“Why do you think Luo Sui killed your father?” Zhao Wu asked Hu Zheng.
“Isn’t that obvious?” Hu Zheng said righteously. “My dad left all his property to that woman. My dad had a wife and kids—why would any rich man give his money to some unrelated woman who suddenly crawled out of nowhere instead of his own son?”
This was the same line Hu Zheng had already thrown out when Ji Xun and Huo Ran first met him. Now it was just the same old refrain.
He felt sure the other party was hiding something… but since Huo Ran wasn’t the one handling the case now, he had no reason to force himself in and make himself annoying. So he simply kept one ear on the scene, paying attention only half-heartedly, while the other nine tenths of his focus naturally stayed on Huo Ran, his little sneaky glances still flickering toward him from time to time.
Huo Ran stood with both hands in his pockets, calm and unruffled, looking at the sky outside rather than at Ji Xun… or so it seemed.
Those flickering glances, though, were like stars secretly calling him over.
Kind of adorable.
He only wanted to wait a little longer so those glances would keep flashing.
The subtle atmosphere between the two of them was not something they could explain to outsiders, and indeed the people nearby hadn’t noticed the faint undercurrent of feeling in that little corner. Their conversation continued.
“If the marriage was bad and the children were unfilial, then giving the money to someone else wouldn’t be strange, would it?” the deputy captain added coolly, stirring the pot. “Don’t the news report cases like that every day? Children leave the elderly uncared for, and then the old people leave their property to neighbors, friends, or caretakers.”
“You—!” Hu Zheng stood up at once. His belly, as though he were five months pregnant, bounced and trembled with him as he flared up. “Is that something a people’s police officer should say?”
“What’s wrong with it?” the deputy captain glared back. “Tell me which word I said was against police regulations?”
Hu Zheng was fat, and so was the deputy captain.
The difference was probably this: when Hu Zheng got angry, his flesh only shook; when the deputy captain got angry, all that flesh on him immediately turned into muscle.
Hu Zheng: “…I never said you were wrong.”
“Alright, alright, sit down,” Zhao Wu said amiably. “We’re just here to understand the situation. Since you’re so suspicious of Luo Sui, there must be other reasons, right? Tell us all of them, and then we’ll know how to help you.”
With one of them playing the bad cop and the other the good cop, the effect was immediate. Hu Zheng stopped being difficult and said directly, “My dad changed his will half a month before he died. Right after he changed it, he died. Tens of millions in assets all ended up in an outsider’s hands—how could there not be something fishy there? That’s how murder cases are written, isn’t it? Whoever benefits most is the mastermind! So isn’t it normal and reasonable for me to suspect that woman and want to force answers out of her?”
“If your suspicion is so normal and reasonable, then why didn’t you keep the body for an autopsy? Hu Zhan is the bureau’s forensic examiner, so why didn’t you even wait for her before directly cremating the body?” Ji Xun asked abruptly.
The ear he had kept on the scene finally paid off. The moment Hu Zheng started saying something useful, Ji Xun immediately shifted his attention back and stopped teasing Huo Ran.
“…” Huo Ran was unusually slow to react for a beat before turning his gaze to Hu Zheng.
Under the pressure of four piercing stares, Hu Zheng couldn’t really hold up. He looked away and muttered, “…It’s not like I knew from the start that something was wrong with my dad’s death! It was all that lawyer surnamed Xiong’s fault, saying the will couldn’t be read until everyone had arrived. And my dad died in the hospital, right? I figured the doctors were watching him, the machines were checking him, and the report said in black and white that he died from cancer, so there couldn’t be a mistake… He was already dead, so of course we should hurry and let him rest in peace…”
After that, Zhao Wu asked Hu Zheng a few more questions. The two listening in finally pieced together the timeline and the events of the past half month.
On February 24, the two of them had just woken up in the hospital and met Hu Zhan. Hu Zhan had come for Old Hu’s birthday on the 25th, stayed only on the 24th and 25th, and then went straight back to Ningshi on the 26th.
According to Lawyer Xiong, the latest will had been established on March 1.
In other words, not long after the birthday banquet, Old Hu decided to amend his will.
“What happened at the birthday banquet?” Huo Ran asked.
“Nothing happened,” Hu Zheng said impatiently. “That woman came, so of course we weren’t happy. I said a couple of things, and Hu Zhan came out to stop me. I don’t know what she was thinking! I argued with her, and the old man blew up and flipped the table. Cups and dishes went everywhere. Aunt Mei cleaned up for a long time that day. He already had cancer and was still so bad-tempered. I don’t know what he was thinking!”
“…” The others.
No, the one who didn’t know what he was thinking was clearly you. What kind of person complains at an old man’s 80th birthday banquet?
Still, Old Hu was also ruthless—insisting on bringing his young lover to a family banquet and triggering all kinds of family conflict. You could only say the consequences were inevitable.
As for Aunt Mei, she was the old woman who had previously brought Old Hu home.
They had seen her so many times now that Ji Xun and Huo Ran finally knew her name.
Hu Zheng continued: on March 6, he went out of town on a business trip. On the 8th, he received a call from the hospital saying Old Hu hadn’t been resuscitated and was dead.
