Chapter 154
Chapter 154
“No, not that.”
Xing Shuyuan remembered that when she had interrogated Old Cai and Ah Fei, she had asked Old Cai the same question.
But Old Cai had answered like this: “How could that be? We really didn’t do anything like that. Officer, think about it. The girls under us are all female college students. A woman like her, with no clear background-we couldn’t possibly use her… Hey, Officer, don’t misunderstand me. I personally don’t have any opinion about her, and I’m not looking down on her… It’s just, well, you know. Those bosses are pretty picky. And look, she already had trouble hanging over her, and she escaped from somewhere… In our line of work, we’re also afraid the people under us won’t behave, right? College students are a little more timid. Director Wu has something to hold over them, and they’ve got weaknesses, so they’re easier to control, aren’t they…”
The way Old Cai talked about those female college students, as if they were kittens or puppies, made Xing Shuyuan deeply uncomfortable.
Her tone cooled, and she questioned him with a sneer. “No opinion about her? If you had no opinion about her, why did she live with you for over a month? What, did she force herself on you?”
“Officer, you’re really wronging me there. We took her in. We were genuinely doing a good deed.”
The reason Zhaodi had been able to stay at Shanshui Villa had to be traced back to Ah Fei.
That day, Ah Fei had brought Zhaodi back and, seeing that her fever was serious, kindly fed her some fever medicine.
The next day, after Zhaodi woke up, she was still sickly and weak. But when she learned that Ah Fei had saved her, she thanked him over and over again.
Of course, Ah Fei also asked her what had happened and why she had been chased, but Zhaodi kept dodging the subject and fobbing him off without saying anything.
Ah Fei then asked where she lived and whether she needed him to take her back.
Maybe Zhaodi was afraid of being caught and didn’t dare go home. Or maybe she felt Shanshui Villa was safe…
In any case, when she hesitated, Ah Fei assumed she had nowhere to go.
Seeing Zhaodi all alone in the world, and not bad-looking either, Ah Fei-who was getting on in years and still hadn’t managed to marry-started entertaining certain thoughts. He figured that if he took her in and provided her with food and drink, maybe he might get a wife out of it for free.
“I admit, at first, I did have some crooked thoughts. But I realized very quickly that she was impossible.” Facing the police interrogation, Ah Fei came clean very readily.
Xing Shuyuan stared at him, trying to judge from his demeanor whether his words were true. “Why?”
“Why…” Ah Fei gave a bitter smile as he thought back.
Actually, he had felt it many times-from her attitude, from the way she spoke. He could sense it. But those were only feelings. If he had to put them into words, he couldn’t quite explain.
Ah Fei thought for a long time before he finally remembered one incident. “There was one time, I think Old Cai told me to go buy groceries and rattled off a long list of names and prices. I wrote them down in a notebook, but when I got there, I realized I’d forgotten the notebook. I thought I’d have to go back for it, but it turned out she had been sitting beside me and had remembered everything. Those names and prices were all over the place, with no connection to each other, but after hearing them only once, she actually remembered every single one…”
“Isn’t that impressive? What does that have to do with you knowing she was impossible?”
Ah Fei laughed. “It was exactly because I knew she was impressive that I knew it was impossible. Her memory shocked me back then, and I joked that she should go to school-she’d definitely be first in her class. You know, she usually didn’t like to talk much. She was always alone in her room. But that one time, after I mentioned books, she actually chatted with me for quite a while, which was totally out of character. The next day, I got a few of the books those female college students had left behind and gave them to her. She spent the entire day reading… That was when I knew she was educated. A woman like that-how could she ever look at people like us?”
“So… after you decided there was no chance, you drove her away?”
Ah Fei gave a wry smile. “How could I not know? I knew it in my heart, but I still wanted to try. She had nowhere else to go, right? If she stayed with me, at least she’d have a roof over her head. But that was what I thought. She didn’t feel the same. After living with us for more than a month, one night, she suddenly ran off on her own.”
Xing Shuyuan asked thoughtfully, “Are you sure? She ran off on her own? She wasn’t taken away by someone?”
“She left by herself,” Ah Fei said with certainty. “But I suspect the reason she chose to leave at that time had something to do with the people who were after her.”
As Xing Shuyuan took notes, she said, “Tell me in detail. Why do you think that?”
“The night before, I got up to use the bathroom and ran into her. She was coming in from outside in a panic. I asked her where she’d been, but she wouldn’t say anything. She just looked scared out of her wits. The next day, when I got up, she seemed distracted all day. If there was the slightest stir outside, or someone pushed open a door or something, she’d jump in fright. It was like she was terrified that someone she was afraid of would come in.”
That day, Ah Fei had kept wondering what was going on. But when he got up on the third day, she was gone.
On the bed in her room, ten thousand yuan in cash had been laid out neatly, along with a note thanking him.
“I thought she had nowhere to go and must have been pretty poor…” Ah Fei laughed self-deprecatingly. “Turns out she had quite a bit of money. During those days she stayed with us, she really didn’t let on at all.”
When Ah Fei mentioned the ten thousand yuan left on the bed, Xing Shuyuan’s expression turned puzzled.
“When I first heard Ah Fei mention the ten thousand yuan, I didn’t think much of it. I assumed Zhaodi had saved up a fair amount after she started working. But later, after I met her father, I realized something wasn’t right. Given Zhaodi’s financial situation, even if she wanted to thank someone, she couldn’t possibly afford to pay them ten thousand yuan for a single month.”
Wen Miao understood what Xing Shuyuan meant. Zhaodi’s family couldn’t provide her with sufficient financial support, and she had been hiding here and there without a job. By all logic, she should have been very short on money. Even if she wanted to thank someone, the amount she gave should have been more realistic.
Wen Miao suddenly thought of Gu Zhishu. Before Zhaodi left, she had met Gu Zhishu…
Wen Miao considered it, then said, “Since we know Zhaodi left that day, can’t we check the surveillance footage at the foot of the mountain? See where exactly she went that day?”
Xing Shuyuan gave a bitter smile. “Of course we checked. But what we checked wasn’t that day.”
Seeing Wen Miao’s puzzled expression, she continued, “If Zhaodi had simply left like that, we wouldn’t have kept digging into this matter. The truth is, after Zhaodi left, something else happened.”
Ah Fei had already felt that Zhaodi was capable and might not necessarily think much of him. So when she left, she left. He took the money and didn’t pay much attention to it.
But Old Cai was different. After learning from Ah Fei that Zhaodi had an extraordinary memory, he became wary.
The people coming and going from Shanshui Villa were either rich or powerful. Besides, they were secretly doing those kinds of things. So after Old Cai learned that Zhaodi had such an ability, the first thing he did was send someone to keep an eye on her.
He was afraid Zhaodi had been sent by someone and would ruin their business when the time came.
So when Zhaodi left that day, Ah Fei didn’t know where she had gone, but Old Cai did.
In truth, Old Cai had someone follow Zhaodi merely as a precaution. Once he confirmed that Zhaodi didn’t know about Shanshui Villa’s internal dealings, he was planning to call his people back.
However, right at that moment, only a few days after Zhaodi left, someone came asking about her. And this person was willing to pay one hundred thousand yuan to buy information on Zhaodi’s whereabouts.