Chapter 10 Chapter 8: Underground Labyrinth

Wanyan Mountain is located on the outskirts of this city. It is said to be Wanyan, but it is actually just a small stone mountain.A few years ago, a company contracted a large open space at the foot of the mountain and built a large outdoor amusement park, named Wanyan Mountain Carnival, where there are all kinds of thrilling games such as jumping machines, roller coasters, and Ferris wheels.Since its opening, the business has been booming, and there are a lot of tourists every day. It seems that everyone wants to try things that they usually dare not think about, such as jumping off a building, such as crashing a car.

Several police cars were parked in front of the entertainment city, their red and blue police lights flashing silently.In front of the ticket office, a large group of tourists surrounded a greasy and sweaty staff member and asked loudly. He had a sour face and weakly explained something. Fang Mu pinned his police officer's ID on his chest, and a policeman who was about to stop him put down his hand. Fang Mu nodded at him, "Hello, where is the scene?" "It's not far inside." He pointed to the park with his hand, "Did you see that red brick wall, it's behind it."

Fang Mu raised his leg to leave, but was stopped by the policeman again: "Wait, I'll find someone to take you there." Just as Fang Mu was about to ask why, he waved his hand towards the ticket office, "Hey, you, come here." The staff member responded, squeezed out of the crowd as if granted an amnesty, and ran over. "What's the matter?" "Take this police officer to the scene." The policeman's tone could not be refused. He nodded hastily, "Okay, okay." It seems that running errands is much easier than explaining to tourists who cannot enter the park.

Fang Mu was a little puzzled, the scene wasn't too far away, why did someone take him there? He said politely: "No need, I can go by myself." "Let me take you there." The staff member had already started to walk into the park, "Or you won't be able to find it for a while." Seeing this, Fang Mu could only follow him inside.Walking around the red wall, there is a square gate in front of you. Before you get to the gate, you can feel the cool air coming from the cave.Walking into the doorway, there is a concrete staircase extending to the ground at the foot. The light gets darker as you go down. Fortunately, there are some small red lights on the wall, which can make the surrounding things faintly discernible.

After walking down for more than ten meters, there was another wall in front of me, and a black-painted iron door was half-opened and half-closed. The staff turned their faces and whispered, "Follow me." After that, he opened the iron door and walked in. Fang Mu passed through that door and found himself in a small square room with an iron door on each of the four walls, which looked extremely strange. Fang Mu immediately knew where he was.Underground labyrinth. The staff member had already opened the door on the left, turned around and said, "Follow up, a policeman just got lost and didn't go out for half an hour."

The roads in the maze are all narrow passages, which look very dangerous under the dim light of the red light bulbs, as if the walls on both sides may squeeze over at any time.Fang Mu and the staff walked one after the other, turning to a fork in the road or turning back from time to time.At first Fang Mu wanted to memorize the route desperately, but soon he gave up this idea, and could only follow the staff member closely, thinking about what to do when he came back. After 6 or 7 minutes, there was a sound gradually coming from the front. After turning a corner, a wall appeared in front of my eyes. On the wall was also an iron door painted black.The staff stopped.

"Go ahead, just open that door." He stared at the door with lingering fear, "I don't want to look at it again." Fang Mu nodded, "If it's convenient, give me a map of the maze." "Let me ask the leader for instructions," he hesitated, "You know, this is a business secret." After speaking, he turned around and left in a hurry. Standing in front of the wall, Fang Mu suddenly felt inexplicably flustered. He looked at the red light bulbs around him, frowned, and stretched out his hand to open the door. This is a small room exactly like the one just now, and there is a strange smell in the air.In the center of the room, the corpse of an adult male was lying prone on the ground.There were a few people wearing transparent hoods, gloves, and foot covers standing around them. Their faces were blurred in the dim red light, and it seemed that the whites of their eyes were all faint red.Hearing the sound of the door opening, they all turned their heads to look at Fang Mu.Under the gaze of such a group of weird people, Fang Mu felt very uncomfortable, but fortunately, someone greeted him immediately: "Are you here?"

Fang Mu recognized him as Deputy Chief Zheng Lin of the Criminal Police Team of the City Bureau, and nodded, "Finished taking the photo?" "The photoshoot is over." Zheng Lin handed over a set of headgear, gloves and anklets, and signaled Fang Mu to put them on. "The trace team has already started working. I thought this scene was interesting, so I called the old side." Fang Mu looked at a few policemen in the room who were on all fours, carefully inspecting, and then turned his attention to the corpse on the ground. "What was the cause of death?"

