"So, this is the phone booth?"
With the help of the local telecommunications department, the little snake and the trash can arrived at the location of the phone booth where the police call was made, or where it should have been. But there was no phone booth here. Instead, there was a shared motorcycle. At the battery location, the staff who came with him introduced: "This place was still a phone booth about fifteen years ago. Then about ten years ago, due to the popularity of mobile phones, the phone booths were gradually eliminated. Later, this place It’s changed to what it is now.”
"Do you know how long it took for the change?" Trash Can turned back and glanced at the staff member: "Approximate time."
"About...it must have been two years ago. Nowadays, only some enterprises and institutions still use landline phones. I happen to be maintaining this line, so I remember it quite deeply. The original abandoned phone booth was renovated in the old city two years ago. It was shoveled away when we were there, and I even came here to do line maintenance.”
"Thank you very much."
The trash can stood there for a while, then akimbo and looked up at the surrounding environment, then smiled and said to the little snake: "The phone booth that has disappeared for ten years suddenly made an alarm call. The address on the call record is indeed here, Do you think it’s strange or not?”
The little snake also noticed something was wrong inside at this time, but she was more curious about how the trash can could be so sharp and could sense something was wrong immediately.
"Professional sensitivity, after all, I am an old policeman." Trashcan said with a smile: "Do you know what we have to do next?"
This question confused Xiao She. She was a rookie on her first day on the job. What did she know? However, the trash can did not mean to blame her, and still said with a smile: "Our next step is to go to that school to see what kind of Ah Piao is worthy of another Ah Piao calling the police."
"Are you sure it's Ah Piao?"
"Hypothetically, it can't be traveling through time and space."
The little snake nodded clearly, and then followed the afro to the old school.
The school is very old, probably a classic old campus from the 1970s and 1980s. Because the old city is being renovated here, the school has also moved to a new area. Now the old campus is waiting for demolition, just because It was temporarily suspended due to the outbreak of the plague, but it was during this suspended state that this strange alarm event occurred.
"Are you afraid?"
It was already afternoon when they came here, because it was still dark very early at this time, so it was almost dark at about half past five. There were no lights in the old campus, so the whole school looked dark.
Because the little snake couldn't see clearly with the naked eye, she simply closed her eyes and used her mental power instead of her eyes to observe the surroundings. However, the trash can thought she was afraid: "Don't be afraid, I can still do things of this level." Done.”
"No, it's too dark. I'm using my mind instead of my eyes." The little snake smiled and replied, "I'm not that easily scared."
"Is this how you squander your advanced abilities?" Trashcan shook his head helplessly, then took out a flashlight from his pocket: "I'd better use this."
The two of them walked into the school. Everything inside was dilapidated, dark and gloomy. There were still tattered desks and chairs in the classroom, and the slogans on the blackboard that said "study hard" had faded and were dark. The corridor stretches all the way, and the whistling draft makes sudden noises come here from time to time.
"There's nothing." Little Snake's battlefield situational awareness ability has already scanned the entire school: "I didn't find anything."
"Don't worry, let's take a walk here just to get familiar with it." The trash can came to the office on the top floor with a flashlight. He stood in the corridor and looked out. He could only see the bright street lights outside the school. And because it is surrounded by the renovated area of the old city, there are not many local residents left. There is about a kilometer in radius, and it is already deserted. There are quite a few wild cats and dogs, but there are really no people.
"It seems that it is really unlikely that there are any witnesses in this place." The trash can spat down, and then he waved around with a flashlight: "And since you said you can't sense it, then we can only continue I checked it using the normal method.”
"Do you think there are people buried under this playground? When I was watching the news, I saw a body buried under a school for more than ten years."
"Hey, don't tell me, it's not impossible." After walking around the trash can, he found nothing, and then left with the little snake: "Let's go eat something first, and then go to the archives to find something. You may have to work hard today, we have to look into some old cases."
"no problem!"
