Bird on Fire Chapter 9

After the two policemen finished making the model, they walked over to Grant Gu and whispered, "Your mission is complete, you can leave. Also, don't discuss the case while on duty in the future, as it will expose your identity."

It seems that although Feng Kai did not hear what Grant Gu said, the two old police officers heard it clearly. Grant Gu was nervous for a moment, his face flushed, but he did not know how to refute or explain, and he said "I" for a long time without saying the second word.

The two policemen turned and left, but Feng Kai didn't care. He asked Grant Gu to change clothes together, and walked out of the main entrance of the bathhouse. He left amid the accusations and insults of the people in the queue.

3

Taking a hot bath in winter and feeling the cool breeze can be said to be refreshing.

Back at the Criminal Investigation Division, there was no one in the division. It seemed that Section Mark Chief was not lying. Everyone, regardless of age, was busy. Grant Gu changed into his police uniform, took a copy of the "Municipal Public Security Bureau Archives Management Regulations" from Section Mark Chief's bookshelf, sat down at his seat, and took notes while reading. Feng Kai had no new tasks to do, and was bored. He sat and stood for a while, not knowing what to do.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Feng Kai slumped in his seat, swinging his legs.

"It's what I just told you."

"Ah? What did you just tell me?"

"It's about the working girls."

"Oh, you're still thinking about that."

"I want to check the files to see if I'm remembering it wrong."

"Then go ahead."

"I'm looking at the review procedure. It's quite troublesome." Grant Gu said as he flipped through the regulations.

"What's the program? You just follow the instructions and you may not see the result in a week." Feng Kai suddenly found something to do. He jumped up and pulled Grant Gu up. Before they reached the door, Feng Kai turned back and pointed at a clay pot under Mark Chief's desk and asked, "What is this? It's not a urinal, right? Why is it so warm?"

Grant Gu asked in astonishment: "Are you stupid? This is a cupping jar."

In those days, because there was no heating in the south, in winter, people would light a stove with a chimney in the middle of the office to keep warm. Because the office was large, a small stove had limited heating capacity, so some people would bring a clay pot from home, put ash under the pot, put burning charcoal in the middle, and cover it with another layer of ash. In this way, the charcoal in the pot could burn slowly and maintain local heating for nearly a day. Tyler Tao had been pampered since he was a child, so of course he had never seen such things in the 1970s.

"Good stuff, take it." Feng Kai said.

"But this is Chief Mouko's."

"Who cares?"

The Public Security Bureau's archives room is located in a red brick bungalow next to the main building of the Public Security Bureau and is managed by a middle-aged female police officer from the Archives Department.

"Hello, sister. You've worked hard. It's so cold and there's no heating in your room. It must be very painful." Feng Kai started chatting as soon as he entered the room.

"Hey, are you two new here? You look unfamiliar." The elder sister looked at the two and said with a smile, "You are right, this leader really has no sympathy for people. My feet are numb from the cold."

"We all have stoves in our building. I know you can't have a fire in your archive room, so I brought you a cupping jar. It's better than nothing." Feng Kai put the cupping jar at his elder sister's feet.

"This kid is really good at handling things." The elder sister touched the cupping jar with her foot and said happily, "How could you think of mine?"

"Well, our Criminal Investigation Department is here to check some files, I can't come empty-handed." Feng Kai grinned.

"Where are the procedures?" The elder sister stretched out her cotton-gloved hand.

"It's like this, this case is quite urgent, our Section Mark Chief is out on another case, so we can't go through the formalities." Feng Kai smiled and said, "How is this cupping jar?"

The elder sister smiled and glanced at Feng Kai, saying, "If you don't have the necessary documents, you can't borrow it. If you want to read it here, I can make an exception."

"Just watch it here." Grant Gu immediately interrupted.

Feng Kai originally thought it was a simple matter, but he did not expect that it would become a difficult matter because there was almost no file management at the time. The files in the archives room were piled up like a mountain, and they were not filed according to date or number. In other words, Grant Gu needed to find his target file in the mountain of files, which was really difficult.

The two of them kept looking until the end of the working day, but still hadn't found the door. So Feng Kai went to the elder sister and flattered her, finally getting her to agree to let them stay and continue looking, and he helped her lock the door after they were done.

Soon, Feng Kai fell asleep in the pile of files. He didn't know how long he slept before he was woken up by Grant Gu. Grant Gu was holding a file in his hand, and it was obvious that he had found it.

