Special Forces Medic

Chapter 1182 On-Site Witness

Murong Lengyue calmly fixed her gaze on Hua Qingyi. A razor-thin blade pressed against Hua Qingyi’s neck from behind, light as a leaf just fallen soundlessly onto his shoulder.

"Just your Hua Family alone, or even that little position of Hua Muyun at the municipal committee, you think that’s enough to threaten our Murong Family? Or is it that you’ve got Wu Jiyi backing you up?" Murong Lengyue’s eyes on Hua Qingyi were full of contempt. "You couldn’t even sense my bodyguard approaching, and you think you can kill me?"

"You..." It was his own carelessness; all his attention had been on this woman, and he’d never imagined someone would show up so quickly.

"I know you’re doing this for Xiao Lin, I won’t hold it against you. But before you start condemning the other side, maybe look into who caused all this. I’m the victim here, the one who got played by you people."

"What?" Hua Qingyi let out a low, confused roar. What was with this woman? Xiao Lin took a bullet for her, and she still says something like that. "Are you even human? Xiao Lin took a bullet for you, we still don’t know if he’ll make it, and you’re here making snide comments and shirking responsibility."

He had just moved to step forward when a sting came from where the thin blade touched his neck. Hua Qingyi suddenly felt a wave of prickling itch at the wound. "Poison!"

"This dose won’t kill you, at most it’ll make you a little drunk." Xiao Yue walked out from behind Hua Qingyi and bowed ninety degrees to Murong Lengyue with utmost respect. "Your subordinate is late and has allowed Miss to be frightened."

Murong Lengyue shot him a cold look; in front of outsiders she always protected her own. "Give Young Master Hua the antidote. I don’t want people saying I’m ungrateful."

"No antidote." Xiao Yue didn’t even blink as he spoke. "This kind of death-defying poison has no cure."

"My apologies, Young Master Hua. I’ll come pay my respects another day." Murong Lengyue glared at Xiao Yue, then followed him into the car parked at the entrance of the lane.

"What happened?" Yelü Shou saw Hua Qingyi hadn’t caught up for a long time and had Troy go check. But just as Troy turned the corner out of the compound, their car was forced to the side by another. Under the headlights, it was clearly the woman who’d been with Xiao Lin.

"Nothing!" The cut from the thin blade wasn’t bleeding much; on the contrary, the blood was trapped under the skin, forming a large swelling that was both itchy and painful.

"You’re hurt!" Troy’s sharp eyes spotted the little swollen patch on his neck, an abnormal dark red.

"We’ll talk when we get back." Hua Qingyi wanted to scratch it, but suddenly remembered something Xiao Lin had once warned him about, and forced himself to hold back.

The sky was turning a dim gray. After a whole night, the police cars clustered around the construction site were starting to leave one after another. Rochester sat in his own car, rubbing his brow. He had basically listened to every construction worker’s statement through the night, and the result was that aside from all of them hearing an explosion, there wasn’t a single valuable testimony—like they’d all agreed on a story in advance.

How was that possible? They could hear the explosion but didn’t see anyone—does that make sense? Clearly someone was covering up certain facts. Just as Rochester was about to start the car, a very small, thin figure wearing a hard hat knocked on his window. "What is it?"

"I, I have something, to, to say." The frail person’s voice was very thin, and for a moment it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman.

"You work at this site? How come I didn’t see you just now?" Rochester gave the suspicious figure a skeptical once-over. Someone this distinctive, he wouldn’t forget.

"Mm, mm, mm!" The suspicious person kept nodding. His hand clutched the car door handle like he was about to yank it open and throw himself inside, but after several tries he still couldn’t get it open, and he fixed Rochester with a pleading stare.

"Whatever you have to say, just say it like this."

"Let, let me in, take, take me away, I, I, I’ll, I’ll tell, tell you."

"What?" The stutter was so severe he couldn’t get a full sentence out, and between every word he had to pause a long time, repeating over and over before he could continue.

The sky was fully light now. Unlike usual, the sealed-off site hadn’t resumed work at dawn; the construction grounds were deathly still.

The person outside seemed to notice it was morning too, and he knocked on the window even more urgently. Rochester irritably hesitated over whether he should let this person in.

"I, I saw it." This sentence was short, and Rochester heard it clearly.

"You saw it?" The man nodded vigorously, one hand clutching his own collar.

"Hurry, hurry, let me, get in." He looked around in terror, like something in the dark was watching him and he was desperate to escape.

"Get in." Before Rochester finished speaking, the person had already darted into the car and was urging him to drive, while he himself wouldn’t even sit properly in the seat, instead sliding down to the floorboard so that from outside you couldn’t tell there was a second person in the car. "What are you hiding from?"

