Free Web NovelChapter 677: Chapter 645: Don’t eat it, there’s something wrong with the boxed meal_1
Tao Zhenshan laughed.
"Boss, I’m just thrilled that you thought of me for this job. I headed straight to the airport the moment I got the news, without even going home to pack."
Xu Dayuan smiled and clapped Tao Zhenshan on the shoulder, noting how much more composed the man seemed to have become after his time spent training. Back in the Criminal Police Brigade, despite being a veteran, his edges had worn away somewhat, and he seemed to lack enthusiasm for his work. Now, however, it appeared that his best condition had returned.
As the group ascended to the second floor, they noticed several lunchbox carriers near the door.
Around the conference table, a crowd was already seated. Zou Jialong and Pang Tianhang were distributing lunchboxes from two carriers swiftly, while Fang Mu spotted Xu Dayuan and Zhou Ning from inside and quickly stood up to greet the newcomers.
"Boss, I finally get to see you guys. Did you miss me?"
"Cut it out, it’s nauseating to hear that from a grown man. Just tell me, did you catch Sun Pengfei?"
"We caught him, but can’t a guy get some food first? My last meal was a tiny bread roll on the airplane, no bigger than an egg."
Everyone laughed as Xu Dayuan waved them to sit down.
"Let’s eat first, then talk."
Peng Shinian was the first to open his lunchbox, and the smile on his face showed that he was pleased with the selection. Ever since Qin University arranged for him to have a steak, he always liked to check the menu before eating, planning in his mind what to indulge in and what to skip.
Without waiting for the others, he was the first to start eating; however, as soon as he took a bite, he immediately spat it out and grabbed a bottle of mineral water to rinse his mouth, then stood up with a look of shock on his face.
"Stop eating, there’s something wrong with the lunchboxes!"
At his words, everyone stopped mid-motion.
Zou Jialong and Pang Tianhang still held several undistributed lunchboxes in their hands, and both were momentarily frozen, unsure of what to do.
Zhou Ning, being close to Peng Shinian, quickly moved to his side to look at the lunchbox in front of him.
"What did you find?"
Peng Shinian pushed the lunchbox in front of Zhou Ning and then gestured urgently to Mr. Zhao.
"Mr. Zhao, I need the toxic substance test kit. It’s in the office next door, in a silver box with a yellow English label on it and a skull and crossbones."
Mr. Zhao immediately ran off, while Xu Dayuan stood still, his face becoming grim. The man he had brought with him—a double doctorate holder—would not react without good reason; he must have detected some smell that caused such a severe reaction.
He glanced at Liu Yufei. Liu Yufei and Fang Mu both leaned in closer.
"Continue with your duties. Now, I need someone to check who delivered these lunchboxes, who handled them, where they were made. I want a list of everyone involved. Mr. Qu, go check the surveillance footage." freewēbnoveℓ.com
Mr. Qu had already booted up a series of laptops and raised his hand to Xu Dayuan.
"Director Xu, don’t worry. I connected to the surveillance system ahead of time when we arrested Cao Wenyu. Let me just quickly search through."
With that, Mr. Qu didn’t pause, clicking rapidly to bring up the surveillance footage.
He rewound to when the lunchboxes were delivered at 19:10. A Wuling Hongguang van pulled up and Zou Jialong hurried out from it.
The driver was dressed in a white chef’s uniform, wore a mask, and had plastic disposable gloves on—looking very hygienic. He carried a clipboard under his arm and, with one foot on the van, quickly unloaded all the lunchboxes, then began counting them.
After completing this, he handed the clipboard, still tucked under his arm, to Zou Jialong. The two verified the count, Zou Jialong signed off, and even gave the driver a polite wave goodbye.
The van left, and Zou Jialong walked into the smaller building. Through the window, it could be seen that Zou Jialong continued to check the count and made several phone calls, apparently urging everyone to come and collect their lunchboxes.
Then Zou Jialong went upstairs. The comings and goings were plenty, and from this angle, it was impossible to see who lingered by the door for a long time, except when the door was open enough to make things clear.
Time jumped to 19:35, when Pang Tianhang, Sun Gaotie, and Mr. Wang joined and laughed as they carried the lunchboxes upstairs. At 19:58, Xu Dayuan arrived with Zhou Ning and the rest of their group in the small building. One minute later, the footage stopped.
Unfortunately, there were no surveillance cameras inside the smaller building. From the delivery to the moving upstairs, plenty of people came and went, but it wasn’t clear who spent a long time near the lunchboxes—except possibly the caretaker, Zou Jialong.
At this point, Zou Jialong stood up, looking very anxious and agitated. He raised his hands and said:
"Boss, I took the lunchboxes, counted them, signed for them, and asked people to carry them upstairs. The lunchboxes never left my sight. If... if there’s something wrong with them, doesn’t that make me the prime suspect?"
By the end of his speech, Zou Jialong’s face had turned pale, and in his anxiety, he stomped his foot. Zhou Ning patted his shoulder. Known for not being very brave and somewhat slow to react—after all, he was the one who ended up dislocating his shoulder during a simple fall; one to struggle with simple tasks—now he was panicking before anyone even accused him.
"Calm down, Director Xu has sent people to look into it!"
At this moment, Guan Jian rushed over.