"Look, the heaviest indentation is indeed on the first plantar area. If I remember correctly, this should be a shoe print of the right foot." Grant Gu said, holding the black-and-white photo in the file. "Unfortunately, I don't have a horseshoe mirror, so I can't enlarge the photo. I also don't know where the female worker's shoes went, so I can't confirm that this is not the female worker's shoe print."

Feng Kai didn't understand what Grant Gu was saying when he was taking a shower, and he couldn't understand it now, so he asked, "The deceased's clothes are important evidence, they shouldn't be lost, right?"

Just after he finished speaking, Feng Kai realized that he was confused in his sleep. In this era, there is no awareness of preserving physical evidence. This room is just an archive room. It is so messy that it is impossible to build a special evidence room to store the physical evidence of so many cases.

"The transcript says that the deceased's clothes were thrown into the crematorium's storage room, in a blue snakeskin bag." Grant Gu flipped through the files and said, "If only the crematorium hadn't cleaned up the pile of debris in the past six months."

"Do you really want to find him?" Feng Kai asked, "Why would you meddle in a case that has nothing to do with you?"

Grant Gu looked at Feng Kai, seemed a little angry, and said nothing.

Feng Kai saw that he was a little angry, so he patted his shoulder and explained: "I mean, the leaders didn't agree for you to handle this case, you can't do it yourself, right?"

"I thought that if we could find solid clues, the leaders would agree." Grant Gu stared at the photo in the file with some frustration.

The two of them didn't know what to do for a moment. The air was silent for a while. Suddenly, Mark Chief's voice came from the office building: "Where is my cupping jar? Which B@st@ard took my cupping jar?"

"It's already ten o'clock, why is Section Mark Chief still in the office?" Grant Gu said, looking at his watch.

"Go, go to the dormitory at the back and call those two little B@st@ards over to me." Mark Chief's powerful voice came again.

Feng Kai and Grant Gu quickly fled the archives room and ran back to the Criminal Investigation Department. Feng Kai said, "Don't shout, don't shout, your voice is so loud, even louder than a loudspeaker."

"Did you, little B@st@ard, steal my cupping jar?" asked Mark Chief.

"What is cupping? What is cupping?" Feng Kai began to play dumb. But Grant Gu's face was already red and he couldn't speak. Feng Kai thought this was such a bad teammate and quickly changed the subject: "Aren't you going to bed so late?"

"Sleep your a** off." Mark Chief threw the two Type 54 pistols in his hand over and said, "Someone is shooting, hurry to the scene."

This was exciting. On their first day at work, they not only carried out a mysterious mission, but also encountered a shooting. Feng Kai quickly took the gun, put it on his waist, and grabbed a handful of bullets from the barrel and stuffed them into his pocket. Grant Gu also followed Feng Kai's example, took the pistol and grabbed a handful of bullets, but his hands were shaking constantly and he looked very nervous. Feng Kai was very excited. This was the feeling of being a policeman, unlike in modern times, where you have to go through so many procedures to get a gun, and every bullet has to be registered!

Shootings are extremely rare in my country. Even if no one is killed or injured, they are still major cases in any era. Feng Kai, who was sitting in the jeep, now felt this deeply. It is said that this Beijing jeep is the only car in the whole system, and it is not allowed to move unless it is a particularly urgent task. At this time, they were sitting in the Beijing jeep with Mark Chief, which was more precious than sitting in a Bentley or Maserati in modern times.

Sitting in the car, they listened to Mark Chief introduce the case in the most concise language. A girl in her twenties who worked in a textile factory had been in love with a gangster before, but later found that the gangster was stealing and behaving improperly, so she proposed to break up. Tonight, the girl was on duty at the factory. When her father was about to go to bed at home, he heard a noise in the girl's room, so he rushed into the girl's room with a kitchen knife. Sure enough, it was the gangster in the girl's room. Maybe the gangster came in through the window to ask the girl to reconcile, but he didn't expect the girl was not at home, and was caught by the girl's father. So the gangster fled the girl's house, and the girl's father chased after him with a kitchen knife. Unexpectedly, the gangster suddenly turned around and made a gesture to the old man, and then the old man heard two "bangs".

The old man didn't realize the danger and kept chasing him while shouting, "You little B@st@ard, are you trying to scare me with firecrackers?"

Because of exhaustion, the old man didn't catch up with the gangsters, but when he returned to his home, he found two bullet holes on his door frame. It seemed that the gangsters didn't just use firecrackers to scare people, but they really had guns, so the old man called the police.

