

We have encountered this several times before. The eyewitness did not intentionally provide false testimony. He just had a fuzzy memory and subjectively thought he saw it. Therefore, the testimony of this waiter was not convincing enough. This is called memory illusion. Do you understand what I mean? " "Nonsense, there is nothing I can't understand about every word you say. "

Chen Pu smiled: "Yes, yes, you are the smartest one in the team." He noticed that she was shivering: "Cold?"

"A little bit." She glanced at him, "Why, you want to take off your clothes for me? Your T-shirt is all sweaty, and I won't wear it even if I'm freezing."

Chen Pu was wearing the same short-sleeved shirt as her, so he couldn't take it off and give it to her, otherwise where would he put his image as a people's policeman. He pointed at her with his finger and said, "Wait, I'll bring you some clothes. If you dare, don't wear it."

He turned and left like a gust of wind, and Li Qingyao simply went into the yurt to stay warm. Not long after, he came over with a black short-sleeved T-shirt and said, "This is all I have in the car, do you want to wear it?"

Li Qingyao never suffered a loss. He took it and smelled it. There was only a slight smell of fresh laundry detergent. Chen Pu's face turned black: "It's clean! Do you dislike me so much?"

Li Qingyao put on the T-shirt and said, "I dislike all men who sweat a lot."

Chen Pu immediately retorted with a very unfashionable remark: "Can someone who doesn't sweat be called a man? Boiled chicken, pretty boy, fresh meat, which kind do you like?"

Li Qingyao: "Who knows? Maybe I just don't like men."

Chen Pu no longer wanted to talk to her.

However, despite the bickering, I have to say that my sister looks good in a big, wide men's T-shirt. She usually likes to wear fresh and pastoral colors, disguised as a simple and elegant lily. It was the first time that Chen Pu saw her wearing black. Although she was 165 cm tall, the hem of her T-shirt still reached above her knees, and her thin arms and legs were swaying.

Li Qingyao also looked himself up and down, and raised his head calmly: "I know very well that I can handle any style. Stop being stunned and continue talking about the case. So, what we are facing is Schrödinger's Xiang Siling. That night, she may be drunk, or not; she may be in the room, or not."

Chen Pu was amused by her statement and smiled slightly. He said, "That's right. From Mingya Lake to Yingzhu Mountain, her alibi is perfect. Maybe it's all true, or maybe it's all false."

"What you said means that our trip was in vain and we didn't prove anything."

"No. Do you remember what I said when I went to see my master before? Whether it was the casual move of disguising as a wanted criminal to disrupt the police's sight, or the van prepared months in advance, the escape route planned in the vegetable market, and the perfect suspect who was sent to us but could not be found - all proved that the real murderer this time, or now we should say the mastermind, was an expert among experts.

I feel that Xiang Siling's alibi has the same flavor as the entire murder case: specious, suspicious in every way, but flawless.

I originally thought that if Xiang Siling was the mastermind, she might not have been at the scene and remotely controlled the man in the flowered shirt to kill. Now I think that such a master, who planned for so long and made a sophisticated killing plan, would not have used other people to do the final move. "

Li Qingyao said, "First, she can kill him herself to relieve her hatred, and second, she won't be able to implicate her accomplice. Unless she kills her accomplice as well."

"Yes."

"But Captain, I agree with what you said. But please face the reality - we still haven't found any evidence that Xiang Siling killed her, or even evidence that she was at the scene that night."

"Didn't I say that for this case, I want to figure out the story first, and the evidence will come naturally. You can't be impatient when fighting with such a master. And isn't Lao Ding investigating the evidence line? There are so many people, and Lao Ding is not just there to eat and do nothing. This time I am not the main person in charge of the case, and I don't have a specific task. Instead, I am free. Let's continue investigating, still assuming that Xiang Siling is the real murderer. We have already gone halfway around her path that night, and there is still a little left."

"You mean, we have to go from Yingzhu Mountain to Mingya Lake to kill people, just like she did that night?"

-

The two went to ask the camp operator and learned that there was no public transportation down the mountain, and guests who came to the camp had to drive themselves. The nearest minibus to the city was in a town 2 kilometers away from the foot of the mountain. There were three night buses, with operating hours at 10:30, 12:3 and :. This night bus route was opened mainly to facilitate villagers who had emergencies or medical treatment at night, and almost no one took it during normal times.

Chen Pu and Li Qingyao looked at the night bus route map and found that there was a stop halfway, only 1.5 kilometers away from the east side of Mingya Lake.

The two looked at each other. Was this another coincidence?

The surveillance cameras in the camp parking lot had already been checked. Xiang Siling's car did not leave the camp all night, and she did not go to the parking lot. In addition, before Chen Pu arrived at Yingzhu Mountain, he asked Yan Yong to check the surveillance cameras on the two roads leading down the mountain that night. He did not dare to use Lao Ding again, fearing that he would get angry. There were only a few cars going down the mountain at night, only about ten, and Yan Yong had already replied: Xiang Siling was not found.

In other words, Xiang Siling did not drive any vehicle down the mountain that night.

At this time, Li Qingyao's eyes stopped at the row of yellow shared bicycles outside the camp management office. They were provided to backpackers living in tents. Chen Pu also looked over and patted Li Qingyao on the shoulder: "Let's go, choose one, you can ride a bike, right?"

Li Qingyao: "Do you think my leg is lame?"

"Can you talk properly?"

"Can you please stop asking stupid questions?"

It's not that the two of them always want to bicker. They have been investigating since dawn and it is already 9:40 at night. They are very tired. But this time is a good time to simulate Xiang Siling's route that night. The two of them bicker at this time, but there is a tacit understanding between them, to refresh themselves, relax a little, and make this journey less tiring.

Chen Pu asked Yan Yong to mark several surveillance locations on the map in advance, and asked the camp staff for some detours. To simulate, the two rode at the fastest speed and rushed down the mountain. After 45 minutes, the two were sweating profusely, successfully bypassed all the surveillance on the road, and arrived at the town's minibus station, exactly 5 minutes before departure time.

It was late at night, the lights in the town were sparse, and there were almost no people on the road. The minibus station was on the roadside at the entrance of the town. It looked shabby and could probably seat about 16 or 17 people. A skinny man in his 50s, wearing a T-shirt that had been washed so hard that you couldn't see its original color, and big shorts, sat in the driver's seat and smoked. Seeing the two of them, the driver was stunned for a moment. Chen Pu stepped on the pedal, and there was no passenger in the car.

"3 yuan per person." said the driver.

Chen Pu scanned the code to pay, then sat in the double seat behind the driver's seat with Li Qingyao.

Sorry, the plot may be a little slow recently, only a little bit a day. Because of this book, I want to write the suspense part of solving the case more solidly, you should have felt it. In the past, the sense of excitement was stronger, and the pursuit of twists and turns was not so detailed. Maybe I am not very skilled, so I am too detailed. I will try to find a good rhythm later. But the overall style will not change, please bear with me. It is mainly to follow the serialization. If you read the whole text after it is finished, you should not feel it is slow. Of course, if I can make 8000 a day, you will definitely not feel it is slow. But that is impossible.