The weather in early spring was still chilly. It had looked like a bright, sunny day, but after the speedboat had been running for a while, the sun vanished, and mist unexpectedly swirled up. It felt like a piece of water-drenched gauze, pressing against their faces, gently stroking them.
The spray splashing off the sides and stern of the boat due to their rapid speed turned into foamy fish tails drawn by the mist, playfully and vividly slapping cold water onto the two of them.
Once the run was finished, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin stepped onto the abandoned pier they had visited once before. Huo Ranyin lowered his head to check the time: “9:52 to 10:18. In terms of time, it matches the ’20-something minutes’ mentioned by Hu Kun.”
“Achoo!” Ji Xun’s response was a sudden, violent sneeze. “You actually timed it?”
“Talk about being out there.”
“I see that Zhao Wu has completely trusted Hu Zheng’s version of events; he won’t remember your experiment at all. Achoo, achoo!” Ji Xun sneezed twice more.
“Did you catch a cold?” Huo Ranyin glanced at him, slightly mocking, “I told you there was no need to take a speedboat at this time. If you want to ride a speedboat, you can do it on any of the three hundred days when the weather is good. You just had to pick a time when the snow and ice had only been gone for two days. Hu Zheng drove the speedboat to commit a crime, but you…”
Before he could finish, Ji Xun turned and hugged him.
“It was just to give you a hug,” Ji Xun drawled, acting spoiled.
“Just a hug?” Huo Ranyin suddenly retorted.
“Eh?”
“I want a kiss, too,” Huo Ranyin said calmly.
“Aren’t you afraid of being seen?” Ji Xun asked, feeling surprised.
“There’s no one here, and no surveillance cameras.” The captain of the criminal police was always that concise, his plans well-calculated.
Ji Xun let out a muffled laugh. While maintaining the hug, he buried his head in the other man’s neck and rubbed against it like a cat. Only after they had both warmed up did he lift his head to press a kiss onto Huo Ranyin’s cheek.
Whether it was the thin strands of sunlight piercing through the clouds or the body heat from when they leaned in close, a flush of red appeared on Huo Ranyin’s cheek.
It was a crimson hue, soft as a rose petal’s kiss.
After they were done being lovey-dovey, Ji Xun steadied his own bones so he could stand on his own.
He said, “To put it simply, let’s talk about Hu Zheng. I think there are at least three suspicious points in his testimony just now.”
Huo Ranyin: “For example?”
Ji Xun: “First, the issue of Old Hu’s body. According to Hu Zheng, he saw the body on the 9th and had it cremated on the 10th. Then, he held the funeral three days after the cremation—doesn’t this process seem wrong? Why was he in such a rush to cremate the body? Didn’t there need to be a memorial service? I personally lean towards the idea that the moment Hu Zheng saw Old Hu’s body, he realized something was wrong with the remains. But out of some resentment toward his father, or perhaps the urgency to get the inheritance immediately, he chose to remain silent and had the body disposed of… until the will was read and he realized things weren’t as he had imagined, and Luo Sui became the big winner while he got nothing. But at that point, the body had already been burned, and he couldn’t make a formal accusation, so he took a desperate gamble.”
“There is one problem,” Huo Ranyin interrupted slightly. “We cannot completely rule out Hu Zheng’s suspicion.”
“Mm, if the will hadn’t been changed, Hu Zheng would have been the primary beneficiary upon Old Hu’s death, so it makes sense that he would have a motive to kill,” Ji Xun nodded. “Having committed the murder, he would naturally want to dispose of the body in a hurry, destroying the evidence. Now he can frame Luo Sui—or kill her—to get things back on track. But he was out of town on the 8th. It would be difficult for him to attack an elderly man dying of a terminal illness from afar. It wouldn’t be as convenient as it would be for Luo Sui or the live-in caretaker, Mrs. Mei.”
“The second point,” Ji Xun continued, “he described his parents divorcing when he was nine. When he was nine, Hu Yuan was exactly one year old. Hu Yuan’s parents, wanting a second child, must have sent Hu Yuan to Old Hu early on—most likely when she was one year old. Looking at it this way, the ‘third party’ Hu Zheng cited as the cause of his parents’ divorce might not have been an external mistress, but the various suspicions triggered by the baby, Hu Yuan. We can verify this with Hu Yuan.”
“The third point,” said Ji Xun, “the hospital.”
“Mm. The hospital issued a normal death certificate, which meant Hu Zheng faced no resistance during the cremation.” Huo Ranyin responded. He lowered his eyes, the lids covering the contemplation in his gaze. “We need to go to the hospital, verify who claimed the body, and examine Old Hu’s surgical and treatment records…”
“There is a contradiction here. If Hu Zheng wasn’t the one who killed him, and he is just an ordinary person with no information, why did he find something wrong with the body, but the hospital found absolutely nothing?”
“Hospitals are not infallible. If there is a misdiagnosis or medical malpractice, they have their own self-serving reasons to hide unfavorable information,” Huo Ranyin said flatly. “Don’t forget, the Old Hu we saw looked very healthy.”
