Chapter 10: Twin brothers
Cheng Zesheng returned to the City Bureau. As soon as he entered the main office, someone came to report that the family members of the deceased found in the mansion had come to identify the body.
“It’s just in time. I just have a question to ask his family, where are they now?”
The subordinates showed Cheng Zesheng the way, and the family member had already come out of the morgue and was going through the formalities. Cheng Zesheng rushed to the forensic department with strides and saw a man in a suit bending over to sign. He walked over and said, “Are you the family member of the deceased? I’ll take your few minutes—”
The man turned his head, revealing a familiar face he had seen in the mansion. The only difference was that the face in front of him was ruddy, fuller, and more lively, and the color of the eyes was light and full of spirit. In an instant, allowing people to have the illusion that the corpse had been dragged back to be resurrected again.
Cheng Zesheng was stunned, and Jiang Tan appeared behind him like a ghost holding coffee: “Surprise. This is the brother of the deceased; they are twins.”
The man had already turned to face Cheng Zesheng: “What do you want from me?”
“I want to ask you about your brother’s situation.” Cheng Zesheng glanced at his signature, “He Lu, right? You really look alike.”
He Lu didn’t speak and looked back at the morgue. Cheng Zesheng looked at He Lu carefully, as if his eyes were searchlights. He and He Wei were similar in size and almost identical in appearance, as if they were carved out of the same mold. The only difference that could be seen at a glance was that there was a small tear mole under the corner of He Lu’s right eye, while He Wei’s face was clean. It was estimated that most people around him used this to distinguish the brothers, who were very similar in appearance.
Apart from Cheng Zesheng being surprised by the extremely high degree of similarity in physical appearance, He Lu’s reaction was the most surprising thing. It was said that the relationship between twins was extraordinary, especially between identical twins. There was even telepathy between them, and if one of them died, the other would be in pain. Even if this was an exaggeration, the grief that should be felt was inevitable.
But He Lu’s attitude was very cold. He didn’t even frown and said lightly: “What do you want to ask me?”
“Some basic information about your brother’s personality and preferences…”
“I don’t know.” He Lu quickly interrupted him, saying, “I don’t know anything about He Wei. Why don’t you ask his colleagues in the company? I think they will know more than me.”
“…….” Cheng Zesheng questioned, “Are you really brothers?”
“It is in the legal sense, but I don’t want to admit it.” He Lu raised his wrist and looked at his watch, “I’m going to leave first; there’s a meeting in the afternoon.”
After finishing speaking, he didn’t care whether Cheng Zesheng agreed or not; he just passed by and left. Jiang Tan gave a thumbs up to his back: “Jeez, I haven’t seen a person who signed the body recognition procedure like a million-dollar contract in three years.”
Cheng Zesheng frowned, feeling that there was something wrong with He Lu. What kind of reason made him so indifferent toward his own biological brother? Even identifying the dead body seemed to be a formality, and he even came here in time before the meeting, as if he was doing some commissioned work.
Liu Renyu came in with a thermos cup: “Teacher, the chrysanthemum wolfberry tea you want.”
“!” Jiang Tan snatched the thermos away as if his tail was burnt, glared at Cheng Zesheng, and acted preemptively, “Recently, I’ve been staying up late, and my health is not good. This is just for good health! It has nothing to do with age!”
Cheng Zesheng was still thinking about He Lu’s question when he was suddenly interrupted. He raised his head with a puzzled expression, “Isn’t it just soaking wolfberry berries in a thermos? What’s wrong with admitting it? Middle-aged people understand it.”
“……” Section Chief Jiang unscrewed the cup and took a big gulp of wolfberry berry tea, a must for middle-aged men, to cultivate his body and mind. He refused to swear.
———
Jiang Tan and Liu Renyu were working in the dissecting room, while Cheng Zesheng watched and helped to take notes. Jiang Tan inspected He Wei’s right hand: “Zesheng, here is an important clue.”
Cheng Zesheng walked over to take a look and found that there was a light pink translucent substance in the manicured and rounded nails. He picked it out with a toothpick and found that it was skin tissue.
