Ye Linghan made a point of waking up extra early. Instead of heading straight to the Investigation Department, he took a long detour to find Zhao Tang first.
He still hadn’t found the time to give Zhao Tang the cigarette butt found at the crime scene.
“Hey, I’m downstairs at your department. Is it convenient to come down for a moment?”
“Why does your voice sound so exhausted? Hold on, I’ll be right down.”
Ye Linghan reclined the driver’s seat, managing to find enough space to take a brief nap. His face carried a sense of weariness that didn’t belong to someone his age.
Clearly, he hadn’t slept a wink last night. He truly couldn’t understand what kind of nerve Yin Chen was acting on; when he passed through the living room this morning, the lingering scent of alcohol remained, and there were shattered wine bottles in the trash can.
He could be very clever about many things, but when it came to Yin Chen, he didn’t dare to let his mind wander.
Tap, tap, tap— The car window was knocked, and subsequently, the passenger door was pulled open as Zhao Tang sat inside.
“Coming to see me first thing in the morning—speak up, what’s the matter?”
With his eyes closed, Ye Linghan tilted his chin, gesturing toward the back for Zhao Tang. “There’s breakfast in the back, and a black bag. The thing I need to give you is inside.”
After Ye Linghan finished speaking, he only heard the rustling sound of movement from beside him; it was likely Zhao Tang reaching for the items.
“Ooh, bribing me with breakfast? I want to see exactly what this thing is.”
Ye Linghan let out a dry chuckle. “Have I ever treated you poorly before?”
“Hahaha, no, no.”
It was rare to have someone to joke with and kill time during the dull and tedious grind of work.
Zhao Tang took the black crossbody bag and precisely scouted the evidence bag inside. Upon pulling it out, he felt his head throb. “Why is it another cigarette butt?”
The lab results for the last cigarette butt Ye Linghan gave him weren’t even out yet, and here came another one. He couldn’t understand how Ye Linghan, a man without a smoking habit, had such a fixation on these things.
“The person from last time is dead,” Ye Linghan said flatly.
“Oh.”
“Wait, what? Dead?” Zhao Tang instantly sat bolt upright, eyes wide with utter disbelief.
This was the first time he had been tangentially involved in a murder case.
Ye Linghan opened one eye and glanced at him. “Yeah. And I suspect the forensics department over at the police station won’t be able to find anything, so I took an extra copy. I’ll have to trouble you to check it for me.”
It wasn’t about belittling the police; it was about specialized expertise. Certain jobs require specific people.
Zhao Tang scrutinized the evidence in his hand. He wasn’t particularly shocked by the fact that someone had died—after all, in this line of work, one lived on the edge of a knife—he was simply amazed that Zhao Xingjian had died so suddenly. “Alright, leave it to me.”
He tucked the evidence bag into his pocket and then began wolfing down the breakfast Ye Linghan had brought, speaking through a mouthful of food. “How is it that I haven’t seen you for a few days and you’ve become so haggard?”
“Sigh… It’s a long story…” Ye Linghan sighed. It wasn’t that he had been haggard for days; it was clearly the masterpiece of just a few short hours last night.
As expected, when emotional issues were involved, no one could emerge unscathed.
Zhao Tang glanced at him. “Forget it then. We’ll talk when you have time; I’m busy these few days.”
Ye Linghan closed his eyes and nodded, his tone long and lazy. “Fine. Once we’re done with this busy stretch, let’s go out for a meal.”
“Deal. If you don’t have anything else, I’m heading up.” Zhao Tang quickly gulped down the last of the soy milk.
For someone who was usually so busy they couldn’t eat a full meal, being able to finish breakfast in such a leisurely manner was a rare treat.
Ye Linghan opened his eyes and suddenly sat bolt upright.
The abrupt movement startled Zhao Tang. “Holy crap, are you a rising corpse?”
