The collected information wasn't of much use, but beyond that, they didn't know how to further uncover the truth. Could it be, as Da Shu and Lao Yuan suggested, that they should tie up that fellow named Ma Delu and give him a good beating? Facing a case with no progress, or rather, no direction, Su Tang was in a bind.
If it were her master, what would he do at this moment?
Su Tang tried her best to put herself in Ping An's shoes, but she wasn't Ping An. After thinking it over and over, she couldn't come up with a good solution.
"Lao Fang's idea is to spend some money and find a clever girl to participate in that talent show. If Ma Delu is truly playing dirty, we'll deal with him then. He wouldn't dare to openly kidnap someone anyway," Lao Yuan relayed Lao Fang's suggestion.
"Nian Xiaobei has been missing for quite some time. I wonder what the police are doing. If we could get our hands on what the police have, it would be much easier," Da Shu added. "Didn't Ping An the reporter cooperate with the police every time he solved a case?"
These ideas from the three brothers all had merit, but Su Tang still felt she might be overlooking something and couldn't make a decision.
While Su Tang was struggling to plan the next steps for the case, Mei Qian and Hei Dou had already followed the lead of Huzhuang and found the place where Chen Fei had stayed during his psychotic episodes—Tian En Nursing Home.
Tian En Nursing Home was originally a local clinic in Fan County. Later, after collaborating with Hexuan City Psychiatric Hospital, they jointly established this nursing home in Huzhuang. It primarily served as a closed-off medical institution for patients who were relatively stable but still required professional care.
Mei Qian and Hei Dou arrived at the nursing home, presented their credentials, and explained their situation. Wang Sanfa, the person in charge of the nursing home, received them.
"Our nursing home currently has 20 medical staff and 35 patients. The Chen Fei you mentioned did stay at our nursing home," Wang Sanfa said. "I never imagined Chen Fei would do such a thing. We only found out after watching the news. Even after his illness improved, he still resorted to such extremes."
"During his hospitalization, did he exhibit any unusual behavior? Oh, I know everyone here exhibits unusual behavior, but we're looking for something... special," Hei Dou fumbled for words, but Wang Sanfa understood what he meant.
"Everything was fine during his stay. Of course, when his illness acted up, it was quite troublesome. He always had issues with someone named Ma Delu, constantly ranting about wanting to kill him," Wang Sanfa said. "At first, we thought Chen Fei was just using 'kill' as a metaphor for dealing with someone, but we never expected he would actually blow someone up."
"Did Chen Fei have any close friends among the patients during his stay at the nursing home?" Mei Qian asked.
"No, some of the people here don't even have self-awareness. They likely wouldn't make friends," Wang Sanfa replied. "However, there was a young man who frequently visited Chen Fei. When asked about his identity, he claimed to be Chen Fei's nephew. But we all know Chen Fei has no close relatives. I wonder if this nephew counts?"
Hei Dou, who had studied sketching, began to draw a likeness of the young man based on Wang Sanfa's description. Meanwhile, Mei Qian casually wandered around the nursing home.
The nursing home was quite spacious, with two separate four-story buildings on either side. On the rooftop of one of the buildings was a terrace enclosed by a wire mesh fence. Several patients were playing a "role-playing" game under the supervision of a nurse.
"Today, I shall uphold justice and slay you, you scoundrel!" one patient danced and gestured as he "slayed" another. The nurse immediately separated them.
"This patient has a persecution complex. Every day, he acts out a scenario of killing an enemy. When Chen Fei was here, he also used to act out scenes of killing his enemies. Looking closely, there didn't seem to be any other problems," the nurse explained.
After inspecting the nursing home, Mei Qian and Hei Dou prepared to leave. As the two police officers departed, a nurse grabbed Wang Sanfa and said, "You can't hide the truth forever. The police will likely find out we lied."
"We'll deal with that when it comes. Who can say for sure? I'll reveal the person who frequently visited Chen Fei first. I suspect that child is definitely connected to Chen Fei's incident," Wang Sanfa said, shaking his head.
