Chapter 1787 - The Recovered Carrying Pole
The speaker made that claim, and the people below naturally had nothing to add. But one of the porters was still muttering. Old Cui listened impatiently and cursed: "The carrying pole is as good as mine—what are you, a blockhead, still muttering about?"
It turned out that although this porter had obtained the carrying pole for free, the rope and cloth bag that went with it were gone. These items weren't worth mourning over individually, but without them, he couldn't work. Especially the cloth bag—it was an oilcloth bag specifically used for work at the live pig hong...
Li Zhenguo's ears pricked up at this. He interrupted their conversation and asked the porter to describe the lost items properly. What did they look like? When approximately were they lost?
The porter explained that this rope and cloth bag set had been specially prepared because he worked year-round for "Fuchangyu" Pig Hong in Scissors Alley. This establishment was located in Central Scissors Lane, next to the river channel. Live pigs from the countryside were transported by boat to the pier behind the pig hong and kept in pens, slaughtered daily for sale to meat stalls, restaurants, and wealthy households.
The pig hong shipped large quantities of pork and offal every day, employing many porters year-round to make deliveries. For whole sides of pork, an iron hook sufficed for carrying. But pig offal and processed meat products couldn't be hung on hooks, so porters carried them in cloth bags. Because they regularly worked for meat shops, the few porters who served the pig hong all had special oilcloth bags.
Yesterday, they had worked at the pig hong as usual. Afterward, they'd left their tools in the tea shed as was customary—generally, no one stole them. Most porters came from other counties and often stayed in small chicken-feather inns around Guangzhou, with nowhere to store their equipment.
Unexpectedly, when they arrived for work this morning, everyone else's tools remained in the tea shed—only his were missing.
Hearing this, Li Zhenguo's brow relaxed considerably. He asked: "Where is this tea shed where you wait for work?"
"No. 11 West Branch Alley, South Scissors Lane."
"Let's go have a look."
Now Li Ziyu was confused. They had originally planned to inspect Widow Wang's house—according to the clues Old Cui had provided, the mysterious man on Widow Wang's wall was obviously the prime suspect. Li Zhenguo's sudden change of direction left him scratching his head. He knew this tea shed; the station listed such gathering places for manual laborers as key subjects for supervision. It was just a simple bamboo structure built on a plot of abandoned land where a building had collapsed. Inside stood about a dozen tables propped up on broken bricks and armless, legless furniture. Rough porcelain teapots and coarse sand bowls—the whole setup extremely basic.
The porters' carrying poles were placed on a bamboo rack to the side. Old Cui explained that each person had a fixed spot—newcomers always stowed theirs at the back, while senior porters ranked further forward, enjoying greater chances of getting work.
Li Zhenguo surveyed the environment. The tea shed didn't even have walls, so "security" was hardly a meaningful concept. But it wasn't completely exposed either, because Old Qiu, who watched over the shed, slept in a reed mat hut beside it.
Old Qiu said he usually slept lightly—not from fear of theft, but because occasionally someone had business at night and needed to summon porters for work, which he arranged. If someone knocked, he had to get up. But last night he had slept uncommonly soundly. He usually rose at the fourth watch to fetch water, chop wood, and boil water, but today he hadn't woken until broad daylight.
Li Zhenguo sensed something was wrong. He walked into the straw hut where Old Qiu lived and caught a faint scent—unidentifiable but distinctive. Just as he was about to speak, another person burst into the hut and shouted: "Knockout incense!"
It was Gao Chongjiu.
Gao Chongjiu had been questioning households door-to-door with the station's household registration police; at that pace, he wouldn't have reached the tea shed until late afternoon. His sudden arrival was due to a new clue.
This clue came from the corpse-handlers fishing in the river. They had been working all morning when suddenly the man at the stern grew excited and called to the boatman: "Boss, stop! Got it!"
Before this, similar "got it" moments had occurred several times, but each time they'd hooked only riverbed debris. The boss responded without enthusiasm: "Then pull it up."
But the object at the bottom seemed very heavy. The man at the stern struggled alone for a while before finally hauling up—not a corpse, not even other debris—but a carrying pole.
A bamboo carrying pole couldn't possibly sink to the river bottom, let alone be heavy enough to require such effort. The reason this one was so heavy was because a stone had been tied to it.
