"I always hoped you two would get along. If I had known you were going to leave, I wouldn't have gone to college. But if I hadn't, I wouldn't be a police officer now."
"I've done well all these years. I'm now a pillar of the police force, everyone calls me Detective He, and I've become famous throughout China. I haven't failed your expectations, have I! I have a bunch of elite colleagues by my side. Oh, and I have a girlfriend now, she's Liu Yuning from the original criminal investigation team. You should remember her, right?"
"Furthermore, Zhang Ting has established the Crime Punishment Team, a special unit formed to combat the Polaris organization. I know you've been fighting them for a long time, just like Grandpa did. I won't let you down. It's time for our He family to settle things with Polaris in my generation. Let me swear with this gun that I will eradicate Polaris, make this social tumor disappear completely, and bring all its members to justice!!"
I picked up the Type 64 police pistol my father used to carry, stood up, and fired several shots into the clear blue sky!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The incredibly loud echoes scared away the crows circling overhead. I stood before my father's portrait like a Buddha. I tucked the gun into my waistband. That's right, the gun I always use, my father used it too. Every time I grip this gun, I feel my father right beside me, watching over me.
I stopped my tears. A man doesn't cry easily, only when his heart is truly broken.
"Dad, I miss you!"
My father once told me, "The gun lives, I live; the gun dies, I die." Yet, his gun is in my hand, but he is gone.
Although my uncle had confessed everything, admitting it was his negligence during a mission that led to my parents' deaths, and in the storm, he begged me to arrest him, I refused. My eyes were red, and I refused.
That day, he held up his hands, making a motion as if to have handcuffs placed on his wrists, and knelt before me. The rain poured down relentlessly, and we were at the highest point of the courtyard house.
"Nephew, don't you blame me?"
"It wasn't really a crime, was it? Forget it, Uncle. If it weren't for your help all these years, I wouldn't be where I am today!"
"I'm glad you think that way..."
I helped my uncle up. I saw him and Officer Du off that day, and I haven't seen him since.
I wonder how he and Officer Du are doing.
The memory ended. I poured some white wine on my father's tombstone, kowtowed a few times, burned some joss paper, and then carefully left the cemetery. However, what I didn't know was that a figure appeared at the police cemetery not long after I left...
I don't know how I got home. Halfway there, He Xin sent me a message: "Dad, I'm back from the restoration. Our luck is too bad; we didn't find anything. Those were just some boring little movies, sigh."
"It's okay. I'm going to Cao Leping's place now. Can you send me the location?"
"Didn't we already search that place?"
"I'm going to re-examine it!"
That's what that person told me. I don't know if it will be useful, but last time he seemed to have really helped me.
I arrived at Cao Leping's dormitory. Since the police had already searched the place, the door was open, and I walked straight in.
I took out the shadowless reflection tube, luminol reagent, yellow wine, white wine, seaweed ash, shadowless lamp, black light lamp, white light lamp, and all other tools for examining the scene. I searched the entire house. It took more than three hours. I thought I hadn't found anything, but at the foot of the bed in Cao Leping's room, I found an old mobile phone that had been pressed down.
With all my might, I lifted the bed and managed to retrieve the phone.
It was a very old Nokia phone. I wondered why this phone was here.
Its screen was still usable, but it had no power. I went downstairs to buy a charger. Although it was hard to find, I managed to find one after checking a few convenience stores. At a convenience store, I charged the phone. When I turned it on, I saw the familiar Nokia logo. To be honest, I felt a bit nostalgic because I used this brand of phone many years ago.
I browsed through the messages and found many sent around May 2021. This means Cao Leping had been using this phone recently. I read through them all and found that on June 2nd, he had sent quite a few messages to a number starting with 153********. I sent the number to He Xin and asked her to investigate. Without saying much, after a while, she told me, "Although this person recently deactivated the number, his ID information is still available."
I was suddenly excited. A few minutes later, He Xin sent me the ID information: "Cao Leping, 36 years old, from Fuyuan Town, Guangming City."
What??
This person is also named Cao Leping. I compared him with the previous burly Cao Leping and found that they were of the same name. Could this be a coincidence?
I don't know how to explain it, but this Cao Leping is clearly much more cunning than the previous one.
I followed the address to this Cao Leping's family residence, but what appeared before me was a dilapidated old house, as if it had been burned down. The walls were black, the windows were broken, and the eaves were eroded by termites. The plants in the surrounding flower beds had withered.
I approached the building. It had three floors. I touched the door, and it opened automatically.
I cautiously walked into the house. I don't know what my state of mind was at that moment. Perhaps it was curiosity.
I knew it wouldn't be easy to find this Cao Leping, but I was still not giving up.
Entering the first-floor hall, I found that the surroundings were decorated with some very old ink paintings. However, most of them were burned down to just the frames. I could tell from a relatively intact ink painting that remained, and from the ink stains left on some walls.
Ordinary people wouldn't be able to see it, but the shadowless reflection tube could identify some of the components.
Some simple chemical analysis could be done with the shadowless reflection tube and a bamboo leaf extractor, which facilitated my on-site investigation.
The house didn't seem to have burned too severely on the first floor, but I wasn't sure about the other areas.
I didn't find anything on the first floor, so I went upstairs. When I reached the second floor, I discovered that the corridor had been severely burned. In a restroom, I found the source of the fire. Judging by the surrounding marks, the fire had occurred at least a month ago. It seemed this Cao Leping had anticipated that we would trace it here and had set fire to the house beforehand.