To think someone would actually go and rob someone else's ancestral tombs!

"I must state in advance that I only heard these things from elsewhere; I cannot guarantee they are entirely true. You know how it is—rivals in our line of work are always at odds." Zheng Xinmin's expression did not look like he was lying, and it was clear he lacked confidence.

Seeing his hesitation, Cen Lian said, "You don't need to worry about misleading our investigation. Go ahead."

Only then did Zheng Xinmin relax.

"That Sun Heyang is indeed from Yaoguan City. I heard the way he entered the trade was somewhat..." Zheng Xinmin seemed unsure how to describe it. "The rumor in our underground circle is that he got his start by digging up someone else's ancestral graves."

"Ancestral graves?!" Cen Lian could not suppress his shock. "Do you know whose ancestral graves they were?"

Zheng Xinmin shook his head. "It's just talk in the underworld, I don't know any more than that. I had some bad blood with Wu Yungong's gang. I knew they were killed, and someone specifically inquired about it at the time, but our various factions each have our own intelligence channels, and we could confirm that the killer wasn't someone from our trade."

By this time, Cen Lian had calmed down. It appeared that this particular gang had met their downfall because of Sun Heyang.

"If you remember anything else, contact me anytime." Cen Lian could tell that Zheng Xinmin was speaking the truth. Although he was in prison, he certainly still possessed his own channels of information.

Now that the group who had threatened his life was gone, he was pinning all his hopes on sentence reduction.

Cen Lian looked at the remaining four criminal records floating above his head. Based on his observations, crimes that had already been processed by the police would not show up in the criminal records, which indicated that Zheng Xinmin was not entirely honest.

Upon stepping outside, Wang Yuanteng walked over very naturally.

"It seems there is news." He easily deduced that there was a new lead based on the time Cen Lian and Zheng Xinmin had spent talking.

Cen Lian signaled for him to wait a moment.

"There is a lead, but I have something to ask the prison guards here."

Wang Yuanteng glanced at Zheng Xinmin's retreating figure as the prison guard led him away; it seemed he wouldn't be getting out anytime soon.

After all, if it were strictly a matter concerning the case, Cen Lian wouldn't need to approach the prison guards.

Ten minutes later, after finding out which police station had originally handled Zheng Xinmin's case, Cen Lian placed a call to the Zeyang County Public Security Bureau in Wucheng.

Wang Yuanteng watched quietly from the side.

"Hello, Captain Wang. I am Cen Lian from the Criminal Police Detachment of the Taishan Branch in Kang'an City. We have a case here involving a criminal from one of your cases over three years ago named Zheng Xinmin. He is a grave robber who turned himself in. During our investigation, we found that he may have withheld information during his confessions. You might want to cross-check his original transcripts." Cen Lian got straight to the point, listing the four tombs that Zheng Xinmin had failed to disclose, following the chronological and geographical order, and reporting them directly to Wang Yao, the captain of the criminal police detachment in Zeyang County.

Wang Yao on the other end of the line was somewhat dazed.

He certainly remembered this case, after all, it was the first time a grave robber had ever turned himself in to him, but he hadn't expected that this group of turning-themselves-in tomb raiders could yield a brand-new uninvestigated case.

"How did you find out?" As a criminal police officer, Wang Yao still asked out of professional habit.

Cen Lian paused for a fraction of a second before explaining, "We discovered it while investigating another gang of grave robbers, but we haven't yet mastered the specific locations of the tombs they robbed. You might need to interrogate him again."

Before Wang Yao could reply, he added one more sentence.

"One of them is a tomb from the Zhou Dynasty. I suspect there are a lot of bronze wares inside."

"Alright, we'll go investigate right now." Hearing this, Wang Yao's tone immediately turned solemn.

Zhou Dynasty bronzes—if this involved smuggling, and the amount was massive, combined with multiple crimes punished concurrently...

He didn't want to think any further; in short, it would just be a matter of wasting one more bullet.

Cen Lian exchanged a few polite pleasantries with Wang Yao and hung up the phone, a gentle smile on his face, hiding his achievements and fame.

Wang Yuanteng's mouth twitched slightly.

Although he didn't know how Cen Lian had found out about this matter, Zheng Xinmin...

Truly, this was a boundless accumulation of virtue.

"When did you find out about this?" Wang Yuanteng asked Cen Lian on the way back.

"I previously looked at Ge Jiawen's phone. There were a few shipping photos on it that didn't match the cases Zheng Xinmin had already confessed to," Cen Lian had prepared his excuse before calling Wang Yao. "This current case is also related to grave robbers, so I looked into it a bit."

Wang Yuanteng sensibly did not ask how he had investigated further; he assumed Cen Lian had cultivated an informant within the grave-robbing circle through Ge Jiawen.

Cen Lian glanced at his expression, somewhat moved by Wang Yuanteng's capacity for self-rationalization.

As expected of someone who studied Chinese language and literature. He wondered if Brother Wang had ever tried writing fiction back in his school days.

On the way, Cen Lian called Wu Qiushan to exchange intelligence.

"We don't have any major new discoveries on our end." Wu Qiushan hadn't really expected to find anything anyway. "But I have an idea about the crime scene. How are things on your end?"

"Zheng Xinmin said that among Wu Yungong's gang of grave robbers, there is someone from Yaoguan City who made his fortune by digging up ancestral graves. The ancestral graves he dug up were basically from the Qing Dynasty, which generally matches the types of cultural relics we've seized." Cen Lian did not mention Sun Heyang's name.

Wu Qiushan realized that neither of their trips had been in vain.

"Alright, let's head back first and pool our results." Wu Qiushan shook his head as he looked at Tang Hua, who was already supporting his own waist. "We'll talk about any developments when we get back."

Wang Yuanteng silently stepped on the gas pedal. Driving back to Kang'an from Wucheng via the highway took about four hours, and by the time they returned to Kang'an City, the sky was already beginning to darken.

As soon as Cen Lian pushed open the office door, he saw Tang Hua lying across his desk in a distorted posture, howling as Forensic Doctor Lin massaged his back.

"Did Tang Hua strain his waist?" Wang Yuanteng, rich in experience, walked over for a look and pulled a box of moxa sticks from the office drawer. "I've got moxa sticks here. Want a moxibustion?"

Forensic Doctor Lin took them, glanced at them, pulled a lighter from his pocket, and hauled Tang Hua off to the adjacent forensic medicine office.

"How did he even manage to strain it?" Wang Yuanteng asked with curiosity.

"He volunteered to climb a low cliff and lost his footing on the way down," Wu Qiushan said, his eyes glued to the computer screen without moving as he checked something. "We found traces of someone burning incense on the low cliff near the looted Qing Dynasty tomb, and it was done just two months ago."

"Burning cold-season clothes for the Ghost Festival in October?" Cen Lian guessed what Wu Qiushan was thinking. "So you're checking if there are any families in that area who have been passed down since the Qing Dynasty."

Wu Qiushan nodded.

This certainly wasn't a definitive lead, but it at least opened up a new line of thinking.

"My news here is relatively straightforward," Cen Lian sat down at his desk. "I plan to go to Yaoguan City and review all the reports of ancestral graves being burglarized and excavated. I expect we'll find something."

Although he knew that the unrecognizable deceased victim was named Sun Heyang, and had used that knowledge to pry information out of Zheng Xinmin, the matter of Sun Heyang's identity was still unknown to the others.