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

Chapter 1256 Discovery in the Sycamore Grove

The deceased was a middle-aged man, appearing to be in his thirties, about 1.75 meters tall, wearing a gray hoodie and black sweatpants, with white sneakers on his feet. His jacket was draped over his shoulders, and there seemed to be something stuck to the collar. Xiao Sun squatted down beside the recliner, took out a ruler, and carefully measured the distance between the body and the edge of the recliner. He then gently parted the jacket with tweezers to carefully examine the deceased's hands—the fingers were clean, without any obvious injuries, and there was no dirt or fiber under the fingernails.

"Don't touch the body yet, focus on checking the surrounding environment," Xiao Yang reminded, moving the beam of the investigation light under the recliner. The ground was covered with a thin layer of fallen leaves, and the soil between the leaves was flat with no obvious footprints. However, about thirty centimeters to the right of the recliner, there was a fallen leaf that had been crushed, with a light brown mark on its edge.

“There’s something wrong here.” Xiao Sun picked up the fallen leaf with tweezers and examined it against the light. “The mark looks like the trace of some kind of liquid that has dried. The color is dark, it’s not dew, and it’s not soil.” He put the fallen leaf into an evidence bag and searched the surrounding area carefully. Soon, he found several shallow scratches on the trunk of a sycamore tree. The scratches were about five centimeters long and oriented randomly, as if someone had scraped them with a fingernail or a hard object.

"The bark around the scratch is still fresh, not oxidized and blackened, so it must have been left in the last day or two." Xiao Yang touched the scratch with his hand. "Could it be that the deceased accidentally brushed against it during a fight? Or was it left by the suspect?" He squatted down and carefully examined the ground below the scratch. Sure enough, he found half a blurry shoe print. The edges of the shoe print were covered with damp soil. The size looked like a men's sneaker around size 42. The pattern was a common mesh pattern, but because of the fallen leaves, only part of it could be seen.

At the same time, Xiao Wang walked over to Zhang Jihai, who was still trembling, and handed him a cup of hot soy milk—which his teammate had just bought from a breakfast stall near the park entrance. "Grandpa, don't be nervous, tell me slowly, how did you find the deceased? Was anyone else around when you found him?"

Zhang Jihai took the soy milk, holding the cup with both hands, the trembling in his fingertips subsiding slightly. He took a sip of the hot soy milk, composed himself, and said, "I come here every morning at 5:30, and today was no exception. When I got to the sycamore grove, I smelled something was wrong, and then I saw someone on the deck chair. I called out twice, but no one answered. When I got closer, their face was frighteningly pale, and their hands were ice-cold to the touch. I knew something was wrong."

"When you found him, was his coat covering him? Did you see anything unusual, like a cigarette butt, a water glass, or a stranger?" Xiao Wang took out his notebook, pen hovering over the paper, his eyes focused intently on Zhang Jihai.

"The coat is still on, just like it is now, untouched." Zhang Jihai tried hard to recall, his brows furrowed. "Nothing special... I don't think I saw anything special. There were only a few fallen leaves on the ground, just like usual. As for strangers, when I came, besides a few people jogging, there were only two people practicing Tai Chi by the flower bed on the west side. I didn't see anyone coming towards the sycamore grove. Oh, right!" He suddenly remembered something, his eyes lighting up. "Last night when I came to feed the cats, around eight o'clock, I saw a man in a black hoodie loitering at the entrance of the sycamore grove. I thought he was a thief, so I looked at him a couple more times. When he saw me looking at him, he turned and left."

"Could you describe what the man looked like? For example, his height, build, or any distinctive features?" Xiao Wang pressed, his pen scribbling rapidly on the paper.

Zhang Jihai shook his head, saying with some regret, "It was dark, and he was wearing a hat, so I couldn't see his face. He was probably around 1.7 meters tall, neither fat nor thin, and walked quite fast. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now that I think about it, could it be related to this?"

Xiao Wang nodded and highlighted the information: "A strange man wearing a black hoodie, about 170cm tall, of medium build, was loitering near the entrance of the Wutong Forest last night around 8 pm." He added, "Sir, do you remember which direction he went? Did you see him carrying anything?"

"He was walking towards the east gate of the park, carrying what looked like a black bag, not very big, about this size." Zhang Jihai gestured with his hand, indicating it was about the size of a briefcase. "I can't remember anything else. I went home after feeding the cats."

Just then, Xiao Yang's voice came from behind the cordon: "Captain Wang, come and take a look!" After settling Zhang Jihai in, Xiao Wang quickly walked into the cordon. Xiao Yang pointed to the ground to the left of the recliner, where there was a patch of trampled weeds. Embedded in the soil at the base of the weeds was a silver metal wire, about two centimeters long, as if it had fallen from something.

“The metal wire is shiny and not rusty, so it must have fallen recently.” Xiao Yang picked up the metal wire with tweezers and put it in the evidence bag. “In addition, we found several small drag marks in the soil under the deck chair. The direction was from the entrance of the sycamore forest towards the deck chair. The marks were very shallow, as if someone dragged a light object, but we are not sure if they are related to the body.”

Xiao Sun added, "We have already taken photos of the scratches on the tree trunk and the half-shoe print. We need to go back and compare the pattern of the shoe print with the database. At present, there are no obvious external injuries on the deceased's body, and there are no signs of a fierce struggle around. However, the scratches on the tree trunk, the metal wire, and the marked fallen leaf all indicate that this may not be the primary crime scene, or at least that someone else has been here."

Li Ming walked over to the three men, listened to their report, and then his gaze fell on the body on the recliner: "The deceased's identity is currently unknown. We didn't find any identification card or cell phone on him. Xiao Yang and Xiao Sun, you two continue to expand the search area, checking the stone path outside the sycamore grove, especially towards the east gate, to see if you can find more shoe prints or metal wires; Xiao Wang, you confirm the details of the stranger from last night with Zhang Jihai again, and also contact the park management office to retrieve the surveillance footage from last night to early this morning, focusing on the footage near the east gate and the sycamore grove."

As dawn broke through the morning mist, dappling the branches and leaves of the sycamore trees. The dappled light and shadow fell starkly on the cold recliner and the corpse. Outside the police cordon, the morning exercisers hadn't dispersed, and whispers occasionally drifted in. Zhang Jihai stood on the periphery of the crowd, watching the officers bustling about, his heart still pounding—he had been exercising in the park for over a decade, and he had never imagined such a thing would happen.

Xiao Wang returned to Zhang Jihai's side and asked him a few more detailed questions. After confirming that nothing had been missed, he left his contact information: "Sir, if you remember anything else later, please call me anytime. Thank you for your hard work today. I may need your cooperation to make a statement later."