Chapter 110 12

Chapter 110.12

He Lin had just been discharged from the hospital, and Li Shang, not daring to let him drive, took the wheel for the entire journey.

They met Gu Chuxi’s parents at her home.

He Lin first inquired about Gu Chuxi’s death years ago; it was her mother who had identified the body.

Her mother recounted, “The body was already decomposed and unrecognizable—I didn’t dare look closely. But the necklace on the body was the one I had bought for my daughter. The forensic examiner ruled out homicide, and the estimated age, height, weight, and time of death all matched.”

Since the incident occurred four years prior, according to regulations at the time, in suicide cases where belongings and circumstances fully aligned, immediate family could claim the body after providing proof, without mandatory DNA testing.

However, this case presented unusual circumstances, creating a potential for oversight.

Though the exact reason was unclear, He Lin inferred that the two girls had exchanged keepsakes while alive.

After carefully reviewing the footage and related information, Gu’s father and mother exchanged a glance. Then, her mother spoke, “She… looks a lot like Chuxi. But I can’t be completely sure, because I always thought she was dead—I haven’t seen her in four years.”

He Lin had encountered many families of missing persons, but he found something peculiar about this couple.

They hadn’t yet informed the couple that Gu Chuxi might be involved in a criminal case.

It was already strange enough that their daughter was alive but pretending to be someone else and never contacting her own parents.

Yet, upon hearing that their daughter might still be alive, the parents showed no joy of reunion, seeming to hold something back.

They attempted to gather more information from the two family members.

After asking some basic questions, her father suddenly looked up, his expression stern, and asked, “Officers, tell me the truth—has that child… done something illegal?”

Li Shang, taking notes, glanced at He Lin.

He Lin replied, “She is currently a suspect in a case. The specifics are still under investigation.”

Her father said grimly, “Even if she’s alive, I already consider her dead.” At this, the man clenched his fingers tightly. “And even if she is alive, I won’t acknowledge her again. Whatever she does from now on has nothing to do with us.”

Beside him, her mother bowed her head in silence, seemingly agreeing with her husband.

After a moment, her mother looked up, her voice trembling, “Can you tell us what kind of case it is?”

He Lin said solemnly, “A criminal case.”

He saw her mother shudder slightly, and her father’s frown deepened.

“I hope you can provide some clues for the police,” He Lin continued. “What was the reason for Gu Chuxi’s original disappearance?”

The missing person report hadn’t specified the reason.

He Lin had asked Zhou Chenlin to retrieve the record, which only noted the disappearance, stating she had left home voluntarily, and her family hadn’t been very proactive in searching for her at the time.

Her father said, “That child… back then, she…” He trailed off, waving a hand. “I knew she would do something outrageous sooner or later!”

Her mother kept her head down, her fingers clutching the hem of her clothes.

When He Lin pressed for more details, her father replied stiffly, “You talk to my wife. I have a meeting this afternoon.”

With that, he stood up, excused himself, and left, leaving her mother to speak with them alone.

After he left, she took a moment to compose herself before speaking. “You saw my husband’s stubborn temper. Gu Chuxi takes after her father—the two of them used to argue constantly at home.”

She continued, “When Chuxi was young, we doted on her immensely, giving her everything she wanted. But we never expected such indulgence would spoil her. She had a bad temper from a young age and would throw tantrums if things didn’t go her way.”

“Her grades were quite good in elementary school, but in middle school, they plummeted for some reason. During that time, she was acting very strangely—she was taking multiple showers a day and wouldn’t let us touch her. When we asked why, she refused to say anything.”

He Lin remained silent but surmised that such behavior usually indicated the girl might have been abused, likely by someone older and in a position of authority, making her feel powerless to resist.

Sure enough, her mother went on, “She wasn’t an obedient child. Later, she started skipping classes frequently and going to internet cafes. When we refused to give her money, she would ask male classmates for money. She fainted during a P.E. class, and we learned she was pregnant.”

“After the abortion, she began self-harming frequently. Her father made a decision…” At this point, Chuxi’s mother paused again, her chest heaving.

