chapter 26
Seventh Master’s words had already left me somewhat numb.
The more we investigated, the more mysteries we uncovered.
The more we tried to resolve them, the more trouble we seemed to stir up.
As for the person from last night-who exactly was he? Was he Lv Zhengxian’s accomplice? We had no idea.
All we knew now was that this person knew a thing or two, and was well-versed in metaphysics. In any case, we’d made an enemy.
Meng Yifan and I put away the Talisman Paper, and prepared to tidy up the things in the living room.
Halfway through cleaning, Meng Yifan seemed to have found something.
“Chen Mo, look at this.”
He handed me a wooden block.
The block looked like a fragment that had splintered off something broken, and one side was coated with dark red paint.
I turned it over and over, but just couldn’t imagine what the original object had been.
Besides, this thing definitely wasn’t something brought by Seventh Master or Xiao Qing.
“Where did you find it?” I asked Meng Yifan.
He pointed to the spot by the door.
My expression changed. “This might have been dropped by the person who knocked out Seventh Master last night.”
At the time, he’d kicked over the candles and Command Flags, then tried to make a run for it, but I was quick and managed to grab his leg.
He’d ended up falling right at the doorway.
I thought, maybe his leg was injured not because he hit his knee, but because when he fell, his thigh pressed against something in his pocket.
That thing broke, and this half of the wooden block splintered off.
So whatever it was, it couldn’t have been very big…
“Could it be a Seal?”
Meng Yifan’s intelligence kicked in again. He analyzed, “If it jabbed his leg so hard, and it’s not big, and it’s made of wood, it really sounds like a Seal.”
Hearing him say that, I suddenly felt that it must be a Seal.
Whenever our shop closed a deal, we’d use a Seal to stamp the contract. We used it all the time, and now, looking at that half piece of wood, it really did look like it had broken off a Seal.
“Let’s keep it safe. It might come in handy later.”
After putting away the broken piece of wood, we finished cleaning the living room and left.
Once we got in the car, I hurriedly called Brother Liu to ask for his help again.
On the phone, he told us he’d already found the old ID photos of Li Xiumei and Lv Zhengxian, and would bring them when we met for lunch.
There were still more than two hours until noon.
With nothing else to do, Meng Yifan and I, exhausted, found a random massage parlor.
We both had a soft spot for massages and baths.
When we came out, we felt refreshed and full of energy.
Since Brother Liu had to go back to work in the afternoon, we didn’t go to a big restaurant, just found a decent place nearby.
While we were eating, Brother Liu handed us a thick file folder.
It seemed to contain a lot of things.
Meng Yifan and I couldn’t care less about food-we dumped everything out to take a look.
The first thing we checked were the ID photos of Li Xiumei and Lv Zhengxian, but they were just copies, in black and white.
Even so, we finally saw what Li Xiumei looked like.
I had to admit, Li Xiumei was quite pretty-even the ID photo and the copy couldn’t hide her natural beauty.
“You two are looking at black and white, but mine’s not. That crazy woman is actually pretty good-looking.”
Brother Liu said with a grin, sipping his soup.
Meng Yifan reminded him, “Brother Liu, show some respect. We just saw her last night. Be careful, she might come looking for you.”
Brother Liu instantly froze, as if he had swallowed a dead fly. He shrank his neck and fell silent.
Next, we saw a photo of Lv Zhengxian. Sure enough, he looked exactly as Xiao Qing had described-a square face.
But the photo was in black and white, so we couldn’t see the large mole on his earlobe.
I asked Brother Liu, “Lv Zhengxian was identified by the police as the perpetrator of the Massacre Case fifteen years ago. How come he hasn’t been caught after all these years?”
Brother Liu smiled and said, “Back then, criminal investigation technology was still underdeveloped. There weren’t many surveillance cameras on the streets, and the DNA database was incomplete. How could they catch him? He could easily get a fake ID. As long as he didn’t commit any crimes, who would check on him? Who would know he was the culprit of the Massacre Case?”
Meng Yifan asked curiously, “I’ve seen that in recent years, the police have managed to catch quite a few fugitives who had been on the run for years just by checking IDs. Why haven’t they found him?”
Brother Liu, being a professional, naturally knew more than we did. He laughed and said, “You said it yourself-those are the ones they caught. Of course, when they catch someone, they want to take credit for it. But there are plenty they haven’t caught. Those are embarrassments-who would want to expose their shame for you all to gossip about?”
“Let me tell you, there are plenty of unsolved cases. Half of the files stacked up in the archives are old, unresolved cases. Whether some cases can be solved or not often comes down to luck.”
“Of course, it’s not that we’re incompetent. After all, we’re not Sherlock Holmes, right?”
Meng Yifan and I expressed our understanding.
We’re all just ordinary people-no one has a few extra brains.
Take the situation we’re facing now-even if Sherlock Holmes were here, he’d probably have to listen to two nights of ghostly knocking first.
I asked Brother Liu, “Based on your experience, do you think the police can catch Lv Zhengxian this time?”
Brother Liu put down his chopsticks, and when he started talking about his profession, he became serious: “I’m not bragging, but I’ve handled a few big cases myself. In my experience, the police will definitely go all out to catch this dangerous individual.”
“With the current criminal investigation technology, the chances of catching him are much higher than before.”
“But to be honest, he’s been on the run for so many years-the success rate can’t possibly be one hundred percent. If they still can’t catch him this time, I think it’s highly likely that he’s already had plastic surgery. As long as he doesn’t commit any crimes and the police don’t collect his DNA, we might never be able to catch him in our lifetime.”
Plastic surgery…
I didn’t ask any further. After all, Brother Liu had already given his professional opinion.
If the police could really catch Lv Zhengxian, he wouldn’t have brought up the possibility of plastic surgery.
I hurried to look at the thick stack of files.
These were the materials I had asked Brother Liu to look up for me this morning-cases of young women who had died accidentally in the past year.
I narrowed the age range to nineteen to twenty-two.
Brother Liu found a total of eighteen cases, eight of which involved university students.
I focused on these eight cases first. Each file contained detailed information about the deceased, along with photos.
It turned out that asking Brother Liu to check these things was not in vain.
I found information about the girl who knocked on the door!
She was in one of the files, and she had died not long ago-just three months ago!
“Boss Meng, look, it’s her!”
I hurriedly handed the file to Meng Yifan.
Meng Yifan glanced at it and immediately swallowed hard.
Du Yuwei, female, twenty-one years old, a student in the Finance Department at the University of Posts and Telecommunications, died in a car accident three months ago.
What shocked Meng Yifan and me even more was that Du Yuwei was the adopted daughter of Du Ruhai, a famous real estate entrepreneur in Lanjiang City!