Appointment With The Victim

Fourth Missy Gan had been spotted by someone else and her lies exposed on the spot. Nobody could help her.

Her knees buckled and she fell onto the floor. Her pretty eyes reddened slightly and tears immediately started falling, “Yes… before I left, I did see Commissioner Lu.”

She was already past 30, yet she was still able to bite her lip and cry and garner sympathy. That was how blessed she was in the looks department.

“That night, when the food was about to be all sold, Zhixuan went to the bathroom and didn’t come out for a long time. I became anxious and walked into the pub to ask if anyone could help me check on him. Commissioner Lu happened to walk out from inside, so… I asked him for help.”

“He told me that he saw Zhixuan inside and he was fine, and that he would be coming out in no time, so I was relieved to hear that.”

“That was all we said! I swear there was nothing else!” She raised her hand as though she was about to actually take an oath.

Wen Yuansi asked, “If that was the case and neither of you had anything to do with the murder, then why did you want to hide this?”

“You ask… why?” Fourth Missy Gan smiled bitterly. Her voice was filled with sadness, “Sir, look at me. Who am I? I am a widow, a widow without a man to head the household over me. It doesn’t matter how pure I keep myself, or how hard I work. Does anybody see those things? Everyone, both men and women, only see what they want to see!”

“They say that I’m shameless, I don’t care about my reputation, that I’m a slut…“

“I wouldn’t dare to speak the truth!” Fourth Missy Gan covered her face and began weeping miserably on the floor, “This case has barely even started and rumors have already started floating around. Everyone is pointing fingers at me and those fingers are practically in my face! I don’t care about myself, since I’m so used to it already. But my son, Zhixuan… why should he suffer like that?”

“It’s not anything important in the first place and it doesn’t matter whether I said it or not… why did you have to force me…“

She cried really miserably, as though she was being cut into pieces. Her pain was very real.

Everyone could imagine what she was going through and they could understand her hurt.

“I really… wasn’t involved with Commissioner Lu…“

The entire place had fallen silent, which made her crying sound even louder and even more tragic. It looked like the entire hall of people had ganged up to bully a widow.

Everyone looked a little awkward, especially the men.

Qi Yan rubbed his nose, “I just wanted to speak the truth, I didn’t mean to bully a woman.”

Gan Zhixuan glared fiercely at him and snorted.

Perhaps he didn’t like to speak because his voice was changing, but he decided he had to speak up now. He bowed toward Wen Yuansi and Zhao Zhi and explained, “Before leaving, I suddenly got a stomachache and went to the bathroom. I didn’t tell my mother because I didn’t want her to worry. I didn’t know that my mother had come by the bathroom and even asked Commissioner Lu to check on me because I had been in there for too long. I had been uh… overly focused on what I had to do in there and didn’t notice that Commissioner Lu was around.”

That… was understandable too.

Their statements matched and made sense.

Wen Yuansi paused to think, then said, “After you came out of the pub’s bathroom, you left with your mother?”

Gan Zhixuan shook his head, “No, my legs were a little numb, so I waited for maybe five minutes or so before packing up our stall and leaving.”

“During that time, you did not take note of Commissioner Lu anymore.”

“That’s right.”

Wen Yuansi asked a few more questions about the time everything occurred and a few more details, but unfortunately none of these seemed helpful to the case.

Fourth Missy Gan couldn’t stop crying and it took Gan Zhixuan a long time to finally coax her into stopping, then he gently helped her to stand again.

From the way he looked at his mother, his heart must have ached badly to see her cry like this. He glared even more fiercely at Qi Yan now.

But Qi Yan had already gotten over it. He used the fan to fan himself slowly as his eyes turned upward into a false smile, “I’m a person who loves a good crowd. I go wherever is most lively, most novel and most fun. That little pub had a pretty widow selling food outside every day, so after hearing about that, I had to go and take a look for myself. Otherwise, wouldn’t I have come all the way to Luanze for nothing?”

“Hey, young man, don’t stare at me like that. We’re in the courthouse and we’ve got a murder to solve, so I can’t possibly pretend I don’t know the truth when I saw it myself, right? Besides… other than the two of you, I saw other people too.”