Li Shang, recording the conversation, felt a vague sense of foreboding.

He Lin pressed, “Where did you send her?”

Her mother avoided their gaze for a moment before answering, “At that time, there was a very popular academy in our area. Although it was expensive, it advertised many success stories. We heard that many children turned their lives around after attending. The tuition was over 100,000 yuan per year, but we gritted our teeth and sent her there.”

He Lin asked, “How long was she there?”

The mother thought for a moment. “She was sent there at fifteen and stayed for three years. I was worried at first, but the instructors assured us they wouldn’t hit or scold the children. I don’t know what she went through there, but when she came out, her personality had completely changed.”

She covered her face in anguish.

“Once, when she was wearing little clothing, I saw her back—it was covered in scars. But those people had promised me they wouldn’t hit or scold the children… I don’t know if we helped her or harmed her. Later, when I asked her what happened there, she just gave me a cold laugh and ignored me. That smile terrified me…”

Her shoulders trembled. “We worked so hard to raise a child, only to end up with an enemy. I even feared she might kill me…”

He Lin asked, “What happened next?”

Her mother said, “She came out when she was eighteen and barely managed to attend a private high school. One day, she packed a few clothes and ran away from home… Later, on New Year’s Eve that year, I suddenly received a farewell letter from her.”

“After that day, there was no word from her. We filed a missing person’s report and provided her physical description at the time she left. A few months later, the police notified us to identify a body…”

“After we claimed the body, we cremated it as soon as possible and held a simple funeral. My husband said… we should act as if… we never had this daughter…”

He Lin understood now—distant parents, a rebellious daughter, catalyzed by an abusive education.

After speaking with Gu’s mother, He Lin was almost certain that the woman in the surveillance footage was Gu Chuxi.

Perhaps four years ago, she had been in such despair she wanted to die. By chance on that New Year’s Eve, Gu Chuxi encountered Chen Xiao.

After Chen Xiao’s death, Gu Chuxi was fortunately saved by Zhou Chenlin. She pretended to be Chen Xiao, took her ID and phone, and possibly some money.

From then on, she became someone else. Granted a second chance at life, she didn’t cherish it but instead used her new identity to plunge into a life of crime.

Money would soon run out. An eighteen-year-old girl with little education—how could she support herself?

Her way of making money might have been to lurk in suicide chat groups. Whenever someone expressed a desire to die, she would infiltrate the group, take their money, and seize their phones.

Somehow, she met another man, and the two formed a small gang.

Another piece of the puzzle in this case had fallen into place.

In the afternoon, the two left Gu Chuxi’s home.

He Lin checked his phone; several new messages had come in. He’d been hospitalized the last few days, but he still had a lot of work to handle, especially emails, which needed to be read and replied to one by one.

He wasn’t rushing back to the hospital. Instead, he found a quiet private room at a nearby tea shop.

He Lin ordered a pot of fruit-infused tea and took out his laptop.

He said to Li Shang, "We’ve gotten some responses to the tip request email we sent earlier. Police departments from various cities sent over some suspicious cases. We need to go through them one by one to determine if they are related."

Li Shang sat down beside him, and He Lin poured him a cup of tea.

Li Shang looked down, cradling the warm teacup in his hands. The fruit tea smelled strongly floral.

He Lin opened the emails, and they started looking through them together.

The cases sent by various police departments were all bizarre suicide cases.

Some were clearly one or two-person suicide cases, yet there was strangely evidence of a third or fourth person present at the scene who clearly wasn’t supposed to be there.

The evidence mostly consisted of footprints, fingerprints, and hair.

The victims left suicide notes, and there were no clear signs of homicide, so these cases had been put on hold after the investigations stalled. However, the investigators were still suspicious.

Once the Missing Persons Investigation Unit issued the coordination request, many officers from city and precinct bureaus sent over the cases they had doubts about.

He Lin and Li Shang reviewed them for a while, discussing each case one by one.

They ruled out two cases, while several others were strongly suspected to involve the two perpetrators.

He Lin opened another unread email in order.