“Seeing that even a slight piece of flesh was caught, this is definitely not his own.” Jiang Tan packed the skin tissue and handed it to Liu Renyu. “After the end, send it for inspection and make a DNA fingerprint as soon as possible.”
The cold air in the autopsy room was broken by a ringing bell. The master and apprentice stared at Cheng Zesheng together, and Jiang Tan pulled off his mask: “You are disturbing the mood of the forensic doctor and affecting the accuracy of the autopsy.”
“You are so professional, a knife in Jiangnan; how can you be disturbed by a phone call.” Cheng Zesheng took out his mobile phone and gestured to him, “It’s Chief Huang. I will go to listen to the instructions of the leader, you guys continue.”
When he came to the corridor, as soon as the phone was connected, Chief Huang asked in a low voice, “Where are you?”
“In the Bureau,” Cheng Zesheng paused, “What’s the matter?”
“Come to my office.”
Cheng Zesheng pondered. He didn’t seem to have done anything to offend Chief Huang recently, so he could go to that old fox’s den. In less than two minutes, he was already standing outside the chief’s office and knocking on the door. After getting the answer, he opened the door and went in.
Huang Zhanwei was tasting tea, and the assistant stood aside: “Captain Cheng, please sit down.”
“No, I’ll just stand. Just tell me what the matter is, Chief Huang.” According to past experience, sitting down was definitely not a good thing, and pouring a cup of tea meant it was over and the in-depth leadership education would begin.
“Then stand still.” Huang Zhanwei spoke to his assistant, “Xiao Chen, the new dormitory has already started to be allocated. In the past two days, I have screened the applications handed over to me. With such a tight resource, we must hurry up and first fulfill the needs of the comrades in the bureau.”
“……” Cheng Zesheng sat down, “Chief Huang, you can chat as long as you want today. I will chat with you as if I don’t have a case to investigate.”
Huang Zhanwei glared at him and put the teacup on the table with a bang: “Little bastard, do you think I want to chat with you? The people from the provincial department came again today; it seems that your time is running out.”
“Are you asking me to serve as a vase for the provincial government?”
“Hey, what did you say? You can join the criminal investigation team of the Provincial Department,” Huang Zhanwei’s voice suddenly became weak, “By the way, I will also work part-time in the external mission of the Public Relations Division.”
“Isn’t that just a vase? After I go there, I’ve got to put the cart before the horse 1The expression cart before the horse is an idiom or proverb used to suggest something is done contrary to nature. My main task is to receive the visitors, and I don’t have anything to do with the investigation.” Cheng Zesheng raised his legs and said, “I’ve rejected them three or five times, and they still don’t give up. Is it true that some leader’s daughter has taken a fancy to me?”
Huang Zhanwei put on a fierce face and told him not to talk nonsense. The leader wanted to promote him because he liked his talent. Who knew that there were people like this in the world who didn’t want to get promoted and raise their salary to go into an official career, but they just liked to work hard from morning to night and deal with criminals?
Cheng Zesheng just happened to be focused on it. Because of his face, his ability to handle cases had been questioned. When he first joined the bureau, the public relations department always wanted to poach people and planned to transfer him to support the outside world. Cheng Zesheng firmly refused and just stayed in the criminal investigation team, rushing to the front when encountering important cases, just to let others see that he, Cheng Zesheng, was not a coward who relied on his face to make a living.
A few years later, Cheng Zesheng managed to make some achievements, relying on his own strength to take the position of deputy head of the Criminal Investigation Unit of the Municipal Bureau, but the provincial department came to poach people again, and he refused to go even more. It was better to hand over the resignation and quit rather then going to the provincial department to be a vase.
“Hey… you think I don’t know what you think? Isn’t this matter about going back?” Huang Zhanwei handed the teacup to the assistant to refill it. He looked at Cheng Zesheng and said, “Zesheng, to be honest, your father really hopes that you can be transferred to the public relations department, so you don’t have to charge forward. He already has lost a son, so he can’t…”
Hearing that he mentioned his brother, who had been dead for several years, Cheng Zesheng stood up with a “swipe” and said, “Chief Huang, don’t persuade me. My brother was beaten to death by drug dealers. He died for the country and died well. Back then, I went to be a criminal investigator, and he went to anti-drug. We both made an oath that neither of us would shrink back halfway. My dad didn’t understand; you should understand?”
