Jiang Ting put his hand on his forehead and said after a while, “My brain also broke down just now.”
“Hey Lao Gao, I saw the message. I want you to find out whether Li Yuxin’s biological mother and Bu Wei’s parents had a common drug purchase before they died… What, they are not in the same place? I know of course they are not in the same place. You first arrest Li Yuxin’s biological mother, and after the interrogation starts, follow the veins to get the melon. Can’t you find the intersection of these two local drug dealer networks in these two places?”
Gao Panqing’s voice came from the phone: “Okay, Brother Yan, then I will inform the Jiangyang County Police Station to arrest them now.”
“The victim of the first case of serial kidnapping is likely to be related to this drug trafficking network. Be sure to notify me immediately as soon as you get any news from Jiangyang.” Yan Xie was just about to hang up the phone when he suddenly remembered something: “Hey, Lao Gao, don’t hang up yet. Tell the brothers in Jiangyang to do things well for Lao Tzu and we will not treat them badly. Don’t they say that the big brothers in our provincial capital city are poor and pedantic, only know how to run the horses, but don’t know how to feed grass to the horses.”
Click!
A doctor pushed open the door and walked into the bathroom, just in time to hear the last half of his sentence beginning with “Brothers in Jiangyang”.
“I know!” On the domestic device distributGao Panqing’s voice was particularly loud on the domestically made mobile phone distributed by the city bureau: “Old rules, never let the little brothers who work for the big brothers suffer!”
Yan Xie muttered a few words of satisfaction, hung up the call and looked up.
Doctor: “……”
Yan Xie: “……”
At the moment, in the eyes of the doctor, the scene looks like this:
The man was nearly 1.9 metres tall, the cuffs of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and the lines of his exposed arms were extremely tight. He looked like a gangster and his bandit-like face was full of anger at the moment. He is calling his subordinates to give orders while smoking a cigarette, don’t know which at place they are going to assemble tonight to cut people down.
Yan Xie’s fingers holding the cigarette froze in the air, and the characters “No Smoking” around him looked particularly striking.
Yan Xie: “Sorry, I’m sorry…”
Doctor: “Big brother, you smoke big brother…”
Yan Xie was dumbfounded, watching the doctor run away so fast that even Liu Xiang[1] couldn’t catch up to him.
“Pfft…” Yan Xie looked back, only to see that Jiang Ting was covering his mouth in the cubicle. And when he saw him turn around, he immediately cleared his throat and returned to his expressionless face, “What, let’s go.”
“What are you laughing at?” Yan Xie pointed toward the door from where the doctor had just fled: “This is the one who released the water just now, didn’t you hear the voice of that man? Just looking at the urgency of urination, frequency, and inexhaustible urination is enough to see the kidneys. His wife eats well, but can he compare to me?”
Jiang Ting: “Okay, okay…”
“You’ll know at night,” Yan Xie hit him with his elbow with evil intentions and dragged him out: “You don’t know a man’s kidney unless you try it.”
“Wait,” Jiang Ting flicked his hand away: “You go out first.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll leave in two minutes.”
“No, What do you want to do?”
The two stared at each other, and after a long while, Jiang Ting finally lost the battle and spout out two words: “Yang Mei…”
Yan Xie instantly understood.
He didn’t bump into Yang Mei when he slipped in just now, but in case Yang Mei was still waiting outside and saw the two of them coming out at the same time, what would she think the two of them had been doing in the men’s bathroom for 20 minutes…
Yan Xie happily said: “Okay.”
Jiang Ting waved his hand to signal him to leave quickly: “Don’t run into Yang Mei.”
Yan Xie put out his cigarette butt and was about to leave when he suddenly remembered that he had missed something. He turned back, forcibly leaned in and sniffed between Jiang Ting’s collars, and smoothed the hair on the back of his head that had been pushed up by the partition. Then he smiled at him, turned around and left the bathroom.
The door opened and closed.
Jiang Ting let out a slight breath and moved his cervical spine, trying to use this movement to calm down the indescribable feelings of loss, relaxation, and confusion in his heart. Just when his invincible psychological fortress was about to be re-established, he suddenly heard Yan Xie’s loud voice coming from the corridor outside the door; it was like a hundred bulldozers roaring passing by, pushing his psychological construction in an instant:
“Yo, isn’t this Boss Yang!”
Jiang Ting: “……”
“Vice-Captain Yan,” Yang Mei instantly became vigilant: “What are you doing here? Where is Brother Jiang?”
Yan Xie smiled ambiguously.
At this moment, not only Jiang Ting in the toilet, but even Yang Mei suddenly had the urge to take off her high heels and slap him on the face when she saw that smile. He slowly repeated: “You brother Jiang?”
