At that moment, Zhuang Zhuoyi spoke up again. “Yuan Hua’s death was set up long ago. Regardless of whether my brother went out last night, that tie would have appeared at the crime scene. Therefore, we must figure out why my brother went out in the middle of the night, and whether he really went to Yuan Hua’s house.”
“Ask him directly,” Qi Junyang replied casually.
“No,” Zhuang Zhuoyi rejected the idea firmly. “I cannot see Lei Bin right now. Or rather, I cannot let him target me.”
“I am afraid he has already targeted you.”
Hearing Qi Junyang’s words, Zhuang Zhuoyi couldn’t help but smile. “I just cannot let him see the bigger secret by my side.”
Zhuang Zhuoyi spoke with a double meaning, but Qi Junyang pretended to be deaf and ignored it completely. Just as Zhuang Zhuoyi was about to continue the conversation, Qi Junyang suddenly pulled him along in a brisk walk toward the front of a shop. Zhuang Zhuoyi looked at him in surprise and followed his gaze forward.
“That sniper!?”
Seeing the person approaching head-on, and then seeing the coldness in Qi Junyang’s eyes, Zhuang Zhuoyi suddenly realized that these two people knew each other.
Standing with their backs to the road and facing the storefront for about three to five minutes, the sniper walked past them. Zhuang Zhuoyi watched the man’s figure through the glass window and asked Qi Junyang in a low voice, “An acquaintance of yours?”
Qi Junyang waved his hand, signaling him not to ask any more questions.
Inside the police station, Tan Xiaoqing put down the things he had bought and walked straight over to Lei Bin. “I ran into Zhuang Zhuoyi. Aren’t you waiting for him? Judging by his direction, it doesn’t seem like he is coming this way.”
Lei Bin stood by the window, glanced at Zhuang Zhuoyi’s car parked downstairs, and couldn’t help laughing. “Never mind him. Let him be.”
Compared to Lei Bin, Tan Xiaoqing stood aside in deep thought. When he first ran into Zhuang Zhuoyi, the latter had clearly avoided him. And who was the gray-haired man standing beside him? Although it was his first time seeing the man, he felt an unusual aura emanating from him. If not for his own keen powers of observation, he definitely would have overlooked this tall man with abnormal hair color.
In fact, this was abnormal.
After Lei Bin secretly instructed the police officers left at the scene to let Zhuang Zhuoyi pass, the latter easily entered the crime scene. Regarding this, Zhuang Zhuoyi didn’t say anything and simply focused on investigating the scene.
The door to the crime scene showed no signs of having been tampered with. Compared to the other rooms, the bedroom was extremely messy. The sheets, clearly rolled over, were wrinkled, and the discarded pajamas and two pillows lay on the floor. Zhuang Zhuoyi let out a cold laugh. “Don’t tell me my brother had the mood to sleep with Yuan Hua while carrying a murder charge. I would laugh out loud.”
With that, he looked at the marked position of the corpse, which was near the foot of the bed. The body was in a prone position, and no doubt, Zhuoran’s tie had been tightly wrapped around the victim’s neck.
Zhuang Zhuoyi squatted in front of the bedroom door, inspecting it carefully. Qi Junyang stood to the side, keeping watch on the passing pedestrians and vehicles outside. The phone in his pocket vibrated with a buzzing sound. Pulling it out to take a look, it appeared to be a call from the lawyer mentioned earlier.
“Hello…”
“Hello, Mr. Qi. I will keep it short,” the lawyer said, sounding very anxious. “I just found out that on the night of the crime at 0:30, Zhuoran received a text message from Yuan Hua. It said, ‘I know you have encountered difficulties, and I have something important to discuss. Come to my house quickly.’ But when Zhuoran provided this clue to the police, this text message was no longer in his phone, nor was it in Yuan Hua’s phone.”
