Qiming Chapter 43

Chapter 43

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"Hey... are you planning to stay here long?" Gu Yunfeng finally couldn't resist asking as he watched Xu Chengyue unpack towels, a toothbrush, cups, clothes, and a thermos from the twenty-eight-inch suitcase he had dragged in.

"It shouldn't be more than two years, right?" Xu Chengyue replied without looking up, bending over to retrieve a few shirts that were almost balled up from the inner compartment. He frowned and shook his head, then grabbed some hangers from the empty closet and hung the shirts directly inside.

"Do you have a garment steamer?" he asked, pointing at the clothes in the closet.

"Huh?" Gu Yunfeng mumbled with a mouth full of toothpaste. Realising what he meant, he quickly rinsed his mouth and fetched a small steam iron from a corner. "Only this one."

Seeing the slightly disdainful look in Xu Chengyue's eyes, Gu Yunfeng ruffled his hair and said, "I'm feeding you, housing you, and now I'm forced to be your bodyguard, don't be so picky, just make do and stop complaining."

"See if there are any other daily necessities you need. If they're not too expensive, I'll buy them for you."

With that, Gu Yunfeng took out his phone, logged onto an e-commerce app, and started browsing for furniture. He needed to immediately buy a bed for his small room filled with photos and case analysis. If Professor Xu was really going to stay long-term, he had to move him into that small room and not let him occupy his own room while he was condemned to the sofa.

"Professor Xu, what size bed do you prefer?" he asked while scrolling through the options, remembering he should consider the user's opinion.

"At least one-metre eight wide, must be solid wood, with eco-friendly paint, a frame structure, non-spliced bed boards, preferably mahogany or black walnut, if not, then oak, pine is too soft, not acceptable..."

"Okay, got it, I promise you'll be satisfied." Gu Yunfeng quickly stopped him from continuing. The small room could only fit a one-metre five bed at most, and he didn't have much money, so he sorted by price from low to high and chose one of the top-listed stores. Professor Xu was quite thin, so one-metre-two would do. He quickly made the purchase and paid, and it was expected to be delivered and installed within a week.

Of course, the best solution was still to quickly uncover the truth behind Professor Xu's accidental fall, so he could completely escape all dangers. Gu Yunfeng vaguely felt that these matters had an inextricable relationship with Professor Xu's laboratory, Nanpu University, and even the AI detective system he was assigned to.

Speaking of this AI detective system, what exactly was it?

"Actually, I'm quite worried." Xu Chengyue, feeling a bit sore in his arm, paused the steam iron he was using, and the house suddenly fell silent. He turned to Gu Yunfeng and said, "If it really can't be solved even after dragging it out for two years, how will we ensure our safety in the future?"

"First of all, it's not we, it's you." Gu Yunfeng took a chilled watermelon from the fridge and sliced it in half. He mumbled, "I'm not the one being targeted, you are."

"Secondly, if we can't find the person harming you, we might not survive for two years." He looked up sorrowfully, placing half the watermelon in front of Xu Chengyue with a spoon in the middle. He used his hand to measure the size, thinking it was too big for Professor Xu to finish alone, and put the other half back in the fridge.

He stared at the spoon in the middle of the half watermelon and suddenly remembered it was the only one in the house.

The spoon had to be shared. Finding a girlfriend would be even harder now.

Gu Yunfeng shook his head helplessly. "In the end, you're delaying my marriage prospects like this."

He thought to himself how unlucky he was, with a ticking time bomb falling from the sky and landing right on him, impossible to shake off.

"What's it got to do with me? You hadn't found one before meeting me either." Xu Chengyue didn't hold back, scooping out the middle part of the watermelon.

"Who said that? Nonsense."

He was known for his good luck with the opposite sex, especially young girls, earning the nickname 'girl-killer'. His lack of marriage prospects was because firstly he was too busy, secondly, he didn't want to harm innocent girls, and most importantly, he worked himself to death for a year but he couldn't seem to save any money, and he couldn't even afford a proper gift for a significant other.

Thinking of this, he imagined Shu Pan and a few young officers bending over in the bushes, searching for the expensive item he mentioned – Xu Chengyue’s watch that had been thrown into the roadside weeds. It was better to have others help share the blame for the mistakes he made in the heat of the moment.

Just as he was about to criticise Professor Xu for only eating the best part of the watermelon, he noticed his phone screen flashing, indicating a new message.

