heart poison

"I have verified the situation at Chen Juan's home with the technical investigation team."

As soon as Hua Chong and Liu Zhiqin returned to the serious crime team, Zhang Mao ran over, "Her parents are indeed abroad, and there is no record of returning to China in the past four years. But her younger brother Chen Chen's whereabouts are currently unknown."

"Where is unknown?" Hua Chong stopped in his tracks.

"Well!" Zhang Mao found a photo on the tablet, "He is Chen Chen, 25 years old this year. When Chen Juan committed suicide, he was studying in country L. He rushed back to attend Chen Juan's funeral, and did not immediately Returning to campus. Three months later, he went to country L, but not to go to school, but to go through the withdrawal procedures. After that, he continued his studies in a university in Qin Province, which is the province where their hometown is. Because of the delay, Chen Chen didn't graduate from a bachelor's degree until last year when he was 24 years old. After that, his whereabouts disappeared suddenly, and no one knew where he went."

Hua Chong asked: "So that means he disappeared?"

"Qin Province has filed a case at the end of last year. But you know best, Flower Team, that it is very difficult to investigate cases of unexplained disappearances. Although Qin Province has filed a case for a long time, until now, no clues have been found."

"It's a little suspicious." Liu Zhiqin said, "Being missing for more than half a year without a reason, there are usually only two possibilities: first, the missing person has been killed, and second, the missing person deliberately avoided everyone's sight for a certain purpose."

"It is possible that Chen Chen disappeared on purpose and came to our Los Angeles city from Qin Province with the purpose of killing Lu Ke and avenging Chen Juan?" Zhang Mao didn't understand why Hua Chong asked him to check the current situation of Chen Juan's family at first, and he was busy for a few hours. , Gradually clarified the logic of it - although in the eyes of those who have nothing to do with it, Chen Juan's suicide was purely out of fear of guilt and guilt, and had nothing to do with Lu Ke, but Chen Juan's family, who was extremely sad, might have extreme thoughts. Maybe they will hate the dead baby, maybe they will hate Lu Ke who asked for leave, maybe they will hate anyone, because it is impossible for them to hate their dead relatives, and their grief and resentment need a channel to vent after all.

"It's too early to draw such a conclusion." Hua Chong shook his head, "It's too preconceived. And although this line needs to be investigated, I still think it's far-fetched subjectively."

Liu Zhiqin also said: "Yes, maybe Chen Chen's disappearance is the first case."

"Has been killed?" Zhang Trade was a little surprised, "But why? He was studying hard in college, there is no reason to be killed as soon as he graduated."

"Who knows?" Hua Chong said, "If it is the first case, then it has nothing to do with the case we are investigating. By the way, have Lu Ke's family been in touch?"

"We got in touch. Lu Ke's mother has passed away. It's her father who came here, and he probably won't arrive until midnight." Zhang Mao slapped his forehead after speaking, "Oh! Lan Jing's father, Lan Youjun, contacted us just now. I Forget about it."

??

"I want to seek justice for my daughter and our family!" Lan Youjun was trembling with his hands holding the disposable water cup, his eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed to be drowning in the grief of losing his daughter.

Instead of arranging him in the inquiry room, Hua Chong found an empty meeting room and asked Liu Zhiqin to make a pot of black tea.

"Unfortunately, my daughter is suffering from a difficult-to-treat disease, and it was found to be in the late stage. I don't blame the hospital. The doctors and nurses have done their best. If you want to blame, you can only blame Jingjing's bad life." A middle school teacher in Los Angeles No. 50 Middle School, her speech and demeanor are neither humble nor overbearing. Even if she is extremely tired and sad, she tries her best to restrain her emotions. "The doctor in charge told me tactfully a few days ago that Jingjing's condition is very bad. If she falls into a coma again, she may be rescued." Not coming back. Her mother and I have accepted this reality, and we just want to spend the last time with her quietly. None of us thought that she would end her life early, I..."

Lan Youjun lowered his head, choked up, the corners of his eyes were wet, but no tears fell.

