Before Miss Su could speak, her collar was grabbed and she was pulled back.
Mr. Su stepped past her and blocked her, standing on the steps and looking down at this young rising figure in the police world.
“She’s talkative tonight. Her throat is dry. No need for her to answer you.”
“Instead, Expert Zhen, tell me—what did you guess this time, and what did you come to check?”
At this moment, Su Ye was far more frightening than when he had just stood at the room doorway and called Su Li.
He was smiling.
“Didn’t catch her.”
“Checking the cars?”
A family of three—no matter their profession, no matter their criminal investigation talent—
a brain is a good thing.
He stood there like Su Li, bound in that cubicle cage, could still analyze and save herself.
Calm, wise, sharp—but he didn’t need to show weakness to lower the enemy’s guard.
Zhen Wuyu didn’t stay silent. He walked over.
“Yes. Mr. Su and I are thinking the same.”
“But it doesn’t have to be related to that matter. It could also be related to the case where Miss Su was attacked. I do suspect those three were hired to tail her and try to harm her. They’re also in the hospital. Even if nothing happened, who can be sure the escaped criminal isn’t on the same side as them?”
“So we’re worried someone may be hidden in Mr. Su’s car, and then threaten Miss Su’s safety.”
“As police, we have a responsibility to protect her life and safety.”
“I just don’t know, on this point, whether Mr. Su’s attitude matches the police’s.”
Su Ye was about to speak when he heard a certain daughter, covering her mouth, a thrilled and moved sigh squeezing out between her fingers—
“My god, from now on do I have two men who absolutely love me and will protect me for the rest of my life?”
“I’m so happy.”
Su Ye and Zhen Wuyu: “……”
Everyone else realized Miss Su’s life status looked like the healthy kind of person who’d never swallowed a grievance—probably because she made other people swallow them.
That cold, aloof cop’s expression looked like he’d suffered a huge injustice; his face was dark.
Su Ye still spoke.
“Since the police need it, we’ll cooperate. It’s public business. I assume there’s no personal feeling involved. Check.”
Su Li: “Dad, why are you looking at me when you say that?”
Su Ye kept a straight face.
Zhen Wuyu didn’t have time to deal with Su Li. He carefully checked every vehicle.
After checking, he turned off the flashlight.
He didn’t show his disappointment or confusion. He asked Su Li, “Miss Su, did you drive straight here the whole way? Did you stop the car at all?”
Su Li wasn’t stupid. Her behavior looked unruly, but in Zhen Wuyu’s eyes, she’d always been sly and sharp. She couldn’t not know what he suspected.
But he still asked.
Su Li: “Straight here. Didn’t stop, I guess.”
Zhen Wuyu: “‘I guess’?”
Su Ye: “She slept in the middle, but we truly didn’t stop. If Expert Zhen wants to check it to the bottom, you can only hope there are enough road cameras on the way.”
Anyway, they found no trace of Huang Xiuling in the car. The police had no right to keep pressing.
Su Ye didn’t want to say more. He was going to take Su Li and leave.
Zhen Wuyu’s brows were tightly knit when his phone suddenly rang.
He spoke a couple of lines.
Then he looked at Su Ye and Su Li and raised his hand to stop them.
Su Ye stared at him.
Zhen Wuyu: “Sorry. I’m afraid Miss Su can’t go back with Mr. Su.”
“Their families want to countersue Miss Su for excessive harm. They hired a lawyer.”
Huh?
They had that kind of reaction speed and confidence?
That wasn’t normal.
Unless someone behind them was pushing… it couldn’t be Zhen Wuyu stirring things up.
Su Li and Su Ye had different expressions, but both raised their brows.
Su Li turned back and saw, under the eaves of the Liu family gate, Chen Wanrong—the woman she had just humiliated to the extreme.
Arms crossed, beautiful and moving, with a venomous snake’s smile on her face.
In the police car, Su Li glanced at Zhen Wuyu as he took off his gloves, put them away, and started driving. “Looks like the investigation hit a dead end. You really can’t find Huang Xiuling?”
Zhen Wuyu didn’t warn her not to speculate or probe the investigation.
He drove away from the Liu family. In the rearview mirror, he looked at Su Ye and Chen Wanrong shrinking into the distance.
“We can’t find her. I still haven’t figured out how she got out. Maybe she really slipped through a camera blind spot.”
Su Li: “Do you want to use my intelligence again, Classmate Zhen?”
Zhen Wuyu: “Please.”
Su Li: “You’ve been checking how a living person escaped. Have you ever thought about checking the dead?”
Those words tightened Zhen Wuyu’s fingers on the steering wheel.
Dead?
He contacted Chen Liao and the others.
Chen Liao: “Huh? Huang Xiuling got killed?”
