The Brain Science Case 137

Chapter 137: The Blazing Fire (Part 1) – 7

At 8:30 in the evening, when Tang Yingli returned to the Criminal Investigation Division office, she happened to see Jinglin standing in front of the printer, waiting for the paper to finish printing.

They were both working hard to get to the truth in their own ways, but they had both hit a wall. Yingli knew she must be in a bad mood, so she had not sent her a message.

It wasn’t until the two of them were in the car together, in this familiar and private small space, that Yingli heard her let out a heavy sigh.

“You’ve worked hard. I’ve already heard from Chief Fang about your situation today.”

“Being scolded is no big deal. What really broke my heart was the chief’s attitude. The usual gentle and considerate attitude toward his subordinates was completely gone.” Looking ahead, Jinglin’s eyes were glazed over. “I’m sorry, I’m still in a bad mood… I wrote a letter of remorse all afternoon.”

“I know.”

The car was driving through the streets, where the traffic had already thinned out a little. Yingli asked again, “Did Tan Ziying say anything?”

“I almost forgot to tell you what I found out today.” She gave a wry smile. This question from Yingli reminded her of her conversation with Dingdang.

“…I can’t just leave a woman who has lost her home and is pregnant.” Yingli rested her chin on her hand, repeatedly chewing on these intriguing words.

“Yes, I believe my mom must have been very moved to say that. She’s not like me, who shows all her feelings on her face.”

“Thinking of one person as herself, and another…” she muttered to herself, “another person?”

“Tan Ziying said that, but I have no idea.” Jinglin had been thinking about it all day.

“It’s easy to understand why your aunt would think of herself, because she has also been in the same situation.” Yingli crossed her arms and looked at Jinglin’s profile. “She was pregnant and had lost her home, but… as far as I know, the time your aunt lost her ‘home’ and the time she was pregnant do not overlap.”

“You found something else?”

“It wasn’t me who found it. It was Officer Jian who used the convenience of the investigation to get your aunt’s past records from the National Security Bureau. She was recruited and trained as an agent in her teens.” And calculating the age difference between Li Yuejiao and Jinglin, it was known that Li Yuejiao had given birth to her at the age of twenty-three. At that time, it had been many years since her last foster family or orphanage.

“So?” Jinglin glanced at her, her eyes glistening with tears.

“So when you said that meeting Tan Ziying would have such an effect on her, I was very surprised. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“It’s related to the man who got her pregnant.” Yingli bit her lip slightly. “That man made her once have a longing for a family.”

But a longing was just a longing. In the end, whether it was because of a difference in status, or any other reason, the two of them had broken up, and had even had a falling out, which had caused Li Yuejiao a great deal of heartache, and had made her never mention Jinglin’s biological father for so many years.

“But that man not only didn’t start a family with her, but he may have even abandoned her.” Jinglin gripped the steering wheel. “That’s the reason my mom never mentioned him to me.”

“Yes,” she pushed up her glasses, “that more or less explains your aunt’s state of mind for not saying anything.”

“Actually, I sometimes felt that my mom’s feelings for me were a little complicated when I was little…” Jinglin patted the steering wheel, “I think I know where that feeling came from.”

As her only daughter, Li Yuejiao should have doted on her, but as luck would have it, seeing her would also remind Li Yuejiao of the man who had completely broken her heart.

Thinking of this, and then looking back at the case of Li Yuejiao kidnapping Su Huiquan and shooting Zhou Zengxiang… Yingli had a vague, bad premonition.

“In any case, I still hope to hear it from her own mouth. No matter how we guess now, it’s still just a speculation.”

“That’s for sure, but under Chief Fang’s strong warning…”

“I know.” Jinglin interrupted. “I’ll be as quiet as I can.”

“That’s probably very difficult for you. Even though you’re getting closer and closer to the truth, you can’t investigate it yourself.” Pulling her scarf tighter, Yingli suddenly thought of another thing. “By the way, Officer Zhou.”

