The club where Yang Xiaoyu once worked was surprisingly high-end.
The first floor was the public area, the second floor held private rooms, and the third floor offered even more privacy, with personal VIP suites reserved for the highest-tier members.
Ling Yue took one look at the extravagant décor and leaned toward Xia Ling, whispering, “Rich people’s entertainment, eh… ordinary folks like us can’t even imagine it.”
“Jealous?” Xia Ling asked. “Why don’t you tell Captain Han to get a membership one day. He can bring you over and broaden your horizons.”
Hearing that, Ling Yue snorted. “No thanks. Instead of throwing money at this place, I’d rather have Captain Han treat us to a big meal.”
“…No ambition,” Xia Ling clicked her tongue.
It wasn’t business hours, so after they showed their badges, the staff led them to a reception room. By the time Ling Yue, bored to death, finished his third cup of coffee, the club manager finally strolled in.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Officers,” Manager Liu said. “You understand, our hours are late. I went to sleep too late last night and just couldn’t get up.”
His mouth said sorry, but his face didn’t show a shred of apology, and yet, Xia Ling still smiled politely. “Manager Liu runs such a large establishment,” she said. “Busy people, busy schedules. It’s understandable.”
Anyone capable of running a club of that level wasn’t an ordinary person. Manager Liu clearly had backing, so the police did little to scare him. “And what brings you, officers, here today?” he asked.
Xia Ling didn’t bother wasting breath on someone who looked down on others because of his imaginary power, so she went straight to the subject, asking: “Manager Liu, do you remember Yang Xiaoyu?”
For the first time since the start of the conversation, Manager Liu’s lofty expression shifted as he pretended to think. “The name sounds familiar… let me… oh, yes. I recall now. He was a server here. Worked only a few months and left years ago.”
“Didn’t expect Manager Liu to have such a good memory,” Xia Ling said lightly. “To still remember a junior employee who worked only a few months and left such a long time ago…”
Manager Liu paused. But as expected of someone who managed an elite club, he quickly found an excuse and put on a polite, fake smile, answering: “My memory is average. The only reason I remember him is that he offended one of our VIP clients while he was here. It took quite some work on my part to calm that client down.”
“Is that so?” Xia Ling lifted an eyebrow. “Then,” she continued, “here’s something curious. If he offended such an important client, why did your club continue sending him large cash transfers every year on his birthday after he resigned?”
That wiped away the last of Manager Liu’s nonchalance.
“You’re saying that’s true?” he said carefully as Xia Ling showed him the evidence.
Manager Liu glanced at it with an overly theatrical frown, answering after a fake, dramatic pause: “I really wasn’t aware of this! Please wait here, I’ll ask Finance.”
“We’re in a hurry,” Xia Ling said. “We’ll go together.”
“…But Finance is a restricted area,” Manager Liu answered. “I must ask the officers to wait here.”
“You don’t trust the police, Manager Liu?”
Well, that shut him up as he obediently led them to the Finance office. However, when the head accountant saw the transfer records, he instinctively looked at Manager Liu, who shot him a warning glare.
The accountant turned back to them, saying vaguely: “Officers, give us a moment to verify this.”
About ten minutes later, he returned.
“Officers, apologies! This was an error on our side… A staff member somehow mixed up Yang Xiaoyu’s account with our Third Boss’s account. The annual dividend meant for the Third Boss was mistakenly sent to Yang Xiaoyu.”
Hearing that excuse, Ling Yue almost choked.
Did they take him for an idiot?!
“You people don’t check your accounts?” he sneered. “And that Third Boss of yours didn’t notice years of missing money?”
But the accountant only bowed his head. “It was indeed our mistake,” he answered. “The Third Boss is a major shareholder who doesn’t care about that amount, so he probably never reviewed it. That’s why the error continued for so many years. Luckily, you officers caught it, or we would’ve kept making mistakes!”
Ling Yue felt like he had swallowed a fly.
The excuse was garbage, but as long as they insisted on it, there was nothing the police could force from them here.
……………..
On the other side of the investigation, Xia Hang and Kong Qinmao arrived in the southern suburbs.
Yang Xiaoyu’s parents lived in the south of Lang City, an area full of rural rental houses belonging to farmers who built multiple buildings and lived comfortably off rental income. Most of the landlords now lived in the city, and only a few actually stayed in the outskirts.
Yang Xiaoyu’s parents were the rare exception, as they lived on the first floor of a small two-story house while renting out the second floor.
As Xia Hang and Kong Qinmao walked through the narrow alleyways, Kong Qinmao said, “Brother Hang, watch your step.” Though he looked older than Xia Hang, he was actually a year younger. However, neither of them was talkative, so aside from necessary words, the two walked the whole way in silence.
The narrow alleys were full of potholes, each filled with murky, black water. Xia Hang stepped carefully, but he soon noticed that Kong Qinmao was even steadier than he was.
And more than that. His partner seemed familiar with that maze of alleys. Several times, Xia Hang felt like they had circled back to where they started, but after winding left and right under Kong Qinmao’s lead, they finally reached the main road where Yang Xiaoyu’s parents lived.
“You’ve been here before?” Xia Hang asked.