He paused, then raised the corner of his mouth: “Then you have to ask him yourself.”
Yang Mei: “…?”
Yan Xie put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked away leisurely under Miss Yang’s gaze.
Yang Mei inexplicably stood there for a while. Her suspicious eyes wandered back and forth between the door of the men’s bathroom and Yan Xie’s back, who was getting farther and farther away. In the end, she couldn’t help but rush toward the bathroom door, and cautiously called out, “Brother Jiang? Brother Jiang, are you in there?”
Her brother Jiang was looking up at the sky at the moment, speechless.
“Brother Jiang, are you alright?”
Just as Yang Mei’s brain circuit was running like a wild horse, diverging in some unspeakable dimension with the speed of light, her phone suddenly buzzed, and Jiang Ting’s text message came:
[I’m waiting for you downstairs in the parking lot, where are you?]
“Parking lot?” Yang Mei was puzzled: “When did Brother Jiang leave?”
But even though she was full of doubts, Jiang Ting had some kind of magic power that made the people around him too lazy to use their heads. Yang Mei left the door of the men’s bathroom while muttering, and hurried towards the elevator.
Jiang Ting heard the high heels getting farther and farther away. He finally breathed a sigh of relief, and walked out the door calmly—when he came to the hospital, he had already noticed that there were parking lots on the east and west sides of the hospital downstairs. If Yang Mei called later to ask why she couldn’t find him, he would just say that he had gone the wrong way and was waiting for her in another parking lot.
Captain Jiang, who was strategizing just now, pressed the elevator button and adjusted the front of his clothes in front of the metal door. The next moment the elevator stopped from top to bottom, and the door slowly opened to both sides.
Jiang Ting: “……”
Yang Mei: “……”
The air fell into silence.
“Just, just now the elevator broke down…” Yang Mei stammered.
Jiang Ting put his hand on his forehead and said after a while, “My brain also broke down just now.”
………
In the gloomy and lifeless ward, Bu Wei stared at floating dust for a long time.
The struggle and crying just now made her hair and nightdress a mess. Han Xiaomei carefully knocked off the dust, untied her braid again, carefully combed through her hair with a comb, and pulled up a beautiful loose braid again.
“Your hair is so beautiful, if only my hair was half as soft and shiny as yours, hey.” Han Xiaomei picked up the mirror and smiled, “Are you satisfied with this hairstyle?”
Bu Wei’s unfocused gaze finally slowly focused, looking at her pale face in the mirror.
After a while, Han Xiaomei suddenly found that the corner of the girl’s mouth slowly curved up which could be called a smile:
“Sister…”
This is the first time that Han Xiaomei has heard her take the initiative to speak since yesterday, and she immediately raised all her attention, “Huh?”
Bu Wei said, “You’re also very good-looking.”
“You say I? It’s impossible. I’ve been rough since I was a child.” Han Xiaomei held her face and smiled: “It’s even rougher after the internship. The night shift three times a week, and the scolding I got all day long. It’s not long after I entered the city bureau, and my skin looks like I’ve aged three years, hahaha—”
Bu Wei asked in a low voice, “Is your boss fierce?”
Han Xiaomei immediately realised that she was referring to Yan Xie.
This is a good sign. A very important part of the negotiation and interrogation is to get closer to the person being interrogated, so as to eliminate the natural guard brought by the police identity. And once the other party lets go of the barriers from the bottom of the heart, they can cooperate with the inquiry actively and are more likely to provide more clues.
“You mean Vice-Captain Yan? He just looks fierce. In fact, he is a good person. He often buys food for us out of his own pocket, and takes our interns to the best of our ability.” Han Xiaomei glanced at the girl’s expression from the corner of her eyes, after thinking about it, she said deliberately: “He is strict on the surface just because he doesn’t get along with girls, but he’s actually shy. It is said that when he goes out on a blind date, others reject him, and he doesn’t even have a girlfriend yet.”
The corner of Bu Wei’s mouth was reluctantly raised up: “I’m a little afraid of him, but…”
Han Xiaomei was keenly aware of the lingering words: “But what?”
Bu Wei hugged her knees, her eyes were slightly red again.
She is born with a special charm that can arouse people’s love and affection, not only for the opposite sex but even for the same sex. Seeing her watery eyes, Han Xiaomei’s heart immediately softened. She hugged her shoulders and persuaded: “It’s okay, tell sister, I won’t tell anyone else.”
“…No one ever hugged me, my dad would only beat me. He used to hit me when he got drunk… No one has ever hugged me like a big brother…” Bu Wei shuddered and took a breath, burying her face in Han Xiaomei’s arms: “That kind of, that kind of security, I’ve never really felt that kind of security—woo woo…”
After all, Bu Wei has not reached the age to talk about grace and style, as if she is completely unaware of her beauty, when she starts to cry, she is like a howling child. But it is precisely because of this that her cries are particularly touching. Han Xiaomei kept stroking her slender back, thinking angrily that if she had such a beautiful sister or daughter, it would not be enough for her to love her every day. How could someone be willing to hit her?
