Chapter 80
Chapter 80
It had only been a joke. There weren’t that many gay men in the world, and Wang Qiang was straight as an arrow.
But Bo Suihan took it to heart.
Without showing a thing, he glanced at Wang Qiang. When they were about to get out of the car, he opened the door and let Wu Xiaojiu climb out first. Then, just as Wang Qiang was about to follow, Bo Suihan wedged himself between them.
Wang Qiang was forced aside just like that.
He clenched his fists and sulked in silence.
The place where the incident had happened was described as a little puddle, but it was actually a stretch of riverbank. The small river had washed the surrounding earth loose, and with the heavy rain from a few days ago, even the soil some distance from the river had become unstable.
The cop led them to the scene. It was still being treated as a protected site, cordoned off with yellow police tape. Beside the river, the tire tracks were clearly visible.
The flashy young man crouched down and pointed.
“My dad said someone tampered with this soil. See, even though it was washed by the storm, this area is downstream from the little river, so hard clumps of mud and stone should have been pushed here. Plus, the spot where the person got hurt is actually a short distance from the riverbank. Logically, the soil shouldn’t be this soft.”
As he spoke, he reached out and pinched up a handful of dirt. Sure enough, the soil here was much softer than in other places. More importantly, elsewhere there were pebbles, clods of packed earth, and other hard bits of mineral debris.
But on this side, beneath the big tree, the muddy hollow where the accident happened and the area around it were nothing but clean, uniform earth.
Wang Qiang reached out and patted him on the head, praising him, “Not bad. I didn’t expect someone who looks like you to know geography. I thought you dropped out of elementary school and called it graduation.”
The young man lifted his chin and grinned at him.
“I used to rank first in the province in competitions. I only stopped going to school because something happened. It’s hard to get by out here, especially in a village where all kinds of people mix together. This look is pretty misleading, right?”
When he said that, Wu Xiaojiu grew puzzled.
“Going from school to village level, then city, then province-that’s three stages, and none of them are easy. If you could make it that far, you had unlimited potential. How could your family bear to let you drop out?”
The young man’s hand went slack as he dug at the soil. His nose itched, and he pinched it with fingers covered in the earthy smell of dirt. He had just opened his mouth to answer when Wu Xiaojiu pulled a packet of tissues from his pocket and wiped away the flecks of dirt on both sides of his nose.
“I’m the Village Chief’s illegitimate son. Back then, he was deputy Village Chief. I was too high-profile, and he was afraid his opponents would get leverage over him, so he stopped letting me go to school. That’s all.”
By the end, the young man’s voice had cracked with rare tears.
For once, there were no flashy slogans or tough-guy quips. Under the moonlight, he calmly peeled open his scar.
It also made everyone understand why, even after taking the Village Chief’s fists blow after blow, this young man had still insisted on exposing the truth.
Wu Xiaojiu rubbed the clumps of mud on the white tissue, lost in thought.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“You’ve already got white hair at fifteen. I thought you were twenty.”
The young man lowered his head to smell the earth, then straightened and wiped his nose. He shifted a little closer to the willow tree.
“It’s nothing unusual. Some people start going white at thirteen. It’s not from worry, it’s a condition called premature graying. Don’t worry about me. You should smell the soil instead. This side smells like normal dirt, but this side is a little more rank than that side.
“It smells a bit like dog urine. And the riverwater can’t reach this side of the willow tree, but there’s moss growing here, like dog-urine moss. Judging by the color, it looks pretty fresh.”
At that, everyone bent down in unison to look. But the county town was all concrete now. Forget dirt-even willow trees were rare.
Naturally, none of them could tell which side smelled stronger, or which patch of soil held more water.
In the end, it was Wu Xiaojiu who brushed the mud off the ball of paper. He pinched up a bit of soil from beneath the willow tree and kneaded it against the white paper, only to find that the dirt from under the willow could clump together, sticking in one solid piece like modeling clay.
The young man dragged his hand up to the tip of his nose and sniffed it carefully.
This time, he was absolutely certain there was a smell of dog urine.
“Isn’t this crime scene supposed to be under protection? This is how you protect it? Someone in the village can walk a dog right up to the scene and let it lift its leg to mark the place?”
Wu Xiaojiu turned to look at Senior.
Senior scratched his head, indicating that he had not expected this either.
“Oi, kid, you’re getting a little fired up.”
Wang Qiang suddenly stroked his chin and stepped forward. He pinched the clump of mud off the white paper and brought it under his nose, sniffing it carefully like he was smelling a cigar.
“I just remembered. Senior, when you were securing the crime scene before, didn’t you run into a man walking a dog? This dog-piss smell was probably left by him, right?”
“Are you going to ruin my dad?”
The young man shot to his feet at once, gripping the hem of his pants, excitement written all over his face.
Everyone looked at him in confusion. Delighted, he said, “No one in our village keeps dogs. Within a hundred li of here, the only place with dogs is a private Dog Farm. And wouldn’t you know it, that Dog Farm was contracted by my dad, but the boss listed on the contract is his illegitimate son.”
A rural village where no one kept dogs was far too strange.
Wu Xiaojiu frowned. Even if he was detached from worldly matters, he still understood some basic common sense.
“Don’t people usually keep mutts here to guard their homes? Some buildings are low and easy for thieves to sneak into. If no one keeps dogs, how do you prevent theft?”
“Then we just don’t. Actually, every household in our village used to keep dogs. But after the Dog Farm was established, the village dogs slowly started disappearing. By the time they were found, all that was left was a skeleton.
“If anyone got another dog, it would disappear too. The boss of the Dog Farm is my dad’s illegitimate son, so the people in the village had nowhere to go for justice. Over time, everyone stopped keeping dogs.
“My dad and that illegitimate son of his rake in money hand over fist and hurt people like it’s nothing. Can you get him locked up and let him behave himself for a few years?”
The young man eagerly tried to push the idea along, and the others happily offered him wicked suggestions.
Wang Qiang’s mind worked fast. He immediately leaned in and began counting points off on his fingers.
“Let me tell you, his public position has already been dealt with. If he gets sent inside too, with that physique of his, won’t he get bullied every day? Even if he’s sentenced to life, he’ll still have plenty to suffer through. One round in there and I guarantee he’ll lose a layer of skin.”
The more the young man listened, the more excited he became. He pointed toward a certain spot in the mountains and shouted to them, “The Dog Farm is right there. They’ve hired two or three people inside, but dog food is too expensive and meat is expensive too, so they wander around near the village all day catching stray dogs. That’s why this spot couldn’t have been marked by some wild dog. It was definitely a dog from the Dog Farm!”
The Dog Farm had been brought up again.
Wu Xiaojiu looked at Bo Suihan, and just happened to find the other man looking at him as well.
It was obvious that Bo Suihan had also grown suspicious of the Dog Farm.
“We’ll see when the time comes. Although the body was nearby, I don’t think the killer would be that stupid. The two things may have just happened to overlap.”
Bo Suihan tilted his head toward him and spoke softly.
Wu Xiaojiu nodded as well. Indeed, the body had been dumped near the Dog Farm. If the killer really was inside the Dog Farm, that would be far too careless.
“All right. One step at a time.”
The few people on the young man’s side were already ready to move out.
Senior looked at the young man’s excited expression and could not help feeling a little puzzled.
“No matter what, he’s still your father. After the Village Chief dies, won’t all the money under him be yours? You hate him this much-it can’t be just because of the schooling issue, right?”