A carrying pole wasn't valuable, and it wasn't contraband. Even if someone no longer wanted it, just tossing it on the street would ensure someone picked it up for firewood. Absolutely no one would specially tie a stone to it and sink it to the river bottom.
The two corpse-handlers retrieved bodies for the yamen year-round and had seen all manner of cases. One look at this situation told them something was wrong. They rowed back immediately to report to Gao Chongjiu.
Gao Chongjiu was an old bailiff. Hearing the report, he concluded the carrying pole was almost certainly connected to the headless corpse case. Examining the salvaged pole and the rope binding the stone, he recognized them as typical porter equipment. After inquiring at the police station, he headed for the tea shed.
He hadn't expected to smell knockout incense the moment he entered the hut.
Li Zhenguo asked urgently: "Is it really knockout incense?"
Gao Chongjiu nodded. "That's right. Someone definitely burned it here last night!"
Using knockout incense meant either robbery or rape. Old Qiu was a porter—old, poor, unable to work anymore—selling tea and watching the shed. He had neither beauty nor wealth. What were they after? Could someone really go to such lengths to steal a carrying pole?
The two exchanged case details and felt this was a major discovery. They called the porter who'd lost the carrying pole to identify it; sure enough, it was his.
Someone had gone to such great lengths to steal such a worthless pole—not merely to sink it in the river. This was "destroying the corpse and erasing traces." The two concluded this carrying pole was very likely connected to the headless corpse case.
What was its use? Li Zhenguo's heart stirred. Could it have been used to transport the body?
This thought had occurred to everyone present. They involuntarily cast their eyes on the carrying pole.
It was an ordinary bamboo pole. Well-used, shiny and oily, darkened nearly to yellow. It felt not only very smooth but also somewhat greasy—probably from regularly carrying goods for the pig hong. But such a smooth pole, having soaked in water for half a day, would retain no traces. Li Zhenguo examined it from every angle, racking his brain to dig out every trivial detail learned from training and following Mu Min and Wu Xiang, but the pole yielded nothing.
Li Ziyu had been watching carefully from the side. He noticed the stone and rope had been thrown aside, abandoned. He suddenly had an idea and said: "Comrade Li, we haven't examined that bundle of rope yet."
Everyone realized they had overlooked it. Gao Chongjiu quickly picked it up. The rope was dripping wet, woven from hemp mixed with bamboo strips—very strong. Old Cui confirmed it was indeed the type commonly used by porters.
Though the rope had been fished from the water, it felt greasy to the touch. Obviously, it was the original match for the carrying pole, transformed by years of transporting pork. Li Zhenguo asked the porter who'd lost the pole, and he confirmed this rope was his.
The rope had been soaked in lard and bloodstains for so many years it had turned completely black. At first glance, nothing stood out. Li Zhenguo held it up and scrutinized it carefully in the sunlight—and discovered a clue. On the seemingly uniformly black rope were fresh stains. Neither Li Zhenguo nor Gao Chongjiu could be certain whether this was human blood, but the Australians at the Municipal Bureau had methods to identify it. If it was, this was undoubtedly evidence.
Combined with the missing oilcloth bag... Li Zhenguo's eyes lit up. He asked: "Who else has that kind of oilcloth bag?"
More than one porter worked for the pig hong, so naturally each had one. Shopkeeper Xie brought one over, saying the appearance and size were about the same. Li Zhenguo spread the oilcloth flat on the ground, examined it, and felt his deduction made even more sense.
The carrying pole's appearance brought the first glimmer of dawn to an investigation that had been murky all along. The two discussed and decided time was of the essence—they would immediately go to Widow Wang's house for on-site exploration and determine who that man climbing her wall in the middle of the night really was.
Widow Wang's house wasn't far from the tea shed. They wanted to summon the local Baojia head, but Shopkeeper Xie said there was no need—he knew her situation well, and the distance was short; he would take them himself.
Arriving at the door, they saw a very dilapidated house. The frontage was narrow—barely one bay wide. The white lime and mud on the wall were peeling, revealing the broken bricks, tiles, and yellow mud pieced together beneath. The eaves were also very low, about the height of a person. The gate was tightly closed, bolted from the inside. Shopkeeper Xie knocked for a long time with no response.