“You, you must not tell others. I, I am really scared, I will cooperate well, I will really cooperate well!…”
“Okay, okay, don’t talk, don’t talk.” Han Xiaomei hurriedly persuaded her while pulling her sleeves to wipe her tears: “Sister promises not to tell others. Come here, big sister will peel you a peach to eat.”
Bu Wei sobbed, her shoulders shaking. She raised her face and looked at Han Xiaomei pitifully: “Can I…”
“Can I do something?”
The girl swallowed hard in Han Xiaomei’s encouraging eyes, and finally mustered up the courage, said: “Can I go and see… Can I see Shen Xiaoqi?”
Her request was exactly the one the police wanted. Even an inexperienced police intern like Han Xiaomei knew very well that taking the initiative to contact the victim is often the first step for a witness who is willing to stand up to help the police.
“Okay, no problem!” Han Xiaomei was overjoyed, and then she suddenly reacted: “But I don’t have the authority to take you to the intensive care unit—you wait! I’ll be back!” saying that she swept out of the ward like wind, standing in the corridor she hurriedly dialled the phone:
“Hello, Vice-Captain Yan?”
………
“I don’t care what Li Yuxin’s father’s attitude is, whether it is resistance or non-violence or non-cooperation, his daughter is now lying in the forensic autopsy room of our city bureau. If he doesn’t take the initiative to communicate with Jiangyang County Police Station, don’t blame me for personally going to Jiangyang to handcuff him to Jianning!… What, it’s not in line with the rules? I’ll go against his mother’s rules, solving a case is the first rule of us criminal investigators!!… Ma Xiang, wait a minute, that girl Han Xiaomei is calling me.”
Yan Xie put Ma Xiang on hold and connected to Han Xiaomei: “What happened to you again?”
With the urgent voice coming from the other side of the mobile phone, Yan Xie’s facial expression gradually underwent a very strange change: “…I make her feel safe?”
“She was domestically abused by her father since she was a child, and the fat man surnamed Wang doesn’t seem to be a serious person. Perhaps when she grew up, she had never been in contact with a reliable adult male. Now she wants to see Shen Xiaoqi. I think this is a rare opportunity and an important sign that the victim wants to speak to the police! So Vice-Captain Yan, if you take her to the intensive care unit, maybe it will have a great boost to her subjective consciousness…”
In an instant, a brief blank space appeared in Yan Xie’s thinking, and in the depths of his consciousness, a similar scene gradually emerged with warm light and shadow.
It was a quiet apartment late in the night, the candlelight flickered, and Jiang Ting sat across from the dining table eating his pasta carefully, his eyes narrowed comfortably. That look is really lively and good-looking, and even a little cute in Yan Xie’s eyes — of course, Yan Xie knew that Jiang Ting didn’t notice that he had secretly glanced at him many times.
“Thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“I don’t know… Maybe it’s because you always make people around you feel safe.”
Yan Xie was accustomed to being fierce, and it was the first time someone had said that they felt a sense of security around him. It was like a cat’s paw scratching the softest piece of flesh in his heart, and the aftertaste lingered back to the present.
“Okay,” Yan Xie interrupted Han Xiaomei, “you go back to the ward and wait, and I’ll come right away.”
Han Xiaomei said confidently, “Okay!”
Shen Xiaoqi’s situation is different from Bu Wei’s. Although he was staying in the intensive care unit, only relying on equipment to maintain his breathing, the anxious parents and relatives of the Shen family came to see him on time every day, and there was never a shortage of people in front of the hospital bed.
When the victim’s condition has reached this stage, in fact, most of them have given up, and only the parents are reluctantly desperately praying for the last hope. So when Yan Xie asked them if they wanted to transfer to a private hospital and try a new treatment method that has not been officially introduced in China, the Shen family agreed without hesitation, and they were so grateful that they almost paid money on the spot to Yan Xie — They were so dazed at the moment that they didn’t even hear Yan Xie’s words clearly, “that private hospital was invested by my father”.
Now the only thing they are waiting for is the smooth import of the German batch of medicines, after which they can arrange for Shen Xiaoqi, who is unconscious, to be transferred.
Yan Xie personally led Bu Wei to the floor of the intensive care unit and nodded to the plainclothes policeman who was guarding the door.
“Well, he is there.” Yan Xie patted Bu Wei’s thin shoulder: “Is he not recognizable anymore?”
Bu Wei suddenly hugged Yan Xie’s arm.