However, Kong Qinmao shook his head. “No,” he answered. “My hometown is in Nanshi Town. I was a left-behind kid, and my grandfather raised me. When I was little, I often followed him to the city to walk street after street selling snacks, so I’m used to alleys like these.”
Xia Hang didn’t expect such a detailed answer. He felt a little embarrassed, as if he had touched something private, but Kong Qinmao caught his expression and smiled.
“It’s fine. I think those days were good,” he answered.
“Mm. I can imagine,” Xia Hang smiled too. “If there’s a chance, take me to your hometown sometime.”
“Sure,” Kong Qinmao said. “The rice noodles there are great. I’ll take you to try them.”
Still talking, they reached Yang Xiaoyu’s home. Their timing was coincidental as Yang Xiaoyu’s mother, Tian Gu, had just returned from the hospital with her husband after his round of chemotherapy.
Seeing the two officers at her doorstep, she pushed the old and frail man into a room and invited them to sit on the stone bench in the yard, wearing an extremely tense expression.
“You’re here to see me because…?” she asked.
“Auntie,” Kong Qinmao said directly, “we heard you’re short on money. Why not sell the apartment in Mingcheng Community?”
Tian Gu was only fifty-two, but after how life treated her, she looked closer to seventy. Glancing at the room where her husband was resting, she answered: “Xiaoyu’s father won’t sell it.”
“Why not?” Kong Qinmao asked.
“He doesn’t want to use that money.”
“What’s wrong with that money?”
Tian Gu opened her mouth, hesitated for a long time, then lowered her voice. “Did you find out… whose money it was?” she finally said. “Is that money… unclean?”
Kong Qinmao and Xia Hang exchanged a look as they abandoned the indirect approach, asking plainly: “Auntie, do you know Chen Zhengde?”
Tian Gu clearly had prepared herself from the moment they asked about the house money, so when she heard the name, her expression barely changed.
“I know him,” she said. “He’s Xiaoyu’s biological father.”
Well, the story was as predictable as they had guessed.
A village girl who left home for the city to work, young and pretty, caught the attention of a hooligan. Back then, Tian Gu was working at a late-night food stall. One evening, a drunk middle-aged man harassed her, and Chen Zhengde, a regular customer, saw it and stepped in. They fell in love and began living together, and soon enough, Tian Gu discovered she was pregnant.
However, just as she planned to tell Chen Zhengde, he was arrested.
The poor girl was left unmarried, pregnant, too ashamed to return home, and with no money for an abortion since she had been sending her wages back home every month. And when she was completely cornered, the man who was now her husband took her in, a divorced man who promised he would help her raise the child.
Life wasn’t wealthy after they married, but it was bearable, and her husband treated her well enough. Their only worrywas their rebellious son, who never listened to her or to the man who raised him.
When the boy was nineteen, Chen Zhengde suddenly appeared. He had run into her old stall owner and learned she had been pregnant back then.
But after confirming that Yang Xiaoyu was his son, he disappeared again.
Kong Qinmao asked, “He never showed up again?”
“Two months ago, when he learned Xiaoyu had died…” Tian Gu said, “he came once. He took away some of my son’s belongings.”
“He only found out two months ago?” Kong Qinmao asked.
“Mm.”
“What did he take?”
“His phone, his computer, a watch he wore often… and a few small things he liked.”
“Do you know how to contact him?”
“I don’t. I don’t have any way to reach him.”
“If he contacts you again,” Kong Qinmao said, “please notify us immediately.”
………………
By the time they returned to the Bureau, the DNA comparison results were out.
Chen Zhengde and Yang Xiaoyu were indeed father and son.
“So Chen Zhengde blamed all the residents of Building One for his son’s death?!” Ling Yue asked, feeling confused. “The elevator incident was his way of retaliating because they wouldn’t give him the property office’s number that night?!”
“…That seems to be the case.” Xia Ling said.
“That Yang Xiaoyu is strange, though,” Wen Yu interjected with a frown. “If he knew how to ask for a number in some chat group, why didn’t he just call the police?! Someone would have come to save him.”
“You can’t analyze a drunk man’s behavior with a sober person’s logic…” Zhang Tianhua said.
“But those residents are weird, too,” Ling Yue added. “We read the case file, and no one reported him disturbing the neighbors the night he died.”
“That’s normal,” Zhang Tianhua said. “When someone dies, most people prefer to let things go. The man died in a freak accident, so he’ll never bother them again. No need to speak ill of the dead.”
With that, Xia Ling turned to Han Huaixiao, asking, “Captain Han, can we issue the wanted notice now?”
Xia Hang also looked toward Han Huaixiao. They finally had a major breakthrough, yet his expression had only grown darker.
“…Captain Han? What’s wrong?” Kong Qinmao hesitated. “Is he not our suspect?”
“He is,” Han Huaixiao said, “but what do you think about someone like that?”
“Contemptuous of the law,” Zhang Tianhua started to describe the man. “Vicious, paranoid, and meticulous, with a strong anti-investigation awareness.”
Xia Hang looked at Han Huaixiao again and suddenly understood what he was thinking about.
“A man like him,” Han Huaixiao said in a low voice, “if he truly blames the entire Building One for Yang Xiaoyu’s death… do you really think a single elevator incident that only killed five random residents… would completely satisfy his desire for revenge?”
The room fell dead silent as every single person felt a cold shiver crawl down their back.
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