Chapter Thirteen: The Murderer

  Facing Zhang Meng, I was at a loss for words: "Zhao Ye, you used to be the boss's driver, so you should know about the existence of the Ghost City secret passage. With that knowledge and the six-clawed magic fish, as well as the only entrance to the passage, shouldn't you have figured out that the captain is the murderer?"

  "You also know?" Zhao Ye was surprised, looking at the people around the table: "Not bad, whether it's the motive for the crime or the timing of the crime, Wang Wenlu... is very suspicious."

  Zhao Ye originally wanted to say that he was the murderer, but for some reason, Kong Xiangdong beside him had a strange and iron-like complexion.

  The atmosphere at the dinner table was tense and heavy, but I calmly ate a few mouthfuls of food: "The murderer is neither you, Zhao Ye, nor Captain Wang Wenlu."

  "Huh? Little policeman, you said it wasn't me, then who is the murderer?" Captain Wang Wenlu hastily stood up, his curious old eyes scanning back and forth among this group of people.

  Wu Xing couldn't help but laugh: "I say, Old Wang, you admit to being the murderer, but you've scared all of us old friends who have known each other for over 40 years. What are you playing at?"

  "Haha~" Zhao Hongsen, with a gloomy face, also smiled lightly: "We've known each other for twenty-five years, I really didn't think that someone with such a good temper like you would also be a murderer."

  Although the atmosphere between the three of us was harmonious, Wang Wenlu still kept his mouth tightly shut and said nothing, now staring at me with his eyes wide open.

  It seems that if I don't bring up the topic, he won't tell the truth: "When we caught the Six-Clawed Devil Fish, everyone thought the killer was Zhao Ye, the 'gatekeeper' of Ghost Market. But Zhao Ye's purpose in releasing the fish to commit murder was to avenge the dead and frame Wang Wenlu, this captain who admitted to being the killer just to take the fall for someone else. This is just as ridiculous as Zhao Ye!"

  "Ah~~~~" Zhang Meng shouted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on: "Captain, you can't think that Xiaobai Yang killed someone and want to sentence her for it, right?"

  Wang Wenlu held back a breath and still said nothing.

  I helplessly spread my hands: "Captain Wang is Baiyang's elder and the object of her complaints. Something like this happened, Captain Wang must have misunderstood. Maybe it was because Baiyang was allergic to the strange fish, or maybe it was because Baiyang couldn't accept Li Mianhua constantly changing things, damaging her last bit of white space, so she became a murderer?"

  "Wooh~~~~ King Wenlu let out a long sigh of relief, suddenly looking ten years younger with great joy: "It wasn't Little White Sheep after all! Scared the pants off me, I thought Li Mianhuan's personality had changed greatly, and that she was raising fierce fish to change that beautiful little world, so Little White Sheep killed her. Turns out it wasn't like that at all."

  "What?" Zhao Yě suddenly stood up, his eyes wide with surprise, and asked: "What do you mean? You can't be saying that Kong Xiangdong killed his own wife and then offered a reward of one million to report the case himself?"

  I shook my weary head: "He wasn't offering a reward of one million to find the murderer, but rather to find out who his wife's secret lover was."

  "Secret passage, secret passage... what are you talking about secret passage?" Kong Xiangdong was shocked and almost lost control, luckily Zhao Ye's big head pressed him down firmly.

  I glanced at Zhang Mian, who looked guilty, and turned to face everyone: "In the Ghost Market, there are three exits. The big 'gate' is one of them, the water flow below is the second, and the white rat's 'hole' is the third. That rat 'hole' is also an emergency tunnel, connecting many places in the Ghost Market, including Kong Xiangdong and Li Mohan's small world."

  "What did you say?!" Kong Xiangdong's face turned pale with a terrifying expression: "You said, our carefully arranged little world, someone can enter directly from the underground tunnel inside without going through the main gate, and that person is allergic to ultraviolet light, yearning for daytime Little White?"

  At that moment, I was in a gloomy mood. After meeting Wu Xing and Zhao Hongshan again, I opened a pair of piercing eyes that saw through life and death, striking the soul. However, with these eyes, all I saw were suspicion, madness, and despair. I didn't dare to imagine what kind of resentment that 'woman' had in her heart before she died. Savoring the taste, I even didn't want to face this world.

  However, I have to tell Kong Xiangdong one fact: "Li Mohan suffers from diabetes, eating sweets every day is equivalent to slow suicide. She wants to use death to tell you that she is innocent with others, so - you killed the wrong person!"

