Chapter 39

Chapter 39 Chapter Thirty-Nine: “Let’s have a meal—just today…”

Although the suspects had confessed, there were still many follow-up matters for the police to handle.

For example, the videos Shi Hong and the others had previously uploaded online—even though the authorities had contacted relevant platforms to delete them on a large scale, it was still unavoidable that they continued to circulate and be discussed privately.

Once the keywords “Bei River” and “Laiao New City” were mentioned, combined with Li Ming’s classmates “claiming” the case, the entire sequence of events became almost self-explanatory.

【Those who do evil will eventually destroy themselves.】

【My relative is a teacher at No. 1 Middle School. I heard several students were kidnapped, and the school is busy holding meetings.】

【I understand, but what did the kids do wrong? If you want revenge, go after the developers.】

【Tch, easy for you to say when it’s not your suffering. As a fellow unfinished-building victim, I fully support this with both hands and feet.】

【Be careful with gossip, wait for the official statement.】

【By the way, did that Li Ming in the video die or not?】

【A spoiled little brat who bullied others—he deserved it.】

At the same time, worried that the children would be affected, several parents involved in the case proactively asked the school for leave. Only Xu Hao was thick-skinned enough—after the shock, he still insisted on going to class.

The long-sleeved school uniform covered the marks on his wrists. Having barely slept the entire night, his face was somewhat pale. Fortunately, at this age, many teenagers stayed up all night studying, binge-watching shows, or reading novels, so Xu Hao blended in and did not look out of place.

Since his usual interactions with Li Ming were not many, no one connected him to the shocking kidnapping case. The class teacher with graying hair spent the entire morning homeroom repeatedly lecturing on safety rules, indirectly confirming the “rumors,” which led to constant whispers and exchanged glances among students.

Pretending to be sleepy, Xu Hao avoided his deskmate’s attempts to talk, but at break time he suddenly changed direction and went to Class 6, where Li Ming and Yang Qian were.

He casually stopped a boy who was slowly walking out the door. “I’m looking for Song An’an.”

Xu Hao was from Class 5. Classes 5 and 6 sounded close, but were actually on different floors. The boy glanced at him for two seconds, then turned back and shouted inside: “Song An’an!”

His tone was far from polite, light and casual, like calling a kitten or puppy.

Xu Hao frowned.

But before he could say anything, Song An’an appeared. Her hair was down, and several patches of gauze were stuck on her knees and legs. Her bangs were long, covering her eyes.

Not wanting to cause her trouble, Xu Hao led her to a corner before taking out two bottles of medicine from his pocket.

“Yang Qian told me you didn’t go to the hospital yesterday,” he said casually, naturally friendly by temperament. “These are new ones, for bruises and blood circulation—they work really well.”

After what happened in the abandoned warehouse, he and Song An’an could be considered comrades who had faced life and death together. Xu Hao guessed she wouldn’t easily miss class for the scholarship, so he came to find her during break.

But Song An’an did not take them.

“…I just wanted to help. These medicines are also at normal prices,” Xu Hao explained, recalling Li Ming’s mocking tone. “Thank you for saving everyone yesterday.”

He had quietly asked Yang Qian about her. Song An’an came from a single-parent family, her mother bedridden for years, and she had to go back and forth every day to take care of her. The reason she stayed beside Yang Qian as a “follower” was also because after Yang Qian assigned her errands, the leftover money was given to her, or sometimes she received “rewards” for helping with homework.

Xu Hao disliked this kind of “charity.”

He was sure Song An’an disliked it too.

Sharply, Xu Hao realized something. “Is someone bullying you? I can report it to the teacher…”

“No,” Song An’an denied immediately, shaking her head. “Take the medicine back. Don’t come looking for me again in the future.”

Now that she had left the specific environment of being kidnapped, she had clearly become much colder. Receiving a blunt rejection, Xu Hao was not angry, only murmured softly, “What if—I mean, just what if…”

“Even if you run into trouble, you can come find me.”

“Gao Zixuan is fine too.”

“Anyway, we all owe you a huge favor.”

Her hair ends fluttering, the girl turned without looking back and walked into the classroom.

At a frequency the human ear normally cannot detect, a mechanical voice screamed in frustration: 【Why did you reject him?! Hurry and use this chance to get close to Jian Qing!】

【Host? Host?】

【I know you’re not deaf.】

What responded to it was only silence.

Because the police handled it in time, the kidnapping-and-murder case that originally shook the entire city in the novel only caused minor ripples in Bei River before being overtaken by the next wave of trending topics.

By the time the official announcement with blue background and white text was released, it was already three days later. At the same time, a long list of lawsuits was also published under the Jian Corporation account.

This nearly made Song Xiaotong drop her glasses.

After all, in her impression, the Jian Corporation’s PR department had never defended its own boss—they strictly followed the “the clean will clear themselves” approach and never responded.

A tall tree catches wind. Over the years, there had been at least a thousand, if not eight hundred, marketing accounts using Jian Qing as material; the list was so long it couldn’t even fit into a nine-grid post. Song Xiaotong skimmed through a few pages, then looked up at He Linfeng and noticed he was still struggling with a ten-thousand-character self-criticism report.

—Boss Jian wasn’t under the jurisdiction of the serious crime unit, so Captain He naturally had to bear double punishment.

Balancing merits and faults, and considering that the two of them had rescued people in time and “were injured” while saving four lives, Director Zhao did not impose any further punishment, only symbolically deducting the latter’s bonus for the month.

“Done.” He Linfeng took two photos of his nearly finished self-criticism and sent them to Jian Qing with practiced ease.

At that time, Jian Qing was in a meeting.

The experiences of Xue Xie and Xu Hao made him realize that continuing to let public opinion develop might breed the next tragedy. He didn’t care about being disliked, but if innocent people were implicated, he had to fight back.

