Chapter 27
Chapter 27
This model was a children’s companion watch. After what had happened with the Qi Family, the Wu Family was afraid Wu Xiaojiu might get lost, so they had given him one when he was little. It had real-time positioning and heart-rate monitoring.
Qi Jiao had one too, and he had added Wu Xiaojiu as a friend on the watch.
Aside from those common functions, this model had another feature.
Handwritten text could be sent in real time to a friend’s watch home screen.
After the three words “I miss you” appeared,
along with that faint buzzing came a shared heartbeat on the digital touch screen.
Wu Xiaojiu lowered his eyes and looked at those three words for two seconds, waiting until the handwriting slowly faded.
Only then did he follow Bo Suihan’s retreating back and catch up.
…
The Police Station paid another visit to the hospital.
A crowd of leaders, doctors, nurses, police, and officers stood there.
In silence, they stared at the things on the ground.
The Old Police Officer from yesterday had his eyebrows standing on end.
He pointed at the horrifying scene before him.
Then he looked at Wang Xiao.
“You’re sure these are what you found yesterday?”
Wang Xiao nodded rapidly, like a chick pecking at grain.
“This is beyond wicked. How is this any different from the case ten years ago… Wang Xiao, come out with me for a moment.”
The heads on the ground were gathered up and taken away.
It was almost noon by the time Wang Xiao, drenched in sweat, came out of the Senior Leadership Interview Room.
Wu Xiaojiu and Bo Suihan were summoned to the Police Station by one phone call from him.
The three of them met once again at the entrance of the Police Station.
“The leaders said that if it weren’t for you two, those heads probably would’ve had to start stinking inside the tree hollow before anyone found them. They think you two have a lot of talent, and they also looked into your backgrounds. Clean as clean can be.”
“So they want you to assist the Police Station in solving the case.”
As Wang Xiao spoke, he led them inside.
Wu Xiaojiu and Bo Suihan were shoved into the job before they could refuse.
They entered the Police Station, and no one even offered them a sip of tea before they were sent straight to the Mortuary.
A Headless Female Corpse lay on a stretcher in the very center of the room.
Wang Xiao was the first one in, and also the first one to crouch down.
Grimacing, he reached out and pointed at the female corpse.
“Yesterday, the Hotel Owner reported that a Young Couple had checked into his shady, unlicensed little hotel. They left before dawn. When the cleaning auntie went in to tidy the room, she saw this body lying openly on the bed.”
“No one knows whether it was on purpose or by accident, but that Young Couple didn’t get far. They were also caught on surveillance both entering and leaving the hotel. They’re in the Interrogation Room right now. The suspicion on them is strong, strong enough that the case could basically be closed.”
Wu Xiaojiu also crouched down beside the female corpse.
He had seen plenty of bloody scenes before, and even a Headless Corpse was no longer anything unusual to him. The first thing he did was examine the severed surface.
He found that it was almost identical to the cut on the bird-nest tree. Both were equally clean and decisive.
“If the case is already this clear, why keep digging?”
“There must be something hidden in it. For example, both Young Couple pairs might not have had time to commit the crime, or they might not have had a motive.”
Wu Xiaojiu had only just asked the question when Bo Suihan immediately answered.
Following that last sentence, Wang Xiao nodded.
He pointed at the female corpse’s ankle, telling the two of them to look.
“Both members of the Young Couple are under one meter seventy, and they’re very thin. Even the boy weighs less than a hundred jin. This female corpse’s ankle was forcibly twisted and bent by someone. Even with tools to help, it would be difficult to do.”
The female corpse’s right foot was bent at an extremely distorted angle, the heel taking the place where the toes should have been.
The toes pointed straight toward the floor.
From the knee down, the entire lower leg looked like a twisted braid of dough.
“That’s not what you’re really suspicious about, is it? In ordinary cases, the police are always eager to close the file. Only this time, even with the suspects’ faces caught clearly on camera, no one dares to make a final call. I’m afraid the two suspects have unusual identities, and this female corpse’s status isn’t ordinary either.”
Bo Suihan stood up with his arms folded and spoke coldly.
Even after being exposed, Wang Xiao did not get angry. He glanced at him with a chuckle, then muttered with a curl of his lip, “Nothing ever gets past you. The female suspect is the daughter of the Zhao Family, and the female corpse is the daughter of the Qian Family.”
“Although the Zhao Family and the Qian Family aren’t as wealthy as the Su Family, they’re still prominent families in this city. More importantly, the two families are joined by marriage. They’re deeply tied together, and all kinds of projects involve both families working together.”
“If the Zhao Family’s daughter killed the Qian Family’s daughter, then this wouldn’t just be a grudge between two households. It would be a feud between two entire families. The higher-ups want this handled carefully.”
While he was speaking, Wu Xiaojiu’s watch kept vibrating.
After Wang Xiao finished, the vibration moved to his phone.
Usually, Wu Xiaojiu only turned on message alerts for important contacts. Everyone else he was not familiar with was generally muted.
So he did not pay it any mind.
He continued listening seriously to Bo Suihan and Wang Xiao.
But the frequency of the vibrations was really getting excessive. It went from one buzz per sentence Wang Xiao spoke to buzzing twice per sentence.
The phone kept vibrating like spam messages, without stopping for even a moment.
By the end, even someone as good-tempered as Wu Xiaojiu was starting to get annoyed.
While the two of them were still talking, he lowered his head and quietly slacked off.
“Who is this? Sending messages nonstop without caring whether I’m annoyed or not. Once I find you, I’m deleting you.”
As soon as he unlocked his phone, it was not hard to find the person messaging him.
Because the messages were coming in so quickly, that contact stayed firmly at the top of the list.
Without thinking, Wu Xiaojiu tapped open the chat, intending to delete the person.
But when he actually entered the chat and saw the contact note,
his finger froze.
It really was not a spam call or spam message.
The person messaging him was none other than Qi Jiao.
Whether this young master had too much free time on his hands or not, he was like a wild bull gone mad, single-handedly driving Wu Xiaojiu’s chat notifications straight to 99+.
And the messages he sent were not useless memes, either.
They were actual lines of text, one after another.
The contents were roughly as follows.
“Did you see the words on the watch? Why aren’t you replying to me? What are you doing right now?”
“Why are you ignoring me? Do you miss me? Should I come find you first?”
“Why didn’t you go to Liu Chengyi’s bar? Where are you right now? Did you go out fooling around?”
“…”
Without exception, they were all questions. Short and sharp, with a question mark after an average of six or seven words.
After scrolling through the string of messages, Wu Xiaojiu’s hand was almost sore, yet Qi Jiao’s messages still seemed endless.
He was even still frantically sending more.
Wu Xiaojiu thought for a moment, then opened the chat input, intending to type a reply to Qi Jiao.
And in the exact same second that he started typing,
Qi Jiao’s side immediately went quiet.
“What are you doing? Not listening properly while we’re talking. If something goes wrong during the interrogation later, you won’t even realize you’ve made a mistake.”
Just then, Bo Suihan appeared out of nowhere with a sinister air.
His head rested against Wu Xiaojiu’s shoulder.
His eyes stared straight at Qi Jiao’s chat window.
Then Wu Xiaojiu heard a soft laugh by his ear.
“Oh. So you’re chatting with your lover boy.”
For some reason, Wu Xiaojiu felt guilty. After being questioned like that, he instinctively snapped his phone shut.
Then he waved his hands in a panic.
“No, no. He’s just an ordinary friend.”