Trash was scattered all across the floor.
It was only then that everyone realized: while they were still looking—some nervously, some curiously—at the instant noodle bowls and the poisoned Boss Wu, the silver-masked man, Boss Zhou, had quietly put on gloves and rummaged through all the trash in the trash can.
The retrieved trash hadn’t been recklessly dumped out either; instead, it was meticulously organized. From as large as foam noodle bowls to as small as a used napkin, down to the outer plastic wrap of the instant noodles, every single item had its own proper place.
This guy…
A thought duplicated like a virus in everyone’s mind.
Truly ruthless.
“Close the doors,” Mr. Liu said suddenly.
His command remained effective; the two bodyguards who had previously escorted Xu Ke out immediately stepped forward and firmly shut the two wide-open doors of the Chinese restaurant.
“Since it has been analyzed that the poison wasn’t placed by the Ghost, but by someone present on the scene,” he paused and smiled, “things become simpler instead, don’t they, everyone? None of us have superpowers. To place poison, one must approach the victim. So, who approached Boss Jiang just now? Who boiled water and made noodles in front of Boss Jiang?”
There were clearly two poisoned individuals, yet when he spoke, he mentioned only Boss Jiang, whether intentionally or unintentionally ignoring Boss Wu.
“The one who boiled water and made noodles in front of Boss Jiang seems to be me,” Boss Ponytail laughed neuroticly. “But everyone, please believe me, Boss Jiang and I have no grudges or enmity; we are complete strangers with zero motive to kill.”
Mr. Liu offered no comment, merely continuing: “As for those who sat together with Boss Jiang…”
This required no explicit confession; it was clear at a glance on the scene.
Boss Wu and Boss Jiang sat right next to each other, with their respective bodyguards sitting on either side of them.
“It was me,” Boss Wu spoke up after all. Having just received an injection of the targeted antidote, his complexion looked somewhat better, but his body still trembled uncontrollably—uncertain whether it was an aftereffect of the poison or an aftereffect of knowing he had been poisoned. “When Old Jiang collapsed just now, I didn’t react in time, but his bodyguard did.”
This was something everyone knew. When Boss Jiang collapsed, the first gasp of alarm came from his bodyguard.
“His bodyguard even massaged him for quite a while,” Boss Wu added. “He stood behind Old Jiang for a pretty long time, and Old Jiang had his eyes closed while being massaged.”
Boss Jiang’s bodyguard was surnamed Fang—Fang Li. Hearing Boss Wu’s words, his expression changed: “The boss’s neck felt uncomfortable, so I massaged him—is there anything wrong with that?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong,” Boss Wu said stiffly. “But right now, every single person who approached Old Jiang and interacted with him is suspicious.”
“I merely massaged the boss’s neck. Boss Wu, you actually touched the boss’s noodle bowl!”
“I was poisoned too!” Boss Wu roared in fury. “I almost died!”
“Yet you didn’t die,” Fang Li sneered.
“You dog bastard—”
Thump, thump.
Mr. Liu unhurriedly tapped the table twice, interrupting the argument before it could escalate into a physical conflict.
“Quiet,” he said like a judge. “What we need to know right now is who exactly approached Boss Jiang and what interactions took place with Boss Jiang. Boss Wu, as for whether you are a suspect, we can discern that later.”
Boss Wu couldn’t swallow this insult; he wanted to say something more, but at that moment he caught the gazes of the people around him.
The gazes used when looking at a suspect.
His heart sank abruptly, and he looked toward Mr. Liu again.
Mr. Liu locked eyes with him, and through the single eye Mr. Liu had left, Boss Wu seemed to catch a tiny glint of flickering… a faint, flickering smile… Mr. Liu was enjoying the show!
“Tell us,” Mr. Liu asked Fang Li, “how did Boss Wu touch Boss Jiang’s noodle bowl?”
