Chapter 74
Chapter 74
“Real bravery means protecting yourself, not challenging danger. If I’d known, I would’ve listened to Sheriff Labrador.”
Still shaken, Wu Xiaojiu hugged himself and cried silently.
That had been terrifying.
In the end, that ax had been only a few millimeters from his neck. He’d been like a piglet waiting to be slaughtered, unable to move a muscle.
If Bo Suihan hadn’t spoken up with that threat at the last second, Wu Xiaojiu would probably be a ghost right now.
Seeing him safe and sound, Wang Qiang suddenly let out a breath of relief and, still trembling, stuffed his weapon back into his pocket.
Then he burst into tears on the spot and hugged Wu Xiaojiu, begging for comfort.
Only, the second he hugged him, there came a creak-creak of brittle plastic from Wang Qiang’s shoulder.
Wu Xiaojiu’s expression tightened. He grabbed Wang Qiang by the shoulder and pressed his thumb hard against the creaking spot.
“No way, Wang Qiang. You just entered society, you’re still an intern, and you’ve already lost an arm? Is this a prosthetic?”
The tears dried on Wang Qiang’s face. Speechless, he lifted his head.
He slapped Wu Xiaojiu’s hand away. “Get lost!” he said through gritted teeth. “These are my shoulder pads. If I can’t grow to six feet with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, am I not allowed to cheat a little?”
Wu Xiaojiu couldn’t hold back his laughter at the sight of him. At least the mood finally lightened a little.
At the entrance to the bureau.
Bo Suihan first said a few words to calm Lanzi down. Once he saw the man had fully softened, he used the walkie-talkie to call for a helicopter to land directly, then let Lanzi enter the bureau.
“Stand on my side, and I’ll let you take the money for free. Now talk. What exactly does the Village Chief mean?”
At first, Lanzi still refused to tell the truth, stammering and making up nonsense.
Bo Suihan looked at him, then simply placed the head on the table.
“The deceased is right here. The dead deserve respect. Look into his eyes and say that again. Can you?”
Lanzi took one look and nearly jumped out of his skin. What eyes? That head’s features were so mangled they couldn’t even be made out.
“Honestly, what you just said is definitely fake. If the Village Chief has nothing to hide, why would he care about the corpse of an outsider who has nothing to do with him? And why would he hire you to stir up public outrage?”
Bo Suihan sat at the other end of the table with one leg crossed over the other, his tone calm and unhurried. In front of him sat a cup of hot tea, the rising steam blurring his face.
Lanzi started to panic. He didn’t want to offend the Village Chief, and with his backbone and courage, there was no way he’d dare reveal the inside story.
Not until someone pressed a pure-gold bean across the table with an index finger.
“A small token from our Dragon King.”
Lanzi picked up the gold bean, held it up to the sunlight, then bit down on it with a crack between his teeth.
He immediately raised his head.
“I’ll tell you everything!”
Wu Xiaojiu and Wang Qiang were playing around like two grade-school brats, while Senior was still trying to persuade the duty cop to run the DNA test.
No one noticed there was a suspect giving a statement on Bo Suihan’s side.
By the time all four of them were exhausted and sprawled over the table, wondering what to eat for lunch,
Bo Suihan had already taken the statement and found the duty cop.
“With this, can we run the DNA test?”
“Even if you had the Village Chief’s confession, you’re still not allowed to run it!”
The duty cop was furious. He’d been pestered all morning, hadn’t even eaten breakfast, and had no idea whether lunch would make it into his mouth either.
Now the very person who’d been hounding him was asking him to run a DNA test again.
He immediately slapped the table, snatched the paper over, and gave it a rough skim.
Then his whole body went stiff.
“No, wait, bro-go ahead, go ahead. With this, it’s basically halfway to a conviction!”
Seeing that the duty cop had relented, Wang Qiang didn’t bother asking why. Cradling the head in his arms, he trotted off happily toward the DNA room, calling Wu Xiaojiu over along the way.
The DNA test wasn’t particularly complicated. Once the samples were collected and placed into the machine, all they had to do was wait a while for the results to show up.
And the results were a holy-shit kind of result.
The moment the results came out, the cop on duty received a phone call. Someone had poured sulfuric acid into the grave pit. Not only was the head nowhere to be found, even the coffin and corpse had been drenched in chemicals.
The cop on duty clicked his tongue as he listened, thinking that the Gang of Four had actually guessed right for once. Something really had gone wrong.
The door to the testing lab was kicked open with a bang.
Wang Qiang strode out with the results in hand, swaggering like he owned the place. Behind him, Wu Xiaojiu pushed a cart, and on the cart sat the head.
The two of them looked incredibly imposing.
“It belongs to the Village Chief’s Daughter. Once we ran this DNA through the central database, his daughter’s face popped right up. Her identity information is written clear as day. There’s no denying it this time!”
The cop on duty hurriedly took the file and examined it carefully from top to bottom, then immediately picked up his walkie-talkie.
“You’re smarter than you look. If this case is really as you said, then you and the other three have done a great service. At the very least, you’ll get a second-class merit recommendation, and your internship becoming a permanent position goes without saying.”
Wang Qiang was delighted. He folded his arms and said with a grin, “Of course. With me and Xiaojiu around, world peace is guaranteed.” After basking in his own smugness, he tugged at Wu Xiaojiu and, thinking he was whispering, said, “Once you finish this case, you’ll definitely be famous in the police station just like me. When the time comes, I’ll ask the higher-ups to bring you in as an external detective. The two of us joining forces will be invincible!”
“What external detective?”
Bo Suihan handed over a statement.
Wang Qiang took it. He hadn’t heard Bo Suihan’s conversation with Lanzi and assumed it was just some ordinary information. As he read, he swung his legs and replied, “None of your business. Either way, Xiaojiu won’t have to rely on your handouts to survive anymore. He’ll have a proper job, and he’ll be able to support his parents and family himself.”
Wu Xiaojiu glanced at him, then raised his eyes and shared a smile with Bo Suihan.
Neither of them said a word, leaving Wang Qiang completely in the dark.
The more Wang Qiang read, the more wrong it felt. By the time he reached the end, he sprang to his feet, holding up the document with a face full of disbelief.
“This is… a statement?”
Before his words had even faded, outside the police station, the villagers had returned. The hammers, sickles, axes, and other farm tools in their hands still hadn’t been put down.
Their expressions were furious, even more so than before.
“Come out! You dared to trick us. Don’t think that just because the Village Chief is kindhearted, you can use this matter to throw your weight around.”
“That’s right! The Village Chief already told us. It’s only because Lanzi is too poor that he paid to help him. Once we bring the head back, he’ll give us money too!”
The villagers raised their arms and shouted.
From the sound of it, the Village Chief must have promised them benefits.
“That’s quite the payout.”
Wu Xiaojiu leaned back in his chair. Wang Qiang stood up with the statement in hand, ready to confront the villagers.
But Senior reached out and stopped him.
The man shook his head at him.
“A position like Village Chief is basically that of a local emperor around here. Besides, this statement was taken too hastily. That young friend of yours is probably new and doesn’t know the procedure. And even if someone testifies, without physical evidence, we still can’t convict the Village Chief. On the contrary, if we take this statement and confront them with it, it could easily be construed as insult and defamation.”
Wang Qiang froze, but then immediately pulled the DNA verification out of his pocket.
“Then what if we have DNA authentication? Doesn’t that indirectly prove the Village Chief knew the corpse’s head belonged to his daughter, but concealed it for personal reasons instead of reporting it?”
Senior paused.
Then he shook his head.