"It is not certain yet, the preliminary conclusion of the forensic doctor is electric shock." "Electric shock?" Fang Mu looked around, "So the first scene is not here?" "Yes. He was brought here after his death." "That's a little strange." Fang Mu said thoughtfully. Zheng Lin laughed loudly, "It's because it's strange that I called you here." Fang Mu nodded, got up and squatted down in front of the deceased.The deceased was about 1.70 meters tall, lying prone, with his head tilted slightly to the left, and his slightly opened eyes could be seen, but no luster could be seen in the half-opened and half-closed eyelids.

Several forensic doctors yelled "one, two, three" and turned the body over together.The dead man's face turned stiffly towards the ceiling, his mouth gaping open.Fang Mu looked at his face carefully, it was a very strange expression, which seemed to be mixed with pain, fear and sudden realization.What did he think, or hear, see? "Damn, this guy suffered a lot before he died." A forensic doctor muttered while fiddling with the deceased's calf. "What?" Fang Mu leaned over. "Look." The forensic doctor pointed to the deceased's calf. There was a deep burnt black wound on the ankle.

"It seems... burnt?" "Electric injury." The forensic doctor said flatly, "There are also other parts of the body, on the legs and wrists, and they are symmetrical." "Symmetry?" Fang Mu frowned, "So he was restrained before he died?" "And was shocked many times." The forensic doctor curled his lips, "What a big hatred." At this time, the door opened again, and the staff member who had sent Fang Mu in just stuck his head out, glanced at the corpse on the ground, turned his face away quickly, and stretched out a hand from behind the door, holding a piece of paper in his fingers , shaking "squeaky". "Comrade policeman, map." Fang Mu walked over to take the map, and the staff immediately retracted their heads behind the door, and said in a low voice: "The map is given to you, you can come out by yourself later." The map is not big, but Fang Mu looked at it for a long time.Seeing that he was engrossed, Zheng Lin also leaned over, "Where are we now, are we almost there?" It took Fang Mu a long time to reply: "No." He put down the map and looked around the small room. "We are in the deepest part of this maze." On September 28, a murder occurred at the Wanyanshan Carnival Amusement Park in C City.At the time of the incident, several tourists were playing in the underground maze. When they reached the middle of the maze, they found a male corpse.The tourists ran away after being frightened, and they were all trapped in the maze. Later, some tourists pressed the help device on the wall before being led out of the maze by the staff. At that time, several tourists had almost collapsed. The deceased Jiang Peiyao, male, 39 years old, was a teacher at the Commercial College of C City before his death. On the evening of September 27, the deceased did not return home from get off work on time.The deceased's wife called him, and the deceased told him that he was writing a final report on a scientific research project.At about 22 o'clock that night, the wife of the deceased called the deceased again, but found that the mobile phone could not be connected.The wife of the deceased immediately came to the school to look for her husband.The staff on duty informed Mr. Jiang that he had left the school at about 21:00 that night.After searching unsuccessfully all night, the relatives of the deceased called the police in the early morning of the next day. Six hours later, Jiang Peiyao's body was found. According to the phenomenon of electric current spots, skin metallization and bone pearls formed on the surface of the corpse, it is inferred that the cause of death was shock caused by electric shock, and the time of death was between 22:00 p.m.Therefore, the scene of throwing the corpse is not the first scene.The amusement park confirmed that the two exits of the underground labyrinth are not closed, they are guarded by special personnel during the day, and no one is guarded after the park is closed at night.It is suspected that the murderer took the corpse outside the enclosure at night, threw the corpse into the garden, and then climbed over the wall to transport the corpse to the underground labyrinth.Since the body throwing site is a commercial place, the site had been destroyed when the incident occurred, and no valuable clues were obtained during the on-site inspection.However, the police preliminarily deduced that there may be more than one murderer, and they should have driven a vehicle when committing the crime. The autopsy report showed that the deceased had been tortured before his death, so the police preliminarily concluded that this was a revenge homicide, and launched a series of investigations and interviews based on this.However, the investigation of his relatives, friends and neighbors showed that the deceased was modest and enthusiastic, and he had never heard of any grudges.Judging from the feedback from the deceased’s unit, the deceased’s colleagues generally believed that Mr. Jiang was a hard-working and conscientious person who devoted himself to studying knowledge.Moreover, the deceased also served as the head of the volunteer association of the school and was very enthusiastic about social welfare activities.Judging from the above findings, the conclusion of vendetta is almost impossible to hold.A colleague even joked: "If someone hates Lao Jiang, it can only be because he can successfully apply for scientific research projects every year and get all the research funds to him." Who would such a nearly perfect person have a grudge