“Fine, even if Meng Fushan is a suspect, he is absolutely not the only one, right? Are you going to mobilize the entire police force to find those three people whose whereabouts are unknown, while ignoring Zheng Xuewang who is right in front of us?”
Ji Xun’s counterattack was swift and logical.
Correct arguments, naturally, have logic.
Huo Ranyin looked away. “Investigate both directions.”
“Then you’d better hurry up and investigate the direction you find suspicious,” Ji Xun said, turning to leave.
“What do you mean?” Huo Ranyin frowned slightly. “Where are you going?”
“To find Zheng Xuewang—I trust my intuition, and I don’t believe he has no issues.” Ji Xun didn’t look back; he just waved at Huo Ranyin, looking sloppy and nonchalant. “Hurry up, or I’ll solve the case right here, and Captain Huo will be in an awkward position.”
“…”
Huo Ranyin let out a hum of laughter.
“I look forward to it.”
Ji Xun turned back and, without delay, went directly to find Zheng Xuewang.
After the mystery was unveiled, the people gathered in the living room had dispersed. The police were re-questioning the important suspects, and it was Wen Yangyang who was questioning Zheng Xuewang.
Although Huo Ranyin had his own opinions about the case, he still followed procedure in the investigation, showing no signs of being overly aggressive.
Ji Xun wandered over to the two of them.
Wen Yangyang greeted him and moved aside to make room for Ji Xun. “Teacher Ji, join us?”
Ji Xun wasn’t in a hurry to sit down; he glanced around first.
This was Zheng Xuewang’s office and temporary rest spot in the villa, containing both a desk and a bed. However, the owner hadn’t spent much time here; a cursory glance revealed very few personal items, save for a few colorful building blocks on the rosewood desk that seemed somewhat unique.
Wen Yangyang was questioning Zheng Xuewang about Chen Jiashu paying him to forge the documents.
“How much money did Chen Jiashu give you to make a fake certificate for him?”
“One million.”
“Was it a bank transfer or cash?”
“Cash,” Zheng Xuewang replied clearly. “I spent three hundred and twenty thousand, and there is six hundred and eighty thousand left. The money wasn’t deposited in a bank; it’s all in a small freezer at my home—I piled baskets and medical supplies on top of it, and hid the money underneath. I figured that even if someone broke into my home to steal something, the first thing they wouldn’t think of is opening the freezer, and if they did open it and saw the medicine placed on top, they wouldn’t search underneath.”
“Pretty clever,” Wen Yangyang couldn’t help but comment.
“Officers must have seen plenty of this kind of small-fry cleverness,” Zheng Xuewang said, flattering Wen Yangyang.
“You say you hid the money at home, but how can you prove this money was given to you by Chen Jiashu?” Wen Yangyang asked again.
This question hit the nail on the head. Ji Xun, standing nearby, appeared to be nonchalantly looking at the scenery outside the window, but he was actually quietly pricking up his ears.
The current claim that “Chen Jiashu asked Zheng Xuewang to forge the medical records” was merely Zheng Xuewang’s one-sided story. Given that Chen Jiashu was already dead, it couldn’t be taken at face value.
“Actually, I really can prove this,” Zheng Xuewang said unexpectedly. “Because Chen Jiashu’s request was against the rules, I was cautious and recorded the audio when he talked to me about it. Although there is no video evidence and it might not necessarily be admissible in court, I think… this should at least clear my suspicion, right?”
Wen Yangyang was stunned.
As a bystander, Ji Xun already noticed that Wen Yangyang was somewhat convinced by Zheng Xuewang.
Since the fake medical record was requested by Chen Jiashu, for which he even gave Zheng Xuewang a large sum of money, Zheng Xuewang’s suspicion of murdering Chen Jiashu had diminished…
That is the logic. The logic holds up.
The problem lies with Zheng Xuewang himself.
According to Tan Mingjiu’s initial feedback upon meeting Zheng Xuewang, he was a seasoned social operator; but based on his and Huo Ranyin’s subsequent interactions with him, Zheng Xuewang appeared incredibly shallow. Yet now, facing Wen Yangyang, Zheng Xuewang had become confident again.
