Controlled Experiment Chapter 8

Controlled Experiment – 8

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Zhuang Hao was dead.

When he received the news, Du Yusheng was sitting in his office brewing a cup of damp tea leaves.

Qin Yan sat opposite him, staring at him with a blank expression.

Du Yusheng's desk was always messy, at a glance, it resembled a paper mill. At that moment, for some unknown reason, he had taken an interest in dismantling the printer on his desk and had been fiddling with it for half an hour. The toner cartridge had been tossed far off to the side. With hands covered in ink, Du Yusheng poured himself a glass of water.

Qin Yan frowned as he watched him leave five black fingerprints on the side of the glass.

"You're sick," Qin Yan said. "You'll be washing your own cups from now on."

Only then did Du Yusheng react, grabbing a paper towel to wipe his hands.

Halfway through wiping, he looked up at Qin Yan, held up the paper towel and asked, "Do you remember that toner on Luo Daheng's thumb before he died?"

Qin Yan nodded, not quite understanding what Du Yusheng meant. "What are you trying to say?"

Du Yusheng turned on the tap and rinsed his hands.

"... We'll talk about it later, I need your help with something first."

At that moment, Xiao Bai burst in from outside, cutting off the "what" that was forming in Qin Yan's mouth.

He had clearly been running, as his face was drenched in sweat.

After not sleeping properly for days, Xiao Bai's dark circles nearly reached his chin. Du Yusheng was far too self-centred; when he spoke or acted, he rarely considered anyone else's feelings. As far as he was concerned, if he was asleep, it was night; if he was awake, it had to be daytime. In the past few days, not only had Xiao Bai slept badly, but he'd even found himself waking up at night with his phone still in his hand.

"Brother Yu, there's been a report from the urban-rural fringe."

Du Yusheng blinked at him. "And?"

"Murder and arson."

"Who"

Xiao Bai wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued, "Someone's already on the scene. Said the body was burned beyond recognition, they couldn't see anything clearly. They could only identify the person by the clothing and accessories. It should be the owner of a cell phone repair shop in that area, the location of the crime, called Zhuang Hao."

Du Yusheng glanced at Qin Yan, then at Xiao Bai.

"What did you say his name was?"

Xiao Bai froze for a moment and repeated, "Zhuang Hao."

Du Yusheng scratched his neck with one hand and placed the other on the desk. Qin Yan watched as his thumb clenched so tightly it turned white.

Qin Yan had known Du Yusheng for several years, and there was one characteristic about Du Yusheng: he rarely ever told you outright what he was really thinking. What he showed you was usually only what he wanted you to see. He gave off the impression of being careless and unserious, never properly invested in his cases, while at the same time obsessing over that wreck of a car that couldn't possibly be fixed. You'd see him staying up all night reading some thousand-page manual on vehicle repair, but what you didn't see was that earlier in the night, he'd been poring over case files. He always started by silently piecing the threads together in his own mind, only once he had a clear picture would he finally speak to you about it.

So when Du Yusheng openly showed that he cared about something in front of others, Qin Yan knew it had to be serious.

Just like with Zhuang Hao's death.

"Brother Yu?"

Xiao Bai called out again.

Du Yusheng snapped out of it and nodded. "Let's go to the scene then."

He grabbed a crumpled jacket off the back of his chair and threw it on. Qin Yan stood up right after him, but Du Yusheng turned around and stopped him.

"Qin Yan, don't come. I've got something to deal with, I'll message you later."

Qin Yan hesitated. He looked at the faint smile on Du Yusheng's face, then nodded.

Today, Du Yusheng was wearing a dark overcoat over a light grey knit, paired with trainers. His hair had been washed that morning at the bureau and now hung messily around his head, though he'd just tidied it up, his fringe had been pushed back, and a pricey watch was strapped to his wrist. Watching Du Yusheng from behind, Qin Yan smiled.

He really did look the part of some spoiled rich heir.

Compared to what Du Yusheng had said, Qin Yan was more inclined to believe that he simply didn't want him going to the scene, and as for the reason, he didn't care to know.

=========

Xiao Bai was a little anxious. He dashed over to the car and was just about to get in when he turned around and noticed Du Yusheng still standing where he was.

"Brother Yu? Aren't we going?"

Du Yusheng shook his head.

"Take my car."