This case file was provided by the Pingcheng City Bureau. It was also a suicide pact, taking place at a shop owned by one of the victims.

Coincidentally, there was a public security camera outside the shop that captured some scenes inside through the window.

After browsing through the case file, He Lin opened the video.

The surveillance was recorded at night. The shop opposite was lit up—it was a closed-down murder mystery game shop, with a fairly large glass window on the outer side.

The surveillance footage showed the indoor scene through the glass window.

Although somewhat blurry, they could see that initially, only the shop owner was inside. Later, there was a knock at the door, and after four people had gathered, the owner locked the shop door, and they all moved to a back room.

There was no table inside the room. The four of them sat on the floor, with some murder mystery game props in the background—a long-haired female ghost mannequin and a skeleton.

Two of the four had their backs to the camera, while the other two faced the surveillance.

They looked serious, as if they were preparing for something.

If it weren’t for knowing it was a suicide scene, the scene would almost resemble the beginning of a murder mystery game.

Aside from the male shop owner and a middle-aged woman, the other two were a young man and a young woman.

The woman was Gu Chuxi, whom they’d recently identified, still with her signature long hair. The young man was the same guy caught on camera with Wu Yuening earlier—the same Mr. Square who had killed Lin Wei.

Their chosen method of suicide was poison.

The room was lit, and from the surveillance angle, they watched the four take turns drinking something.

Soon after, they all began to struggle, twitch, and some vomited.

The two middle-aged individuals with their backs to the camera struggled briefly before stopping moving.

The young man and woman facing the camera also lay on the ground as if asleep.

The footage remained unchanged. He Lin slightly skipped ahead in the video and soon noticed that Mr. Square in the surveillance suddenly sat up and looked at Gu Chuxi beside him.

Then, the man made a somewhat eerie move—he slowly crawled over, hovering over the woman beneath him, as if checking whether Gu Chuxi was still breathing.

Next, he lowered his head, though it was hard to tell if he bit or kissed her.

At that moment, Gu Chuxi moved. Her hand rose, and she slapped him hard across the face.

Immediately after, while he was still stunned, she kicked him in the chest.

The man clutched his face and fell to the ground, changing their positions.

The next moment, the man pounced on her like a wild beast. Ignoring Gu Chuxi’s struggles, he fiercely choked her.

Gu Chuxi, as if gone mad, kicked him wildly. She broke free from his restraint and tried to escape, but the man yanked her back by the hair.

Gu Chuxi’s hand found a nearby plastic skull. She picked it up and struck the man hard on the head.

The two were fighting brutally inside the shop, where two corpses still lay.

Walls and window frames blocked parts of the view, making it difficult to see the exact details of their fight. From the surveillance, it was clear they fought for six or seven minutes. Gu Chuxi’s hair was a mess, and Mr. Square was pretty beat up too.

Later, Gu Chuxi stood up, like she was saying something to the man.

Only then did the two stop fighting.

After a while, Gu Chuxi got up and went through the pockets of the shop owner and the middle-aged woman, taking some money and phones. Then they turned off the lights and left the shop one after the other, heading in different directions.

After watching the footage, He Lin explained the investigation results from the Pingcheng police.

"When the Pingcheng City Bureau received the report, they initially thought it was an ordinary suicide case. Later, during the investigation, they found this surveillance footage."

"This was also the first time they encountered such a bizarre case. Since both the shop owner and the middle-aged woman had left suicide notes, and the forensic examination confirmed death by poison, with no objections from their families, and the footage showed no signs of coercion, the young man and woman were only treated as persons of interest in the case, booked for theft."

"They also hoped to confirm the identities of these two and obtain their statements but were never able to locate them."

He Lin then raised a question: "What do you think caused their fight? Was it fighting over the loot, or a lovers’ spat?"

Li Shang looked at the screen seriously and said, "I think when Gu Chuxi hit him, it didn’t seem like she was dealing with someone familiar. Mr. Square also went hard too. Moreover, these cases follow a chronological order."

With just a glance, he had already memorized the times, locations, and all details of each case.