“……” because of her action, Yan Xie frowned slightly and glanced down — but the girl seemed to be completely unaware of her movements. She stared at the hospital bed in the glass window and her eyes widened.
Shen Xiaoqi was indeed a young man full of heroic spirit, but now, after repeated craniotomy and infusions, his whole body was swollen and bruised, and even a little hard to identify. Looking from the glass window of the ward, there were various kinds of tubes connected to his body. Except for the instrument that barely showed his heartbeat, it was almost impossible for people to notice that he was still alive.
Bu Wei seemed to be trembling slightly, and after a while, she raised her head sideways and looked at Yan Xie.
This angle made her cheek look like a shiny pearl, Yan Xie frowned: “What?”
To his surprise, Bu Wei asked hoarsely:
“…Am I a bad person?”
Yan Xie thought about it for a moment and shook his head in front of her expectant gaze: “The real murderer who harmed Shen Xiaoqi to this point is not you, there is no need to be too harsh on yourself. Your obligation is to cooperate with the police to provide clues as much as possible, and the rest of the task of catching the criminals and the responsibility of protecting the victims is of our police.”
“……” The girl stood motionless, and after a long time, she gave him a very light and beautiful smile.
——At this moment, Mother Shen, who had her back to the ward window, just turned her head, and immediately put down the hot towel in her hand and stood up: “Officer Yan—”
The next moment, she recognized Bu Wei and her face turned gloomy. She immediately opened the door and staggered out of the ward.
Seeing that her expression was a little off, Yan Xie first coughed: “Madam Yin, this classmate is another victim of the kidnapping case. The police think she is likely to provide some information about the kidnappers…”
“Why is she here? “Mother Shen asked in a shrill voice.
Bu Wei was terrified, like a helpless little animal, desperately hiding behind Yan Xie: “I’m sorry! Auntie, I’m sorry! It’s all my fault…
“We don’t want to see her here!” Bu Wei, who was alive and well, simply pushed Mother Shen’s nerves that were on the verge of collapse into the abyss: “Sorry Officer Yan, we can’t accept it, we really can’t accept it! Please don’t bring her here!”
“It’s my fault, Auntie, woohoo…”
“Go away, go away! You go away! Please don’t come and see my son!”
The cries, screams, shrill shouts, and sounds of all kinds of discussions were like countless sharp knives cutting Yan Xie’s eardrums back and forth. The irrational mother Shen wanted to pull Bu Wei away, but the latter hugged Yan Xie’s arm in a panic. Yan Xie had a headache and felt that his arm was about to touch the girl’s chest, but in the chaotic situation, he couldn’t break free either.
“Okay, Madam Yin! Calm down!” Yan Xie beckoned the plainclothes police to quickly evacuate the onlookers, and said in a low voice, “This classmate is also a victim. It’s not her fault that your son was kidnapped!”
“I don’t know whose fault it is, but I beg you to take her away!”
“I’m sorry auntie, please don’t be angry, auntie!…”
Yan Xie forcibly separated the two entangled women, but fortunately, the little policeman rushed over to help, and quickly pulled the red-eyed mother Shen away. Only then did Yan Xie seize the opportunity to pull his hand out of Bu Wei’s arms and said exhaustedly: “Madam Yin, we need this classmate very much to assist the police in catching the kidnappers and providing clues, and only people who really harmed Shen Xiaoqi will be punished. Besides, it wasn’t her fault that your son was kidnapped, and it’s not her fault she came back alive…”
“No… it was me.”
Bu Wei’s forcibly suppressed and extremely frightened tone was too sharp, everyone looked at her at the same time.
“It was me, I did it.” Bu Wei’s lips couldn’t stop tumbling, and she could even hear her teeth chattering: “It was me… I pushed Shen Xiaoqi down the hill.”
The surroundings were completely still for a moment, and then It exploded!
Mother Shen jumped up frantically, the policeman couldn’t control her at all, and two policemen rushed up to catch her in embarrassment; Bu Wei fell to the ground crying, and no one could get her up. The several doctors and nurses around her were completely dumbfounded.
“Bu Wei, look at me Bu Wei!” In the midst of the commotion, Yan Xie forcibly pulled the girl’s tear-stained face and shouted sharply: “Do you know what you are talking about? What happened on the hillside that day? How many kidnappers did you see?!”
Bu Wei shook her head in dismay, choked to the point of being speechless, and it took a long time before she encountered drowning driftwood, so she tightly grabbed Yan Xie’s hand:
“…My uncle…”
“The kidnapper is… my uncle, he threatened to sell, sell me…”
Yan Xie gasped hard, then suddenly got up, opened WeChat on the phone and pressed the voice button: “Ma Xiang listen, Bu Wei identified Wang Xingye, immediately dispatched a team to arrest him!”