"First, let's see what kind of gun it is and whether it is a homemade gun." Mark Chief, who had lost the cupping jar, was a little angry. He started yelling when he arrived at the scene, and the wrinkles on his face became more dense.

Under the guidance of the girl's father, Grant Gu found the shell and dug out the bullet from the wooden door frame. He walked to Section Mark Chief with the bullet and shell and said, "Mu, Mu, Section Mark Chief."

"Just say it directly." Mark Chiefko was anxious.

"It's a 7.62mm bullet, yes, it's a standard gun

(3)

"Grant Gu directly stated the result.

"A**h0le! Check the Public Security Bureau, the security departments of each unit, and the garrison troops. Which B@st@ard lost even his gun at the end of the year?" Section Mark Chief yelled to the people behind him.

It turns out that even the people in the enterprise security department are equipped with guns in this era. That is really too unsafe. Feng Kai thought about it and patted Grant Gu on the shoulder and said, "He is not good at shooting, but he recognizes bullets very quickly."

"This is the content of the trace inspection profession." Grant Gu said, "Hands, feet, work, guns, special

(4)

, five trace tests. You see, if you shoot from here and hit the door frame, this trajectory should be a Type 54."

"Great." Feng Kai gave a thumbs up, then turned to Mark Chief and asked, "Old man, what should we do next?"

"What should we do? Go after them!" Mark Chief pointed to the route the gangsters took to escape and said, "Follow this road."

"How can we chase him? It's been an hour." Feng Kai shrugged and said, "What if we reach a fork in the road? How can I know where he's going?"

"Then find a way to check it. Anyway, you have to find the gun for me before tomorrow." Section Mark Chief glared at him and said, "Don't bring shame to your Ministry of Public Security Police Cadre School."

Feng Kai was speechless for a moment. Why would he bring up his alma mater just because of a disagreement?

Mark Chief led his men to find the source of the guns in a hurry, after all, it involved several units equipped with guns. Feng Kai and Grant Gu stayed at the scene to look for clues. At this time, the girl in question came back from work, and Feng Kai asked her and her father about this and that. Grant Gu interrupted the old man from time to time, asking him to lift his feet to look at the pattern on his soles, and said while looking: "The forefoot is wavy, the middle is square, and the heel is horizontal stripes. Well, the other shoe prints found at the scene are from criminals, and the sole patterns are not common."

After questioning by Feng Kai, the girl and her father briefly described the suspect's situation.

The suspect is Duan Qiang, 25 years old, who used to be a worker at a brick factory in the suburbs of the city. However, he was idle and liked to steal and cheat, and was fired from the brick factory not long ago. The girl met Duan Qiang through an acquaintance, and after getting to know him, she proposed to break up with him. Duan Qiang thought that he was fired, so the girl wanted to abandon him, so he harassed the girl many times.

"Because none of his relatives or friends work in gun-carrying units, and he has a history of theft, it is preliminarily determined that Duan Qiang's gun was stolen. Duan Qiang's parents are both old employees of the brick factory. After Duan Qiang was fired, they almost turned against him, so it is impossible for Duan Qiang to go home after escaping. Since Duan Qiang went to steal things, and he had been fired for several days, it means that he is very likely to have no money on him, and he cannot leave Longfan without money." When Feng Kai left the scene, he looked at the sky and said, "The weather is not good, it is snowing."

"It's a blessing that it's snowing." Grant Gu muttered, "It's easy to leave shoe prints on the ground."

"What's the use of your shoe prints?" Feng Kai said, "Are you really imitating the scouts of the past and following the shoe prints to track?"

Grant Gu looked at the thin layer of snow on the concrete road beneath his feet, stepped on it, and looked carefully.

"They gave us the addresses of Duan Qiang's six cronies. Should we go door to door?" Feng Kai touched the pistol on his waist and said, "It's a pity that without a bulletproof vest, it's not worth getting shot unexpectedly."

"You have to go." Grant Gu took off his police hat and brushed off the snowflakes on it, and said, "Is there any clothing that is bulletproof?"

"Don't worry, there is a shortcut, there is a shortcut." Feng Kai walked under a roof, squatted down, frowned and looked at the list, and said, "Duan Qiang got into such a big trouble, it's too unsafe to hide in Longfan. If I were him, my first reaction would be to run away, the farther the better. In this era, if you want to escape, you can either take a train or a long-distance bus. The train station has arranged personnel to set up surveillance, and long-distance buses may take people along the way, so he can only take a bus. But the bus ticket is very expensive, Duan Qiang must borrow some money. Among these six friends, only Mao Tyler Tao has a stable job and income. If I were Duan Qiang, my first reaction would definitely be to go to Mao Tyler Tao to borrow money."

