Catching up to Lu Shichen, Meng Zhao eased on the brakes to slow down, following him slowly from behind. He rolled down the window, leaned out, and called, "Hey."
Lu Shichen stopped, turned around, and saw Meng Zhao. He walked over holding his dog’s leash.
"Quite leisurely, huh?" As Lu Shichen approached, Meng Zhao noticed sweat on his forehead and damp hair tips—he must have gone for a run nearby. No wonder his stamina was good; Lu Shichen probably exercised regularly.
"Have you been to Building 7?" Lu Shichen quickly guessed why Meng Zhao was here. "Any new leads?"
"Sort of," Meng Zhao didn’t want to reveal too much about the case progress. He handed Lu Shichen a paper filled with writing found in Zhou Yan’s bedroom. "Remember the handwriting on the note stuck to your door that day? Take a look and see if it matches this."
Lu Shichen took it and glanced down. "Looks like the same handwriting."
"Yeah," Meng Zhao took back the paper. "By the way, I forgot to ask yesterday—who has your dog been in contact with recently? Can you make a list?"
"You want to start from that dog hair?" Lu Shichen thought for a moment. "Might be tough, but I can make a list. How should I send it to you?"
"Send it to me on WeChat." Meng Zhao pulled out his phone and showed Lu Shichen his QR code.
After accepting Lu Shichen’s friend request, Meng Zhao casually asked, "Why do you always walk the dog alone? Where’s your girlfriend?"
Lu Shichen was busy on his phone but glanced up at Meng Zhao. Apparently, Meng Zhao had mistaken Qiao Yu for his girlfriend. He explained simply, "She’s not my girlfriend."
Not his girlfriend? Meng Zhao was stunned. She dressed so provocatively and came out of the bathroom early in the morning—not his girlfriend… then just a hookup? Tsk… He hadn’t expected Lu Shichen to be so open about this side of his life. Having spent a few years abroad, no wonder he was so liberal.
"Added you," Lu Shichen reminded him.
Meng Zhao looked down and saw the friend request notification.
"Hey, Zhao-ge, finally caught up to you," Zhou Qiyang came panting over. He spotted Lu Shichen, who had just visited the police bureau yesterday, and quietly asked Meng Zhao, "What’s going on?"
"Nothing, just gathering some info," Meng Zhao said. "Get in the car."
"Hey, no big deal, why the rush?" Zhou Qiyang opened the door and got in. "I thought you ran into your dream girl."
Meng Zhao: "…"
Zhou Qiyang buckled his seatbelt and said, "Be careful flirting by the roadside, or Old Xu will come back and beat you up."
Lu Shichen tapped on the half-open car window with his finger. "Nothing else, I’m off now."
"Alright, send me that list as soon as you can," Meng Zhao reminded him.
The car hit the road, and Meng Zhao asked, "Why would Old Xu beat me up?"
"Hey, Zhao-ge, are you pretending not to know?" Zhou Qiyang perked up. "Everyone at the bureau knows that once this case is solved, you’ll be promoted to full captain. After that, you’ll be close to becoming Old Xu’s ideal son-in-law. Zhao-ge, promotion, raise, marrying a rich and beautiful woman—all set up for you by Old Xu. Don’t forget your brothers when you make it big."
Meng Zhao scoffed, "Where do all these rumors come from? And I didn’t know arranged marriages were still popular these days."
"What arranged marriage? Xu Yan definitely likes you. Don’t tell me you don’t feel anything for her?"
Xu Yan was the daughter of Director Xu. Meng Zhao never thought they could be a match. When he first joined the bureau, Xu Yan was still in high school wearing her uniform, and she was a high school classmate of Meng Ruoshu. To him, Xu Yan and Meng Ruoshu were basically the same.
"Really no feelings?" Zhou Qiyang saw Meng Zhao’s indifference. "I’m curious—what kind of person do you like then?"
"More mature," Meng Zhao said casually, picking a trait opposite to Xu Yan’s. "Enough nonsense, better spend that time thinking about the case."
