CH 155

Translated by Crooked

Edited by Dust Bunny 

Gu Xizhou raised an eyebrow and pushed the ashtray forward to the young man. “Do you remember the specific time?” he asked.

The young man smirked at him and mocked, “Who could remember that? I saw she was pretty, but it’s not like I cared enough to marry her.

“It might be on my phone. I can see when we met by looking at the record.”

“Bring his cell phone in,” Gu Xizhou called to his colleagues outside. “Quick.” 

The officer watching the monitoring outside immediately took the young man’s phone and came in. They handed the phone to Gu Xizhou, who pushed it over in front of the young man. He immediately opened up a chat record and held it for Gu Xizhou to see.

Gu Xizhou scrolled to the chats from ten days ago. Apparently that was when these two met for the first time. Gu Xizhou was silent. At this time, Xiang Yuan’s test results also came out. The DNA evidence was not left by this man.

“I told you, it wasn’t me. It has nothing to do with me.” The man smiled smugly.

Gu Xizhou frowned, looking at the man with narrowed eyes. Finally, he waved his arm and let him leave.

The case had suddenly hit a dead end. It wasn’t Wei Ming, and it wasn’t this man either, so who was it?

Gu Xizhou rubbed his forehead. He thought for half a day without getting a single idea of who the murderer could be. They had DNA now, but they didn’t have a range of suspects. That made it almost impossible for him to investigate.

While Gu Xizhou was considering this problem, someone suddenly knocked on his office door.

“Come in,” Gu Xizhou said in a low voice. 

The door clicked, and Gu Xizhou saw Xiang Yuan come in with an evil smile on his face. He was holding his cup, and Gu Xizhou didn’t even need to think to know it was filled with jujube and wolfberry.

“Lao Gu, how about we eat lunch together?” said Xiang Yuan, his eyes bending with the force of his smile.

Whenever Gu Xizhou saw this expression of Xiang Yuan’s, it made all his hair stand on end. He looked at Xiang Yuan and prepared himself for battle. “Why do I think that you don’t just want a simple lunch together?”

“Hahaha!” Xiang Yuan laughed out loud, scratching his head. He said, “You get it, I just want to gossip. What happened to you the other day? I saw your dad come look for you yesterday!” 

Gu Xizhou pointed at Xiang Yuan, then put his hand away. He said helplessly, “Are you bored or something? You’re a forensic detective, but you gossip so much you should’ve become a gossip reporter.”

Xiang Yuan was taken off guard and stared at Gu Xizhou for a while before he digested the meaning of his words. “I didn’t think you and him were actually real.

“Fuck, if I’d known earlier, I wouldn’t have told the people in the office. If someone knew about your relationship there’d be trouble!”

Xiang Yuan couldn’t help but wrinkle his brows, his expression filled with endless regret. 

Looking at his face, Gu Xizhou couldn’t help but laugh. Despite how he looked, Xiang Yuan truly treated Ji Ji sincerely as a brother. Even if he had a leaky mouth, he really cared about Ji Ji. He deliberately glared at Xiang Yuan and said, “If you didn’t talk about it everywhere, no one would even think about it.”

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His cell phone buzzed while he was waiting for his meal, and Gu Xizhou looked down at it to see that Si Yu had sent him a message.

Si Yu: Having lunch?

Gu Xizhou replied: En, what about you?

Si Yu: Just got to our new home here to tidy up. I called for delivery. 

Gu Xizhou: En.

Si Yu: The doorbell just rang. The food should be here.

Gu Xizhou: Have a good meal.

Si Yu: Ok. 

After the two people chatted, they stopped after Si Yu’s ‘ok’. Si Yu put the phone in his pocket and went out to grab the food. The young man outside handed over Si Yu’s food along with a folded slip of paper.

“What’s this?” asked Si Yu.

“There was a young woman just now who asked me to give it to you on the way.” The young man scratched his head, embarrassed. When he saw the girl, his eyes couldn’t look away. She was too gorgeous.

The young man had already turned to walk away by the time Si Yu heard this sentence. After he took out the note and looked at its contents, he carelessly tossed it into the trash. 

He sat on the sofa and closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead.

The weather gradually became warmer. After Gu Xizhou ate, he picked up the victim’s phone again and looked at it for half a day.

Suddenly, the phone vibrated. Gu Xizhou glanced at the message: Xiao Jiejie, how about we watch a movie this weekend?

There seemed to be many people sending the victim messages. These people didn’t know that Sun Feifei was already dead. Some of them were fellow enthusiasts who met at a convention, some were obviously anime-loving schoolboys, and five or six of them were her online lovers. 

Gu Xizhou compared the timestamps and went through the whole thing, but he didn’t find anything useful. However, there were several takeout order numbers. Gu Xizhou frowned, recalling Si Yu’s takeout for lunch today. He looked down at the takeout order bills and discovered that the orders in the deceased’s phone didn’t match up with the restaurant calls she made.

Someone ordered takeout for her?

Gu Xizhou’s face was calm. He couldn’t be sure he would find something by investigating, but the situation would be better than it was now. Now they even had to consider whether the victim was killed by a stranger.

After handing things over to the IT department, Gu Xizhou planned to go back to the crime scene to look around again when the victim’s family arrived at the station entrance. 

The victim’s father saw Gu Xizhou and immediately drilled over to his side. He stuck out his head and asked Gu Xizhou, “Hey, officer, when can I take those clothes from my daughter?”

Gu Xizhou heard his words and was stunned, staring at Sun Feifei’s father strangely. Some family members would indeed want the clothes of the victim, but no one would be so anxious.