Ye Linghan did indeed have one more thing to ask, but he had been hesitating, fearing it might be too presumptuous.
Seeing his hesitation, Zhao Tang patted his chest and said crossly, “Go on, what else is there? Considering how exhausted you look, I won’t hold it against you this time.”
Ye Linghan turned sideways, looking sincere. “Can you do me a favor and let me meet your Department Head?”
Though he knew the hope was slim—one could even say there was zero chance—he still wanted to try. If he could obtain the assistance of the Research and Investigation Department Head, the efficiency of their future case-handling would improve significantly.
“This…” Zhao Tang clearly hadn’t expected Ye Linghan to ask this; it caught him completely off guard.
“Linghan, it’s not that I don’t want to help you, but even I haven’t seen our Department Head. In fact, very few people in our department have actually seen him.”
“However, if it’s official business, I might be able to help you get in touch with our Eldest Senior Sister. She handles most of the Department Head’s work daily, and her professional abilities are top-tier.”
Hearing this, Ye Linghan was overjoyed. This was already much better than the outcome he had anticipated. Naturally, he had nothing to complain about; this at least provided an opportunity to contact high-level personnel, making things much easier in the future.
After bidding farewell to Zhao Tang, Ye Linghan drove to the Investigation Department. Su Mo and Yao Qingluan had already arrived.
“Morning,” Yao Qingluan said.
“Morning.”
Su Mo’s gaze had been fixed on Ye Linghan from the moment he walked through the door until he returned to his seat. Seeing the dark circles under his eyes, Su Mo couldn’t help but tease, “Ooh, this past night… You must have been tossing and turning, huh?”
“Heh, Brother Mo, if you don’t go become a street fortune teller, you’re wasting your talent.”
Su Mo smiled. “Well, look at that. If I’d known, I would have given you a day off to let you enjoy yourself for another day.”
He had clearly misunderstood, not realizing his words were like knives stabbing right into Ye Linghan’s heart.
“Enjoying himself” was the last thing he was doing; he had had quite enough “enjoyment.” Looking back now, he didn’t even know where he got the courage to slap Yin Chen.
Ye Linghan hastily waved his hand to stop him; he truly didn’t want to recall the events of the previous night. “Stop! Is the case finished? You’re here gossiping.”
“Fine, fine, I won’t tease you anymore.” Su Mo thoughtfully dropped the subject.
“This case of ours is truly difficult to handle. According to the police interrogation, the only eyewitness didn’t provide any useful leads. Aside from that, there are no other clues involving living people.”
Hearing Su Mo mention the eyewitness, Ye Linghan recalled that night. When the police were taking the witness away, he felt an uncomfortable sensation in his cranial nerves. He had originally wanted to ask about it, but the topic was sidelined because he didn’t have his credentials at the time.
Out of caution, even though he couldn’t prove whether the source of the discomfort was those people, it would be a waste to let a potential lead go.
“Is there a transcript of that person’s statement?”
“Yes!” Su Mo pulled it out from a stack of documents and handed it to Ye Linghan.
Ye Linghan took it and scanned the information.
“Is there surveillance footage of the road where it happened?”
Su Mo shrugged and shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. They say that area is very old and hardly anyone lives there, so no cameras were installed.”
This made things difficult, Ye Linghan pondered.
Even if there were cameras, they might not catch a vampire capable of stealth, but at the very least, some clues would be left behind. It was impossible to be perfectly seamless. Without surveillance, the difficulty increased immensely.
“Then, do we have the authority to go and talk to him in person to understand the situation?” Ye Linghan asked.
Su Mo looked suspicious. “We can, but there’s no real need. The statement is already organized and written right there. Wouldn’t asking again be redundant?”
“It won’t be unnecessary.” Ye Linghan shook his head. “When a person deliberately tries to remember something, after being questioned repeatedly, there will definitely be discrepancies. If it’s a first-hand experience, it’s usually fine, but if it’s fabricated, there will be holes. So, asking more never hurts.”
