Chapter 1784 - Criminal Police
It was already five in the morning when the Municipal Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division received the report from the police station. The station had initially found the account somewhat unbelievable. To prevent a false alarm, they first dispatched someone to check the scene: nothing was there. Not a corpse, not even a scrap of cloth. This left the station hesitant. But seeing Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui swear solemn oaths that they had witnessed it with their own eyes, the station chief decided he couldn't afford to be careless. He sent a messenger to the Municipal Bureau.
The only officers in the Municipal Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division who could properly be called criminal police were the five naturalized detectives transferred from Lingao. Their chief was Wu Xiang. Though only in his early twenties, he was the most senior among them, with a "distinguished" background: he belonged to the first class of the Police Administration Course at Fangcaodi National School. Moreover, he had been personally mentored by Mu Min.
Wu Xiang found the report peculiar. He had followed Mu Min through cases in Hainan, Jeju, and Taiwan, encountering all manner of homicide scenes. Even when no corpse remained, there would inevitably be physical evidence—bloodstains, bloody clothes, weapons. A case resting solely on the testimony of two patrol officers, with nothing else to show for it, was unprecedented.
Yet a murder was still a murder, even without a corpse. Since these two patrolmen insisted a body had indeed been there, a site investigation was necessary.
However, the CID was currently overwhelmed. Due to Guangzhou's strategic location, massive population, and thriving commerce, its public order situation was far more chaotic than any other city under the Senatorial Council's control. Upon entering the city—during that liminal period between the old regime and the new—crimes had erupted like wildfire. At the peak, as many as a hundred robbery and theft cases occurred in a single day. Had the Military Control Commission not adopted heavy penalties, implementing a policy of immediate arrest, trial, and execution for violent criminals, coupled with round-the-clock patrols by the army, the security situation would never have stabilized so quickly.
Even so, criminal cases remained frequent. Theft, robbery, and murder happened regularly, and the CID was stretched impossibly thin. Wu Xiang himself had five or six active cases. Since this one lacked a corpse and it was uncertain whether it could even be formally filed, he dispatched two detectives to examine the scene and interview the patrolmen.
Within the CID, only the few naturalized officers from Lingao had received formal criminal police training. To cope with the criminal caseload of a city of hundreds of thousands, this was obviously insufficient. Therefore, a batch of local Guangzhou officers had been recruited on the spot.
The backbone of this group consisted of bodyguards from the Qiwie Escort Agency who had experience "sitting shops" and "guarding courtyards" locally. They weren't numerous, but they knew Guangzhou's society and people intimately. As personnel from the earliest traditional enterprise controlled by the Senatorial Council, Qiwie staff were naturally considered "politically reliable."
Another contingent consisted of retained runners from the original "Fast Band"—the old detective and thief-taking units. Both official and "white body" (unofficial) runners were included. After several rounds of purging, those who remained had "minor historical crimes and no blood debts." The Senatorial Council didn't consider this group particularly reliable, but their familiarity with Guangzhou's "Three Religions and Nine Schools"—the various social sects—and the "city foxes and social rats"—the petty criminals—made them invaluable for police work. Thus they had been absorbed into the CID.
The two detectives sent were Gao Chongjiu, a retained Fast Band runner, and Li Zhenguo, a former bodyguard from the Qiwie Escort Agency.
Li Zhenguo was a landlord's son who had loved martial arts from childhood. By age twelve, he could wield a saber with wind-generating speed. At sixteen, his family had clashed with a neighboring wealthy clan over land. The other side bribed bandits to assassinate Li Zhenguo's grandfather and father. In a rage, Li Zhenguo killed several men from the opposing family. Unable to remain in his hometown, he took his remaining family, changed his name, and fled to Guangdong to seek refuge with fellow villagers. From then on, he had worked as a bodyguard at Qiwie.
Due to his background, he couldn't endure the hardships of traveling escorts, but he proved relatively articulate. He spent years "sitting shops" in the city, interacting with people of all kinds and becoming well-versed in various schemes and stratagems. After the Senatorial Council entered the city, he was marked as a key candidate for detective training. Both Mu Min and Wu Xiang had personally guided him through cases.
Although neither Gao Chongjiu nor Li Zhenguo had received formal criminal police training, their past work bore similarities, and they possessed rich social experience. After interning with the detectives for over a month, they had absorbed considerable criminal investigation thinking and technique. With the CID short-staffed and overwhelmed, they were deemed ready for independent duty.
The two arrived at the local police station. Seeing that the Municipal Bureau had indeed sent detectives, the station chief didn't dare neglect them and personally led them to the scene—where Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui were still keeping watch.
But upon arrival, little presented itself as a lead. No traces remained on the ground. The two examined the spot where the corpse had reportedly lain for a considerable time but detected no suspicious residual evidence.
