Animal Detective

Chapter 230 - 224: A Fool’s Life Isn’t a Life?

"Asking me for help?"

Shen Xin was stunned. He almost blurted out, ’You’re a deputy chief from a metropolis of ten million people. What could you possibly need my help with?’

But then, he realized.

"Liu Zhi, are you talking about training police dogs?"

’That had to be it.’ He recalled his last trip to Pingyu, when they’d had a meal by the lake and specifically discussed his short videos and his work training police dogs.

’But if I remember correctly,’ Shen Xin thought, ’Pingyu has two K-9 bases. They should have enough dogs.’

Liu Jie shook his head. "It’s not about police dogs."

Then, his tone shifted as he added, "Of course, if you were willing to come to Pingyu to train our police dogs, I certainly wouldn’t object."

He’d done his homework; Shen Xin’s skill with police dogs was second to none.

AHEM!

Lv Youwei coughed loudly, cutting Liu Jie off. "Liu Zhi, let’s stick to the matter at hand."

’If the Pingyu police poach Shen Xin, Zhao Hongjie will have my hide.’

Liu Jie smiled and gestured for Shen Xin to sit down. "Here’s the situation. There’s a case I’d like your help with."

As he spoke, he pulled a case file from his bag and handed it over.

"Take a look first, just to get the gist of it. And this isn’t an official order. Think of it as me asking you for a personal favor," he added.

’In other words, I can refuse if I want to.’

Shen Xin took the case file automatically, his confusion deepening.

’A case from Pingyu... and they’re asking for my help? That doesn’t make sense.’

Of course, police from different cities could collaborate.

But that was usually when you had a case where the suspect fled to another city, and you requested their assistance.

That wasn’t what was happening here.

This was Pingyu asking for his help with a case *they* couldn’t solve.

As he’d taken the file, Shen Xin had glimpsed the date: 2012.

’A six-year-old case. It has to be a cold case.’

If that was true, this was highly unusual.

First, there was the matter of jurisdiction.

This case belonged to Pingyu. Even if they couldn’t solve it and it went cold, it was still their responsibility.

Of course, a special task force could be formed, drawing elite officers from other cities to collaborate on the case.

But that kind of situation would typically require the provincial department to officially take charge of the investigation.

This case was clearly not that.

Even in such a scenario, the transferred specialists or the experts sent down from the provincial department would only act in an advisory capacity.

The actual legwork still had to be done by the local police.

In practice, things were even more complicated.

The core issue was pride. While the saying goes "let the capable handle it," no one is a saint. Having to ask an outsider for help with a case in your own jurisdiction would make you look utterly incompetent.

Never mind the rank and file; even the leadership wouldn’t likely agree to it.

So, at that moment, Shen Xin was truly baffled, with no idea what was going on.

’I hope this isn’t some kind of trap.’

So Shen Xin glanced toward Lv Youwei.

’Chief, give me some kind of sign here.’

Lv Youwei read Shen Xin’s expression and inwardly cursed him for a sly fox. "Xiaoshen," he said, "Liu Zhi went to the trouble of making a special trip all the way here. Just look at the file first. If you can help him, great. If you can’t, that’s fine too."

With that, Shen Xin understood.

’It means I have to give him face, but we’ll decide later whether I’ll actually help.’

"Alright, Liu Zhi. I’ll take a look then."

Shen Xin sat down and opened the file.

A homicide.

The incident occurred on July 13, 2012.

The location was Wuba Village in Qingyuan Town, Songling District, under the jurisdiction of Pingyu.

At 9:40 AM that day, the Qingyuan Town Police Station received a report.

The reporting party was a woman named Luo Limei.

She was 58 years old and had come to the station in person to report that her son, Han Xiaolong, had been missing for more than a day.

The officer who took the report was Zhao Peizhu.

The file contained the initial report. Shen Xin immediately saw that Luo Limei stated her son, Han Xiaolong, had fallen ill with meningitis as a child. A delay in getting him to the hospital had left him with an intellectual disability.

Luo Limei’s family was not well-off. She and her husband had gone to great lengths to find a cure for their son, but to no avail, and they spent all their money in the process.

To make matters worse, her husband was killed in an accident at the factory where he worked, getting caught in the machinery.

The factory owner insisted the accident was due to her husband’s improper operation.

They ended up suing. The court ruled that the owner was thirty percent responsible and ordered a token compensation of 130,000 yuan.

That little bit of money was quickly spent on funeral arrangements and her son’s medical expenses.

Luo Limei painstakingly raised her child. By the time he went missing, Han Xiaolong was 33 years old.

The report noted that Zhao Peizhu had asked Luo Limei if Han Xiaolong had a history of wandering off by himself.

Luo Limei replied that it was rare; he usually stayed within the village.

The police station then dispatched officers to canvass Wuba Village and check surveillance footage from the surrounding area.

This was back in 2012. Even cities had surveillance blind spots, to say nothing of a rural village.

The only camera was on a utility pole at the village entrance, on the north side, covering a relatively wide concrete road leading into the village.

It faced away from the village and had no night-vision capabilities.

At night, any footage relied solely on the illumination from a streetlight on the same pole, so the video quality was limited.

They checked the footage but found nothing.

After a full day of searching, they still hadn’t found him.

The police station expanded the search to several neighboring villages, but still found nothing.

At the time, they suspected Han Xiaolong might have had an accident, so they searched all the nooks and crannies on the outskirts of the village.

They also conducted a search along the river south of the village, again with no results.

It wasn’t until the morning of the 14th, while officers were canvassing the village, that one of them happened to notice a well near a path on the village’s east side.

Upon asking, they learned it was an old well, dug back during the collectivization era.

The villagers used to rely on this well for their drinking water.

Later, after the village got running water and the well’s groundwater became contaminated, it gradually fell out of use and was covered with a concrete slab.