The name of Fandel Lane sounds charming, but it is actually a narrow and dirty old alley in the old town.

It is said that at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was a fireworks street, so it got such a name, and later the Japanese invaded, and the people in the large and small restaurants in Fandai Lane were scattered, and this place gradually decayed, and became a place for peddlers and pawns.

In the sixties and seventies, it became a "ghost market" for citizens to barter.

Because the house is old, the transportation is inconvenient, and the rent is cheap, it has always been a gathering place for all kinds of people, and it is also one of the worst places in the center of the city.

The first person to report the loss of the pot was the owner of the "Big Bowl" noodle restaurant in Fandai Lane.

Big bowl noodle restaurants are famous in the alleys, not because they taste good, but because they are cheap and affordable.

Their signboard says there are three types of noodles – eggplant and pork noodles, shrimp and egg noodles, but they actually only sell one type of noodles, and the name of the noodles is "Boss Lai Bowl Noodles".

Every noon, some of the god-like odd workers will walk into the noodle shop, and they usually shout "Boss come to the bowl of noodles", and then the boss will bring a bowl of hot noodles.

Two green vegetables in the noodles are standard, as for the other marinades, sometimes it is a few eggplants floating around, sometimes it is two tomatoes or cabbage leaves from the boiling pot, if you can find shredded meat in the noodles, then the person who eats is estimated to have good luck all day.

But the big bowl of noodles is still popular every day because it is affordable and the price has not risen since eight years ago, at five yuan a bowl. That's why part-time workers and vendors come here to eat noodles almost every day at noon.

There are only eight seats in the noodle restaurant, so most people squat or stand in the alley, holding a big bowl of steaming noodles, snoring and eating, putting the bowl in the dishwashing basin and then going their separate ways.

The noodle shop owner's surname is Niu, and the ground of the noodle shop is the cow boss's house.

Boss Niu gets up every morning to go to the market to buy vegetables, cleans up the store in the morning, prepares the noodles and materials, lights the fire and cooks the soup, opens at half past ten, closes at twelve o'clock in the evening, and the business has been very hot.

Boss Niu has a large pot for cooking noodles, which is said to have been handed down by his grandfather. The pot is a cast iron pot, and it is said that the noodles boiled are particularly chewy.

Every time after closing at night, Boss Niu brushes the pot well, reheats it and boils it dry, and finally smears it with a thin layer of oil, so that the pot will not rust.

But one morning a month ago, when Boss Niu came to the noodle restaurant, he found that the lock on the door had been picked.

There is nothing of value in the noodle shop, and in general, the cow boss will leave some change in the drawer for the next day.

He hurriedly entered the door and opened the drawer, and found that there was not a penny of change, and the table, chair and bench had not been moved.

He walked into the kitchen, only to find that the ancestral iron pot had been pried off the stove and stolen.

Boss Niu was furious, the pot was the ancestral treasure of the Niu family, he was immediately furious, locked the door and ran to the police station to report to the police.

It stands to reason that an iron pot is not worth much, but Boss Niu believes that this pot "has a history and is considered a cultural relic", and its value is far more than those ordinary iron pots. So Lin Ying asked Shi Chong to investigate the case, but she didn't know if she didn't investigate, and after a check, she found out that in fact, this pot thief was not just the first time to commit a crime.

Whether it is the braised meat shop in the city, the house on the construction site, or the canteen in the factory, seven or eight pots have been stolen in the past half month, but these places feel that a pot is not worth making a fuss, and some still think that they have offended people or been pranked, so they have not called the police.

This incident made the police very embarrassed, saying that it was a serial theft, but the thieves did not hurt anyone, and second, they did not steal items of high value; It is a small case, but the frequency of thieves stealing is very high, after all, it has also caused some economic losses.

Therefore, after the final meeting of the criminal police team, it was decided to let Shi Chong be in charge of this strange serial case as a commissioner, and specially notified the streets through various police stations, especially those places with large iron pots, to prepare for theft.

