Volume One, Chapter Nine: She Became a Suspect

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“A dream? What do you mean?”

Ran Yi tried to ask for clarification, but whether by message or phone call, there was no further response from Tang Hui.

Ran Yi spent the entire night wide awake.

After a whole night of careful analysis, he concluded that Hu Chuan and Song Qi were of uncertain identity and were most likely a pair of con artists. Tang Hui, having been deceived by them, had probably been abducted. She was the daughter of a real-estate tycoon, after all. Those two swindlers might even have conceived the wicked idea of kidnapping her for ransom...

“Mm, that must be it. Tang Hui is in danger!”

Staring at Jin Jingyang’s empty bed, Ran Yi swallowed nervously.

“Tang Hui, you can’t let anything happen to you...”

His whispered muttering was overheard by his roommate in the bunk below, earning him a round of mockery.

“Well, well. Ran Yi, you’re awfully devoted to our campus belle.”

Another roommate chimed in with a sneer. “Don’t waste your time. Do you really think Tang Hui would be interested in an ordinary, overconfident guy like you?”

Ran Yi rarely spoke with them, and he had no time to care about their attitude. He made up his mind that if Tang Hui failed to appear at class the next morning, he would immediately call the police.

Yet the moment he walked out of the dormitory building the following morning, he found Tang Hui standing fresh and lively right outside, even carrying a bag in her hand.

“Here, your breakfast. Eat up, then let’s go to class together.”

Tang Hui’s gesture left everyone present utterly stunned. Her roommates could not understand what good fortune Ran Yi had earned in a past life to win Tang Hui’s favor.

Ran Yi, however, was even more shocked by her appearance there.

“What are you standing around for, Xiao Yi? Hurry up, or we’ll be late.”

She was no different from her usual self—if anything, she seemed even more docile.

Once they reached the classroom, Ran Yi saw that Tang Hui had no intention of bringing up the matter herself. He could restrain himself no longer.

“What exactly happened last night?”

“What happened?” Tang Hui asked, completely bewildered.

“Didn’t you leave with those two people? The two from yesterday’s lecture.”

“Huh?”

Tang Hui looked even more confused. She reached out and touched Ran Yi’s forehead.

“You don’t have a fever, so why are you talking nonsense? I clearly left the teaching building with you last night. Why would I leave with strangers?”

Unwilling to accept it, Ran Yi recounted everything that had happened the night before from beginning to end. Tang Hui, however, remembered only that an old man had indeed given an unusual lecture. Beyond that, she knew nothing at all.

“Forget it, forget it...”

After getting nowhere, Ran Yi gave up. Perhaps Cheng Yu had been right: there was something unclean at this school, something that caused inexplicable events to occur again and again.

Whatever the truth, he was simply relieved that Tang Hui was safe.

Just as he was thinking this, the campus broadcast suddenly crackled to life.

“Student Tang Hui, please report to the principal’s office immediately. Student Tang Hui, please report to the principal’s office immediately.”

“What is going on? Why has everything I’ve encountered today been so strange?” Tang Hui murmured as she rose to her feet.

Curious, Ran Yi followed her.

Yet waiting for them was not the pair of “swindlers” who had supposedly come to explain the truth. Instead, they found Shen Liang looking peculiar, Police Captain Bai Chen with a grave expression, and several fully armed paramilitary officers.

“What... is going on?” Ran Yi could not understand why so many police officers had come.

“Could there have been new developments in Jin Jingyang’s case?”

Bai Chen did not answer him. At his command, the officers surged forward and, before anyone could react, forced Tang Hui against the wall.

“Bai Chen, captain of the Fifth Detachment of the Fanlou City Public Security Bureau, badge number 172391.”

After taking out his identification, Bai Chen slowly stepped forward.

“Criminal suspect Tang Hui, do you confess to your crimes?”

“Crimes? What crime could Tang Hui possibly have committed?” Ran Yi asked in confusion as he stepped forward, only to be shoved aside by Bai Chen.

“Shouldn’t the criminal be that fake professor who was conning people?”

“You mean Hu Chuan? Heh...”

Bai Chen gave a cold laugh before explaining what had happened that morning.

