The early-spring weather was still chilly. It had looked like a clear, sunny day at first, but after the speedboat had been out for a while, the sun disappeared and mist actually began to gather, like a damp veil laid across the face, lightly brushing and stroking it.
The spray kicked up by the speeding boat along the gunwales and stern was like foamy fish tails stirred up by the fog, mischievously and nimbly patting out cold splashes that landed on both of them.
By the time they finished the run, Ji Xun and Huo Ran had returned to the abandoned port they had visited before. Huo Ran glanced down at his watch. “9:52 to 10:18. Time-wise, it matches what Hu Kun said—just over twenty minutes.”
“Ah-choo!” Ji Xun answered with a violent sneeze. “You really timed it?”
“Since we’re already out here.”
“I think Zhao Wu has already completely accepted Hu Zheng’s version of events. He probably won’t even remember your little experiment.” Ji Xun sneezed twice more. “Ah-choo, ah-choo!”
“Cold?” Huo Ran looked at him and gave a slight mocking smile. “I told you there was no need to ride a speedboat at this time. If you wanted to ride one, you could do it on any of the three hundred days of the year when the weather’s good. You had to come play when it’s been snowing and freezing not long ago. Hu Zheng drove a speedboat to commit a crime, and you rode one to—”
Before he could finish, Ji Xun turned and hugged him.
“It was to hug you,” Ji Xun drawled, sounding spoiled.
“Just a hug?” Huo Ran asked.
“Hm?”
“Also for a kiss.” Huo Ran said calmly.
“Aren’t you afraid someone will see?” Ji Xun said in surprise.
“There’s no one here, and no cameras.” The captain was always this concise and efficient, and his planning was impeccable.
Ji Xun chuckled softly and kept holding him, burying his head against Huo Ran’s neck like a cat, rubbing against him sticky and affectionate until he’d warmed them both up. Only then did he raise his head and press a kiss to Huo Ran’s cheek.
Whether it was the faint sunlight piercing through the clouds on the horizon, or the warmth of their bodies as they leaned closer, Huo Ran’s cheek had flushed a little.
A rosy color, like a gentle kiss from a rose petal.
After enough clinging and spoiling around, Ji Xun finally straightened his bones and could stand on his own again without support.
“In simple terms, let me talk about Hu Zheng,” he said. “I think there are at least three suspicious points in what he just said.”
“For example?” Huo Ran asked.
“First, the matter of Old Hu’s body. Based on Hu Zheng’s statement, he came back on the 9th and saw the body, then it was cremated immediately on the 10th. Only after three days post-cremation did they hold the funeral. That process isn’t right, is it? Why rush cremation so badly? Didn’t they need a farewell ceremony for the body? Personally, I think Hu Zheng noticed something was wrong with Old Hu’s corpse the moment he saw it. But out of some resentment toward his father, or maybe because he was desperate to get the inheritance quickly, he chose to stay silent and dispose of the body right away… until the will was announced and he realized things weren’t going as he expected. Luo Sui ended up the big winner, while he got nothing. But by then the body had already been burned, so he couldn’t make a proper accusation. In the end, he took a dangerous gamble.”
“There’s a problem with that,” Huo Ran interrupted slightly. “You can’t completely rule out Hu Zheng as a suspect.”
“Mm. If the will hadn’t changed, then when Old Hu died, Hu Zheng would have been the primary beneficiary, so it makes sense that he’d have a motive to kill,” Ji Xun nodded. “If he killed someone himself, of course he’d want to deal with the corpse quickly. Once it’s dealt with, there’s no dead evidence. And then he could frame Luo Sui—or kill Luo Sui, and everything would go back to normal. But he was in another city on the 8th, so reaching out remotely to an old man in the hospital, even one with terminal illness, would’ve been harder. Luo Sui or the person directly caring for him, like Old Mei, would be more convenient.”
“Second,” Ji Xun continued, “he said his parents divorced when he was nine. If he was nine, Hu Zhan would’ve been one. If Hu Zhan’s parents were trying to have a second child, they must have sent Hu Zhan to Old Hu’s place very early—very possibly when Hu Zhan was only one. That means the trigger for Hu Zheng’s parents’ divorce may not have been some unknown outsider mistress, but rather the various suspicions caused by baby Hu Zhan. On that point, we can verify it with Hu Zhan.”
“Third,” Ji Xun said. “The hospital.”
“Mm. The hospital issued a normal death certificate, which is why Hu Zheng’s cremation didn’t run into any resistance,” Huo Ran replied. He lowered his eyes, the lashes hiding the thoughts in them. “We need to go to the hospital, first verify who picked up the body, then look into Old Hu’s admission and surgical treatment records…”
“There’s one very contradictory thing here. If the dead man wasn’t killed by Hu Zheng, then he was just an ordinary person with no special information, and yet just by looking at the corpse he felt something was off. Why did the hospital think there was no problem at all?”
“The hospital isn’t an authority,” Huo Ran said flatly. “If there was a misdiagnosis or a medical incident, they’d have their own interests in hiding anything unfavorable. Don’t forget what we saw of Old Hu—he looked very healthy.”