These words not only successfully shifted Gan Zhixuan’s attention away from his mother but also made everyone curious.

Zhao Zhi asked, “Who else did you see?”

Qi Yan fanned himself as he walked around the hall with a smug smile on his face to enjoy everyone’s attention on him. After he was done whetting everyone’s appetite, he covered half his face and snickered in a fairly annoying fashion, “Not just one, actually. Who does Surveillance Commissioner Zhao want to hear about first?”

Zhao Zhi’s fingers trembled slightly, as though he was resisting the urge to throw the entire desk at Qi Yan’s head.

But just when Qi Yan was about to build the suspense further, a voice resounded from outside the door, accompanied by quick but steady footsteps, “Mr. Qi, I suppose you saw me!”

Song Caitang, like everyone else in the hall, turned to look at who had arrived.

This was a very tall and muscular man in fitting black clothes. At one glance, he looked a little like Zhao Zhi.

They were both tall, with muscles that were almost bursting out of their clothes and exuded a strong sense of manliness and power.

But a closer look revealed the differences.

Zhao Zhi had a greater good guy aura, an aura like the moon in the sky, like a hot, sunny day. No matter how muscular he was, how fierce his gaze was, how nasty his words were, once you got closer, you wouldn’t feel scared of him anymore. He provided a sense of security, for some reason, as though he was a mighty and steady mountain.

This man was different. His expression wasn’t fierce, he had a broad forehead, a high nose and long narrow eyes. He could be considered handsome, but even if he were to smile, you could sense the danger oozing out from his pores. You wouldn’t want to go anywhere near him and you might even try to hide yourself as much as possible.

It was as if he were a sharp dagger covered in blood. A dagger ready to kill at any moment.

Someone recognized him. Manager Liu immediately shouted his name, “Cao Zhang!”

His name was… Cao Zhang?

Song Caitang blinked, then narrowed her eyes.

That deal that Manager Liu and Madam Zhang were trying to strike was in cooperation with the Green Gang, and she had heard the name Cao Zhang from Guan Qing. Guan Qing said that Cao Zhang was the new leader of the Green Gan. Nobody was really sure of his true temperament and personality, but he was a very ruthless person.

And that was why Guan Qing didn’t want her family business to be involved with such people.

The Guans had plenty of legal deals with other people, and everything was fine as long as they followed the law. But Manager Liu and Madam Zhang wanted to go by the illegal route. If everything went well, there was no guarantee that the other party would remember they once benefitted from this. And if something went wrong, the gang was definitely going to make sure you perished.

This was like scheming with the tiger to get its fur. It was going to be too difficult, and too dangerous.

Guan Qing despised Madam Zhang and would never want to be on her side, but she didn’t want Madam Zhang to go down like this and even implicate the family at the same time.

So, this Cao Zhang… was the same guy?

He answered her question, “Leader of the Green Gang, Cao Zhang, greets the magistrate and surveillance commissioner.”

Song Caitang lowered her gaze as she picked up her teacup and drank slowly from it.

The fact that he could correctly identify the two men behind the desk meant that this gang leader had pretty good information sources at least.

As she thought about that, Song Caitang sensed someone looking at her. She turned and saw that it was Ling Qianqian.

Ling Qianqian seemed rather curious about her and her gaze was both one that observed and judged her, but when Song Caitang met her eyes, Ling Qianqian’s expression changed. Her eyes curved and her lips curled upward into a bright, innocent and adorable smiling face.

Song Caitang nodded slightly at her in response.

Meanwhile, Wen Yuansi had started his questioning, “You were around on that day as well? Did you see the victim?”

“Yes, I did,” replied Cao Zhang directly. “Commissioner Lu had asked to meet with me, so of course I wouldn’t dare to stand him up.”

What?

Lu Guangzong had made an appointment with Cao Zhang?!

Wen Yuansi narrowed his eyes and asked, “How did he set up this appointment and when?”

Cao Zhang’s eyes were narrow with sharp corners, so even when he was just trying to recall what happened, they seemed to exude an indescribable cruelty, “It was in the afternoon of the 10th, the time… I don’t really remember. At almost three, maybe? The person who approached me wasn’t one of his usual subordinates but a beggar. The beggar said that he had been paid to send this message to me, but there was no token or invitation card of any sort to prove it.”

