Chapter Mountain Town.

This is the traditional town of Qinghe City, with only two streets forming a cross, just like it was 40 years ago and still is today.

In fact, compared to 20 years ago, the town of Zhangshan is even more desolate today.

Half of the storefronts on the street are closed. The open shops also look like they did 20 or 30 years ago.

Jiang Yuan and the others walked to the front of a small supermarket and went inside to inspect. The feeling of the door curtain was like it was from 20 years ago.

It's as if time has frozen here, making it old, but with no one collecting or selling it.

"Boss, do you have a backyard?" Mu Zhiyang asked without expression, his face serious.

At a time like this, there are plenty of places to buy smiles.

The owner of the small town supermarket is not easy to talk to, looking at the police officers walking on the street, he asked, "What are you looking for?"

"If you really want to know, let's make an inquiry record." Mu Zhiyang took out a notebook.

"If you have a backyard, go take a look." The shop owner quickly waved his hand.

"Do you have three-phase electricity?" Mu Zhiyang went in and followed the power lines.

What they were actually looking for was not the killer, but the place where the killer dismembered the body.

As the saying goes, you can't run away from the temple. The place where the body is dismembered must be closely related to the killer. Especially in cases where the body is dismembered in great detail, the killer would only do so in a place they consider safe and have strong control over.

Because it takes time and physical effort.

If someone sees it halfway through, it would be hard to explain. You can't just say, like a certain suspect in a case, "I dismembered the body, but I didn't kill him... I woke up this morning and found my husband dead, maybe he took too many sleeping pills last night..."

Therefore, dismemberment mostly occurs in secluded places.

If it's a shared house, even with a separate bathroom, it wouldn't be used for dismemberment, at least not for finely dismembering. If there were experts here, they could argue that the higher the ratio of housing price to income, the higher the average quality of the people, the lower the proportion of dismemberment.

Jiang Yuan followed and entered the backyard of the supermarket, but did not see any suitable tools or places for dismemberment.

Mu Zhiyang still asked a couple of questions, "Do you have a chainsaw... or an axe... let me take a look..."

They finished inspecting one shop and then moved on to the next, the progress was slow and quite boring.

Jiang Yuan silently followed along.

Essentially, Jiang Yuan was very averse to this kind of investigation.

It's like the exhaustive method in mathematics, it lacks any aesthetic sense.

You just have to go through them one by one, count them one by one.

The biggest danger in the whole thing is that the scope is wrong, and the biggest mistake is omission!

And the most difficult part is that you can hardly ever do a perfect inspection.

Now, it's as if the decision-making power has been handed over to fate. It is well known that fate is the most unreliable thing.

Next to the small supermarket is a fly restaurant, and next to that is a shop selling fly and rat poison. Then there are several empty shops in a row.

Theft is never good, try looking at [ pawread.com ].

The weather that can dry up the reservoir makes the police officers conducting the investigation quickly feel hot and restless.

Another detective couldn't help but mutter, "There are so many shops, but not a single one has the air conditioning on. How can they have customers if they don't turn on the air conditioning? Who can sit and eat in this kind of weather?"

"They can't bear the cost." An auxiliary police officer from the local police station said, "Even selling a bowl of noodles here may not earn back the cost of running the air conditioning."

"Well, at least they're better off than us... I'm going to get some water." The hot weather made it difficult for people to speak, but fortunately, the city bureau provided a large amount of mineral water and set up water collection points on both sides of the road.

Jiang Yuan, Mu Zhiyang, and the auxiliary police officer from the local police station continued walking and said, "Age is a good starting point. The killer in this case must have the ability to kill and move the bodies. The victims are all of a large build and weight."

"Isn't that obvious?"

"You can't just dismember them on the spot." Jiang Yuan said as they arrived at the front of a professional agricultural machinery cooperative.

The door was locked, and a phone number was posted on the door.

The auxiliary police officer knocked on the door and shouted, "Lao Wang! Lao Wang!"

After shouting several times, they heard a response from inside, "Coming, I was sleeping..."

The door opened, and a smell of engine oil could be smelled, along with the smell of pesticides.

There were several machines in the shop, they looked tidy but quite old.

"What are you doing today?" The shop owner was around forty or fifty years old, which is considered young among the ordinary residents of Zhangshan Town.