Jiang Ting put his hand on his forehead and said after a while, “My brain also broke down just now.”
“Hey Lao Gao, I saw the message. I want you to find out whether Li Yuxin’s biological mother and Bu Wei’s parents had a common drug purchase before they died… What, they are not in the same place? I know of course they are not in the same place. You first arrest Li Yuxin’s biological mother, and after the interrogation starts, follow the veins to get the melon. Can’t you find the intersection of these two local drug dealer networks in these two places?”
Gao Panqing’s voice came from the phone: “Okay, Brother Yan, then I will inform the Jiangyang County Police Station to arrest them now.”
“The victim of the first case of serial kidnapping is likely to be related to this drug trafficking network. Be sure to notify me immediately as soon as you get any news from Jiangyang.” Yan Xie was just about to hang up the phone when he suddenly remembered something: “Hey, Lao Gao, don’t hang up yet. Tell the brothers in Jiangyang to do things well for Lao Tzu and we will not treat them badly. Don’t they say that the big brothers in our provincial capital city are poor and pedantic, only know how to run the horses, but don’t know how to feed grass to the horses.”
Click!
A doctor pushed open the door and walked into the bathroom, just in time to hear the last half of his sentence beginning with “Brothers in Jiangyang”.
“I know!” On the domestic device distributGao Panqing’s voice was particularly loud on the domestically made mobile phone distributed by the city bureau: “Old rules, never let the little brothers who work for the big brothers suffer!”
Yan Xie muttered a few words of satisfaction, hung up the call and looked up.
Doctor: “……”
Yan Xie: “……”
At the moment, in the eyes of the doctor, the scene looks like this:
The man was nearly 1.9 metres tall, the cuffs of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and the lines of his exposed arms were extremely tight. He looked like a gangster and his bandit-like face was full of anger at the moment. He is calling his subordinates to give orders while smoking a cigarette, don’t know which at place they are going to assemble tonight to cut people down.
Yan Xie’s fingers holding the cigarette froze in the air, and the characters “No Smoking” around him looked particularly striking.
Yan Xie: “Sorry, I’m sorry…”
Doctor: “Big brother, you smoke big brother…”
Yan Xie was dumbfounded, watching the doctor run away so fast that even Liu Xiang[1] couldn’t catch up to him.
“Pfft…” Yan Xie looked back, only to see that Jiang Ting was covering his mouth in the cubicle. And when he saw him turn around, he immediately cleared his throat and returned to his expressionless face, “What, let’s go.”
“What are you laughing at?” Yan Xie pointed toward the door from where the doctor had just fled: “This is the one who released the water just now, didn’t you hear the voice of that man? Just looking at the urgency of urination, frequency, and inexhaustible urination is enough to see the kidneys. His wife eats well, but can he compare to me?”
Jiang Ting: “Okay, okay…”
“You’ll know at night,” Yan Xie hit him with his elbow with evil intentions and dragged him out: “You don’t know a man’s kidney unless you try it.”
“Wait,” Jiang Ting flicked his hand away: “You go out first.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll leave in two minutes.”
“No, What do you want to do?”
The two stared at each other, and after a long while, Jiang Ting finally lost the battle and spout out two words: “Yang Mei…”
Yan Xie instantly understood.
He didn’t bump into Yang Mei when he slipped in just now, but in case Yang Mei was still waiting outside and saw the two of them coming out at the same time, what would she think the two of them had been doing in the men’s bathroom for 20 minutes…
Yan Xie happily said: “Okay.”
Jiang Ting waved his hand to signal him to leave quickly: “Don’t run into Yang Mei.”
Yan Xie put out his cigarette butt and was about to leave when he suddenly remembered that he had missed something. He turned back, forcibly leaned in and sniffed between Jiang Ting’s collars, and smoothed the hair on the back of his head that had been pushed up by the partition. Then he smiled at him, turned around and left the bathroom.
The door opened and closed.
Jiang Ting let out a slight breath and moved his cervical spine, trying to use this movement to calm down the indescribable feelings of loss, relaxation, and confusion in his heart. Just when his invincible psychological fortress was about to be re-established, he suddenly heard Yan Xie’s loud voice coming from the corridor outside the door; it was like a hundred bulldozers roaring passing by, pushing his psychological construction in an instant:
“Yo, isn’t this Boss Yang!”
Jiang Ting: “……”
“Vice-Captain Yan,” Yang Mei instantly became vigilant: “What are you doing here? Where is Brother Jiang?”
Yan Xie smiled ambiguously.
At this moment, not only Jiang Ting in the toilet, but even Yang Mei suddenly had the urge to take off her high heels and slap him on the face when she saw that smile. He slowly repeated: “You brother Jiang?”