“After pouring water into instant noodles, they need to be covered. We all use forks to pierce through to keep them covered. But the boss failed, so he asked Boss Wu to help. Boss Wu fiddled with the boss’s fork and failed too, so he later covered the noodle bowl with a tissue box.” Fang Li briefly recounted the incident.
Mr. Liu looked at Boss Wu again: “Boss Wu, anything to add?”
“Nothing,” Boss Wu said coldly.
“What about the rest of you?” Mr. Liu asked.
“Someone distributed side dishes tonight,” Boss Radish said suddenly. “Sharing the same name as mine, pickled radishes were distributed—everyone got some. This person must have approached Boss Jiang too and served him side dishes, right?”
The person who distributed side dishes tonight was—
Everyone’s eyes focused collectively on a single individual.
Flustered and lost, that person clutched the auto magazine in his hands tightly: “It, it has nothing to do with me! Mr. Liu! Ben!”
That was an assistant cook among the crew, whose English name was Dylan. Because the executive chef had grown up abroad since childhood, everyone in the kitchen took an English name for themselves.
Chef Ben also spoke up hurriedly to defend his subordinate: “That’s right, Mr. Liu. Distributing side dishes was a temporary decision made by us; we can’t assume Dylan is a suspect based solely on this.”
Just as before, Mr. Liu expressed no personal opinion, merely asking: “How did you distribute the side dishes?”
“I, I…” Dylan looked as if he was about to cry. “I opened the side dish packet and added it into Boss Jiang’s instant noodles.”
Whispers immediately broke out across the room.
No matter how innocent Dylan acted, his action of tearing open the packet and pouring in the side dish provided direct convenience for placing poison.
“I, I…” Dylan knew his behavior was extremely suspicious as well. Racking his brains, he said suddenly, “Right! When I was adding the side dish for Boss Jiang, Qiu Bo came over!”
Qiu Bo was the fitness trainer.
Hearing his own name, his expression changed instantly: “My wrist ball fell under Boss Jiang’s feet. I went over to pick up my property.”
“After picking it up, you even chatted with Boss Jiang,” Dylan said.
“That was basic politeness!” Qiu Bo snapped angrily.
“That will do.” Mr. Liu waved his hand again. “Let’s tally this up: Boss Ponytail, Boss Wu, Fang Li, Dylan, and Qiu Bo—a total of five people approached Boss Jiang, correct?”
“I believe there’s one more,” Huo Ranyin spoke up at last.
The sleeves on both his arms were rolled up to his elbows, revealing a section of frost-white forearms sprinkled with tiny drops of water. His fingers hovered right above the tissue box on the table, tapping lightly before pulling out a single napkin to methodically wipe away the water droplets on his fingers and arms.
Under everyone’s gaze, he said:
“There was one more person who went to Boss Jiang and Boss Wu’s table just now to grab a tissue.”
Subdued sounds broke out around the room as people asked one another if they had any memory of this.
None of them had much memory of it.
Until the person who did it spoke up himself.
“That’s right, I went to that table to get a tissue,” Meng Fushan said faintly.
“Why didn’t you mention it earlier?” Mr. Liu asked.
“When I went to get the tissue, it had already been moved away from Boss Jiang’s noodle bowl. I was merely pulling a tissue from that table—does that count as approaching?” Meng Fushan asked back.
“Why did you go to get a tissue?” Mr. Liu asked again.
“There were no tissues left on my table,” Meng Fushan answered.
“I remember now,” Fang Li said suddenly. “He indeed came over just now. He was standing behind me, and he even bumped into me when grabbing the tissue.”
“Is there anyone else who approached this table and forgot?” Mr. Liu glanced around his surroundings.
This time, no one spoke up further; evidently, everyone who had approached had been identified.
“Well then,” Mr. Liu shifted his sitting posture, “does anyone admit to poisoning Boss Jiang or Boss Wu?”
Naturally, no one admitted to it.
The six people who had approached Boss Jiang one after another kept their lips tightly sealed; at this moment, their lips were tighter than clam shells.
