Chapter 211: Mythical, unbelievable!
Any other day, Liwu would have been angry that Detective Qin Yiyi butted into her case, but not tonight. Before they could despair over the missing Chen Guowei, the woman announced over comms that she had found him. As it turned out, his shadow had left tracks that she followed.
Come morning at the precinct, a lot of buzzing and coffee floated around. Liwu emerged from the rest area with damp hair wrapped in a towel, her luxury two piece sports attire hugging her body perfectly. She looked more like an heiress returning from the sauna, than an exhausted detective that had not slept a wink.
She had only returned from Chen Guowei’s villa an hour ago. That was when the raid ended, but birds were still being retrieved from the fortress. Cages and crates of relics and other things that were considered evidence were being hauled through the city in protected trucks, like contraband.
Liwu barely had time to sit at her desk when the door to her office burst open. Xuanji, panting like a dog, screamed to her, "Liwu, you need to come and hear this for yourself. You are never going to believe this."
She followed him, curiosity in her eyes. A crowd of people screaming over each other surged into the precinct Their overlapping voices made it impossible to tell what they wanted her to know.
A woman stepped forward, shoving the rest to the sides with her walking cane. "Shush, shush, all of you. I am the system host here, the detective should listen to me first." She was older than the rest of the group, her aura faint but distinct. Her eyes gleamed with sharpness, her dress had a lot of feathers and chains.
She looked like a cross between a hippie and a metal music fan.
"Detective, I know why those birds were selling for half a billion." she declared, with an authoritative air.
The bullpen fell silent.
Analyst Bird gestured to three cages carried in by officers he had instructed to follow him. Inside, three yellow chicks chirped innocently, their downy feathers glowing faintly under the florescent lights.
"These aren’t ordinary chicks." the woman said, her voice trembling with awe. "They are phoenixes."
Gasps erupted. Even Liwu’s towel slipped slightly as she leaned forward. The chicks in the cages looked like ordinary chicks, the kind that grew only to be eaten in a few months. "These are phoenixes!"
Analyst Bird grinned smugly. "I knew something bigger was going on. Who sells one bird for half a billion! I knew there was something wrong with some of the birds at the scene, so I sent a video to my bird watching group. Immediately, answers started coming in. More than half of these birds are not from our world. They are new species from somewhere else. But even I did not see phoenixes coming!"
Weijun pushed his way through the crowd, squeezing next to Liwu. His eyes too held astonishment. "Mythical phoenixes, I can see myself buying one for half a billion. Owning such a bird is the biggest wealth symbol there could be. Kind of like owning a dragon."
Liwu frowned and replied, "We don’t have any phoenixes registered in the SOB, nor have we given anyone permission to import birds from another worlds." Phoenixes explained the astronomical sums, the desperate smuggling, the heavy security. But it raised more questions than answers.
She turned abruptly. "Where is Chen Guowei?"
"Upstairs," an officer replied, "Interrogation room eight, dead man’s cell. His system was stripped as soon as he was brought in. He had a new passport and other documents. His ship was all ready to smuggle him out. We have been warming him up for you."
Liwu narrowed her eyes. "Good. Let’s see if he talks."
She marched upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. Members of her team and Weijun followed, not wanting to miss a single moment.
Liwu opened the door to interrogation room eight. It was the coldest cell they had, deliberately done so to destabilize the physical state of the suspect. Its walls were bare, except for a single flickering light. And it was small too, designed for discomfort. Basically, it gave the suspect an idea of where they would end up if they didn’t cooperate.
Chen Guowei sat shackled, wrists and ankles bound with heavy iron. His face was pale, his eyes defiant.
Liwu entered, towel still around her head, a faintly absurd sight that only heightened the tension somehow. She dropped onto the table a folder He Xiao Yi handed her on the way in.
"You have kept us up all night Chen Guowei." She started, "I suppose you have kept yourself up for many nights too, after all, it is not easy to sleep, knowing that you have a fortune of 17.9 billion from selling birds." She said flatly. "Where is the money?"
Chen Guowei sneered. "I don’t know what you are talking about."
Liwu leaned closer. "You were caught trying to flee the country with a few cages of birds. Some of those birds have been identified as phoenixes. Where did you get them?"
Silence.
"Who did you sell your phoenixes to? For all other transactions in your ledger, you wrote down the name of the buyer or an address. For the phoenixes, you only wrote initials. Giving me names will help your case. Those phoenixes have to be apprehended."
Silence.
She tapped the folder. "What did you plan to do with 17.9 billion? See, I don’t think you were selling birds for the fun of it, your security business was making you enough profits."
The man’s lips tightened.
Liwu’s voice sharpened. "Chen Guowei, keeping quiet will not help you. Smuggling illegal life forms into earth from another world is a crime. A heavy crime with serious consequences. If you don’t want to be in prison for the rest of your life, I would advice you to sing like one of your birds."
Outside, Xuanji laughed. "Did you hear that? We have heard confessions given in song, but I don’t see Chen Guowei doing that?"
Back in the interrogation room, Liwu slapped the table. "Where did you get these birds? Do they all come from the same world or different ones? I am sure you don’t have the skills to breed a phoenix, so who bred them for you? Who smuggled them into this city? Tell me."
Still silence.
She sighed, her patience thinning. "Fine. Let’s try something else."
Liwu rose and raised her hand. Chen Guowei grimaced, anticipating pain. Outside, in the observation area, the rest of the team panicked.
"Don’t, don’t..."
Chief Abby pushed the door open, to stop Liwu from beating the suspect. A coerced confession was a useless one. It was better not to have a confession at all, than one which could overturn the case.
But Liwu had not plans of beating Chen Guowei. She simply stuck a bad luck coupon on his arm. Instantly, the light flickered harder, the shackles rattled, and the chair on which Chen was sitting wobbles precariously. But he remained stone-face, refusing to speak.
"Why did you kidnap reporter Han?" She asked.
Silence.
Liwu’s jaw clenched. "You think you can resist me? I have more tricks in my bag."
She pulled out her bad luck handcuffs, dangling them in the air. These had never failed when she needed a quick confession, so she was sure they would not fail now. As long as she put them on his wrists, he would spill his secrets uncontrollably.
She snapped them onto his wrists.
The rest of the team started a premature celebration. They had seen those handcuffs at work, so this was a done deal. They would close the case before 10:00 a.m, and go home to rest.
To their surprise, and Liwu’s, Chen Guowei did not confess. His eyes widened, then rolled back. His body convulsed once, twice, before collapsing forward.
Liwu cursed, checking his pulse. He was alive, but unconscious.
Xuanji yelled for a medic and moments later, one arrived to check on Chen Guowei, scanning him. "He is in a coma."
Liwu’s eyes narrowed. "What? Why? I didn’t do anything to him. The cameras can testify for me."
The medic explained grimly. "His system is gone, but he left a last defense in his mind in preparation for any kind of interrogation. A mental barricade. His is determined to hide his secrets, even from himself. I guess he was about to break before the barricade kicked in as a last resort."
Liwu stared at the unconscious man, fury and frustration boiling. "So he locked his own mind. How clever. Stupid. Infuriating. Whatever this is, it involves more than birds."
Chen Guowei was carried out while Liwu joined her team members. "That was a waste of time."
Weijun, who was carrying three small phoenix chicks in his arms replied, "I wouldn’t say so. Sleazy Han is alive. If he knew about the ledgers, he knows more. And we are keeping these phoenixes, as mayor, I decree it."
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