Chapter 7 Chapter 6 True and False Video Tapes

It was past eight o'clock in the evening when I walked out of the police station.I took a deep breath of the cool air, and suddenly felt that everything I experienced just now was a dream. I walked and looked at the town carefully.There are scattered tourists walking.It is said that during the peak tourist season, the streets will be full of tourists from all over the world during this time period, and the accents from all directions are mixed together, which is very lively.Thinking of this, a smile appeared on the corner of my mouth. Things that I didn't take seriously before suddenly gave me a kind feeling.Looking at all this, recalling that I almost lost my freedom just now, I can't help feeling very scared.Only when you face the threat of losing your freedom will you feel its preciousness.And when freedom is always with you, you don't care.

I didn't go back to the hotel right away, but went straight to a small restaurant on the side of the road. After sitting down, I ordered the special dishes here - scrambled eggs with black fungus and stewed chicken with mushrooms.These are definitely pollution-free foods.I also specially asked for a glass of local medicinal wine. I drank the whole glass of medicinal wine in one gulp.The slight heat quickly spread all over my body, making me indescribably happy, and I felt like I was brought back to life.I can't help but think of He Jun.In this strange place, he is the person I can talk to the most, and to some extent we are related to the same case.

Coincidentally, He Jun called.I invited him to dinner: "Come and eat. I just sat down, come on, come on. Call him to come together." "He" of course refers to the herb picker.Now, the three of us are involved in a bizarre incident by accident.In the vast sea of ​​people, an unknown force dominates, bringing three unrelated people together, and they are connected with each other, and even have a shared destiny. After a while, we toasted together and drank the bitter medicinal wine in one gulp. "We're so unlucky, how did we get into this trouble." The herbal picker said first, "It's all my fault, and I've got you all involved." After he finished speaking, he drank another glass of wine, as if to punish himself.

"The police must have asked you about Xiao Yu, right?" I didn't know who He Jun was talking about Xiao Yu, so I was stunned. The herbal picker said, "Oh, I just asked if I was the one who caused the death. You said that Mr. Forrest Gump and I were in the mountains. Could it be that I am a god? I was arrested and questioned at the police station. I don’t know what they think!” Only then did I understand that Xiao Yu was referring to the young policeman who died strangely lying in the empty office of the police station.To my surprise, the fat policeman seriously told me not to spread the news about the death of the young policeman, but this matter is no longer a secret.

"Hey, Muyu is so small, how can he hide such a big thing! It's all about relatives cheating on relatives, neighbors cheating on neighbors, and nothing can be hidden!" He Jun explained to me, then drank a glass of wine, and then continued to say: "Don't talk about Muyu, the whole of Shennongjia probably knows about it. People who have come to my house to inquire about it in the past two days. We are a small place. Usually nothing happens, but whenever something special happens, I wish everyone could participate. The death of a person is even more serious. Besides, it was such a way of death... Xiao Yu's family members were terrified, thinking they were possessed by evil spirits."

I tilted my head back and drank a glass of wine with great emotion. At this moment, the three of us should be in the same mood.The whole incident was so unpredictable that the people involved were immersed in a weird atmosphere, and with the effect of alcohol, a psychedelic feeling emerged spontaneously.It's not hard to imagine the feelings of the family of the young police officer who died.Apart from the grief of losing their loved ones, they don't know how to feel about the strange symbol that appeared on Officer Yu's body. "A-Gump, what do you think happened?" He Jun asked me, "It can't be murder, right?"

"No. Gao Qiang's death can be conceived as murder. But how dare this murderer break into the police station to commit murder? And how could two people who have nothing to do with each other offend the same murderer?" I don't think there's any possibility of a so-called murder. He Jun asked again: "Gao Qiang and Xiao Yu both had that symbol on their bodies. It's not a human being. It can't be a virus, can it?" "Why can't it be a virus? You can see chickenpox. Anyone who has chickenpox will develop bubbles. If you have a cold, you will cough or something. As long as the cause is the same, the symptoms are the same. If there is such a symbol on the body, it may be this. What about the symptoms of a virus?"