The two of them went outside to have something to eat, and then went straight to the local bureau. After completing the formalities, they entered the archives room. There were some old cases here, and many of them were even police records. In the end, except for some murder cases that will continue to be followed up, many other small things will melt into time little by little.
Arriving at the huge archives center, he rolled up his sleeves and said, "Now I have a task for you, which is to check all the police calls about that school since its establishment, as well as all the cases related to that school. Including petty theft, student fights, etc.”
Seeing the shelves full of files, Little Snake couldn't help but take a breath, but the trash can had already started working. He held a file from 1982 and started flipping through it: "Why do I call it a trash can? It's me. He has always done such trivial things that others simply look down upon, but if you call it a trivial matter, it may actually lead to a very bizarre murder case. Ah Piao will not appear for no reason, and his appearance must be accompanied by Greed, anger, and ignorance, and do you think that all murder cases in the world are inseparable from these three words?"
Little Snake hummed, and then sat down and started flipping through Dare, because these files were numerous and miscellaneous, and most of them were very old. The oldest one was forty years old. At that time, the President of the United States was still Reagan. Therefore, it is difficult to read, the workload is large, and the details are difficult to control.
But the trash can has never stopped since he lowered his head. He changed each book one by one. If he found anything suspicious, he would record it in a small notebook. Occasionally he would raise his head and chat with the little snake, and he would be confused about what was going on outside. It's daybreak.
"You go back and rest first, and I'll continue working for a while."
The little snake yawned: "How old are you this year? You don't look like a young man."
"I'm twenty-six." Trashcan said without raising his head: "I still hope you don't judge that I don't look like a young man based on my appearance."
Little Snake laughed, and at this moment, she suddenly saw a clear piece of relevant information in the file under her hand. She flipped through the year on the cover, and then shouted: "I've discovered something. .”
The trash can came over immediately, bent down and looked at it. After reading it, he tapped the page hard: "This is an important discovery, circle it."
Little Snake immediately started copying into her notebook. Although she was very tired and sleepy now, the sudden feeling of parting through the clouds and seeing the blue sky filled her with a sense of accomplishment. She felt that she had never been able to do so in her life. I have never done anything so awesome, and even though I’m not sure whether the two things are related, it feels so fulfilling.
"Hello, I need your help." Trash Can found the relevant personnel in the bureau: "Can you check the list of missing persons for January 2005?"
Because their authority was relatively high, this matter was implemented quickly. Because it was relatively new, the relevant content was better preserved. In less than half an hour, a file was placed in front of them.
One of them was very consistent with what they found in the previous police records. The missing person was a teacher, who happened to be a teacher at that school. Chen, a 23-year-old Chinese teacher at the school, disappeared on January 2005. On the 22nd, the person who called the police was her boyfriend. According to the contents of the transcript, it can be seen that on January 22, 2005, Chen’s boyfriend returned from a business trip and found that his girlfriend was missing, so he went to his workplace to inquire. I discovered that my girlfriend hadn’t come to work for four days. She had only asked for leave because she was feeling unwell, but she hadn’t heard from her since. This prompted the police to call the police.
But the problem is that at that time, the Internet was not as developed as it is now. There were endless cases of disappearances, and many people even changed their lives and went to live in another city. Therefore, this incident did not cause any waves, and it just took the investigation process in a circle. , and then labeled Chen as a missing person, and this dozen lasted for seventeen years.
The next thing was to contact Chen's boyfriend. Because he had the ID information, Trash Can quickly contacted this man. Huang, who is now in his forties, opened a restaurant here. The other party said that he had The time cooperated with their investigation, so they made an appointment in the afternoon, and then the two returned to the rest area for a short rest.
After getting up and tidying up, they went to Huang's restaurant and met Huang, who was already middle-aged. However, when the disappearance of his girlfriend was mentioned, he still seemed a little overwhelmed and said emotionally. A lot.
"I'm sure she was harmed!" Huang said: "I contacted her family members later, and they all said that Aying had not contacted them. Aying is not that kind of person, she is very well-behaved."
