Su Tang knew nothing, and the case was unclear. Shi Han was missing, and Zhang Si had mysteriously disappeared. These events were all eerie. After Ping An obtained all the information from the police, he hid at home alone to deduce. It had been over two years since he last handled a case, and he hoped his mind was still sharp enough. Ping An thought with a sigh.
Zhang Xiao'ao was the last to learn of Su Tang's "murder." Seeing his master drawing and sketching on a blank piece of paper, he didn't know how to comfort him and could only remain silent.
Ping An couldn't spare attention for his second disciple's comfort at the moment. Although his eldest disciple had appeared very relaxed at the municipal bureau earlier, he hadn't missed the constant trembling of her small hands. She was still just a child, how could she not be scared?
Ping An was very agitated but had to calm himself down.
Lai Xiang was a veteran, and Mai Mang was sharp-minded; these two should be fine.
Next, if the police followed their usual pattern, they would search for Shi Han and Zhang Si's whereabouts and investigate Ma Delu's background. If Su Tang was induced to kill unconsciously, why kill Ma Delu? To silence him? If Su Tang was a decoy, being exploited, then what was the real murder weapon? The two wounds on Ma Delu's head must hold a clue! Of course, they would also investigate the source of sedatives and other drugs.
Thinking of this, Ping An couldn't help but think of Mr. Ke. The method used in this case was remarkably similar to Mr. Ke's methods. Could the target be himself? Was Ma Delu just a prop?
Finally, human nature! What if it was really that girl? The more Ping An thought, the more restless he became. He patted Zhang Xiao'ao and ordered him to go out; he decided to visit the crime scene again.
Outside Ma Delu's office building, it was already cordoned off by layers of police. Gao Xiaofei was smoking, quietly waiting for Ping An to arrive.
"I've sent Hei Dou to investigate that commercial vehicle, considering the case of the drowned woman in the sewer as well." Seeing Ping An and Zhang Xiao'ao arrive, Gao Xiaofei went up to greet them.
"I've learned all the details this morning, but I won't feel at ease without seeing the scene myself." Ping An said somewhat sheepishly, "I apologize for making you avoid this too."
"Su Tang is my goddaughter too, so don't be so formal. Let's go." Gao Xiaofei lifted the cordon and led Ping An into the scene.
Inside the utility room, everything was as it had been the night before.
"Look, the window directly opposite the door wasn't locked. Shi Han must have jumped out through there, climbed over the wall, and left."
Gao Xiaofei said, "By the way, aren't you the secretary-general of some detective association? Isn't that Shi Han a detective?"
"There's no such person!" Ping An said, "I've checked national databases, and there's no one!"
"I find it hard to understand why Shi Han would set a trap for Su Tang," Gao Xiaofei said. "It doesn't make sense, does it? Wasn't he also investigating Ma Delu's case?"
"We can't say for sure until we find Shi Han. There might be other possibilities," Ping An said cautiously. "I'm more concerned about the gatekeeper; how could he disappear from the spot? Ma Delu's office is next door; he couldn't have known nothing, could he?"
"Let's go inside the building," Gao Xiaofei led Ping An into the office building.
In broad daylight, the office building felt eerily cold, sending shivers down one's spine.
Ping An walked along the corridors on the first and second floors, finding nothing amiss, and then went up to the third floor.
At the top of the third-floor stairs, a police officer guarding the scene quickly stood at attention and saluted as the director returned.
While Gao Xiaofei was briefly engaging the guarding officer, Ping An carefully examined the corridor on this floor. Unlike the first and second floors, the corridor on the third floor had a unisex restroom on the east side. Ping An entered the restroom and found that it was equipped with voice-activated lights.
It was an ordinary restroom, no more than three to four square meters. There was a sink in the corner, and next to it was a squat toilet partitioned by wooden planks. On the wall opposite the squat toilet, there were several old urinals that looked like they hadn't been used in a long time. Due to its age, there were numerous pipes on the ceiling, with water seeping around some of them.
"Found something?" Gao Xiaofei asked casually as he walked in. At that moment, the voice-activated light in the restroom suddenly turned on.
"Don't speak! Don't move!" Ping An suddenly told Gao Xiaofei to be silent.
And so, inside the restroom, Ping An, Gao Xiaofei, and Zhang Xiao'ao stood as if frozen, afraid to make a sound except for their breathing.
After a while, the illuminated voice-activated light finally went out.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes.