This struck him as strange. He had seen Widow Wang go out early that morning. If she hadn't returned, the door should be locked from the outside. Since it was bolted from within, someone was home. With the return of the humid south wind, the weather was growing hot and sticky. During the day, every household closed their lattice doors and opened main doors for ventilation. In broad daylight, why was this door bolted?
Li Zhenguo and Gao Chongjiu both felt something was wrong. Gao Chongjiu knew various jianghu tricks. He immediately produced a soft bamboo strip, inserted it through the door crack, and slowly worked the bolt aside. It took several minutes, but the door opened. The moment it did, they smelled a peculiar fragrance—exactly the same scent they had detected in Old Qiu's hut, only stronger.
Li Zhenguo's expression changed. He cursed silently and crossed the main room in three quick strides. Beyond lay a small courtyard with a crooked old tree—and a person was hanging from it.
Shopkeeper Xie couldn't help but scream. The figure dangling from the branch was Widow Wang.
"Quick—get her down!"
Several officers rushed forward to untie the rope. Li Ziyu cursed his luck inwardly but had to help. Fortunately, Zhao Gui showed no hesitation, standing below to catch her weight. They soon got Widow Wang down.
The woman had already stopped breathing, but the body wasn't stiff—she hadn't been dead long. Combined with the fact that Shopkeeper Xie had seen her this morning, her hanging must have occurred in the few short hours between morning and noon.
Though there was no coroner or forensic doctor present, Gao Chongjiu had years of experience. The strangulation mark on Widow Wang's neck was horseshoe-shaped, with a lifting void zone where the ends didn't meet. This distinguished hanging from strangulation; a horseshoe-shaped mark formed by suspension. She hadn't been strangled and then strung up—Wang Xiuzhu had indeed died by hanging.
However, both Gao Chongjiu and Li Zhenguo felt that Widow Wang's sudden suicide made no sense emotionally or logically. Combined with the knockout incense they'd smelled upon entering, they couldn't rule out that she'd been drugged unconscious and then "placed" in the noose. Gao Chongjiu had encountered similar cases before—though in those instances, the murderer had used intoxication rather than incense.
On-site investigation immediately revealed suspicious points. A stool lay overturned on the stone slab floor beneath the corpse, and the deceased's footprints remained on its surface.
The first suspicious point concerned this stool. The footprints on its surface struck Li Zhenguo as odd. If Wang Xiuzhu had stepped onto this stool to tie the rope to the tree branch, placed her head in the noose, and kicked the stool over to commit suicide, one would expect friction marks left when the stool was kicked. Yet the front and sides of the stool showed only those clear footprints—no scuff marks whatsoever. Li Zhenguo had Li Ziyu bring an identical stool and performed a simulation test under the tree in the yard—grabbing the branch with his hands, kicking the stool over to suspend his body. The results showed that no matter how lightly one kicked the stool, traces would inevitably be left.
Conducting a comprehensive investigation of the scene, they found Widow Wang's residence was a one-story house with three bays of depth and one frontage. Entering by the door was the main room, beside which lay the kitchen. Crossing the small bluestone courtyard led to a bedroom divided into a bright outer chamber and a dark inner room. Beyond the bedroom was a small backyard piled with water vats and sundries. The space was cramped, the rooms low and small, the furniture and items simple—at first glance, clearly a poor person's dwelling. But upon inspection, the police immediately noticed many incongruities.
The bedding was very new, and the quality was good—obviously not typical of lower-class commoner women like Widow Wang. At the head of the bed sat a brand-new dressing box inlaid with mother-of-pearl and fitted with a mirror. This was authentic Australian merchandise from Purple Treasure Studio. The crystal mirror alone was worth a considerable sum; the cheapest cost four taels of silver. The dressing box was open, clearly having been rummaged through; most items were gone, but a pearl and silver ring remained inside—not extraordinarily valuable, but still beyond what such a woman could afford. Similar discrepancies included clothes in the wardrobe—all made of silk, fashioned recently. More direct evidence: the wardrobe contained men's clothes, and more than one set. This man apparently stayed overnight frequently.
Obviously, these were all provided by that "wild man." In the kitchen, they discovered more similar traces: a jar of wine half-drunk, unfinished wind-dried chicken and cured meat...
(End of Chapter)