At the beginning of October '91, when the case of the Beijing 360 bus was still confusing, Team Cao and I had already stepped on the train to Inner Mongolia. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

This is my first time going to Inner Mongolia and I obviously miscalculated the weather. The grass in Inner Mongolia is still a little green in October, but the temperature at night has dropped to two or three degrees, and although I am in the train, I am still shivering from the cold and it is difficult to sleep.

I had to work with Team Cao, holding a teapot of hot water and sitting in the aisle chatting.

In addition to the two young criminal investigators Lei Zi and Xiao Lin of the criminal investigation team, there were two comrades from the Beijing Zoo, one in his early forties, surnamed Qin, who was an anesthesiologist, and a twenty-two or three-year-old female comrade, named Zeng Qian, who looked like an ordinary person, but had a unique charm when she smiled, saying that she was an expert in animal behavior. When I set off, I wondered why Team Cao took these two experts with me, could it be that this case was related to animals?

Teacher Qin was very steady and didn't talk much, and he snored like thunder on the top bunk soon after getting into the car. I don't feel sleepy, and the cold is actually only a small part of the reason. Zeng Qian didn't seem to be able to sleep, so she lay on the bottom bunk and listened to me chatting with Team Cao.

Before I got on the train, Cao didn't tell me the details of the case. At this time, there was time, and in the rhythmic shaking of the train, Team Cao told me the reason for going to Inner Mongolia.

Our destination is Wula Ranch, northeast of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, northwest of Huolin Gol. To the east of the Ula Ranch is the remnants of the Great Khing'an Mountains, a large area of primeval forest. But beneath this forest, there are rich deposits of coal, iron, gold, and rare earths.

In the nineties, a state-owned mining company entered the area and began large-scale prospecting. At the beginning of this year, the mine was officially established, with about 400 employees, and the whole ranch began to be lively.

But since this summer, mine workers have been missing in the meadows outside, and the mutilated bodies of some of the missing people have been slowly found, as if torn apart by some beast of prey.

At first, the mine workers thought they were being attacked by wolves, so they organized a hunting party of eight people, and they tracked them all the way to Hougen Lake to the north of the meadow, but found no sign of the wolves. But while camping by the lake at night, he was attacked by wild beasts, and only one of the eight people returned, and the one who came back was seriously wounded and died of blood loss outside the mine.

As Team Cao was talking, Zeng Qian suddenly interjected, "In fact, wolves are more afraid of people, wolves generally only attack herdsmen's livestock, and it is rare to hear that they take the initiative to attack people." Unless a person captures or kills a wolf cub, the she-wolf loses her mind. ”

Team Cao nodded, took out a stack of photos from his bag, handed them to me, and said, "Xiao Zeng is right, and the local herdsmen say the same, but what other fierce beasts can kill people on this grassland?"

The photo seems to be of the camp after the hunting party was attacked, there was a lot of blood splashed on the broken tent, and the blood on the ground seemed to be dragged, but what really attracted me was the regular white circles near the tent, which seemed to be surrounded by lime powder.

I flipped through a few more photos, and it seemed that the photographer had noticed this anomaly and studied the white circle with the lens. The number of white circles is very large, and the range is very wide, there are fifty or sixty of them, some are just a circle, some are made up of several rings nested together, and some circles seem to form some pattern, just because of the angle of the shot, I can't see the whole picture clearly, but obviously there is no need for the hunting party to draw so many circles around.

Zeng Li got up from the lower bunk, not polite at all, took the photo from my hand, and while looking at it, he said to us: "Captain Cao, Uncle Chang, there will be bears infested at the southern foot of the Great Xing'an Mountains, and there are many spotted leopards, but it is possible for these beasts to attack a single person, but it is unlikely that they will attack the camp. But what's the white circle on the ground?"

"In the fifties and sixties, there are still many wolves in Hebei, Shanxi, and northern Shaanxi, and this white circle is a method of driving wolves in the northern people, and the white circle is generally made of lime, and the courtyard wall is low, just in the yard, or around the sheepfold, and the white circle is drawn, and the wolf will not dare to come in. In the seventies and eighties, wolves all escaped the border and went to Mongolia, and there were no wolves in Inner Mongolia, and even fewer people knew about the white circle that drove wolves. However, the circles on the photo also seem to form a pattern, and the wolf driving circle in the north does not do this, whether it is or not, it depends on whether the circle is made of lime powder. I continued Zeng Qian's words.

"It's not lime, it's made of rice. Team Cao took out a cigarette and handed it to me, and put it in his mouth, just ordered, but Zeng Yan got down from her bed, reached out and pulled the cigarette off Team Cao's mouth, stared at a pair of big eyes, and said, "Smoking is not allowed in the carriage", and stretched out my hand in front of me, I only looked at Team Cao with a wry smile and put the cigarette in her hand.

