Chapter 171: Chapter 170 - Lawyers Everywhere_1
Zhou Ning shook his head.
"When I got these materials, I contacted the Wenquan Police Station immediately, and they really found this report record. The reporter was Dong Chengwen, and the transcript photos they sent were exactly the same. However, who arranged for He Ruxing, that’s hard to say."
Liu Yufei pursed her lips and snorted coldly.
"Wealthy people really lead exhausting lives, it’s like something out of a spy film. But when you think about it, it makes sense. A divorce could mean losing a large part of their assets, and the ownership of the law firm might change as well. If the parting isn’t amicable, the other party could do something irrational in anger.
All the company’s, credibility’s, and brand’s reputation that has been built up over the years might vanish in an instant. However, if this was all Dong Chengwen’s design, then the man cannot simply be described as devious; he’s utterly unscrupulous. No wonder no one is willing to represent him in court."
Xu Dayuan laughed. Liu Yufei’s reaction was intense; after all, from a woman’s perspective, the whole situation felt dirty.
"Enough with the sentiment. Hurry back to the station. Send what needs to be sent for inspection and rest if you need to. Tomorrow, Yufei, you’ll interrogate with me. After all, the other party is pregnant. Zhou Xiaozhou, aren’t you going to help me contact a doctor?"
Zhou Ning didn’t open his eyes, instead turning his head toward the window, folding his arms in a pose suggesting he was about to sleep.
"He Shancun’s professional association is at the Central Hospital, not in the Forensic Medicine Office team two of the Technical Department. If we’re going to find a doctor, just find someone nearby. Don’t ask me."
Xu Dayuan poked Zhou Ning’s lower back and laughed, exasperated.
"Shall I make the contact then?"
...
The next day.
Just as Zhou Ning stepped out of the car, his phone rang. Before he even took it out, Mr. Zhao commented from the side.
"Is the boss in a rush?"
A glance confirmed it was a call from Xu Dayuan.
"Hello, boss, we’ve just arrived."
"Hurry up, bring the stuff over for Luo Qian’s sampling. She’s already here. By the way, have the results from last night’s sent-in samples come out yet?"
"I’ll bring the results over in a bit."
Having reassured Xu Dayuan, Zhou Ning quickly headed upstairs. Zhu Xingxing and the others hadn’t arrived yet; after all, it was only 7:30. Mr. Zhao ran to retrieve the lab results, and soon he returned at a brisk pace.
"On the anti-theft door of the garage, we found a bloodstain, female, unidentified. But that fiber is interesting; there are two types, one is black 85% nylon + 15% spandex, the other is black 95% polyester imitation silk + 0.5% conductive fiber."
Zhou Ning reacted for a moment.
"Black stockings and what fabric?"
Mr. Zhao grinned, showing off his white teeth, and raised his eyebrows.
"Of course, black stockings are what otakus immediately think of; I guessed the same thing at first. But this isn’t about black stockings; it’s pants with a similar material, the kind worn as leggings for running and yoga.
Mrs. Cui said the other fabric is likely from a high-quality yoga skirt or shorts. However, the blood mixed with the two fabrics, given the height of 75 centimeters from the ground and the average height of a woman, that would place it near the thigh."
Zhou Ning thought for a moment; he seemed to remember seeing such an outfit in advertisements, though in reality, it seemed rare for someone to walk around dressed like that.
But then it clicked in his mind, recalling a comment made by Yi Xiaou:
Luo Qian? She wasn’t familiar with her, didn’t know which law firm she was at, or who her husband was. Could this be some sort of hint?
Seeing Zhou Ning suddenly pause, Mr. Zhao knew that Zhou Ning must have thought of something, so he just quietly moved closer and sorted out the lab reports, watching him.
"Let’s go, you’re coming with me to team one."
The two hurried through the corridor and arrived at the first floor below the first team office. The hallway was filled with hurried figures. Liu Yufei was standing in front of the interrogation room gesturing to them, so they quickly walked over.
"Mr. Xu is in the observation room. Who is going to draw Luo Qian’s blood?"
Mr. Zhao took over the box and handed the reports to Zhou Ning.
"I’ll go. Drawing blood and taking fingerprints, right? By the way, has the doctor arrived yet?"
Zhou Ning nodded.
"Earlier than us, you go ahead."
With that, Mr. Zhao entered the interview room with Liu Yufei, and Zhou Ning also entered the adjacent observation room. Xu Dayuan was standing in front of the one-way glass looking into the interview room. He turned to Zhou Ning when he heard the noise.
"Did the blood found yesterday match up?"
Zhou Ning shook his head and handed the lab report to Xu Dayuan.
"A female DNA, not Fang Hua, and no blood relation with the other two deceased. You brought her in so early?"
Xu Dayuan flipped through the report, sighing.
"Yes, we had to. Luo Qian booked a flight at 17:20 this afternoon to Hubei. We asked her questions all the way here, but she wouldn’t say why she’s going back to Hubei; just silent like that."
Zhou Ning glanced at the interview room, where Luo Qian was wearing a dress, not particularly maternity wear, just the slightly loose kind. She didn’t resist the blood draw and was very cooperative with Mr. Zhao’s requests.
"Who is her husband?"
Xu Dayuan raised an eyebrow, his expression somewhat strange as he looked at Zhou Ning.
"I didn’t expect that your point of interest would be the same as Liu Yufei’s. We checked last night and her household registration indicates she’s unmarried. We asked her on the way, but she didn’t open her mouth at all; she just wouldn’t say anything no matter what we asked. That’s also the reason I didn’t go in."