  "What happened, Brother Chuanjie? Are you okay? How is it going? Has the result come out? Who is the murderer?" Along with Kong Xiangdong's heart-wrenching scream, dozens of brothers rushed up from downstairs to check.

  "Hey, my dear mom! Who's calling?" At this time, Yan Feng rushed in with a wet and pale face: "Who called out just now? Savior! Oh, Brother Chuanjie, by the river, there's a huge monster fish in the river that almost ate me!"

  "What's all this nonsense?" I sprang up quickly and asked loudly, "You little scamp, come to your senses and speak clearly, what's going on?"

  Yan Feng jumped up and down, scratching his head anxiously: "Under the stone bridge, there's a huge monster fish! Ah~ that's what happened. Earlier, they touched my clothes, I thought it smelled on me, so I wanted to go wash by the river. Just as I was rubbing my hands, I heard a loud shout. I got up and walked back a few steps to take a look, and just then, suddenly a huge monster fish jumped out of the water, almost grabbing me with its mouth, taking me all the way to King Yan's place!"

  "Huh?" Zhao Ye was perplexed: "Didn't you guys kill both of the six-clawed devil fish I raised? How is there still one left?"

  I thought with a stupid expression, Zhao Ye said that the six-clawed devil fish was one centimeter for 100,000 yuan, and his total value of the fish was around 70 or 80 million. But one fish is three meters long, so it's more than 30 million! As a detective police officer who solves cases, I actually missed such a big clue. If my colleagues knew about this, they would definitely laugh at me as a - Big Leaker!

  "My god, no way, I'm going crazy, and there's another one, brothers come on, hurry up, disperse the crowd, tell everyone not to get close to the riverbank..."

  Fortunately, the six-clawed devil fish was left without hurting anyone.

  Zhao Ye blew a whistle and surprisingly the big fish swam back to the deep pool in the lower reaches by itself, after which it was caught.

  The crowd in the ghost market was panicked because of that man-eating big fish, but I not only didn't give the order to kill it, instead I stopped the comrades who were emotionally agitated.

  The reason is simple, Xu Na and Xu Jie's mini-submarine needs research funding, Chen Gang who lost an arm also needs a huge medical bill. If they kill the fish and put Zhao Ye in jail, this whole mess will be abandoned, no one can help the helpless them, and locking up the reckless Zhao Ye for several years is meaningless.

  The country has laws prohibiting the breeding of such ferocious fish, I let Zhao Ye contact foreigners to sell them out and compensate Xu Na, Xu Jie, Chen Tong and Liu Yingxiong before catching him.

  Unconventional but unapologetic to my own heart.

  Later, Zhao Ye was sentenced to half a year and Kong Xiangdong was sentenced to life imprisonment.

  Lao Da Lin Tianxiang is famous for keeping his word. He transferred one million from Kong Xiangdong's assets to my account.

  To be honest, I'm short of money, but I'm quite disgusted with this money. Kong Xiangdong should have been sentenced to death, but because... that's all there is to it.

  After finishing the case in Gui City, Wu Xing was left behind by Liu Yafang's enthusiastic invitation, and I took Zhang Meng back to the provincial capital.

  This matter has come to an end...

  Due to the recent provincial hall's heavy-handed investigation into corruption, Lao San Si is giving me ideas.

  One million, in the name of our agency, I donated 500,000 to the orphanage where Zhang Filong grew up. Tell that pale-faced Director Zhang, we won't be seeing each other again from now on.

  1.5 million was used to pay off the mortgage on the old town house, and 2.5 million was spent on buying an advertisement billboard for Jiang Yi, which was rented out cheaply to the provincial department for publicity, earning an extra 500,000 yuan per year.

  All accounts are transparent, Luo Lao Gui's style of doing things is a model of correctness, this point - no one can match!

  The last 100,000 yuan, I gave it all to Zhang Mian. The 'girl' said she wanted to go to college and become a forensic doctor!

  It shocked me because there isn't a single 'woman' in our line of work, but she was very persistent and repeated the words I said that day verbatim.

  "The dead cannot face the living to recount their painful death experiences, so the dead and the living are separated by an invisible but real chasm. In this world, only forensic doctors can fill in this chasm, decipher the code of death, let the dead speak, and through 'dialogue' with the dead, find powerful evidence to crack the case, expose the suspects, and bring justice to the dead. This is what a forensic doctor does."

  She wasn't afraid of death at all, her courage was boundless, I had no reason to stop her, so I let her go.

