Chapter 29

Chapter 29

It was the twenty-first century, and society was enlightened, sure, but apparently not that enlightened.

Miss Zhao’s luggage contained more than just a person.

There was also renminbi, Rolexes, pearls, and the usual assortment of luxury goods. Even the cheapest thing in there could sell for over a hundred thousand.

Miss Zhao nodded through her sobs.

Wang Xiao immediately glared at the man in fury, the ballpoint pen in his hand creaking under his grip.

In a dark, low growl, he muttered, “Why? He’s just a commoner like me, and he isn’t even as good-looking as I am. Why does he get to hook up with a young lady of the Zhao Family and become her boy toy?”

But Miss Zhao shook her head again.

In a soft, delicate voice, she recounted the whole story from the beginning.

That day had been her engagement banquet. She had wanted to elope.

But not with this Deaf Man. She had her own beloved sweetheart.

By some bizarre twist of fate, however, she had ended up running away with this Deaf Man instead.

And once she had run out, she could not run back home.

Given the Zhao Family’s temperament, they would definitely beat her half to death.

With no other choice, Miss Zhao had no choice but to endure one night with the Deaf Man.

They had no ID cards, so they could not go to a proper hotel. They could only find some sketchy roadside motel.

When the man running the motel saw the two of them, he handed over the key card to a room with one large bed. Miss Zhao explained that they were not in that kind of relationship.

The motel guy just said, “I get it, I get it.”

“So after you went into the motel and started sorting through the luggage, you found that Headless Corpse among your pile of luxury goods?”

The direction this story was taking was getting a little absurd. Wang Xiao scratched his head.

Miss Zhao nodded tearfully.

She also said that, at the time, in order to run off with her sweetheart as quickly as possible, she had specifically had the Deaf Man drive a small roadside cart and put her luggage inside it.

When they reached the motel, the Hotel Owner had also casually helped unload the luggage from the cart.

Who would have thought that, once they were in the room and started checking everything, they would discover a quilt among the bed full of luxury goods?

It was filthy and tattered. When they opened it, there was the Headless Corpse.

“In that case, the Hotel Owner is a little suspicious. He had every opportunity to tamper with things while helping unload the luggage.”

Wu Xiaojiu tilted his head and nodded.

Bo Suihan glanced at him, then swallowed back whatever he had been about to say.

“No, that doesn’t fit. People need time to accept the presence of something. If the Hotel Owner had really planted it, then with a quilt sitting so openly among the luxury goods, Miss Zhao should have noticed something was wrong without even opening it.”

“That quilt must have been in the cart for a while. At the very least, Miss Zhao must have seen it so much that it started looking normal to her, and she ignored the dirty quilt’s existence.”

As Wang Xiao spoke, he turned to Miss Zhao and rattled off a long string of words, asking her to translate for the Deaf Man.

Miss Zhao’s sign language was fluent and standard. The Deaf Man only glanced at it before replying in clumsy speech, “That quilt weren’t mine neither. Something did happen on the road, though. Back then, this girl was chasing me from behind, and I was driving up front. I didn’t dare go too fast, so I just went along real slow, ’cause I didn’t know what she was chasing me for.”

“And on top of that, she was the one who gave me the cart key. She didn’t tell me anything about the luggage either, just dumped it all onto my cart in one go. So we went on like that, one running and one driving, and after a stretch of road, the cart flipped.”

“I remember it was a ditch. The wheel spun and slid right in. Everything inside fell out. That was also when she looked at me and screamed. I didn’t hear nothing, but her mouth was open real wide.”

The more the Deaf Man talked, the more animated he became.

Wu Xiaojiu listened from the side, his brows knitting tighter and tighter.

When the other man kept rambling and seemed ready to continue, Wu Xiaojiu raised a hand to cut him off.

“Miss Zhao, translate this for me. You two had never met before, and this man’s accent isn’t even local. How did you mistake each other for someone else?”

Miss Zhao conveyed the question in real time.

The Deaf Man slapped his forehead.

“I don’t know either. She seemed real familiar with me, real eager, so I just got all muddled. I followed her gestures, and somehow we ended up like this.”
He was really confused.
Wu Xiaojiu raised an eyebrow and smacked his forehead.
So there were people even dumber than him.
And even unluckier, carelessly picking up a girl and then inexplicably getting tangled in a murder case.
“Where did the car flip? Can you take us there?”
Wang Xiao nodded, stood up, and unlocked the handcuffs for the two.
Then he pointed at Wu Xiaojiu and Bo Suihan, positioning them one on each side of the pair.
They were to keep an eye on this girl and the Deaf Man.
“Just like that, you believed them? Aren’t you afraid they’re fooling us?”
Driving all the way north, Wu Xiaojiu couldn’t help but ask curiously.
Wang Xiao was driving up front and waved him off when he had a moment.
“That Zhao girl looks like an honest kid at first glance, and the Deaf Man goes without saying-a simple, unadorned country folk. When they run into the police, not shouting ‘Lord of Justice’ is already good enough. How could we falsely accuse them?”
Following the Deaf Man’s description, the group arrived behind a dog factory and found the ditch he had mentioned.
Just as Wang Xiao was about to crouch down and examine the tire tracks, the dog factory’s door opened.
Previously, with an iron gate between them, the barking had been incessant.
Now that the door opened, the dogs inside saw strangers.
Like they’d seen shit, they couldn’t contain their excitement, yapping wildly.
The noise was so loud it could rupture eardrums; even the Deaf Man could tell from their behavior that it was a racket.
“What’re you doin’? Don’t go loitering around here for no reason. We let the dogs roam sometimes, and they’ll bite. If you get chewed up, don’t come blaming us.”
A burly man covered in tattoos walked out from inside.
His eyes seemed to be perched on his forehead; he didn’t give them a straight look.
His tone was fierce.
Wang Xiao was sharp, and after struggling in society for so long, he knew that when facing a brute like this, you shouldn’t try force.
He stepped forward to offer a cigarette, but the big man shoved him back.
“What? You think you can bribe me with your cheap, three-yuan cigarettes? Get lost, you broke beggar.”
As he spoke, he started opening the dog cages in the yard, ready to release a few vicious dogs to scare them off.
At this critical moment, Bo Suihan, who had been silent all along, stepped forward.
His eyes filled with impatience, he glanced at the big man.
“We’re handling a case. If you don’t want this place shut down, be good and lock up your doors. It’s so damn noisy.”
The big man turned and saw an unfamiliar, fresh face. Coupled with Bo Suihan’s high-school-student attire, he laughed dismissively.
“Screw you, ‘handling a case.’ Look at you, a greenhorn no older than twenty. Even if you’re pretending, at least make it convincing. Don’t play house with me here-get lost!”
The first half of the big man’s words made sense, the second half was passable, but that last word, “get lost”-it triggered Bo Suihan’s red line.
Like an AI hitting a trigger keyword, his face turned cold.
“You’re insulting me? Apologize.”
Bo Suihan picked up a stick from nearby, weighed it in his hand, and stepped forward expressionlessly.
The bald man was so angry he laughed.
Rolling up his sleeves, he advanced while cursing.
“Holy mother, it’s the first time someone dares cause trouble here with me. I’m telling you, once I beat you down today, I’ll chop you up and feed you to the dogs, no matter who you are!”
But before he could get close, almost the instant the words left his mouth, there was a buzzing sound.
The big man was sent flying.
The people present barely saw Bo Suihan make a move.
And Bo Suihan stood there without flinching, staring indifferently at the big man who had crashed down, his life or death uncertain.
“I said, apologize.”