L'amour est toxique

Chapitre 34

"You mean the person who pushed Biyun downstairs is the one you just mentioned?" Attorney Jian asked while smoking.

“Yes,” Jian Dongping answered with certainty. “I suspect that when the murderer first tripped Zeng Hong with the rope, she didn’t intend to kill him. She probably just wanted to mess with him or make Aunt Shen uncomfortable, because no one could guarantee that Zeng Hong would actually die from the fall. But when Zeng Hong actually died, she realized it was a good method, so the second time she did it, her purpose was to murder Aunt Shen.” At this point, he turned to Shen Biyun, “You were tripped by the glass toy dog, weren’t you?”

Shen Biyun frowned slightly and nodded. "Everyone says it's dried from glass, which is the best explanation, but I don't think so. That toy is too big for it to bite, so it has never liked it and has always left it in its nest... I don't know how to put it, but I think it's not it."

"I don't think so either." Jian Dongping took a sip of tea. "Aunt Chen, may I ask you a question?"

“Of course.” Shen Biyun looked at him with great interest, waiting for him to continue.

"Hurry up and tell me," Attorney Jane urged.

“There should be a clock in the storage room. Is it fast?” Jian Dongping asked.

Shen Biyun laughed heartily.

"You're a really smart kid, how did you know?" She smiled and turned to look at Jian Qiming. "It was your dad who came up with the idea for me."

“Biyun wants to test who has been in the storeroom. I suggested she set the clock in the storeroom 20 minutes fast. Anyone who has been in the storeroom will always make a mistake with the time, whether they know the clock is fast or not, it will give them away.” Jian Qiming glanced at his son. “How did you know that?”

“I made a timeline and discovered that the murderer made a mistake. I guessed that the murderer made this mistake after looking at the clock in the storage room, and I’m glad I guessed right,” Jian Dongping said proudly. At this moment, he noticed that Ling Ge was looking at him with admiration. He felt warm inside and couldn’t help but lean closer to her.

"I still don't understand? What mistake did she make?" Shen Biyun asked, puzzled.

Jian Dongping did not answer her question, but instead asked, "Can you tell me where you were on the afternoon of May 7th?"

“She was with me,” Attorney Jane said. “We went to meet one of her clients and an old friend. It was raining really hard that day.”

“I remember that rain. That’s the day I came back. I also remember the weather was bad for a while; it rained for the next few days.” Jian Dongping then asked Shen Biyun, “So, do you know where the others are?”

"To be honest, I'm not too sure. I left home around 3:30. Fang Rouzhi left with me. She was going to visit a friend. They seemed to be having a party or something. Fang Qi was at home doing the accounts. I don't know where Yu Shan went. She probably went out with Xiang Bing. Xiao Xi wasn't there either. She probably went to a classmate's house. I didn't notice."

"You received a call from a woman looking for Fang Qi, right?"

“Yes, before she left,” Shen Biyun replied, then asked, “Last time Xiao Ge said that a girl went missing, and that she last called Zhiwen?”

Jian Dongping smiled and said, "You must have had a temporary nanny who could sing before, right?"

"You mean the girl on the phone was her?" Shen Biyun didn't seem surprised. She just raised her eyebrows slightly and said, "That girl's name is something like Lili. She sings very beautifully, and what's rare is that she can sing a lot of old songs."

"She is Zhou Jin, the columnist I mentioned, who has now disappeared."

"Does she know Zhiwen? She only stayed at my house for a week, and because it was such a short time, I didn't investigate her background. At least on the surface, it seems like Zhiwen and she don't know each other."

“They have a past,” Jian Dongping said.

“Is that so…” Shen Biyun sighed, turned around and said, “Actually, your father later checked the last phone call she made with Zhiwen. Because it only lasted for less than a minute, I initially thought it was just a wrong number. But later I realized that was not the case. Zhiwen had already died on the 7th, so it couldn’t have been him who answered the phone.”

"The murderer answered the phone. After killing Su Zhiwen, the murderer took his phone." Jian Dongping wanted to continue, but after thinking about it, he decided to wait a moment.

"Ah, I really want to know what mistake this person made," Shen Biyun sighed curiously.

"I'd like to wait until I'm sure before I say anything. Aunt Shen, could you answer one more question for me?"

"Just ask, Dongping. As long as I know the answer, I will tell you everything."

"What time did you come downstairs to pick up the hot compress on the night of your wedding anniversary?"