“Hm?”

“The matter of me going into the evidence storage to investigate past evidence… you haven’t discussed it with anyone else, have you? For example, Officer Cai or Officer Xiang…”

“No.” Jinglin frowned. “This kind of thing, you know it has to be done privately. I’ve never told anyone.”

As expected. “Is that so?”

“What’s wrong? Did someone ask?”

Yingli remembered the cunning expression on Zhou Zengxiang’s face when he had mentioned this. “Ah, when I was questioning the director today, he mentioned this, which surprised me a little.” It was almost a threat.

“The director mentioned this.”

“Yes, who is usually in charge of the surveillance cameras in there?”

“I don’t know. It seems to be on a rotation… oh, it’s usually not specifically looked at, unless something happens.”

In the end, someone had discovered her actions, which had in turn become a handle for Zhou Zengxiang.

“What did the director say to you?” Jinglin seemed very nervous. “It won’t affect your position in the division, will it?”

“It was just a verbal warning. I think it’s fine.” Yingli laughed it off. “Next, it will probably be an investigation of Wu Jianxiong’s human resources agency. The case may have a major breakthrough. Let’s wait and see.”

But Jinglin did not dare to have too high hopes for this, and could only say, “Yes, I hope so.”

**

Under Zhou Zengxiang’s strong promotion, the police conducted a surprise raid on Wu Jianxiong’s agency two days later.

But even though there had been no warning beforehand, Wu Jianxiong seemed to have known in advance that the police were coming, and had taken almost all the files and other items with him, leaving only the large machines that were difficult to move, such as the photocopier.

Chen Huomu, who was leading the team, looked at all of this in disbelief and gritted his teeth. “How did they get the news?”

‘Ah Mu, what’s going on?’ Fang Zijun contacted him through the radio.

“Chief, almost everything has been moved from here. Not to mention people, even the cockroaches have probably been cleared out.”

‘How could this be? Are there any other clues there?’

“I’m checking.” Turning off the communication, he directed the other police officers to search inside. “Don’t miss any details, search as much as you can.”

“Deputy Chief.” a police officer who had been inside reported, “we found a… very strange thing in the innermost office.”

“Strange?”

“Yes, it was on the desk, a colorful paper box. Like the kind you can buy at a stationery store to wrap gifts.”

He quickly approached. “Is it an explosive?”

“It doesn’t look like it. It’s very small.”

The officer had reported that it was an office similar to a boss’s, and besides the useless plaques and other decorations, everything in the other cabinets had been emptied.

But in this state of an empty house, the colorful paper box in the center of the desk was particularly suspicious.

To be on the safe side, they still urgently called for a robotic arm to detect it, and only after confirming that there was no heat source or metal reaction did they approach.

The box seemed very light. Chen Huomu actually picked it up and shook it, and it felt like there was something inside. “Chief, we found a strange box here… no fingerprints were found.”

‘Is there anything in it?’

“There should be. I’m going to open it.” Taking a deep breath, under the recording, he pulled open the ribbon and opened the box…

As soon as he saw the severed limb inside, Chen Huomu was shocked. ‘Calm down. What’s in it?’

“H-Hands, fingers.” his face twitched, “there are three of them, and they look like a thumb… and the other two besides the little finger.”

‘Human fingers?’

Suppressing the urge to vomit, Chen Huomu reported, “Yes, they look like real fingers.”

‘Bring them back for testing.’

“Got it.” He turned his face away and put the lid back on, handing the thing to the police officer next to him. After not finding any other suspicious evidence, he had no choice but to take the three severed fingers and hastily pack up.

**

Sitting in the van, Wu Jianxiong paid attention to his surroundings while waiting for his target.

The fishing boats in the harbor rose and fell with the big waves. Although it was not raining today, the wind and waves were quite strong, and he couldn’t help but wonder if all his men would be seasick.

As he was waiting, the phone rang. “Hello, what’s up…” he frowned, and when he heard that the police had raided his former company office, the corners of his lips lifted, “ha, they must be very surprised. Yuejiao’s decision was right after all… okay, okay, you call Big Sister and tell her I’ll be back as soon as I get the manpower.”

Turning off his phone, Wu Jianxiong’s mood instantly improved after hearing that the police had come up empty, which slightly dispelled the boredom of the long wait.

Twenty minutes later, a fishing boat approached at the appointed place. Wu Jianxiong got out of the car with agility and walked to the shore. Under the guidance of his men, several foreign fishermen disembarked one after another. They looked haggard, but at least they were not as seasick as he had predicted.

“Is this all?”

“Yes, this is all of them.”

Wu Jianxiong looked at the five of them one by one, as if he were inspecting goods. After looking back and forth, he finally nodded. “Okay, tell them that there’s something for them to do, and if they succeed, the money we agreed on before will be immediately transferred to their accounts.”

After the translation, when they heard “money,” the expressions of some of the foreign workers finally brightened. Wu Jianxiong pointed to another car. “It’s not convenient to talk here. Let’s meet at the warehouse first. Big Sister will explain the plan to you.”

**

Although the operation was a bust, the recovered severed fingers meant that the special task force had not returned empty-handed, and they also had a more comprehensive understanding of the Huajiang Bridge murder case.

“Those three severed fingers are confirmed to be Peng Haoze’s. The DNA comparison passed, and the sutures also matched perfectly.” Thanks to the well-preserved severed limbs, the cut surfaces of the three fingers were almost a perfect match.

“This should also indirectly prove that Li Yuejiao… no, ‘Mountain Wind’ is indeed the real killer of Peng Haoze,” Zhou Zengxiang said with certainty.

“I don’t think so.”

Under everyone’s gaze, Tang Yingli slowly stood up. “Contrary to the director’s opinion, I think the way these three fingers were placed is exactly to tell us that this case was not done by them.”

“Dr. Tang, you…”

“The reason Officer Chen came up empty was because they had received a warning beforehand, and these three fingers were the warning.” She walked to the whiteboard and wrote “severed fingers have been recovered” and other information. “It was the third day after he was killed that we finally came looking for them. This was enough time for them to evacuate. The eyewitness testimony also stated that they only started on the afternoon of the incident, which was clearly after they had received the fingers.”

“So you’re saying that they evacuated after they had committed the crime, and that also makes sense.”

Yingli shook her head definitively. “If I had known I was going to evacuate, I would have made preparations earlier. I believe that even if the fingers had not been sent, it might have been impossible to catch Li Yuejiao, but it wouldn’t have been as fruitless as it is now.”

“You’re really so stubborn,” Zhou Zengxiang said with a hint of sarcasm.

Yingli raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you, Director Zhou?”

Seeing the atmosphere growing more and more tense, Fang Zijun quickly tried to smooth things over. “Director, Teacher, I think your opinions are both reasonable, but the things were found in Wu Jianxiong’s company, and this whole incident has already received too much media attention. So…”

She crossed her arms. “Are you planning to use this opportunity to blame Peng Haoze’s death on ‘Mountain Wind’ to reduce the pressure?”

Fang Zijun and Zhou Zengxiang looked at each other. “This is a matter of expediency.”

Her index finger on her glasses, Yingli looked at the other team members and chuckled. “Alright, it seems that no matter what I say this time, you have all reached a consensus.” She tilted her chin up and strode to the team room door.

“Uh, Teacher… where are you going?”

“To go for a walk.” Turning the doorknob, she paused. “Oh, by the way, if I were the killer, and I knew the police would find out sooner or later, I would absolutely not put the ‘evidence’ in such an obvious place.”

Leaving this sentence behind, she slammed the main door, leaving behind a room of awkward atmosphere.

“Don’t mind what she says.” Zhou Zengxiang glared at the main door and said to Fang Zijun, “Go according to our plan. Hold a press conference.”

Fang Zijun wiped his forehead. “I’ll do it right away.”