“The room can’t be disturbed now. Everything must be sealed until we solve the case.”

Sun Feifei’s father frowned and said, “That’s fine, you must find the killer as soon as possible. Don’t touch those clothes, ever…” 

Gu Xizhou felt suspicious and looked at Sun Feifei’s father. “What’s wrong with the clothes?”

“Ai, if Feifei’s roommate hadn’t told me the price of those clothes, I would’ve thrown them away like trash.” The man seemed to recall something and looked regretful. “This girl actually bought so many expensive clothes. It’s really a waste of money. It would be better to give it to me.”

Gu Xizhou raised an eyebrow at him, making the man feel a little oppressed. He hastily amended, “It would be better to give it to me to help her store the money.”

Can he still be a father like this? Those skirts were so expensive, and her father didn’t give her the money, so how did she buy them? Why didn’t he think about that? 

Gu Xizhou didn’t feel like dealing with him. He looked at Fang Zhi and said a few words to him before tossing him the car keys and directly rushed out to the parked car.

Fang Zhi drove the car, quickly delivering Gu Xizhou to the scene of the crime.

They inspected the room one more time without finding anything. Because Sun Feifei’s father mentioned those clothes, Gu Xizhou opened the closet and took a look, but then he was stunned.

Three of the clothes hangers were empty, put there casually. 

“Gu Ge, what did you find?” Fang Zhi came over and saw the situation inside the closet. He frowned and said, “Three empty hangers.”

The closet was full of lolita outfits, which were placed separately. The stuff underneath was arranged very neatly, but the clothes hangers above were in disarray.

Who moved these clothes? Was it the killer or Sun Feifei?

If it was the killer, why did he mess up these clothes? If the killer’s motive was the same as Sun Feifei’s father, thinking that these clothes were very expensive and could be sold, then they should have emptied the whole closet. 

Gu Xizhou and Fang Zhi exchanged glances and immediately called Sun Feifei’s three roommates to the scene to identify the clothes.

Shu Yue looked seriously. She frowned and said, “It seems like something’s missing. I saw Feifei wear it once, but I don’t know if she sold it.”

“What?”

“It’s a wedding dress, blue and white. It’s a celestial wedding dress, a lolita outfit. I paid attention to this outfit before. The first edition cost over two thousand, and I didn’t buy it. Later, the second edition increased to over four thousand. I thought it was too evil and gave up on it. I vented about it on my microblog back then.” 

“Are you sure Sun Feifei wore it?”

“En, after this outfit went out of print the price soared even higher. A second-hand version was eight thousand. That was expensive even for a lo skirt. Everyone joked that this was a beachfront house.”

Gu Xizhou immediately grabbed his phone and had the IT department research whether Sun Feifei had recently been selling clothes online.

“Okay, we’ll check it out right away,” replied the IT department. “Oh, that’s right, Leader Gu, you wanted me to research Sun Feifei’s takeout calls. I already checked it. They aren’t her orders, but rather an account across the country using . The phone number and identity of the owner have already been found. I’ll send it to you.” 

“Okay.”

Du Lei, 22 years old, a student about to graduate.

The most recent order for Sun Feifei was seven days ago, but Gu Xizhou found his contact details inside Sun Feifei’s phone.

Sun Feifei deleted the other person, or something similar. 

Gu Xizhou frowned and had the IT department check Du Lei’s driving record and whether or not he’d sold anything online recently.

The information was quickly passed on. After Fang Zhi answered the phone, he said, “Gu Ge, it was checked. Sun Feifei didn’t sell any clothes, but Du Lei is selling clothes online. Moreover, there’s a record of him taking the train to Ningqing.”

They looked at each other. The crux of this case was Du Lei.

Gu Xizhou spoke to Fang Zhi hastily. “Get in touch with the local police station.” 

“Okay.”

Gu Xizhou originally wanted to take a look around for clues, but he didn’t expect the connection to the takeout number to let them find a suspect all at once.

Driving the three schoolgirls back to campus, Gu Xizhou once again ran into Sun Feifei’s family. They were still displaying a banner at the school gates and lifting a megaphone.

Gu Xizhou returned to the station just in time to get off work. When he left the building, he saw Si Yu standing outside waiting for him. 

“How come you didn’t drive?” asked Gu Xizhou

“The house is close by, so I walked over.” Si Yu smiled and took Gu Xizhou’s key, saying “I’ll drive you.”

“Okay.”

After Gu Xizhou got in the car, Si Yu turned to look at him and said, “Is there progress in the case? You seem happy.” 

“En, we confirmed a suspect.” Gu Xizhou didn’t avoid the subject and said directly, “I didn’t think today would go so smoothly. Before, we still didn’t have any trail to follow, and I didn’t know if it was the luck or tragedy of the victim. Her father doesn’t care about her fate at all. Every day, he goes to the school to check in.”

Si Yu’s mood didn’t fluctuate, as if he didn’t sympathize with the girl either, and he said indifferently, “Love never lacks a reason, and neither does hate.”

Gu Xizhou glanced at him. He always felt like Si Yu’s words had a deeper meaning.

The car left Jinluo Police Station and very quickly arrived at a secluded block. It was quiet, without any noise at all, and there wasn’t a trace of anyone along the sides of the street. They turned a corner in a flash, and Gu Xizhou was stunned. “There’s still a villa in this neighborhood?” 

Gu Xizhou originally thought when Si Yu said ‘house’, he should mean an apartment, but he didn’t think that he actually meant a villa.

“Yes, ah, this area is the nearest to your workplace.” said Si Yu with a smile.

Before Gu Xizhou could react, the car had already entered the gates and parked in front of the two floor villa.