Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 109

Chapter 109: A Dog Willing to Die for Him

After the National Day holiday, the department was on a rotating shift. In the afternoon, Shen Yiyi received a message from Qin Luo, saying that she would be back for dinner.

So Shen Yiyi had specially taken two hours off in advance and had gone to the market to buy groceries.

When she got home, Qin Luo was not back yet, but her roommate had already moved out of the bedroom, leaving only a few scattered small household items. Lu Shimao had said on WeChat that she was not taking them and was leaving them for her to use.

For a moment, Shen Yiyi didn’t know whether to cook first or to clean up first.

She thought she should cook first. If the bedroom was not empty for a day, Qin Luo could stay in her room for another day.

Shen Yiyi had specially bought some mung beans, thinking that Qin Luo did not like greasy food and liked soups and broths. Mung beans could relieve the greasiness, and she could also make two vegetable dishes. But just as she had finished washing the mung beans, Lin Puping had called.

She hated answering the phone when she was touching food. The phone had the most bacteria. But she thought that it might be a feedback on the task she had given to Lin Puping in the morning, so she put on a disposable glove, answered the call, and put it on speaker.

“Director, are you in the lab?” Little Lin on the other end of the line was panting.

Shen Yiyi said, “I’m home.”

Lin Puping was puzzled. “Huh? So early?”

“Let’s talk business.” Shen Yiyi was picking vegetables as she spoke. She wanted to make sure that the meal was hot when Qin Luo came back. “Have you finished the task I gave you?”

Lin Puping said, “Oh my,” and lowered his voice. “Just now, Director Hong called me to his office and asked me about the matter of you and me going to the production for the table read.”

Shen Yiyi’s movements paused. She wiped her hands and picked up her phone.

She thought, could it be that the case-handling department had found a clue, so there was a move to combine the cases?

She walked into the bedroom and closed the door, asking in a cold voice, “What did you say?”

Lin Puping also seemed to have hidden in a dark place and reported to the director in a low voice, “I just said it was a normal work arrangement, and I didn’t have much contact with the production crew.”

With that, he stammered, “But Director Hong specially mentioned Qin Luo’s name and asked if you knew each other. I said I wasn’t sure and had never seen you two interact in private.”

Shen Yiyi pinched her brow. Hong Ziguang must have been pressured by the higher-ups. After all, it was Director Hong who had named her to go to the table read. Now that someone had died on the set, he definitely had to avoid all responsibility.

“Little Lin, regardless of whether I’ll be recused from this case or not, you must participate.” Shen Yiyi did not talk about any master-apprentice relationship, but directly stated the point of interest.

“These few cases are major murder cases, and the whole country is paying attention to them now. It’s rare for you to be able to participate in the investigation during your internship. I remember you told me that you wanted to compete for a national security post after graduation. This kind of internship experience has a significant advantage in the competition. A few days ago, I checked the recruitment policy of the National Security Bureau for you. The personnel in the analysis post must have a major case endorsement.”

.,…

Lin Puping was silent on the other end of the line. He had not expected that a casual mention of his future plans would be taken to heart by the director.

He said with great respect, “You’re right.”

Shen Yiyi felt a sense of unease in her heart. She had to leave a trump card in the team. “If Hong Ziguang asks you to recuse yourself, you should immediately go to Old Geng for help. Director Hong may not give me face, but he will at least give his old partner face.”

Lin Puping was grateful for the director’s planning, and his state of mind also returned to high spirits. “Director, don’t worry. I will definitely follow this case to the end. If the case involves Teacher Qin, I will definitely pay attention to it for you.”

…

Shen Yiyi said, “There’s no need for that. You should go and take care of the matter I’ve given you first.”

“I can definitely handle this matter. I should be able to get a general idea tomorrow. I’ll go and find you in the office then.” Lin Puping said with confidence.

Shen Yiyi hung up the phone and paced in her room. She had to sort out her thoughts before she was recused, and she was fully prepared. As long as the higher-ups gave her a recusal request, she would immediately take sick leave and stay by Qin Luo’s side at all times.

She had to take care of one side.

When Qin Luo opened the door, she was covered in the smell of smoke, which was very pungent and made Shen Yiyi take three steps back.

She observed Qin Luo. Her mood was low, she was preoccupied, her hair was messy, and even her movements of changing her shoes were very slow. “Where have you been today?”

“The production.”

Shen Yiyi probed, “What’s the situation at the production?”

Qin Luo forced a smile. “The equipment has been seized by the police, and the filming has been suspended. You should know more about the other news than I do.”

“I’m a forensic pathologist.” Shen Yiyi emphasized, “I can only get information from the body.”

Qin Luo had just come out of Liu Jia’s office. The information she had received in the afternoon had been iterated too quickly, and she had not yet sorted out her thoughts. Shen Yiyi was an upright police officer. Qin Luo could not guarantee that she would be more partial to her between the facts and her, so she had to remain silent.

But Shen Yiyi pressed, “How much do you know about Shang Yi’s assistant?”

Qin Luo was stressed by the name “Shang Yi.” She took off her glasses, pressed her brow hard, and took two deep, muffled breaths.

“A lot.”

Last night, she had dared to guarantee that she knew nothing about Shang Yi’s shady dealings. But now she could not turn a deaf ear. It was just that Shen Yiyi’s tone was too stiff, like she was investigating a case.

She was ashamed of her cooperation with Shang Yi over the years, but what was even more heartbreaking was that she had found that she and Shang Yi had been classified as the same kind, and she had not noticed the assistants who were suffering in the corners.

