Chapter 120: Crisis Approaching

The riddle the beggar left behind hinted at the word 'ghost'. The slip of paper had been hidden under an inverted bowl. If that bowl represented the house Huang Lan lived in, then the beggar's meaning was clear.

"There's a ghost in the house."

The twenty-year-old secret had only just been solved. Huang Lan felt a chill down her spine. "Has our family been living with some kind of unclean thing this entire time?"

I wanted to offer a few words of comfort, but with the facts laid bare, it was too late to say much. "Considering how the beggar hurried off after finishing his noodles without saying another word, he probably didn't want to attract trouble. He just wanted to warn you out of gratitude for your mother's kindness. Unfortunately, none of you picked up on it at the time."

Huang Lan stayed silent for a long moment. After a few minutes, she took a business card out of her purse. "I can't bring myself to believe in malicious ghosts causing trouble just yet. If you ask me, Huang Boyuan might have just hired that beggar to drive my mother insane."

"If he was a hired hand, he probably wouldn't have left such an obscure hint," I tried to argue, but the woman in front of me seemed convinced this was all connected to her father. Then again, it made sense. Having lived abroad for years, she definitely couldn't accept these mystical concepts.

"This is my card. Keep it. Treat what just happened as a test of your abilities. Now, I am officially hiring you to investigate this matter." Huang Lan placed the business card on the table and pulled a bank card from her bag. "I don't know how much Huang Boyuan paid to hire you, but there's 100,000 in this account. If you can get to the bottom of this, I'll pay you double whatever he offered."

The bank card sat on the table. 100,000 wasn't a small sum. Though I was tempted, it was better to clear some things up in advance. "Miss Huang, we've never met before. Why insist on having me investigate Director Huang? Aren't you afraid I'll tell him?"

Hearing my words, the corners of Huang Lan's mouth lifted, forming a smile that left much to the imagination. "While I can't forgive Huang Boyuan, I have to admit he has an incredibly sharp eye for people. Since he chose you to investigate his most private affairs, you must be the most reliable and suitable person in all of Jiangcheng."

"That reason really caught me by surprise." Pocketing the bank card, I went up to the second floor to grab a contract. "I accept your commission. However, the time span is massive. It'll probably take at least a month to get results."

"I've waited twenty years. Would I care about one more month?" Huang Lan signed the contract. "Huang Boyuan still doesn't know I've returned to the country. I expect you to keep everything about me a secret."

"Naturally."

After seeing Huang Lan out, I quietly smoked a cigarette. "The Huang Family's situation is complicated. The stories Huang Boyuan and Huang Lan told me are practically two different versions. To verify the truth, I'll probably need to find someone else."

I picked up the photo on the table. Handwriting reflects the person. Through the neat, elegant script, it was as if I could see a quiet, introverted girl. "Huang Boyuan's second daughter."

Leaving everything on the second floor, I headed out alone. With only two days left until my next stream, I still had a lot of things to handle.

When I arrived at the Municipal Sub-bureau, the one standing guard at the gate was Chen Feng, the guy who had always harbored a secret crush on Tie Ningxiang.

"Halt! You think the Public Security Bureau is a place you can just waltz into whenever you want?" His tone was hostile as he glared at me. He remembered everything that happened during the pursuit of Lu Xing when the thick fog led to sealing the mountain. He was jealous of my relationship with Tie Ningxiang, and he hated anyone who got close to her.

I stood at the entrance of the Municipal Sub-bureau, too lazy to entertain him. I just pulled out my phone and called Tie Ningxiang. "Senior, it's Gao Jian. I'm here to pick something up from you—that item from when Jiang Fei was rescued."

Tie Ningxiang caught on immediately, knowing I meant the surveillance footage of Jiang Fei and me. "I'll be right out to get you. Wait a moment."

She was always efficient and never dragged things out. She hung up right after speaking. Just as I was pulling my phone away, I suddenly noticed Chen Feng leaning in sideways, his ears pricked up to eavesdrop.

Chen Feng had never once given me a good look. Before my last stream, because of Jiang Fei's disappearance, I had been thoroughly interrogated by his father. Adding new grudges to old ones, it was time to settle the score a bit.

Holding the phone that Tie Ningxiang had already hung up, I deliberately turned around and lowered my voice, speaking just loudly enough for him to catch snippets without hearing clearly. "Yeah, and that striped lace outfit from last night."

"Last night? Outfit? Lace? And striped?! Holy fuck! What kind of clothes are those?!" Raging flames burned in Chen Feng's eyes.

I didn't care in the slightest. I pocketed my phone, kicking at small pebbles and leisurely whistling a tune.

A moment later, Tie Ningxiang walked over from a distance in her police uniform. As soon as he saw her, the sinister expression on Chen Feng's face instantly morphed into a bright, gentle smile. "Ningxiang, I was just about to let your junior in..."

Brushing past Chen Feng with quick steps, Tie Ningxiang waved at me. "Let's talk inside."