He paused, then raised the corner of his mouth: “Then you have to ask him yourself.”
Yang Mei: “…?”
Yan Xie put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked away leisurely under Miss Yang’s gaze.
Yang Mei inexplicably stood there for a while. Her suspicious eyes wandered back and forth between the door of the men’s bathroom and Yan Xie’s back, who was getting farther and farther away. In the end, she couldn’t help but rush toward the bathroom door, and cautiously called out, “Brother Jiang? Brother Jiang, are you in there?”
Her brother Jiang was looking up at the sky at the moment, speechless.
“Brother Jiang, are you alright?”
Just as Yang Mei’s brain circuit was running like a wild horse, diverging in some unspeakable dimension with the speed of light, her phone suddenly buzzed, and Jiang Ting’s text message came:
[I’m waiting for you downstairs in the parking lot, where are you?]
“Parking lot?” Yang Mei was puzzled: “When did Brother Jiang leave?”
But even though she was full of doubts, Jiang Ting had some kind of magic power that made the people around him too lazy to use their heads. Yang Mei left the door of the men’s bathroom while muttering, and hurried towards the elevator.
Jiang Ting heard the high heels getting farther and farther away. He finally breathed a sigh of relief, and walked out the door calmly—when he came to the hospital, he had already noticed that there were parking lots on the east and west sides of the hospital downstairs. If Yang Mei called later to ask why she couldn’t find him, he would just say that he had gone the wrong way and was waiting for her in another parking lot.
Captain Jiang, who was strategizing just now, pressed the elevator button and adjusted the front of his clothes in front of the metal door. The next moment the elevator stopped from top to bottom, and the door slowly opened to both sides.
Jiang Ting: “……”
Yang Mei: “……”
The air fell into silence.
“Just, just now the elevator broke down…” Yang Mei stammered.
Jiang Ting put his hand on his forehead and said after a while, “My brain also broke down just now.”
………
In the gloomy and lifeless ward, Bu Wei stared at floating dust for a long time.
The struggle and crying just now made her hair and nightdress a mess. Han Xiaomei carefully knocked off the dust, untied her braid again, carefully combed through her hair with a comb, and pulled up a beautiful loose braid again.
“Your hair is so beautiful, if only my hair was half as soft and shiny as yours, hey.” Han Xiaomei picked up the mirror and smiled, “Are you satisfied with this hairstyle?”
Bu Wei’s unfocused gaze finally slowly focused, looking at her pale face in the mirror.
After a while, Han Xiaomei suddenly found that the corner of the girl’s mouth slowly curved up which could be called a smile:
“Sister…”
This is the first time that Han Xiaomei has heard her take the initiative to speak since yesterday, and she immediately raised all her attention, “Huh?”
Bu Wei said, “You’re also very good-looking.”
“You say I? It’s impossible. I’ve been rough since I was a child.” Han Xiaomei held her face and smiled: “It’s even rougher after the internship. The night shift three times a week, and the scolding I got all day long. It’s not long after I entered the city bureau, and my skin looks like I’ve aged three years, hahaha—”
Bu Wei asked in a low voice, “Is your boss fierce?”
Han Xiaomei immediately realised that she was referring to Yan Xie.
This is a good sign. A very important part of the negotiation and interrogation is to get closer to the person being interrogated, so as to eliminate the natural guard brought by the police identity. And once the other party lets go of the barriers from the bottom of the heart, they can cooperate with the inquiry actively and are more likely to provide more clues.
“You mean Vice-Captain Yan? He just looks fierce. In fact, he is a good person. He often buys food for us out of his own pocket, and takes our interns to the best of our ability.” Han Xiaomei glanced at the girl’s expression from the corner of her eyes, after thinking about it, she said deliberately: “He is strict on the surface just because he doesn’t get along with girls, but he’s actually shy. It is said that when he goes out on a blind date, others reject him, and he doesn’t even have a girlfriend yet.”
The corner of Bu Wei’s mouth was reluctantly raised up: “I’m a little afraid of him, but…”
Han Xiaomei was keenly aware of the lingering words: “But what?”
Bu Wei hugged her knees, her eyes were slightly red again.
She is born with a special charm that can arouse people’s love and affection, not only for the opposite sex but even for the same sex. Seeing her watery eyes, Han Xiaomei’s heart immediately softened. She hugged her shoulders and persuaded: “It’s okay, tell sister, I won’t tell anyone else.”
“…No one ever hugged me, my dad would only beat me. He used to hit me when he got drunk… No one has ever hugged me like a big brother…” Bu Wei shuddered and took a breath, burying her face in Han Xiaomei’s arms: “That kind of, that kind of security, I’ve never really felt that kind of security—woo woo…”
After all, Bu Wei has not reached the age to talk about grace and style, as if she is completely unaware of her beauty, when she starts to cry, she is like a howling child. But it is precisely because of this that her cries are particularly touching. Han Xiaomei kept stroking her slender back, thinking angrily that if she had such a beautiful sister or daughter, it would not be enough for her to love her every day. How could someone be willing to hit her?
