Serious Case Tracking

Chapter 3 The Wei Family

After leaving the scene of the crime, Meng Shaohui found Zhao Tietou. He naturally knew the purpose of looking for him and warmly greeted Meng Shaohui to his home.

Zhao Tietou's house is not as elegant as Wei Qiuyuan's house. It is just an ordinary brick house with a single courtyard, without even a wall, and simply made a fence around the house with branches.

When entering the house, the furnishings here can be described in one sentence: "Although the sparrow is small, it has all internal organs."

Although the building of the house is relatively ordinary, the furnishings in the house are very particular. There are leather sofas, high-end tables and chairs, large-size LCD TVs, etc., and the overall living conditions are even slightly worse than those of working-class families in the city. outperformed.

"Captain Meng, please drink water." Zhao Tietou greeted warmly.

"Thank you!" Meng Shaohui replied politely, "Your living conditions are good!"

"It's okay, it's okay, I don't lack anything, I don't have to worry about food and clothing! But it wasn't like this a few decades ago, thanks to Village Chief Wei!" Zhao Tietou said.

"Oh? Can you tell me more about it?"

"Speaking of Village Chief Wei, that's a long story! He is not from our village. I remember it was 40 years ago, when I was a toddler. About how Village Chief Wei came to the village in the early years I came here, and I heard it from adults after I was sensible." Zhao Tietou smiled embarrassedly, "Majong Village, to put it bluntly, is a Mahjong Village. If you came here 40 years ago, you would already be able to listen to it before entering the village. It’s the sound of playing mahjong. Everyone’s life here was based on mahjong. From birth, everyone heard the sound of mahjong. The first thing they came into contact with was mahjong. It’s not an exaggeration. To put it bluntly, the villagers are not very literate, but when it comes to mahjong, absolutely everyone is a master.”

"It really is a veritable mahjong village!"

"Yes! The life of the villagers at that time was not like it is now. At that time, every household was really destitute and impoverished, because at that time everyone only wanted to play mahjong. Even if they went to the field to farm, it was to sell the crops. When exchanging money to play mahjong, this family loses to that family today, and that family loses to this family tomorrow. The whole village is like a roulette wheel. Some people often lose so much that the family can’t get rid of it, but there is no way to do it. Bad habits that have been handed down.” Zhao Tietou shook his head unconsciously when talking about the past events in the village 40 years ago. When he came here, he was very well-dressed, and to the villagers, it was as if he had seen an alien. Back then, this small village opened its doors at night, and thieves didn’t bother to patronize them. Well-dressed people like Wei Qiuyuan The villagers were very curious about what he wanted to do during a sudden visit. But he didn’t say anything on the first day he came, he just went around the mountain of the village and left. It was just that he got lost, so he didn't take it to heart, and he forgot about it after a while, but a month later, he came to the village again, this time he didn't leave, and on the same day Hu Liang, the head of the village at the time, convened a meeting of all the villagers, saying that since we like playing mahjong so much, why not make a living by making mahjong? And he noticed that there are a lot of luminous stones on a mountain in our village. He wants to use this kind of stone to make luminous mahjong, and it will definitely sell for a good price. In this way, when our village produces stone, he is responsible for providing production equipment and contacting buyers, and then splits the accounts with the villagers. Mahjong, without delaying earning money, why not do two things with one stone? After hearing his words, the villagers thought it was very reasonable. After all, it is not an option to play mahjong all the time. Slow, on the contrary, the method he said not only makes money quickly, but also hits the hands of the villagers who love mahjong."

"There are luminous stones on the mountain here, don't you know?" Meng Shao asked curiously.

"Hehe, the villagers back then were full of mahjong. How could they possibly know this? They only knew that there were stones on the back hill of the village that would emit light. Occasionally, children would go there to pick up stones to play, but no one knew if it was worth money, let alone Don't talk about making that thing into mahjong and selling it for money." Zhao Tietou smiled, "If you want to talk about Village Chief Wei's business acumen, there is absolutely nothing to say. For a living! In the past six or so years, the kind of life was fine, and I could barely live by tightening my belt. If it were changed to the present, I guess the villagers would have gone out to rob and steal for money."

"It's true, if this bet can make you rich, then we can all stop working." Meng Shaohui nodded in agreement.

