Free Web NovelChapter 172: Chapter 171 Sitting on the Ground Eating Melon_1
Mr. Zhao spoke quickly.
After some introductions, everyone became aware of He Ruxing’s identity, their expressions were all incredibly vivid as Zhou Ning looked up.
"Check it out, whether he owns any property in Shanhai Building."
Mr. Qu got to work quickly, while saying:
"After 22:00 on June 29th, I hadn’t seen this car enter at all, probably just came here temporarily. The vehicle’s electronic entry record also shows this is the only entry and exit record this month. If he owns a house here, why would it be empty? He could at least rent it out for income."
Mr. Zhao popped a wafer into his mouth and mumbled:
"An assistant lawyer is just a jack-of-all-trades. I asked the Shanhai Building’s high-level management, and the cheapest is 16,800 now. Even the newly opened districts around here can’t reach this price, plus the shared space in the high floors is quite extensive, and the property fees are outrageously expensive, it’s impossible for him to own real estate.
Are we perhaps barking up the wrong tree here? He Ruxing shows up early in the morning, given his past behavior, clinging onto a wealthy woman’s coattails would suffice. What were those three mumbled words about just now?"
Xia Momo had been silent all along, but her fingers never stopped tapping on the keyboard. Zhou Ning glanced over and saw that Xia Momo had forwarded the video to someone and was chatting with them. Now they had finished speaking, and Xia Momo raised her head and said:
"I just consulted with a lip-reading expert, she gave a direction, it’s possibly the combination of three pinyin letters starting with WNZ, but as the head was turned sideways, it’s not very accurate."
Mr. Zhao blinked, took out his phone and typed the letters WNZ, leading to a plethora of combinations.
Five-year plan, I’m holding, no female lead, I’m thinking, the inept one, ten thousand years of bamboo, walk south, where to go, I can find...
Mr. Zhao scratched his head, somewhat perplexed by the search results.
"What is all this, talking to himself to this extent?"
Zhou Ning narrowed his eyes and stared at the screen, Mr. Qu kept that snippet on loop. When He Ruxing spoke, he turned his head, an unconscious movement, perhaps...
"If there was someone in the car, or to say someone was hidden there, then it’d make sense for him to say ’where to go’ or ’walk south.’ Mr. Qu, can you make out which direction this car headed in afterward?"
Mr. Qu switched to another surveillance camera, one that captured the pedestrian exit but still visible whether a vehicle merged onto the road ahead. He found the same timespan, the black vehicle came into the frame, signaled right to merge, then signaled left crossing two lanes, and the car turned onto the opposite direction road.
"Southwards. This road driving forward is northwards, he took a turn, heading south. Sadly it’s been too long, we can’t check the road’s surveillance, or else we could track this car’s whereabouts."
Zhou Ning looked at Mr. Zhao, and nodded his chin towards him.
"Call Xu Da, report our findings, and check into this He Ruxing. Besides, when zooming in the video, I saw a dashcam on the car. Even if the data is deleted or overwritten, Mr. Qu can recover it." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Mr. Zhao nodded.
"Tell him, we suspect there’s someone in the car, like someone hiding inside?"
Zhou Ning nodded, and Mr. Zhao hurried to contact Xu Dayuan.
The investigation had become more and more complicated. Luo Qian’s demeanor, way too casual—if she was the murderer, what good does it do for her?
As for this He Ruxing, if he was hired by someone, then was it Dong Chengwen who found him?
Could it be that someone else sought him out aside from Dong Chengwen?
Showed up at such a sensitive time at the crime scene, it couldn’t have been a coincidence. Was he the murderer?
If he was the murderer, when did He Ruxing enter the community?
Seeing such a big fire, burning down none other than Dong Chengwen’s home—even a fool could make some guesses. To be manipulated so easily, wasn’t he just drawing all suspicion onto himself? He’s a lawyer, there’s no way he wouldn’t understand the law, right?
As he pondered, Mr. Zhao returned, gripping a part of the report in his hand.
"Mrs. Cui had someone send over a report first, Luo Qian’s blood doesn’t match the blood type of the samples found at the crime scene, the DNA test is still ongoing."
Zhou Ning paused, this result could be said to have overturned his judgment. Could it be that his previous judgment was mistaken, that the bloodstain could belong to the previous housemaid?
Mr. Zhao patted Zhou Ning’s shoulder, thinking he was feeling disheartened.
"Don’t be discouraged, Zhou Xiaozhou, the DNA result will be out soon."
Zhou Ning returned to the large screen, gesturing to Mr. Qu to pull up the Shanhai Building’s surveillance again, to continue searching for any females walking or moving inside the community after ten o’clock, not leaving out the underground garage either.
Over at Xia Momo’s computer, she was searching for vehicles that entered the community earlier on the night of the incident, as well as the appearance of the pedestrians, hoping to find He Ruxing among them.
Just then, at a laptop in the distance, a series of ’beep beep beep’ sounds emitted. Mr. Qu promptly clicked pause, and Liu Yongxin waved to the two technicians in charge of information technology, gesturing for them to come and continue the work.
Zhou Ning followed Mr. Qu’s gaze as he rushed to the laptop, unplugging a glittery phone. Zhou Ning hurried over, and the computer had already exported a lot of data.