Logically, the investigation in Huzhuang shouldn't have been so hasty, but why were Mei Qian and Hei Dou so eager to leave? It was because just as Hei Dou uploaded the sketched portrait to the team's chat group, police officers on the outskirts of Fanzhuang suddenly noticed that the person in the picture bore a striking resemblance to a young man they were observing walking outside their car. After an urgent report, Hei Dou instructed them to follow, while he and Mei Qian quickly moved to provide support.
Although Huzhuang was a town, it had a population of seventy to eighty thousand, making it a large one. To avoid alarming their target, one of the trailing police cars had an officer get out and follow on foot, while the other provided backup from behind.
"How is it? Still following?" The location where the portrait's likeness was spotted was not far from Tian En Nursing Home. Mei Qian and Hei Dou arrived within a ten-minute drive of the external tracking police car.
"Hu Ge is following ahead. He hasn't responded yet, so he probably hasn't lost them," said the police officer in the car.
"Captain Mei, you follow the car, I'll get out and run to catch up. I'm worried about Old Hu being alone," Hei Dou said, getting out of the car and quickly running into a small alley.
The streets and alleys in the town were not wide, so cars couldn't keep up. Mei Qian had to wait with another officer in an open area. Half an hour later, Mei Qian received a WeChat message from Hei Dou. The message was simple: "Come to Tian En Nursing Home quickly."
In the early spring evening, it got dark early. By the time Mei Qian arrived at the nursing home with another officer, Da Zhang, the large iron gate of the nursing home was tightly shut. They searched for a long time but couldn't find any trace of Hei Dou or Old Hu. Mei Qian wanted to make a phone call, but considering Hei Dou might be tracking the person at that moment, and the messages to him were sent via WeChat, he dared not alert them.
"Captain Mei, what should we do?" Da Zhang looked outside, noticing it had gotten completely dark, and asked anxiously, "Should we call for backup?"
"No need. More people would only disturb Hei Dou and Old Hu's tracking," Mei Qian thought for a moment and then gave the order, "Neither Hei Dou nor I brought weapons. You take your gun, and come into the nursing home with me. Listen to my instructions once inside."
Having just visited not long ago, Wang Sanfa inwardly groaned at their return so soon. "Director Wang, I apologize for the late hour, our car broke down, and the bureau has sent people. Could we rest here for a bit?" Mei Qian said politely.
"Please do. Feel free to try our meals. In the future, if any relatives fall ill, remember to send them here!" Director Wang's words left Mei Qian feeling awkward and unsure of what to say.
Under the night sky, the nursing home always had an indescribable aura to outsiders. If it were described as desolate, one would see about a dozen caregivers directing over thirty patients to line up for food. The queue was a bit noisy but orderly, and the air was filled with the aroma of food—a true picture of daily life. But if one considered it lively, the dimly lit building had only faint lights from the windows. In the not-so-large courtyard, apart from the queue, the surroundings were terrifyingly silent...
Where had Hei Dou and Old Hu disappeared to?
Holding a bowl of meatballs in gravy and two large steamed buns, Mei Qian had no appetite. However, Da Zhang, who had accompanied him, ate heartily and kept trying to befriend the cook, clearly fond of the cook's homemade chili sauce.
"Officer Mei isn't from around here, are you? From Sulu?" Wang Sanfa, having finished his work, came over with a bowl of meat and placed it in front of Mei Qian solicitously.
"Oh, Director Wang has a good eye?" Mei Qian looked at Wang Sanfa with some surprise, then sniffed the meat in the bowl. It was indeed his hometown's braised pork with soy sauce.
"I could tell. I'm also from Sulu. I've been in Hexuan for seven or eight years. My accent has changed, but I just can't change my eating habits," Wang Sanfa said, patting the dirt off his clothes and hands. "Wood-fired cooking. Eat up. I just made this. There's still some in the pot—don't worry, I didn't use Hexuan's cooking wine, it's authentic yellow wine from our hometown."
As the saying goes, when old folks from the same hometown meet, tears well up in their eyes. Hearing his hometown dialect and seeing hometown dishes, Mei Qian felt a bit emotional. He picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks and brought it to his mouth. It was sweet and soft, rich without being greasy, truly the taste of home.