"No, just like this, under the leadership of Village Chief Wei, the life of the villagers has finally improved. At least three meals a day are a lot, and occasionally the food is improved by big fish and meat. The work is also very hard. Later, in the past seven years, machine production gradually replaced manual production. Village head Wei also kept pace with the times, bought advanced machines, and really started a mahjong factory. , and the efficiency of machine production is much higher than our previous manual production, and it is also much more delicate."

"I see. As far as you know, what kind of person is Wei Qiuyuan? Does he have any enemies?"

"If it weren't for Village Chief Wei, our village wouldn't be what it is today. Although the villagers aren't considered wealthy, they still have a lot of food and clothing! That's why the villagers are grateful to Village Chief Wei. As for enemies? , at least not in the village, and I don’t know much about outside the village, but he rarely leaves the village in recent years, after all, he is old, so I don’t think he has any enemies!”

"In your opinion, what kind of person is Wei Qiuyuan?"

"He doesn't talk much, but he is very business-minded and knows how to use the resources in the village to make money." Zhao Tietou paused, and continued after drinking a sip of tea, "And I heard from the villagers that 30 years ago, in order to save The old village chief, he even risked his life to rush into the fire without regard for his own safety, which eventually caused his face to be burned."

"No wonder he has such a big scar on his face." Meng Shaohui suddenly thought of the palm-sized scar on the left cheek of the corpse just now, "Is the old village chief saved?"

"No! Because it was late at night when the fire caught fire, and the old village chief's family was sleeping at that time, so none of them survived." Zhao Tietou shook his head, "Later when the new village chief was elected, although Wei Qiuyuan was not from the village, he was Leading the villagers to get rich, coupled with his dedication to save the old village chief, the villagers finally agreed that he was the best candidate for the village chief."

"What was the cause of the fire? Did you check it afterwards?"

"I don't know, no one has checked. Back then, in our poor place, where the mountains were high and the emperor was far away, who would check? But back then, the village was poor and there was no electricity. Every household's lighting tools were candles or kerosene lamps. So it's probably caused by these things!"

"Can you tell me about Wei Qiuyuan's children in detail?"

"One year after becoming the village chief, the village chief Wei married Wu Yulan in our village, and gave birth to the eldest son Wei Dongsheng and the second daughter Wei Yannan. The hemorrhage failed to be rescued and passed away. Two years later, he married again. His second wife was named Feng Yao, who was also from the village. She originally had a partner, but unfortunately, her partner died of cancer. Married to Village Chief Wei, and bore him his third son, Wei Xiluo, and fourth son, Wei Beigui."

"Then why didn't Wei Qiuyuan's wife and four children live with him in the village?"

"It's like this. Although the life in the village is carefree and has no worries about food and drink, but the times are different. For young people, staying here is like a bird in a cage or a frog at the bottom of a well. They can't see much of the world at all, so Young people have basically gone to work in the city. Although they are not short of money, they are still going to see the world! What's more, it is convenient for their children to go to school when they are in the city. The four children of Village Chief Wei are no exception. They also have their own family backgrounds. If they lived in the village, it would be inconvenient to go anywhere, so they have already moved to the city, and they only come back during the holidays. Village chief Wei usually lives with his wife Feng Yao Together, but the younger son's wife just gave birth to a son at the beginning of the year, so Feng Yao has recently gone to the city to help take care of the younger grandson, and Village Chief Wei didn't go because he wanted to watch the factory's business here."

"Then before and after the incident, have you seen any strangers in the village?"

"Probably not, at least I haven't seen a stranger, and you have seen it too. Our village is only this big. If a stranger comes, it will definitely be easily noticed by the villagers."

After finishing the conversation with Zhao Tietou, Meng Shaohui also had a preliminary understanding of Wei Qiuyuan, but he couldn't find any valuable clues from it.

Judging from the murderer's cruel methods, the possibility of vendetta is the greatest. Judging from the scars on the head of the deceased, even without a detailed autopsy, it can be seen that it was caused by repeated blows with blunt objects. It is the deep hatred that makes the murderer so cruel when he commits the crime; if it is robbery, at most he kills people and robs property, there is no need to smash his head like that, it is almost flat like paper, let alone According to the on-site investigation, there were no traces of being turned over in the deceased's home, and the belongings in the drawers were not lost.As for the murder of love, the possibility is very small. The deceased is already an old man over sixty years old, and there is no problem with his relationship with his wife. It is impossible to cause trouble due to love.

(End of this chapter)