“Thanks.” Huo Ranyin tucked away the surprise on his face and looked at the item Ji Xun handed him. “Tell me about these two clues?”
Ji Xun waved his phone, still listless, too lazy to say an extra word. “The full content is written in a TXT file. Turn on your Bluetooth, I’ll send it to you.”
Huo Ranyin turned on his Bluetooth and quickly received a document.
While he was reading the document, Ji Xun swiped his book and sat up from the long recliner. “I’m leaving.”
“—Wait.”
Ji Xun looked at Huo Ranyin.
“Is that all? Nothing else?” Huo Ranyin said.
The corner of Ji Xun’s mouth twitched, his anger waking him up. “Two clues are too few? How about twenty? Are you expecting me to be a clue-making machine? Why not just go all the way and have me solve the case and write up the report for you?”
“Don’t be angry, I was just asking casually.” Huo Ranyin rarely smiled, and when his delicate features bloomed, it neutralized his cold aura, like frozen earth thawing and spring returning to the world. “My attitude last time wasn’t good either. Since you brought new clues, how about this: I’ll treat you to a meal as an apology.”
“No thanks, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to stomach it.” Ji Xun gave a perfunctory smile and this time, without stopping, walked straight out of the office.
Once the person had disappeared from sight, the smile on Huo Ranyin’s face was peeled off like a painting.
There were many people in the office. With a cold face, he said to everyone, “Ji Xun definitely hid some clues. Someone who’s on good terms with him, go after him and try to get some information.”
Everyone else looked at Tan Mingjiu.
Tan Mingjiu looked left and right, then rubbed his shiny bald head. “What are you all looking at me for? Although my relationship with Ji Xun is decent, this isn’t right. Why pull this on our own people? Since Ji Xun said there’s nothing—”
The notebook on the table was slapped onto Tan Mingjiu’s chest.
It was the small notebook Tan Mingjiu usually used for case notes.
Huo Ranyin was concise, “Take the notebook you usually use to record case information, go after him, create an opportunity, and see what kind of information he’s looking up.”
“…If you don’t believe him, fine, but now you’re resorting to entrapment.”
Tan Mingjiu muttered under his breath, but helpless to refuse a superior, he could only take his notebook and chase after him.
Ji Xun hadn’t gone far. He wasn’t fully awake when he came and hadn’t eaten. Now, out of the police station, he found a breakfast shop and had just sat down when the plastic curtain at the door was lifted and Tan Mingjiu came in.
When Tan Mingjiu saw him, he froze for a moment. “What a coincidence.”
Ji Xun: “Skipping work?”
Tan Mingjiu sat down opposite Ji Xun. “I’m out on a case. Can’t go into battle on an empty stomach, right? I came to get something hot to eat first. The salty soybean curd here is really good. Want a bowl? My treat.”
“No thanks, what I ordered is already here.”
Ji Xun’s breakfast order was soy milk, fried dough sticks, and steamed buns. The soy milk on the table had no sugar. Ji Xun picked up the sugar jar, poured in a large spoonful, and stirred it slowly with a spoon.
He didn’t say anything, his gaze was vacant, as if he were still half-awake and dreaming.
But thinking of this man’s past glorious achievements, Tan Mingjiu’s heart became like the sugar just poured in, repeatedly tormented by the spoon and the hot liquid.
It was do or die. Tan Mingjiu decided to get it over with. “I think my stomach is a little upset. I need to go to the bathroom first.”
“Mm.”
He reached behind him, pulled out his notebook, and tossed it on the table. “You watch this for me. Don’t let anyone else touch it. It has important secrets about the Xi Lei case.”
“Mm.”
Tan Mingjiu clutched his stomach and looked around mysteriously. “Sigh, I shouldn’t have put this here, but last time I took my notebook to the bathroom, I accidentally dropped it in…”
The spoon tapped against the bowl, a crisp sound.
Ji Xun looked up. “Can we not talk about toilet business while eating?”
“Right, right,” Tan Mingjiu chuckled. “I’m going. See you later.”
After speaking, he clutched his stomach, stood up, and dashed into the restroom in a strange, awkward posture, as if he really couldn’t hold it in. Ji Xun’s gaze retracted from Tan Mingjiu’s back and turned to the notebook left on the table.
He let out a soft sneer.
Ten minutes later, Tan Mingjiu finally came out of the bathroom, sitting back down opposite Ji Xun, completely relaxed. “Oh, you’re done eating?”
Ji Xun drank the last sip of soy milk. “The notebook’s there, no one touched it. I’m leaving.”
Tan Mingjiu waved his hand. “Thanks, take care, see you next time!”
After Ji Xun lifted the curtain and left the shop, he snatched his hand back and looked at the notebook on the table. The position and angle of the notebook were exactly the same as when he had left. Tan Mingjiu raised his hand to grab it, but then stopped, and asked the waiter who came to clear the table, “Did the person sitting opposite me just now touch my notebook?”
The waiter didn’t even look up. “The shop is so busy, how would I know? You’re a grown man, can’t you look after your own things?”
Tan Mingjiu reached into his pocket again and slapped his police ID on the table. “I want to see the surveillance footage.”
The waiter: “…”
Unfortunately, there was nothing on the surveillance footage. In ten minutes, not only did Ji Xun’s hands and eyes not touch it, but even a passing fly disdained to land on his notebook.
After confirming the situation, Tan Mingjiu told Huo Ranyin the truth when he returned to the station.
In the office, Huo Ranyin furrowed his brow. “You tried to test Ji Xun in a shop with surveillance cameras. Do you think Ji Xun’s brain was eaten by zombies, that he couldn’t see the big surveillance camera on the wall?”
Tan Mingjiu felt wronged. “Ji Xun chose that shop, not me. Besides, if I found a place without surveillance, and I said he looked and he said he didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to prove it, right?”