The wind became tense for a while, and many streets posted warnings against thieves and burglars.

Who knew that the "backpot man" didn't care and continued his career of stealing pots, and this person was elusive and had never been witnessed or photographed by surveillance.

The pursuit of Shen Yu and I in the alley of Renjiwu was the first time that anyone had seen his true face.

Shi Chong was very excited about Shen Yu's choice to take the blame for the case, he had been worried about this case for two months, and now it seems that he has finally ushered in a turning point, and he handed over all the files he sorted out to Shen Yu. Shen Yu frowned and shook her head after reading it, so she applied to pull me over and asked me to read the file too.

"You have the ability to never forget, and with you, you can even save the time of scanning." She said.

I had no choice but to look through the files in the archives, and Shi Chong helped Shen Yu find a large map of Weiyang City, and Shen Yu took the map and looked at it carefully.

"This case shouldn't be difficult, right?" I asked, "If you steal so many pots, you always leave a lot of clues, right?" ”

"You're wrong, this case is very difficult. It's not terrible that the case is illogical, it's terrible that every detail is illogical. Shen Yu said as he marked on the map, "And his modus operandi seems to be clumsy, but he is actually very clever, he has committed so many crimes, but in fact, he has not left any valuable clues at all." And stealing the pot is a thankless thing, and besides, if he really wanders around the street with such a big pot on his back like the one we witnessed, how can no one find out for so long? ”

"That's right, carrying a pot on your back is really conspicuous enough - what are you doing?"

"I'm analyzing where his next pot steal is." Shen Yu said.

"But what I'm thinking about is what he's stealing the pot for." I say.

Shen Yu didn't seem to hear me, because she had already marked the location of the thief on the map with a marker.

I was surprised to find out that the person who betrayed the pot did not choose the location of the theft at random, because although the distribution of the points marked by Shen Yu was not uniform, it looked very familiar.

So far, the backstabber has committed eight cases one after another, and seven of them have known the identity of the owner. But the iron pot in the eighth case, the one I picked up when I was chasing the thief, I don't know whose it is, and no one has reported it.

"Seven cases of stealing pots have not been discovered, why was it the last time it was discovered, and it was discovered by the two of us?" I suddenly thought of this and wondered.

"It shows that others think this is a meaningless case, so God is destined to make it my turn to solve it." Shen Yu said.

I remember that she smiled back at me in a rare way. Yes, I didn't want to do anything here, but she did smile at me, and it wasn't the same smile she used to smile with so much pride and confidence, but so calm and soft.

In any case, the owner of the pot in Renji Lane still has to find out, so I naturally have to ask Shi Chong for help.

Although Shi Chong is a snot essence, he is still very quick to do anything to him. He immediately called the police station in the jurisdiction of Renji Lane, and asked him to visit the neighborhood committee of the neighborhood to inquire if anyone had lost the pot.

The work efficiency of the community police is high, but the efficiency of the aunt of the neighborhood committee seems to be better. It was only half a day later that Shi Chong received feedback that none of the tenants in Renji Lane had ever lost a pot, not only had they never lost a pot, but they had never even used such a large pot.

"Such a big pot is used by the army to boil pig dishes, right?"

"That's it, there are only a few people in our family, and the cooking made in that pot can be eaten by the whole alley!"

The aunt of the neighborhood committee called and told Shi Chong about the feedback of the visit, and then this guy relayed it to us word for word.

"The community around Renji Lane doesn't have anyone who loses the pot anyway, is it from other nearby communities?" I asked Shen Yudao.

"No way," she quickly concluded, "you see we're surrounded by densely populated neighborhoods, and we're not eating early or late." Judging from his previous stealing of pots, he chose to do it in the dead of night, and there was no need for him to steal from another place, and then carry a cauldron to Renji Lane when people came and went - unless, he had a special purpose. ”

"For what purpose?"

Before Shen Yu could answer, her mobile phone rang.