“Hold on a moment.” Qi Junyang immediately relayed this news to Zhuang Zhuoyi. The other man thought for a moment, took the phone, and said, “Alright, I know the situation. Don’t bother trying to get Zhuoran out. Let him stay at the police station for a while so he learns not to lower his guard in the future.”
Without waiting for the lawyer to nag any further, he hung up, tossed the phone back to Qi Junyang, and squatted back down in front of the bedroom door. He asked with a smile, “If you found out someone wanted to kill you, would you run inside or outside?”
“I wouldn’t run.”
Zhuang Zhuoyi let out a chuckle, turned his head back to look at him, and said, “Please, can you think using normal human thinking?”
This seemed a bit difficult for Qi Junyang. He stared straight at Zhuang Zhuoyi for a long time before saying, “I wouldn’t.”
Zhuang Zhuoyi let out a helpless sigh. Indeed, there are no perfect people in this world.
Zhuang Zhuoyi stood up, walked into the living room, and looked at the audio-visual equipment. He noticed that the CD player underneath was still powered on, so he casually pressed the play button. Top-quality singing drifted from the expensive speakers, though the song brought a playful smile to Zhuang Zhuoyi’s face. Hummed along, he walked into the dining room.
“Do you know what song this is?” Zhuang Zhuoyi paused at the dining table and looked back at Qi Junyang in the living room.
Qi Junyang shook his head, indicating he had no interest in the song. Zhuang Zhuoyi didn’t ask further and hummed a few more lines…
Why does my heart think of the past every second,Why do you not remember at all,Affection is lost and everything is wrong,Why do I happen to like you instead.
As he sang, he suddenly stopped. He let out a leisurely sigh and said, “He is an old singer who has already passed away, but his song is still so pleasant to listen to.” As soon as he finished this nostalgic remark, he burst out laughing, leaning over the table in a fit of laughter.
“I can’t take it anymore. Yuan Hua is too talented! Having a candlelight dinner in the middle of the night while listening to songs by a deceased singer. If my brother really came, he would probably be scared half to death.”
Qi Junyang stared at him blankly, unable to understand what was so terrifying about that. Seeing Zhuang Zhuoyi laughing to the point of tears, he pointed at himself. “You, you are too slow-witted!” Then, pointing at the candelabra and red wine on the table, he said, “Actually, Yuan Hua’s death is full of flaws.” Zhuang Zhuoyi stood up. “Based on my understanding of Yuan Hua, he has always been preoccupied with my brother and continuously proposed reconciliation. If Yuan Hua really grasped some important clues, then this would be the best condition for him to approach my brother again. Yuan Hua is a cautious person with a relatively mature and steady personality. Therefore, when my brother encountered such big trouble, he couldn’t possibly still set out stored wine and candles to have some candlelight dinner. Just imagine, who would have the mood to eat a romantic candlelight dinner with an ex-lover in the middle of the night to discuss their own bad luck? At least that brother of mine wouldn’t.”
While listening to his long speech, Qi Junyang carefully sized up the dining table: a bottle of red wine and two wine glasses filled to the seven-tenths mark, along with two candelabras holding four red candles each, vegetable salad, caviar, and foie gras. It looked like none of these items had been consumed.
“Judging from the scene, it would feel like Yuan Hua invited my brother to meet in the dead of night, specially prepared a romantic candlelight dinner, and had a ghostly version of a song accompanying the banquet. Then, the wine in the glasses was not drunk, and the dishes were not touched, indicating that as soon as my brother entered the door, he made a murderous move on Yuan Hua. Yuan Hua fled back to the bedroom in a state of panic, but was still caught by my brother. He was knocked to the ground, and my brother strangled him from behind with a tie. In his haste, he forgot to take back the tie and left hurriedly.”
Qi Junyang had always believed that although his mind was sharp, he was still a layman when it came to such matters. Therefore, after listening to Zhuang Zhuoyi’s analysis, he felt it made some sense and couldn’t find any reason to refute it. However, he cared about one thing.
“You mean to say that all these things were deliberately arranged by someone else?”