“You’re full of excuses for not doing your job properly?”
“Captain Huo, I’m definitely not arguing with you, but just think about it, aren’t you being a bit prejudiced? From my point of view, if Ji Xun wanted to hide clues, he wouldn’t have given any clues in the first place. Since he gave clues, there’s no need to hide any. Giving clues and hiding them at the same time, isn’t that just contradicting himself and getting nowhere?” Tan Mingjiu tried hard to explain.
However, the man sitting behind the desk still had only a faint, cold smile on his face. “Are you done?”
“Not yet, I have one more suggestion!”
“Speak.”
“Ji Xun and Captain Yuan are like brothers. Ji Xun might lie to me, but he has absolutely no reason to lie to Captain Yuan. Why don’t we ask Captain Yuan to step in? It would surely be a piece of cake, an immediate success!”
“…It’s a case for the Second Detachment, and you want me to ask the First Detachment for outside help?” Huo Ranyin asked speechlessly.
“Hey, it’s all about solving cases. We’re all sister units. Why differentiate between the First and Second Detachments? That’s just being parochial…”
Huo Ranyin directly threw a notebook at Tan Mingjiu and chased him out of the office.
He fumbled to catch his notebook, and after leaving, xhe quietly scoffed:
“And you complain I didn’t do a good job. Can you do it?! If you went yourself, Ji Xun wouldn’t even be willing to eat with you. You’d fail at the first hurdle!”
He complained for a bit, felt better, and with his hands behind his back, swaggered off to continue his work.
After breakfast, Ji Xun didn’t rush to continue exploring clues. Handing over some clues to the police was, for him, a basic closing point for that stage.
He cleared his mind.
Based on the existing evidence, Xi Lei’s death should be attributed to an acquaintance.
And the reason for the acquaintance’s crime was very likely because…
Ji Xun’s mind flashed back to the missing computer and phone at the scene, and the lone hard drive data cable on the table.
As far as he knew, the police did not find a hard drive in the rental house afterwards, which meant the hard drive had also disappeared.
This acquaintance was looking for a record on Xi Lei’s computer and phone.
This unknown record was very likely the cause of Xi Lei’s death.
A secret.
A secret the killer didn’t want anyone else to know.
But what secret could Xi Lei know? Her daily contacts were pregnant women… Did she know about the troubles in these pregnant women’s families? Did she know a pregnant woman was having an affair with someone, or that a pregnant woman’s husband was having an affair?
Ji Xun’s mind drifted to these messy affairs. He faintly felt he was overlooking something.
It was a small point.
A very, very small point.
But it was like an ink spot on a white shirt, a point that bothered him…
The events of the past few days replayed in his mind frame by frame. He flipped through these memories until he saw one frame:
The thermos cup in Tang Jinglong’s hand.
The same cloud, the same simple drawing. He remembered where he had seen it before. It was in—
“…Xi Lei’s social media feed!”
But besides Zeng Peng, Xi Lei’s social media was only for work-related matters.
Which meant that one of the families she worked for frequented the same shop as Tang Jinglong!
The sunlight today was a bit strong, dispelling the gloom of the past few days. It was a good day for work.
Ji Xun drove to the housekeeping company where Xi Lei worked and said to the employee at the front desk, “You should know about Xi Lei’s murder…”
His purpose here was simple: to find the family with the same coffee cup.
“The funeral is in two days, to see Lei Lei off on her final journey. Lei Lei had a very good relationship with one of her employers before. They often kept in touch privately even after the job ended. But her phone was stolen, and now we can’t contact this friend. I want to see if there’s a contact record here—oh, I don’t know the other person’s name, but I know the time when Lei Lei worked for this family.”
The front desk employee couldn’t make this decision and reported it to the supervisor. The supervisor came and didn’t create any obstacles, because the police had already been here to ask questions, and everyone in the company was aware of the situation. She was very concerned and immediately helped Ji Xun search the files, quickly getting a result:
“It’s Lu Danying! You can tell Xi Lei had a good relationship with her. She hired Xi Lei twice in a row. The second time, she had Xi Lei help take care of her a month before giving birth.”
Ji Xun suddenly remembered what the flower shop employee had said yesterday.
—Very young, recovered so well even after having two children in a row. They were best friends, and Xiao Lei took care of Xiao Xi.
He asked, “How many pregnant women having their second child did Lei Lei take care of in total?”
The supervisor was amused. “Xi Lei only worked here for a total of three years. Do you think having a baby is like going out to buy fruit, you can just have one whenever you want? She took care of more than ten pregnant women, and this was the only one who had two children in a row.”
Lu Danying was Xiao Xi.
Lu Danying’s family had the same coffee shop promotional thermos as Tang Jinglong.
The clues were connecting again.
He asked for Lu Danying’s phone number, added her on WeChat using the phone number, and when adding her, he used a similar reason as he did at the company: Xi Lei had been murdered, and he hoped she could attend the funeral.
The verification request was sent out, and for a while, there was no response.
Ji Xun wasn’t in a hurry. He contacted Xia Youqing and asked her to search her social media feed for photos of Lu Danying’s two children from around the right time.
A moment later, the photos were sent over.
The first was a child with black hair and black eyes, with typical Asian features. The second was a child with curly hair and blue eyes, clearly of mixed heritage. Looking at the time the two posts were made, there was only an 11-month interval between them.
Whether from the appearance of the two children or the time between their births, there was something strange.
At this moment, the verification request was suddenly accepted.
Ji Xun switched back to WeChat and saw in the chat page the system notification that he and Lu Danying were now friends.
The next second, a message popped up in the chat box.
Lu Danying: “Can’t go.”
Lu Danying: “Lu Danying is dead.”