“Since not a single person admits to it—” Mr. Liu suggested, “how about we inspect them first? If the killer accidentally got cyanide on their sleeves or pockets during the poisoning process, as long as we test for it, the truth will come to light.”
This was a very good proposal. Except for the six suspects, everyone else agreed enthusiastically. As for those six people, aside from Boss Wu who showed obvious dissatisfaction and cursed a couple of times, they didn’t express much else.
Huo Ranyin watched coldly from the sidelines.
He watched as the bodyguard beside Mr. Liu stepped forward, thoroughly inspecting every single person’s pockets and sleeves, and even bringing up the previous testing tools to test them one by one, yet yielding no results.
Upon completing the inspection, not a single suspect had cyanide on their person.
Once the results came out, Boss Wu let out an extremely loud, cold snort, while the other few people breathed a sigh of relief, though looking slightly disappointed.
Disappointed that the person with cyanide trace wasn’t found?
In truth, even if someone was found with cyanide on their sleeves, it couldn’t fully prove they were the poisoner—they might have gotten it off Boss Jiang’s noodle bowl while interacting with him.
Furthermore, in this poisoning incident, there was a crucial question that was now being overlooked:
Cyanide wasn’t present only in Boss Jiang’s bowl; it was present in Boss Wu’s bowl as well.
This meant that unless Boss Wu poisoned Boss Jiang while simultaneously poisoning his own bowl, the difficulty for the killer to poison two people’s bowls consecutively increased exponentially compared to poisoning only one person’s bowl.
The ones most capable of accomplishing this, besides Boss Wu, were Boss Ponytail who boiled the water earlier, and Dylan who distributed the side dishes afterward.
If the killer was Boss Wu, did Boss Wu really think that poisoning himself while poisoning the target would allow him to escape suspicion?
If it was Boss Ponytail, he could indeed do it stealthily, but the kettle hadn’t been washed from start to finish—how could he guarantee that aside from Boss Jiang and Boss Wu, no third person’s bowl contained cyanide?
If it was Dylan, he had the opportunity, but a boss could potentially refuse his action of “tearing open the packaging and pouring it into the instant noodles.” Once refused, wouldn’t his poisoning attempt fail? Or was his poisoning random? But what was his motive for poisoning? Placing poison now already clashed with the story; in the story, before anyone died of poison, there was someone whose head was severed and skull cracked open.
Right, and another thing: cyanide is a deadly poison. Since the killer went through the trouble of placing poison, why not directly add a sufficient lethal dose so the victim would die upon consumption? That way, Boss Wu couldn’t have escaped alive either.
Various questions intertwined with one another, like a ball of yarn tied into countless dead knots that couldn’t be unraveled or straightened out. If Ji Xun were here…
Huo Ranyin tore up the thoughts in his mind.
“What does Boss Zhou think?” Mr. Liu spoke up suddenly, looking at Huo Ranyin.
“No opinions for the time being.” Huo Ranyin had already listed the points of suspicion one by one in his mind, but after pondering, he didn’t state these questions right away. If he couldn’t figure out these questions himself, stating them wouldn’t help the crowd figure them out either.
This wasn’t because everyone on the scene was foolish.
At least Mr. Liu was definitely not foolish.
However, did Mr. Liu, who stepped forward to take charge of the situation, do so in order to find the killer?
No.
Whether the killer was found or not probably carried little significance for Mr. Liu.
From earlier until now, everything he did was merely to…
“Then let’s hold a general vote, shall we?” Mr. Liu said.
“What?” the crowd asked.
“A general vote on whether to take the suspects—”
Mr. Liu abruptly drew the gun from A’Bang’s waist. That iron-gray gun was pressed onto the table by an aging hand.
This gun suddenly became heavy.
The heavy weight of life was pressed beneath Mr. Liu’s hand, upon its body.
“—and kill them all.”
Everything Mr. Liu had done.
Was merely to reclaim his rule, his throne.