Zhou Qiyang pouted. No one at the bureau could say what Meng Zhao’s type was. He seemed uninterested in all women, and of course, not interested in men either. He only seemed interested in suspects.
Thinking like this, Zhou Qiyang felt Meng Zhao was on track to remain single forever.
Before they reached the office, they heard someone shouting emotionally from afar, "How could I have killed Zhou Yan? Do you police not care about evidence? I was livestreaming that night! How could I have killed Zhou Yan? Stop framing me!"
"Is that Liang Chuan?" Zhou Qiyang whispered to Meng Zhao.
Meng Zhao approached the back door of the room, stopped, and listened to the commotion inside.
"Don’t get upset," Ren Bin’s voice said. "We called you here to cooperate with the investigation. No one’s framing you. You said you were livestreaming on the night of the 3rd, from what time to what time?"
"From 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.," the voice inside had a hint of crying. "There’s no timestamp on the replay, but you can check with the platform."
"We’ll definitely check later…"
Ren Bin hadn’t finished when Liang Chuan interrupted, "Why does everyone say I killed Zhou Yan? Zhou Yan’s fans are cyberbullying me, and you police are framing me too. There must be more than one person who had conflicts with Zhou Yan. Are they all murderers?" His voice grew more emotional until he couldn’t hold back tears. "Besides, I already apologized to Zhou Yan privately. He insisted I apologize publicly and made sure I couldn’t work in this industry anymore…"
"Enough, enough," Ren Bin was overwhelmed by his crying. "Didn’t think the day would come when you’d have to face consequences for copying, huh? Stop wasting time. We called you here to cooperate. The bureau is busy and has no extra manpower to clean up after you. If you want to cry, go home and cry."
Zhou Qiyang glanced at Meng Zhao, stifling a laugh and gave a thumbs-up. "Brother Bin’s style is sharp."
Meng Zhao chuckled. Ren Bin was perfect for dealing with these kinds of troublemakers—always spot on. He hooked an arm around Zhou Qiyang’s neck and walked forward. "Enough eavesdropping. Check which platform Liang Chuan livestreamed on and ask if he was really live at the time of the murder."
"Roger," Zhou Qiyang hurried to follow Meng Zhao. "Hey, Zhao-ge, I have a bold guess. If it wasn’t Liang Chuan, could it have been one of his fans? But that would be some crazy obsession…"
Ten minutes later, Ren Bin entered the criminal investigation office and immediately complained, "Oh my god, you haven’t seen Liang Chuan. A 1.8-meter guy crying like a baby in front of me. Who would like a guy like that? Compared to him, Zhou Yan was delicate and handsome, like Pan An. How could he have lost three million followers? I just don’t get it. By the way, Captain Meng, Liang Chuan said he was livestreaming at the time of the murder…"
"Yeah, I just heard that at the door," Meng Zhao took over. "Zhou Qiyang is already checking."
"Honestly, I don’t think Liang Chuan did it. He’s too cowardly and mentally weak. His style is to avoid and delay when things happen. Doesn’t seem like someone who could do this. What do you think?"
"Let’s wait for Zhou Qiyang to come back," Meng Zhao was fiddling with his phone at his desk. "Brother Bin, I have a task for you."
"What is it?" Ren Bin walked over and looked at Meng Zhao’s phone screen. "Pure Pet Care Center… Hey, I’ve heard of this place. They say a dog bath there costs as much as ten human baths—super expensive."
"Probably," Meng Zhao hadn’t been there, but thinking of Lu Shichen’s watch face that nearly blinded him under the light last night, this place probably suited Lu Shichen’s style. "The body’s…"
"Didn't we find a dog hair earlier?"
"Yes, but didn't we temporarily rule out the owner of that dog hair?" Ren Bin asked. Seeing Meng Zhao pause and not continue, he added, "What's wrong?"