The only person who would message him during work hours, aside from He Linfeng, was obvious. Seeing the sincere-sounding self-criticism, Jian Qing moved his fingers:

【?】

These past few days the city bureau had been busy, and He Linfeng’s contact frequency had dropped. Only then did Jian Qing belatedly remember their “disciplinary violation” of breaking into the abandoned warehouse together. He was about to retract his message when a crying emoji popped up in the chat box.

Jian Qing: …

Glancing at the word count displayed in the bottom-left of the image, he rarely felt a bit guilty.

【Thank you,】he chose his words carefully, trying to sound official. 【What compensation does Consultant He need?】

But there was no reply from the other side.

Only after Jian Qing finished the meeting did someone suddenly come back to life again: 【Let’s have a meal.】

【Today.】

Two declarative sentences, leaving him no room to refuse.

In Jian Qing’s understanding, going out to eat alone with someone who had favorable feelings toward him was almost equivalent to a date. After hesitating for two seconds, he lowered his eyes and replied: 【I’ll choose the place.】

Beijing River City Bureau.

Wang Lai, who was packing up and preparing to get off work, looked over in surprise. “You’re so happy—what, did you win the lottery?”

“Almost,” He Linfeng nodded with a very serious expression. He opened the front camera of his phone and straightened his collar. “Any results on that skeleton from the suburbs?”

Wang Lai sighed. “Yes.”

“The autopsy report shows that the skeleton belongs to a girl around six years old. The time of death is at least twenty years ago. There’s no matching record in the DNA database.”

“We can start from police reports around the time of death,” He Linfeng reminded him. “When such a young child goes missing, the parents can’t possibly have had no reaction.”

Zhou Shan gave another approving thumbs-up. “Nice, Consultant He. That’s exactly what Captain Yan said.”

As expected, this would be their next task. Files from twenty years ago were mostly paper records—they would probably have to dig through them for seven or eight days.

And that was without counting the several sub-bureaus in Bei River and police stations across various districts. It was practically a needle-in-a-haystack problem.

Because of this, Yan Qiuyu didn’t ask everyone to work overtime again. Cases are endless; they can be solved one by one—only a healthy body is the capital needed to uncover the truth.

The vehicle happened to be restricted today. Wang Lai habitually stopped He Linfeng and asked him to drop him off at the subway station, but unexpectedly, the man directly tossed him the car keys.

“What are you doing?” Wang Lai asked in confusion, noticing he had no intention of heading toward the parking lot.

He Linfeng raised his chin, one hand in his pocket, standing on the steps outside the city bureau entrance, looking across the road:

“I’ve got someone picking me up.”

The single man Wang Lai suffered a critical hit.

Having taken countless statements from him before, Wang Lai of course recognized that it was Jian Qing’s car. With a perfunctory “see you tomorrow” drifting in his ears, he watched helplessly as He Linfeng opened the passenger door and got in.

“Not giving Officer Wang a ride?” Jian Qing asked, fingers resting on the steering wheel as he glanced at the lonely figure under the steps.

He Linfeng buckled his seatbelt skillfully. “No need.”

“He’s driving my car.”

“Is your wound still not scabbed over?” He Linfeng’s gaze swept over the clearly replaced bandage on the young man’s hand, frowning. “Should we switch seats instead?”

“It’s just inconvenient,” Jian Qing said as he started the car.

The small cuts and abrasions all over his body drew more attention than the bandage itself. Because of Xu Hao’s case, he did not want to get dragged back into speculation about the kidnapping.

If it were anyone else, this roundabout explanation would be hard to understand—but He Linfeng, instead, relaxed his expression.

“Director Zhao asked me to ask you,” he said jokingly. “About the high cost of boosting trending searches for leads—can we replace it with a banner of thanks?”

“The banner isn’t necessary either,” Jian Qing replied flatly. “Just a small contribution as a citizen.”

Only then did he realize that “Director Zhao asked He Linfeng to ask him” meant that it was usually Captain Yan Qiuyu who handled such coordination.

“I didn’t make up a single word,” He Linfeng said, turning slightly, blinking innocently at the skeptical young man. “Who told you that among so many people present, Boss Jian only chose me to take the risk?”

“The first choice in a critical moment is worth more than a thousand words.”

Jian Qing: …

In terms of “twisted reasoning,” he would never be able to beat He Linfeng.

Yet even after being repeatedly dragged into trouble because of him, what exactly was there for this man to be so happy about?

Dusk settled in all around.

The car drove south all the way, entering a somewhat unfamiliar residential area.

With an excellent memory, He Linfeng recalled the information he had seen before: “This place seems like…”

“My aunt asked me to invite you home for dinner,” Jian Qing said, the last few words awkward and almost burning his tongue. He spoke quickly, turned off the engine, and unbuckled his seatbelt. “They want to thank you.”

With nothing in his hands, He Linfeng chuckled. “If I hadn’t asked, were you planning to only say it after we walked in?”

Jian Qing pressed his lips together.

He himself wasn’t sure what he was thinking.

He could clearly have done what transmigrators who “collect information” do—find some cold, upscale restaurant and casually get it over with—but instead he abruptly brought the person to the victim’s family residence.

This was basically like a police officer finishing work and then still making a condolence visit overtime.

Click.

Jian Qing forcefully pushed open the door, trying to escape the awkward situation he had created, but his sleeve was tugged and he was pulled back into his seat.

“Where are you running off to?” He Linfeng loosely supported him at the waist for a moment before quickly withdrawing his hand. He then took Jian Qing’s hand and placed it on the steering wheel. “Since it’s a visit to meet family—cough, elders—first come with me to buy some gifts.”