Looking up at the magnificent, you will forget the decay under your feet. It is not just her kill that is hidden in the dark, but also the abscesses. Looking back at these years, she was like a high-flying cloud. Now, what had fallen hard was not just her ideals, but also her sense of achievement had been shattered.

Qin Luo took off her suit jacket, which was full of the smell of smoke, and looked at Shen Yiyi with her hands on her hips.

“Do you want to hear?”

Shen Yiyi served Qin Luo a bowl of mung bean soup, specially adding ice cubes, wanting to use the ice to take away some of her anxiety.

Qin Luo took a sip and recalled what Liu Jia had told her, repeating it to Shen Yiyi.

She said,

“Six years ago, Li Peipei was found by the regulatory authorities for holding Shang Yi’s shares as an agent. She was in prison for a year and three months. After she was released, she went back to work for Shang Yi. Although her business scope had increased, her actual authority had been severely reduced. To put it bluntly, Li Peipei was just a capable watchdog that Shang Yi had raised. She did not have access to his gray core business and was only responsible for negotiating with internet celebrities for him.”

“We don’t know about Li Peipei’s pregnancy. Although she often had to come to Logos to negotiate business, it was all handled between the assistants. She rarely negotiated directly with Liu Jia or me. The number of times we could meet was very few, and it was mostly because of meetings.”

“Li Peipei would occasionally go to the Her Kill production to negotiate actor matters for Shang Yi, but not often. But when the Chongqing location had an incident, she and Xin Wuzheng had both flown to Chongqing. Liu Jia had asked Li Wenping, and she had said that Li Peipei had been pushed down that day, which had caused her to have a miscarriage.”

Liu Jia’s voice echoed in Qin Luo’s ear.

“This is also why I wrote that analysis post!! I had also read the script when Her Kill had landed. I don’t believe that all of this is just a coincidence.”

Reality is often more dramatic than a novel.

It’s just that a novel’s plot has more of a chance of survival than reality, and the suffering in reality is not easily discovered.

***

“It was Shang Yi who drove to pick me up when I was released from prison. It was a cold winter day. He took off his coat and draped it over me. He asked me if I wanted to buy a house for my mom. A few days later, he took me to see a property, as a compensation for the grievances I had suffered for him in the past year.”

Piao Zheng was sitting on a stool in the interrogation room, yawning three times in a row.

Li Peipei had been interrogated for two days, and she had been repeating the same thing over and over, from an office romance to workplace bullying. It was like listening to an audiobook while slacking off at work.

If they couldn’t get any more clues, they would have to let her go. Old Piao was also anxious, but Li Peipei was sitting opposite him, looking calm and composed.

No matter if he threatened or bribed her, the other’s statements were flawless, as if Shang Yi’s death really had nothing to do with him.

“I came to Shanghai from a small town. Work was my only way to cross the class divide. At that time, Shang Yi was not only my boss, but also my goal to strive for. I admired him very much, so I unconsciously fell into a state of blind following.”

Li Peipei said, “I really loved him.”

She loved his hypocritical thoughtfulness, his strategic planning, but most of all, she loved the power and status in his hands.

At twenty-three, how could she know what a hundred million in assets was? The boyfriend she had had in college couldn’t even afford to buy her a bag by saving his meal money. But Shang Yi had bought her a car without blinking an eye, saying it was for her convenience.

A love where someone who only has ten yuan is willing to spend nine on you has an emotional price. The other will want you to be grateful for the value of the nine yuan they have spent.

How could Li Peipei resist the temptation of material things? So she had gotten on Shang Yi’s pirate ship.

Piao Zheng was annoyed by what he heard and tapped the table with his pen. “Get to the point. I’m asking you if you were aware of his gray industrial chain all these years.”

Li Peipei smiled frankly. “Do you think that as a lover and an assistant, I wouldn’t know about his character?”

Piao Zheng straightened his back and crossed his arms. “Then tell me about his industrial chain.”

“He wouldn’t have me do this kind of thing.” Li Peipei shrugged her shoulders. She even laughed out loud. “If I had evidence of Shang Yi’s crimes, I would have come to the police station to report him a long time ago. I wouldn’t have to sit here and talk to you.”

Piao Zheng could hear the hatred in Li Peipei’s voice for Shang Yi.

Old Piao thought that since he couldn’t get anything out of the industrial chain, he would change the subject. He could always get some useful information by going around in circles a couple of times. So he asked again, “What about the child?”

“He forced me to get pregnant. It was a threat.”

Li Peipei smiled. “You probably don’t know that his methods of threatening people are really many. For example, he would take people to casinos abroad to gamble until they were bankrupt, and then he would offer a helping hand, in the form of helping them pay off their debts, in exchange for the resources he wanted. Many company bosses have gone bankrupt this way now.”

“He used this method to control my father.” Li Peipei was not vague at all when she poured out her grievances. She even asked the police if they could arrest the gambler. If they could, she was willing to hand over her father’s gambling information.

But Piao Zheng didn’t care about her father’s affairs at all. “He threatened you, and you got pregnant?”

“What could I do if I didn’t?” Li Peipei asked back. “Should my whole family live a life worse than death because of gambling debts? Or should I leave him and find a job that pays millions a month to fill this hole?”

Li Peipei stared at the police officer. “After I was released from prison, he blocked all my paths. He wanted a dog that was willing to die for him.”

With that, she waved her hand and laughed abruptly.

“I misspoke. Shang Yi thinks that anyone can be that dog that is willing to die for him.”

“I don’t want to die.”

Li Peipei smiled. “So, I took the initiative to find his wife, Liang Wei.”