“Dead? What happened?”
There was chaos on the other end of the line, and faintly, Zou Shuyang could hear someone muttering “unlucky.” After a moment, a voice returned to the phone, “Captain Zou, when we got here, we knocked on the door and found it wasn’t locked, so we went inside. Once in, we saw him lying on the floor. We called 120, and the doctor concluded that it was an acute myocardial infarction caused by excessive agitation.”
Zou Shuyang thought of the old man taking his medication earlier. “Were there any medications in the house?”
“Medications?” There were sounds of rummaging, and after a while, the voice came back, “Yes, there are a few boxes of Metoprolol Tartrate on the table in the living room.”
Zou Shuyang pressed his lips together. “Alright, I got it.”
He hung up the phone.
Captain He slumped on the sofa and chuckled gloomily, “Another death. It looks like this killer is quite bold. A heart attack, yet it’s ruled as natural death.”
When he didn’t hear any response, Captain He turned his head, expecting to see an angry or frustrated Zou Shuyang, who was still new to the job and unafraid of challenges. But instead, Zou Shuyang simply had his head down, quietly staring at a point in space.
“Hey, did you get so mad that you’ve gone stupid?”
“He did it on purpose,” Zou Shuyang suddenly spoke. “He deliberately led that man to find me, made him say those things, deliberately let me find out about the one hundred thousand, and he deliberately had that man killed.”
Zou Shuyang licked the inside of his cheek. “So what’s his goal?”
Captain He looked at Zou Shuyang, who suddenly seemed like a different person, and couldn’t help but reach out to feel his forehead. “You’re not feverish… so why are you talking nonsense?”
Zou Shuyang brushed Captain He’s hand away and suddenly looked up, asking a seemingly unrelated question, “Did you check out Cheng Hao’s apartment in Yunshang Community?”
Captain He, still puzzled, nodded. “Yeah, I went there. It’s just an ordinary apartment, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What if… the apartment in Yunshang Community was Cheng Hao’s actual home, and the place he jumped from wasn’t his home at all?”
“From the beginning, we assumed that Cheng Hao jumped from his own home. Plus, the witnesses at the scene testified that Cheng Hao frequently came in and out of that apartment, so we concluded that it was his place.”
After hearing Zou Shuyang’s reasoning, Captain He responded, “So you think Cheng Hao was lured there?”
Zou Shuyang nodded. “The same person who killed all five of them was responsible. And…”
Zou Shuyang suddenly looked up, his gaze piercing straight at Captain He. “I know what that person’s goal is.”
“What is it?”
Zou Shuyang spoke clearly, enunciating every word: “He wants me to reopen the investigation into Shen Tinglan’s murder.”
Captain He jumped up in shock, his voice cracking with intensity, “What did you say? Reopen the investigation… Are you joking?”
But when he saw the serious expression on Zou Shuyang’s face, Captain He found himself speechless. “You really think so?”
Zou Shuyang nodded quietly. “And I’m leaning toward the idea that this person is someone Cheng Hao and Shen Jun knew.”
A shiver ran down their spines.
——
Jiangzhou City might be a fifth-tier city, but it still had towering skyscrapers, and at night, the lights sparkle everywhere.
The southern part of the city was the commercial district. Even at 10 PM, the malls were still open, and there were occasional pedestrians on the streets.
Zou Shuyang parked his car in a space and leaned back in his seat, quietly pondering whether his theory from earlier was correct.
About five or six minutes later, a group of about twenty well-dressed but unsteady people pushed open the doors of Huayuan Restaurant.
Jian Mengyan, dressed in white, her long hair flowing down her back, waved goodbye to her classmates with a bright smile. It seemed like she was still chatting with them as they parted ways.
After another five minutes, the group finally dispersed in threes and twos, and Jian Mengyan declined the offer to go with others, heading straight for Zou Shuyang’s car.
Once inside, with the door shut, the goddess-like image she had maintained in front of others completely collapsed. She casually pulled a hair tie from her bag, tied up her long hair, and grabbed the bottle of water from the door compartment, taking two big gulps before exhaling deeply.
“Finally alive again.”