In the split second the screen flashed, he grabbed Xu Chengyue's arm, pointing at the phone screen. "What's this?"

Xu Chengyue's hand trembled slightly. He looked at his phone screen, and on the wallpaper, Gu Yunfeng looked exhausted but had bright eyes and was smiling gently, filled with warmth.

Seeing this photo gave him a sense of peace.

"It's you."

"I know. I mean, why are you using me as your wallpaper?"

"To ward off evil?" Xu Chengyue said blankly. "Look at your righteous face, you can suppress evil spirits."

"Professor Xu, don't you have any shame? Don't you think this is too..." He snatched the spoon from Xu Chengyue's hand and took a bite of the watermelon to calm himself.

"Too what?"

"Too girly." He swallowed the word "girly" and smiled awkwardly. "Could you please change it?"

"Oh, I don't want to." Xu Chengyue reluctantly continued using the poorly functioning iron. "It's just a photo. You can return the favour and use me as your wallpaper."

That evening, Gu Yunfeng went to bed early. He meticulously checked that the doors and windows were locked, the curtains were drawn, and there were no surveillance devices hidden in the corners of the walls or ceiling. He then lay on the sofa with a thin blanket. The sudden attack that morning had left him tense all day. He was mentally and physically exhausted, more so than after an all-night shift, and he quickly fell into a deep sleep.

In the middle of the night, he groggily got up to use the bathroom. When he came out, he couldn't tell east from west and north from south, and he walked straight to the bedroom door. Usually, he didn't get up at night, but he must have eaten too much watermelon. His foggy brain kept thinking, "Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing?" He instinctively returned to his usual sleeping place, lifted the quilt, and lay down.

The next second, he suddenly touched someone's hand and instantly woke up.

Looking around alertly, he saw moonlight streaming through the window. In the faint light, he realised there was someone lying next to him. He reflexively jumped up, yawned, and tried to remember what had happened that day.

He pulled the curtains closed, sat on the edge of the bed, and saw Xu Chengyue with furrowed brows, gripping the bed sheets. He seemed to be having a bad dream, still unsettled from the harrowing day. In the darkness, his breathing was rapid but even. Following the sound, Gu Yunfeng reached out to touch his face but immediately pulled back and held his hand that was trembling from the nightmare.

After what seemed like an eternity, just as Gu Yunfeng was about to doze off, he suddenly woke up when he almost fell over. He considered going back to the sofa, but Xu Chengyue was holding his hand tightly, and he couldn't pull away.

"Don't go," Xu Chengyue murmured in his sleep. It was unclear who he was speaking to.

Though it was just sleep talk, Gu Yunfeng didn't dare move. In the darkness, he didn't even dare to breathe heavily. He carefully leaned against the bed, sat on the carpet, and, after yawning over ten times, finally fell asleep again.

—————

Headache, sore throat, dry eyes, and throat pain. These were the consequences of sleeping on the edge of the bed with the air conditioner on.

Gu Yunfeng sneezed and opened his eyes to find the bedroom pitch dark. He sat up in bed, grabbed a tissue to rub his nose, put on his slippers, and walked to the window. He opened the curtains to see it was already daylight outside.

Accompanied by another loud sneeze, he wiped his nose, picked up his alarm clock, and found it was just time for the alarm to go off. Wearing his slippers, he listlessly opened the bedroom door and saw Professor Xu already dressed neatly, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea.

"Ah... morning." He washed his face, took some milk and the leftover buns from the previous day out of the fridge, heated them in the microwave for half a minute, and placed them on the dining table.

"Do you have a cold?" Xu Chengyue picked up his glasses from the coffee table and put them on, noticing Gu Yunfeng's red nose and the suddenly filled trash bin.

"Of course not..." He sneezed again before finishing his sentence. He rummaged through the cabinet for a while, found some cold medicine, and swallowed it with hot water from the thermos.

"I don't know what happened last night, I remember I was originally lying on the sofa?" He vaguely recalled going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, then somehow ending up in his bedroom and falling asleep leaning on the bed.

Then why did he wake up in his bed?

Maybe he had sleepwalked. He should see a doctor when he has time. He rubbed his messy hair in front of the mirror, a few strands sticking up stubbornly.

