Chapter 36

Chapter 36 3. panic room-10

“…Next year I definitely need to recruit a student who can drive.”

Liu Yi stepped down from the passenger seat of his own car. When his feet touched the ground, the headlights of a nearby car suddenly shone directly into his eyes, causing him to wobble slightly before regaining his balance.

He had endured over ten hours on a plane and just finished an autopsy, feeling dizzy and lightheaded, clearly unfit to drive. Yet his most idle and mentally sharp subordinate, Jiang Xiaoyuan, didn’t have a driver’s license, so they had no choice but to have Qi Shanyu, who had also been up all day and night, drive.

Liu Yi worried silently the whole way whether Officer Qi’s fatigue driving might cause an accident, but fortunately Qi Shanyu drove steadily, getting them both safely to their destination.

“There are so many media outside.”

Along the way, Liu Yi noticed, without needing to look too closely, that many news vehicles marked with the logos of major TV stations, newspapers, and magazines were parked outside the municipal bureau. Many were state-owned official media. They couldn’t enter the bureau compound but still held their cameras, waiting, eyes fixed on every car entering or leaving, as if they would not leave until there was a breakthrough in the case.

Qi Shanyu followed Liu Yi’s gaze toward the dozen or so journalists crouched by the iron gates and sighed helplessly. “Yes, this case has generated too much public attention. Forcibly driving the media away without obstructing law enforcement could cause even greater public panic.”

“That’s true.”

Liu Yi frowned, staring at the reporters and the line of news vehicles outside. “The key is, when the kidnappers demanded ransom, these people are outside. If any media just wants a big scoop and recklessly follows or spies, it could easily alert the kidnappers. If contact with the kidnappers fails, it might anger them…”

His unspoken implication was clear: angering the kidnappers could endanger the hostages’ lives.

Qi Shanyu glanced at Liu Yi.

It was completely dark now. The municipal bureau’s compound was well-lit, and the yellow-orange streetlights cast Liu Yi’s face into sharp relief. From the side, his nose looked high, lips thin, and though his features were defined, they retained a delicate, almost ornamental precision.

Although Liu Yi’s expression seemed normal, the dark bruising under his eyes showed he was extremely exhausted, likely able to collapse wherever he sat.

But Qi Shanyu knew that even if Liu Yi was extremely tired, he couldn’t rest—not him, not Liu Yi, nor their colleagues in the criminal investigation team who had all endured over thirty hours. Until the case was solved, there would be no sleep.

“More than that…”

Qi Shanyu pushed open the glass door of the bureau’s main hall for Liu Yi and lowered his voice: “We’re more worried that the kidnappers haven’t contacted the family to demand ransom.”

Hearing this, Liu Yi stopped in his tracks, eyes wide, staring at Qi Shanyu.

Because he had been busy performing the autopsy on the fake Yu Ping right after getting off the plane, he hadn’t tracked the case’s progress. Naturally, he assumed the kidnappers, like most, would immediately contact the family to demand ransom and explain how to pay.

But now, over thirty hours later, the family had received nothing from the kidnappers, which was ominous.

In kidnapping cases, there is no “no news is good news.” On the contrary, based on countless previous cases, this often signals the worst scenario—the criminals no longer want to negotiate.

The next step after refusing to negotiate is retaliatory murder.

Moreover, thinking of the corpse of one of the kidnappers left in the van made it hard not to imagine the worst-case scenario.

If infighting among the kidnappers reached the point of killing their own accomplices, what fate awaited the defenseless child hostages?

“Let’s go.”

Seeing Liu Yi pause at the door, Qi Shanyu lightly patted his back.

The pressure was minimal, just the fingertips of four fingers barely touching Liu Yi’s coat, more restrained than Liu Yi touching him.

“First, let’s go upstairs. Lu Fangfang’s interrogation should have started.”

Liu Yi smiled at Qi Shanyu, asked no more, and walked forward.

Qi Shanyu followed two steps behind, eyes on Liu Yi’s back.

He noticed that even when mentally and physically exhausted, Liu Yi habitually kept his back straight and walked with long strides to maintain clarity of thought.

