drown

Wang Shiqi has often dreamed that he is diving lately.

The air was damp and stagnant, the dark green water was thick and salty, and the sky was low under dark clouds. "It's going to rain," came someone's voice, and he didn't care, he floated in the warm waters, his arms breaking the resistance further down, like a swordfish concentrating on hunting.

What was he looking for? One...... Large, rough, square, light wood-colored...... Stuff. A box. A crate. A crate stained with mud. The intermittent clues rushed into his brain like a string of bubbles, and he was a little anxious, it was going to rain, and he thought, I have to hurry, otherwise, otherwise?

The more anxious I was, the more I couldn't think of a reason. The panic of the unknown made Wang Shiqi dive faster, and his fingers gradually disappeared into the darkness, which was underwater, a different world that humans still did not fully understand. The pressure of the water squeezed his chest painfully, and his ear drums were filled with the sound of muddy fluctuations. It's okay, he thought, dive, dive, dive, if I can find the box......

His fingers touched a hard burr. Be overjoyed.

The crate was half-buried in the sand, illuminated by a suspicious light. Wang Shiqi tried to lift the lid, but it seemed to be nailed to death, and he didn't move. What is it here? Wang Shiqi approached the gap between the wooden strips, and his whole face leaned up-

An eye suddenly flashed through the gap.

Wang Shiqi was so frightened that he stepped back, and the crate suddenly shook violently, as if someone was struggling frantically inside to knock the top cover open. A face was revealed in the cracks that gradually lifted - it was Zheng Yuan! Wang Shiqi was shocked, and tried to lift the lid with both hands and feet, but it was useless, it was useless no matter what, Zheng Yuan's face gradually turned pale, and the last trace of air was squeezed out of his alveoli. I can't die, I can't let Lao Zheng die, what can I do? Oxygen! That's right, oxygen! Wang Shiqi hurriedly took off the breathing regulator and wanted to stuff it into Zheng Yuan's mouth, but it was almost a little-

Suddenly, thunder exploded, and heavy rain poured down, and the strange rain pierced the water like bullets, stirring up a large amount of foam and flying sand at the bottom of the sea. Wang Shiqi was swept up by the surging current. Lao Zheng! He shouted silently, Zheng Yuan smiled at him, and large balls of blood suddenly appeared in his mouth.

Wang Shiqi woke up from his bed, and the hour hand pointed to four o'clock in the morning, which some studies said was the peak time for human suicide. Cut, what a shit dream, what a shit dive. He thought vaguely, and as he went to the bathroom to find a towel to wipe the sweat off his body, his neck and back were already soaked, as if he had really been fished out of the water.

As he passed by the guest bedroom, he reflexively glanced inside. Of course Zheng Yuan didn't die, he curled up in the milky white thin quilt, and the bright moonlight cast shadows on his body, like being pressed by a thin giant claw - it was his newly installed anti-theft window, and the aluminum alloy welding rod was added with barbed wire, which was impermeable. After coming out of the hospital, Wang Shiqi forcibly took Zheng Yuan back to his home, he remembered that Zheng Yuan walked over and stretched out his hand and shook it, his pale face turned around, his eyes did not look at him, nor did he look anywhere else.

"You're putting me in jail."

"Can you promise not to jump? I'll tear it down for you right now. ”

Zheng Yuan's body shook slightly, and he didn't speak again. That night, he slit his wrist with a knife for the first time. Wang Shiqi has also been at the scene of the murder for several years, but that day was a rare blood panic, after sending people to the hospital, he sat slumped by the door, wanted to light a cigarette for himself to smoke, shook the rope several times before lighting the fire, took two puffs and felt that the taste was wrong, and when he came back to his senses, he found that the filter was reversed. If Lao Zheng was next to him, he would definitely laugh at him: he usually brags so hard, he can't even say a word at a critical moment, and he will only scream nonsense when the doctor is not good.

You bastard with the surname Zheng. Wang Shiqi stared at the blood stains on his hands that turned hazel and thought: If you can't save it, I won't be alive.

Of course he was rescued, more than once. The wrists were covered with white gauze, and down were blood, scabs, warm flesh, and hard bones. The injury will always be healed, whether it is physical or mental, he can wait, and he can afford to wait.

Wang Shiqi breathed a sigh of relief outside the door, and was about to go back to the house, when the mobile phone in the living room suddenly rang sharply. He hurriedly ran to pick it up, and Xu Ye's sleepy voice came out of the earpiece: "Hey? Team Wang, I'm sorry to run again, well, drowning......"