Clearly, Zheng Xuewang was a chameleon. He had at least two faces.
One shallow face had already been shown. As for the other, the owner wanted to hide it, but hadn’t hidden it too well; every now and then, it would surface, secretly taking a breath…
Thinking this, Ji Xun turned and left the room.
The interaction between Wen Yangyang and Zheng Xuewang would continue for a while longer, but he could read the transcripts later. There was no need to waste precious time waiting for potential, minor clues that might emerge during the questioning.
He decided to go and check out Zheng Xuewang’s workplace first.
Leaving the villa and returning to the city center, Ji Xun dragged Tan Mingjiu out of his house, using him as a “tool” to open doors for questioning with his police credentials.
Zheng Xuewang’s previous workplace was the First Hospital of Ning City, where he had been a doctor in the urology department. He had resigned just three months ago, at the beginning of this year.
Ji Xun entered the hospital and first went to the urology nursing station to ask the nurses a few simple questions.
With Tan Mingjiu’s police ID and Ji Xun’s likable face, even though they were busy, the nurses were willing to take the time to chat with Ji Xun in detail:
“Dr. Zheng? …We didn’t know him very well.”
“He wasn’t the kind of doctor who would joke around with us.”
“Not only did he not joke around, but once I saw him on the street and made a point of greeting him. I was sure he saw me—we were face-to-face, less than ten meters apart—but he walked right past me without a word, making me feel incredibly awkward.”
The nurses chattered, sharing small, trivial details.
“As for anything special? We didn’t see anything. I remember him being quite professional, basically working all year round without breaks. Many people in the department often asked him to swap shifts.”
“Our director thought very highly of Dr. Zheng, does that count? The director even tried hard to keep him when he left, promising him that if he worked hard, he’d definitely report him for a professional title promotion, but he couldn’t keep him.”
“Oh, right, speaking of the resignation, didn’t Dr. Zheng run into a medical dispute right before he left?”
“A medical dispute?” Ji Xun seized the opportunity to extract the key point.
“It seemed to be an old couple who came to find Dr. Zheng. The door to the consultation room was closed at the time, but the sound of the argument was so loud that I could hear it at the nursing station. It didn’t last long, though; the old couple soon came out and left in a rage.”
“Have that old couple been back since?” Ji Xun asked.
“I don’t know about that; there are so many people every day… and Dr. Zheng was a skilled doctor. After he left, many of his former patients came to ask about him, hoping he would come back. I wouldn’t be able to recognize if that old couple was among them.” The nurses tried hard to think, but came to no conclusion.
“There’s surveillance in the doctors’ consultation rooms, right?”
“Yes, but the footage isn’t kept for that long. It should have been overwritten by now,” the nurse replied.
Ji Xun had obtained some information from the nursing station, but it wasn’t enough, so he went to look for others—other doctors on duty in urology.
He found a young doctor named Zhao.
Dr. Zhao said, “Dr. Zheng? He was a pretty good guy, very straightforward. If you needed help with anything, he was always ready to help, never talked nonsense, and never nitpicked with you.”
“Does he have any hobbies in his daily life that left a deep impression on you?” Ji Xun asked.
“Good ones or bad ones?” Dr. Zhao countered.
“Either,” Ji Xun said. “It’s best to tell me everything. Anything that left an impression on you.”
“Hobbies… from my daily interactions with him, I don’t think he had many. No smoking, no drinking, no card games. The strange thing is that he was over thirty and not married, had no girlfriend, and didn’t seem to have any plans to date.” Dr. Zhao thought about it carefully, but soon overturned his own assessment of “strange.” “But as a doctor, work is so tiring every day; I understand his decision not to marry. Before getting married, you think you can rest once you are, but as long as you’re slightly responsible for a marriage and family, you realize work is tiring, but home is even more tiring. You don’t have an hour of rest all year round.”
Ji Xun patiently listened to Dr. Zhao’s small outburst. From the family photo on Dr. Zhao’s desk, it was clear he was married and had a seven-year-old son. A seven-year-old child is a handful, no wonder Dr. Zhao felt that way.
Soon, Dr. Zhao found the point again: “Anyway, I didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy about Dr. Zheng in his daily life… does playing with building blocks count?”