"......" Xiao Bai didn't react. Standing by the door, he didn't know whether to get in or not. "Huh?"

Du Yusheng frowned. "Save the bureau some gas money."

Xiao Bai nodded hesitantly and walked toward Du Yusheng's Bentley. After a few steps, he couldn't help but glance back at him. Xiao Bai felt that Du Yusheng was acting a bit off today.

Once they were in the car, Xiao Bai glanced at Du Yusheng's face and, summoning up some courage, asked, "Brother Yu, did you know that Zhuang Hao?"

Du Yusheng started playing a song through the media player on his phone.

"Can't say I knew him well."

Du Yusheng kept flipping through the playlist, skipping from one track to the next before each one had even finished.

"Zhuang Hao was a well-known black market dealer in electronics. From small items like surveillance cameras and bugging devices to larger things like electronic bombs, he could do it all. As long as you had money, you could get anything from him. And even if he didn't have it, he could make it for you." Having finally found a track he was satisfied with, Du Yusheng put his phone aside, leaned back in his seat, and looked out the window. "He had skills. In that circle, he held a lot of other people's secrets in his hands. And precisely because of that, even though he had plenty of enemies, no one dared to touch him."

It was a red light. Xiao Bai blinked at Du Yusheng, watching him.

"... So?"

Du Yusheng glanced at Xiao Bai, suddenly overcome with the urge to smoke.

He also really wanted to tell Xiao Bai that his secret was in that man's hands too.

There was a place where the most valuable things weren't money or status. Whether you were rich or poor, in that place you knew no one, yet knew everyone. It was more like a gambling den, only what you were gambling wasn't money, it was your life.

When your life was held in someone else's hands, when you became that person's pawn, you no longer had a choice.

Du Yusheng, feeling a little irritable, rubbed his nose and switched off the music player on his phone.

Traffic was backed up all the way through the urban-rural fringe. By the time the two of them rushed over, the area was already surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, all held back by police tape, forming a neat circle.

By the time Du Yusheng arrived, it was already a little late. Xiao Bai, having geared up, went straight into the crime scene. Du Yusheng wasn't in any rush. He stayed outside, pacing up and down the street, taking in his surroundings.

No surveillance. No residential buildings. And the streetlights were dim.

Qin Yan was left at the bureau to handle other matters. The one who'd come out with them was a girl from their team, fair-skinned and neat-looking.

"The body was burned too severely, making it impossible to identify anything of value," the girl removed her mask, revealing a young face. "But judging by the jewellery and clothing remnants on the victim, it should be the property owner, Zhuang Hao."

Du Yusheng nodded.

He stepped inside for a look.

Just as the forensic examiner had described, if the thing could even still be called a person, it was just a blackened mass, slumped next to the bench. Du Yusheng walked forward a few paces and examined the workstation where Zhuang Hao had worked when he was alive. The table had been modified, and there was a hidden compartment underneath. Du Yusheng pulled it open. As he'd suspected, it was completely empty.

"The table, chairs, sofa and even the garbage bin on the floor are all intact, only the body's been burned like this." Xiao Bai looked over at Zhuang Hao's corpse. "He was brought in after being burned somewhere else."

Du Yusheng nodded, though his attention didn't seem to be on the body.

Underneath Zhuang Hao's workstation was a small footrest, marked with two deep imprints from his feet.

Wearing gloves, Du Yusheng lifted the mat, revealing the floor beneath.

Although the room was used for cell phone repairs, the decor felt more like a living space. The furniture was unremarkable, the hygiene poor, and the space quite cramped, but the flooring looked expensive, so well-finished that even a footprint left no mark, nearly spotless.

Du Yusheng knelt on the floor, took a tool from his pocket, and pried open the boards beneath the footrest.

Beneath them was an empty hidden compartment.

Xiao Bai, watching Du Yusheng's skilled movements, was slightly dumbfounded. Du Yusheng shook the dust from his clothes and got to his feet.

"... Brother Yu, have you been here before?"

Du Yusheng glanced at Xiao Bai, his expression completely unreadable.

"Just guessing."

Xiao Bai clicked his tongue, marvelling at how Du Yusheng had told such a clumsy lie.

"... What used to be down there?"

Tickets. Du Yusheng wanted to tell Xiao Bai this.

