The crackdown on organized crime began with the arrest of the mother-in-law.

Chapter 1070 The Corpse in the Garbage Heap

Ren Tao, carrying a green hiking backpack and with an action camera around his neck, was humming a song. He raised his handcuffed hands and pointed to a gravel path to the west. "I deliberately led him down that deserted path, saying it was a shortcut to see the sunrise."

When they reached a protruding rocky platform, Wang Bingchen suddenly stopped. "Right here." His pupils contracted slightly. "I pretended to trip over a tree root and lunged at him." As I spoke, I leaned forward. "Ren Tao instinctively reached out to steady me, and I seized the opportunity to grab his wrist." His movement froze in mid-air, as if he were still holding onto someone unseen. "He trusted me so much; he wasn't on guard at all."

The vines on the cliff edge swayed in the wind, and a few withered leaves drifted into the abyss. Wang Bingchen slowly turned to face the cliff and continued, "I pulled him towards the edge with all my might, his hiking boots screeching against the rocks." He suddenly imitated Ren Tao's terrified shout: "Are you crazy?!" "But how could I be crazy? I'm perfectly clear-headed!" His voice suddenly rose, startling the sparrows in the treetops.

"He grabbed onto a vine when he fell." Wang Bingchen crouched down, his fingertip pointing to a wild vine on the cliff edge. "This one, its leaves are all yellow now." His tone was sickly gentle. "He looked up at me, his eyes filled with fear, still asking, 'Why?'" As he spoke, he drew a simulated knife from his SWAT officer's waistband and swung it fiercely at the air. "I told him, 'This is for my sister!'"

Li Ming's recorder faithfully captured every detail, while the technician simultaneously performed a 3D scan. Wang Bingchen suddenly stood up and walked to another depression on the cliff edge: "The body fell here, bounced up, and hit that rock." He kicked the rock, which was stained with dark red marks, and the sound of the skull cracking was like a watermelon exploding. A look of ecstasy appeared on his face until the SWAT officers roughly dragged him back to safety.

The final dismemberment simulation brought the atmosphere to a freezing point. Wang Bingchen pointed to a tree stump in the bushes: "I dragged the body here, with a hiking knife..." He suddenly stopped, letting out a strange, gurgling laugh. "You know what? The blood of a living person is warm, the blood of a dead person is cold, the feeling of it flowing down the back of the knife is completely different." His description was so detailed that several young officers couldn't help but turn their faces away.

As the identification process concluded, a sudden downpour began. Wang Bingchen let the rain wash over his face, and before being led to the police car, he shouted, "I killed Ren Jianguo too! That stupid idiot who tried to double-cross me!" This statement stunned everyone. Li Ming immediately signaled a halt to the evacuation. Through the rain, Wang Bingchen's maniacal laughter mingled with the thunder's roar. This hidden secret might just open a new chapter in both murder cases.

Three days later, the Criminal Investigation Division reported the case to the street again.

The iron gate of the scavenger's garbage collection station was rusted by the morning dew. When it was pushed open with a creak, the stench of decay, like an invisible hand, gripped everyone's throats. Li Ming covered his mouth and nose, his boots crunching over the plastic bottles scattered on the ground, making a cracking sound that mingled with the roar of the garbage compressor in the distance, creating an eerie morning symphony.

“In sorting area number three,” Old Li, the scavenger who called the police, hunched over, pointing with his withered, twig-like fingers to a mountain of waste paper, “this morning at five o’clock when I was taking out the trash, the forklift tore open that black plastic bag, and a hand came out…” He suddenly coughed violently, his phlegm mixed with grayish-black residue, “The smell was stronger than a rotten watermelon in summer, and you couldn’t block it even through three masks.”

Xiao Yang was already kneeling beside the body, his gloved fingers gently parting the plastic bag. With a "pop," putrefactive gases burst through the skin, and a pale green liquid trickled down the contours of the corpse, forming small puddles on the ground. "Male corpse, late stage of decomposition," he said, using tweezers to lift the deceased's eyelids; the corneas were already cloudy and milky white. "Judging from the degree of skin leatheriness, the time of death was at least two weeks."

Xiao Sun was using a laser rangefinder to measure: "The body is 1.8 meters away from the sorting area conveyor belt, mixed in with waste paper and plastic bottles." He suddenly adjusted the beam angle, and the green line fell on the body's wrist. "There are ligature marks here! About 0.5 centimeters deep, with irregular edges, as if it was bound by a rough rope."

"Take a picture, make sure the ruler aligns with the strangulation marks." Xiao Yang's voice came through the gas mask, sounding somewhat muffled. His gaze swept over the corpse's chest, where the clothes had been corroded into tattered strips, and there were several irregular wounds on the exposed skin: "The wound edges are rolled inward, like injuries sustained before death, but the decomposition is too severe to make out the exact shape."

Xiao Wang helped Lao Li to the duty room of the sanitation station. The hot water in the enamel cup was slick with oil. "Do you often scavenge in this area?" His pen hovered over the notebook. "Have you seen any suspicious people or vehicles in the last two weeks?" Lao Li's hands were still trembling, his knuckles white as he gripped the cup: "Last Wednesday night, I saw a silver-gray van parked at the entrance. A man wearing a hat got out, carrying a bulging black bag. I thought he was dumping garbage illegally, so I ignored it..."

"What were the car's distinguishing features?" Xiao Wang pressed, his pen leaving deep marks on the paper. Old Li smacked his lips as he recalled, "The rear window was tinted with dark film, and the license plate was covered in mud, so I could only make out the character '冀' (Ji). The man was wearing a black hoodie, quite tall, and walked with a limp; his left leg seemed to have some problems."

Just then, Xiao Yang's walkie-talkie crackled to life: "Xiao Wang, bring the person who called the police over to identify this." On the way from the duty room to the sorting area, flies swarmed like a black cloud, forcing Xiao Wang to clear a path with a tree branch. Beside the body, Xiao Sun was putting a brown leather shoe into an evidence bag: "Size 43, made of cowhide, the sole shows obvious wear, especially the left heel, which is more worn than the right."

Old Li peeked out and suddenly took a half step back: "It's those shoes! When that man was carrying the bag, I saw he was wearing these brown leather shoes, and it looked like his left heel was worn unevenly!" His voice trembled, "I was wondering at the time, why would he wear such nice shoes to take out the trash, it's not normal..."

Xiao Yang had already turned the body over; the putrefied veins on the back resembled a dark red spider web. "There are pressure marks on the buttocks, which should have been caused by prolonged bed rest or sitting," he said, gently touching the area with a probe. "But these few pinpoint wounds are strange; their distribution is irregular and doesn't seem like typical sharps injuries."

Suddenly, Xiao Sun pointed to the corpse's right hand: "There's something between the fingers!" He carefully pried open the already stiff fingers and used tweezers to pick out a few strands of pale gold fibers. "They look like the threads of some kind of fabric, not ordinary fibers from the trash."