Shen Xin asked for a pair of gloves and squatted down to inspect Li Xingping’s bag.

There wasn’t much inside, just a few pieces of clothing.

There was also a phone charger, a plastic bag with a few steamed buns and several hard-boiled eggs, and a jar of pickled vegetables.

It was a depressingly simple collection of belongings.

Shen Xin took out the clothes and unfolded them for a closer look.

He hadn’t seen the body yet, but there was a significant amount of blood on the ground at the crime scene.

Although the brain has a rich blood supply, a blow to the back of the head with a blunt object rarely causes the kind of wild, face-covering arterial spray you see in movies.

The blood at the scene must have seeped out slowly after the victim fell to the ground.

Getting splattered all over was unlikely, but the cuffs of the sleeve holding the weapon could easily have been spattered with some blood.

Although the past two days had been muggy, and one might wear short sleeves during the day, the crime occurred late at night, when short sleeves would have been a bit chilly.

Shen Xin picked up a dark blue, horizontally striped long-sleeved T-shirt that was rolled into a ball.

As he unfolded it, his eyes narrowed sharply.

There were several brownish marks on the right sleeve, and the edge of the cuff looked like it had been soaked in something.

’No way,’ Shen Xin thought. He leaned in and sniffed. It definitely smelled of blood.

Shen Xin was stunned.

’What was this Li Xingping thinking?’

’Assuming these are the bloody clothes... even if he has no experience with murder, he must have seen TV shows, right? The killers on TV always know to get rid of the murder weapon and bloody clothes, or just burn them.’

’But you? Not only did you not wash it, you actually brought it with you.’

’Was he planning to deal with it after he got somewhere safe?’

’Why couldn’t he just throw it away?’

’Out here in the middle of nowhere, it would take ages for anyone to find it if he just tossed it somewhere.’

Shen Xin examined the marks carefully. They were splatters.

A blow to the back of the head wouldn’t cause a half-meter-high spray, but it would definitely produce a light spatter.

And if there was blood on his hand, that would also cause the cuff to become soaked.

Therefore, this was very likely the shirt Li Xingping was wearing when he committed the crime.

He hadn’t thrown it away. A possibility suddenly occurred to Shen Xin.

For instance... what if he couldn’t bear to throw it away?

’He only has a few pieces of clothing. He must have figured that since he was on the run anyway, he could just find a safe place, wash it clean, and wear it again.’

Shen Xin sighed silently.

The theory seemed outlandish, but it wasn’t impossible.

Just then, the traffic cop squatting nearby asked curiously, "Did this guy do something wrong?"

"They even brought out a police dog."

"If I remember correctly, there aren’t any police dogs in all of Shiyao."

Shen Xin didn’t disclose any details. He turned to the driver and asked if the truck had a dashcam.

At the mention of that, the driver looked so frustrated he wanted to slap himself. He said he had one, but it had broken half a month ago. He’d been meaning to replace it but never got around to it.

"If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve replaced the dashcam no matter what."

"Officer, he really was trying to pull an insurance scam. I was driving normally, he was walking on the side of the road, and then he suddenly ran into the middle of the street."

"I don’t believe he didn’t see my truck coming. He was definitely trying to scam me."

The driver argued emphatically.

To make matters worse, there was actually a traffic camera about three hundred meters ahead at the village entrance.

But it was for catching speeders at close range; it couldn’t see this far.

Shen Xin quickly comforted him. "Take it easy, buddy. What’s done is done, and there’s no use regretting it now. At least you have insurance. We’ll just handle this according to procedure."

As he spoke, Shen Xin subconsciously glanced at the driver.

’You do have insurance, right?’

The driver, looking distressed, said he had insurance, but it was still a huge hassle.

Even if the traffic police ultimately determined that Li Xingping had deliberately run out and was suspected of trying to stage an accident, he would inevitably have to bear some of the responsibility.

"Then I’ll have to get the truck repaired, file an insurance claim, and my premiums will go up. And if I end up with some aggressive family members making a scene, it’ll be a real headache."

After offering a few words of consolation, Shen Xin pulled the driver aside to ask for a detailed account of the accident, trying to reconstruct the scene as best he could.