Zeng Qian smiled happily, revealing a row of beautiful white teeth. Team Cao glared at Cao Qian, and said fiercely: "Little girl, you are smiling happily now, you will be guilty in a few days, and you will not let us chat, then I will test you, it turns out that the old man always says that when walking at night, there is sometimes a wolf behind him, and it will put the grabber on your shoulder, but as soon as you turn around, the wolf will bite your throat from behind, what does Dr. Zeng think of this matter?"

"Team Cao, you are testing me, but your question is wrong, and what you said is impossible. Wolves are social animals, and even more so when hunting. Team Cao, the situation you said is like this, when a person touches a wolf, there must be a wolf in front of this person, motionless, staring at this person. At this moment, people don't dare to move, only the eyes of the wolf are stalemate, and then a wolf will sneak behind the person, taking advantage of the fact that the person's attention is on the opposite wolf, pounce on it from behind, bite the back of the person's neck, and at the same time, all the surrounding wolves rush up. Got it? Captain Cao. ”

"Sleep, sleep, it's too late, Ming'er will arrive in Huolin Gol early in the morning. Team Cao waved his hand and went to his bunk, I laughed secretly in my heart, it is really a thing to drop a thing, Team Cao's character of not being afraid of the ground this day will also become shy and nervous in front of girls.

Early the next morning, we arrived at Huolin Gol, where the local public security bureau had sent people and two jeeps to wait for us at the station. We had to go east over a stretch of the Gobi Desert, and then north, through a large area of pasture, and it would take us about eight or nine hours to drive to the Ula Ranch.

Out of Huolin Gol, after a short drive, there was no road. There is no need for a road in the grassland, the general direction is right, just keep driving down, but not long after I got off the road, I was already so upside down that I wanted to turn my stomach out, pour it clean and put it back. The grassland looks endless and flat, but in fact it is full of deep and shallow potholes, and you have no time to dodge, so you have to rush up and bump even harder. Lao Qin closed his eyes, leaned back in the chair, and held the handle tightly with his hands. Cao Qian couldn't say anything more, so she simply curled up on the seat with her head in her hands.

Especially when crossing the Gobi Desert, the dust raised is poured into the car window, making people cough incessantly. After a long time, I got used to it, and I fell asleep in the seat of the passenger seat.

I don't know how long I slept, I was awakened by Zeng Yan's screams, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that we had driven into the grassland, but on the horizon in the distance, there were rolling dark clouds rolling in the sky. The clouds were moving so fast that they were literally coming at us. But what really made Zeng Yan scream was the lightning that slashed down one by one.

In front of me was a sight I had never seen in my life, all the lightning bolts were slashed vertically, there were a dozen of them every second, and every lightning bolt that fell on the grassland jumped countless sparks. The clouds had already covered most of the sky, and the sky had darkened, and the air had been torn apart by lightning with a scorched smell.

I looked at my watch, it was already three o'clock in the afternoon, and I asked Xiao Li, a local policeman who was driving, how far was it from the Ula Ranch? Xiao Li looked around and told me that there were still about 200 kilometers left. Apparently he hadn't encountered the situation in front of him, and asked me if I should stop. As we spoke, a flash of lightning swept through the air.

The car driven by a few members of the Cao team was dozens of meters in front of us. They had already slowed down and turned on their headlights, and the sharp flash fell less than five meters in front of their car on the right, and at that moment, a bright light enveloped Cao's car in it.

Zeng Qian screamed again, obviously the Cao team's car had no preparation for this lightning, and slammed the wheel to the left, as if it was doing a subconscious evasion action, but it may be that the rain made the grass slippery, or the left wheel was rolled in a dirt pit, the Cao team's car stood up to the left, and the right wheel was dozens of centimeters high from the ground, and it was about to turn over.

Fortunately, the driver of the car in front of me was more experienced, and he quickly tried to straighten the steering wheel, and I vaguely saw from the back window that Team Cao was leaning his body against the right door, and in such a short period of time, they reacted so quickly, I am afraid that only the criminal police can do it. The jeep was successfully controlled, and the right wheel fell heavily to the ground, splashing half a man's height of muddy water.

I hurriedly said to Xiao Li next to me, "Quick, get the car up", and rolled down the window on the right side as I spoke, it was already raining heavily outside, and half of my body was immediately soaked. Xiao Li stepped on the accelerator and put the car together, and I shouted and stroked towards the Cao team's car. "Team Cao, stop, driving and walking is more likely to be struck by lightning, so you can only stop in place. ”

The Cao team in the car nodded to me, and we parked the car in the heavy rain. The entire sky was completely occupied by dark clouds, and lightning kept falling around us, Zeng Yan simply covered his eyes with his hands, curled up in the back seat, and didn't dare to look out the window again. And I only silently prayed that I would not be struck by lightning.

(Wealth and freedom are determined by heaven, the cause is from the nameless, the Tao is affectionate with no heart, and the true nature of one's own spirit.) --Channel) (To be continued.) )