"It was probably around 9:20. I'm not sure of the exact time, but I was rushing to watch a TV program at 9:30. When I got back upstairs, I found that there were still eight or nine minutes to go."

"Did you see Fang Rouzhi come in from outside the living room and talk to Fang Qi about the shadowy figure?"

“I saw it, but she always makes a big fuss, so I have no interest in what she’s saying.”

"And then? You went upstairs right away?" Jian Dongping asked.

“I went back to the kitchen and said a few words to Yufen. I told her that I wanted to have corn porridge for breakfast tomorrow.”

"What was Zhang Yufen doing when she was talking to you?"

“She was complaining about Fang Rouzhi. She and Fang Rouzhi have never gotten along. She said that Fang Rouzhi drank the milk but didn’t wash the milk cup. I told her to just wash it.” Shen Biyun looked at him with a puzzled expression, wondering what he wanted to know.

Jian Dongping nodded and said, "Okay, I understand." After a while, he asked again, "Can you promise me something?"

"you say."

"You should have the keys to every room in this house, right?" Jian Dongping asked. He trusted his judgment; as the head of the household, Shen Biyun must have the keys to all the rooms.

"Of course," she replied as expected.

“I want Xiao Ge to go to that person’s room to find something. Could I give her the key? It would be best if we could also get everyone else out of there,” Jian Dongping said.

“That’s easy,” Shen Biyun replied confidently. “Tomorrow afternoon, I have a meeting at the company. Fang Qi will be with me anyway. I’ll have Yushan come to see me and have Yufen deliver something to my friend’s place. As for Fang Rouzhi, she’ll be accompanying Fang Xiaoxi to her art teacher’s class tomorrow afternoon. So, from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., no one should be home.”

"Thank you so much."

"Dongping, if you can clarify this matter, it will be a great help to me. I also want to see concrete evidence," Shen Biyun said sincerely.

“I’ll do my best,” Jian Dongping said.

"However, I really want to know what her motive was for killing Zhiwen?" Shen Biyun asked, clearly this question had been on her mind for a long time, and she had been wanting to ask it for a while.

"The reason is simple: Su Zhiwen is threatening him. Su Zhiwen and Zhou Jin, who is also your temporary nanny Zhou Lili, found the murderer's clues through your book 'Lady's House,' so they blackmailed her. By the way, are you really planning to give Su Zhiwen 3 million?"

Jian Qiming chuckled and said, "Biyun, I'd also like to know the answer to this question."

Shen Biyun smiled gracefully and said, "I am indeed prepared to give him this money because I like him very much."

Is he really going to Hong Kong?

“He said a friend in Hong Kong asked him to handle a business deal. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not, and I’m not interested in finding out. I was planning to give him the money and let him leave when he came back from Hong Kong. He’s a young man; I can’t keep him tied to my side forever. To be honest, sometimes I do treat him like a son, and I hope he can find happiness, but I feel he lacks the ability to earn money legitimately, and I don’t want him to go back to dancing. Although he dances very well, I was prepared to give him the money so he could leave and start over. But I never expected that he…” Shen Biyun looked sad, and she didn’t finish her sentence.

Su Zhiwen certainly didn't expect Shen Biyun to actually give him money. Everyone in the family said that the old lady was untrustworthy and wouldn't easily part with her money, so even if he believed her at first, he probably wavered later, which is why he went to blackmail the murderer. He actually went to Hong Kong with Zhou Jin to take the money and run away together. If he had known how generous his wife was to him, would he still have done it?

"Dongping, there's something I don't understand," Shen Biyun said after catching her breath.

"Please speak."

"What was her motive? She hated me so much, what was her motive for trying to kill me?"

Jian Dongping sighed: "The answer is actually in your book." He patted the cover of "Lady's House".

"Really?" Shen Biyun asked with great interest. "Where?"

Jian Dongping flipped to the two places he had found earlier and pointed them out to her. She looked at them for a long time before passing them on to Lawyer Jian.

After a moment's thought, she suddenly realized: "You mean, because of those two things... So you mean..."

Grandma Shen was a clever woman, and Jian Dongping was pleased that she had already guessed the answer to his riddle.

“I think it’s these two things,” he said.

"I really didn't expect that. But now that you mention it, it makes a lot of sense." Shen Biyun's face was still somewhat shaken as she turned to ask Attorney Jian, "You didn't expect that either, did you?"

“If it really is about these two things, then her motives are indeed obvious.” Attorney Jian nodded, pushed the book aside, and asked her son, “Shouldn’t you talk to Old Lin about this?”