A few seconds later, he took a deep breath, and his voice became hoarse, "It was me and her mother who didn't take good care of her, and it had nothing to do with the nurse. Jingjing did that and caused trouble to the hospital, and I also feel guilty. But those rumors It's a slander to Jingjing and our whole family! I can't accept that after Jingjing's death, I still have to be insulted like that! What about "returning ghosts" and "revenge on society"? On the day Jingjing passed away, her mother and I heard these things That's it. Today it spread even more, and everyone in the hospital said that the nurse who died was killed by Jingjing, how, how is this possible?"

Having said this, Lan Youjun finally trembled, as if he could no longer suppress his anger and pain.

Hua Chong never believed in any supernatural theories, and after an investigation in the morning, he knew that Lan Jing's parents and other relatives had no time to commit crimes, and the Lan family had nothing to do with Lu Ke's death.

But what is frustrating is that before the truth has been found out, countless ignorant people have already labeled "revenge on society" on the unfortunate girl who passed away due to illness.

Some people really believe it, while more people just say it for fun, and talk about it when they have nothing to do.

Baseless and malicious rumors have added to the pain of the newly bereaved couple.

It can be seen that Lan Youjun really couldn't bear it, so he asked the police for help.

In fact, the serious crimes team didn't need to pay attention to this kind of request, and it was impossible to assign people to find out who was spreading the rumors.But Hua Chong still stood up and assured Lan Youjun that the rumors would not continue to ferment.

Lan Youjun raised his hand and covered his eyes. After a long time, he nodded vigorously, "I'm sorry to trouble you."

After sending Lan Youjun away, Hua Chong reported the situation to Chen Zheng.Chen Zhengmo was silent for a while, and said, "I'll handle it, you concentrate on investigating the case."

Now that he came, Hua Chongshun asked, "How is the investigation of Huang Caihua going?"

Chen Zheng shook his head, "Everyone related to him has been investigated, and Qu Zhi even took people to his hometown, but there is no clue. Now I am more sure that he was indeed 'chosen', and after being Before he was selected, he didn't know it. The trouble is that the other party completely avoided monitoring, and never used communication tools to contact Huang Caihua. Huang Caihua is like a one-time weapon, throw it away after use."

Hua Chong asked again: "Then is there anything unusual around me recently?"

"That's not true." Chen Zheng said: "People from Han Qu are staring at you all day long. If the other party dares to approach you, it's pure courting death."

"That's fine." Hua Chong turned around and raised his right hand, "Being protected by you is so good, I can't justify it if I don't work hard. Let's go."

??

In the brightly lit night, everyone has their own busy schedule.

At 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, it was supposed to be another peak of the taxi business. The salaried workers who were off the night shift, and the young people who had played in nightclubs until the first half and were about to go home, all stood on the side of the road and waited for the taxi in the cold wind.

But Feng Xuemin, who has no car, can't make this money.

With no car to drive, he decided to find another way to "make money", but he played mahjong from evening to midnight, instead of making any money, he lost hundreds of dollars instead.

A few hundred yuan is not a small amount of money to him. When he left the mahjong parlor, he beat his chest and feet with embarrassment, and dared not go home immediately.There is a "tigress" in the family who counts his money every day, and when he earns more, he smiles happily, and when he earns less, he shows him his face.And he was used to being cowardly, he didn't dare to tease people who laughed at him outside, and he didn't dare to speak harshly to his wife at home.

He drove into a guardrail today, he couldn't say anything, he just said that his colleague asked for leave for something, and he had to run a shift for him at night.The wife was happy and asked him to recruit more people and take the opportunity to earn a few hundred dollars more.

"Tsk, I made more money, I lost the last ticket!" Thinking of his wife's tone on the phone, he laughed at himself, lit a cigarette, and walked aimlessly in the night while Humming an out-of-key old song irritably.

I can't go back home for the time being, and once I go back, I have to reveal my secrets, quarrel in the middle of the night, and it's annoying.

But hotels can’t afford it either. It costs tens of hundreds of yuan a night, and you have to travel long distances to earn it back. It’s a waste.

Feng Xuemin squatted down on the road after thinking about it, and the cigarette butt hit his arm suddenly.