Li Shang’s voice was calm as he systematically reviewed those clues: "The earliest case was the assault of Lin Wei, which took place near Yuncheng, with Mr. Square as the suspect."

"Next was the suicide case of Chen Xiao on New Year’s Eve four years ago, in Ningcheng, with Gu Chuxi involved."

"After that, the following year, Lin Wei was killed, again in Yuncheng, with Mr. Square as the suspect."

After summarizing these cases, Li Shang concluded: "At that time, these two suspects were still operating alone and in different locations. Then came this case in Pingcheng."

"After that, there was a series of bizarre suicide cases."

"Until the most recent one, the murder of Wu Yuening in Yuncheng."

"This case from three years ago was the turning point for everything. Judging by evidence left at the crime scenes of cases that occurred after this one, it appears that more than one person may have been present besides the suicide victims."

After piecing together the timeline and details, Li Shang stated his conclusion: "This is a series of suicide-related cases, and the suspects have been moving around the province to commit crimes. So, overall, I believe this suicide incident at the murder mystery game shop might have been the first encounter between those two individuals."

He Lin followed his line of thought: "I’ve also been wondering how these two ended up together. Based on your analysis, this might have been when they first met as fellow practitioners."

From Mr. Square’s perspective, imagine four people who had agreed to commit suicide together. He thought the other three had stopped breathing, but just as he was making a move on the young woman, she suddenly came back to life. That would certainly startle him and catch him off guard.

From Gu Chuxi’s perspective, she pretended to succumb to the poison, intending to wait until the other three were dead before looting the valuables and leaving. Then, unexpectedly, one of them turned out to be alive and started making unwanted advances on her. Naturally, she would slap him.

Neither of them anticipated the other’s presence, and both felt deceived, leading to a fierce fight where each tried to kill the other.

Looking at it this way, the scene in the footage makes sense.

One specializes in luring young women into suicide to take sexual advantage of them, while the other seeks out suicide cases to scam money under various pretenses.

Afterward, these two unexpectedly clicked and formed a criminal partnership.

As the two discussed this, He Lin’s phone buzzed. He opened it and saw a message from Cheng Xiaoyi.

"I’ve contacted the development and operating company of Mind Catcher, but they’re completely uncooperative."

He Lin frowned.

He sent a voice message asking, "What’s the specific situation?"

Cheng Xiaoyi replied, "The company sent an intern to give me the runaround, kept saying they’re operating within regulations, and used excuses like management being unavailable. Basically, they’re stalling and refusing to give us backend access. They even hinted that their company leadership has connections at the municipal police bureau."

Hearing this, Li Shang also frowned slightly.

He Lin, who usually works in criminal investigations, mostly deals with very cooperative companies and rarely encounters ones that dare to outright brush off the police. But he wasn’t intimidated.

He first gestured to Li Shang to reassure him, then told Cheng Xiaoyi how to handle it.

He Lin sent a voice message: "If they refuse to cooperate, upgrade it to a formal administrative request to compel them to accept the police investigation. First, we need to find solid evidence linking this app to the two suspects. I remember companies like this are required to register with real-name registration, and the relevant registration information should be shared with police databases. Search the database first to see if you can find Chen Xiao’s registration information."

Within minutes, Cheng Xiaoyi responded: "Found it! In this app’s registration database, the ID is Queen of Hearts. It checks out."

This meant Gu Chuxi had used Chen Xiao’s identity to register for the app.

He Lin added, "Now try searching the same database to see if you can find Wu Yuening’s registration information. If you can find hers, it likely isn’t a coincidence."

Cheng Xiaoyi quickly conducted the search and soon replied, "Wu Yuening did register on this app, with the ID Lemon C, and it was registered not long before her death, less than a month ago."

"Check if there’s anyone named Mr. Square or a similar ID."

"There is one, registered under the identity name Xie Nian."

He Lin said, "We now have sufficient evidence to suspect that this app is the platform the suspects used to find victims. Go through the official procedures and issue a formal request for investigative assistance. They must provide backend access by the end of today."

Cheng Xiaoyi suddenly sounded more assertive: "Okay."

He Lin thought for a moment and asked her, "By the way, where is that company located?"

