Even hybrid monsters have their day

“Yes,” Officer Ma replied.

"There was a file here when I was here last time, why isn't it here now?"

"Last time?" Officer Ma frowned in confusion, thinking for a moment. "Oh, I remember now. A few files had reached their expiration date, and we just transferred them to the Municipal Archives Bureau a couple of days ago. I think there were a few files on missing children in them, but since you said you didn't need them anymore, we didn't keep them..."

"So that's how it is," Geng Miaowan immediately asked him, "Is it still possible to find out?"

"Yes, I happen to have an electronic copy here, so I should be able to find it."

"That's great." Geng Miaowan, Peng Yuxian, and Lu Fangtong exchanged glances and smiled with relief.

five minutes later.

“We transferred a total of 856 files to the Municipal Archives Bureau a few days ago, of which 67 were related to missing children. I checked, and of these 67 files, five were from Xinglin Town, and only this one fits your description of a boy around three or four years old. Can you check if this is the child?”

Geng Miaowan, Peng Yuxian, and Lu Fangtong all gathered around the computer at the same time.

"So, is it him?" Peng Yuxian asked, while Lu Fangtong looked nervously at Geng Miaowan, waiting for her answer.

Geng Miaowan stared at the photo on the computer for a long time. It did look somewhat similar, but she wasn't entirely sure. She turned to Officer Ma and asked, "Do you have any image editing software here?"

Ten minutes later, looking at the photo on the computer that had been completely blacked out, Geng Miaowan said with certainty, "It's him!"

Peng Yuxian and Lu Fangtong were both shocked; it turned out that Xiaoming looked like this.

Officer Ma was filled with questions. What was going on with these people? He couldn't recognize them from a perfectly good photo, but he could recognize them now that they were completely disfigured. However, he had no room to comment.

Name: Chen Ziming

Sex: Male

Age at disappearance: three years old

Address: No. 37, Tuanyuan Road, Xinglin Town, City

Now that the person has been found, things are much easier.

It wasn't Xiaoming, but Xiaoming. Looking at the address, it's the house next to Lu Fangtong's current residence. This means Chen Ziming isn't missing, but dead, and most likely murdered.

This is a matter that can be big or small.

Normally, the police wouldn't accept a case based solely on speculation without any evidence, but because they had connections at higher levels, they had no choice but to take it.

It's just that five years have passed. Collecting evidence has become very difficult. Most importantly, the police sent many people to search the courtyard house but couldn't find Chen Ziming's body, which made the police question the case further. If it weren't for pressure from higher-ups, they probably would have given up the investigation long ago.

Because they couldn't find the body, they didn't even have an excuse to ask the homeowner to come to the police station for a talk.

Geng Miaowan and her family were even more anxious because Lu Shuaishuai's health had deteriorated further. She went to the hospital to check on him in the afternoon, and the little guy was already listless; he only spoke a few words to her before falling asleep.

Lu Fangtong answered a phone call, and when he returned, his expression turned grim.

"What's wrong?" Geng Miaowan asked him.

Lu Fangtong raised his hand, intending to slam his phone onto the table. But then, afraid of startling Lu Shuaishuai, he stopped himself, gripping the phone tightly until his fingertips turned white.

"The police said that because they could not find any new evidence, they could not file a case and the investigation would be suspended starting today."

Geng Miaowan glanced at Lu Shuaishuai, thought for a moment, and then turned and left. She knew that the key to the matter lay in Chen Ziming's body; once the body was found, the police would naturally take it seriously.

However, whether the police took this matter seriously or not was unimportant to her. She had originally hoped to use the police's abilities to find Zhen Ziming's body, but she didn't expect that the police would search for two days, turning the courtyard house upside down, but still couldn't find the body.

Where could his body be?

That evening, Geng Miaowan knocked on the gate of No. 37 Tuanyuan Road, and Peng Yuxian stood behind her.

The door opened after a short while, and a woman in her thirties opened it. She wasn't particularly beautiful, but she was pleasing to the eye. Her face was completely unadorned. She seemed quite honest. Seeing Geng Miaowan, she asked with a puzzled look, "Who are you?"

"Hello, I am Geng Miaowan."

The woman's eyes widened suddenly, her expression excited. "Is this the news you were talking about about our Xiaoming?"

Geng Miaowan nodded, and the woman hurriedly bowed and scraped before welcoming her inside, calling out into the house, "Yue, Yue, the person's here!"

A man suddenly darted out of the inner room and rushed out in a hurry, bumping into Geng Miaowan in the courtyard. Before he could even speak, two more people came out from inside. They looked to be in their seventies, and Geng Miaowan recognized them as Chen Ziming's grandparents.

Before Geng Ziming's grandmother even stepped out the door, she called out, "You're here? Come in quickly."

The group led Geng Miaowan and Peng Yuxian into the house, sat down around Geng Miaowan, and stared at her with hope in their eyes.

During the two days that the police searched the courtyard house where Lu Fangtong lived, she was not idle either. She looked for Xiaoming for two nights in a row, but he just wouldn't say where the body was.

She was at her wit's end, so she thought of calling Chen Ziming's parents back to see if she could get Xiaoming to say something.

But looking at so many eager eyes, she simply couldn't bring herself to tell them; it was too cruel. Yet, at the same time, she felt that letting them know, regardless of whether it would get Xiaoming to reveal the location of the body, would at least allow him to see them and fulfill one of his wishes.

Moreover, she felt that letting them know the truth was better than letting them live their whole lives in self-deception and fantasy.

Thinking of this, Geng Miaowan straightened her expression and said to them, "I do know Chen Ziming's whereabouts, but I need you to do something for me."

At No. 38 Tuanyuan Road, Geng Miaowan opened the gate of the courtyard house and went in first. Following her was Chen Ziming's mother, the woman who had opened the door at the beginning, named Sun Xinyi. Following Sun Xinyi was Chen Ziming's father, named Chen Jinyue, and Peng Yuxian walked at the very back.

Geng Miaowan had originally told him not to come, but considering what she was going to do that night, he couldn't bear to let her come alone, even if he couldn't help at all. He had to go with her. (To be continued.)