"Hiss!" The pain stimulated his mind, he quickly threw away the cigarette butt, looked at his burned arm, and cursed to himself, "I'm sick!"

He was really sick, and didn't go home in the middle of the night, squatting on the side of the road and burning his arms.

The mahjong parlor is located in a relatively remote place. There are almost no vehicles on the small road. It is gloomy and there are no pedestrians.Feng Xuemin shook his burning arm, stood up with his thighs propped up, looked back and forth, and walked towards the place where the street lights were brighter.

In the past few days, there have been three homicide cases in the main city. The taxi driver is the most well-informed, and discussions are held in the group all day long. The eloquent driver also speaks vividly like a cross talk.

Feng Xuemin touched his neck, inexplicably feeling a little terrified.

He didn't think he would be the target of the murderer - the person who was killed was born unlucky, and he was born luckier than most people.

When I was young, I went swimming in the river and was caught in an undercurrent. The uncle who saved me died, but I survived.

When I was a worker in the factory, I encountered a production accident. All the colleagues present were burned by chemical agents, and I escaped because of diarrhea.

Later, he became a taxi driver and passed by several car accidents.

He laughed "hehe", thinking that the only thing he can say in his life is "good luck".

So being smeared on the neck will never happen to me.

But what happened to that weird chill just now?

He turned around suspiciously, looked back, and there were shadows all around him, the shadows of buildings, the shadows of trees.He watched for a few seconds, and felt that if anyone was hiding in those shadows, he would not be able to identify them, so he simply quickened his pace and walked towards the place where there were people.

A place where there are people is safe——he had this perception since he was a child.But unlike others, he does not think that there is strength in numbers, and that everyone can work together to resolve dangers.What he thinks is that in a place with many people, disasters will befall others, and the unlucky one will not be me anyway.

This time, his feeling was quite accurate, there was indeed a person hiding in the shadow behind him.

As he ran across the road, the man stepped out of the shadows, his left hand in the pocket of his overcoat, and his right hand holding an unbladed knife.

The light poured on the man, casting a temperatureless black shadow on the concrete floor.

??

At the same moment, Hua Chong stood at the place where Lu Ke fell down, observing the surrounding environment deeply.

At night and during the day, the feeling here is completely different.

When the sky was bright, even if there were bloodstains on the ground that hadn't been cleaned up, it still wouldn't give people too much scary feeling.But in the early morning, approaching the time when the murder occurred, the atmosphere became stagnant and gloomy.

Hua Chong could imagine that at this time a day ago, Lu Ke, who had just been scared and panicked in the elevator of the hospital, got off the night bus and walked alone on this small road.

The wind was very cool at night, she wrapped her coat and scarf tightly, with her head slightly lowered, and hurriedly walked towards the apartment building full of confusion.

Suddenly, she heard a strange, low footsteps coming from behind, she subconsciously slowed down, wanting to look back to see who was behind, but was very scared.

The footsteps seemed to be getting closer and closer. She wanted to run, but she knew that if the man was coming towards her, even if she ran, she probably wouldn't be able to escape.

She forced herself to calm down and turned around slowly.

Just when she saw the man's face clearly, her body suddenly went numb. Before she knew what happened at this moment, the knife in the man's hand had already slashed towards her neck.

"The murderer came after Lu Ke. He attacked her suddenly when she turned around." Hua Chong said as he slowly fell to the ground, with his hands on his throat, "Only in this way can she fall down in this posture."

"There is no surveillance on this section of the road, and the murderer is sure of this." Liu Zhiqin stretched out his right hand and pulled Hua Chong up, "'He' can hide in any blind spot, and when Lu Ke walks in, he will Follow him. If there is only a knife, 'he' may not be able to subdue Lu Ke immediately, but 'he' also has electric shock tools. For women, this basically has no ability to resist."

"Yeah." Hua Chong wiped off the dust on his clothes, "Go to her house and have a look."

The unit building is old-fashioned, without an elevator, and the lights on several floors are broken, including the fourth floor where Lu Ke lives.

