There was a very brief silence.
Sitting in her seat, Hu Yuan revealed a strange smile at the corner of her mouth: “Being colleagues with a criminal investigation captain is indeed quite troublesome. Sometimes, even trying to keep a small secret leaves you on tenterhooks… When I opened the door this afternoon and saw you two, I had a bad premonition. Putting aside whether there is a problem with Lao Hu’s death, human greed is like a snake trying to swallow an elephant. They were so greedy, refusing to relax even the slightest bit, that they ended up bringing you all in. In the end, they likely won’t get much money, but will instead completely expose every last bit of their own secrets.”
“Forensic Doctor Hu.” Huo Ranyin reminded Hu Yuan not to be evasive and beat around the bush.
“Don’t worry, I know the discipline,” Hu Yuan said. “Anyway, this matter is quite obvious; you guys should have guessed it by now. Of course, it’s better if I explain this matter myself.”
“Actually…” Hu Yuan began, “Lao Hu is not my father; he is my grandfather. The man Consultant Ji saw today, who looks thirty percent similar to me, is my blood brother. The family planning policy is a good policy, but with any new policy, it’s inevitable that during the process of change, certain human-induced drawbacks will arise—my parents, in order to give birth to my brother, placed me at my grandfather’s house very early on.”
This also aligned with Ji Xun’s vague guess.
An 80-year-old man could indeed have a 28-year-old biological daughter, but it was a low-probability event after all. It was much more likely that she was an adopted daughter, a relative’s child, or a granddaughter.
Once a question mark was placed over Hu Yuan’s identity, analyzing all the various details that appeared before their eyes revealed clues and suspicious points everywhere.
“Your brother’s name?”
“Lu Song,” Hu Yuan said.
“He doesn’t share your surname?” Huo Ranyin raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. My grandfather experienced a shipwreck in his early years, and at the time, everyone said he died. After crying over him, my grandmother remarried. Who would have thought that two years later, he would turn into a Hong Kong citizen and come back. He said he was lucky not to die in the shipwreck and washed up in the Hong Kong area. Very fortunately, he was saved by kind people. But he hit his head at the time and couldn’t remember some things clearly, which delayed him for two years before he came back to find his roots… He did find them, but his wife had already remarried. There was nothing to be done, so they could only separately form new families like that.”
This matched the Hong Kong and Macau travel permit the two of them had seen Lao Hu present when they went mountain climbing together previously.
This journey was somewhat winding and bizarre, but living to eighty is rare since ancient times. Over eighty years—more than twenty-nine thousand days—it wasn’t strange at all for some winding and bizarre things to happen in such a long period of time.
The two exchanged a glance, and Huo Ranyin asked, “Lu Song’s contact information?”
Hu Yuan didn’t seem to have much affection for her biological brother; in fact, she seemed rather fed up with him. She very readily gave Lu Song’s phone number to the two of them, and even threw in the place where Lu Song was likely staying—an express hotel in Qin City.
Having obtained the clue, the two went out and told Zhao Wu.
Zhao Wu didn’t dally either. He picked some men and headed straight for the location Hu Yuan had provided. This time, it was far simpler than finding Fu Baoxin. After showing their badges at the front desk of the express hotel, they immediately had a hotel employee accompany them upstairs with a room card.
The hotel’s walls and doors were as thin and flimsy as usual. Standing outside the door, everyone could clearly hear the sound of gaming coming from inside, occasionally mixed with the sound of chatting over a microphone—the suspect was currently playing games and had not shown any signs of absconding out of fear of punishment.
Zhao Wu gave the hotel employee a meaningful look.
The hotel employee was experienced and very cleverly knocked on the door, saying, “Hello sir, the hotel has brought up a fruit platter.”
The gaming sounds from behind the door lowered a bit, and a man’s voice rang out; it was indeed Lu Song: “What fruit platter? I didn’t order one.”
“But the room number written is 1038. You are the occupant of Room 1038, correct?” the hotel employee asked.