He walked two steps to the side, flipped the back of his robe up a little and sat down squarely on the empty chair there, “I didn’t want to go, actually, but he’s an official and I’m just an ordinary citizen, so it’s hard for me to say no. I had to at least turn up and see what was going on.”

“I don’t think that was all.”

Qi Yan took a step forward and used his fan to cover his face. The cheeky twinkle in his eyes was unmistakable, “I saw you flirting with a woman and you even touched her hand…“

Cao Zhang smiled as well.

He glanced at Qi Yan as his smile widened, “We’re all men, and for people who travel a lot like ourselves, isn’t it very normal for us to pick up a woman now and then?”

Qi Yan paused to think, then nodded vigorously as though he agreed wholeheartedly, “That is true. We’re both great flirts, we’re the same.”

As he spoke, he even looked in Song Caitang’s direction and winked at her in front of everybody in the hall.

Song Caitang almost threw the teacup in her hand at him.

She suddenly understood why Zhao Zhi had used that stool to hit him. It wasn’t really because Zhao Zhi was bad tempered, but more because Qi Yan’s behavior could really make one feel like punching him in the face.

PAK! Zhao Zhi put his teacup back down on the desk. Hard.

A teacup wasn’t very weighty, so the sound it made couldn’t get that loud. Yet, Zhao Zhi was able to make it resound at such a terrifying volume.

The entire place fell silent immediately.

Zhao Zhi’s gaze was indifferent as he casually glanced at Qi Yan. After Qi Yan took two steps backward and stopped speaking, he turned to look at Cao Zhang, “What time were you there? What time did you leave? Why did many people notice Lu Guangzong but not you?”

Cao Zhang answered the questions properly without hesitation, “Because shortly after I arrived, an emergency cropped up. One of my men came to report it to me, and because it was related to the gang, I had to return immediately to settle it. And so, I only had time to greet Commissioner Lu and I asked him to wait there for me and I’d be back within an hour. But when I returned, he was no longer there.”

“I was quite puzzled as to why he would leave since he was the one who wanted to meet me. Then again, the authorities have always looked down on the people who work the ports and have never treated us with sincerity,” he said as he slowly picked up his teacup, “I had been taken for a ride, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Zhao Zhi asked, “What time did you get there and what time did you leave?”

Cao Zhang replied, “I don’t remember the exact time but I arrived at the pub close to 9pm, didn’t really get to sit down and left. When I returned at around half past nine, Commissioner Lu had already left.”

Zhao Zhi narrowed his eyes, “The woman you flirted with…“

Cao Zhang chortled and looked straight at Zhao Zhi as he answered honestly, “I don’t know who she was. I don’t know her at all.”

Wen Yuansi seemed rather surprised, “You didn’t know her?”

“I’d never seen her before. I just saw that she was pretty, so I flirted with her for a while. If I didn’t have anything on that night, we might have been able to go further, but too bad…“ Cao Zhang rubbed his chin and sighed as though he felt it was such a pity. “If you want to know who it was, you’d have to investigate yourselves.”

The hall fell silent for a moment.

Song Caitang tilted her head slightly. This case was somewhat strange.

A lot of people seemed connected to Lu Guangzong and had seen him, but nobody was able to provide any good clues. All these people seemed suspicious yet not suspicious at the same time.

What were these people hiding?

Song Caitang scanned each one in the hall.

The Gans, Niu Baoshan, Manager Liu, Qi Yan, Cao Zhang… What were their expressions saying?

While she was thinking, Cao Zhang started speaking again.

He was speaking to Qi Yan. “Based on what you said earlier, I wasn’t the only one you saw?”

Qi Yan knew it was his turn to shine and took two steps forward.

Before speaking, he subconsciously glanced at Zhao Zhi, then for some reason, suddenly decided to give the answer without creating any suspense, “I also saw Pang Qian.”

Pang Qian!

The man whose position was taken from him, felt indignant about it and tried to spread nasty rumors about Lu Guangzong to smear his reputation!

He was also at that pub that night?!

Song Caitang suddenly felt that this case was much more complicated than she had imagined.