“Building blocks?” Ji Xun thought of the items on Zheng Xuewang’s desk at the villa.
“Yeah, when he was here, there would always be a few building blocks on his desk, all covered by glass domes. He basically changed the style once a month. He treasured those blocks quite a bit. Once, Dr. Lin accidentally knocked them over and a part went missing, which made Dr. Zheng absolutely furious. We’d worked together for several years, and it was the first time I’d seen him that angry.”
“Anything else?” Ji Xun asked again.
“Really, that’s it,” Dr. Zhao shook his head.
“I heard that the day Dr. Zheng left, there was a medical dispute?” Ji Xun used the information he got from the nurses to ask Dr. Zhao.
“Medical dispute? There was no medical dispute!” Dr. Zhao was confused for a moment, then realized, “Oh, the nurses outside heard the argument and thought it was a medical dispute! I was in the consultation room next door at the time; the volume was very loud, and I heard a bit of it. It wasn’t any medical dispute. It should have been Dr. Zheng’s relatives who came to persuade him not to resign, but they didn’t come to an agreement, and the two sides ended up arguing.”
To prove his point, Dr. Zhao added: “Right, it was raining very hard that day, and Dr. Zheng even took that old couple into his office to borrow an umbrella from me. I think only relatives he knew well would make Dr. Zheng do that. Oh, right, there’s more…”
As he spoke, Dr. Zhao provided many details. Memories are like that; one node connects to another. When a key point is recalled, a string of things one thought they had long forgotten comes back.
“That old couple seemed a bit strange…”
“Strange how?” Ji Xun pressed.
“The wife of the old couple kept looking at the building blocks on Dr. Zheng’s desk, as if she were very concerned about them. However, Dr. Zheng shouldn’t have noticed this because he was facing away from them and toward me at the time.”
Ji Xun pondered for a moment, thanked Dr. Zhao, and went to find the final target of his trip.
Zheng Xuewang’s direct superior, the director of urology, Director Li.
“Dr. Zheng? A very capable and promising young man.” It was clear that even though Zheng Xuewang had resigned for several months, Director Li still felt a deep sense of regret.
When talking about Zheng Xuewang, he was full of praise: young, professional, energetic, smart, and with solid quality—he basically met all the hard requirements for cultivating the younger generation.
“I promised him that as long as he worked hard for another seven or eight years, I would definitely make him the director of the department so he could continue to work in more important positions, study medicine deeply, and save lives, but…” Director Li sighed slightly.
“I still don’t understand why he chose to be a private doctor. Even if the other side pays more for now, so what? Without more patients, there is no room for a doctor’s medical skills to improve. This really doesn’t look like something Zheng Xuewang would do. He was a doctor who had a car accident and ended up with a limp, but still went into the operating room while wearing a cast! Without a bit of passion for medicine and a sense of mission to save lives, could he have done that?”
That was quite interesting.
From nurses to colleagues to leaders, everyone had slightly different views on Zheng Xuewang. The differences weren’t huge, but they weren’t small enough to ignore. Such differences were just like the different faces Zheng Xuewang showed to different police officers.
“Aside from these?” Ji Xun asked calmly.
“Aside from these? He got along quite well with his colleagues. Then there was his personal life, but I didn’t pay much attention to that. Now it’s not like it used to be, where you had to rely on old leaders to help you matchmake. When I first started working, the leader was like half a mother or father; you could tell them anything, and they would solve problems for you without question…” Director Li smiled, then pondered. “Hmm, there’s one thing that left a fairly deep impression on me. It was… last year or the year before, around the middle of the year. There was a patient who had the means to invite a top expert from the capital for a ‘flying knife’ surgery (visiting surgeon). I thought it was a rare opportunity, so I urged Dr. Zheng to make sure to observe the surgery that day and learn some techniques.”
“Was Dr. Zheng not at the hospital that day?”
“He asked for leave in advance, saying he had something to take care of at home,” Director Li said. “He usually didn’t take leave; he was on duty all year round. That time, I didn’t consider it thoroughly—I was only focused on the rare opportunity and forgot to care about his personal difficulties. In short, he refused me very firmly. No matter how I asked, he said he had things to do and couldn’t come. When asked what it was, he wouldn’t say.”