“I want to tell him after I find what I’m looking for. Besides, Xiao Ge is a police officer, so I’ll let her report to Uncle Lin herself. Actually, I think Uncle Lin definitely knows that Xiang Bing isn’t the murderer,” Jian Dongping said.

"I guessed so. This old guy loves to argue with me. If I hadn't insisted that Xiang Bing was the murderer, he definitely wouldn't be so firm in his stance. Hahaha." Lawyer Jian laughed.

After Attorney Jian and Shen Biyun left, Ling Ge asked Jian Dongping:

"Do you really think she's the murderer?"

"Hmm, I think it's her." He suddenly thought of a question, "I've been wanting to ask you this, after that person broke into Yushan's room, what was Yushan's reaction when she came back the next day? Did she complain that something was missing?"

"That's what I find strange. She didn't react at all, and didn't say anything was missing. Could I have seen wrong? I don't think so. That person must have been looking for something that day. I think what she took must have been very, very small." Ling Ge's eyes darted around, as if he was seriously thinking.

“Or maybe they’ve changed something else,” Jian Dongping pondered.

"They changed something?" Ling Ge's eyes widened.

"I understand!" A thought flashed through Jian Dongping's mind, and he shouted.

"What do you understand?" Ling Ge stared at him nervously.

Jian Dongping found it amusing and couldn't help but burst into laughter.

What are you laughing at?

"Alright, Xiao Ge, do a few things for me."

"What do you want me to do?" Ling Ge asked excitedly. Jian Dongping knew why she was happy, because she could finally openly look for the chewing gum she had been looking for.

"Let's go find some chewing gum first."

Ling Ge nodded.

"Didn't you say that Yushan has an umbrella in her drawer? Go to that person's room and see if there's an identical umbrella."

Ling Ge's eyes widened, and he covered his mouth: "You mean she sneaked into Yu Shan's room and changed to the exact same umbrella?"

"It was raining heavily the day Zhou Jin had the accident. It wasn't raining when the murderer went out, so she didn't bring an umbrella. After she finished what she was doing, it started raining heavily outside, so she took Zhou Jin's umbrella and left the scene. I suspect that Yu Shan took the umbrella and used it later, and she always wanted to get it back. There should be Zhou Jin's blood or some other traces on that umbrella."

"But when you met Zhou Jin, you said she was soaked to the bone and didn't bring an umbrella."

“Zhou Jin turned into a place somewhere on Xincheng Road. That road is very long, and she must have bought an umbrella along the way. But of course, this is just my guess. I'm not sure. I'll go to that place to look for her tomorrow.” As he said this, he took her hand and called her name, “Ling Ge.”

"ah?"

"I gotta Feeling."

"What does it feel like?" Ling Ge asked, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

He hesitated for a moment before speaking:

"I think Zhou Jin might still be alive."

"Really?!" She exclaimed, her eyes widening in surprise.

“If Zhou Jin were dead, there should be a smell, right? It’s summer now, and the area around Xincheng Road is mostly residential. If she were dead, she should have been discovered long ago. So I suspect… Of course, I’m just guessing.” He wasn’t really sure. He thought it wasn’t impossible for the killer to dismember the body and move the pieces, but where could she bury the pieces? That would be very easy to expose… “I really hope she’s still alive. But why didn’t the killer kill her?” Ling Ge also…

"That's unclear. Maybe she hasn't found the right opportunity yet." For her, the most troublesome thing should be how to dispose of the body, because this is an unfamiliar environment... Let's wait until tomorrow to see what happens. As he thought this, he walked to the sofa, took out a shoebox from the corner underneath, and handed it to Ling Ge.

"What is this?" Ling Ge looked at him in confusion.

"Open it and take a look," he said with a smile.

Ling Ge opened the shoebox and immediately showed a delighted expression. This morning he had taken some time to go to the nearby mall and buy her a new pair of sandals. He felt a little sad when he saw her frustrated expression when she was dealing with her old sandals.

"Do you like it? I went out of my way to buy it for you this morning," he asked gently.

Ling Ge smiled and nodded: "Yes, they're beautiful, even more beautiful than Yu Shan's."

"Of course they're prettier than hers. The shoes I bought for you aren't your average quality." Ling Ge liked the shoes; he was very happy.

"It's expensive, isn't it? How much is it? It must be at least 150 yuan. Can I pay you back when I get my salary next month?" Ling Ge stared at the shoes.

“You said 150? You need to add a zero after that,” Jian Dongping said calmly.