“As the forensic people always say, the living are the ones who lie. Only the dead don’t. It’s a pity that the most honest dead man got burned to ashes, leaving only bone fragments.”
Without enough clues, any more analysis was just talking on paper.
Ji Xun and Huo Ran didn’t waste any time. They went straight to the hospital where they had previously stayed and found the doctor who had treated Old Hu. He was a man in his forties, surnamed Xu. When he heard they were asking about Hu Kun, he froze. “…You’re looking for Hu Kun? What happened to him?”
“What else can happen to a dead man?” Ji Xun asked back.
“He can rise from the dead?” Dr. Xu said with a joke, showing that not every doctor was rigid and solemn.
“We want his medical records from the past few months, as well as the record of his death,” Huo Ran said, showing his credentials. “Dr. Xu, when you were treating Hu Kun, did you notice anything unusual?”
“Could you let me look at the credentials again?” Dr. Xu requested.
Huo Ran handed them over.
Dr. Xu examined them carefully and asked carefully too: “Captain of the criminal police in Ning City? Why would Ning City’s captain of criminal police come to Qin City for a case?”
“An assignment transfer,” Huo Ran didn’t speak, so Ji Xun cut in. “Being a doctor means being careful—if you look so carefully at credentials, you must be even more careful when examining patients.”
“That can’t be helped. It’s part of the job,” Dr. Xu lowered his head as he spoke. “All I can say is we do our best.”
After he finished checking, he returned the credentials and pulled all the files out of the computer, printing them on the nearby printer and handing them over.
“All the medical records are here. Take a look first. I still need to see other patients. If you need anything, ask the nurses at the desk. They’re the first point of contact with the patients, so they know the details better.”
With that, he didn’t wait for their answer and turned and left briskly.
The two of them took the records and sat on the bench in the hospital corridor.
Hu Kun had first come to Qin City First Hospital on August 3, 2015 for a full-body checkup. He was diagnosed with mid-to-late stage brain cancer. With the patient’s consent, he chose to undergo a craniotomy, scheduled for August 16.
Shortly after surgery, the patient recovered well, so chemotherapy was arranged quickly on September 26.
He underwent four rounds of chemotherapy on October 3, October 24, November 14, and again afterward.
Yet even after the painful craniotomy and chemotherapy, the cancer cells still spread uncontrollably.
By December 5, the treatment notes already recorded Dr. Xu’s recommendation to shift to conservative treatment and pain relief, because by then the patient’s projected lifespan was less than six months.
After that, there were intermittent records of Hu Kun being admitted and discharged.
On February 24, the day Ji Xun saw Hu Kun in the wheelchair, he was hospitalized again. Originally, by March 5 his condition had stabilized, but on the morning of the 8th he suddenly deteriorated and ultimately died at 1:22 p.m. after resuscitation failed.
Huo Ran frowned. “The person who signed and took away the body was Luo Sui.”
“That is surprising…” Ji Xun said thoughtfully. “Based on our earlier reasoning, Old Hu’s death was suspicious, and there was something off about the body… Then whoever signed first to take away the body would have the greatest suspicion. Luo Sui was both the beneficiary of all the inheritance and the first person to collect the corpse—she handled everything.”
Ji Xun took out his phone and checked the time against a perpetual calendar. “Except for the first time, all the later chemotherapy and admission/discharge records were on Saturdays or Sundays. Only Luo Sui needed to coordinate around work days. Old Mei didn’t have that problem. Could it be that Old Mei was also kept in the dark by Old Hu?”
When there was a question, one had to get an answer. Ji Xun naturally put on his brightest, sweetest, most handsome smile and ran off to ask the nurse.
According to the nurse, Hu Kun had always come to the hospital accompanied by his granddaughter—Luo Sui. Luo Sui came often, not just on weekends but also on weekdays whenever she had time. Later, when he shifted to conservative treatment, Luo Sui liked taking him home to care for him on weekends.
She had seen Old Mei only once or twice this year, and always when Luo Sui wasn’t around. Before that, she hadn’t come often.
There was one more thing.
“The patient’s granddaughter was really nice, but it’s a pity,” the nurse said. “When we were trying to resuscitate him, we called her granddaughter, but couldn’t get through. After he passed, we called again, but still couldn’t reach her. Probably she was working and too busy. So we had to contact his son using the number in his medical insurance records.”
“His son was kind of funny too—he thought we were a scam call and cursed us out right away. It took a long while before he believed that his dad was sick and had died. But in the end he still didn’t come to the hospital. His granddaughter came instead. I remember—it was around four or five in the afternoon, she came alone, her makeup all smudged from crying. She signed the papers and had us put the body in her car and take it home.
“Oh, I asked whether we should help deliver it, and she said it wasn’t necessary. Honestly, it was really sad. Usually when a body is picked up, there’s a whole family coming together. It’s very rare for one person to do it—unless they’re truly alone.”
“Then on March 7, did Hu Kun’s granddaughter come?” Ji Xun asked again.
Hu Kun had died after resuscitation failed on March 8. If Luo Sui had really tampered with anything, then March 7 would have been the best time.
“She should have come, right?” the nurse said. “You can check the surveillance for that. I remember she stayed very late on the 7th. I even went to urge her once.”