"Uncle, you've been in Hexuan for seven or eight years? What kind of work have you done? How did you end up opening this place?" Mei Qian, overcome with emotion, even spoke in his hometown dialect to Wang Sanfa.
"Alas, it's a long story," Wang Sanfa said, looking out at the courtyard, then suddenly called out to the queue, "A Jiao!"
A young girl wearing a mask and patient's clothes, with her hair tied in a ponytail, walked towards Wang Sanfa.
"Dad, you called me?" The girl's voice was crisp and pleasant.
"This is one of our townsfolk. Say hello to Officer Mei," Wang Sanfa said, his eyes full of affection. "Don't always eat in your room. Be more sociable, interact with people. When will you get better if you lock yourself away every day?"
"Hello, Officer Mei," the girl said obediently.
"Hello, hello," Mei Qian replied politely.
"What were you just doing? Your hands are covered in dust, your clothes too. Go wash your hands! Have you taken your medicine?" Wang Sanfa nodded with satisfaction, perhaps seeing his daughter speak clearly, but immediately his expression turned serious again.
"I've taken it. Six pills, all eaten," the girl said, patting her hands vigorously, then placing them by her mouth and patting them, indicating she had taken her medicine.
However, perhaps because her mouth-patting gesture was too vigorous, she suddenly made a gagging motion.
"Go on," Wang Sanfa frowned, seeing his daughter's antics.
Watching the girl walk away, and before Mei Qian could ask, Wang Sanfa said, "My daughter is already 27. She's had mental illness for nearly ten years. She used to study broadcasting. I accompanied her to university in Hexuan, but she got sick. I sent her here, and she hasn't recovered. My wife divorced me, and I was too ashamed to go back home. So, I've been here, accompanying my daughter for treatment and working. I started as an accountant, then deputy director, and now I'm even the director."
So that's how it was.
Mei Qian looked at the girl returning to the queue, feeling an indescribable sympathy.
"How did she, ah, A Jiao, get sick?" Mei Qian asked curiously.
"Young people these days, they go wild," Wang Sanfa sighed. Mei Qian, seemingly having guessed the reason, didn't press further.
Just then, Da Zhang, who was sitting on the other side, subtly signaled Mei Qian with his eyes, pointing to his phone.
Mei Qian quickly opened his phone and found that Hei Dou had already left a message in the work group: "Right building, fourth floor, come quietly."
"Director, where is the restroom? I need to relieve myself," Mei Qian signaled Da Zhang and stood up to ask.
"The ones in the courtyard are not clean. You can go upstairs. Both buildings have restrooms," Wang Sanfa pointed to the building opposite the courtyard.
"Alright, I'll be right back," Mei Qian said goodbye and slowly walked towards the building on the right.
This was an old building. Although the corridor didn't have voice-activated lights, there were floor lights along the baseboards, making it easy to see as he walked. Mei Qian entered the building and went straight to the fourth floor without a word.
Since everyone in the building was downstairs eating, there was actually no one in the entire building. Of course, except for Hei Dou and Old Hu, who had arrived earlier, Mei Qian, who arrived later, and a corpse. A corpse that was half-lying in the room at the end of the fourth floor, not quite cold yet.
This should have been a patient's room, but there wasn't even a mattress on the bed, indicating it was likely an empty room. The room was small, with two beds, a metal cabinet, and a television. There wasn't even a bathroom. The deceased was a man, his head against the wall, and his body from the neck down was lying on the floor. A pool of blood flowed from the deceased's head. He had likely been bludgeoned to death with a hammer or something similar.
This was Mei Qian's initial impression upon seeing the scene.
"Old Hu and I followed the person in the portrait, bypassed an alley, climbed onto the roof of a farmhouse, and then, by jumping and climbing across several rooftops, finally jumped onto the roof of the toilet building in the nursing home's backyard and successfully entered the nursing home," Hei Dou explained. "We wasted some time following him into the nursing home. When we jumped down from the toilet, the person was already gone. The exit led directly to the front yard, where you were waiting. The person couldn't have disappeared for no reason, so they must have entered one of those two buildings. I first went into the left building, Old Hu hid in the shadows and stayed put. The left building had no one, so I brought Old Hu to this building. But as soon as we entered, we heard shouting. We searched up to the fourth floor and found the door to this room open. Inside, we discovered this body. I just checked, he died recently, the body is still very warm! It's strange, we entered through the stairs, blocking the only exit, but the killer vanished without a trace. Did they jump out the window? We looked, and there was nothing!"
