Chapter 952: Donglai County

"By rights, if Wang Jia wanted to build a bigger house, taking your three meters would've been enough, but that other three‑meter‑wide passage should belong to Zhang Guodong's family. According to our village custom, homestead boundaries are set from the passages between houses, every house has that kind of passage in the middle."

But five years ago, when the Wang Family built their house, they took over all six meters of that passage. At the time, Zhang Guodong was away working and didn't know about it; by the time he came back, their house was already finished.

He argued with their family several times but couldn't do anything, they almost came to blows.

Later, the Wang Family's group leader stepped in, said the brigade over there would also send someone to mediate. Zhang Guodong had no way out, the house was already built, so the matter was just written off.

Back then Wang Jia said he'd compensate him 3,000 yuan, but it was only a verbal promise, and in the end that money was never paid to Zhang Guodong.

So this matter was basically left unresolved, and last year Zhang Guodong and people from the Wang Family clashed again and got into a fight.

"Actually, it wasn't just the homestead issue. This spring the plots the two families were allocated ended up side by side, and when the Wang Family went to plant, they occupied one ridge of Zhang Guodong's land."

When Lu Chuan went to interview the neighbor on the other side of Zhang Guodong's house, he uncovered another situation.

"This spring, the Wang Family planted corn, and Zhang Guodong's family planted soybeans. Corn is sown earlier, soybeans later. When the Wang Family sowed, I don't know if they miscounted, or did it on purpose, anyway they planted one extra ridge and took a strip of Zhang Guodong's field."

The land of the three households is all adjacent, so the neighbor knew what happened at the time.

"The homestead issue had never been settled, the Wang Family said they'd pay him 3,000, in the end didn't pay. Then come spring they pulled this crap again, taking his farmland…"

Even though the Wang Family's five members were all killed, the villagers didn't seem to feel much sympathy for them.

On the contrary, many people thought what Zhang Guodong did was right.

The situation in Zhang Guodong's household was also quite complicated.

His wife died of lung cancer six years ago.

The two of them had raised a son and a daughter, but both children had bad fates.

Seven years ago, when his son went out to work—he'd just finished high school, hadn't gotten into college—he went out and started operating a tower crane, and ended up in an accident.

He fell from the tower crane and died.

The contractor ran off at the time, so there was nothing they could do; in the end they only got 30,000 yuan in compensation.

His daughter is gone too.

There's a twist here: years ago, Zhang Guodong's daughter was dating the Wang Family's second son. They were already talking marriage, but in the end it fell through over the bride price.

The following year, when Zhang Guodong's daughter was working out of town, she drowned while trying to save a child who'd fallen into the water.

So now, Zhang Guodong is the only one left in his family—his wife is gone, and both children are dead.

From the perspective of solving the case and catching the suspect, Zhang Guodong doesn't have any real relatives; his paternal cousins are all just in the same village.

His parents died long ago as well.

So once Zhang Guodong ran, where he would end up, nobody had any idea.

For the criminal police, investigating some premeditated homicide cases is actually not all that hard. As long as you can crack the case, the suspects usually don't run, they're easy to catch.

Because when that type of person commits a crime, it's all about hiding their identity, so during the crime they'll use a lot of methods and put in a lot of planning.

But someone like Zhang Guodong is different.

He killed without any attempt to cover it up, and once the killing was done, his plan was simply to run.

And he left on a motorcycle. If he'd taken a plane or train, even a long‑distance bus, there would've been ID checks and they could've tracked his movements. But now he's riding a motorcycle, and you don't need real‑name registration to buy gas, so there's no way to know where he's gone.

Even though his motorcycle has a license plate number, compared to a car, a motorcycle is much more flexible.

Lots of surveillance setups that a car can't avoid, a motorcycle can slip around.

And that's exactly what happened. There are two cameras just outside the village where the crime occurred, one at the east end and one at the west end.

According to eyewitnesses, after getting on the motorcycle, Zhang Guodong headed toward the east end of the village.

But his motorcycle never showed up on the camera at the east end.

What Wang Zhaokai did find was fresh tire tracks down by the irrigation ditches.

Which means Zhang Guodong deliberately avoided the cameras.

So as long as he keeps doing that, if they can't catch up to him, there's nothing they can do.

Three days went by quickly.

Wang Zhaokai and Chen Jiang, leading two squads, had been running around outside the whole time, but hadn't turned up any major leads.

Every relative that Zhang Guodong could possibly contact had been checked by the local precincts at Wang Zhaokai's request, but nothing turned up—he hadn't contacted any relatives.

The phone number registered to Zhang Guodong hadn't made a single call since the crime.

So trying to lock onto him through his phone location looked impossible.

It was like Zhang Guodong had evaporated off the face of the earth; there was nowhere they could find him.

Lu Chuan was at his wits' end too.

Both Wang Zhaokai and Chen Jiang had a wealth of experience in this kind of work, and if even they couldn't run him down, it would be the same story with anyone else.

Right now, what Lu Chuan could do was issue the wanted notice first, and include all the information about Zhang Guodong's motorcycle in the notice.

The turning point came on the morning of the fifth day after the crime.

"Captain Lu! We've got something!"

Early in the morning, Wang Zhaokai called Lu Chuan: "There's news on Zhang Guodong!"

"What kind of news?"

Wang Zhaokai wasn't at the Criminal Investigation Team just then; he'd been out in the field the whole time.

"Captain Lu, I'm on my way to Donglai County right now, the tip came from over there."

Then Wang Zhaokai gave Lu Chuan a rough briefing.

It was the Criminal Investigation Team in Donglai County that had called Wang Zhaokai's side to pass on the situation.

This morning, someone pushed a motorcycle into the Donglai County Criminal Investigation Team to turn himself in.

Of course it wasn't Zhang Guodong, but a local guy who buys second‑hand motorcycles.

"The motorcycle wasn't sold by Zhang Guodong himself. Someone stole his motorcycle and then flipped it to this second‑hand buyer. At first he didn't think anything of it, but when he was dismantling the bike he found the license plate tucked in the hollow under the seat."

"This guy happened to have seen the wanted notice on TV, so when he recognized the plate number, he immediately brought it to the Donglai County Criminal Investigation Team."