“You, you must not tell others. I, I am really scared, I will cooperate well, I will really cooperate well!…”
“Okay, okay, don’t talk, don’t talk.” Han Xiaomei hurriedly persuaded her while pulling her sleeves to wipe her tears: “Sister promises not to tell others. Come here, big sister will peel you a peach to eat.”
Bu Wei sobbed, her shoulders shaking. She raised her face and looked at Han Xiaomei pitifully: “Can I…”
“Can I do something?”
The girl swallowed hard in Han Xiaomei’s encouraging eyes, and finally mustered up the courage, said: “Can I go and see… Can I see Shen Xiaoqi?”
Her request was exactly the one the police wanted. Even an inexperienced police intern like Han Xiaomei knew very well that taking the initiative to contact the victim is often the first step for a witness who is willing to stand up to help the police.
“Okay, no problem!” Han Xiaomei was overjoyed, and then she suddenly reacted: “But I don’t have the authority to take you to the intensive care unit—you wait! I’ll be back!” saying that she swept out of the ward like wind, standing in the corridor she hurriedly dialled the phone:
“Hello, Vice-Captain Yan?”
………
“I don’t care what Li Yuxin’s father’s attitude is, whether it is resistance or non-violence or non-cooperation, his daughter is now lying in the forensic autopsy room of our city bureau. If he doesn’t take the initiative to communicate with Jiangyang County Police Station, don’t blame me for personally going to Jiangyang to handcuff him to Jianning!… What, it’s not in line with the rules? I’ll go against his mother’s rules, solving a case is the first rule of us criminal investigators!!… Ma Xiang, wait a minute, that girl Han Xiaomei is calling me.”
Yan Xie put Ma Xiang on hold and connected to Han Xiaomei: “What happened to you again?”
With the urgent voice coming from the other side of the mobile phone, Yan Xie’s facial expression gradually underwent a very strange change: “…I make her feel safe?”
“She was domestically abused by her father since she was a child, and the fat man surnamed Wang doesn’t seem to be a serious person. Perhaps when she grew up, she had never been in contact with a reliable adult male. Now she wants to see Shen Xiaoqi. I think this is a rare opportunity and an important sign that the victim wants to speak to the police! So Vice-Captain Yan, if you take her to the intensive care unit, maybe it will have a great boost to her subjective consciousness…”
In an instant, a brief blank space appeared in Yan Xie’s thinking, and in the depths of his consciousness, a similar scene gradually emerged with warm light and shadow.
It was a quiet apartment late in the night, the candlelight flickered, and Jiang Ting sat across from the dining table eating his pasta carefully, his eyes narrowed comfortably. That look is really lively and good-looking, and even a little cute in Yan Xie’s eyes — of course, Yan Xie knew that Jiang Ting didn’t notice that he had secretly glanced at him many times.
“Thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“I don’t know… Maybe it’s because you always make people around you feel safe.”
Yan Xie was accustomed to being fierce, and it was the first time someone had said that they felt a sense of security around him. It was like a cat’s paw scratching the softest piece of flesh in his heart, and the aftertaste lingered back to the present.
“Okay,” Yan Xie interrupted Han Xiaomei, “you go back to the ward and wait, and I’ll come right away.”
Han Xiaomei said confidently, “Okay!”
Shen Xiaoqi’s situation is different from Bu Wei’s. Although he was staying in the intensive care unit, only relying on equipment to maintain his breathing, the anxious parents and relatives of the Shen family came to see him on time every day, and there was never a shortage of people in front of the hospital bed.
When the victim’s condition has reached this stage, in fact, most of them have given up, and only the parents are reluctantly desperately praying for the last hope. So when Yan Xie asked them if they wanted to transfer to a private hospital and try a new treatment method that has not been officially introduced in China, the Shen family agreed without hesitation, and they were so grateful that they almost paid money on the spot to Yan Xie — They were so dazed at the moment that they didn’t even hear Yan Xie’s words clearly, “that private hospital was invested by my father”.
Now the only thing they are waiting for is the smooth import of the German batch of medicines, after which they can arrange for Shen Xiaoqi, who is unconscious, to be transferred.
Yan Xie personally led Bu Wei to the floor of the intensive care unit and nodded to the plainclothes policeman who was guarding the door.
“Well, he is there.” Yan Xie patted Bu Wei’s thin shoulder: “Is he not recognizable anymore?”
Bu Wei suddenly hugged Yan Xie’s arm.
