Chen Guoshi pointed to the entrance of the distant valley, "Inside here is a wind tunnel. At night the temperature in the valley is relatively low, and sometimes there are tornadoes in the valley."

"So we don’t set up camp here. Usually, we camp in another valley, which takes half a day to reach from here."

If it’s not a campsite, then it means the murderer either encountered the expedition team here by chance.

Or they brought the person here intentionally to kill them.

"Director Li, take me to the location where the third body was found."

The place where the third body was found is about 200 meters away from the locations of the first and second bodies.

"Director Li, something doesn’t feel right."

Two hundred meters in the mountains is completely different from two hundred meters on the plains.

On the plains, you can see 200 meters with a glance.

But in the mountains, Lu Chuan followed Li Hao for 200 meters and could no longer see the locations of the first and second bodies.

"You mean the third person was killed while trying to escape, right?"

Li Donglin himself is a technical criminal investigator and used to work in crime scene investigations.

Over the years, he has served as the director of investigation in the provincial office and has been involved in presiding over hundreds of major cases.

So his ability to analyze case logic is far superior to Lu Chuan’s.

What Lu Chuan could discover, he could certainly discover too.

"Director Li, look at this tree trunk."

Next to the pit where the third victim’s body was buried, Lu Chuan closely observed the trunk of a pine tree.

"These black spots on it might be caused by gunfire."

"I’ll try and see if I can perform a nitrification test."

Lu Chuan considered this point when entering the mountain, so he brought simple tools and some reagents.

In fact, judging by the scene, Lu Chuan’s guess should be correct. This is indeed the primary crime scene.

The third victim was likely chased during the escape and then shot by the murderer.

After being shot, the third victim may not have died immediately and was tortured before being buried.

Soon, Lu Chuan completed the nitrification reaction, confirming his earlier suspicion.

"There is only one entrance and one exit in this valley."

"Director Li, I think we need to go further into the mountains to see if we can find some clues."

There were 5 people in the expedition team, and three men have already been killed.

What about the other two?

Six months have passed, without any sign of life or death.

The purpose of going into the mountains this time is to revisit the crime scene.

On the other hand, it is to try and see if they can find the other two victims.

Of course, no one else had objections.

The leader directs how things are done, it is done that way.

After discovering the remains, the Beizhou City Criminal Investigation Team sent people into the valley for careful searching and confirmed only three skeletons were found.

A carpet search was conducted within 300 meters of the vicinity.

Some clues were found.

Over the past 5 days, Lu Chuan has conducted a comprehensive review and investigation of these clues.

Except for half a fingerprint, the clues are too few.

"Leader, if we go inside, we can only go for three more days at most."

As a guide, Chen Guoshi knew how far they could go and how far they needed to listen to him.

"We brought a total supply of 10 days, and now it’s been two days in, we would need three more days, and then we’d return."

"What position can we reach in three days?"

"The heart of it, basically stepping into the Beiliang Mountain interior, general expedition teams get a day’s journey and they turn back."

"If we walk another three days inside, we basically reach places expedition teams won’t go."

"Only some old hunters and people who gather rare mountain goods go that far."

"Moreover, if we go further, campsites are scarce, human presence is scarce, and the danger factor increases."

Finally, Li Donglin decided, just three days.

If nothing is found, they would return.

Lu Chuan and others did not linger long at the scene but continued along the mountain road to the next campsite.

This valley is not suitable for staying overnight, and to reach another campsite they needed to cross a 200-meter high mountain into another valley.

Old Chen strategically plans these campsites, both in proximity and convenience.

The distances between these campsites basically are neither too close nor too far.

When they reached the campsite, it was already afternoon, just as the sun was setting.

"Let’s camp here for tonight, we can’t travel further."

Like yesterday, Old Chen quickly set up a bonfire.

"Old Chen, is this the only campsite in the valley?"

"There’re three; this is the largest. We have many people. There are two others, which are smaller."

Lu Chuan glanced at the sky, realizing they couldn’t move forward today and decided to explore tomorrow.

The nights in the mountains are cold.

The morning mist is thick.

And Lu Chuan felt that entering deeper into the mountains increased the day-night temperature difference.

During the day, where the sun hits, it could be over ten degrees.

But by night, it dropped to around zero degrees.

Early the next day, Lu Chuan got up early and began wandering around the camp.

The campsites in the mountains weren’t exclusive to whoever developed them.

Since the previous valley had no campsite while discovering the remains, where could the murderer have camped?

It could only be this valley.

Therefore, Lu Chuan roamed the camp early but found nothing after half a day.

"Old Chen, let’s check out the other two small campsites."

"Okay, let me tidy these up first."

After speaking, Old Chen dispersed the bonfire heap, ensuring no sparks were left inside, and then buried some branches in the soil beside it.

Old Chen said everyone entering the mountains does this to prevent forest fires and prepare for next time.

After a simple breakfast, everyone, under Old Chen’s guidance, headed to another campsite.

About two hours later, Lu Chuan and the group saw the campsite.

It wasn’t large, barely enough for three tents.

"Has someone been here recently?"

Although the fire stack on the ground had been spread out, it hadn’t weathered, and some ashes were still visible.

Old Chen nodded, "Roughly a month or two."

"Everyone look around, any unusual spots, report in."

After Li Donglin assigned tasks, everyone scattered in groups of three to search around carefully.

A moment later: "Director Li, there’s something here!"

A policeman from the station made a discovery.

After Li Hao arrived, he quickly used the walkie-talkie to call out, "Director Li, Director Lu, there’s a discovery here!"

Moments later, everyone gathered together.

What the policeman just discovered was a shoe, a single orange hiking shoe.

"Size 36, women’s shoe."

Lu Chuan sighed, "Use this spot as the center, dig around!"