Chapter 68: Case Escalation!

It connected, everything connected!

Everything that happened afterward can now be explained.

The first thing he did after returning to life last year was to think about going to see the place where he had sacrificed himself in his past life.

Ten years had passed; at that time, he was unsure whether the abandoned radar station held any danger, so he had called on Wei Chuang to come along.

Reporting directly to the police wouldn't work; the police would never dispatch a large force based solely on the accuser's one-sided account.

Moreover, at that time, he didn't even know if there were people inside the radar station.

To make the police take it seriously, he first had to obtain evidence.

So stupid... As soon as Yu Dazhang thought about how he himself had done these things, he wanted to smash his head against the wall.

It was so awkward he could use his toes to dig out a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment.

Really, he was just in a hurry to go reincarnate!

And he even dragged Wei Chuang into it; wasn't that just a saintly hypocrite?

Pretending to be a justice messenger, showing off, tui~

Yu Dazhang originally thought his past-life self was stupid enough, daring to investigate such a remote place alone; dying there was what he deserved.

He never expected that his current self, just after rebirth, was even more stupid beyond all bounds.

Everyone knows there's danger on the mountain, yet you still went; is there a lump in your brain? If you don't install one, will you die?

Oh my goodness, my hands are trembling from anger.

Yu Dazhang might be one of the few people who almost died from being angered by himself.

Foolish actions inevitably lead to tragic consequences; this is the real-life version of... courting death!

Now look, he himself had become one of the victims in the serial disappearance case.

Moreover, he was a victim who had voluntarily walked right up to them.

After cursing himself thoroughly in his heart, Yu Dazhang gradually calmed down.

So how did I come back?

First, rule out the possibility that I escaped.

If I could have escaped, I would have done so long ago; it's impossible that I waited nine months and more, becoming fat as a pig, before escaping.

It's highly probable that the other party let me go.

Before letting me go, they used some method to erase my memory.

Only this deduction fits the logic best.

But that doesn't make sense either.

Those people who disappeared in the past life never came back once; why was I let go?

I don't have anything special about me either... Yu Dazhang could not figure this out no matter how hard he thought.

But reality was right there in front of him, and he had no choice but to face it.

It seems the Liu Wenfu disappearance case not happening is also related to me.

It was only after I broke into the Xiaofeng Mountain radar station that a series of changes were triggered.

Obesity, amnesia, the disappearance case not happening; these problems troubling him, after searching and searching, finally led back to the starting point.

The serial disappearance case of the past life!

The next day.

Yu Dazhang went to work as usual; his mental state looked very good, no different from his normal self.

Do your part and leave the rest to fate.

He had already done everything he could think of; continuing to dwell on it would be of no help.

He would not do things that involve obsessing over trivial details.

Perhaps one day my memory will suddenly return.

If there are clues, continue investigating; if not, put it aside for now; life must go on.

Although he had figured it out, he still went to Xiuyuan Community after getting off work.

He waited until seven thirty in the evening but did not see Liu Wenfu appear at the community entrance.

The next day, continue...

Just like that, for five consecutive days, he appeared punctually at the entrance of Xiuyuan Community every day after getting off work.

Within those five days, Liu Wenfu appeared at the community entrance a total of two times.

Although the number of times was not many, it was enough to prove that Liu Wenfu in this life would not disappear.

Yu Dazhang even came up with an absurd idea.

After kidnapping me, the criminal had a change of conscience and stopped committing crimes?

He only used this idea to fool himself for a moment.

Crimes of that level simply do not involve any notion of 'conscience'; they commit crimes for a certain purpose.

After that, he did not go to Xiuyuan Community again.

In Yu Dazhang's view, the clues were now cut off from here. Two more days passed, and his service pistol was issued to him.

This meant that Yu Dazhang had officially become a criminal police officer.

From now on, he could go on missions just like other regular police officers.

Actually, the feeling of being specially taken care of was not good; the person being taken care of would instinctively develop a sense of inferiority.

When he learned he had been arranged into the police force by the police academy, Yu Dazhang felt a sense of being inferior to others.

No way around it; he had never used backdoor connections in two lifetimes, so he wasn't used to it.

That afternoon, the First Brigade held an emergency meeting.

The meeting was chaired by the detachment's leadership.

There was only one item on the agenda: the First Brigade would draw officers to focus on investigating the previous kidnapping-and-trafficking case.

The very case where Zhou Zizhe had provided a lead.

Please... bookmark... the 6... 9... book.... site....!

Yu Dazhang didn't catch the meaning at first.

He remembered that more than ten days ago the detachment had already sent two criminal investigators to look into it—so why were they calling on the First Brigade now?

Besides, kidnapping and trafficking is a type of crime against a citizen's personal rights; strictly speaking, it doesn't fall under violent crime.

Because most trafficking relies on deception and enticement; direct use of violence is very rare.

So it isn't among the eight categories of cases.

By that reasoning, even if the detachment was eager to crack the case, they shouldn't have brought the First Brigade in.

He didn't learn the reason until the meeting drew to a close.

The two officers sent out earlier had already been out of contact for a full two days.

And those were two criminal investigators carrying sidearms.

What does that tell you?

The case has escalated!

A textbook case of violent crime, no doubt.

Both the people and the guns are gone—this thing has blown up sky-high.

Because the First Brigade's manpower was limited, the detachment leadership finally made a decision.

Led by Wei Qian, with the Second and Third Brigades cooperating, they would pair off two by two into multiple small teams to carry out tracking investigations.

It was a solution born of necessity—only this way could they recover the people and the guns as quickly as possible.

First cast the net wide; if one team found a lead, the others could rush to the scene to reinforce at once.

After the meeting, Yu Dazhang learned from his master, Lu Zhongxin.

On the first day the two officers went missing, the detachment hadn't taken it too seriously.

When you're out on a case, losing cell signal is par for the course.

But once too much time passed, something felt off.

By the time the detachment realized how serious things were, the two officers had already been out of contact for over twenty-four hours.

No word from either of them; their phones stayed unreachable, and during that time they hadn't proactively reached out to the detachment either.

The detachment reacted immediately, dispatching people to track them down right away.

Why not report it straight up to the bureau?

Because the matter was too big!

Losing a firearm—no matter the era, no matter the department—that's a catastrophe.

Let alone losing two guns in one go, along with two officers on active duty.

The detachment would definitely try to keep a lid on it, first sending their own people out to search—but that window had to be kept within twenty-four hours.

If that time limit was exceeded, it had to be reported to the bureau immediately, or the justification for the department investigating on its own would no longer hold.

If they ended up tagged with a charge of failing to report in time, Li Jun, that detachment commander, could forget about keeping his job.

Because concealing a report that leads to serious consequences—that's a criminal offense.

Knowing the gravity of the situation, Yu Dazhang silently prayed in his heart: please, please don't let anything happen to those two colleagues.

If not for him breaking the frame-job case in this life, none of this would have happened.

He couldn't feel regret, but the two men's disappearance did have an indirect connection to him.

When the outcome of one event is changed, no one can say what shifts will follow—just like this time…

The frame-job case led to the trafficking case, and now the trafficking case has escalated again.

Yu Dazhang thought for a moment, then asked Lu Zhongxin for some time off:

"Master, I'm going to run over to the detention center. There are some things I need to ask Zhou Zizhe in person."

(End of chapter)