When Ji Xun saw the screenshot, Huo Ranyin saw it too.
Just as Ji Xun recognized Meng Fushan, Huo Ranyin did as well.
The wound on his back had only just healed—it is unlikely that anyone who has had a brush with death would easily forget the person who brought them to that brink.
He asked Tan Mingjiu for the on-site police record, flipped through it for a moment, and asked: “When will the autopsy results come out?”
Tan Mingjiu replied: “The autopsy hasn’t started yet…”
Huo Ranyin looked up.
Tan Mingjiu explained: “There’s a slightly complicated situation. Bureau Chief Zhou’s view is that we need to be cautious…”
Without waiting for Tan Mingjiu to finish, Huo Ranyin slapped the record book into his arms and headed straight for the door, walking in the direction of Bureau Chief Zhou’s office. Tan Mingjiu hurriedly called out: “Captain Huo! Captain Huo—”
Naturally, he didn’t call him back, so he turned urgently toward Ji Xun: “Old Ji, why don’t you try to persuade him?”
Ji Xun stood up and stretched his back: “It is indeed worth persuading him. I’ll go with him to talk to the Bureau Chief.”
Tan Mingjiu was truly surprised: “Are you really someone who works that hard?”
“No,” Ji Xun replied.
Tan Mingjiu felt this was the normal Ji Xun.
“After all, my job is writing novels,” Ji Xun added.
This is too abnormal!
Tan Mingjiu watched Ji Xun with deep suspicion, while Ji Xun looked back at Tan Mingjiu’s dark circles with sympathy: “We were colleagues once, after all; I don’t want to see you die young.”
“…This guy,” Tan Mingjiu muttered, watching Ji Xun walk out the door. He was perplexed. “Did he wake up? Why does he suddenly feel reliable and considerate again?”
“But,” Wen Yangyang said, feeling confused, “Teacher Ji has always been considerate and reliable, hasn’t he?”
As there was only one day left in his leave and Huo Ranyin had truly recovered his strength during this time, he didn’t need Ji Xun to do the heavy lifting—Huo Ranyin had already convinced Bureau Chief Zhou. After emerging from the Bureau Chief’s office, he immediately threw himself into the intensive workflow.
The first step, of course, was to catch up on everything that had happened in Ning City during his absence and the progress of the investigations within the Second Division. Ji Xun didn’t listen to those details.
He stood in the hallway, leaning his shoulder against the wall, and pulled out his phone to send a message to Meng Fushan.
The message didn’t say much, just: “Where are you?”
Then, he waited patiently.
But the message was like a stone cast into the ocean—silent and without reply. This was expected; it was just a number Meng Fushan had used to contact him back in Qin City, and it was unclear if he was even still using it.
Even if he were… he might not reply.
From that time on, unless absolutely unavoidable, Meng Fushan would never contact him.
Ji Xun tossed his phone up and down, lost in silent thought, when suddenly the office door opened. Huo Ranyin walked out first, looking as if he were about to head out.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re going to bring Chen Jiashu’s body back for an autopsy.”
“Didn’t they say not to act rashly?” Ji Xun asked, then added: “Did you find some concrete evidence?”
“Yes,” Huo Ranyin said. “I looked into the deceased’s itinerary during the period leading up to his death and discovered that Chen Jiashu had just been abroad.”
Given his history of acute rejection, the act of traveling abroad while ailing was highly suspicious. If there were suspicious points, a thorough investigation was mandatory—that was the excuse written in the official report.
As for the underlying reason, once they realized Meng Fushan had been frequently appearing around Chen Jiashu, the events they had encountered in Qin City linked up with the current situation. Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin immediately knew that Chen Jiashu’s death was not straightforward:
Meng Fushan appearing frequently around Chen Jiashu very likely meant that Chen Jiashu was the one who had dispatched Meng Fushan to Qin City.
However, the case Meng Fushan was responsible for in Qin City—the Fu Baoxin case—had already been analyzed and identified as a trap. Working backward, it could be deduced that Chen Jiashu’s kidney must not have had any major issues.
If there were no major issues with the kidney, why would he suddenly fall into a state of fatal acute rejection?
The suspicions were immense.
Time moved from morning to night, and the sky turned from bright to dark.
The crime scene remained exactly as it had been when Tan Mingjiu first arrived, and the people who were at the villa remained there. The arrival of the team leader energized the sluggish, anxious people in the villa.