Gao Chongjiu was an old hand at public affairs. He interviewed Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui again and concluded they didn't appear "possessed." Saying their eyes had been deceived by darkness didn't make sense either—a corpse wasn't a pebble. For two people to simultaneously hallucinate the same thing stretched credulity.
"Master Li, even if it wasn't a corpse, it must have been something of similar size and shape," Gao Chongjiu mused after circling the scene.
Li Zhenguo nodded. Though a martial artist by training, the bodyguard was meticulous and worldly-wise. He too felt Li Ziyu couldn't have been mistaken.
Since they couldn't be mistaken, where had the corpse—or corpse-like object—gone? Clearly, regardless of whether what Li Ziyu saw was a body, it wasn't alive and couldn't walk away on its own. The only possibility was that someone had moved it while Li Ziyu and Zhao Gui went to find help.
Since it was moved, the perpetrators had never intended to leave it on the street. Most likely, they had spotted the patrolmen's lantern during transport and fled in panic, abandoning their cargo. Later, finding the police had departed, they returned to retrieve it.
The question was: where had it been taken? And where had it originally come from?
The corpse-movers must have hidden nearby after dropping it, watching Li Ziyu leave the scene before returning. Where could they have concealed themselves?
Li Zhenguo surveyed the surroundings. The alley the police patrolled was a north-south thoroughfare called Scissors Lane. Adjacent was a nameless branch alley. During the recent census of street signs and house numbers, it had been designated "Scissors Lane East Branch Alley 7"—the seventh branch alley on the east side of Scissors Lane. The alley wasn't deep. Standing at its mouth, one could see it was typical of a back passage for a large household or temple, ending at a river pier.
Opposite this was another branch alley, "Scissors Lane West Branch Alley 11." Though the two alleys faced each other, they didn't form a perfect crossroads; West Branch Alley 11 actually stood about twenty paces south.
Li Zhenguo estimated the corpse-mover had likely hidden in West Branch Alley 11. The area was dark at the time of the incident, but the road section was straight with nowhere to hide nearby. If someone had been close, Li Ziyu would have noticed. And Li Ziyu had explored East Branch Alley 7.
The key now was: where had this "corpse" gone? Without a body, their work was rootless timber, a complete waste of time.
Li Ziyu stood aside watching them circle the small area, growing increasingly nervous. If this turned out to be a "false report," he would face consequences—perhaps even lose his job.
At this thought, Li Ziyu couldn't help but secretly regret not heeding the watchman's advice to simply pretend ignorance.
Zhao Gui stood there dully, scratching his crotch from time to time. Li Ziyu couldn't tell if he was genuinely stupid or merely unflappable. That man is certainly calm. Indeed, fools are broad-hearted.
Besides scratching, Zhao Gui occasionally waved his hand to shoo away flies.
Sanitation in the alleys was poor—trash and puddles everywhere. As the weather turned warm, flies naturally multiplied.
But these flies saved Li Ziyu. Gao Chongjiu suddenly spoke: "Master Li, look at the ground!"
Several spots on the ground at the alley mouth had attracted swarms of flies, buzzing and circling. But looking closely, there was neither trash nor feces where they gathered. Beneath lay only mud or crushed stone paving—nothing that should attract flies.
But for an old constable like Gao Chongjiu, this was sufficient. No filth, yet flies swarming. This indicated bloodstains had been present—and not a small amount. Though the blood had seeped into the soil overnight, invisible to human eyes, it couldn't fool the flies. This also matched Li Ziyu's statement about "a large patch of black blood seeping onto the white cloth."
The rain overnight hadn't been heavy enough to thoroughly wash away and dilute the blood in the soil.
Without a word, Li Zhenguo squatted down and produced a pair of gloves, several bamboo picks, and yellow paper labels marked with "Arabic numerals" from his canvas bag. After waving away the flies, he marked the spots where they had gathered with paper labels, then began probing with a bamboo pick. In moments, he extracted some black earth, brought it to his nose, and sniffed. His expression said: as expected. Gao Chongjiu, though finding this somewhat excessive, quickly took it and sniffed too: the metallic tang of blood was unmistakable.
Li Zhenguo didn't stop there. He continued probing. Every few digs, he would sniff, place the soil-stained bamboo pick into a small oil-paper bag, write a label, and switch to a fresh pick.
Li Ziyu watched with fascination, mystified by the procedure. If they wanted to exhume a corpse, shouldn't they use a shovel? What could a bamboo pick accomplish? Puzzled but curious, he watched as Li Zhenguo dug several inches deep, produced a ruler from his bag to measure, recorded a few notes, changed positions, and repeated the process. Finally, he muttered something to Gao Chongjiu and stood up.
Gao Chongjiu nodded at Li Ziyu and grinned. "Good lad, there really was a corpse! You two silly boys have hit the jackpot!"
(End of Chapter)