Cheng Xiaoyi replied, "Right here in Yuncheng."

He Lin suggested, "Be prepared, just in case. If all else fails, show up there in person."

Cheng Xiaoyi: "Okay!"

With the immediate issues addressed and several leads in the case making progress, He Lin finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He closed his laptop and finished the tea in his cup.

Li Shang checked the time; it was already 4:30 PM. He Lin hadn’t received his daily IV drip, so Li Shang said to him, "Let me take you back to the hospital."

He Lin looked at Li Shang, looking somewhat reluctant.

The two packed their things and started walking back. Li Shang kept his head down, as if deep in thought.

The teahouse was on a sloping road, with a section in the middle that had about a dozen steps. The white police car was parked in a lot not far below the steps.

Winter had already set in, and the trees along the road looked bare and bleak.

He Lin swung his legs as he walked slowly downhill. From his higher position, he looked down and saw Li Shang’s pale side profile and slender neck, his broad shoulders and narrow waist, his back straight.

Standing on a step diagonally above Li Shang, He Lin felt an impulse to put his hand on Li Shang’s shoulder. But halfway through the motion, he realized he hadn’t discussed it with Li Shang, and doing so might seem too intimate for colleagues.

He quickly came up with an excuse, muttering, "Li Shang, slow down. I’m feeling a bit… dizzy…"

Li Shang was walking attentively, with three or four steps still below him.

He felt He Lin’s hand on his shoulder. He Lin was already a few centimeters taller than him, and with the extra step, the height difference was even greater.

Li Shang, lost in thought, was startled by He Lin’s words.

He Lin had just vomited blood recently and hadn’t eaten much since. He shouldn’t have been rushing to work on the case so soon. Li Shang was worried He Lin might actually faint or tumble down the steps. If He Lin, weighing over 150 pounds, suddenly fell, Li Shang’s current physical condition might not be able to handle it.

Li Shang immediately grew anxious and turned to support He Lin.

In his haste to turn, he didn’t manage to steady He Lin but instead felt a sharp pain in his leg—a muscle cramp.

Rong Qing, who never even flinched when stabbed, let out a pained sound from the cramp. He bent over, pressing his leg, his brows furrowed tightly.

Seeing Li Shang like this, He Lin panicked and abandoned his pretense of dizziness. He hurried down the steps and asked, "What’s wrong? A cramp?"

Li Shang was in too much pain to speak, clutching his clothes tightly as he waited for the pain to pass.

He Lin helped him sit on the steps, then knelt in front of him to straighten his leg and massage his calf. This time, their positions were reversed: Li Shang sat on two steps, while He Lin crouched on the ground below.

After some effort, Li Shang finally felt a bit better.

He Lin breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "How did you get a cramp out of nowhere? Should I get you some calcium tablets later?"

Li Shang looked at He Lin with a knowing half-smile. "Yeah, how did I get a cramp out of nowhere?"

Li Shang rarely looked at He Lin with such an expression, and for a moment, He Lin was momentarily stunned. Perhaps because He Lin’s gaze was too intense, Li Shang’s composure began to slip, and he tried to pull his leg back from He Lin’s grip.

Li Shang moved but couldn’t free his leg. He Lin still held his calf firmly and didn’t say a word.

The atmosphere shifted abruptly. His Adam's apple bobbed, unsure what to say. His ears felt warm, and he even felt an urge to flee.

Not wanting to be at a disadvantage, Li Shang cleared his throat and posed a pointed question to the culprit: "You’re not dizzy anymore?"

He Lin finally released Li Shang’s slender calf but didn’t stand up. Still crouching in front of Li Shang, he looked up and met his eyes, smiling faintly as he said, "I don’t dare."

Li Shang frowned and slowly stood up, looking down at He Lin. "What don’t you dare to do?"

He Lin also stood up, his tone somewhat apologetic. "I won't dare do any of it again."

Li Shang pressed his lips together, fighting back a slight smile. "Good."

He stood up, tested his leg, and felt it was back to normal. Then he walked toward the car.

He Lin followed quietly behind him.