“No,” Zhuang Zhuoyi immediately denied his guess. “These dishes take a lot of time. Take this foie gras, for example; it cannot be finished without two hours of preparation. We currently don’t know the exact time of death, so we cannot be sure whether Yuan Hua was dead or alive before my brother received Yuan Hua’s text message. If Yuan Hua was already dead at 0:30 in the morning, then this scene was prepared beforehand; conversely, if Yuan Hua was still alive at that time, these dishes were most likely prepared by himself. After all, not many people know that my brother likes these foods and that song.”
Qi Junyang thought for a moment and said, “I will go ask the neighbors about the situation. You continue.”
Was this guy getting a bit too invested? Watching Qi Junyang walk out unhurriedly, Zhuang Zhuoyi’s eyes held a smile.
There were two elderly people and a three-year-old child living in the neighbor’s house. Qi Junyang cast aside his usual dullness and greeted the elderly couple with a beaming smile. Using the electronic card from Zhuang Zhuoyi’s house as a work ID, he fooled the old folks into thinking he was a plainclothes police officer.
He asked the elderly person, “When was the last time you saw Mr. Yuan?”
The old man pushed up his reading glasses. “Around seven o’clock last night, I saw him come out to throw away the trash.”
“Trash? Did you see what was inside the trash bag?”
“Why would I look at that? Besides, it was a black trash bag. Even if you wanted to see what was inside, you couldn’t see it anyway.”
At that moment, a furry little head popped out from behind the old man. The three-year-old toddler grabbed his grandfather’s lapel and looked curiously at Qi Junyang. “Pig-pig, your hair is just like Lai Lai’s.”
The old man smiled sheepishly. “My grandson doesn’t speak clearly. He is calling you uncle, saying your hair is just like his grandmother’s.”
Qi Junyang didn’t know how to react. He stared eye-to-eye with the child in a mutual gaze. Ultimately, the three-year-old child was quicker on his feet and spoke again. “Baby knows what’s in the bag.”
“Is that so?” Qi Junyang forced out two words.
“Baby was sleepy, there’s a veeery big crab in the bag.”
Looking helplessly at the old man, Qi Junyang asked for a translation.
“My grandson said there was a very big crab in that bag.”
“Good little baby.” Zhuang Zhuoyi, who had been standing behind them at some point, stepped forward quickly and produced a chocolate bar like magic, shoving it into the child’s hand. “Then can you tell uncle, did you really see all of that crab?”
The little baby shook his head hesitantly. “It had little claws, baby likes little claws.”
After thanking the old man and the child, the two returned to Yuan Hua’s home, and Qi Junyang began rummaging through the study. He said very seriously, “It wasn’t my brother. The person Yuan Hua invited wasn’t my brother.”
“Reason?”
“My brother really hates eating foods like crabs and shrimp, and Yuan Hua should have known this. Now we at least know that the dishes were prepared by Yuan Hua himself, but the person he invited was not my brother. That person is very likely the murderer, or if not, an accomplice. This person knows my brother’s habits, hobbies, and daily routine. Therefore, upon discovering crab meat on the dining table, they threw this dish away.”
He stopped his hand movements and pondered: Not many people could approach Yuan Hua and replace Zhuoran in his heart. This person must be young, promising, extraordinarily handsome, and around 28 to 35 years old. However, why wasn’t there a single trace of this person found in Yuan Hua’s home? Did he hide it well, or completely wipe it away?
Yuan Hua went out to throw away the trash around seven o’clock, which meant he had already started cooking the meal by that time. Assuming a benchmark of two hours for the foie gras to be finished, the dishes Yuan Hua prepared last night should have been done around 21:00 to 22:00 the night before the crime. Yet the time of death was between 02:00 and 03:00 the next morning. The time span in between was too large, and the dishes would probably have undergone changes in time long before. Therefore…
Zhuang Zhuoyi gently patted the small black notebook he found in the drawer, opened it, glanced at it, and muttered to himself, “So that’s how it is.”