Chapter 313: Looking Like a Country Bumpkin

Seeing Zhang Sen's reaction, even someone as stoic as Lu Zhongxin could barely hold back a laugh.

Now, looking back on that scene, his own disciple really had gone too far.

"This time we're heading out of province to handle a case."

At the mention of a case, Yu Dazhang grew serious, his tone turning solemn:

"This isn't the place to talk. Come with me. I'll brief you on the details later."

Seeing there really was a case, Zhang Sen took it seriously too.

He had worked with Yu Dazhang more than once before, and special cases alone numbered two.

In his eyes, any case Yu Dazhang would take on now had to be especially thorny, or a fairly complex major case.

"I need to check in with the captain first."

Zhang Sen said "check in," not "report," which showed he had already decided to go with Yu Dazhang.

Afterwards, Yu Dazhang accompanied Zhang Sen to the squad to explain the situation.

Second Squad Captain Liu Zhe was even more straightforward—upon hearing it was a case with Yu Dazhang, he agreed right away.

Inside the Cold Case Office.

A five-person special task force, including Yu Dazhang, was officially established.

"Now I'll lay out the specifics of the case."

Then Yu Dazhang started from Zhou Zizhe's pre-execution visit, moved on to the kidnapping case, and finally got to the underground prison the kidnapping case had led to.

Yu Dazhang was very thorough, leaving out not a single detail.

Reading a case file and having someone explain it in person are two completely different experiences.

The latter will recount the specifics of the case in greater detail, adding in one's own judgments, analyses, and reasoning about the case.

This gives one a more intuitive grasp of the case itself.

It took Yu Dazhang a full hour to finish introducing the case.

For someone who liked to keep things simple, this was extremely rare.

Because this case was not only complex but also dangerous, he had to make sure everyone took it seriously.

Ma Jian and Liu Miao were better off—the two had always worked under Yu Dazhang and had a certain degree of familiarity with the case itself.

But when they heard the later analysis of the underground prison, the two still found it unbelievable.

He had actually come up with a reasonable inference for every point of doubt!

Large estates, factories and farms, civil defense projects...

Especially that civil defense project—in the two men's view, this was the only inference that fit the logic.

If Li Jun knew what these two were thinking, he'd definitely shout at them: That freaking thing was MY inference!

Lu Zhongxin and Zhang Sen were dumbfounded by now.

Take it seriously?

They weren't just taking it seriously—they were utterly shocked.

It had been Lu Zhongxin who notified Yu Dazhang about the visit with Zhou Zizhe, but he had no idea what happened after that.

His own disciple had actually, through that visit, cleared out every cold case in the branch!

What a coincidence?

No, that's not right.

It should be said—he'd actually managed to connect all the dots!

The cases that were later implicated were so massive they had no bounds; if true, "major case" and "important case" wouldn't even begin to describe them.

Looking at it that way, a five-person task force really was a bit small.

Zhang Sen was even more astonished than Lu Zhongxin.

The kidnapping case alone had struck him as utterly bizarre, and the later content simply crashed his brain.

Is this the kind of case I can be involved in...? That was the only thought echoing in his mind now.

This morning he was still handling anti-fraud cases, and now in the blink of an eye he'd been pulled into a task force like this.

He felt this was simply unscientific!

But looking at the fatty in front of him, somehow everything seemed to make sense again.

"Any questions?"

Yu Dazhang looked at the four team members before him and said sternly:

"If you have questions, best to raise them now. I want everyone to keep up with the pace. Once this case kicks off, our time will be extremely tight."

His words were not exaggerated in the slightest.

Five active-duty police officers handling a case out of province meant a sizable expense every day.

It would also affect the police deployment at the Hongkou branch.

Although Director Liu hadn't set Yu Dazhang a deadline, everyone knew perfectly well that the time would not exceed a month—perhaps even shorter.

The officers present were all senior to him in tenure, so they naturally understood the stakes involved.

But...

This case was a bit beyond imagination.

Forget raising questions—the four of them had only just barely come back to their senses from the shock.

"No rush. We still have time now."

Yu Dazhang took out a pack of Huazi, passed them around, then set the case file on the table:

"Let's thoroughly digest the case today. Tomorrow we hit the road."

The moment he finished speaking, he noticed all four team members in the room looking at him with unfriendly eyes.

Said something wrong?

Yu Dazhang thought it over and figured the problem lay in the two words "hit the road."

It really wasn't very auspicious… He quickly corrected himself:

"It just slipped out. What I mean is, tomorrow we'll be driving out of the province, so today we need to get a firm grasp on the case."

Hearing him correct himself, the four finally turned back, each lost in thought.

There are no superstitions in the criminal-investigation trade, but no one goes around cursing themselves either—besides, that thing called "luck" really is hard to explain.

In the small cold-case office, smoke soon curled through the air, and the atmosphere turned especially heavy and solemn.

Lu Zhongxin opened the case file, cigarette in one hand, flipping pages with the other, reading intently.

Zhang Sen sat beside him, his gaze also fixed on the file, brows tightly knit, occasionally exchanging a few low words with Lu Zhongxin.

Ma Jian and Liu Miao, on the other hand, said nothing, just silently smoking, their faces gloomy and grave.

An hour later, Lu Zhongxin was the first to ask:

"How many breakthrough points do you have right now?"

That's the mark of a veteran detective—straight to the jugular in one question.

The other three, hearing the question, immediately pulled their thoughts back and turned their eyes to Yu Dazhang.

"Master, you're thinking a bit too far ahead."

Yu Dazhang looked a little helpless:

"The crime scene is over a thousand kilometers from Songhai, and everything we have right now is just paper information, so we can't really talk about breakthrough points—at most, we can call them investigative directions."

His meaning was clear: only after actually getting hands-on with the case and entering the investigation stage would any clues they found truly count as breakthrough points.

The reason he stressed this was still that he hoped everyone would take the case seriously.

Lu Zhongxin nodded:

"Then tell us—how many investigative directions do you have right now?"

He could understand his disciple's thinking, so he adjusted his wording accordingly.

"Two." This time Yu Dazhang answered directly:

"The police station in Yancheng is the primary investigative target. Five years ago they suppressed the case, so there have to be cracks somewhere—wherever there's action, there's a trace."

Hearing this, everyone nodded in turn, showing their agreement.

In fact, they had thought of it too.

Anyone who'd read Fang Peng's statement materials would have similar thoughts, because it was just too obvious.

Outsiders watch the show; insiders see the craft.

If it were an ordinary person, they'd most likely never think anything was off about that police station in Yancheng.

They had received the person who filed the report, they'd sent officers out to the factory, and afterward they'd even helped the reporter get back home smoothly.

Five years had passed, and even Fang Peng hadn't sensed anything wrong.

But swap in a criminal investigator, and at one glance they'd spot something fishy in there.

So it goes—the same thing, seen by different people, is seen at completely different angles and depths.

Seeing Yu Dazhang had stopped, Lu Zhongxin couldn't help urging:

"And the other one?"

"Yangcheng train station." Yu Dazhang said quickly:

"Fang Peng was abducted near the train station, which means the other side chose a high-foot-traffic place like that to pick their targets."

"Given they've never been caught all these years, is there a chance…"

"They're still committing crimes?"

(End of chapter)