Zhen Wuyu: “Or she’s hiding in the morgue. The morgue’s cold storage temperature is above zero degrees. The freezer drawers are minus ten. A living person can still endure for a while in that kind of low temperature—long enough to hold out until we lift the lockdown and she escapes. If the people behind her arranged a funeral crew in advance, our station wouldn’t go check.”
“And from the morgue’s location and movement path, it matches her route.”
It really was a line of thought.
So sly!
But they were still at the hospital. Huang Xiuling might not dare come out yet. If she was still hiding inside the morgue, then she was still alive!
Chen Liao’s side immediately went to check.
After hanging up, Zhen Wuyu kept driving. His brows stayed tightly knit. There wasn’t any joy of finding a lead—only worry.
The scary part was that the “defendant” who was being taken to the station for questioning was relaxed like she was going out for late-night snacks. She lightly asked, “You look in a bad mood. Is it because you feel you’re not as smart as me and your pride is hurt, or something else?”
Zhen Wuyu: “I’ve always known you’re smarter than me. That’s already a settled fact. If I still think it’s about hurting my pride, that means I didn’t have much pride to begin with.”
“It’s just that… being smart is one thing. But knowing a lot of information in advance, before the smartness—that’s not only about being smart.”
“I’ve always hoped you were only absolutely smart, not driven by a set motive.”
What happened to Zhan Qing—that was a set motive.
Zhen Wuyu knew this wasn’t his bias against her.
From a criminal investigation perspective, she was strange—very strange.
Su Li smiled, like a little fox hiding behind a tree, laughing at a hunter who couldn’t catch her.
“My motive is set, of course. Didn’t you already know that?”
“From the beginning, I came back to burn incense for my mother.”
“Otherwise what did you think?”
“That everything was self-directed and self-acted by me?”
“Then next, if something happens to Huang Xiuling and she gets killed, will you pin it on me too?”
“Classmate Zhen.”
There was an administrator on duty at the hospital morgue at night. After Liu Duan and the others demanded it be opened, cold air rushed at them.
A normal person wouldn’t like this place—not only because of mental aversion and taboo, but physically too, resisting the low temperature.
Liu Duan thought a long time had passed. If things went badly, Huang Xiuling might already have escaped. If things went well, she was still hiding.
But the most pessimistic possibility was—she was still here, but she might not be alive.
They filed in, extremely vigilant.
“Open these freezer drawers.”
“Huh? All of them?”
“All of them.” After Liu Duan said it, he had everyone stay alert.
Guns were drawn.
One, then another.
Until…
Liu Duan saw a strand of hair in the edge gap of one drawer. It was very subtle. He frowned at once, grabbed the administrator and had him step back, then opened it himself.
Chen Liao and the others understood and took positions on both sides, gun muzzles aimed…
The drawer slid out slowly.
Freezing air hissed out from the subzero temperature.
Long hair appeared.
A face, stiff.
Not moving.
Eyes tightly shut.
Like a real dead patient.
Everyone’s face changed.
Liu Duan’s face was dark as he checked Huang Xiuling’s neck and saw a needle mark.
“A living person can endure here for a while.”
“But if she was anesthetized and then shut inside…”
She was completely dead.
The blackout wasn’t only good for escape.
It could also be killing to silence.
Liu Duan lowered his gun and looked at Huang Xiuling’s quiet corpse. It was like the snow layer piled over the police station hadn’t melted—instead…
Outside, it started snowing again.
On the road, Su Li saw snowflakes and frowned, her expression gloomy, not sure what she was thinking.
“If the person dies, the clues break again, and the truth gets buried again, what would you do?”
Zhen Wuyu asked.
Su Li: “Testing me?”
Zhen Wuyu: “You can think of it as me not believing Huang Xiuling was killed by you. It’s just that, as a victim’s family, anything you do in pursuit of the truth is actually reasonable.”
“As long as it’s not illegal.”
Su Li didn’t speak.
Because Liu Duan called and told him one thing—Huang Xiuling was dead.
“Now we can only work hard to see if there were any camera conditions near the morgue. The blackout didn’t last long. It shouldn’t be enough for someone to completely disappear from view.”
From the car window, what Su Li saw was—the police station had arrived.
In the interrogation room, routine questioning about the three hooligans.
But they served her good tea and good water, and there were mung bean cakes and brown sugar glutinous rice cakes too, brought by a policewoman.
Their attitude toward Su Li was especially good.
Xiao Li felt that if Su Li were a man, he’d be afraid his colleagues would get hooked, violate professional ethics, and run away with him.
Rich, beautiful, funny, smart—how could someone be this happy?
He had to admit, at his young age, looking at this young miss also made his face heat up and his heart race.
But some things still had to be said.
“Miss Su, you can’t put on makeup here.”
“I mean, you can’t put on makeup right now. Cooperate with our questioning first.”
