Chapter 36: So It Was Them!

"So he's just a grave robber. I thought he was some heinous serial killer."

"Is that a Luoyang shovel? So that's what they actually look like."

"Do you think we scared him into a heart attack? Do we really not need to call an ambulance?"

"We should have brought a forensic pathologist along."

...

Ge Jiawen heard these voices drifting around his ears in a haze. It felt real, yet like a dream—much like how he had just seen five dark gun barrels aimed directly at him...

Wait, that wasn't a dream!

Ge Jiawen jolted, his eyes snapping open.

Cen Lian was the first to notice he was awake, but before he could speak, Ge Jiawen grabbed his thigh.

"I’m reporting to the authorities, I swear I didn't do anything as serious as murder or arson! Please, don't kill me, please don't kill me—"

His wailing was shrill and heart-wrenching, clearly pushed to the point of shredding his vocal cords.

"No one is going to kill you," Wang Yuanteng said, squatting beside him while holding a thermos. "With the scrap pottery in your bag, you’d barely get three years."

Ge Jiawen finally calmed down from the terror of imminent death. He looked hesitantly at the few police officers surrounding him, suddenly at a loss for words.

"It's getting late. Come with us for now." Wang Yuanteng stood up, swaying slightly, feeling the soreness in his calves.

They had wasted too much time on the mountain dealing with this grave robber, and they needed to head back down quickly, or they risked getting lost after dark.

Ge Jiawen followed them down the mountain obediently, his face a portrait of someone who had just survived a catastrophe. He had been "enrolled" in the system before and knew that cases requiring criminal police to carry guns were usually matters of life and death. He must have just stumbled upon something by accident.

Maybe this could lead to a commendation!

Cen Lian watched the changes in his expression along the way and felt that this guy was wasted as a grave robber; he should have been a novelist.

Tang Hua drove to the Lingguan Township Police Station at the foot of Lingguan Mountain. After explaining their purpose, they borrowed the interrogation room to settle the unlucky grave robber, Ge Jiawen.

"I’ll confess everything, officer! Whatever you want to ask, I will tell you everything I know, without holding anything back!" Ge Jiawen pledged his loyalty the moment he entered the interrogation room.

Cen Lian and Wu Qiushan sat on either side of him, while Yuan Chenxi volunteered to take notes.

"Have you seen this person?" Cen Lian took out a photo of Tu Lou and showed it to him.

Ge Jiawen studied the photo for a long time before shaking his head with regret.

"Never seen him. But I do know that in the mountains you just came from, there used to be a man with a gun." Ge Jiawen handed the photo back. "When you arrived, I thought I had run into him. I was so scared I hid, but I still got caught."

"A man with a gun?" Cen Lian realized this Ge Jiawen might actually know something.

Ge Jiawen leaned back in the interrogation chair, his expression still showing lingering fear. "It must have been over three years ago. I was working with an uncle from my clan, doing the 'earth-digging' trade. I had just been released after serving six months for theft, and I didn't really know how the industry worked, so I just blindly followed along."

Recalling the events, he instinctively swallowed hard, looking nervous as he continued: "There were a few Tang Dynasty tombs on that mountain you visited. My uncle’s group had scouted them out. We were about to head down when we saw a group of men with guns leading a man and a woman out from a ravine. They shot them both on the spot."

Cen Lian and Wu Qiushan exchanged glances, both realizing that this mountain might have once been a stronghold for that group.

"We didn't dare make a sound. We were hiding near a grave tunnel we’d dug. My uncle, another man, and I were originally on the lookout outside. When we saw people with guns, we ran far back. By the time it was completely quiet, we went out to check and found that the four people who had gone down were trapped because their air vents had been blocked. They were suffocated to death down there."

"So, there were seven of you in total. Besides you, there were six experienced hands—four died and two survived?" Cen Lian was sensitive to the numbers.

Ge Jiawen nodded honestly.

"My uncle figured that the three of us had been spotted, and fearing they would silence us, he chose to turn himself in for his own previous crimes to get into prison. I was caught at the time, but since it was my first time, I only got a sentence of a little over a year." He explained the fate of the others.

By now, Cen Lian was certain that this was the same group of grave robbers he had seen in the surveillance footage. The only difference was that the footage was from eight years ago, before Ge Jiawen had joined them, which explained why he wasn't in the video.

Wu Qiushan waited for a moment, and seeing that he didn't have anything else to say, he raised his eyes.

"So, after you got out, you came back to find the tomb you had opened before, hoping to make a little money?" he asked calmly.

Ge Jiawen’s head drooped immediately. "I... I was just completely broke."

Cen Lian had little interest in his tomb-raiding activities. One look at the junk in his bag told him that the Tang tombs in this area probably didn't belong to any high-ranking officials or nobles. Forget gold or silver—he hadn't even managed to dig up a single piece of Tang tri-color glazed pottery.

In their Yunling Province, a burial site for commoners or low-level officials wouldn't even be worth a rescue excavation by cultural relic departments; they would usually just tell them to fill it back in.

What interested Cen Lian now was whether the two old grave robbers who had turned themselves in had learned something that made them prefer a decade in prison over being out in the world.

"Can you be sure which direction they came from when they had the guns?" Cen Lian stopped asking about the tomb raiding.

Ge Jiawen hesitated, looking up at them uncertainly.

"I only know a general direction. I was terrified when I saw they had guns, so I didn't dare look too closely." Ge Jiawen was as cowardly as ever on this point.

"Then you’re coming with us again." Wu Qiushan understood Cen Lian's intent. Only after Ge Jiawen reluctantly agreed did he step out of the interrogation room with him.

"You didn't let me keep asking about his uncle's grave-robbing business. Why?" Wu Qiushan was truly puzzled.

Cen Lian pulled up some household registration records he had saved on his phone.

"When I was scanning the surveillance, I saw a group of people who seemed off. One of them had white sealing clay on him. I ran their faces through recognition, and I didn't think much of it at the time—four were de-registered, and two were sentenced to fifteen years. Now, it all adds up." Cen Lian hadn't expected such a coincidence.

The doubts he had held were answered by Ge Jiawen. He had seen the criminal records in the text bubbles above the two survivors; aside from a couple of tomb-raiding cases they probably hadn't confessed to, they had no murders on their hands.

That was why he had been so curious about how the other four died—it didn't look like the result of an internal dispute over loot.

Who would have thought they were actually murdered?

But the people who killed them clearly weren't Tu Lou, as Tu Lou’s criminal record didn't include these deaths.

Wu Qiushan thought for a moment and quickly made new arrangements.

"You and Tang Hua go to the prison now to see Ge Jiawen's uncle, Zheng Xinmin. We’ll take Ge Jiawen and continue the investigation on the mountain." After saying this, Wu Qiushan felt it wasn't quite right, so he swapped Tang Hua for Wang Yuanteng.

"Brother Wang isn't suited for mountain work. Let him go find Zheng Xinmin with you," Wu Qiushan said, his voice much lower this time.

Cen Lian saw Wang Yuanteng walking over with his tea mug and patted Wu Qiushan on the shoulder.

"Brother Yue, Brother Wang probably heard every word you just said."

Wu Qiushan: ...

Wang Yuanteng walked over with a smile and said, "I did hear, but Old Wu is right. I’m older than you all and the only one not from the police academy; my stamina can't keep up with yours."

He had been listening in from outside the interrogation room and was fully caught up on the situation.