Shen Xin needed to figure out what exactly Li Xingping had been trying to do.

The driver’s story would likely be subconsciously biased to absolve himself of responsibility.

But as Shen Xin listened, he felt the overall account was credible.

Li Xingping, who had been walking by the side of the road, had indeed suddenly darted across the street, giving the driver no time to swerve. The front right of the truck hit him, knocking him down, and his lower body was run over by the front right wheel.

It did seem like Li Xingping had done it on purpose.

’But why?’

Shen Xin scanned the scene, trying to put himself in Li Xingping’s shoes and think from his perspective.

’He was already on the run, so why would he suddenly try to get hit by a truck?’

Shen Xin turned to look back in the direction Li Xingping had come from.

After leaving Niujiawa, he had successfully hitched a ride and made it this far.

’Then he got out and kept trying to flag down another vehicle, with no luck.’

’He has a problem with his leg—femoral head necrosis. Walking too much would be painful.’

’Walking this past kilometer must have been exhausting, and he must have felt helpless.’

So, Shen Xin speculated, could that one-kilometer walk have changed Li Xingping’s mind?

’Maybe he finally realized just how difficult it was to escape.’

’He knew he couldn’t get away. He knew he’d killed someone and was a dead man.’

’He thought of his two children and his old mother, and felt he had let them down.’

’Perhaps he thought of suicide.’

’Getting caught meant death. But if he wasn’t caught, his femoral head necrosis meant he couldn’t get surgery or do heavy labor. His family wouldn’t be able to survive. That was also a death sentence.’

’It would be better to end it all with one clean death.’

’That must be why he suddenly dashed into the road.’

’Or maybe he was hoping the car accident would earn his family a little bit of compensation money.’

Shen Xin took a deep breath, his emotions a complicated mix.

He pushed the thoughts aside, pulled out his phone, and called Guo Jin to explain the situation.

"A car accident!"

Guo Jin’s voice boomed over the phone as he anxiously asked what had happened.

After hearing the explanation, Guo Jin fell silent.

"This guy... how could he..."

He muttered, trailing off. After composing himself slightly, he said he would contact Li Xiaowen.

Shen Xin said, "Alright, in that case, I’ll follow the traffic police to the hospital. Maybe he can still be saved."

Flustered, Guo Jin said "Okay" and hastily hung up.

Shen Xin then asked the traffic cop for help loading his electric scooter into the bed of the cop’s pickup truck, and then followed him to the hospital.

The traffic cop must have guessed that there was something more to Li Xingping’s situation because he was very cooperative.

He seemed to want to ask questions several times on the way but held his tongue.

Meanwhile, Li Xiaowen and his team were rushing toward Baijia Post.

Their sirens were blaring as they sped down the road.

Just then, he received Guo Jin’s call.

He had been just about to call him.

The moment the call connected, Li Xiaowen said urgently, "Lao Guo, you have to secure the crime scene."

This kind of thing had happened before.

A murder would happen in a rural village, and the villagers, lacking awareness, would all crowd around to spectate, completely destroying the scene.

At the mention of the scene, Guo Jin, who had been about to explain the situation, fell silent.

Looking back at it now, the crime scene was an absolute mess.

There were people everywhere. The family had even taken the body back.

He had told Fu Lianghui to secure the scene right away, but who would have thought that Zhang Kaisheng would take a group of people to Li Xingping’s house, causing a delay?

In that situation, if Fu Lianghui hadn’t gone with them... with the old and the young there, who knows what Zhang Kaisheng might have done.

Seeing Guo Jin’s silence, Li Xiaowen’s heart skipped a beat. He asked urgently, "Lao Guo, don’t tell me the scene has already been compromised."

Guo Jin sighed and admitted it.

Li Xiaowen slapped his thigh in frustration and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

He understood, really.

Baijia Post was over twenty kilometers from town. By the time they received the emergency call and rushed over, it was already too late.

With no one in the village to control the situation, or no one able to, gawkers ran wild and the family was causing a scene. It was a difficult situation to manage.

"What about the body? The body’s okay, right?" Li Xiaowen pressed.

’The scene is ruined, but the body had better be untouched.’

Guo Jin sighed again.

Li Xiaowen’s vision went dark for a moment. He clenched his fists and asked what was wrong.