All call logs were displayed, along with missed calls. There were seven missed calls around 23:01, the name labeled as Qianqian. Zhou Ning raised his eyebrow.
"Mr. Zhao, how’s the interrogation at Xu Da’s side going, did you find Luo Qian’s mobile number?"
Mr. Zhao took out his phone and handed over a photo from QQ.
"The number’s here."
Zhou Ning compared the numbers and sure enough, this Qianqian was Luo Qian. Such a designation didn’t seem fitting for a cousin. Glancing at Luo Qian’s age, Zhou Ning noticed for the first time that she was the same age as Dong Chengwen, both 37. However, Luo Qian’s birthday was one month ahead of Dong Chengwen’s.
The speculation that had been in Zhou Ning’s mind kept growing. He grabbed his phone and dialed Mrs. Cui’s number.
"Mrs. Cui, Luo Qian’s DNA test is out. Could you please compare it with Dong Chengwen’s DNA to see if they have a familial relationship?"
The other party paused for a moment.
"Close kin."
"The household register shows that Luo Qian is Dong Chengwen’s aunt’s cousin. I don’t know if it’s possible to compare their relationship to see how similar they are."
"We can check. Mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited. So, the mitochondrial DNA of maternal cousins is the same. For paternal cousins, it’s impossible to confirm directly through DNA testing, but wait a moment, the results are about to come out."
"Alright, I’ll have someone go up and wait."
As soon as he was done speaking, without Zhou Ning having to instruct, Mr. Zhao had already pushed Sun Gaotie out.
Just then, Mr. Qu made a curious sound.
"Huh? This phone actually has monitoring software installed. It’s quite sophisticated."
That single remark made everyone present freeze.
"Is it possible to know who’s monitoring it?"
Mr. Qu shook his head.
"You think too highly of me. This thing can’t be traced backward. However, if we find the phone of the person doing the monitoring, we can detect traces."
Mr. Zhao leaned in.
"It’s like something out of a spy movie. What kind of secret does Dong Chengwen have that requires such surveillance?"
"Maybe it’s the killer. They want to know Dong Chengwen’s every move. Their goal might be just one thing - they don’t want Dong Chengwen to die, but they do want Fang Hua and Dong Xiaomi to die."
Zhou Ning’s mind was in disarray. Mr. Qu printed out the recovered cell phone information. There was a lot, especially on QQ, many file-like things. Zhou Ning flipped through them and noticed a conversation with Yi Xiaou that caught his eye.
April 2, 2011, 13:40 frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
Dong Chengwen: Underneath the cardholder in my office, I placed a card with two hundred thousand in it. Take it as compensation for last night.
Yi Xiaou: Dong Attorney, you don’t need to give me a card; I’ve already forgotten about last night. Should I help Qianqian’s sister find a repairman later?
Dong Chengwen: Yes, go ahead. The password is 323200.
The content after was very normal, but the meaning of compensation was not lost on any man.
Mr. Zhao whistled and blinked his small eyes.
"Damn, what a scoop. Obviously, he’s got his assistant too. I remember Yi Xiaou saying that she didn’t know Luo Qian well, but here she is - ’Qianqian’s sister’; that’s the password for the door lock, right? German orthopedics? Could the child actually be Dong Chengwen’s? Wouldn’t that close kinship lead to abnormalities?"
Mr. Zhao looked at Zhou Ning and saw no surprise on his face, then rubbed his nose.
"Zhou Xiaozhou, did you guess this long ago?"
"Just a suspicion. I’ve asked Mrs. Cui to compare the DNA of Luo Qian and Dong Chengwen. The pregnant woman is already seven or eight months along. The child’s DNA can be detected in her blood. Maybe they’re not close relatives."
The last few words were quite soft, but Mr. Zhao heard them. He looked at Zhou Ning in disbelief. Zhou Ning rarely spoke about his suspicions, and when he did, there was definitely something he had discovered. Although he did not explain in detail, Zhou Ning’s demeanor suggested that his guess might be accurate.
"Take a look. Does Fang Hua have a QQ account?"
Mr. Qu clicked a few times.
"Huh? There’s Fang Hua’s QQ account, but it was cancelled on the night of June 29. Since it’s cancelled, I can’t retrieve the chat history."
Zhou Ning frowned. Could it be that she cancelled her QQ account late at night due to discussions about divorcing Dong Chengwen? QQ chat history would be the best evidence to prove whether or not she had an affair.
While the conversation was lively, Momo did not come over. Mr. Zhao glanced and nudged Zhou Ning’s arm.
"Mr. Xia is still watching the surveillance."
Zhou Ning walked over and glanced at the screen in front of Momo, which showed the entrance surveillance footage at 22:00.
"Did you find anything?"
Momo shook her head.
"I’ve looked at these before. But if you look at the guard’s position, it seems like there’s something like a mirror inside the room. As soon as a vehicle comes in, the latter half of the license plate gets too bright to see clearly, and only the front part with ’Lu B’ is visible.
Before, I saw that Volkswagen, with seven or eight of them being black, but I couldn’t distinguish the license plates. Let me just process this footage a bit."
Just as Mr. Xia was about to adjust the video, Zhou Ning raised his hand.
"Pause it, and rewind ten seconds. I think I saw someone familiar."