against? Although the results of all the investigations and visits are quite different from the police's speculation, Fang Mu still firmly believes that the investigation of the vendetta is correct.First of all, ordinary homicide cases seek to end quickly, and the longer the delay, the easier it is to be discovered.In this case, the deceased had been tortured for a long time after being hijacked. This additional behavior at great risk was obviously to vent some special emotion of the murderer, and this emotion should be related to hatred.Second, the murderer chose electric shock as a means of torturing and killing the deceased.There is no doubt that this is a very troublesome means.If you want the deceased to feel pain, a small knife is enough, why bother to use electric shocks?Fang Mu once considered that the purpose of torture might be to extract a confession.However, through the investigation of the deceased's background, it is basically possible to rule out the possibility that the deceased possessed important secrets and information.Moreover, it is conceivable that after the deceased suffered continuous electric shocks, the loud screams, violent convulsions, distorted facial features, and the smell of burnt flesh in the air would all bring great satisfaction to the murderer.Obviously, this is also related to some special needs of the murderer. However, what puzzled the police was: Why did the murderer choose the maze as a place to dump his body? Under normal circumstances, after a murder occurs, the murderer will try every means to cover up the facts of the crime, one of which is to dispose of the body so that it is not easy to be found.In this case, the murderer did the opposite, placing the corpse in a commercial entertainment venue.If it is understood as showing off to the public and challenging the police, then his behavior is undoubtedly unnecessary, and it can even be said to be stupid.First, the murderer can completely abandon the body in a more open place, such as a square or in front of a government agency.Such an occasion is more conducive to generating a sensational effect; second, the corpse should be abandoned quickly and concealed.And the intricate labyrinth is definitely not a place where the murderer can quickly complete the abandonment and leave. Unless the murderer wants to use the maze to express some kind of emotion, and is very familiar with the path of the maze. The police listed the staff of the playground as suspects and checked them one by one, but found nothing.Fang Mu was not surprised when he heard the news, and drove to the playground by himself. The Maze has reopened to the public, and business is surprisingly good.It seems that finding dead people in the maze just makes it more attractive.Fang Mu looked at the long queue at the ticket office, smiled wryly, and turned around to go to the information desk of the playground. The deputy manager of an amusement park brought a lot of documents and threw them heavily on the table in front of Fang Mu. While wiping his sweat, he said, "Officer Fang, take a look, I'm still busy there." He pointed The tourists scrambling towards the maze had uncontrollable smiles on their faces, "Call me if you need anything." The documents include design drawings, construction process, records of tourists asking for help and some photos.Fang Mu lit a cigarette, and patiently read one by one.He had a vague feeling that the maze should be the key to the case, at least related to the murderer's motive.Therefore, Fang Mu deliberately retrieved all the information of the maze, hoping to find something. According to the data, the total length of the maze is 450 meters, most of which are underground.There is an exit in the east and west directions of the maze, but no matter which exit you enter the maze from, there is only one correct route to the opposite exit.The room where the corpse was found is in the middle of the maze, which is considered a halfway stop.Tourists who can enter this room still have to face choices, and only by choosing the right route can they get out of the maze.Therefore, there is the deepest part of the maze. Due to the intricate routes in the maze, it is easy for people to lose their sense of direction. In addition, the lights are dim and the atmosphere is depressing. Therefore, very few tourists can get out of the maze, and most of them give up before reaching the rest stop.Each channel in the maze is equipped with a distress call device. Once the tourists who choose to leave press the switch, the monitoring room can lock the location of the tourists, and the staff will take them out of the maze. Suddenly, a photo caught Fang Mu's attention.In the photo, a smiling young man is holding a small box in his hand and making a V-shaped gesture towards the camera.There is a line of small words under the photo: Tan Ji, on June 25, 2004, the first tourist to walk out of the maze. "Tan Ji?" Fang Mu frowned, he had seen this name before.He flipped through the information he had read just now, and he really saw Tan Ji's name on a list of the fastest passage through the maze.He passed the maze in just 57 minutes, while the second-ranked person took a full 2 ​​hours and 47 minutes. The deputy manager pushed the door open and put a bottle of mineral water in front of Fang Mu. "Still looking at it?" He leaned over to look at the photo in Fang Mu's hand, "Hey! It's this kid." "It is said that he is the fastest person to pass through the maze?" "Yes." The deputy manager sat down on the sofa, "No one is faster than him so far. This kid is also quite interesting. He comes here often, and he is our regular customer." "Oh?" Fang Mu was taken aback, and hurriedly opened