"But if we ask along the way according to these six addresses, Mao Tyler Tao's home is the farthest," said Grant Gu.

"So, analysis is a shortcut," Feng Kai said. "Just keep looking for Mao Tyler Tao's house until dawn."

"But what if he's hiding in the houses ahead?"

"Asking every household is not only a waste of time, but also very dangerous." Feng Kai argued, "Maybe someone will tip us off after we ask the first one. There are only two of us. What if we get ambushed?"

Grant Gu had no idea, so he agreed to Feng Kai's idea. The two of them braved the snow and walked to Mao Tyler Tao's home, which was five kilometers away.

"We've used up all our strength walking over there. What if Duan Qiang is really at Mao Tyler Tao's house? We're so tired and exhausted. Wouldn't we be at a disadvantage if we fight him?" Feng Kai complained.

"It would be nice to have a bicycle." said Grant Gu.

Feng Kai rolled his eyes at Grant Gu and thought to himself, you are really promising.

It was already midnight, and there were almost no pedestrians on the street. The street lights on the main roads were dim, and there were only sporadic lights in the houses on the roadside.

The walking speed was affected by the snow, and it took Feng Kai and Grant Gu an hour to reach Mao Tyler Tao's home. It was already past one o'clock in the morning.

Mao Tyler Tao's home was a small courtyard with a closed gate and no light inside. Feng Kai stood outside the courtyard wall, looking left and right, but couldn't find a place to climb over the wall, so he said: "There is no way, I don't know if Duan Qiang is inside. If I rush in, it will be considered a nuisance; if I knock on the door, I am afraid of being ambushed. How about this, I will knock on the door first, and I will be the human sandbag, and you will cover me with a gun from behind."

Feng Kai knew that in the middle of the night when no one could be found on the street, and in this era when even a phone call could not be found, and he did not know whether Duan Qiang was inside, it was impossible to notify Section Mark Chief to bring people to support him in time. In order to prevent Duan Qiang from escaping at night, it was too unsafe to follow him here, so he could only take the risk and try it himself.

Feng Kai was about to knock on the door when he was stopped by Grant Gu.

"Don't be anxious, just look at the shoe prints." Grant Gu said, squatting on the ground.

"I don't understand. Just tell me the result."

"Duan Qiang is really here. His shoes are quite distinctive. On them are..."

Feng Kai interrupted Grant Gu, took out his pistol, and said, "That's easy, just charge."

"Don't worry." Grant Gu said, "The owner of this shoe print only appeared at the door, and then turned around and left. No, he talked to the owner of the other shoe print at the door, and then turned around and left."

Feng Kai was delighted. His analysis was good. Duan Qiang must have come to borrow money. So there was no need for him to hide in the house. Since the footprints explained the problem, he could ask Mao Tyler Tao where Duan Qiang went and track him down. With the footprints, Mao Tyler Tao couldn't deny it.

"Then can you find him based on his characteristic footprints?" Feng Kai rolled his eyes and squatted down.

Grant Gu looked into the distance and said, "This is under the eaves, so there is little snow and the footprints are preserved. If we follow the footprints, it will be broken in a short time because the snow is so heavy outside because the footprints will be covered by snow."

"Then I know. The only way is to pry open Mao Tyler Tao's mouth." Feng Kai said. "Can it be pried open? They seem to be close friends."

"There aren't so many rules, it's simple." Feng Kai said with a smirk.

His words made Grant Gu feel confused.

4

Mao Tyler Tao opened the door sleepily and angrily, obviously having strong resistance to the public security personnel.

"I heard that you have a job. If you harbor a fugitive, you will lose your job immediately." Feng Kai walked into Mao Tyler Tao's courtyard and said, "You lent money to Duan Qiang, which is harboring a fugitive."

Mao Tyler Tao didn't seem to be convinced and said, "I don't know the person you are talking about."

"Don't be ridiculous. Whether you know him or not, how could we not know him?" Feng Kai said, "Not only do I know that you two know each other, but I also know that he came to you to borrow money right after it snowed."

"Are you police officers more talkative than others? You say you have been here, so you have been here? Why didn't I see it?" Mao Tyler Tao said, stiffening his neck.