Montage: A collage editing of meaningful space-time, human elements, and locations.
Fuming City, the worst city in the province.
Low, remote buildings, narrow streets, crowded people, and the security situation could only be described as chaotic.
I've been transferred here from the provincial capital, Gaogang City, for less than a week, and I'm already on the verge of collapse.
Director Liang said that only an outstanding criminal police officer like me could manage a poverty-stricken area like Fuming City.
But I feel more like I've been exiled to the frontier!
My name is He Sheng, and I served as the captain of the criminal police team in Gaogang City for 5 years. Recently, I was transferred to this desolate place. At first, I was ready to give up, but a recent case has piqued my interest here.
For me, I've dealt with all sorts of bizarre and strange cases, but at the beginning of this year, there was one particularly odd and disturbing case that left me shaken.
That night, I was organizing materials in the office when an urgent phone call broke my train of thought.
"Hello! This is the Fuming City Police Station!"
There was complete silence on the line, not even a breath.
Usually, when someone calls the police and doesn't say a word, they are likely in an extremely dangerous situation.
"Don't be afraid. You've been kidnapped, right? Is it inconvenient to talk?" I asked.
"..." The other side remained eerily silent.
Just as I was about to probe further, a distorted voice came through: "Help me! Please! Come save me!"
The voice was tense and fearful, as though someone was choking their throat. It was hard to tell if it was male or female, but the pleading was desperate and heartbreaking!
"Tell me your location. Or describe what you can see around you, the environment…" I urged.
Beep... Beep...
At that critical moment, the call was disconnected!
I stood there dazed for a moment and looked at the caller ID, which showed a landline number. I called back, but no one answered.
"Xiao Xie, help me trace a phone number…" I shouted to the office outside, but before I could finish, Xiao Xie rushed over.
"Captain, Director Liu wants you in the conference room, right now!"
Usually, Director Liu doesn't hold meetings, so his urgency meant something big had happened.
I quickly made my way to the conference room.
As soon as I pushed open the door, the serious expressions of Director Liu and the other department colleagues confirmed my suspicion.
"This case is very tricky. Zhang Huilong reported that his son, Zhang Jiye, has gone missing!" Director Liu said.
The Zhang family! Zhang Huilong!
The largest real estate conglomerate in Fuming City, the Zhang family. Zhang Huilong, the chairman of the real estate group.
They have dozens of bodyguards, and now his son is missing?
Kidnapped? Extorted?
"This case has attracted top-level attention. We are required to solve it within a week!" Director Liu said as he instructed the officers nearby to distribute basic information about the case.
"Director Liu, I suggest we check the surveillance footage to locate where he was last seen!" I suggested seriously.
"The technical team's Xie De Guang is already handling it. Now, I'm assigning tasks: He Sheng and Xiao Yuande, go to the technical team to investigate the surveillance footage!"
"Li Siqi and Gao Qiang, you two will interview the people within Zhang Jiye's social circle."
"Zhang Wang and Liu Chao, you assist Xie De Guang in investigating Zhang Jiye's recent contacts!"
After assigning these tasks, Director Liu pointed at me and said, "He Sheng, as the captain of the criminal investigation team, you must solve this case immediately. Otherwise, you can forget about being the captain!"
"Director, I… I understand!" My eardrums almost burst from his yelling, and I quickly left the conference room.
I took the materials to the technical team to find Xiao Yuande and asked him about the last known location of Zhang Jiye's phone signal.
Xie De Guang said that based on Zhang Jiye's phone signal, it was confirmed that he left home on the 18th, visited the Bourbon Hotel and Tianhui Internet Café in Fuming City, and eventually disappeared near Jiaoyu Town.
After pulling up the nearby surveillance footage, we saw his figure at the entrance of a factory in Jiaoyu Town. He was holding a phone but was making a call at a public phone booth, visibly agitated, shaking, and constantly looking around in fear.
There seemed to be some bloodstains on his back, his clothes were tattered, and he kept pleading, "Help me! Please! Come save me!"
He clutched his chest and seemed to witness something through the glass of the phone booth, which made him even more anxious, almost on the verge of collapse.
"Help me! Please! Come save me!" His cries echoed again, like thunder from hell, and when we looked closely, we noticed a shadow swaying behind him, standing there the whole night!
He seemed terrified of the person behind him, as if to avoid them, Zhang Jiye had desperately retreated into the phone booth to call for help.
But the video footage began to blur, showing some ripples on the screen, and eventually, it disappeared. Xie De Guang, who was present, checked the footage and said, "The camera was tampered with."
"Tampered?" I asked.
"Yes, it could have been the killer trying to prevent us from seeing the rest of the footage," Xie De Guang confirmed.
Then, Xie De Guang found that just before Zhang Jiye's phone signal vanished, at 11 PM the previous night, someone had called the police. The call records confirmed that it was Zhang Jiye who had made the call.
We listened to the audio recording of that call in the audio room.
When the call was answered, there was a long period of silence, and then I heard the same recorded message: "Hello! This is the Fuming City Police Station!"
...
Hearing this, Xiao Yuande, who was next to me, asked, "Why didn't you tell us this? Were you deliberately hiding it from us?"