Herbal collectors deserve to be herbal collectors. Taking diseases as an example is very convincing. Talking and drinking like this, time flies.We obviously avoided talking about the subject, and never mentioned the two dead people again, but it lingered in my heart like a shadow. In fact, when I put my nose close to those tapes, I had an extremely ominous feeling inside—I smelled a peculiar smell of decay on the tapes, which was the one I smelled in the first place. At that moment, I didn't know if I should tell the fat policeman my judgment, and I ended up covering it up.The fat policeman didn't notice my strangeness at all.

I now understand that Gao Qiang came to the small hotel for a purpose on the night of his death—He Jun’s car key was not forgotten in the car as we had guessed, but Gao Qiang got it from He Jun’s car key. The room took away the car keys, then took out the video tape from the trunk of the car and took it back to the studio, put the replaced empty video tape back into the original box, and put the replaced video tape back into He Jun in the trunk of the car. In other words, the damaged video tapes scattered all over the ground that Gao Qiang saw at the scene of his death belonged to him in the first place.And the ones that are lying in the temporary viewing room of the police station at the moment are the ones I bought from the herb pickers.

Captain Zhang of the criminal police brigade sat across from me and didn't say a word for a long time.The faces of other people are also like sculptures, showing the same expression.I am not surprised that people find my account unbelievable.In fact, when I think this way, I also feel like a dream but not a dream, let alone others? A few hours ago, when I said goodbye to the herb picker and He Jun and was walking back to the hotel, I suddenly felt the need to go to the police station immediately and report my suspicions to the police. The fat policeman is still in the police station and hasn't gotten off work yet.After listening to my narration, he immediately stood up and left the room without saying a word. Two minutes later, he brought in three strange policemen.The fat policeman pointed to one of them and introduced to me, "This is Captain Zhang from the Criminal Investigation Brigade."