When he first got the call, his first reaction was that it was a scam. But the other side recited Old Hu’s ID number and insurance number without a single mistake, and only then did he slowly accept that his supposedly healthy father had actually had brain cancer all along and had hidden it from everyone… and now had left him only a corpse.
At this point Hu Zheng’s face darkened into a coagulated shade of blood.
He said, “The old man had brain cancer. They say cancer cells eat away at organs; with that kind of cancer, it’s normal for the later stages to make his head not work very well, right? If I’d known earlier that he had brain cancer…”
He didn’t say what would have happened if he had known.
Ji Xun found it strange and asked, “I heard from Hu Zhan that she was also kept in the dark by Old Hu. What, such a huge matter, neither of you kids knew? And no one stayed with him in the hospital either?”
Ji Xun had originally thought Hu Zheng must have known about the illness. The scar on the back of Old Hu’s head suggested he had undergone a craniotomy. That wasn’t some minor procedure; one wrong step could mean death. And yet they’d been so reassured letting Luo Sui, an outsider and “mistress,” look after him?
Hu Zheng’s mouth moved a little, and he mumbled, “He didn’t even want to look at me. How would he let me stay with him in the hospital? He was lascivious and always cheating; as long as there was a woman around, that was enough, wasn’t it?”
Ji Xun asked with interest, “Always cheating? So your dad had several young women on the side?”
This time Hu Zheng answered even more confidently, his back straight as a ramrod: “Of course. Otherwise why would my mom have divorced him? When I was nine, that old bastard was already finding women outside. It caused— hmph, anyway, my mom asked him a couple questions and he got angry and wanted a divorce. Ridiculous! My mom hadn’t even wanted to divorce yet, and that damn old thing already wanted something fresh and new—oh, in the end he didn’t even marry her, probably took the money and ran.”
Nine years old.
Ji Xun silently calculated Hu Zhan’s age, narrowed his eyes, and said no more. He only let Hu Zheng continue with his itinerary.
On the 9th, Hu Zheng rushed back from out of town, took the death report, and deregistered Old Hu’s household record. On the 10th, cremation. On the evening of the 12th, Hu Zhan was notified. On the 13th, the funeral was held. On the 14th, everyone was present, and Lawyer Xiong read the will—that is, yesterday afternoon, when Ji Xun and Huo Ran arrived at Old Hu’s villa and saw the living room packed with people.
After all that, Zhao Wu and the deputy captain asked a few more questions. Once they were sure nothing else could be squeezed out of Hu Zheng’s mouth, they took out the silver handcuffs, and with a click, locked them around his wrists.
“What are you doing?! I told you everything!” Hu Zheng shouted in surprise and alarm.
“You did indeed tell us everything,” Zhao Wu said coldly. “You’re now being arrested for provoking trouble and causing disorder!”
They escorted Hu Zheng into the car, then turned back to call Ji Xun and Huo Ran over.
At that moment, Huo Ran suddenly said, “Captain Zhao, you go back first. I’ll drive this speedboat along the route Hu Zheng described just now and see whether the timing matches.”
Ji Xun instantly understood his meaning and chimed in eagerly, “Good idea. Let’s see whether Hu Zheng lied!”
“I didn’t!” Hu Zheng protested from the car.
“I’ll sit in the back of the speedboat, probably about the same weight as the iron chain Hu Zheng was holding—we need to control the variables.” Ji Xun ignored him completely and continued enthusiastically. “Oh right, Xiao Hu, when you drove the speedboat, what speed were you using? Full throttle?”
Hu Zheng refused to answer.
“Huo Team is very serious,” Zhao Wu said with some surprise, then looked admiringly at him. “Then we’ll head off first. You two…”
“We’ll come find you after we finish the run,” Huo Ran said.
The two captains from Qinshi left first with the suspect in tow. Huo Ran watched the vehicle recede from view, then took his eyes back and glanced at Ji Xun.
“Satisfied now?”
Ji Xun looked around. Seeing that no one was nearby, he moved instantly: one arm around Huo Ran’s waist, while lowering his head to press a light kiss at the corner of Huo Ran’s lips. His voice followed softly right then:
“Guess whether I’m satisfied or not.”
“Don’t fool around,” Huo Ran said in a low voice, though his eyes were slightly narrowed, carrying a lazily pleased look he didn’t quite hide.
“Does your back still hurt?” Ji Xun asked again.
“Why?”
“If it doesn’t hurt, you drive the boat later. I’ll sit behind you, reach out and hug you, rest my chin on your shoulder. You hold the wheel, I hold you. The sea will shimmer, and so will you…” Ji Xun chuckled. “We’ll celebrate the White Day we didn’t get to celebrate yesterday.”
“It’s already March—what do you mean there’s still a Valentine’s Day?” Huo Ran couldn’t stand it.
“What do you mean it’s already March, so there’s no Valentine’s Day?” Ji Xun raised a brow. “Every 14th of every month is Valentine’s Day.”
He let go of Huo Ran’s waist, but then reached out and hooked Huo Ran’s little finger, giving it a little shake.