Su Mo suddenly understood. “Alright, I’ll contact him for you and re-interview him to see if there are any other clues.”
After obtaining the location, they went to the eyewitness’s home for a follow-up visit. Yao Qingluan had other matters to attend to, so she didn’t go with them.
Knock, knock, knock—
“Excuse me, is anyone home?”
Before long, footsteps sounded from inside the house, growing louder until the door was opened.
Last time, the night was dark, and the witness was shielded behind the police, so Ye Linghan hadn’t seen the man’s face clearly. This time, he saw him distinctly.
The man wasn’t tall, about 175cm. He had a lean build and dark skin. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he wouldn’t stand out as ugly in a crowd either.
Ye Linghan and Su Mo flashed their credentials in front of the man. This time, Ye Linghan finally had his own official ID.
Su Mo dropped his usual playful demeanor and became solemn. “Hello, we are special investigators from the Secret Affair Investigation Department. Are you Mr. Zhang Ping?”
The man’s expression was somewhat terrified. Against his dark skin, the whites of his eyes were very prominent. His pupils darted back and forth, revealing a restless and uneasy state of mind.
“I… I am. Has something happened?”
Ye Linghan noticed his unease and reached out to pat Su Mo’s shoulder, signaling him not to be so stern. Then, he spoke softly, “You don’t need to be nervous. We just want to do a second follow-up regarding the incident where you witnessed the deceased.”
Zhang Ping’s expression visibly relaxed. He stepped aside to let Ye Linghan and Su Mo into the house. “Please, come in.”
The apartment wasn’t large, about sixty square meters, but it was very tidy. It was clear it was cleaned regularly.
“Do you usually live alone?” Ye Linghan asked.
“Yes, just me. Please sit, I’ll get you some water.”
Zhang Ping went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of water for them.
“What does your girlfriend do for a living?”
“She works as a waitress in another city,” Zhang Ping replied.
Ye Linghan nodded. “How often do you usually see each other?”
“About once every two weeks.” Zhang Ping sat down, his hands clasped together nervously.
Ye Linghan smiled—not for any particular reason, but simply to keep the atmosphere from being too tense.
“So, at the time of the incident, what were you doing at the crime scene?”
Some time had passed since the event, and combined with the fear he felt then, Zhang Ping thought for a moment.
“That day just happened to be the day my girlfriend was coming to visit me.”
“Don’t you go visit her?” Su Mo interrupted.
In his view, a man wouldn’t want his girlfriend to endure the fatigue of traveling back and forth, so he blurted the question out.
“I do. We have a rotation system. That day, it just happened to be her turn to come to me.”
Su Mo nodded in understanding and signaled for Zhang Ping to continue.
“I was on the phone with my girlfriend the whole time on my way back that night. Because I was afraid it was too late and she’d be scared, I walked a bit slower. A person like me…”
He paused, looked at the expressions of Ye Linghan and Su Mo, and continued: “When I’m on the phone, I habitually do little things, like picking at wall plaster, plucking a few leaves, or kicking pebbles. It’s just a subconscious thing.”
“Since I usually live alone and didn’t have anything going on, and it was my day off, I saw the weather was okay and wasn’t in a hurry to get back. I walked around outside for a bit longer, and then I ended up in that alley.”
“It was quite dark in there, with only a few scattered, very dim streetlights near the entrance.”
“Weren’t you afraid?” Looking at the cowering man before him, Ye Linghan was somewhat surprised. Just describing it made him this flustered—how could he not have been terrified in that environment at the time?
Zhang Ping’s voice trembled. “I was. So I originally wanted to leave, but just as I was about to turn around, I saw a blur flash in front of me.”
“A blur? What kind of blur?” Su Mo asked.
Zhang Ping nodded. “Yes, it was…”
Before Zhang Ping could get his next words out, in an instant, the man vanished into thin air right before their eyes.