Meng Zhao's pause wasn't because he suddenly got stuck, but because he found Ren Bin's words quite interesting. The owner of the dog hair… logically, it should be the dog, but Ren Bin was clearly referring to Lu Shichen here. However, Lu Shichen is indeed quite 'dog-like,' so in a way, it wasn't wrong.
Meng Zhao found it a bit amusing but quickly stopped the thought and continued, "I'm thinking, if the owner of that dog hair isn't the culprit, and the dog hair wasn't coincidentally blown onto the victim by the wind, then how did it end up on the victim?"
Ren Bin followed up, "Most likely, the culprit placed it there. You want to use this as a breakthrough?"
"Yes," Meng Zhao nodded. "How the culprit got that dog hair and placed it on the victim—I think this can be an entry point." Sensing Ren Bin's reluctance about this task, Meng Zhao didn't give him a chance to refuse.
"Oh my god," Ren Bin was indeed unwilling. He ran a hand back through his hair. "Who knows when the culprit got that dog hair? What if it was a month ago?"
"Qing just gave a judgment that the dog hair probably fell out within the past week."
"I only knew you could check the shedding time for human hair, and now you can do it for dog hair too?" Since Meng Zhao brought up the forensic expert's judgment, Ren Bin had no choice but to accept. "Alright, then I'll check the surveillance footage at that Purui Care Center to see if anyone deliberately took that dog hair, right?"
"Not just Purui, also the surveillance near the trash bin downstairs of Building 3 at Yuhu Bay, and the route I just sent you," Meng Zhao forwarded Lu Shichen's dog-walking route to Ren Bin. "Get the surveillance footage from the past week along this route as well."
"This will take forever…" Ren Bin's vision darkened. "God, grant me a hundred Liang Chuans to interrogate; I'd rather be disgusted to death by him…" Although he said this, he still went out to get the footage as Meng Zhao instructed.
No matter what, this was indeed a breakthrough for the investigation, and someone had to do this massive screening work.
Just as Ren Bin stepped out, he ran into Zhou Qiyang, who was going to verify with the livestream platform. He raised his hand and stopped Zhou Qiyang by the shoulder. "So, what did the livestream platform say? Liang Chuan didn't livestream that night, right?"
Zhou Qiyang shook his head and said confidently, "He did livestream that night, sitting in front of the computer from 9 to 10 p.m. The culprit probably isn't him, unless he found an identical substitute to sing for him, but that's unlikely, right?"
Ren Bin was utterly hopeless. Then Meng Zhao spoke from inside the room, "Then perfect, Xiao Zhou, you go with Ren Bin to help share the workload."
"What work, Brother Bin?" Zhou Qiyang looked at Ren Bin puzzled.
With an assistant to command, Ren Bin finally perked up, slinging his arm around Zhou Qiyang's shoulder as they walked out. "Let's go, good work."
Meng Zhao replied to Lu Shichen with a message: "Got it, thanks."
Lu Shichen didn't reply.
Meng Zhao picked up the diary he had taken from Zhou Yan's old house and flipped through it. It seemed to record Zhou Yan's high school days.
He could only try his best, grasping any clue and investigating thoroughly. Meng Zhao sighed. Without more leads, he would have to join Ren Bin and Zhou Qiyang in tirelessly checking surveillance footage.
Meng Zhao opened the diary's first page. Zhou Yan wrote: "The arts and sciences classes are about to be divided. I want to choose arts and pursue music entrance exams, but my stepfather talked to me yesterday, saying he still hopes I choose sciences. Sigh, so conflicted. If I pursue music entrance exams and need to enroll in classes, I'd definitely feel embarrassed to ask my stepfather for money. I really don't know if my parents were still alive, would they agree to me studying music…"
Just as Meng Zhao was about to flip further, he suddenly noticed embossed writing on the back of the cover. There was actually a page tucked behind the cover flap.
Meng Zhao pulled out that page and saw it said: "Can't sleep, just dreamed of ZT again. Sometimes I think, if only I hadn't chosen to be a bystander back then."