Zheng Xuewang stepped forward first: “It’s been a whole day. Surely the police have handled whatever they needed to? Can the family finally take the body from the funeral home for processing?”
“The body should indeed be processed,” Huo Ranyin replied. Without offering further explanation, he showed them the police documentation: “The body will be brought back to the police station for an autopsy.”
Zheng Xuewang’s complexion changed drastically, turning ashen. But the person who cried out first wasn’t him; it was Mrs. Sun, who had been guarding the now-empty bed. Her sharp, sudden voice was like fingernails scratching across glass:
“No! Jiashu is my son; I will never let him be desecrated after his death!”
“An autopsy is necessary to confirm the cause of death.”
“We know the cause of death!”
“What you know doesn’t count,” Huo Ranyin said coldly. “Only the police’s confirmation counts.”
“The police cannot act however they please!”
“The police confirm they cannot act however they please. But ma’am, I recall that you have more than one son, don’t you?” Tan Mingjiu stepped out from behind Huo Ranyin. During the day, while he was the lead, he had to remain steady, but now he felt free to throw his weight around. “In families with two sons, there are always various conflicts—be it over property or status. We discovered from the surveillance footage that two days before your son died, you had a huge argument with him in the study. Would you mind telling us what you were arguing about? A friendly tip: we have an outsourced lip-reading expert—this gentleman here.”
He pointed to Ji Xun.
Ji Xun lifted his eyelids.
Mrs. Sun trembled with rage: “What do you mean by that?”
“He means,” Huo Ranyin said sternly, “please do not interfere with the police investigation. Otherwise, you will be brought back to the station as well. Aside from notifying the family that the autopsy will proceed, we have some questions that require clear answers.”
After all, Mrs. Sun was no common shrew; she stopped screaming and simply stared at the police with a chilling, hateful gaze.
“What if the autopsy confirms it was indeed acute rejection?” she asked. “Will the police apologize?”
With the obstacles removed, the work proceeded.
Although there was a clear suspect, the four people present were all questioned to ensure no leads were missed. Chen Jiashu’s bedroom became a temporary interrogation room. Huo Ranyin asked the questions, Tan Mingjiu recorded them, and Ji Xun stood by, walking around, observing.
The first to enter was Li Feng.
Li Feng was the villa’s overall manager, overseeing the staff, payroll, and security/surveillance. After he arrived, Huo Ranyin first asked for Xiaofei’s employment contract.
Li Feng produced the document. It had been finalized a month ago, the paperwork was in order, and it even bore Chen Jiashu’s signature.
Huo Ranyin flipped through it and asked Li Feng: “Before Xiaofei called the police, did you hear any movement inside the room?”
Li Feng shook his head: “I didn’t hear anything. My boss loved quiet; the villa usually had no major noises. If there had been any movement in his room, the people in the villa definitely would have heard it.”
“Chen Jiashu was bedridden due to severe illness—was there no one attending to him personally?”
“The boss didn’t like that, so things like changing medication were scheduled at specific times. Usually, he was alone in the room. I think that’s why Xiaofei was so scared when she walked in,” Li Feng explained.
Huo Ranyin didn’t say anything and let Li Feng leave. The next person to enter was the nurse, Xiaofei.
“You reported the incident?”
“I suddenly discovered a dead body; I was too shocked.”
“How was Chen Jiashu’s health usually?”
“I… I don’t know, I just arrived.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A few days.”
“How many days, exactly?”
“Three or four days.”
“Three or four days,” Huo Ranyin repeated, then showed her several printed pages. “Then why does your figure appear in the surveillance footage from a week ago?”
Xiaofei’s expression turned strange, but she spoke fluently: “What I meant was… I’d been here for a while, interning. It was only three or four days ago that I finished my internship and began taking care of the boss directly… that’s why I was so shocked to see him suddenly dead. We always felt the boss was like a big tree that would always take care of us…”
After Xiaofei left, Tan Mingjiu, who was doing the recording, muttered: “‘Like a big tree that would always take care of us’… what year is this? Still playing the underworld boss act? Who’s next?”
He asked Huo Ranyin.
“Zheng Xuewang,” Huo Ranyin replied.
Zheng Xuewang walked in. His expression hadn’t looked good ever since Huo Ranyin mentioned the autopsy, but that was all.
He sat down in the chair Xiaofei had just vacated and asked proactively: “What do you want to ask?”