Zou Shuyang chuckled as he watched her slightly flushed face. As he leaned over to buckle her seatbelt, he teased, “Was it really that bad? You looked like you were having a great time talking to your classmates just now.”
“Great time?” Jian Mengyan rolled her eyes. “You know how it is—people who weren’t that close in high school, and now after graduation and entering the workforce, there’s even less to talk about.”
“But…” Before Zou Shuyang could start the car, Jian Mengyan softly leaned against his shoulder, the faint smell of alcohol on her breath. “You know, people are so fragile.”
Zou Shuyang’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
Jian Mengyan looked around, making sure no one was nearby, then she lifted her head slightly and whispered in his ear, “Just now at the reunion, they were saying that a lot of people from our class have died.”
Without waiting for Zou Shuyang’s response, Jian Mengyan continued, “Ten people. They said they all died accidentally, but whenever I tried to ask for details, it was like I’d hit a taboo—they wouldn’t say a word.”
Jian Mengyan clicked her tongue. “Do you think our class is cursed or something? Or maybe the feng shui of our class was bad?”
Zou Shuyang paused. “How were these people’s relationships with your homeroom teacher?”
“With my homeroom teacher?” Seeing that Zou Shuyang was about to start the car, Jian Mengyan quickly sat up straight and shook her slightly tipsy head. “I think they got along pretty well? I remember our high school homeroom teacher was really nice, and everyone liked him. Why? Do you suspect their deaths are related to our homeroom teacher?”
Zou Shuyang didn’t respond. Jian Mengyan sighed and said helplessly, “Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll keep it a secret.”
Zou Shuyang smiled lightly. As he glanced at Jian Mengyan, who was dozing off in the passenger seat, he turned up the air conditioning. “There’s a blanket there, and we’ve got about half an hour before we reach your place. You should rest.”
Jian Mengyan didn’t refuse. She flashed a smile at Zou Shuyang, and before long, she was fast asleep.
The only sounds left in the car were the whirring of the air conditioning. Zou Shuyang frowned as he pondered. Shen Tinglan, the homeroom teacher, was dead, and over the past ten years, ten of his students had also died.
This didn’t seem like a coincidence.
After dropping Jian Mengyan off and watching her wave from her balcony as usual, Zou Shuyang finally started his car and drove away.
But this time, instead of heading home, he returned to the station.
Officer Xiao Wang, who had been on duty, was already half-asleep when he heard the noise. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and asked, “Captain Zou, what brings you here so late?”
Zou Shuyang checked the time; it was five minutes to 11:30 PM. He patted Xiao Wang on the back. “I need to look up some information. You can go back to sleep.”
Xiao Wang was even younger than Xiao Tang, and his enthusiasm for the job was even greater. Upon hearing Zou Shuyang’s words, his radar instantly went off, and he quickly said, “No, I’m not busy. Captain Zou, what do you need to look up? Do you need my help?”
Zou Shuyang hesitated for a moment before pulling out the case files on Shen Tinglan that Xiao Tang had borrowed a couple of days ago. “Then could you help cross-check these files and look into the death records of Shen Tinglan’s students?”
“Huh?”
Zou Shuyang raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”
Xiao Wang immediately straightened up, a shiver running down his spine. “No, no problem at all!”
As they waited for the computer to boot up, Xiao Wang asked, “Captain Zou, is there something wrong with these people?”
Zou Shuyang replied as he went through the household records one by one, “Ten of the students listed here have died. I suspect their deaths are related to Shen Tinglan’s murder.”
“Shen Tinglan?” Xiao Wang muttered. “You mean the case we’re investigating now?”
Zou Shuyang hummed in agreement, marking a check next to the name “Xu Yiran,” indicating that this person had passed away.
With only about thirty students on the list, and with both Zou Shuyang and Xiao Wang working on it together, it took just over ten minutes to get results.
Xiao Wang rubbed his short-cropped hair in disbelief. “I didn’t expect this. This class has something eerie going on. Out of thirty students, ten are dead, and one is missing.”
Zou Shuyang had already brought out a whiteboard, writing down the names of the deceased students in order and placing “Ding Jing” at the top, with a question mark next to “Missing?”
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