the album that had just been closed, looking carefully at Tan Ji's photos. "You said he came often - was that before or after his record?" "Afterwards." The deputy manager laughed, "Maybe he wants to break his own record?" Fang Mu stared at the photo for a long time, and finally asked: "Is he holding a prize?" "yes." "What is it?" "A compass." Tan Ji left his ID number when he received the prize, so it is not difficult to find him.The next day, Fang Mu met him in the reception room of an advertising company. It was a 23-year-old with colorfully dyed hair. He chewed gum and wandered into the conference room, lifting a chair to the ground with the back facing forward.He straddled the chair, put his hands on the back of the chair, and rested his chin on it. "Is there something wrong?" Fang Mu was a little surprised by this nonchalant attitude, and he decided to cut straight to the point. "My name is Fang Mu, from the Public Security Bureau. I want to ask you for some information. This is my work permit." Tan Ji didn't look at the police officer's ID handed over by Fang Mu, scratched his head and said, "The murder in the carnival maze, right?" Fang Mu looked at him and said calmly, "Yes." Tan Ji snorted, shook his head, and suddenly laughed: "Is it not good for me to ask?" Fang Mu brushed off the cigarette ash, but did not answer. "I thought you were going to ask me back: 'How do you know?' Hey!" Seeing that Fang Mu still didn't respond at all, the smile on Tan Ji's face suddenly disappeared, and a lazy expression returned. "What do you want to know, just ask." Fang Mu extinguished the cigarette butt in the ashtray, and asked: "Do you often go to the maze at the carnival?" "Yes. The fastest time through the maze is mine." "Have you been there after passing?" "Been there." "Since you have gone out, why do you want to go again?" "Keep surpassing." Tan Ji yawned, "I want to see if I can go faster." "The results of it?" "Huh?" Tan Ji was taken aback for a moment, "No, it didn't exceed that record." "How much difference?" "Not much difference." Fang Mu stared at him for a few seconds, "Where are you after 9pm on September 27?" Tan Ji didn't raise his head, stared at the floor, and said after a while, "I—seem to be playing games in an Internet cafe. Yes, I'm playing games in the Hongyun Internet cafe downstairs from my house." "what game?" "CS." "Can't access the Internet at home?" "sure." "Then why go to the Internet cafe?" "Playing CS in an Internet cafe is so enjoyable, besides, the Internet speed is also fast." "What time do you leave the Internet cafe?" "It seems to be 3 o'clock in the morning, I can't remember." "You went alone?" "right." "Then who can confirm your statement?" Tan Ji raised his head and rolled his eyes, "No." Seeing Fang Mu staring at him, he said impatiently, "Cough, who knew you would investigate me. I can't do anything We need to find a witness." Fang Mu smiled, stood up and said, "Let's come here today. If there is anything, I will come to you." "Whatever." Tan Ji put his hands in his trouser pockets, chewing gum and walked away. Fang Mu knew very well that Tan Ji was well prepared for his visit.The indifference when being questioned, the intentional avoidance of eye contact with Fang Mu when answering questions, and the chewing gum in his mouth were all intentional by Tan Ji.He is resisting Fang Mu's peeking into his heart through his facial expressions. However, Fang Mu was greatly disappointed by the investigation results notified by the Municipal Bureau.Tan Ji did play games in that Internet cafe that night, and the waiter in the Internet cafe was very impressed with him.After Tan Ji asked for a private room, he asked the waiter to bring in a bottle of mineral water. The waiter brought in a bottle of Wahaha mineral water, but he said he wanted Nongfu Spring.The waiter sent another bottle of Nongfu Spring, and he said that he wanted iced ones, not room temperature ones.When he checked out and got off the plane at three o'clock in the morning, he had an argument with the waiter of the Internet cafe because of the fee. In other words, it was impossible for Tan Ji to be at the scene when the crime happened. "So, this kid is fine?" Bian Ping blew on the tea leaves in the cup, and took a sip. "I don't think so." Fang Mu shook his head, "He must have lied to me." The purpose of Tan Ji entering the maze many times is definitely not the so-called self-transcendence, otherwise it is impossible for him not to keep records.What kind of needs can a person satisfy himself in the oppressive, dark underground labyrinth? "Think about it, is there a possibility of joint crimes." Bian Ping lit a cigarette, "The purpose of this kid entering the maze repeatedly may be to draw a map." "I have already reminded the Municipal Bureau," Fang Mu lazily leaned on the sofa, "check out the people who have been in close contact with Tan Ji recently." "Seeing how tired you are, go home early and go to bed." Fang Mu smiled, stood up reluctantly, reached out and took out a Chinese cigarette from Bian Ping's cigarette case and lit it, "Then I'm leaving." "Hehe, let's go." The phone rang, and Bian Ping waved at Fang Mu while holding the receiver. Fang Mu nodded, turned around and walked towards the door, just as he closed the door, he heard Bian Ping shouting his name from inside the room.He hurriedly turned and opened the door. "What's wrong?" As soon as the words came out, Fang Mu was taken aback by Bian Ping's expression. Bian Ping, who had looked kindly just now, looked dignified and frowned. He gently put the receiver back on the phone, pondered for a while, raised his head and said in a word: "Luo Jiahai has escaped from prison."