"Seal off the courtyard! From now on, no one is allowed to leave!" Upon discovering the murder, Mei Qian immediately called Da Zhang, who was guarding the front yard.
"The deceased isn't the person in the portrait?" Mei Qian asked after checking the scene. "Then where is the person in the portrait?"
"Don't know how they got away," Hei Dou shook his head helplessly. "Old Hu even checked the rooftops earlier, but there was no one!"
Mei Qian walked around the corpse and looked out the window. There was nothing outside. He then looked down from the window. Da Zhang was standing by the entrance, nervously watching the gate, while others were still getting or eating their meals. Everything seemed normal.
"Damn it, did we encounter a... locked-room murder?" Mei Qian mused, stroking his chin.
Since a murder had occurred, the police had to intervene.
Less than an hour later, more than a dozen police cars of various sizes, with flashing sirens, arrived outside the nursing home. All patients and medical staff were temporarily relocated to the cafeteria. The criminal investigation team from the Fan County Public Security Bureau marched into the courtyard. While the forensic and technical investigators were at work, Mei Qian reported the current situation to Gao Xiaofei, and Hei Dou, still unwilling to give up, climbed to the rooftop again.
How could a person disappear after going upstairs?
Did he see wrong? Was the deceased the person he was chasing?
Impossible.
Who killed that person? The one he was chasing? But how did they disappear? That building only had one staircase.
Standing on the rooftop, Hei Dou looked blankly at the distant sky.
"The deceased's skull was violently struck, leading to shock and death. The wound is a linear shape about five centimeters long. The murder weapon cannot be determined at this time," the forensic examiner told Mei Qian after a preliminary examination. "There are no other wounds on the deceased. If it were a normal fight, the killer would have had to strike down, and at the very least, the deceased would have tried to block or move their head. But look at the wound; it's straight and precise..."
"You mean to say, the deceased seemed to intentionally let himself be hit, or rather, he took that blow without any defense," Mei Qian said.
The forensic examiner nodded cautiously.
"This room probably hasn't been occupied for a long time, and there's a lot of dust. However, we found traces of someone searching through the items in this room," the technical investigator reported after finishing his work and removing his mask. "There isn't much furniture in the room. On the bedside table, the handle of the wardrobe, and under the bed, we found contact marks. But we also examined the deceased's hands earlier and found them to be very clean."
A thief? A chance encounter? Then where did the person Hei Dou was chasing go?
Mei Qian pondered for a while, resting his chin in his hand, and then suddenly ordered someone to bring Wang Sanfa in.
"Director Wang, take a look at this deceased person. Do you recognize him?" Mei Qian asked.
"Don't recognize him, don't recognize him," Wang Sanfa replied, trembling.
"During dinner earlier, everyone from both buildings came down, right?" Mei Qian asked.
"Everyone was downstairs. There shouldn't be anyone in the building," Wang Sanfa said.
"Who lived in this room before?" Mei Qian asked.
"Chen Fei. This was Chen Fei's dormitory before," Wang Sanfa said. This room was quite secluded and hadn't been occupied by anyone since.
Mei Qian looked at this room, then at the room opposite, and asked, "Is anyone living in the opposite room?"
"Yes, my daughter's room," Wang Sanfa said.
"Oh." Mei Qian had met Ajiao earlier.
Chen Fei's dormitory? The person who was killed while searching for something—what was their connection? Mei Qian said, "Did Chen Fei leave anything behind?"
"No, after Chen Fei was discharged, our cleaning staff thoroughly cleaned everything," Wang Sanfa said.
It was still connected to Chen Fei's case. What was the deceased secretly looking for here? Chen Fei no longer lived here, so why would someone come here to search for things? Mei Qian paced back and forth in the room, with his hands behind his back, pondering, unable to figure it out, and sighed deeply.