"How would I know, you'd have to ask the dead man." Du Yusheng turned and exchanged a few words with a colleague nearby.

Du Yusheng pulled out his phone and glanced at it, but there was still no reply from Qin Yan. Seems like he'd given him a bit of a tough task.

Turning back to Xiao Bai, he said, "Call the other team over."

Xiao Bai froze for a second. "What do you mean? We're not handling it?"

Du Yusheng scratched his nose, slipping back into his old, careless appearance.

He smiled. "Power struggles, underworld disputes, it's none of our business, get someone else to deal with it." Xiao Bai opened his mouth to say something, but Du Yusheng cut him off immediately. "What, you don't think you've got enough on your plate already?"

If this Zhuang Hao case really belonged to another team, then they shouldn't have come in the first place. A phone call to hand it over would have sufficed. Xiao Bai couldn't make sense of it, he felt that Du Yusheng hadn't come here to solve a case, but rather to search for something.

Or rather, he was afraid someone else might find that something before he did.

"This sort of case is easy to solve." Du Yusheng pulled out his phone with a sly smile. "Just go down the list of enemies, sooner or later you'll get the right one."

As they were wrapping up at the scene, a small incident occurred.

Next to Zhuang Hao's phone repair shop was a tiny food stall with a poor environment and a tiny storefront.

After dispersing the crowd of onlookers, Du Yusheng passed by the shop. Looking up, he saw Li Yao, in a white coat, stepping out of it.

Although Li Yao was wearing a mask, those striking eyes gave him away instantly, Du Yusheng recognised him at a glance.

Whether doctor or nurse, they are all dressed in white; from a distance, there isn't much difference. Yet Du Yusheng still thought Li Yao's coat looked better than the rest, how else could it be that, out of so many people, he had spotted him at a glance?

"What's going on?" Du Yusheng asked Xiao Bai, "Why's there a doctor here?"

"Oh, the shop owner next door was the one who found Zhuang Hao," Xiao Bai explained. "A middle-aged woman who had a heart attack from the fright. The ambulance got here before we did, they've been resuscitating her for a while."

Only after Xiao Bai finished speaking did Du Yusheng notice a white ambulance parked not far from the police cars, its lights still flashing.

It looked like they had just finished the emergency treatment, Du Yusheng watched as Li Yao removed his white mask and let out a deep breath.

He was speaking to a paramedic beside him, his expression composed and serious in a way that came with being at work. Du Yusheng walked over to greet him with a smile.

"Yo, Dr Li."

Li Yao was wearing glasses at the moment, which gave him not only a gentle air but a scholarly one too, he looked like someone who did academic research. Clearly, he hadn't expected to see Du Yusheng; a flicker of surprise passed through his eyes. He tilted his head slightly, glanced at the police car nearby, and seemed to understand.

"That woman just now said she'd been frightened by the murder," Li Yao said with a polite smile. "So you're the one leading the team."

Du Yusheng nodded slightly.

The woman seemed to be doing fine now, she was sitting inside, patting her chest to calm herself, while a nurse next to her was still taking her blood pressure.

"The Central Hospital where Dr Li works is an hour's drive from here..."

Li Yao sighed.

"I know what you're thinking." He adjusted his glasses. "I happened to be at the emergency department of the hospital nearby, giving them a training session. The emergency call came through there, so I tagged along. One, I had no idea when the call would come in. Two, I didn't know there'd be a murder here. Vice-captain Du, why are you always looking at me like I'm suspicious?"

Had someone else said this, it might have sounded irritated, but coming from Li Yao, it felt more like casual conversation than complaint or anger.

Looking at Li Yao's face, Du Yusheng suddenly found himself wondering what this man would look like when he was truly angry. Would he use the same expression and say, "I'm angry"?

"I didn't mean anything by it, it's an occupational habit," Du Yusheng scratched his face and smiled. "Just curious, that's all. How come whenever something happens lately, Dr Li is always nearby?"

Li Yao took off his glasses and slipped them into the chest pocket of his white coat.

He revealed a pair of eyes that seemed as though they could see right through someone.

"That's not a question you should be asking me," Li Yao said. "You should be asking the killer."

You should be asking the killer.

It wasn't until much later that Du Yusheng understood what those six words truly meant.

‿︵‿︵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: May 16, 2025 by Angel

Edited: June 5, 2025 by Angel