Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter Seven : 2

It turned out that on the day of the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case, there were more than four bodies.

On that pitch-black night, how many evil spirits were released from the underworld, wreaking havoc on the human world with their inhuman and bloody slaughter?

Thinking of this, even an old detective like Lin Fengchong felt a chill run down his spine. He immediately sent Chai Yongjin to the Love Hospital morgue to search for Zhang Chunyang’s body and specifically emphasized that once found, Lei Rong’s Forensic Pathologist research center should be notified immediately to send a Forensic Pathologist to perform an autopsy.

Once the suspect “confesses,” both the interrogator and the accused would have a psychological lull. Lin Fengchong had someone pour Tao Zhouyao a glass of water. Seeing that her fingertips were yellow, he lit a cigarette and handed it to her. Tao Zhouyao’s face showed gratitude, and she chatted with Lin Fengchong while smoking.

“Do you know Zhou Liping? Do you know him?”

“The driver who killed Xing Qisheng and many children? No, why would I know a driver! Drivers are under Old Liao’s jurisdiction; you can ask him.”

“Zhou Liping isn’t your foundation’s driver but a driver for Mingyi Company.”

“Mingyi Company? Zheng Gui’s company, is it? That’s even less under my jurisdiction.”

“Have you seen the three murdered children before?”

“I never go to Tongyou Nursery; how could I have seen them?”

“That can’t be right; we’ve seen photos of you with them.”

“Impossible, I have no recollection of it at all.”

Lin Fengchong took out a photo and handed it to her.

A group of children surrounded Tao Zhouyao for a photo. Each child held a bouquet of flowers but looked listless, while Tao Zhouyao beamed with joy, as if she were the largest flower in the profusion of blossoms.

“Oh, this is a photo of me with the children at a Love Hospital event. We dispersed right after the photo; how could I possibly remember it?”

“You are the president of the Love Charity Foundation. Your foundation’s main work is raising funds to help orphans, abandoned children, and children suffering from rare or serious illnesses who can’t afford treatment. Don’t you care about them at all?”

“I don’t even have children myself, and I don’t feel anything for them. Honestly, nothing bothers me more than a child crying… Um, you found Zhang Chunyang’s body, proving he died of illness. Does that mean I can be released? The case on the Sweeping Mouse Ridge has absolutely nothing to do with me!”

“How can you say it has nothing to do with you? The murderer and the victim were both employees of your Love Charity Foundation’s subordinate units. You’re the chairwoman; you have leadership responsibility!”

“As the chairwoman, I don’t really manage anything; I don’t know anything. Everything’s handled by Xing Qixian and Zhai Yun. I can’t take any responsibility…”

Lin Fengchong asked the policewoman to take Tao Zhouyao to the detention center for temporary detention. Just before leaving, Tao Zhouyao suddenly made a request to Lin Fengchong: “Could you find me some books?”

“What books?” Lin Fengchong asked. Generally, suspects temporarily detained, unsure of the severity of their punishment, would request legal books for reference.

But Tao Zhouyao said, “I’d rather be lonely than be mediocre. I’m not afraid of being lost and confused; I’m only afraid of wasting this precious time. Everything’s the best arrangement…”

“Why are you looking for these?”

“Locked in there and not reading, wouldn’t you suffocate?”

Lin Fengchong couldn’t help but smile bitterly: “You won’t be lonely in there, and you won’t waste your time. Don’t worry; for you, everything’s the best arrangement.”

After Tao Zhouyao left, the deputy interrogator couldn’t help but curse: “This lady’s a complete parasite! Even with such an intellectual disability, she still can’t resist showing off!”

“But these are the people who live in the best houses, drive the latest luxury cars, and eat the most expensive meals, while the lives of so many disabled children are in their hands…” Lin Fengchong sighed deeply.

Just then, Chai Yongjin called, his voice tense yet slightly excited: “Director Lin, we found Zhang Chunyang’s body in the freezer of the Love Hospital morgue.”

When Lin Fengchong arrived at the southwest gate of Love Hospital, several police cars were already parked there. Uniformed police officers and auxiliary police were dispersing the crowd, while several plainclothes detectives rushed to greet him.

According to the ancient Chinese divination method of Qimen Dunjia, a southwest-facing gate was considered a death gate, which was why hospital morgues were usually located there. There were two locust trees on either side of the entrance. Although not thick or lush, the gate was small, and the two trees were close together, their branches intertwined, creating a dense green canopy above the gate.