Anyone who had worked with him would quickly realize that beneath this refined, flashy young master exterior lay someone highly perceptive and reliable, inspiring both admiration and trust.

“Director Liu…”

Qi Shanyu didn’t know why, but the words slipped out.

Liu Yi had reached the elevator and pressed the up button. Hearing Qi Shanyu call him, he glanced back with a questioning “Hmm?”

Qi Shanyu paused, embarrassed, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

He wanted to ask if the deceased carried clues about the child’s whereabouts, but immediately realized such a question would be unreasonable.

Qi Shanyu had also seen the autopsy report.

The fake Yu Ping wore cheap clothes and shoes; his stomach contents were common foods like rice, eggs, pork, and vegetables. Even if third-party DNA was found on his hair or skin flakes, without a suspect for comparison, it was like finding a needle in a city of over twenty million people.

Liu Yi raised his eyebrows, staring at Qi Shanyu until the elevator chimed open. He then casually looped his arm around Qi Shanyu’s shoulder and led him into the elevator.

“Let’s go, take me to see the nanny you caught.”

He said this while straightening Qi Shanyu’s wrinkled coat, “I have some questions to ask her.”

&&& &&& &&&

“Do you recognize the person in this photo?”

When Liu Yi and Qi Shanyu entered the interrogation room, An Pingdong was pushing a photo toward the nanny Lu Fangfang, asking sternly.

The photo showed a middle-aged man in a fluorescent orange jacket, tall but slightly thin, hunched shoulders, looking like a middling, unsuccessful man. His hair was sparse and greasy, temples graying, skin yellowish, face honest but weary, mouth and eyebrows drooping—this was the deceased “Yu Ping,” a kidnapping suspect.

Lu Fangfang, as a major criminal captured before the kidnapping case became public, was kept in solitary confinement with no external contact. She naturally had no knowledge that Liu Yang’s son Liu Yunxiao had been kidnapped.

Seeing the photo of fake Yu Ping, her first reaction was her own legal trouble, screaming in shock: “Y-you found him?”

“Enough talk! Answer the question!”

An Pingdong slammed the table, showing no mercy, “Do you know this person!?”

“I… I know him…”

Lu Fangfang shivered, lowering her eyes.

She was a woman from a mountain village who didn’t even finish elementary school. She had no proper education and was genuinely ignorant, unaware of legal concepts.

In her view, anyone living better than her or with more money was like livestock—dead or alive didn’t matter if it benefited her. Especially the elderly she killed, having lived long, rich lives, it was better for them to die and for her to gain the money.

She truly didn’t see what she had done as wrong.

Even so, she understood that killing had consequences and, after several days of interrogation, knew she would likely face the death penalty.

But fundamentally, Lu Fangfang, a petty civilian, still had a natural respect for law enforcement. She could not fully resist or defy the police.

“H-he… he was my lover…”

Lu Fangfang answered timidly, her voice hoarse.

An Pingdong nodded at colleagues from Task Force Two and then glared at the serial killer in front of him: “What’s his name!? How did you meet him!?”

“He told me his name was Yu Ping!”

Lu Fangfang replied quickly.

“I lived in a group rental house in the west of the city for a while; he lived next door. We bumped into each other every two or three days, saw each other often, so we got close… I—I saw he didn’t have a wife, and I wasn’t married either, we were both lonely… so we got together!”

Her handcuffed hands clenched into fists, voice trembling.

“Later I heard he worked at a battery factory, so… I thought he could get me some sulfuric acid…”

Speaking of the sulfuric acid she used for murder, Lu Fangfang’s voice grew timid and lower, secretly glancing at the stranger officer across from her.

“And he did get me a bottle…”

Her speech slowed, voice quieter: “But mid-year, I saw the acid was almost used up, so I asked him for more… and then he burned his hand and got fired…”

“And after that!?”

An Pingdong slammed the table, urging her to hurry.

“After that, he disappeared!”

Lu Fangfang answered anxiously: “I couldn’t contact him after August, really!”