Gao Xiaofei looked at Ping An with a puzzled expression, but Ping An shook his head, signaling to remain silent.
"Drip!" A drop of water fell from a pipe on the ceiling onto a broken plastic cup on the floor, making a loud noise.
"Snap!" The voice-activated light illuminated again because of the sound!
Ping An stared at the spot where the water was dripping, as if calculating something.
"Alright, Xiaofei, do you have the surveillance footage from this corridor from last night? You're the director, you must have it!" Ping An asked anxiously.
"You smart kid, have you discovered something?" Gao Xiaofei knew Ping An too well. Seeing Ping An's expression, he immediately knew that this kid must have found something.
"When you were talking to the policeman earlier, I casually glanced towards this corridor and happened to see the light in this restroom dim," Ping An said. "The building is sealed, and no one entered the restroom, yet the voice-activated light turned on. There must have been some other sound, so I came to investigate."
"And then? Oh, wait, I'll upload it for you. The video is on my phone," Gao Xiaofei replied.
"As you can see, it's just a dripping pipe," Ping An said excitedly. "I remember checking the surveillance video last night, and this floor was consistently dark."
It turned out that when Ping An reviewed the video the previous night, he noticed that although there were corridor lights on this floor, there was no light coming from the east side in the surveillance footage. If the voice-activated light in the restroom was occasionally turning on due to dripping water, even the faintest light would have appeared in the video.
Indeed, upon reviewing the video again, as Ping An had deduced, the restroom had not consistently lit up last night despite no one using it.
"But what's the significance of this?" Gao Xiaofei asked. "The pipe could have broken this morning too!"
"This kind of old pipe, without external pressure, rarely leaks suddenly. It's usually a gradual process."
Ping An returned to the restroom and said to Zhang Xiao'ao, "Go get that ladder!"
The ladder was brought over, and Ping An climbed up. He shone his phone light and observed for a while before suddenly taking out a plastic bag from his pocket and carefully removing a metal pipe that was lying horizontally across two other pipes.
"Playing 'passing off a fake as genuine' with me, are you?" Ping An said excitedly, holding up the metal pipe. "No need for testing; look at this end, it's black and red, looks like bloodstains!"
"Someone!" Gao Xiaofei, overjoyed by Ping An's discovery, quickly called for help.
"Preserve this pipe carefully and send it for testing immediately. Tell them it's my order. Do it now!" Gao Xiaofei instructed.
"Also, send a team of technicians. There seems to be a shoe print on the wall where the pipe reaches its end." After removing the pipe, Ping An carefully examined the area around the pipes on the ceiling and found another shoe print.
"Look, Xiaofei, this water pipe is leaking because it's under external pressure. I suspect someone was hiding here last night, especially after the incident," Ping An said. "Clever, isn't it? They used the steel pipe as a makeshift pull-up bar between the two pipes. Then, grasping the pipe, they exerted upward force and hid among the pipes. Your men searching last night would never have seen them."
"Well done! Still got it, old boy! You're still capable!" Gao Xiaofei was very happy to see new progress in the case.
"Aren't you curious?" Ping An, however, didn't seem to be happy.
"Curious about what?" Gao Xiaofei asked.
"Where is the person?" Ping An patted Gao Xiaofei's head and said, "We've only discovered evidence that someone might have been hiding here last night. If the bloodstains on that pipe are related to Ma Delu, it only proves that someone used it to hit Ma Delu, but whether it was before or the fatal blow, that's still unclear."
Ping An's deduction was accurate; this was just one discovery, and only one at that.
"That's not right. With this pipe, Su Tang's suspicion can at least be halved!" Lai Xiang and Mai Mang, who had rushed over, looked at Ping An with admiration. He was an old detective of the martial world, truly extraordinary; even though the police had thoroughly searched the scene, he still found something new.
"Yes, it's best to get Su Tang out first, and then we can deal with this case slowly," Mai Mang encouraged Ping An.
"Let that dead girl stay inside for a good while. She's always restless and causing trouble everywhere. Maybe putting her in prison is the most worry-free option!" Ping An said with annoyance.
Hearing these familiar words, Gao Xiaofei glanced sideways at Ping An and then exchanged a knowing nod with Lai Xiang and Mai Mang. Alas, it was truly a family tradition. How familiar this routine was; he himself had dreamed of putting this damn Ping An in prison in the past.
Regardless, the case had finally seen some progress. Lai Xiang received a phone call, stating that Mei Qian had made a new discovery and they needed to return to the bureau immediately.