West Valley Village, Song Zhenguo’s convenience store.

Lying on the rocking chair, Song Zhenguo tried many ways, but ultimately couldn’t avoid the fingerprint collection.

The police had chased him to the door, where could he run?

However, Song Zhenguo wasn’t actually that nervous inside.

After all, so much time had passed since the incident.

It’s not that easy to match his fingerprints.

Besides, the kid over in Penghu County had also been silenced, so there wasn’t much of a problem.

That’s why after the fingerprint was collected at noon, Song Zhenguo still lay on that creaky rocking chair.

Unlike the usual days when he would leisurely close his eyes and bask in the sun, today Song Zhenguo was counting the time, watching the sun set.

"The sky is dark... nothing should happen now."

The sun had sunk beyond West Mountain, as if a mountain monster had taken a bite, leaving only half.

Song Zhenguo felt inexplicably relaxed.

So much time had passed, and nothing happened, so it should be fine.

"What a pity... such a tender girl... hard to find..."

Humming to himself an unknown tune he learned in the mountains as a child, Song Zhenguo got up from the rocking chair to make some dinner.

People are like iron, food is like steel, skipping a meal makes one feel hungry.

Thud thud thud...

Just as he turned around, Song Zhenguo heard the clattering footsteps approaching from afar.

The village road was paved with fine gravel, with heavy rainfall at the foot of the mountain, making the road not only flat and solid but easy for drainage too.

The only downside was the loud sound of leather shoes stepping on it, audible from a long distance away.

Messy and rapid footsteps came quickly from afar to near.

Turning his head, Song Zhenguo saw police uniforms gradually becoming clearer in the distance, instinctively turning to run.

But where could he run?

A moment later.

Wang Song personally led the team to arrest him: "Song Zhenguo! You are under arrest!"

Three hours earlier.

Wang Song’s fingerprint collection strategy was to proceed village by village.

After collecting everyone’s fingerprints in one village, they would perform a unified match.

For the fingerprint collection in West Valley Village, Song Zhenguo was the last one.

According to previous work requirements, after finishing, a criminal police officer immediately entered the collected fingerprint information into the fingerprint information system for comparison.

Because Lu Chuan had previously identified a partial fingerprint found at the crime scene.

The relevant fingerprint markers were all set, so police on this side just needed to input the fingerprints into the system for automatic comparison.

Of course, because of the large number of fingerprints collected, the time for automatic comparison was relatively slow.

Just 30 minutes ago.

In the Crime Scene Investigation lab of the Beizhou City Criminal Investigation Team, the computer used for fingerprint comparison blared with an ear-piercing alarm.

At that moment, everyone present was stunned.

Whether it was fingerprint identification comparison, or DNA identification and analysis.

In the automated identification process, as long as the target is matched, the system will automatically sound an alarm to alert the investigators.

The reason for the alarm is that in the past, there were cases where the system comparison succeeded but investigators didn’t notice in time.

This resulted in delayed arrests of suspects, leading to more crimes.

Later, this feature was added to all fingerprint comparison systems nationwide.

Once a match succeeds, the system automatically sounds an alarm and sends a notification to relevant personnel’s mobile phones.

Actually, Song Zhenguo’s luck belief wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

The partial fingerprint he left was discovered by Lu Chuan during the second revisit of the scene.

And the crime scene’s Beizhou City Crime Scene Investigation police didn’t discover Song Zhenguo’s fingerprint.

The discovered fingerprints at the time actually belonged to the victim.

In other words, if the Major Crime Unit hadn’t taken over the case and if Lu Chuan hadn’t spent two or three days reinvestigating all the evidence, Song Zhenguo’s fingerprints would never have come into police view.

"Take him away!"

Song Zhenguo’s arrest was quite unexpected for the villagers.

Song Zhenguo’s family conditions were actually quite good, running the only convenience store in West Valley Village, which was more than enough for his living.

But in reality, this so-called convenience store was just a cover for Song Zhenguo’s illegal activities.

After leaving West Valley Village, Wang Song directly took him to the Beiliang Mountain police station for interrogation.

"Song Zhenguo, this is the fingerprint we found at the crime scene. After comparison, it’s been confirmed as yours."

Lu Chuan and Li Donglin were still in the mountains searching for the other two missing persons, time was very tight, so Wang Song interrogated personally.

And he didn’t use any roundabout measures or things for lenient treatment, directly presenting the evidence to Song Zhenguo.

"We know there was more than one person involved in the crime scene, so your only option now, Song Zhenguo, is to cooperate with us to arrest the other suspects."

Facing the ironclad evidence, Song Zhenguo knew very well that if he refused to confess, all that awaited him was the death penalty.

The most crucial point was that Song Zhenguo knew exactly what he had done.

In the entire crime chain, Song Zhenguo believed his crime was the lightest.

"Officer, I didn’t kill anyone."

This was the first thing Song Zhenguo said.

"I only rummaged through that woman’s backpack at the time; I really didn’t kill her, but I know who did."

Very quickly, Song Zhenguo confessed everything clearly.

As it turned out, Song Zhenguo was just a frontman for the entire criminal gang.

"A few years ago, just when hunting bans came into place, they were killing bears inside and selling bear paws."

"I never got involved; they brought the stuff to me, and then I went to sell it."

"As the regulations grew stricter, bear paws couldn’t be sold anymore, so they started doing other things in the mountains."

"In Beiliang Mountain, there’s a bird called the Red Eagle, it flies especially fast and looks beautiful, many wealthy people like to keep them."

"They’ve been capturing these birds in the mountains for the past two years, though they’re protected wildlife and capturing them is illegal, so my cousin and his group stay in the mountains all year without coming out."

"How many of them are there altogether?"

"Four, my cousin, and three others from their village."

"Last time, they came out of the mountains, went to Penghu County, and killed someone."

"Who?"

"Called Li Pengcheng, he’s the nephew of another guy, but there was an incident, and they killed him."

"This guy went into the mountains with them and was involved in the killings."

If Sun Jun were here, he would surely be shouting excitedly.

The mysterious jumping-off incident of Li Pengcheng in Penghu County turned out to be orchestrated by these people.

Of course, Wang Song didn’t return empty-handed.

In the afternoon, Lu Chuan and others sent a message from the mountains, asking to investigate a person surnamed Li, with Peng in their name, from Penghu County.

Now it can basically be confirmed that Li Pengcheng, silenced by them, was involved in the mountain case.