Huo Ranyin handed Chen Jiashu’s travel records directly to Zheng Xuewang: “According to his medical records, Chen Jiashu had acute rejection. Instead of staying local for proper treatment, why did he travel abroad?”
Zheng Xuewang pondered for a moment: “Let me explain. Although acute rejection is dangerous, it doesn’t require hospitalization every single second. Acute rejection can be treated; the condition can stabilize. While the condition was relatively stable, what the patient did abroad… I don’t know. But I imagine it was also for treatment or something similar. Foreign medical resources are quite good. And kidneys—that sort of thing—are hard to find domestically, while abroad…”
He trailed off vaguely.
However, this sentence still startled the police officers present. Even Ji Xun, sitting at the door, gave Zheng Xuewang an extra glance.
Huo Ranyin asked: “Did you perform the kidney transplant surgery for Chen Jiashu?”
“No,” Zheng Xuewang replied quickly and easily. “I was only responsible for the patient’s post-operative recovery. The recovery records have already been shown to you police.”
Huo Ranyin: “Then do you know where Chen Jiashu had the transplant done, or who performed it?”
Zheng Xuewang: “I don’t know. The patient didn’t tell me. Is that important? To me, the patient standing before me is the only one I am responsible for.”
When he left the room, Zheng Xuewang’s pace was noticeably lighter than when he had entered.
Tan Mingjiu watched his back and said indignantly: “Slippery guy!”
Ji Xun: “A lot like him.”
Huo Ranyin: “Mm.”
There was no need to name names; both of them tacitly thought of the same person: Xu Xinnan from the Xi Lei case.
The final key person entered: Chen Jiashu’s mother, Mrs. Sun.
That chilling, gloomy gaze had not vanished with the passage of time. When Mrs. Sun entered the room and sat down, her look remained cold and indifferent. It was as if the people appearing here were not police officers seeking justice, but nosy trash.
“Who do you think killed your son?” Unlike the previous conversations, Huo Ranyin went straight to the point.
What could make a mother ignore her own child’s death? Unless the mother was the killer, or unless the mother knew the real answer.
Chen Jiashu’s sudden death had too many suspicious points, so one might as well guess that Mrs. Sun knew who had killed him before the police did!
However, this probing fell flat.
“I don’t understand what you are talking about,” Mrs. Sun said, as cold and hard as a statue. “My son died of illness.”
“I must remind you,” Tan Mingjiu couldn’t help but interject, “you are all suspects in Chen Jiashu’s death.”
“What is my motive?” Mrs. Sun sneered. “I gave birth to two sons, so I killed the older one so the younger one could inherit the property?”
“There are many such examples.”
“He is currently wanted by your police,” Mrs. Sun said acidly, revealing the reason for her hatred toward the police.
“Is that why you were looking for a way out for him?” Tan Mingjiu asked.
“So you could follow the vine to find his hiding place?”
“…”
Clearly, Tan Mingjiu had lost this round of the conversation.
Huo Ranyin had Mrs. Sun leave the room.
Now, only Ji Xun, Huo Ranyin, and Tan Mingjiu remained in the room.
Tan Mingjiu hesitated: “Why does it feel like everyone is a suspect in Chen Jiashu’s murder… Could they have conspired together to harm him?”
“Do not speculate,” Huo Ranyin said.
“The most suspicious one is Zheng Xuewang,” Ji Xun said. He remained in his seat by the door, tapping his finger, speaking slowly. “You can tell from his medical records.”
“Medical records?” Tan Mingjiu was momentarily confused. “What’s wrong with the records?”
The matter of Meng Fushan could not be spoken of, and naturally could not appear in any report; they still had to find other clues that could be put into the report. They were holding the answer and working backward to find the process.
Neither man paid attention to Tan Mingjiu, continuing their discussion.
“Perhaps it was just to deceive others,” Huo Ranyin said. The “others,” clearly, referred to Meng Fushan.
“At least he isn’t as innocent as he acts,” Ji Xun said.
“He is indeed highly suspicious, but he isn’t the only one,” Huo Ranyin said.
“Right!” Tan Mingjiu slapped his forehead, catching the thread. “There are also those two people who used to follow Chen Jiashu but have now disappeared.”
“No. He doesn’t need to be investigated.”
Meng Fushan did not need to be investigated.
“Don’t waste time,” Ji Xun said.