Zhou Ning glanced at Luo Qian in the next room, as well as that doctor.
"Is Luo Qian’s physical condition okay? Don’t ask her a few questions only for something else to happen."
"The doctor Mr. He found, Doctor Wang, said that Luo Qian’s condition is good. We also found her prenatal check-up records at the Central Hospital, and there is no registration of a husband or boyfriend."
"What does that mean?"
Zhou Ning didn’t say anything. He had a suspicion in his mind, although it was against human ethics, Zhou Ning still had doubts because Luo Qian’s anxious state did not resemble that of a cousin. This intuition lingered in his heart.
"It doesn’t mean much, just that Luo Qian is very secretive."
Zhou Ning didn’t ask any further. If Xu Dayuan didn’t want to say, then he wouldn’t force it; he wasn’t a criminal investigator anyway. These were things for Xu Dayuan to worry about. Seeing Mr. Zhao finish taking samples, Zhou Ning waved his hand at Xu Dayuan.
"Mr. Xu, we’re going back first. We’ll do the comparison later."
"I say, comrade Zhou Xiaozhou, you’re leaving just like that? Don’t you want to listen to the interrogation?"
Zhou Ning shook his head, glancing at the time on his watch.
"DNA results come out at the fastest in five and a half hours, and then we need to analyze the comparison results, which takes about half an hour. It’s 7:12 now, so the earliest we will know anything is 13:12 this afternoon. And if the DNA doesn’t match her, will she have to go back to Hubei?"
Xu Dayuan smacked his lips and no longer stopped Zhou Ning.
"All right, let me know the results as soon as they come out. Also, the surveillance footage from all the exits of Shanhai Building from June 29th to July 1st has been saved and sent to Mr. Qu’s email. I asked them to help me look through it since the quality of the surveillance is just so-so. It’s difficult to distinguish license plates and genders at night."
Zhou Ning nodded.
"Okay."
After saying that, he turned and walked away. At this moment, Mr. Zhao and Doctor Wang also left the conversation room. The three exchanged a few polite words before directly leaving. Xu Dayuan rubbed his chin and, seeing Liu Yufei come out, approached her and said:
"Delay the time a bit. I’ll talk to her later. DNA takes almost six hours; give her something to eat and drink, find a policewoman to take care of her, and then you talk to her first. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t speak. Understand?"
Liu Yufei nodded and pointed to herself.
"Mr. Xu, who are you suggesting to get a policewoman to take care of her? In our team, I’m the only woman. You can’t expect me to talk to her alone, can you? That’s not according to the rules!"
Xu Dayuan was taken aback, raising his hand to stop her.
"Wait, I’ll go get someone. Why is everyone so prickly today?"
...
In the laboratory.
Zhou Ning watched the large screen, which displayed four surveillance feeds, two from vehicle exits and two from pedestrian exits at Shanhai residential area. The timestamp had advanced to the morning of June 30th, 7:20 am.
There was almost no movement of fire engines or police cars. The number of vehicles at the entrance was gradually increasing. Every time a car appeared, Mr. Qu took a snapshot and checked the vehicle information, while Xia Momo searched for the information of the drivers.
Each match was either the car owner or the car owner’s wife or husband. Just as a black Volkswagen Langyi came into the surveillance frame, the driver paused for a moment with a sideways head movement, as if mouthing something.
Zhou Ning raised his hand.
"Mr. Qu, slow down this frame."
Liu Yongxin leaned in, along with two technicians from the information technology department, as there were many videos to process and they thought it inappropriate to leave it all to Mr. Pang in the lab. They all looked at Zhou Ning.
"What happened?"
"He seems to be talking. The fast-forward speed was too rapid, and I couldn’t see clearly."
Mr. Qu had already clicked for normal playback, and the car entered the camera frame again. The brakes were hit hard, as if the male driver was not familiar with the surroundings. When the scrolling screen that read the license plate appeared, the car started again.
At the same time, the man turned to the passenger seat and moved his mouth.
The action was very slight, as if he said three words.
"Can Mr. Xia handle the image quality?"
Xia Momo had already been attracted over. After toiling all morning and finding some clues, they were very cautious. Xia Momo nodded and quickly operated on the keyboard, significantly enhancing the clarity of the image, which was zoomed in on both the car cabins to fill the screen.
In such a state, they could see the man’s face more clearly. A baseball cap shielded his eyes, but his mouth was indeed moving. However, after replaying it four or five times, Zhou Ning didn’t see anyone else in the car.
Liu Yongxin looked puzzled and rubbed his chin as he said:
"From this angle, it seems like there’s no one in the car, not even a security guard. What’s he muttering? Is he cursing someone?"
Mr. Zhao tried imitating the man’s lip movements, making several attempts.
"Three words. It’s not the classic curse word. The first one seems to be a puckered mouth like pronouncing the ’W’ sound, the second one has the mouth slightly open, hard to guess, and for the third one, it looks like teeth are together, lips slightly puckered. Without a lip-reading expert, how can we guess?"
"I’ll check on the car first. The car owner is named He Ruxing, and he’s actually a lawyer as well. Are lawyers everywhere these days?"
Before he could continue, Zhou Ning was taken aback. He remembered this name; he was surprised at that time because he was the lawyer assistant who went to the Wenquan resort hotel with Fang Hua. At this sensitive time, what was he doing here?"
"How could it be him?"
