Chapter 17

Chapter 17

“It wasn’t vitamins. It was potassium cyanide in a vitamin bottle,” Pei Yuming said, his patience nearly gone. He yanked open the drawer of the nightstand and started rummaging through it himself. “Where do you keep all the medicine at home? Did you hide it on purpose?”

Bai Xue opened the wardrobe, took out a white plastic box from the bottom, and tossed it across the bed to Pei Yuming.

“All the medicine in our house is in there. Look for yourself. Take whatever you want.”

Pei Yuming shot her a suspicious look, then lowered his head and opened it quickly.

He dumped everything onto the bed. With one casual sweep, he found a small bottle of vitamin C. From the outside, it looked exactly like the one Cao Lei had shown him in the interrogation room.

“This is it!”

His eyes lit up. He glanced at Bai Xue, then carefully unscrewed the cap.

By then, Bai Xue had slowly circled around to Pei Yuming’s side. She kicked away the knife he had left on the carpet, then looked curiously at the bottle of pills.

Pei Yuming’s expression shifted swiftly from delight to fury. He smashed the bottle onto the floor. “It’s not this. How can it not be this?”

Seeing that he was about to lose control again, Bai Xue turned and tried to run out, but she was a step too slow.

Pei Yuming grabbed her arm and yanked her back, roaring, “Talk! Where the hell did you hide the poison?”

“What poison? I’ve never seen any poison!” Bai Xue struggled against him. “Pei Yuming, what are you trying to do? I haven’t done anything to you. What right do you have to treat me like this?”

“What right?” Pei Yuming laughed in anger. “Bai Xue, do you really think I don’t know?”

“Know… what?”

Pei Yuming pointed at her. “Fine. Come with me.”

Pei Yuming dragged Bai Xue out the door. Perhaps his expression was too certain, because Bai Xue seemed to realize something and fought desperately to stop him from leaving.

But the difference in their strength and build was too great. In the end, Pei Yuming dragged her out of the bedroom with one hand.

Just as they were struggling on this side, a sharp crash suddenly rang out from the living room. Rapid footsteps followed, along with Pei Yucheng’s cry of pain.

“Ah… Bro! Lu Dong ran off!”

Pei Yuming no longer had time for Bai Xue. He rushed into the living room and saw his younger brother sitting on the floor with a hand over his head. Red wine had spilled everywhere beside him, along with a shattered wine bottle.

Pei Yuming hurried after Lu Dong, but Lu Dong had long since vanished.

He kicked the wall, then turned and came back inside.

“What do we do, Bro? Is he going to call the police?” Pei Yucheng asked worriedly.

Pei Yuming was much calmer than expected. He checked the wound on his brother’s head, and only after confirming it was nothing serious did he personally find supplies to clean and bandage it.

Only then did he realize he might have made a mistake.

If there was already a vitamin bottle in his home, then the killer had no need to bring such an obvious, easily discovered container with them. All they needed was a small sealed bag to bring the potassium cyanide upstairs, hide it in some corner, then put the remainder into the bottle after using it, making it look like he had done it.

The more Pei Yuming thought about it, the more likely that seemed. He looked again at the people in the room and once more felt that any one of them could be the killer.

Searching the place all over again was clearly unrealistic. Besides, Lu Dong had already run off. More importantly, he had been thinking about finding the killer far too simplistically. If the killer were that easy to catch, the police would not still be wasting effort interrogating him.

“What’s on the phone?” Pei Yuming walked over and naturally took the phone from Su Jin’s hand.

Bai Xue watched him warily, hiding behind Su Jin.

“I didn’t find anything. He deleted things pretty thoroughly, and there aren’t many contacts either, just a little over two hundred,” Su Jin said. “Maybe it really is like he said. Just a work phone.”

Pei Yuming obviously did not believe that. He glanced at Bai Xue, whose eyes were evasive. “What do you think?”

“How would I know? The phone is in your hands. Can’t you look at it yourself?” Bai Xue refused to take the bait.

Pei Yuming opened the contacts one by one. From the profile pictures and saved names alone, he could not see anything suspicious. It also seemed as if all of these people, as a group, did not like posting to Moments. He checked more than twenty contacts in a row, and none of them had any Moments posts.

Pei Yuming scrolled down. He had a feeling that none of the contacts here had Moments at all.

By then, Pei Yucheng had recovered a little and came over with a hand pressed to his head. He suggested, “How about sending a message and seeing what happens?”