His body should be quite strong, wearing overalls with multiple pockets, and a screwdriver that could be pulled out with just a reach of his hand, more powerful than an ordinary fruit knife.

"What are you doing?" The auxiliary police officer asked back.

The shop owner said, "Getting ready to go out. Just tidying up."

The auxiliary police officer turned around and said to Jiang Yuan and Mu Zhiyang, "This place rents out agricultural machinery, they have cars, water pumps, threshing machines, and so on..."

Mu Zhiyang became slightly more alert, his hand resting on the holster of his gun, and said, "We're from the Qinghe City Bureau... What's your name?"As he asked, he scrutinized the other party with a policeman's gaze.

Of all the shops he had visited today, this one matched the suspect's characteristics the most.

"Wang Guoshan. It's my shop." The shop owner smiled, his sunburnt skin telling tales of a hard life.

"How many people are in the shop?"

"Just me."

"Such a big shop, and only you?"

"I rent out farming machinery. When someone needs it, I drive it over and do the work. I can't afford to hire anyone right now."

Seeing the shop owner's fluent responses and lack of nervousness, Mu Zhiyang relaxed a bit and said, "The cost of labor these days is indeed outrageous... Can we take a look at the backyard?"

Wang Guoshan replied, "It's a mess back there..."

"We need to check it out." The auxiliary police officer persuaded, "We'll leave once we're done."

The shops on this street all had a similar layout: a shop in the front and a yard with living quarters in the back.

Without much hesitation, Wang Guoshan led the three of them into the backyard.

The backyard was paved with cement. There were three bungalows in the front, and a color steel room on the right, where a large tractor was parked.

The yard was relatively clean, not as messy as the shop owner had described, and it didn't show signs of being lived in like the previous shops.

Jiang Yuan couldn't help but ask, "You don't usually live here, do you? Where is your home?"

"I live with my wife."

"Where is that?"

"You wouldn't know, it's a small place." Wang Guoshan chuckled.

The auxiliary police officer recognized him and said, "Old Wang is a son-in-law from Jianjiang, they have quite a few rules there."

Mu Zhiyang shivered and turned around, his hand once again resting on his holster, he asked, "Where in Jianjiang?"

Wang Guoshan glanced at Mu Zhiyang's gun and said, "Lichang Town in Jianjiang."

The auxiliary police officer from the local police station didn't know the specifics of the case, but Mu Zhiyang was almost ready to draw his gun.

At this moment, the auxiliary police officer, following the previous order, asked, "Do you have a cutting machine here?"

"No cutting machine."

"What about a chainsaw?"

"Chainsaw... I do have a chainsaw. Sometimes I need it for mountain cutting. I'll show you." As Wang Guoshan turned to walk towards the shed, Mu Zhiyang was taken aback, but quickly reacted and shouted, "Stop!"

Wang Guoshan didn't listen, instead, he quickened his pace towards the shed and climbed onto the tractor.

Mu Zhiyang swiftly drew his gun, pointing at Wang Guoshan and shouting, "Stop, or I'll shoot, stop!"

Wang Guoshan started the tractor and drove off at high speed.

After hesitating for a moment, Mu Zhiyang fired a shot into the air as Wang Guoshan's tractor started.

The crisp sound attracted the attention of many police officers.

Wang Guoshan drove the tractor straight at Mu Zhiyang.

Mu Zhiyang stood his ground, legs slightly apart, gun pointed at Wang Guoshan.

"Don't kill him." Jiang Yuan quickly warned.

Mu Zhiyang knew that killing Wang Guoshan with a single shot in this situation would only make things worse.

So, he fired another shot into the air, aiming at the tractor's cab, trying to force the other party to stop.

Wang Guoshan didn't even look, he floored the accelerator and charged forward.

In that moment, Mu Zhiyang was like an infantryman trying to stop an armored vehicle with his bare flesh.

Jiang Yuan pulled him back just in time.

Wang Guoshan, however, maliciously swerved the tractor, its wheels brushing past Mu Zhiyang's leg.

Then, the tractor crashed through the iron gate of the backyard and headed out of town.

Mu Zhiyang let out a delayed cry of "Ah".

The detective who had gone to fetch water and had lost the least in the process, timed his arrival perfectly, only to find the place in a mess, leaving him somewhat dazed.