"The team called just now, they've contacted everyone involved in the twenty-four hours before and after the 8.19 case." Professor Xu said as he picked up a bun with a pair of chopsticks, finally settling on one. He swallowed it with a disgusted expression, immediately tasting the strong flavour of chives. He was under the impression that Gu Yunfeng was a good cook. He had just arrived, and this felt too perfunctory, serving buns left over from days ago, the chive flavour had even changed a bit.

—————

Shu Pan flipped through the autopsy report brought by Xu Yuanqiao while also compiling the investigation reports on the four interviewees. Apart from the victims, there were only five people who had been at the Jiang residence within the twenty-four hours before and after the crime: the family's cooking aunt, a delivery man, and two individuals claiming to be victims of illegal drugs.

Jiang Shuishan's tutor had mentioned she would only be available in the afternoon due to morning classes.

"Captain Gu, Professor Xu, from an initial review, none of these individuals seem suspicious. The aunt left while the victims were still alive, and she wasn't the last person to see the Jiang family, the tutor was still in the villa after she left."

Shu Pan played a recording of Aunt Zeng, the cook who had been providing meals for the Jiang family. In the recording, a high-pitched female voice spoke clearly and rapidly, expressing her distress. She was very aggravated as she insisted that everyone was fine when she left, and she had no idea what happened after Jiang Yang returned.

She had left at seven-thirty in the evening. At that time, only the three female victims were having dinner by candlelight, as there had been a power cut due to an investigation by the electric company. Unaccustomed to dining without lights, she had left early. Jiang Yang returned home around nine o'clock.

She also recited a long list of dishes, lamenting that it was the last meal she prepared for them. Gu Yunfeng and Xu Chengyue, who had only eaten leftover buns, couldn't help but salivate.

"Note down those dish names and check the garbage left at the scene," Gu Yunfeng instructed Wen Xin before playing the recordings of the delivery man and the two petitioners.

These three arrived at the Jiang residence within a short time span, between nine and ten in the morning. At nine 'o five, the delivery man entered the community and rang the Jiang family's doorbell at nine ten, but no one answered. He called Jiang Yang, but there was no response, so he left with the package.

The package was a voice recorder that Jiang Yang had ordered three days earlier.

The two drug victims weren't as lucky. They knocked on the door for half an hour without an answer. When they were about to splash paint on the door, Jiang Quan, the Jiang family's youngest son, arrived with a box. They grabbed him and coerced him into opening the door, hoping to force Jiang Ronghua, who was pretending to be deaf and dumb, to come out and give an explanation.

To their surprise, Jiang Yang was inside, not hiding, but sitting in the middle of a bloodbath. The gruesome scene, filled with blood and a foul smell, shocked them into paralysis, their eyes growing dark as they stood there. It was only when Jiang Quan started wailing that they realised what had happened and fled in terror.

"Now we're just waiting for the tutor's statement. Captain Gu, isn't it strange? How did the murderer get into and out of the villa?"

The surveillance footage showed that the last person to see the Jiang family was Jiang Shuishan's tutor, Qiu Lu, a maths student from a nearby university. She left the villa at nine 'o five in the evening and met Jiang Yang, who was driving home, at nine ten.

From then until the crime was discovered, no one else entered the villa.

Even after the crime, until the police arrived, no one left the villa according to the neighbourhood's surveillance.

This elusive murderer had managed to approach them, brutally murder everyone, and then vanish without a trace.

"How did they get in and out of the villa..." Gu Yunfeng mused, rubbing his temples as he lay back in his office chair with his legs crossed, his eyes closed in meditation. The last outsider to see the Jiang family was the tutor, who met Jiang Yang as she left the villa. He rolled down the window and greeted her, then immediately drove into the underground garage.

The garage, located on the second basement level of the villa, had an elevator leading directly inside. Jiang Yang could enter without being caught on any surveillance cameras near the villa.

If the murderer used the same method as Jiang Yang, could they have avoided the cameras too?

Gu Yunfeng's eyes snapped open. He quickly stood up, walked to the computer, and rewound the footage to the moment Jiang Yang entered the garage. In the past two days, only Jiang Yang's car had entered the villa's garage at that moment.

Pointing to the silver Cadillac on the screen, he looked at the others. "The murderer was in the same car as Jiang Yang?"

He repeated and emphasised, "A woman rode with Jiang Yang back to the villa and then murdered the entire Jiang family?"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: July 23, 2024 by Angel

Edited: September 12, 2024 by Angel