  Successful in cracking cases, with a clear identity, as one of the 16 major case groups under the provincial bureau, I wear the halo envied by others.

  At this time, I listened to Luo San's words, humble and polite, asking everyone how they were doing, being careful with my words and actions, and having a mature demeanor as a newly graduated police officer.

  Closely following, the Fourth Squad of Serious Crimes made another gain. Zhao Yong, Cheng Long, Lin Ruoyin and Jiang Yi captured a notorious drug lord, returning to the Serious Crimes Squad and receiving collective third-class merit.

  Early in the morning, Luo Sansi and I were busy in the office of the Fourth Section of Heavy Cases, preparing to welcome the triumphant return of the four people.

  Just as I parked my vehicle and was carrying a potted plant into the police station, someone suddenly appeared before me!

  Lin Zhen!

  "Hey! Isn't this Lin Er, my roommate from university who I lived with for four years? How did you end up here?" Seeing Lin Zhen's icy expression, I spoke up first.

  As soon as I opened my mouth, Lin Zhen was also a bit unaccustomed and surprised: "I'm here to report to the homicide unit, starting from today, I'll be working here."

  "What?" I sneered with disdain: "I really didn't see it, you're a rich young master with a background and connections, I don't know what kind of relationship 'door' you relied on to get into the Major Crimes Unit."

  Lin Zhen's face twitched slightly, still icy: "Ren Chuanjie, apart from forensic medicine, it seems that none of your achievements surpass mine. Since I'm first in everything, why can't I join the Major Crimes Unit?"

  "Hah ~ it's really ridiculous." My expression was full of viciousness and ridicule: "When the police officer went to the ghost market to investigate the murder case, who abandoned his helmet and armor and fled in a hurry? Ah ~ I heard that someone even fainted and fell ill. This made me wonder, you didn't crack the case, nor did you have any merit. Hey ~ it's just that you can come to the major crimes unit, relying on your background is really impressive!"

  "Hmph, I'm too lazy to talk to you." Lin Zhen stormed off, walking quickly away from me.

  However, I followed him with an unstoppable stroll: "Lin Er, have you forgotten the slogan you shouted in your graduation thesis? Relying on one's own ability, solving any unsolved case in the world, 'Yu' universe clears up the dust of ten thousand miles, bright and clean, without shame to heaven and earth. The words are nice, but the deeds are extremely ugly."

  Lin Zhen said in a soft voice: "You still remember the graduation thesis, so where is your graduation thesis? The theory of world construction. By the way, why didn't you go to study literature?"

  Cold sweat! I'm really lifting a rock to hit my own foot. No, counterattack him: "Hmph! Let me tell you, the major crimes unit is now facing an anti-corruption storm. We must be clean and upright, every member of the team must be spotless. Those who are not clear have been asked to resign, over a dozen people already. Someone like you who relies on connections to get in won't do."

  What I said is indeed a fact. Recently, our serious crime unit has been compared to **, of course, this little white person is carefree!

  "Ka~ Lin Zhen suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned around, saying: "Ren Chuanjie, if you're so confident in your abilities, let's have a competition! The ghost murder case in northern Sichuan, whoever solves it first wins!"

  What's with that big case?

  I furrowed my brow, before I went to the Ghost City, Zhao Yong wanted to handle that case, but at that time it was too chaotic, not to mention that three people from the Major Crimes Unit had died, and several others had accepted bribes. The camp that went to handle the case collapsed piece by piece, a miserable defeat!

  Recently, Zhao Yong and his team caught a local snakehead who was actually the hatchet man for some big shots in northern Sichuan. The fourth major case squad arrested a small fry and collectively received third-class merit. Just imagine, if they were to catch the top figures and super huge corrupt officials, what kind of achievement would that be?

  "Are you dreaming?" I retorted, "That big case wasn't something one person could handle, and besides, the whole process of this secret case was arranged by the leader. Do you think you're the boss, thinking that just because you want to handle this case, you can?"

  Lin Zhen's eyes were dim and mysterious: "I'll let you in on a little secret, the entire 16th homicide unit will be heading to northern Sichuan after they're all assembled. At that time, we'll have a showdown. If you lose, from then on, when we meet at the homicide unit, you'll call me Lin First and I'll call you Ren Second."

  "Bet it all!" At this time, my face must have turned red with anger: "If you lose, from now on in the homicide department, you'll call me Director Ren and I'll call you Little Lin."

  "It's settled then, humph..."