Huang Zhanwei opened his mouth, but he didn’t know how to answer for a while. Cheng Zesheng brushed off the non-existent dust on the sofa and walked quickly to the door: “I still have a case to investigate. Next time don’t invite me to drink tea. If you really want me to come down from the front line, it’s better to simply order me to take off my police uniform.”
He almost slammed the door open. There were not many in the city bureau who dared to slam the door on Chief Huang, and Cheng Zesheng was one of them. Looking at his back, Huang Zhanwei seemed to see Cheng Zhenqing’s vigor again. These two boys were really brothers; they walked with their backs straight, like a beautiful javelin, and they even looked 90% similar when they lost their temper.
When Cheng Zesheng was halfway out, Huang Zhanwei came back to his senses and quickly stopped him: “Hey! Come back! Or your house will be gone?!”
“Isn’t the application not approved yet?” Cheng Zesheng held the door frame with one hand and finally turned his head.
“That’s for others!” Huang Zhanwei took out a key from the drawer and threw it over, saying, “Yours is ready. I know you have had conflicts with your father and have wanted to move out for a long time. But I also promised Lao Cheng that I’d try my best to watch over you, and won’t let you end up like your brother.”
Cheng Zesheng caught the key and was overwhelmed with surprise. The anger that he had just simmered disappeared instantly: “Why didn’t you take it out earlier? If you had said that the new dorm has been settled, I can sit here and listen to your nagging for as long as you want.”
Huang Zhanwei waved his hand straight and drove him to handle the case, so as not to get angry. Cheng Zesheng turned the key in his hand and went back to the big office. Le Zhengkai was looking at the photos taken at the scene, and when he looked up, he saw a smug expression on his face: “What’s so good?”
Cheng Zesheng slapped the key on the table: “Did you see it? I got it.”
“That single apartment in Future Domain?”
“Or else.”
Le Zhengkai was amazed: “You using a backdoor like this is not good. You’re a local and have a house and a car, so you should be ashamed to apply for a dormitory. The most important thing is that it was approved. I want to report and expose the favoritism of Chief Huang.”
“Don’t say it. I really thought that Lao Huang would not approve. He just mentioned my brother’s matter in the office, and I changed my expression on the spot. It was quite ugly.”
Cheng Zhenqing was Cheng Zesheng’s reverse scale. He didn’t think about that matter himself, let alone mention it to outsiders. The main reason was that when his brother’s body was found on the China-Myanmar border, he was tortured so badly by drug dealers that it was almost hard to see the human appearance, and after he was transported back, Cheng Zesheng went crazy.
Therefore, as brothers, they were connected by blood. When they saw the other party’s corpse in front of them, how could they be so indifferent and act as if nothing had happened?
Cheng Zesheng thought of He Lu again. Ke Dongrui and Xiang Yang came back and handed over the social relationship information they had investigated. He Wei’s social relationship was very simple. He was introverted, had few friends, and did not live with his parents and younger brother. Instead, he lived alone in a small apartment. A simple page was his entire life trajectory.
Cheng Zesheng suddenly had a flash of inspiration and raised his head: “He doesn’t have a good relationship with his family; is it because of his sexual orientation?”
Xiang Yang scratched his short hair: “His parents and colleagues didn’t mention this…”
Cheng Zesheng pointed to a place name on the investigation report: “This place appears to be a music bar, but it is actually a gay bar. Everyone in the circle knows it.”
The office fell silent for a moment.
Cheng Zesheng was stared at by these strange and curious eyes and got goosebumps, especially from Xiang Yang and Le Zhengkai, who seemed hesitant to speak and put on expressions as if they wanted to ask something.
“What are you thinking?” Cheng Zesheng rolled the materials into a stick and beat them over the heads. “A few years ago, I arrested people there! Did you forget it all? What kind of brains do you have?!”
Le Zhengkai suddenly realized: “Oh, it seems that there is indeed a case. Zesheng, I have misunderstood you, and I am guilty.”
Xiang Yang, who had just joined the team, held the top of his head in grievance. He didn’t participate in that action either, so he was quite innocent in this matter.