"They, they said if I didn’t do, as they said, they’d, they’d kill me, us. Ah Dai, h-he’s dead."

Rochester frowned, driving the car out of the construction site. "You mean someone died there? Those people did it?"

"Mm, mm, lots, lots of people." Maybe because they’d left the site, the small, thin person had calmed down a bit and wasn’t stuttering as badly as before.

"Then why weren’t you there when we were taking statements just now?"

"They threatened me—us. Ah Dai wouldn’t agree, he said... he said he saw them kill someone, and... and then one of them blew his head off."

"The construction site is so far from the building. How could you possibly see anything?"

"I... we snuck out. We wanted to go into the building and take a look."

"You saw the killing with your own eyes?" Rochester’s grip on the steering wheel tightened.

"Yeah. There was a woman, she... she fired a gun at someone else, and then that person... just fell... fell down." As he spoke, he started stuttering again.

Rochester backed the car into the garage and yanked the man out from the other side. "This is the police station. No one’s going to hurt you here."

"No, I don’t want to go to the police station." The moment he heard "police station," the scrawny man started shouting, struggling and kicking at Rochester. "I—I don’t want to go to the police station."

"Get out!" The guy suddenly started making an unreasonable scene, leaving Rochester momentarily at a loss as to how to handle him. The man was built like a stick of bamboo, yet surprisingly strong.

"What’s going on?" Just as Rochester was feeling helpless, Meisai’s authoritative voice sounded from behind. He was about to drive back; he’d been up all night, and in a while he still had to attend that damn meeting.

"Chief!"

"Who is this?" Meisai bent down. A dark-skinned, undersized man was sitting in the car.

"I brought him back from the construction site. He says he saw Murong Lengyue shoot and kill someone."

"What?" Meisai turned his head, hand braced on the car door. A witness.

"I was just about to take him back to the station to make a statement." Seeing Meisai’s eyes widen, Rochester swallowed with difficulty, realizing he’d probably forgotten something important.

"No, no, don’t take me to the police station." The frail man looked at Meisai with pleading eyes.

"Why don’t you want to go to the police station?"

"I... I..."

"Since you say you witnessed it, you need to give a statement."

"I... I can’t go to the police station. I don’t... don’t have an ID card, and Ah Dai... doesn’t either."

"Ah Dai? Who’s Ah Dai?"

"The one who saw the killing with this guy. But he was killed."

"You’re an illegal worker." The skinny man nodded, and Meisai instantly understood. "Everyone at the site is illegal labor?" The man nodded again.

"Rochester, find somewhere to put him up for now. We’ll talk when I get back." It was about time; the high-level meeting was scheduled for nine in the morning.

"But, Chief, I..."

"Rochester, you should understand how serious this is. If people find out the Family Head of the Murong Clan is a murderer, do you know what the consequences will be?"

"If it was self-defense, then that’s a different story."

"Rochester, your brains must be waterlogged. You think those reporters are going to write it that way? Right now it’s not about reasons for killing; it’s about a manufactured topic, about reputation." Meisai pulled Rochester aside and lowered his voice in a harsh whisper. "Do as I say. Take him away first. The meeting in a bit is precisely about Murong Lengyue. Don’t stir up trouble at this moment, understand?"

"Yes, I got it." Rochester let his hands drop, deflated. He glanced at the man curled up in the car. Why did all the shitty luck have to land on him? Cursing under his breath, he got back in the car, glaring resentfully at the guy whose vacant look made it hard to tell if he was scared senseless. "Kid, you sure you’re not lying? This isn’t the kind of thing you use to grab the spotlight."

The scrawny man shook his head firmly. Rochester looked at him with a complicated expression and unconsciously let out a sigh.

At nine o’clock sharp, he appeared in the conference room of the city government building. The people sitting in a circle around the table all wore grave expressions. Just five minutes earlier, they had each received, to varying degrees, information about what happened at the night market the previous night. At the same time, though, they’d all breathed a sigh of relief, because they were expecting the police chief to bring them good news—news that had already been confirmed by the mayor.

The victim in the case, Murong Lengyue, Family Head of the Murong Clan, had already returned home safely. Fortunately, he had not suffered any harm and was completely unscathed.

The mayor sat upright, both hands braced on the table, looking ready to hold forth at length. Next to him sat the Minister of Security, the man who had organized this meeting, a tall, thin middle-aged man.

Meisai was the last to arrive in the conference room. Before he could even sit down, the Minister of Security immediately pointed the spearhead at him, picking apart, in essence, the security situation in Palermo over this period. Meisai listened very seriously. He knew this was just the prelude; they hadn’t gotten to the main act yet. How could this matter possibly blow over so easily? In the end the ones to take the fall would still be them, the police. On the way here, he’d already steeled himself mentally. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you’re welcome to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)