"She has a cat." Hua Chong walked around Lu Ke's house, took a look at a bag of cat food, "but the cat is gone now."

"The window is not closed." Liu Zhiqin leaned against the window and leaned out half of his body to look out. The residential area is quite quiet in the middle of the night, only the withered and yellow leaves swaying in the cold wind. "There are more hangers outside." , enough for the cat to jump down."

"The trace inspection has come to investigate. There are no traces of outsiders in the house, and the door lock has not been damaged." Hua Chong observed the furnishings in the bedroom, "There are two cameras at the entrance and exit of the unit building, and no suspicious people were captured. The murderer should have never gone upstairs. But 'he' must have followed Lu Ke for a while, knowing when Lu Ke left the night shift, and also familiar with the working conditions of the cameras in this residential area. 'He' chose to do it in the small road ahead, I was sure that no one else would have passed there except Lu Ke at that time. However, the act of 'he' taking away Lu Ke's ID and mobile phone was a bit strange. Lu Ke was a nurse, and the DNA information must be in the library, 'he' would not Do you think we won't be able to find out Lu Ke's identity if we take away the documents and mobile phone?"

"It might just be trying to disturb our thinking." Liu Zhiqin squatted on the ground, looked at the empty cat food bowl, and asked, "Why did the cat leave suddenly?"

"Maybe it is aware of the danger." Hua Chong said: "Cats are very vigilant animals. Lu Ke can't feel that someone is staring at this house, but the cat may have noticed it long ago. Maybe it tried to remind Lu Yes, but Lu Ke didn't know what it wanted to express. It left suddenly, maybe it just thought it was too dangerous here and didn't want to stay any longer. Cats are different from dogs. Dogs will wait for their owners to come back in most cases, but cats Hard to say."

"This residential area has been around for a long time." Liu Zhiqin said: "It looks older than 'Chuangyuan Homeland', and the location is relatively remote, with inconvenient transportation. Lu Ke bought a house with a loan five years ago, so it's a bit strange to choose this place. "

"The house prices here are relatively cheap. But there may be another reason, it can be moved in quickly." Hua Chong folded his arms, "It's still the problem we discussed, she is eager to leave the place where she used to live."

"'Golden Orchid Garden'." Liu Zhiqin closed the window that was constantly blown by the wind, "Five years ago, when she was still working in the Municipal Maternal and Child Health Hospital, the community she rented was called 'Jinlan Garden', and the living conditions and property management were very good. It's better than here. If it were me, I probably wouldn't buy a second-hand house here after moving out of 'Jinlan Garden'."

"Don't buy it even if it's cheap?" Hua Chong asked.

"I don't buy it if it's cheap." Liu Zhiqin said.

"Because you don't have an urgent desire to move out." Hua Chong's eyebrows twitched suddenly, "Luo Xingshan worked as a security guard in many communities, check back to see if Luo Xingshan has worked in 'Jinlan Garden'. If so, Then this is obviously an important intersection between their two victims!"

??

Lu Ke's father, Lu Jianyuan, arrived in Luo City in the middle of the night.

Hua Chong thought he would meet a father who was as sad as Lan Youjun, but Lu Jianyuan seemed quite calm about his daughter's death.

"She is the child of my ex-wife and I. She stopped living with me when she was very young." Lu Jianyuan took a sip of hot water and mentioned Lu Ke in a stranger's tone, "She has lived in Los Angeles all these years. We lost contact, and we only got in touch again when her mother passed away a few years ago. To be honest, I don’t know her well, and I haven’t fulfilled any responsibilities as a father to her. I’m here today just to see her one last time On the one hand, it may not be possible to cooperate with your investigation."

Hua Chong looked at Lu Jianyuan and saw that the other party should be a middle-class person. As for the specific job, it didn't matter.

"When did Lu Ke's mother die?" Hua Chong asked.

"Which year..." Lu Jianyuan looked away and thought for a while, "Almost seven years. I remember that Xiao Ke had just graduated from school."

"Then you and Lu Ke have been in touch for the past seven years?"

"Well, but I don't have many contacts. I will make a phone call during the holidays." Lu Jianyuan finished speaking and added: "My current wife and I have a good relationship and have children."