“Forensic experts always say that living people love to tell lies, and only the dead don’t lie. It’s a pity that the dead man who would never lie has been burned to nothing but ashes now.”
Without enough clues, any analysis was just armchair theorizing.
Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin did not delay, heading straight to the hospital where he had been hospitalized. They found the attending physician, a man in his 40s surnamed Xu. He was taken aback when he heard them ask about Old Hu: “…You’re looking for Hu Kun? What happened to him?”
“What could happen to a dead man?” Ji Xun retorted.
“Could he be a zombie?” Dr. Xu said, cracking a dry joke. Doctors aren’t all stiff, it seems.
“We want to know about Hu Kun’s medical records from the past few months, as well as the records of his death,” Huo Ranyin said, showing his credentials. “Dr. Xu, did you notice anything unusual while you were treating Hu Kun?”
“Could you show me your credentials again?” Dr. Xu requested.
Huo Ranyin handed them over.
Dr. Xu examined them carefully and asked with detail: “You’re a criminal police captain from Ning City? Why is a captain from Ning City handling a case in Qin City?”
“Seconded,” Huo Ranyin remained silent, but Ji Xun interjected, “Being a doctor means being meticulous. If you’re so thorough about looking at credentials, you must be even more thorough when looking at patients.”
“Can’t help it, it’s a job requirement.” Dr. Xu spoke while looking down. “I can only say we did our best.”
After he had seen enough, he returned the credentials to Huo Ranyin, pulled the files from the computer, printed them all out, and handed them to the two men.
“The medical documents are all here. You look them over first; I still have to check on patients. If you have any questions, try asking at the nursing station. The nurses there are the ones with the most direct contact with the patients; they might know more about some details.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked away briskly.
The two sat on a bench in the hospital corridor with the files.
Hu Kun had come to Qin City First Hospital on August 3, 2015, for a full-body examination and was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer. With the patient’s consent, they chose craniotomy surgery, scheduled for August 16.
Shortly after the surgery, the patient recovered quite well, and chemotherapy was arranged on September 26.
He underwent four rounds of chemotherapy on October 3, October 24, and November 14.
However, despite the grueling surgery and chemotherapy, the cancer cells spread uncontrollably.
In the medical record from December 5, Dr. Xu had suggested switching to palliative care to alleviate his suffering, as the patient’s life expectancy was estimated to be 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. His condition had stabilized by March 5, but unexpectedly, it deteriorated rapidly on the morning of the 8th, and he died at 13:22 that afternoon after emergency efforts failed.
Huo Ranyin frowned and said, “The one who signed to claim the body was Luo Sui.”
“That is unexpected…” Ji Xun mused, “According to our previous deduction, there was something fishy about Old Hu’s death, and something was wrong with the body… If so, whoever signed to claim the body first is the most suspicious. Luo Sui is both the beneficiary of the entire estate and the first person to claim the body. She did everything.”
Ji Xun pulled out his phone to check the calendar: “Except for the first time, the subsequent chemotherapy sessions and all admission/discharge records were on Saturdays or Sundays. Only Luo Sui had a job that required coordinating with the weekend. Mrs. Mei didn’t need to work—was Mrs. Mei also being kept in the dark by Old Hu?”
Where there are questions, there must be answers. Ji Xun, naturally putting on a sweet and handsome smile, ran over to ask the nurse.
According to the nurse, Hu Kun always came to the hospital accompanied by his granddaughter—Luo Sui. Luo Sui visited diligently; not just on weekends, but on weekdays whenever she was free. Later, when he went into palliative care, Luo Sui liked to take him home for care on the weekends.
As for Mrs. Mei, she had only seen her once or twice this year, and her visits never overlapped with Luo Sui’s. She hadn’t visited often in the past.
There was one more thing.
“The patient’s granddaughter is really a nice person. It’s just a pity; when it was time for emergency resuscitation, we called her, but we couldn’t get through. Later, after he passed, we called again, but still couldn’t get through. I guess she was working; she was too busy. So, we had to use the contact information in the patient’s medical insurance file and contacted his son.”
“His son was quite ridiculous; he thought we were scammers and cursed at us for a long time before he finally believed his father was sick and had passed away. But in the end, he didn’t come to the hospital; it was his granddaughter who came. I remember—it was around 4 or 5 o’clock. She came alone, and she had been crying so hard her makeup was ruined. She signed the papers and let us put the body into her car to take home.”
“Oh, I asked if she wanted us to help transport him, and she said it wasn’t necessary. To be honest, it was so pitiful. Usually, a whole family comes to pick up the deceased; it’s very rare for someone to be alone unless they are truly solitary.”
“Then, on March 7th, did Hu Kun’s granddaughter come?” Ji Xun asked again.
Hu Kun died after resuscitation failed on March 8th. If Luo Sui really did something, March 7th would have been the best time.
“She probably came, right?” the nurse said, “We can check the surveillance. I remember she stayed very late that day. I even had to urge her to leave once.”