Su Li looked a little disappointed, but she cooperated, until Zhen Wuyu pushed the door open and came in and asked about going to the Liu family for dinner tonight…
“My dad said it was to thank the Liu family for helping.”
“I went to see whether the Liu family really had anything to do with trafficking. After all, they have a transport chain; they had the conditions back then. For my mom, I have to care.”
Once she said that, it was far more effective than Xiao Li’s earlier probing—it was straight to the point.
She didn’t hide her purpose at all.
Zhen Wuyu knew this was her response to his earlier “reasonable” statement.
Yes, even if she did something, it wouldn’t be outrageous.
If she clearly got involved and every clue still pointed to her doing nothing, that would be what was strange.
“So what did you find?” Zhen Wuyu handed her a cup of warm water.
Su Li: “I met a woman.”
Zhen Wuyu and the others didn’t move, but all watched her.
“Chen Wanrong.”
Zhen Wuyu’s fingers holding the pen froze. He stared at her.
“Chen Wanrong? From Hongfeng?”
He thought of the crowd at the Liu family gate. At the time, he was focused on the case and also on the Su father and daughter. He truly hadn’t connected it to other guests. Mainly because Chen Wanrong was standing under the eaves; her face wasn’t very clear.
There was a photo of Chen Wanrong in the files, but it was a legal representative ID photo from over a decade ago. It differed a lot from the real person, especially at night.
“You didn’t say it at the Liu house.” Zhen Wuyu didn’t understand. He thought no matter her stance, Su Li should have told him Chen Wanrong was there. He could have directly “invited” her to the station to cooperate with the Hongfeng investigation.
Why didn’t she say it?
Not taking a beneficial step meant she was waiting for a bigger benefit.
Su Li mentioned the snow on the woman’s car and believed she hadn’t just arrived in Baimu Town.
“If Hongfeng is dirty, tied to the trafficking chain back then or the Xueling Dao case, and she looks like she’s set her eyes on my dad, of course I suspect she’s connected to my mom’s death back then.”
“But so what? No evidence. Petty moves are meaningless.”
“I can only endure…”
Zhen Wuyu: “You can endure?”
What do you mean?
You saw through me.
Su Li: “Usually I can, unless she curses me.”
So she didn’t endure.
Zhen Wuyu could confirm who had been stirring things behind the three families.
Chen Wanrong.
He had to bring her in.
But he didn’t have time to focus on that.
After leaving the interrogation room, Zhen Wuyu handed that matter to a colleague.
“Have you contacted Zhang Baoli?”
“Critically ill, unconscious. He’s in a provincial capital hospital. His son answered for him. We contacted the hospital side; they said he basically doesn’t have the condition to be questioned.”
“What illness?”
“Late-stage stomach cancer. Long-term coma.”
Zhen Wuyu stopped walking.
“So he’s been in the hospital the whole time?”
“Yes. He isn’t that masked old man.”
Not only did the clue break, even the suspect was gone.
“We just interrogated Lin Zong and the other one. Their mouths are hard; they won’t say a word, insisting they’re innocent. We can’t find other issues. Oh right, the DNA test is done—Xu family’s second and third sons are both his.”
“But he only said he had a few contacts with Huang Xiuling—male and female stuff. Nothing else. Police can’t control that. Even if they lied before, it’s not illegal.”
The police didn’t say Huang Xiuling was dead, but those two already knew there was no hidden danger, so they were fearless.
Zhen Wuyu could almost predict it—if Zhang Baoli also didn’t fit the masked person’s conditions and was terminally ill and dying, with no condition to be questioned, unable to link to Hongfeng’s shoe factory business contacts, then Hongfeng could completely shrug it off: the buy-and-sell was done, what happened later had nothing to do with them.
Even bringing Chen Wanrong in would be useless.
“The forest search team also got no results—Chen Qing, Luo Hong, and the masked person, three people vanished. We can’t find them at all.”
Right now, it looked like on their police side, they were still losing—just like Su Li. Both sides lost.
They lost to the other side’s successful emergency silencing—Qi Meijuan, Huang Xiuling.
Now the only breakthrough left was the 315 case’s murderer—Qi Xuan.
Qi Xuan sat in the interrogation room. From his earlier agitation to later cold silence, it was thanks to his above-average intelligence and his ability to endure.
Maybe he was trying hard to think of how to use loopholes in criminal investigation to reduce his guilt as much as possible.
When Zhen Wuyu came in, he became more tense.
People naturally have a psychological shadow toward the one who defeated them.
In one night, he met two.
One was Zhen Wuyu. One was Su Li.
He didn’t speak, head lowered.
Zhen Wuyu put the materials on the table and said, “Imitating the crime—do you admire Bai Mian Chang?”
“But if you took money, that kind of admiration changes flavor, doesn’t it?”
“It becomes low.”
Qi Xuan suddenly looked up, his eyes full of shock and anger.