"What?" Knowing that it had nothing to do with it, Wang Shiqi couldn't help but be surprised. Xu Ye was woken up by his suddenly raised voice: "Huh? You haven't slept yet, or are you already awake? ”

"You care about me." Wang Shiqi picked up the windbreaker on the sofa: "Tell me, what's the situation." ”

"Hey, what can be the situation, it's that there is a report here, saying that an old man drowned at home." Xu Ye cleared his throat: "Basically, the possibility of him being killed is ruled out, it is estimated that he drank too much wine and fell headlong and didn't get up." Wang Shiqi responded with a hmm, and while opening the door, he raised his foot and drove the little black back that came out of the fart back back to the living room: "Where did you die?" In the bathtub? ”

"I think too much, a poor old man, the house is not as big as a bathtub." Xu Ye smiled: "If you sit and die, you will have a basin of water." ”

***

Wang Shiqi's car turned off a hundred meters from the community where the incident occurred.

"! He! Big! Father! A pair of gray-faced leather shoes stepped out of the car with a scolding and swearing, followed by white jeans, a trench coat, a stubbled beard, cigarette butts stuck to chapped lips, and starry gray splashes. Xu Ye climbed down from the co-pilot, looking like he had just gotten off the roller coaster for the rest of his life: "I said Team Wang, can we drive slower next time, I can stand it, and the car can't stand it, you see-"

Wang Shiqi didn't reply, he walked over and opened the front cover, a puff of green smoke came up, he fiddled with a few handfuls, frowned and dropped the cigarette butt.

"Damn, let's throw it here first, and then find someone to drag it after watching the scene." He put his pockets in his pockets, strode forward, and then turned back and added: "Also, don't call me Team Wang." ”

This is the fifth month that Wang Shiqi has been demoted. The kidnapping case of Zheng Yuan and his wife brought him back to square one overnight - Xiao Ye died, Zheng Yuan did not die, half his life was gone, a group of people were played around by the murderer, and finally a cold case was unsolved, only a pile of photos of chopped corpses - he could still stay as a policeman, half insistence, half thick skin.

There is also a price, of course, it is not his turn to take a serious case, but instead it is a variety of miscellaneous affairs to wipe his ass: squatting, setting up cards, watching people, sorting out records, and similar to today: accidents, suicides, 99% of them have no doubts, and most of the responsible policemen are nervous, and they all think that they are the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, and they can see the unusual flaws from the ordinary scene, so they have to be handed over to the criminal police team. Wang Shiqi ran this kind of work four times a month, and the difference in mood was inevitable - after all, the most important thing at the suicide scene was blood and corpses, and he thought he had long been used to it, but in fact he didn't.

"Team Wang! There you are! Wang Shiqi stepped on the cordon with his front foot, and heard a energetic greeting with his back foot, and when he looked back, he saw a baby face on top of his straight police uniform, tender and flying, I didn't know if I thought I was going to shoot an idol drama. Seeing him catch up, Wang Shiqi's brows tightened even tighter: "Why are you all the time?" Examine...... Zhen ......"

"Zhen Jin! Zhen Jin, who is not afraid of fire, is real gold! He snapped and saluted, and within two seconds he lost his shape. Leaders are well educated – don't let go of any doubts. He smiled and leaned towards Wang Shiqi. If Team Wang is willing to take me......"

"Go, go, kid, wait until you apply for a job transfer and then post it upside down." Xu Ye took Zhen Jin away like a cat: "I said, I'm not welcome if you make trouble for us like this again, four times a month, the little girl fell down the stairs and said it was deliberate, and the old bachelor touched the electric door and you said it was deliberate, and what happened last time?" Oh yes, a woman fell from the windowsill and poked the tree, you still said it was deliberate, how did you say that......" Xu Ye pinched his throat and said in a strange tone: "This case is suspicious!" Although the murderer was not at the scene, he had already planned it! It's a murder in a closed room! ”

"That's, that's really suspicious! Active jumping off a building is a parabola, passive falling is a straight line, according to that landing point, it is impossible for her to jump off by herself! ”

"You kid can only see suspicions in his eyes, why didn't he read that the suicide note was written, and he stepped on a stool to go out, and his footprints and fingerprints all matched the trajectory of jumping off the building, but——"

"It's just that she regretted it at the last minute." Wang Shiqi raised his eyes, and the cement gray slab building surrounded a small patio, as if it was about to collapse towards people at any time. He went to the scene, and a dead sycamore tree poked on the ground, and the people in the street said that it was infected with insects, and the inside was already necrotic, and the crown had just been sawed off two days earlier, and only the blue-gray trunk was left to stab straight into the sky, and stabbed at the young body of twenty-one.

