kingnovel Chapter 1177 Site Visit
Chapter 1177 Site Visit
The first to speak was excavator operator Lao Zhang, his hands still trembling slightly; the shock of discovering the body that morning had clearly not completely subsided. "I was working on the foundation all afternoon the 7th," Lao Zhang took a deep drag on his cigarette, ash falling onto his mud-covered work clothes. "I didn't see any strangers, but I heard people arguing over at the prefabricated houses. It sounded like Manager Zhou was on the phone with someone, speaking quite loudly, saying things like, 'Don't worry about this.'" He scratched his head. "I didn't hear the exact conversation; the excavator was too noisy at the time."
Old Li, a steelworker standing nearby, put down his enamel mug and chimed in: "I worked overtime until 9 p.m. on the 7th. When I left, I didn't see anything unusual, except that the light at the back gate was broken, and it was pitch black. I even told Manager Zhou about it, and he said he would fix it the next day, but it still hasn't been fixed." Old Li pointed in the direction of the back gate of the construction site, "There's a small alley over there that nobody usually walks on, and it's even darker at night. If someone comes in from there, nobody will see them at all."
Xiao Wang pressed further, "Have you seen a man wearing a black hoodie and carrying a black cloth bag? He was about 170 centimeters tall and had a hoarse voice." Everyone shook their heads, but Xiao Wang, who was in charge of document registration, hesitated before speaking, "I think I saw someone similar on the afternoon of the 7th. He was wandering around the pile of materials and asked me, 'When will the foundation be filled?' I thought he was someone sent by the developer, so I said, 'Soon, in the next couple of days.' He just said 'Oh' and left without asking any more questions." Xiao Wang recalled, "At the time, his hat was pulled down very low, so I couldn't see his face clearly. His left hand was always in his pocket, which felt a bit off, but I didn't think much of it."
The visits continued, but no further useful information was obtained. Carpenter Lao Zhao said he took leave from work on the afternoon of the 7th, while concrete worker Lao Chen said he had been busy at the mixing plant the whole time and hadn't left his post. "We all do manual labor in this line of work. After work, we just want to go back to the dormitory and sleep. Nobody has the mind to care about other people's business," Lao Chen sighed. "Besides, the construction site is so big, with people coming and going, and lots of strangers. How can we remember everyone?"
Xiao Wang asked Zhou Jianming to lead the way to check the construction site surveillance. The monitor screen in the prefabricated house glowed blue. Zhou Jianming skillfully pulled up the recording, but frowned: "Officer Wang, you see, the front door's surveillance camera started malfunctioning on October 5th. It can only capture half the footage. The back door's camera has been broken for a long time and hasn't been repaired." He pointed to the static on the screen, "The developer said they're short on funds and repairs have to wait for approval. There's nothing we can do."
Xiao Wang stared at the surveillance footage. The front door camera could only capture the left side of the construction site entrance; the right side was a complete blind spot. In the footage from the afternoon of October 7th, construction workers could occasionally be seen entering and exiting, but the man in the black hoodie was nowhere to be seen. "Are there any other surveillance cameras? For example, near the material storage area or the abandoned warehouse?" Xiao Wang asked. Zhou Jianming shook his head: "There are no surveillance cameras in those places. Nobody goes there usually, so we don't think it's necessary."
Left with no other option, Xiao Wang had to expand his surveillance search, checking footage from shops and residential areas around the construction site. The camera at the nearby convenience store captured part of the construction site's front gate. At 3:15 PM on October 7th, a white van stopped near the front gate, and a man in a black hoodie got out, carrying a black cloth bag, and walked towards the back gate. He returned empty-handed 15 minutes later and drove away. However, the license plate was obscured by trees; only the last digit, "6," was clearly visible. The vehicle appeared to be a Wuling Hongguang, a very common car in the area, making it impossible to narrow down the search.
The surveillance cameras in the residential area were even more disappointing. Most of them were either at the wrong angle or had too low a resolution, only capturing blurry figures without any discernible features. A resident living on the third floor said that around 10 p.m. on October 7, he heard a muffled "thud" from the construction site. He thought it was the construction team working overtime, but he didn't open the window to check and was unsure of the exact source of the sound.
Back at the construction site, Xiao Wang summarized the results of his interviews and surveillance footage review, his brow furrowed. The interviews with construction workers only confirmed that the man in the black hoodie had indeed appeared at the site on the afternoon of the 7th and had inquired about the time of the backfilling, but no one could clearly see his face. The surveillance footage only captured what appeared to be a vehicle, but the license plate and owner information could not be confirmed. The internal surveillance system at the construction site had numerous blind spots, making it impossible to track the man's movements after he entered.
"The only clues right now are the man in the hoodie and the white van," Xiao Wang reported to Li Ming over the walkie-talkie. "But the man's identity is unknown, the vehicle information is incomplete, and the construction workers haven't provided any more useful information. There haven't been any major breakthroughs yet." He looked at the foundation pit in the distance. The sunlight was still dazzling, but it couldn't illuminate the truth hidden beneath the soil.
Zhou Jianming walked over and handed him a bottle of water, his face full of anxiety: "Officer Wang, when will this case be solved? The workers are too scared to work, and the developer is also urging us to stop. If this drags on any longer, the project will have to stop." Xiao Wang took the water and comforted him: "We are investigating with all our might. Tell the workers to relax and we will let you know as soon as we have any news."
As the sun set, Xiao Wang left the construction site. Dusk gradually enveloped the site outside his car window, casting long shadows of the tower cranes on the ground. He looked at the investigation log on the passenger seat, filled with entries like "didn't see," "didn't hear clearly," and "uncertain." The surveillance footage only showed blurry figures and vehicles. Despite an afternoon of investigation, no major leads had been found to advance the case; it remained stuck, awaiting a new breakthrough.
He took out his phone and sent a message to Xiao Wang in the technical department: "Focus on expedited testing of the soil composition and black fibers on the shovel head, as well as the DNA from the cigarette butt. Hopefully, we can find clues from the physical evidence." A notification popped up indicating the message had been successfully sent. Xiao Wang took a deep breath, started the car, and drove towards the criminal investigation team—now, he could only hope that the technical department's test results would bring a new breakthrough.
While Xiao Wang was investigating the incident, his colleagues said the body had already been transported back to the Criminal Investigation Division.
The autopsy room's temperature control system hummed, maintaining a stable room temperature of 20°C. However, when the corpse from the Oriental Garden construction site was wheeled in, a strong stench of decay still penetrated the ventilation system and permeated the enclosed space. Zhang Lin, wearing a double-layered gas mask, felt the soft, rotting texture of the embalming bag the moment his fingertips, wrapped in latex gloves, touched it—the corpse's advanced decomposition had caused tissue liquefaction, rendering it unrecognizable as a normal body.
"First, record the basic physical characteristics," Zhang Lin's voice came through the mask, carrying a slight muffled sound. Assistant Xiao Lin had already prepared the dissection instruments; the scalpels and hemostats on the stainless steel tray gleamed coldly under the operating lights.