Chapter 116 - 51: Help
"And then? Keep going!" Ruoping urged.
"That man—or rather, the suspect—is the husband of the woman from the milk tea shop on the commercial street. Got it?"
"N-No way." Even being slow on the uptake, Ruoping understood. She stammered, "Are you saying that woman and her family are the murderers?"
She was a regular at the milk tea shop, so she found it hard to accept.
"The woman herself probably doesn’t know."
"That doesn’t make sense. If he hates Gu Qiuyan’s family so much, why would her husband still go work at their supermarket?"
"We were wrong about one thing."
Qingyi explained:
"Shutong just told me. He was wrong about this before, too. We shouldn’t assume his reason for working at the supermarket has anything to do with his personal feelings. He has only one objective: gathering intelligence.
"To put it simply, if you wanted to go after Gu Qiuyan right now, how would you confirm her movements, or her family’s? There are really only three places—"
As he spoke, Qingyi held up three fingers:
"The school, the villa, and her family’s supermarket.
"At her school, you could find out about her status—her mood, where she plans to go. The villa is much the same. But you can’t just easily get into those two places. The only one left is the supermarket. You can apply for a job there. But take note: the goal here isn’t to find out about Gu Qiuyan herself, but to track her father’s movements."
Ruoping asked:
"So that man came to work here just to gather intelligence on Gu Qiuyan’s family?"
"More or less. And he applied for the job a few months ago, which means this was planned long in advance."
"Wait, didn’t they say it was his first day at work?"
"You’re not thinking," Qingyi said, pressing his hand to his forehead. "His wife sprained her ankle, so he took a few days off to help at the milk tea shop. Today is his first day *back* at work. That’s what they meant by ’first day’."
"Oh, okay. Then why did he still come in this morning?"
"Think about it. Let’s assume he’s the mastermind. He would definitely know about the arson and that her dad isn’t home. But he wouldn’t know when her dad is coming back. So tell me, besides asking Gu Qiuyan herself, what’s the fastest way to get that information?"
"Her family’s supermarket?"
Qingyi nodded:
"Exactly. Or more precisely, the management under her dad—meaning the supermarket manager. That person has a direct line to Boss Gu.
"Following that logic, to get the manager’s attention, the suspect would have to spread the news of the arson. It’s even possible he orchestrated the whole thing—spreading the news first, then deliberately going to the manager to ’report’ that a certain rumor was going around this morning. If you were the manager, what would you do?"
Qingyi answered his own question:
"You can’t just watch your employees gossip about the boss, right? You’d have to release some information to calm everyone down, wouldn’t you?
"Doesn’t that explain everything? The suspect came to work this morning for this very reason: to confirm when Boss Gu is returning to the island so he can pick the right time to strike."
The two of them had already walked out of the supermarket as they spoke. Amid the beeping of checkout scanners, Ruoping nodded blankly. Qingyi’s reasoning felt so smooth, almost airtight, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
It wasn’t until she saw him tapping away on his phone with an enigmatic smile that it hit her.
"I know what’s wrong! You decided he was the killer first, then worked backward to figure out the motive. That’s not rigorous at all!"
"That... yeah, you’ve got a point," Qingyi said, looking up. "I didn’t think it was very solid either, but Shutong was being deliberately mysterious earlier. And what do you know, he got lucky—like a blind squirrel finding a nut—and stumbled upon a crucial clue."
"What was it?"
"Let me tell you," a rare, excited smile appeared on the boy’s usually deadpan face. "This case is just too interesting. I never thought I’d be able to connect all the clues..."
He didn’t get to finish before Ruoping shot him a glare.
"What are you getting so excited about? Shouldn’t we be focused on finding where the killer went?"
Saying this, she sent a worried message to Zhang Shutong.
Because just now, at the deli counter...
She’d only seen the hanging pork liver; the meat cleaver was gone.
...
A bicycle rolled through the winter outskirts. The landscape was desolate as far as the eye could see.
Zhang Shutong pedaled along at a leisurely pace. Qingyi’s bike seemed to have been custom-modified. Its brakes were incredibly sensitive; back in the city, every light touch had resulted in a sudden, hard stop. Gu Qiuyan’s accusation that he was doing it on purpose was completely unfair.
Things were finally better now. They had reached the deserted outskirts, so he, the humble lackey, could pedal at a leisurely pace while the young lady behind him sipped her milk tea.
After a few sips, Gu Qiuyan asked him, her voice tinged with worry, "So where did your friends go?"
’Looks like she’s figured some things out, too.’
Zhang Shutong, however, just said they were fine and perfectly safe.
The words had barely left his mouth when, as if to spite him, his phone suddenly rang.
It was Du Kang.
The group had agreed not to call unless absolutely necessary. A call meant there was an emergency.
Zhang Shutong stopped the bike, sighed, and hit the answer button.
Sure enough, the first thing he heard was Du Kang’s frantic shout:
"HELP!"
...
"So what about Du Kang?" It took Ruoping a moment to process. "If you already identified the killer, why did you send him to Gu Qiuyan’s villa? Don’t tell me..."
At this, a worried look crossed her face:
"The man... he didn’t follow those two. He went straight to the villa, didn’t he?"
Her mind, freshly stimulated by all the reasoning she’d just heard, was starting to work faster. A flood of possibilities hit her at once: