Chapter 421: Homicide

Chapter 421 Murder Case

The heavy snowfall in Wencheng came down hard. As Su He stepped outside with the children, she saw the road was completely snowed in.

The streets were blanketed in thick snow. Su Shiming was already shoveling snow in front of their house, which surprised Su He—she’d thought he was still in bed.

"You’re awake already?" Su Shiming remarked while clearing the snow.

"Yeah, Dad. You woke up so early today?" Su He asked in astonishment.

Meanwhile, Fu Tinghua walked over and joined Fu Dajun in shoveling snow.

"Yeah. We got hit hard last night. Old folks like me don’t sleep deep, so I woke up. With how bad it was coming down, I knew the roads would be impassable today. Yan Ju just left to open the shop, but many roads are completely buried. Look—the streets are completely empty now," Fu Dajun said with a chuckle.

Snow in Wencheng was nothing new.

In this day and age, the government didn’t hire street cleaners—everyone was responsible for clearing the snow in front of their own homes. As for the roads, the local officials handled it themselves, perhaps hiring temporary workers.

"Grandpa, let me help!" Zai Zai ran over eagerly.

"Me too! I want to shovel snow too!" Niu Niu was right behind him.

Chen Waner caught up with her younger siblings and also chimed in to help.

Seeing the children so enthusiastic, Su Shiming grinned from ear to ear.

"Good, good, that’s my good grandkids! But the adults can handle this. It’s cold outside—you all should go get warm by the stove," Su Shiming insisted.

Nowadays, the kitchen was also called the "stove room," though most people still referred to it as the kitchen. Old-timers like Su Shiming tended to use the term "stove room" more often.

"Grandpa, I’m not cold at all!" Niu Niu protested.

All that running around in her heavy coat kept her plenty warm.

Just as everyone was enthusiastically shoveling snow, Qin Fenghua, their neighbor and wife of Liu Kai, the TCM department director, happened to return home. Spotting the whole family outside, she greeted them warmly.

"Ah, Deputy Director, Miss Su—shoveling duty?"

Fu Tinghua nodded in acknowledgment. "Hello."

Su He smiled back. "Yes, Sister Qin. You cleared the snow in front of your place so quickly!"

"Ugh, that snow last night had us both up. We had to get up in the middle of the night to add blankets, and that’s when we noticed the snow. My husband has a hospital shift today, so he had to get up early to shovel—otherwise, no way he’d make it in!" Qin Fenghua explained with a laugh.

"Yeah, last night’s snow was really heavy," Su He agreed.

"Did it wake you guys up too?" Qin Fenghua asked knowingly.

Su He: "..."

She actually hadn’t been woken up, but Dr. Fu must have known—she’d half-noticed him getting up.

She gave a noncommittal answer, and Fu Tinghua, seeing her expression, couldn’t help but chuckle.

As they chatted, Qin Fenghua suddenly asked, "Hey, did you hear? There was a death near the hospital last night."

"What?" Su He blinked.

"Ah, never mind—little ears around." Qin Fenghua quickly added, glancing at Zai Zai, Niu Niu, and Chen Waner, thinking better of spilling details.

Fu Tinghua seemed to have thought of something and immediately asked, "Did they mention anything about what the victim looked like?"

Qin Fenghua glanced at the children playing nearby, making sure they weren’t paying attention, then lowered her voice and replied, "They said it was a woman. Don't know her exact age, but they said she was dressed quite well. No one knows what happened to her."

She added, "And they're saying... it was a brutal death. It seems she was murdered."

At this, Su He and Fu Tinghua exchanged glances. Su He saw Fu Tinghua go visibly pale.

The same thought must have struck them both—Aunt Lan.

It had been several days since they last saw Aunt Lan. Ever since Fu Dajun bumped into her and left looking shaken, he hadn’t returned to Wencheng. And Aunt Lan, after Su He pointed out that Fu Tinghua wasn’t her son, hadn’t come around to see Su He again.

Su He had assumed Aunt Lan had gone back to the capital.

Could it be her?

The more Su He thought about it, the more anxious she became. What if her words had driven Aunt Lan to do something desperate?

"What’s wrong with you two? You look like you've seen a ghost. Did you know her?" Qin Fenghua asked cautiously, noticing their expressions.

"It’s nothing. Where exactly did it happen?" Fu Tinghua asked.

"Right by the hospital. You know that little side street by the hospital? That’s the spot."

As soon as Qin Fenghua finished speaking, Fu Tinghua turned to Su He and said, "I'm going to check it out."

"I’m coming with you."

Su Shiming, who had caught bits of the conversation, saw them both preparing to leave and hurriedly asked, "Hey, you haven’t even had breakfast yet."

"We'll grab breakfast later, Dad. Watch the kids for us," Su He said as she followed Fu Tinghua into the snow.

Fortunately, the morning commuters had already tramped down some paths, so although they couldn't walk as easily as normal, it wasn’t too difficult either.

Fu Tinghua led the way, gripping Su He's hand, as they quickened their pace toward the hospital.

"What's all this about?" Su Shiming grumbled.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Qin Fenghua replied.

Just then, Niu Niu saw her parents heading out and tried to follow, but Zai Zai held her back.

"Don’t go," Zai Zai said with a frown.

"Where are Mom and Dad going?" Niu Niu asked, upset her parents were leaving on a rare weekend when they had time to spend with them.

"They've got grown-up business to take care of. They’ll be back soon," Zai Zai replied.

"Oh," Niu Niu didn't ask any more questions, as long as her parents would return later.

Su He and Fu Tinghua trudged through the snow for nearly twenty minutes along the snow-covered path before reaching the hospital entrance.

What usually took less than ten minutes now took almost twenty.

At the mouth of the alley beside the hospital, a bunch of rubberneckers were gossiping about the incident.

Their breath came out in white puffs as Fu Tinghua and Su He exchanged another glance and pushed through the crowd.

"Oh my, I was so startled this morning when I saw that woman lying dead in the snow. You can't imagine—all that white snow, and then suddenly this patch of red. I thought it was strange at first, but when I got closer, it scared me half to death," a middle-aged woman was gossiping with the onlookers about the horrifying scene she witnessed that morning.

She was the first to find the body and quickly told her son, who had accompanied her to see the doctor, to call the cops.

Fu Tinghua shouldered his way through the crowd and entered the alley, only to find that the bloodstains inside had already been cleaned up.

"Hey, you actually dared to stand here alone waiting for your son?" someone asked.

"I didn't dare! I was scared stiff—you don’t even know. Then two others showed up, so I stuck around with them."