Hua Chong's eyes deepened, "Five years ago, did Lu Ke borrow money from you?"

Lu Jianyuan's expression changed slightly, as if he was thinking about how to answer.

"Lu Ke resigned from the hospital where he used to work five years ago, and moved out of the 'Jinlan Garden' where he has been living, and bought the current house with a loan." Hua Chong said: "I just want to know, did she borrow money from you to buy the house?" Money. Because according to her income, it seems that it is not easy to get the down payment."

Lu Jianyuan frowned, and seemed reluctant to answer.

"Lu Ke's eagerness to buy a house is a bit strange, maybe it has something to do with her being killed this time." Hua Chong narrowed his eyes, "Mr. Lu?"

After being silent for about half a minute, Lu Jianyuan nodded, "She asked me to borrow 10 yuan, saying that renting a house all the time was too unrealistic, and she wanted to have a home in Los Angeles. 10 yuan is nothing to me. I gave birth to her, but I have hardly raised her, and she wants to buy a house, so I should pay the [-] yuan. But..."

"But you don't want your wife to know?"

"Well. After she told me about the loan, I came to Los Angeles in the name of work. I didn't transfer the money, but just deposited the cash in her card." Lu Jianyuan sighed, "I also have my own difficulties."

"Is there anything about her that made you feel wrong?" Hua Chong asked, "Or, what did she tell you?"

"We're not that close." Lu Jianyuan smiled wryly, "It's not easy for her to ask me to borrow money. How could she confide in me... But if I'm wrong, I remember her as a gentle and quiet girl , but that time, she seemed to be in a hurry. By the way, you just said that she lived in 'Golden Orchid Garden', well, she did live in 'Golden Orchid Garden' for a long time, but when I went to Los Angeles to give her money , she doesn't seem to live there anymore."

Hua Chong heard a question, "Before moving to the current residence, she didn't live in 'Jinlan Garden'?"

"It seems to be a short-term rental apartment, I can't remember. I also reminded her that the short-term rental apartment is not safe. She said that the apartment she liked was decorated and fully furnished, and she moved in with her bags. As long as the transfer of ownership is completed, she can move in immediately. " Lu Jianyuan was a little embarrassed, "I really don't know much. I don't know her friendship or work situation, and I don't know who she has had grudges with."

Hua Chong looked into Lu Jianyuan's eyes, knowing that he already knew everything, but still felt a little embarrassed.

Lu Ke is luckier than Yin Ziqiao, at least he has a father who is willing to spend money for him.But this father is actually willing to pay only money.He didn't want to get too involved with his daughter, and he was stingy with giving everything except money.

After all, he was worried that his life would be affected by Lu Ke.To him, Lu Ke was just a person he had to fulfill his father's responsibilities, just like when he came to Los Angeles late at night, he just went through the motions to see Lu Ke for the last time.

Human emotions cannot be faked under certain conditions, especially in the face of death.

Hua Chong sent Lu Jianyuan away, let out a heavy breath, and felt a little depressed.But to say harvest, it is not without.

When Lu Ke borrowed money from Lu Jianyuan, she must have been "forced" to the point where she had to borrow money. Before she had a new residence, she even lived in a short-term rental apartment.

"Jinlan Garden", something must have happened!

Returning to the serious crime team, before Hua Chong could take a breath, he saw Liu Zhiqin walking towards him.

"What did you find?" he asked.

"Luo Xingshan did work in the 'Golden Orchid Garden'." Liu Zhiqin said, "And the time coincided with the time when Lu Ke lived in the 'Golden Orchid Garden'!"

Hua Chong's eyes lit up.

Liu Zhiqin said again: "Luo Xingshan has been working in the 'Golden Orchid Garden' for a long time. After half a year after Lu Ke moved out of the 'Golden Orchid Garden', he left the 'Golden Orchid Garden' to work as a security guard in a shopping mall. Garden', I discovered something by accident."

"what?"

"Five years ago, before Lu Ke bought the current house, there was a serious falling object accident in 'Jinlan Garden'."