"Just asked, the boxed meals are from Hexi Road Restaurant at the intersection. Usually, they call to deliver, but they said the boxed meals were delivered at seven o’clock, however, the driver didn’t return,"
Xu Dayuan lifted his hand and said to Mr. Qu:
"Check the road surveillance to see where the vehicle went and call to ask for the driver’s name and identification information."
Mr. Qu hurriedly checked the surveillance. The vehicle left from inside the courtyard of the public security bureau and drove in the opposite direction, seemingly heading to the intersection to make a U-turn. However, as it neared the intersection, the vehicle didn’t signal left to turn but instead took a direct right turn.
After searching for a while, Mr. Qu confirmed there was indeed surveillance at this intersection, but the camera facing the right direction was broken, and after watching for several minutes at the first intersection after the right turn, they completely failed to find the Wuling Hongguang van.
Guan Jian approached, handing his phone to Xu Dayuan, displaying some identification information.
"This guy is the driver, and he’s also the sous chef at their place. His name is Zhang Chunping, 25 years old, has been working at the restaurant for nearly half a year, a very honest and hardworking kid, from Yunlian Port."
Xu Dayuan nodded and gestured towards Tao Zhenshan.
"Check out this section of the road and see if there are any buildings around. The car has been gone for 50 minutes now; it didn’t pass through the intersection, so it must be hidden in this section."
Tao Zhenshan nodded, quickly leading a group of more than twenty people down the stairs, while Xu Dayuan walked over to Zhou Ning and Peng Shinian. At this moment, more than thirty test kits were laid out on the table—obviously, they were doing rapid testing, looking through the last result.
Peng Shinian slumped into his chair, his face a mix of relief.
"These can detect thirty-eight toxic substances, including arsenic, mercury, rat poison fluoroacetamide, cyanide, lead, antimony, bismuth, silver compounds, free mineral acids, and various controlled substances D series, etc.
I don’t know whether to say we’re lucky or I’m unlucky, but I have a severe allergy to one thing, bitter almonds, so I’m extremely sensitive to that smell. When I took the first bite, as I was chewing, I smelled bitter almonds.
So, I guessed there was cyanide in it, and we just completed all the rapid tests, choosing seven boxed meals, which all turned out to be laced with cyanide. I think it’s likely that every boxed meal has it, and you can see obvious needle holes on the lids."
Xu Dayuan’s face turned iron blue; this was a blatant challenge. They had just arrested some people in Ganzhou, and immediately thereafter, someone tried to poison everyone involved in the investigation. There were over fifty boxed meals; if Peng Shinian hadn’t discovered the poison, all of their people here might have died today.
"Gather all the boxed meals, bag them up. In a moment, once we hear from Tao Zhenshan’s side, Mr. Zhao will bring down the instant noodle buckets and ham sausage sandwiches we prepared in our vehicle—for safety’s sake, let’s eat that instead."
Peng Shinian nodded.
"We’ll go along."
Xu Dayuan sat down, glancing at Zou Jialong, who stood behind Zhou Ning.
"Everyone, take a seat. Zou Jialong, don’t blame yourself; if it was poisoning, this wasn’t something you could control. After all, no one can predict everything. But this is a wake-up call for us."
"From this moment on, we’ll have to resolve our own food. After eating, those who participated in the interrogations during the day should rest. Liu Yufei, make a list, and I’ll continue the interrogations tonight, keep asking questions,"
Liu Yufei hastily began to organize since Fang Mu and Tao Zhenshan weren’t aware of the progress here. Xu Dayuan called He Chunyang; with such a brazen act of poisoning here, he feared that matters at the Aerospace City wouldn’t be going smoothly.
The phone rang for a long time before He Chunyang answered.
"Chunyang, have you arrived at Aerospace City?"
"Director, I’ve arrived and already met up with the local bureau. They are looking for the records from back then. After all, the two pictures you provided were very unclear, and the fax number you mentioned in the records is indeed from this city bureau, but not from the criminal police’s number,"
"So, whose number was it?"
"After verification, it was one that the political department had used before, but that was just an ordinary phone line. I asked the comrades from before in the political department, and they didn’t use fax."
Xu Dayuan narrowed his eyes as if he was onto something.
"Ask the local comrades if, when the phone line entered their city bureau, it was an external line, wasn’t it?"
He Chunyang did not hesitate, quickly inquired from the personnel beside him, and as soon as he got an affirmative answer, he immediately said:
"Yes, back then, all the lines were external. Director, I understand what you mean. You suspect someone tapped into the phone line, hooked up their own fax, and then sent it out under our name. But the problem is, faxes need power, and there’s no way to plug in outdoors."
Mr. Zhao approached, his sharp hearing had let him understand the conversation, and he quickly raised his hand to say:
"What if someone was pretending to repair the lines? Like cutting the phone line in advance and then showing up to fix it?"
Xu Dayuan nodded.
"Mr. Zhao makes sense. Do they have records of reports for repairs?"
"I’ll ask. Just now we mainly spoke to the political department for inquiries and didn’t search in this direction. As for the entire yearly records of 1994, they’re being looked at now. Oh, the personnel assisting from Aerospace City have set out and should be arriving by now."
"Then keep looking, according to the content of the assistance letter, the person described by the eyewitness is already dead from serious injuries. There were three infiltrators, one dead, two on the run. The one who died was the driver supporting them, and the date was November 2, 1994."