“……” because of her action, Yan Xie frowned slightly and glanced down — but the girl seemed to be completely unaware of her movements. She stared at the hospital bed in the glass window and her eyes widened.
Shen Xiaoqi was indeed a young man full of heroic spirit, but now, after repeated craniotomy and infusions, his whole body was swollen and bruised, and even a little hard to identify. Looking from the glass window of the ward, there were various kinds of tubes connected to his body. Except for the instrument that barely showed his heartbeat, it was almost impossible for people to notice that he was still alive.
Bu Wei seemed to be trembling slightly, and after a while, she raised her head sideways and looked at Yan Xie.
This angle made her cheek look like a shiny pearl, Yan Xie frowned: “What?”
To his surprise, Bu Wei asked hoarsely:
“…Am I a bad person?”
Yan Xie thought about it for a moment and shook his head in front of her expectant gaze: “The real murderer who harmed Shen Xiaoqi to this point is not you, there is no need to be too harsh on yourself. Your obligation is to cooperate with the police to provide clues as much as possible, and the rest of the task of catching the criminals and the responsibility of protecting the victims is of our police.”
“……” The girl stood motionless, and after a long time, she gave him a very light and beautiful smile.
——At this moment, Mother Shen, who had her back to the ward window, just turned her head, and immediately put down the hot towel in her hand and stood up: “Officer Yan—”
The next moment, she recognized Bu Wei and her face turned gloomy. She immediately opened the door and staggered out of the ward.
Seeing that her expression was a little off, Yan Xie first coughed: “Madam Yin, this classmate is another victim of the kidnapping case. The police think she is likely to provide some information about the kidnappers…”
“Why is she here? “Mother Shen asked in a shrill voice.
Bu Wei was terrified, like a helpless little animal, desperately hiding behind Yan Xie: “I’m sorry! Auntie, I’m sorry! It’s all my fault…
“We don’t want to see her here!” Bu Wei, who was alive and well, simply pushed Mother Shen’s nerves that were on the verge of collapse into the abyss: “Sorry Officer Yan, we can’t accept it, we really can’t accept it! Please don’t bring her here!”
“It’s my fault, Auntie, woohoo…”
“Go away, go away! You go away! Please don’t come and see my son!”
The cries, screams, shrill shouts, and sounds of all kinds of discussions were like countless sharp knives cutting Yan Xie’s eardrums back and forth. The irrational mother Shen wanted to pull Bu Wei away, but the latter hugged Yan Xie’s arm in a panic. Yan Xie had a headache and felt that his arm was about to touch the girl’s chest, but in the chaotic situation, he couldn’t break free either.
“Okay, Madam Yin! Calm down!” Yan Xie beckoned the plainclothes police to quickly evacuate the onlookers, and said in a low voice, “This classmate is also a victim. It’s not her fault that your son was kidnapped!”
“I don’t know whose fault it is, but I beg you to take her away!”
“I’m sorry auntie, please don’t be angry, auntie!…”
Yan Xie forcibly separated the two entangled women, but fortunately, the little policeman rushed over to help, and quickly pulled the red-eyed mother Shen away. Only then did Yan Xie seize the opportunity to pull his hand out of Bu Wei’s arms and said exhaustedly: “Madam Yin, we need this classmate very much to assist the police in catching the kidnappers and providing clues, and only people who really harmed Shen Xiaoqi will be punished. Besides, it wasn’t her fault that your son was kidnapped, and it’s not her fault she came back alive…”
“No… it was me.”
Bu Wei’s forcibly suppressed and extremely frightened tone was too sharp, everyone looked at her at the same time.
“It was me, I did it.” Bu Wei’s lips couldn’t stop tumbling, and she could even hear her teeth chattering: “It was me… I pushed Shen Xiaoqi down the hill.”
The surroundings were completely still for a moment, and then It exploded!
Mother Shen jumped up frantically, the policeman couldn’t control her at all, and two policemen rushed up to catch her in embarrassment; Bu Wei fell to the ground crying, and no one could get her up. The several doctors and nurses around her were completely dumbfounded.
“Bu Wei, look at me Bu Wei!” In the midst of the commotion, Yan Xie forcibly pulled the girl’s tear-stained face and shouted sharply: “Do you know what you are talking about? What happened on the hillside that day? How many kidnappers did you see?!”
Bu Wei shook her head in dismay, choked to the point of being speechless, and it took a long time before she encountered drowning driftwood, so she tightly grabbed Yan Xie’s hand:
“…My uncle…”
“The kidnapper is… my uncle, he threatened to sell, sell me…”
Yan Xie gasped hard, then suddenly got up, opened WeChat on the phone and pressed the voice button: “Ma Xiang listen, Bu Wei identified Wang Xingye, immediately dispatched a team to arrest him!”