“Yeah.”
“Perhaps a friend ordered it for you. Could you open the door and confirm?” the hotel employee pressed.
“…Alright, alright, what’s the rush? I’m going to the bottom lane to defend the tower right now, okay?!” A sudden, angry shout from Lu Song erupted inside the room. Following the abruptly raised voice was the sound of the game volume suddenly increasing. The people standing outside heard a frantic scraping of a mouse and a computer chair from within. It was obvious Lu Song was very angry. While yelling at the person outside, he said, “Wait a minute, wait until I finish this round of the game, and then I’ll open the door for you.”
“Okay,” the hotel employee said.
The group waited outside, but at this moment, Huo Ranyin’s ears suddenly twitched, and he whispered: “…Wait, I think I heard the sound of a door locking.”
Inside a hotel room, besides the main door having a lock, only the bathroom had a lock.
Why did Lu Song suddenly enter the bathroom and lock the door after turning up the game volume? What was he trying to do?
Zhao Wu made a prompt decision. He snatched the room card from the hotel employee’s hand and swiped the door open. Just as his body charged into the room, the sound of a toilet flushing rang out leisurely, as if stepping perfectly to his footfalls.
“Fuck!” Zhao Wu’s face instantly changed. He took the lead, violently throwing his sturdy frame against the bathroom door, crashing open the closed door. However, he was still a step too late; the toilet water had already flushed down into the sewer!
“Police!” Zhao Wu shouted angrily at Lu Song. “What did you flush?”
“What else can you flush in a toilet? Piss and shit,” Lu Song retorted calmly, completely unfazed by the word ‘police.’ “Where are your badges? Why are you looking for me? Even if you are the police, you can’t just casually charge into my hotel room, right? Do you have a search warrant?”
Ji Xun didn’t squeeze to the front. Following behind the crowd of police officers, he focused on observing Lu Song.
This was a young man of about 25 or 26; his age shouldn’t exceed that range. He was quite good-looking. Hu Yuan was a great beauty, and since they were close blood relatives with similar features, this Lu Song was naturally a handsome guy as well.
However, this handsome guy’s skin was a bit dark, leaving traces of sun exposure. He was tall and sturdily built, and his right wrist was noticeably thicker than his left. The luggage placed on the hotel luggage rack showed tennis elements… perhaps a preliminary deduction could be made—Lu Song frequently engaged in outdoor sports, especially tennis.
Aside from this, the man had thick, heavy eyebrows, but very thin lips. There was a faint crease right in the middle of his brow, giving the impression of a slightly mean face, a person who often got angry.
This was probably not an illusion. Just looking at Lu Song’s instantaneous reaction when the police showed up at his door was enough to know that Lu Song was definitely not someone easy to deal with.
Zhao Wu’s face was livid, but he didn’t let anger control his brain and body. Instead, following procedure, he first showed his badge and search warrant to Lu Song: “We suspect you are involved in a case. We need you to come with us to the police station.”
Lu Song’s eyes swept over the items presented.
His eyes were somewhat like a snake’s—long, narrow, and cold, seemingly harboring some bad ideas.
He didn’t say much; he merely nodded and said lightly, “If you had said you were the police earlier, I would have opened the door for you earlier. But still, the police can’t stop people from taking a shit or piss, right?”
Nobody wanted to respond to Lu Song. Watched by two police officers, he was stuffed into a car and taken directly back to the police station.
But not everyone left with that car.
At least Zhao Wu, his vice-captain, as well as Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin, temporarily remained at the hotel.
The vice-captain looked despairingly at the toilet: “Old Zhao, what do we do now?”
“What else can we do?” If the fire in Zhao Wu’s eyes could shoot out, it probably would have already burned the ceramic toilet in front of him to ashes. “Call a septic tank truck to pump the waste.”
“Blargh—”
The vice-captain wasn’t the only one making retching sounds of extreme disgust.