Guo Jin said helplessly, "The family took the body back. By the time we got there, his mother was wiping his face."

"Wiping his face?"

Li Xiaowen nearly lost his mind. He roared, "Lao Guo, didn’t you tell them to preserve the scene?"

’He’s been a veteran officer for so many years, this shouldn’t happen.’

"I did! Of course I did! I told them the moment I got the emergency call."

Guo Jin had a headache himself. He explained, "It was mainly the victim’s younger brother. He was making a fuss about going to the killer’s house for revenge. The village secretary ran off to talk him down, and that’s when they lost control of the scene."

"Wait!"

Li Xiaowen quickly cut Guo Jin off, asking what he meant by "going to the killer’s house."

’Have they found the killer?’

Guo Jin said, "That’s right. The killer should be Li Xingping. He had a conflict with Zhang Kaiyong. They even had an argument last night that a lot of people saw. Most importantly, he fled in the middle of the night."

Li Xiaowen’s clenched fist relaxed.

His mood, which had been on a roller coaster, shot back up to a peak.

"Let’s put the matter of the crime scene aside for now."

The reality of the situation was understandable. The key was the suspect.

Li Xiaowen said urgently, "Lao Guo, based on what you’ve said, Li Xingping is a person of major interest."

Based on Li Xiaowen’s experience working at the grassroots level...

...murders in rural areas were usually crimes of passion, the result of long-simmering conflicts that suddenly erupted.

Cases like this were actually easy to solve.

Because a rural village is a closed environment, the killer was almost certainly in the village. A quick check of who had conflicts with the victim would quickly identify the perpetrator.

He continued, "Didn’t you say Li Xingping fled in the middle of the night? Hurry up and send me his ID information and photo. I’ll arrange for people to intercept him."

There were only so many escape routes. If they set up blockades in advance, he wouldn’t be able to get away.

At this point, Li Xiaowen’s tense heart relaxed a little.

It had been over a year since Ma Chang Town had a murder case; in fact, the entire Shiyao County didn’t see more than a few murders a year.

Now that a murder had occurred, being able to identify a suspect this quickly was a good thing.

It wasn’t that Guo Jin was being deliberately dramatic; he just had to explain the situation clearly. He couldn’t just tell Li Xiaowen right off the bat that Li Xingping had been in a car accident, because then Li Xiaowen would have had to ask who Li Xingping even was.

"Captain Li, there’s been a development. Xiaoshen is still here, right? And we happened to have Tian Kui. He came to the scene with me and suggested using Tian Kui to track Li Xingping."

"He took Tian Kui and caught up to him, but... there was a car accident. He’s been sent to the county hospital now."

"It’s pretty serious. He might not make it."

Guo Jin had heard from Shen Xin that the situation wasn’t optimistic.

Li Xiaowen, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, felt his heart leap back into his throat. He was stunned.

They had just locked onto the suspect, and then the suspect gets into a car accident and is critically injured.

Li Xiaowen’s mood plunged like a roller coaster hitting the bottom of a drop.

Gritting his teeth, Li Xiaowen took a moment to compose himself and said, "Alright, Lao Guo, you focus on securing the crime scene. We’ll get there as fast as we can."

"As for the hospital, I’ll contact Xiaoshen and arrange for someone to head over."

He hung up abruptly and immediately called Shen Xin.

As he dialed, Li Xiaowen couldn’t help but feel a little fortunate.

He had heard from Guo Jin that it was Shen Xin who had immediately suggested pursuing the suspect.

’He really is a criminal detective,’ he thought. ’His head is clear, and he knows what’s important.’

On the other end, Shen Xin, who was in the truck, answered Li Xiaowen’s call.

"Suicide out of guilt?"

Hearing Shen Xin say that Li Xingping might have intentionally gotten hit by the truck, Li Xiaowen frowned slightly but didn’t say anything right away.

When he then heard that Shen Xin had discovered the bloody clothes, his expression grew even more solemn.

He told Shen Xin to go to the county hospital first and that he would notify someone to head over immediately to meet up with him.

After hanging up, Li Xiaowen felt a little more at ease.

Based on the current situation, the killer was, in all likelihood, Li Xingping.