"Hello, Mr. Forrest Gump. I've seen your movie "Please Close Your Eyes When It's Dark", which starred Wang Zhiwen and Wu Qianlian." Captain Zhang said, holding out his hand to me with a smile.His hands were a little cold, but very strong. My wariness about him vanished immediately.In this strange place, someone told me that he had seen my movie, which made me feel an indescribable intimacy. Captain Zhang went on to say: "Almost all the people in the movie are dead, it's quite scary. Hehe, but this time, you've met the real thing. Come on, sit down and talk, sit down and talk. Fatty, pour some tea Well." The fat policeman responded, turned and left.I sat down, Captain Zhang took out a cigarette and handed it to me. I waved my hand: "Thank you, I don't smoke." Captain Zhang handed cigarettes to every policeman.Then I repeated what I had just said to the fat policeman.Everyone fell silent. After a long time, as if coming out of a dream, Captain Zhang broke the silence: "Since the bag has been dropped, why did Gao Qiang return the video tape?" Everyone was waiting for my answer, so I thought for a while and said, "Maybe it's guilt. He's an accomplished documentary filmmaker, and he must have felt uneasy about doing something so unprofessional. So..." Captain Zhang interrupted me: "But there are so many scattered videotapes at the scene, don't you think someone is looking for the videotapes? The symbols left on his body are almost exactly the same as the symbols on Xiao Yu's body, and there seems to be something similar to the videotapes. Relationship. What does that symbol mean? Could it be that Gao Qiang returned the videotape because of some kind of threat?" He seemed to be asking someone else, but also seemed to be talking to himself. After a while, he said again: "It is like this. The virus test report in Wuhan has come out, and all the tested objects do not have any deadly virus that can cause infection." "Same as I guessed." I said casually. He looked at me in bewilderment. I explained, "Oh, I've been exposed to those tapes and smelled them up close." Captain Zhang paused and looked at the fat policeman.The fat policeman lowered his head in embarrassment, pretending to take a cigarette from a cigarette case. Captain Zhang went on to say: "You basically know the situation. Xiaoyu had an accident the night before yesterday, at about two or three o'clock in the morning. Excluding the possibility of death due to the virus, the only reason is sudden cardiac death, and Gao Qiang's The cause of death was basically the same." He paused for another long moment, staring at me, waiting for my reaction. I do not know what to say.I don't know anything about medical terms, but I am no stranger to sudden cardiac death. I have heard news of sudden cardiac death of many celebrities from time to time. After ruling out the possibility of death due to the virus, the remaining questions are even more puzzling.What caused two people to die one after another in two different places within less than sixty hours, and the cause of death was the same?Also left the same suspicious pattern on the body? "Can I watch those tapes?" With no clue, this is the only way I can think of to know the truth. Captain Zhang agreed without hesitation. At the time, I didn't realize at all that I had just pushed myself into the abyss of terror. When we walked into the temporary viewing room again, I felt an invisible pressure, as if the responsibility of uncovering part of the mystery fell on my shoulders. I counted the number of videotapes on the table, and the number was the same as the one I bought, a lot of them.I picked out the videotape marked July 2 again, and carefully checked the screws used to seal the box. The traces of being screwed were clear at a glance.I used my nose to smell it closer, and sure enough, I smelled that special smell again.Gao Qiang changed the strap and put it back together in less than two days. What is the reason for such painstaking efforts and hesitation?The only one who can answer this question is probably Gao Qiang himself.Unfortunately, he couldn't speak anymore. I carefully pushed the tape into the cassette compartment of the VCR and hit the rewind button like the first time.The fast-rotating hissing sound of the video recorder made me feel familiar and familiar. I looked at the policemen around me, all of them looked serious.In hindsight, the moment I finally hit play had a special meaning for everyone present. A set of intermittent pictures are presented on the screen of the monitor.I will never forget those pictures, these are the first time I saw them in Gaoqiang Studio.I stopped the machine, worrying that the falling magnetic powder would dirty the magnetic head again.I said with certainty to the policemen surrounding me, "Yeah, that's it. At least this one is." Captain Zhang thought for a while and said, "In other words, Xiao Yu and Gao Qiang watched the same video tape. The same video tape, the same symbols, is there any connection between them?" "There must be some ulterior secret hidden in the video tape. The murderer was afraid of the truth being revealed, so he killed them." The fat policeman said his judgment. Another policeman refuted him: "If that's the case, why didn't he just take the video tape away, or destroy it on the spot? The murderer had the opportunity to do this twice!" The fat policeman analyzed: "They want to destroy it. Isn't Gao Qiang's studio full of dragged out videotapes? As for the second time at the police station, maybe there were people walking in the corridor at that time, or it was delayed for some other reason... In short , the murderer was frightened and fled. Remember, the windows at the scene were open." "If this is the case, this murderer is arrogant and stupid, and he doesn't take us seriously. Gao Qiang watched the video tapes, and then took great pains to return the video tapes to Zhao. He was killed after this. Chronological sequence That's how it should be." "If the murderer's target is the video tape, why didn't he just attack He Jun? He can track these videos to us, doesn't he know that he can open Santana's trunk with almost no risk? This is the police station. How arrogant My fellow! Would you rather give up the easy and ask for the difficult, are you demonstrating against us?" "unless……" "Unless what?" "Unless the other party is not sure which video tapes he needs, only when it is played..." The policemen chatted about the case beside me, and everything seemed to make sense.But the last sentence made me tremble, and an inexplicable fear flashed quietly in my heart. At this time, the fat policeman said again: "If it is suspected that the contents of the video tape caused the two murders, let's see what is on the tape!" His proposal was immediately approved by everyone. But I was worried that the magnetic powder of the video tape would come off again, which would cause the problem that happened to Gao Qiang for the first time.The best way is to take the videotape back to Shanghai, where the equipment is well-equipped, and it may be better to let the engineer process it before watching it.However, Captain Zhang will obviously not allow me to do this.These video tapes are currently the most important evidence in these two murder cases, and all the mysteries are waiting to be revealed from here-but isn't this dangerous? "If Xiaoyu's death is related to watching the video, then watch it again..." A policeman finally expressed my doubts. "You must check the videotapes. However, so many tapes cannot be watched at once. And the two accidents happened at night, so I don't agree with us taking risks tonight. Let's do it tomorrow." After Captain Zhang finished speaking, he turned to me and said, "Mr. Forrest Gump, I would like to ask you to check it out tomorrow, because you are a professional in this field. Of course, this may put you at risk. Set up security during the inspection, and let Xiaopang accompany you. Are you willing to assist the police in solving the case?" "Of course I would! Besides, I bought these video tapes, and I can't wait to know what's inside." I tried to speak in a humorous and relaxed tone. Everyone smiled knowingly.But my sense of curiosity and fear still inevitably have a contest.