“At three-thirty this morning, Professor Hu Chuan was found dead inside his laboratory, having suffered multiple stab wounds. The knife recovered at the scene bore only one person’s fingerprints. Surveillance footage shows that, from beginning to end, only one person followed Hu Chuan into that room last night—”

“Tang Hui, a volunteer at the Traceability Laboratory, you are the prime suspect in this case.”

—

When the report first came in, Public Security Director Zhao Anmin was still lost in a sweet dream filled with rosy romance. When one of his subordinates called, he cursed impatiently.

“Why are you calling in such a panic? He was a self-proclaimed scientist without even an official title. So he’s dead—big deal. Can’t you handle a normal case without bothering me?”

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Yet the moment he learned that Tang Hui was the prime suspect, Zhao Anmin woke up completely. He pushed aside the beauty in his arms, got dressed, and drove to the bureau himself.

An ordinary female university student would hardly be worth mentioning, but Tang Hui’s foster father, Xu Yin, was not someone to be trifled with. As the president of a real-estate empire in Fanlou City, Xu Yin held influence across both the political and business worlds. He could be said to cover half the sky over Fanlou. Even Zhao Anmin himself had been promoted by Xu Yin after the previous public security director had fallen from power.

If this case was not handled properly, Zhao Anmin would have no choice but to pack up and leave.

Zhao Anmin hastily convened a full meeting. Looking at the officers who had been summoned in an emergency and still knew nothing of the situation, he anxiously slapped the table.

“The bloody example of our former Director Tan is right in front of us. We can muddle through cases involving ordinary citizens without it coming back to bite us, but if we mishandle a case involving someone as powerful as Xu Yin, the black hats on our heads can be taken away in an instant.”

The officers present avoided Zhao Anmin’s gaze in unison. Everyone knew this was a poisoned chalice.

Bai Chen could not help sneering. He had been working nonstop for more than a week. He had only just finished Jin Jingyang’s case and had not even managed a full night’s sleep before being summoned back to the bureau. He was already in a foul mood, and Zhao Anmin’s slick attempt to shift the blame and protect himself made Bai Chen want to walk over and slap him twice on the spot.

Unexpectedly, even that fleeting smile was noticed by someone with ulterior motives.

Nie Chu, deputy director of the High-Tech Development Zone branch and Zhao Anmin’s loyal lapdog, seized the opportunity to make a sarcastic remark.

“Oh my, isn’t this Officer Bai, who just solved the middle-school student disappearance case? You solved Director Tan’s case right after becoming a permanent officer, personally bringing down your own superior. I’ve long admired your reputation. Our Director Zhao is frantic with worry, yet you can still smile. I assume you’ve already found a proper way to resolve this, haven’t you?

“Director Zhao, why not hand the case over to this young man? He’s young and energetic. If word gets out that he solved two major cases in a single month, we could both give Mr. Xu an explanation and bring honor to our director. Wouldn’t that be killing two birds with one stone?”

The insinuation in Nie Chu’s words could not have been clearer. Bai Chen knew that because he had solved his superior’s corruption and smuggling case two years earlier, he had not only failed to receive the reward he deserved, but had also been targeted by the entire bureau at the urging of those guilty men above him.

Zhao Anmin promptly used the opening to dump the responsibility onto him.

“Then it’s yours, Xiao Bai. From this moment on, establish a special task force centered around you and your Fifth Detachment, and investigate the case with all your strength. However... there is one piece of good news: Mr. Xu is currently abroad for a conference and will not return for another week. You only need to solve the case within that week.

“Oh, and to avoid arousing suspicion in society, try not to mobilize too many personnel. Keep the impact as small as possible...”

Bai Chen let out a cold snort. He knew perfectly well that they were deliberately making things difficult for him. They had given him only a week, without even letting him familiarize himself with the details of the case. Besides, the Fifth Detachment consisted entirely of inexperienced recruits he had only recently trained. This was nothing less than an impossible task.

Zhao Anmin truly was cut from the same cloth as Nie Chu. The two of them wore the same vile, treacherous expression—dumping the burden on someone else while sitting back to enjoy the benefits.

But what choice did Bai Chen have? His seniority was insufficient. Even if he did not want the case, he had to grit his teeth and take it on.

In truth, however, Bai Chen was unwilling to believe that Tang Hui was the murderer. He knew that she and her sinister, scheming foster father, Xu Yin, were fundamentally nothing alike.

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