She was, of course, dead, dressed in a red dress, with her limbs bowed, pierced in half from her chest and abdomen, blood running down the rotten wood, like the prey of a great shrike. "I can't live anymore," she wrote in her short last words: "It's not interesting, no one loves me, no one wants me. A thousand mistakes, I shouldn't have touched the drugs, I'm already rotten, I'm sorry. 】

Then she stepped on the stool and held the armrest, crossing the line between life and death. The water of the River Styx had already soaked her instep, but she was suddenly frightened, and the outside of the balcony railing had left her scratches, and she struggled, and even pulled herself back at one point, but in the end she was still weak.

According to the autopsy report, she may have had a relapse of addiction at a critical moment. So she finally fell, opened her arms, and faced the tree that had died before her.

It's all rotten anyway, and so is the tree, and so is she.

The parents who came to collect the body did not shed a single tear. "I thought she was dead." The father's back was not messy, and he hurriedly glanced at the death certificate. Zhen Jin went out to talk to the deceased's mother, a businessman's family, an only child, and good conditions. "I don't know how to raise such a child, I gave her everything, anyway, she is disobedient and wants to learn badly. I can't do anything about it. ”

She ran away from home, went to nightclubs, met men, made drinking friends, got pregnant unexpectedly, got involved in drugs, had miscarriages, went into debt, and slid into the abyss on her own, as if no one was wrong except herself.

There is no way at all.

Wang Shiqi narrowed his eyes and looked at the corpse in front of him. A man, no longer young, with sparse silver threads on the top of his half-bald head, and a set of cotton pajamas made of brown and yellow plaid was as lackluster as his face—probably, Wang Shiqi thought, after all, that face was still soaked in water. The washbasin is placed on a wooden washbasin stand with a mirror in the middle, flanked by towels, soap, and razors, which were common in one-room single dormitories in the last century, and served as washbasins. The old man sat in front, there were not many traces of water on the floor, his hands hanging at his sides, and there were no signs of struggle. It was as if he got up to wash his face, and then suddenly gave up living.

Is he also helpless?

Zhen Jin seemed to have picked up Wang Shiqi's brainwaves, and began to talk endlessly: "The deceased Fan Jianguo, 60 years old, was a carporter, today was originally his big night, he didn't show up when he changed shifts, the people on duty in front of him happened to go back to his hometown today to mourn, he had to go anyway, and when he saw that no one answered the call, he went to the house to find someone, knocked on the door for a long time and didn't respond, and then climbed to the air window to see this, and called the police. ”

"I died in the middle of the night, and I really know how to pick the time." Xu Ye smacked his lips: "You said that there are thousands of ways to live in this world, and people of such an age can't think of committing suicide?" ”

"It's all said it's not suicide!" Zhen Jin jumped to his feet and interjected, and was scolded back by Xu Ye with his head: "It's not big, it's not small, talk well!" ”

"Are you all blind? The death is so strange, how can anyone commit suicide like this. And I found this as well. Zhen Jin knocked off Xu Ye's hand and took out a physical evidence bag, which contained a page of paper, probably torn from some notebook, with rough and sloppy handwriting, and a string without a beginning or an end:

“916357”

Wang Shiqi raised his eyebrows: "What is this?" ”

"Yes, yes, yes! I'll just say that's wrong! Zhen Jin cleared his throat, and his voice suddenly rose because of excitement: "Maybe it's some encryption code!" There is a hint of the murderer's information in it! ”

"A hint at your sister's message." Xu Ye pointed around: "Smell this wine, look at the wine bottle under the bed, the person who found the body said, this old man has no other hobbies, just alcoholism, he has been in the hospital twice, and he shouts liver pain every day and has no money to treat it, and it is normal to die once." And I checked, he has no other relatives, just a daughter. Do you want to gamble a hundred yuan, this is his passbook password, keep it for his daughter to take. ”

"Bet on it, who is afraid of whom!" Zhen Jin pouted unconvinced: "Team Wang, what do you say?" ”

Wang Shiqi touched the evidence bag and did not speak.