Lin Fengchong walked in, while Chai Yongjin walked out, and the two bumped into each other. Chai Yongjin said, “Tianying and Tang Xiaotang are here; they are examining the scene and conducting a preliminary examination of the body.”

So many days had passed; what could they possibly find out? Lin Fengchong gave a wry smile and continued walking inside. The morgue was divided into three sections. The outermost section was a vestibule.

On the left was a simple set of solid wood tables and chairs, and on the wall was a row of old-fashioned registers tied with ropes. Behind the tables and chairs were piles of incense, candles, paper flowers, paper money, gold ingots, copper basins, and tiles, sold to unprepared families for burning during impromptu memorial services.

On the right side of the vestibule was a small cubicle with a curtain. Lin Fengchong lifted it to take a look and saw two wire beds inside. The bedding and pillows on the beds were worn and faded, presumably a resting place for the staff on duty.

Walking from the vestibule, pushing open two double-leaf glass doors with peeling paint, one entered the second section of the morgue: the mortuary. Here were six rusty white mortuary beds, four of which were empty, and two with bodies covered with white sheets—generally, the deceased who hadn’t yet been placed in refrigeration were temporarily placed here.

Pushing open another lead-gray iron door, a blast of cold air rushed out, the temperature dropping by at least five or six degrees. Three of the four walls were lined with dozens of freezers used for long-term corpse storage. The freezers looked relatively new, their doors displaying the internal temperature on LCD screens.

At this moment, the door of a freezer labeled “T E 3,” along with its freezer drawer, was pulled open. A milky white blast of cold air billowed out. Lying on the drawer was a person whose face was covered in frost. Although his face was ashen, his skin shrunken and wrinkled like a walnut shell, and his frozen expression at the moment of death was extremely painful, making him appear exceptionally ferocious, it was still not difficult to recognize him from his features—he was Zhang Chunyang, who had been missing for several days.

After taking photos of the body, Chu Tianying and Tang Xiaotang, one carrying the head and the other the feet, lifted Zhang Chunyang’s body out of the freezer and placed it on a morgue truck lined with plastic sheeting. Because it had been frozen for so long, the body was very stiff, and there was a crackling sound as ice shards were crushed when it was put down.

During this process, they discovered a black iPhone 8 that had been pressed under the body. Chu Tianying put the phone in an evidence bag and then used tweezers to carefully remove the items from Zhang Chunyang’s pockets, putting the keys, wallet, and other items into separate bags. When they tried to conduct further examination, they found that the clothes and flesh were stuck together.

Chu Tianying and Tang Xiaotang discussed the matter and decided that the body should be sent to the Forensic Pathologist research center as soon as possible before thawing to avoid changes in the body that might affect the autopsy results. After informing Lin Fengchong and receiving permission, they placed the body in a specially made body bag with an aluminum foil layer and loaded it onto the forensic pathologist’s vehicle for transport.

Meanwhile, Chai Yongjin had already finished taking a statement from Love Hospital Director Li Shiduo, who had rushed over. Li Shiduo said they had a close working relationship with Tongyou Nursery and that he himself had some personal acquaintance with Xing Qisheng. Around 8:30 p.m. on the night of the incident, he received a call from Xing Qisheng, who only said that an acquaintance had suffered a sudden myocardial infarction and needed to be taken to the morgue first before he could obtain a death certificate. The caller didn’t mention that the deceased was Zhang Chunyang, and he simply informed the morgue. Because of nighttime rounds, he quickly forgot about it until later when he learned of Xing Qisheng’s death.

“Such a big thing—why didn’t you tell the police sooner?” Chai Yongjin was furious.

“Because I don’t think this is related to the Sweeping Mouse Ridge murder case,” Li Shiduo said with a gentle smile.

The two morgue staff members being questioned by the police overheard this conversation and looked at Chai Yongjin with mocking expressions.

Lin Fengchong stepped forward, looked at Li Shiduo, and said slowly, “According to the relevant regulations of the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, hospitals can only issue death certificates for those who die during treatment within their own facilities. For those who die outside the hospital, if the cause of death is unclear or questionable, the judicial department must determine the nature of the death and issue a death certificate—I want to ask who gave you the authority and audacity to agree to issue a death certificate to any random person brought in?”