Clinging to a slim chance even he didn’t believe, he asked, “What if this kid didn’t flush anything valuable down, and it’s just the products of the five grains’ cycle…”
“We still have to look!” Zhao Wu said firmly. “Start immediately. Call the relevant departments, set a time, and have them drive a septic truck over. Then pick a few guys, put on protective suits, and get ready to dig through the sewer septic tank.”
“I…”
Huo Ranyin had only spoken a single word when Ji Xun, with his sharp eyes and ears, grabbed him, groaned, and leaned against him: “Oh no, Captain Huo, I’m feeling a bit dizzy. I can’t stand steady. My injuries probably haven’t fully healed yet…”
Huo Ranyin: “…”
He looked speechlessly at the “delicate flower” in his arms.
The “delicate flower” threatened in a low voice: “Don’t even think about it. Not allowed.”
Zhao Wu was very tactful and quickly said, “That’s about it for here today. You two have been running around all day; hurry back and rest. Lu Song, that son of a bitch, definitely has a problem. Today we’ll do some checks on his personal belongings, and then go look for the evidence he flushed down the toilet…”
Just saying it made him feel like he could smell the stench, and Zhao Wu’s mouth twitched.
“Wait until tomorrow when we formally interrogate him, then I’ll invite you guys over to watch.”
Ji Xun instantly revived with full health on the spot. His head wasn’t dizzy and his legs weren’t weak anymore. Standing up straight, he said to Zhao Wu, “Thank you, Captain Zhao. Thank you for your hard work. Then Captain Huo and I will head back to the hotel to rest first.”
“Not at all, not hard work at all.” He watched Ji Xun and the other shoulder-to-shoulder walk down the stairs, then suddenly heard his vice-captain muttering enviously next to him.
“External experts really have it good. They don’t take the police force’s salary, they run fast, and they can even drag our colleagues away with them…”
“Colleagues from Ning City,” Zhao Wu pointed out. It wasn’t their city; they originally didn’t even need to participate in their city’s case.
“Sigh, whenever we go on a business trip to Ning City and run into this kind of thing, how about I pretend to faint and drag you away too?” the vice-captain pondered and calculated.
“You’re thinking too far ahead.” Zhao Wu appeared calm on the surface, but rapidly assessed his vice-captain’s figure with his eyes.
A bit fat.
If he fainted, nobody would believe it…
He’d have to supervise his weight loss, starve him until he was thin.
To prepare for a rainy day.
After a peaceful night’s rest, early the next morning, when Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin arrived at the Qin City Criminal Investigation Unit again, the interrogation of Lu Song had just begun.
Following the procedure, the police first asked Lu Song where he was during the time of the incident last night and why he went there.
“No particular reason, just taking a walk.” Lu Song looked like an old, slippery rogue. “Qin City is a port city, famous for its sea. It’s not strange for me to walk around the coastline and take a look, right? Is taking a walk illegal these days?”
“Taking a walk isn’t illegal, of course…”
The interrogating police officer said, when suddenly, a bizarre smile appeared on his face.
The next second, the door to the interrogation room was pushed open. The slightly chubby vice-captain, who hadn’t slept all night and looked quite haggard, walked in with a waddling gait. He stretched out a hand wearing who-knew-how-many layers of gloves; pinched between his fingertips was a sealed plastic bag, and inside the bag were several brown medicine vials.
This plastic bag was slammed down right in front of Lu Song’s eyes.
“Recognize this?” The haggard vice-captain wore a malicious smile. “Do you know where it was found? Come on, hurry up, take a sniff. Smells good, right? Hmm?”
Lu Song couldn’t stay calm anymore.
His body jerked backward, like a snake rearing up on the chair. His eyes were fixed, his face shifting between green and white as he tried his absolute best to keep his nose away from the plastic bag.
Right at that moment, the vice-captain placed the item on the table, slammed the table hard—creating an earth-shattering noise—and roared in anger:
“Answer honestly! Where did you get so many lethal poisons in these bottles, and what exactly are you trying to do by collecting these poisons?!”