Even seventeen years later, this incident still seems to make this man panic and blame himself: "Oh, it's all my fault. If I hadn't been on a business trip at that time, this kind of thing would definitely not have happened."
"Calm down, can you describe her in detail?"
According to the description of Chen's boyfriend, a portrait gradually appeared in front of the two of them. The missing person Chen was 23 years old, young and beautiful, but old-fashioned and conservative. It's already 2005, but he still doesn't want to use mobile phones. He prefers to use landline or IC card phone every time he contacts. According to Huang's description, on January 20, 2005, he received a call while on a business trip. There was a phone call, and the number was obviously from an IC card phone, but after he received the call, there was only the sound of sobbing on the other side, but no one spoke.
"You remember it very clearly."
"Well, it's very clear, because the number of that phone booth is very familiar to me. It's the one A Ying often calls me. My first reaction was A Ying, but no matter how I asked, there was no response from the other party, and then I didn't know Something happened, so I called her home. At that time, I was on a business trip in Inner Mongolia. I bought a ticket and rushed back the next day. When I came back, it was already the third day. I couldn’t find it anywhere after I came back. So she called the police. Police comrades, do you think she is still alive?"
The trash can smiled helplessly, and when the little snake was about to speak, he hit him with his knee. After all, when they appeared, it was basically certain that this person was gone, and maybe even the bones were gone.
"We are still trying our best. No matter whether we live or die, we will definitely give an explanation."
When the two of them were about to leave, the forty-year-old man insisted on keeping them for dinner no matter what. In the end, he pushed the matter aside after he refused in every possible way. While sitting in the car, the little snake asked curiously Trash Can started to nibble on the steamed buns and said, "Isn't eating a meal considered corrupt?"
"This has nothing to do with corruption or not. You will know later. When you appear in front of the victims' families, there will be light in their eyes, the light of hope. But I know it...so I can't look directly at that light. In fact, you have to understand that we are not much different from ordinary police officers, it’s just that the groups we face are different.”
"Oh..." Little Snake is still young. She doesn't quite understand it yet, but it's hard to say anything. She just changes the topic: "Where are we going next?"
"Eat and go back to that school!"
They bought a few buns on the roadside and hurried back to school. This time they did not go in directly, but came to the charging pile, which was where the phone booth used to be.
Trashcan said: "This is where the police call was made, and where the last call was made to the man just now seventeen years ago."
"How did you know?"
"I feel like I know these two calls were made from the same phone booth without collecting evidence." Trash put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath: "Then the question is, why is the interval between the two calls as long as seventeen years? why is that?"
Little Snake thought for a while, and then she was not polite and called the Mountain King directly: "Brother Pig..."
Upon hearing this little voice, the Mountain King shuddered, and then said with a doting smile: "You must have something wrong with me. Tell me, what's wrong?"
As soon as the little snake told the mountain king about the matter, the other end almost didn't need to look up the information and responded immediately: "If it appears again after many years, either something to suppress it has been destroyed, or it is a strange world. There are basically no other possibilities for visions. Your place is not a particularly evil and cold place, and there were no special visions in the past few days, so it must be that something to suppress her has been destroyed."
"Then Brother Pig...if we want to see her again, what do we need to do?"
"Recreate the scene." King Shan said lightly: "It is the easiest and fastest way to recreate the scene of that night 17 years ago. It is not necessarily a very advanced spirit body. In many cases, it can only follow instincts and memory residues. To deal with things, you can check the recording of that night first and then analyze it."
"But we didn't find anything unusual after listening to it. It was just that someone called the police through a phone booth and said that he saw something unclean in the school, and there was crying behind him."
"What are the original words?"
"The original words seemed to be... Comrade police, I saw something I shouldn't have seen. Come quickly, I'm at XX Elementary School... and then I started crying. Oh, that's right! It was obviously sunny that night, but the phone It’s raining heavily.”
(End of chapter)