With a smile on my lips, I walked into the bureau side by side with Tie Ningxiang. As I passed Chen Feng, I purposely leaned in closer to her. "Senior, honestly, you look best in your police uniform."

"What are you talking about?" Tie Ningxiang noticed half my body was practically leaning against hers and pulled a long face. "Do you know how to walk properly? Need me to teach you?"

"Senior, it's not like I want to. I just got out of the hospital, and those knife wounds haven't fully healed yet. Plus, I stood out here in the sun for so long that I'm feeling dizzy right now."

I shamelessly leaned against Tie Ningxiang like a hopeless case. She let out a sigh and grabbed my arm with both hands to support me. "Just this once."

Lost in our sweet banter, Tie Ningxiang and I walked further away, completely ignoring Chen Feng at the gate. His face was green with anger, his eyes locked fiercely onto her back.

"Just you wait!"

Entering the criminal investigation division, I recognized several of the officers working there—Wu Meng, Zhao Bin, and the rest. After exchanging greetings with them, Tie Ningxiang dragged me into her office.

"Senior, no news has leaked from Jiangjin Real Estate, right?" I came here today for two main reasons. First, to destroy the surveillance video. Second, to make sure Jiang Fei hadn't exposed my involvement.

"Don't worry. When Jiang Fei gave her statement at the station later, she claimed she had been sleepwalking and couldn't remember anything that happened that night. Even though we extracted a lot of human blood from her clothes, none of the blood types matched any targets in our database." Tossing a stack of files onto her desk, Tie Ningxiang asked, "Where exactly did you two go that night? We extracted blood samples belonging to at least five different people from Jiang Fei's clothes. Moreover, most of those stains hadn't been out of a body for more than a day. They were all fresh blood."

"Senior, your curiosity is too strong." I stood by the desk, casually flipping through the blood type reports.

Seeing my ironclad determination to keep my mouth shut, Tie Ningxiang helplessly pulled a flash drive from her drawer. "This is the surveillance footage showing you and Jiang Fei together. Are you sure you want to destroy it? If you made this public, I'm sure the Jiang family would pay you a ridiculous sum as a reward."

"I'm not a man of high ambitions. There's no point in having that much money. It's better to destroy it." Slipping the flash drive into my pocket, I didn't leave immediately. "Senior, there's someone I want you to keep an eye on."

"Who?"

"Director Li, in charge of medical procurement at the People's Hospital." This man was likely also hexed by the black magician, which was why he had sneaked out to tip the black magician off the night I investigated Jiang Shihan.

Tie Ningxiang's reaction to my words was very strange. "How did you know something happened to him?"

"Was he murdered?" I had initially assumed Director Li was merely a victim of the hex sorcery art, so I hadn't paid much attention to him back then. I thought he'd be just like Jiang Fei—once the black magician died and the spell was broken, he could go back to living a normal life.

Tie Ningxiang picked up a file from her desk. "We received a police report from his family this morning. They said he's been missing for a day and a night."

"What!" I looked through the file. The night before last, Director Li had volunteered for the night shift at the hospital, but he left the hospital around three or four in the morning, and his whereabouts were unknown.

"A day ago was exactly when my fourth stream ended. The black magician died, and then Director Li went missing. Is there a connection?"

...

Somewhere in a basement in the suburbs of Jiangcheng, a slightly plump older man in his fifties or sixties was tied to a wire bed. Hideous whip marks covered his body, his split flesh resembling blooming mandala flowers.

A basin of cold water was dumped on him, and the old man jolted awake from his unconscious state. He opened his eyes, his pupils trembling with terror. If possible, he wished he had never woken up at all, just so he would never have to look at that devil-like man again.

The lights were off in the dim basement; only a few pitiful rays of light filtered in through the air vent.

"Have you thought of the answer to my question?" The speaker's voice was full of magnetism. Half of his face was smooth and handsome; the other half was entirely covered in scars.

Director Li nodded weakly. As soon as he opened his mouth, blood seeped between his teeth. "I thought of it..."

"Good. I'll give you one more chance. Who killed your master?"

"It was Gao Jian. The secretary to the chairman of Ganding Pharmaceuticals told me. That man is called Gao Jian!"

"Are you sure?" Lu Xing pulled a length of fishing line from his pocket and wrapped it around his hand. "We've already killed the wrong person once. We can't make a mistake this time."

"It's definitely him! A few days before the incident, he came to the hospital to investigate Jiang Shihan. I heard from the doctors that he brought up the words 'black magician' in the hospital, so he must be the one who killed my master!" The old man begged with the last of his strength. "Let me go. I've told you everything I know. There absolutely won't be another mistake this time."

"Since you're so certain, I'll trust you this once." Lu Xing smiled as he uncoiled the fishing line from his fingers.

"You promised to let me go?"

"Of course." The thin fishing line cut into flesh. "I will personally send you on your way."