Li Shiduo never expected that this mustached, plain-looking police officer would know the regulations so well, and he was immediately speechless.

“And, if I may be so bold as to make a guess,” Lin Fengchong said, staring into his eyes, “if Xing Qisheng really wants a death certificate, it doesn’t necessarily require you or any other doctor to perform the autopsy. Maybe he’ll just be given a blank death certificate, stamped with the hospital’s seal, and filled out by himself, right?”

Li Shiduo was about to argue when Lin Fengchong pressed on, “If you dare say no, I’ll check every single death certificate your hospital has issued this year. Black and white, I don’t even need to check if the signing doctor was present during the autopsy; just checking the handwriting will completely expose your cowardly ways, believe it or not?!”

A fawning smile appeared on Li Shiduo’s face. Lin Fengchong waved him away, then turned back to stare at the two morgue workers on duty. Seeing that the director had cowered, they both adopted obedient smiles. Lin Fengchong pointed at the two of them and said to Chai Yongjin, “You ask,” before going off to do other things.

This tactic of intimidation worked. The two workers quickly recounted the events of that evening as follows:

Around 8:40 p.m., the two were drinking and chatting in the courtyard outside the morgue when the phone in the duty room rang. It was Li Shiduo calling, saying that Xing Qisheng would be bringing the body of a sudden death patient to be stored in the morgue shortly. They quickly pushed a hearse to the door and stood guard. Soon after, Xing Qisheng arrived in his car. He pulled up, carried a body out, and two workers on duty helped lift it onto the hearse, pushed it into the morgue, and covered it with a white sheet—although they didn’t recognize Zhang Chunyang, they were certain the person pushed into the morgue was the one the police had found in “T E 3.”

Afterwards, Xing Qisheng drove away, signing the register before leaving, saying the body would be kept in the morgue until they “get” the death certificate, then the body would be stored in the freezer.

Chai Yongjin found Xing Qisheng’s handwriting in the register: he had hastily written “Zhang Chunyang” in the deceased’s name column and the cause of death as “myocardial infarction” and then signed his own name and the date.

“And then?” Chai Yongjin asked.

“Later, my brother and I continued drinking. That night, more bodies from the hospital kept arriving. Families were coming and going, mourning, burning paper money, and some wanted to see the deceased one last time. We were busy helping out. At 11:00 p.m. sharp, we went into the duty room, locked the door from the inside, and went to sleep. We didn’t open the door until 9:00 a.m. the next morning.”

“After locking the door from the inside, could it be opened from the outside?”

“No.”

“Did anyone knock on the door or go into the morgue that night?”

“No.”

“So when did you put Zhang Chunyang’s body in the ‘T E 3’ freezer?”

“That night it was cold, and we were both a little drunk. We probably thought we couldn’t just leave Zhang Chunyang’s body there forever, and since Xing Qisheng hadn’t come back, we just casually put Zhang Chunyang’s body in the freezer while storing the other bodies.”

Chai Yongjin frowned, finding the answer too vague.

“By the way, our freezers have built-in access logs, which can be checked on the LCD screen.” A worker ran to the “T E 3” freezer, fiddled with it for a moment, and then pointed to the time displayed on the LCD screen, saying to Chai Yongjin, “Look, this shows that this freezer was only opened and closed once that night at 10:50 p.m., and then just now—so it must have been moved into the freezer when we were ‘clearing out’ the bodies in the morgue before closing the door that night!”

Chai Yongjin bent down to look at the LCD screen, muttering, “Is your time record reliable? Will there be any mistakes?”

“Don’t worry, it’s absolutely correct!” the worker assured him, patting his chest.

Chai Yongjin was still worried: “What if the power suddenly goes out at night? Wouldn’t we only have records of when the power was on?”

The worker led him out of the morgue to a low, red brick building next door. Pushing open the door, a humming, dark green generator stood on the moss-covered floor, and a row of rusty Schneider electrical boxes hung on the wall.

The worker told him, “The morgue’s power supply isn’t the same as the hospital’s; it’s generated by this generator. Whether the hospital has a power outage or not has nothing to do with us. Besides, the freezer’s timing system is independent and built in, with its own battery. Even if the morgue’s power is cut off, it’ll still keep its time!”