At the moment when he was about to push open the door, a sudden "pop" sound came from the backyard, crisp but not melodious.

If there are some occasions, the most afraid of the air suddenly quiet, but at this time, in fact, the most afraid of suddenly any abnormal noise.

The sound of a tile falling to the ground and breaking came from the backyard, Ran Xiaoke held his breath and suddenly pushed the wooden door open......

In a small courtyard of ten square meters, there is nothing but a piece of broken tile falling to the base of the wall, next to a walnut tree with a thick bowl mouth and a straight walnut tree, and a dilapidated wooden swing is tied between the two trees. Nearby, a walnut tree grew diagonally against the wall, sticking out of the wall, and a few rotten walnuts hung faintly. The fence near the slanting walnut tree was completely missing a piece of green tile......

Ran Xiaoke strode forward, striding towards the walnut tree, his right foot on the slanted trunk and his body up, his hand propped up to the wall, half of his body exposed the wall.

I saw that the man I had seen at the door of the bar, still wearing a black shirt and a baseball cap, was jumping into the Jeep SUV parked in the back street, without a license plate, and the SUV was immediately started and accelerated away, like a wild horse that has escaped from the dust.

Let him run away again, Ran Xiaoke thought.

"Master, you pay attention to safety", Zhao Yixin answered below.

"It's fine".

Ran Xiaoke came down from the wall, Ran Xiaoke looked around the backyard, in addition to the courtyard scene, there were two bedrooms and a bathroom around the backyard.

The two continued their search, and first came to the smaller bedroom, which was full of dust, only a bed, a table, and a cabinet, and there was not even cotton wool on the bed, and the cabinet was empty. Nothing......

The two of them then came to the larger bedroom, which was still a bed, a table and a cabinet, very simple, still empty, but ......

There was a yellowed newspaper lying upright on the table......

The two of them came to the table and took a closer look.

"Shancheng Daily, published on February 16, 1999", Zhao Yixin said while watching, and suddenly his voice became louder, "Master, isn't February 16, 1999 the last month and day of the province 990216?" ”

"Yes, it's indeed the mailbox password that the sunspot man gave us, what does it represent, take a look at the content of the newspaper", Ran Xiaoke said.

Zhao Yixin flipped through the newspaper.

The front page was a report on the activities of the city's leaders, and no relevant information was found; The second edition is an agricultural and rural channel, and no associated information was found; The third edition is a social channel, writing some miscellaneous things, and I didn't find anything obviously related......

The two focused on the fourth edition, the Ethics and Rule of Law Channel.

The eyes of the two were fixed on the bottom of the fourth page of the newspaper, the atmosphere was silent for a moment, the air froze, and after reading the content, the two looked at each other......

"Let's go, he's already told us what he wants to tell us," Ran Xiaoke said.

"Hmm," Zhao Yixin replied.

The two walked out of the shop and bathed in the sunshine again, but with a touch of sentimentality.

Ran Xiaoke turned around and looked at the "He Ji Noodle Shop" again, reminding him of the family photos on the wall, the walnut trees in the backyard, and the swings among the walnut trees......

The fourth page of the newspaper told him the story of what had happened in this place......

The gist is as follows: It was February 16, 1999, the first day of the first month, most of the shops on the street were opened by outsiders, basically closed back to their hometown, the owner of this "He Ji Noodle Restaurant" is still in the store after Chinese New Year's Eve, early in the morning of the new year, the family is ready to take a car to the city to visit the temple fair, happy, but the boy feels cold because he gets up in the morning, and the daughter is clamoring to go to the temple fair, the husband and wife discuss, the husband takes care of the son at home, the daughter-in-law takes the little daughter to visit the temple fair, and by the way buys a few clothes for everyone, I'm usually busy with the business of the store, so it's time to adjust and take a break.

Mother with her daughter in front of the store waiting for the city traffic car, left and right, how not to see, is worried, a truck from the end of the road slowly driven, weekdays to the factory to pull goods such trucks too much, occasionally the locals will also hitchhike to the city, the mother habitually beckoned to hitchhike.

The truck really stopped, and the mother pulled her little daughter out of the window and asked the truck driver, "Do you want to go to the city, can you take a ride?" The truck driver said he was passing through the city and agreed to give them a ride.

The mother took her little daughter and said thank you before getting into the car, sat in the passenger seat, and stretched out her hand to wave goodbye to her husband and son who were standing in front of the store, saying that they would be back in the evening.

The son Chinese New Year's Eve caught a cold at night, shivered in the cold wind, waved goodbye to his mother and sister, and looked at the van that was gradually moving away, no one knew that he had never seen his mother and sister again......

The newspaper also said that the mother and daughter went to the city to visit the temple fair for many days and did not return, the husband asked people everywhere to look for them, and after calling the police, the police at that time also searched in many ways, but there was no news for a long time, and their lives and deaths were uncertain...... The police visited and investigated all kinds of things, but no one knew who was still running the car on the first day of the Lunar New Year, and who the truck driver was has always been a mystery......

In the minds of the husband and son, although they are unwilling to accept this fact, they also know that there is more bad luck than good luck.

This incident made the husband blame himself deeply, blaming himself for not stopping them from taking the regular transportation car, and blaming himself for not taking his son to the city with him...... His will grew weaker......

That's probably what the newspapers say.

Ran Xiaoke knew in his heart that the black man was the boy in the story, he was seven or eight years old, twenty years have passed, and now he is twenty-seven or eighteen, which is consistent with the age of the man in black......

"This may be the root cause of the successive killings of truck drivers," Mr. Ran told Mr. Zhao.

"Why did the murdered truck driver have a D-shaped tattoo on his left forearm? Including Lao Du, too", Zhao Yixin asked.

"Yes, these mysteries are waiting for us to solve, the closer we are to the answer, the closer we are to the truth," Ran Xiaoke said to Zhao Yixin.

Many times, Ran Xiaoke's casual words are always moisturizing things and silently teaching Zhao Yixin some knowledge, or rules. In Ran Xiaoke's view, solving cases is a science, and there are also rules to follow, and if he wants to be a good teacher, he must plant subtle seeds in the knowledge base of his apprentices.

"Back to the criminal investigation", Ran Xiaoke threw the car keys to Zhao Yixin.

Zhao Yixin picked up the key thrown over, "Go to you."