After finishing, Director Li felt a bit embarrassed. “These are all small things; can they help you?”
“Of course. Do you remember the specific date of that day?” Human memory is limited, and irregular things like times and dates are always difficult to remember. Ji Xun didn’t have high hopes when he asked this.
But Director Li gave him a definite reply.
“I don’t remember the year, but I remember the specific date. It was June 1st, Children’s Day.” Director Li added, “By the way, Dr. Zheng would ask for leave every June 1st. It’s a bit surprising for someone who hasn’t started a family of his own to insist on taking leave on this day.”
Ji Xun walked out of the First Hospital with Tan Mingjiu, packed ten bubble teas from a nearby shop, and went back alone to give them to the nurses and doctors in urology.
After a while, when Ji Xun came out of the hospital and rejoined Tan Mingjiu, who was waiting by the roadside, Tan Mingjiu—who had really felt like nothing more than a police ID card from beginning to end—finally came to life.
For the first half of this visit, he had been dazed and half-asleep, and in the second half, he had woken up, only to find that he had absolutely no room to interject.
He could only remain silent; silence is golden.
Now, he could finally exchange the mountain of “gold” he had accumulated for some food to fill his stomach. Tan Mingjiu looked longingly at the various snack shops across the street from the hospital and said to Ji Xun, “Let’s go eat something first! From the time I went home to sleep this morning to being dragged out by you now, I haven’t had a drop of water or a grain of rice; I’m almost starved crazy.”
Ji Xun bought a steamed bun and stuffed it into Tan Mingjiu’s hand.
Tan Mingjiu was stunned. “…Brother, I’m calling you brother now—is this how you’re brushing me off?”
Ji Xun dismissed him perfunctorily. “Just line your stomach with this for now. We have to go to one more place later. Once that’s done, I’ll find you a place to have a proper meal. You order the dishes, I’ll treat you. Just endure it for a bit.”
Tan Mingjiu: “Where are we going?”
Ji Xun: “To the place where the old couple who came to see Zheng Xuewang is.”
Tan Mingjiu asked confusedly: “But where is the old couple?”
Ji Xun: “That is what we have to ask to find out where Zheng Xuewang’s parents live.”
Tan Mingjiu immediately pointed out the logical flaw in Ji Xun’s reasoning: “The ones who came might not necessarily be Zheng Xuewang’s parents! Older relatives love to meddle, it could have been Zheng Xuewang’s aunts or uncles coming to persuade him!”
Ji Xun was impatient. “Would aunts or uncles stare at Zheng Xuewang’s personal items in fascination? That kind of detail only occurs in someone who understands Zheng Xuewang—his personality, his weaknesses, his life path—very well. Is this something a relative who seems close but actually lives far away and only appears like a zombie to disrupt your life could notice?”
“Enough.” Ji Xun was dictatorial. “No need to discuss, I won’t be wrong. Now, call the household registration office and check the address of Zheng Xuewang’s parents’ home; we’re paying a visit.”
“…”
Tan Mingjiu gripped the steamed bun, hesitant.
He felt that the scene before him was very familiar. Recalling three months ago, at the beginning of the year, he had seen Ji Xun at a murder scene—Ji Xun looked reluctant, didn’t want to look at the scene, and was only thinking about eating breakfast. Looking at him now…
How the tables have turned!
Tan Mingjiu gloomily took a bite of the bun and said, “Fine, fine, I know. You wait, I’ll make a call and find out.”
Ji Xun was cold. “Hurry up, don’t dawdle.”
Tan Mingjiu snorted secretly at Ji Xun. After spending so long with Captain Huo, he had picked up Captain Huo’s temper… Thinking of Captain Huo, Tan Mingjiu suddenly realized what he should be doing at this moment.
With the bun in his mouth, he took out his phone. Not rushing to make the call, he acted sneakily and made a report to Huo Ranyin:
“Captain Huo, old Ji is dragging me to investigate the case. Although it’s not yet clear what he wants to know, I know he will definitely find what he’s looking for. Don’t worry, I will follow him at all times, remember every clue he finds, and absolutely won’t let this guy solve the case before us and make us look bad, hehe…”