"Huh? What's that smell?" After sighing, Mei Qian habitually took a breath and suddenly detected an unidentifiable odor.
"It smells a bit like ink?" Hei Dou entered the room from the corridor and said to Mei Qian, "I smelled it earlier. It's probably coming from outside."
"Alright, if we can smell ink, you're probably hungry. Let's go back for now," Mei Qian suggested.
With an old case unresolved and a new one emerging, given the homicide at Tian En Nursing Home's connection to Chen Fei's bombing case, the municipal bureau organized a joint meeting overnight with the Hedao District Public Security Bureau and the Fan County Public Security Bureau. A special task force was established to investigate both cases concurrently. The task force comprised key personnel from the municipal, district, and county bureaus.
After the meeting, Xiang Wanfeng asked Gao Xiaofei, Qiao Yidan, Mei Qian, Hei Dou, and Niu Dafeng, the director of the Fan County Public Security Bureau, to stay. He personally hosted a dinner at the municipal bureau's cafeteria, where they ate and chatted.
"The information we just received is that the person who died at the nursing home is named Tie Dan. He has no formal given name; it's just what's on his ID. He's 28 years old, an orphan from the mine, raised by many families, and now works as a security guard at the mine," Niu Dafeng said. "Tie Dan, having no family, was very solitary, disliked interacting with people, was prone to anger, and was a frequent visitor to the Huzhuang police station."
"Does he have a prior record for theft?" Xiang Wanfeng asked.
"No, apart from fighting, he was actually a relatively honest person," Niu Dafeng replied.
"Report! I have the latest news!" Hei Dou suddenly stood up and said, "After confirmation from Torch, this Tie Dan was the last person to purchase explosives."
It turned out that the coal mine where Tie Dan worked was the same mine that had previously contacted Torch to purchase explosives for illicit mining. When the mine owner's brother placed an "order" through a connection, Tie Dan, as the "bodyguard," had accompanied him. Later, fearing investigation, the mine unilaterally canceled the order. Upon hearing this, Tie Dan acquired it. This also explained why there were two different groups purchasing explosives from Torch.
"This lead is getting closer," Mei Qian said excitedly. "Chen Fei stayed in Huzhuang, and this Tie Dan worked at a coal mine near Huzhuang. Their locations overlap, indicating these two men must have known each other, and the source of the explosives on Chen Fei came from Tie Dan."
"This logic is sound, but how do we explain what happened tonight?" Gao Xiaofei patted his bulging belly. "Why was Tie Dan in the room Chen Fei used to live in? Who was the person Hei Dou was chasing? Who killed Tie Dan and vanished without a trace?"
"There's no easy solution. Director Niu, please report the situation of today's meeting to the Fan County Party Committee and Government as soon as possible. A homicide occurring locally is a serious matter. Please emphasize the importance of joint investigation and seek local cooperation. For tasks, please have Director Niu mobilize local resources to conduct a thorough inspection centered around Huzhuang. At the same time, dispatch criminal investigation teams to focus on Tie Dan's social connections and dig deeper!" Xiang Wanfeng summarized. "Xiaofei, since the bombing case occurred in your jurisdiction, you also need to report today's meeting and current progress as soon as possible. Your tasks are also heavy. First, investigate Chen Fei's social circle and try to find out who Chen Fei met before going to the newspaper. Oh, right, didn't Ping An mention a detective? You need to investigate that too. Second, the case of Ping An's kidnapping. It seems connected to these cases. Try to establish a joint case and take some measures against that Ma Delu."
"Mei Qian, your focus is to assist the county bureau in solving the nursing home case. That person who was lost—isn't there a portrait? Does the household registration department have any leads? Implement them as soon as possible, and you can use necessary methods. In short, that's it, everyone! Our city hasn't had a major case in two consecutive years. This case is bizarre and caught us off guard. Everyone must remain highly vigilant, cooperate wholeheartedly, and share information at all times. I will personally oversee the command, and Deputy Captain Qiao will handle the coordination. That's all for now!"