I'll Stand Up for You

The white-haired young man wanted to follow too, but after Shen Yu stared at him expressionlessly for a while, he rubbed the tip of his nose and stepped aside of his own accord.

The two went to a shady spot beneath the trees.

"What is it?"

Chu Jingsong clasped his hands behind his back, his tone somewhat stiff.

"Do you know Luo Ningsang? He's a detective at the Bright Insight Private Detective Agency down the street."

"I do."

"He's at the Police Bureau."

"I'd like to ask you to help me find out what happened to him. You live here, so you're fairly familiar with the people at the Police Bureau down the street. Could you sound them out for me?"

Shen Yu explained what he wanted.

Chu Jingsong turned around, his lips twitching. "...That's all?"

Shen Yu thought he found it difficult. After all, Shen Yu had approached him and asked him to inquire about someone at the Police Bureau, so he appealed to his emotions. "I'm his younger brother. He hasn't come home in six days, and he won't answer his phone. The people at the Police Bureau won't tell me what happened, either. Please ask for me. I'm really worried about him."

The young man before him lowered his eyes and bowed his head slightly, his tightly pressed lips revealing his unease. Then he raised his head and looked straight at Chu Jingsong, who only then noticed that his eyes were a deep blue, clear as the sky.

But where had Luo Ningsang gotten a younger brother?

Wait, he'd said his surname was Shen... Chu Jingsong's gaze changed.

"Your name is Shen Yu?"

Shen Yu froze. "Huh? You know me?"

Chu Jingsong looked at the wisps of blue hair by Shen Yu's ears. It matched: blue hair and blue eyes. His gaze grew affectionate. "Luo Ningsang mentioned you to me."

Luo Ningsang had mentioned him? Chu Jingsong even knew his name. Could he have known his father, who had died young?

"Are you with the Police Bureau?"

"You could say that." Chu Jingsong paused, wanting to make a good impression on the child. "I'm in charge of them."

Shen Yu's eyes lit up at once.

He had connections.

"I've heard a little about Xiao Luo's situation too. I heard he killed someone..." Chu Jingsong recalled what those people had let slip while chatting. He was old and didn't really concern himself with such matters anymore. If Shen Yu hadn't come to him, he would have treated it as nothing more than gossip and let it pass. After all, they were all adults; they had to bear the consequences of their mistakes. Once someone crossed that line, no one could help them.

Shen Yu cut him off. "He didn't kill him. I did."

"My brother took the blame while I was unconscious." Shen Yu remembered those people calling him Brother Chu, so he said, "Uncle Chu, if you're in charge of them, could you get them to stop falsely accusing my brother?"

Chu Jingsong's face abruptly darkened.

Shen Yu immediately fell silent.

Only then did Chu Jingsong notice that Shen Yu had been keeping his right hand behind his back. He reached out to pull it forward and felt Shen Yu resist. "I'll take you inside to find him."

Shen Yu relaxed, and his right hand, still wrapped in bandages, came into Chu Jingsong's view.

Chu Jingsong shot him a glare. Tsk, that stubborn streak was just like his father's. He'd killed someone?

"Why did you kill him?"

"He kidnapped me... Ow."

Shen Yu pulled his wrist back from his grip.

Chu Jingsong was so angry he laughed. Was the Police Bureau a bunch of good-for-nothings who did nothing but eat? A shadow passed through his eyes.

"Come on. Uncle Chu will stand up for you."

A seventeen-year-old child had been driven to asking him for help?

Shen Yu couldn't have been happier to have someone take him inside. He immediately followed Chu Jingsong, and the white-haired young man waiting nearby took off his headphones, hung them around his neck, and followed them.

"What do you mean, there's still one day? The evidence is conclusive. We have both witness testimony and physical evidence. Chu Sheng, tell me, what exactly are you waiting for?" Zhang Pushan slapped the desk, looking at the man sitting as steadily as a mountain before him. He was anxious.

He'd had a bad feeling all day, especially after seeing Lin Xinluo slip into the morgue. That had made him even more anxious. But what clues could she find from someone who couldn't be any deader? It wasn't as if he could suddenly come back to life, was it?

"Director Zhang, this case has been handed over entirely to my investigation team. Detective Luo was one of us at the bureau before, after all. He asked for a week, so of course I had to do him that courtesy." Chu Sheng spoke unhurriedly. "You said yourself the evidence is conclusive. Why are you in such a hurry? Could it be... you're the one who framed him, and you're afraid he'll clear his name?"

"How could that be?" Zhang Pushan hastily denied it. "There's a lot of pressure from above. I just hope the case can be resolved sooner and everyone can be reassured."

"Any pressure is on me. What does it have to do with you?" Chu Sheng gave him a cold glance, then answered a call and was summoned outside, leaving Zhang Pushan alone in his office, muttering curses under his breath.

Lin Xinluo put on a mask and brought a hot-water bottle and warming patches into the morgue. It was only a place to keep bodies temporarily and allow forensic examiners to dissect them for information, so it wasn't especially cold, but a person still couldn't stand being there for six days.

Not to mention that Liu Wenzhang's body was still decomposing even at a low temperature.

Luo Ningsang's handcuffs were still on. He leaned against the wall, wrapped in a blanket, and opened his eyes to look at her.

Lin Xinluo replaced the cold hot-water bottle in his arms with a fresh one and handed him the warming patches. "I checked everything about Liu Wenzhang's life. There wasn't a single trace. It was frighteningly clean."

"What about family and friends?" Luo Ningsang asked in a hoarse voice.

"None. He wasn't married and had no children. He barely had any close friends, either. His only relative, a younger sister a few years younger than him, died a few years ago. He was all alone."

"People from the second team restored the surveillance footage. The lab lights were off at the time, so all you can make out is that he did walk toward you. Then you grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against the wall. The lights came on, he was dead, and you became the murderer."

Lin Xinluo sat down too.

Love, money, hatred—the things most likely to drive people to wrongdoing—were all absent from Liu Wenzhang's life. The person behind this was clearly determined to make Luo Ningsang take the blame.

Whatever the charge, intentional homicide or manslaughter, he was going to prison one way or another.

Luo Ningsang rubbed his face, which had grown a little stiff from the cold, and suddenly said to the worried-looking Lin Xinluo, "Since this is how it's going to end anyway, I should have shot Bai Xiaofan dead in the interrogation room back then."

Then Xiao Yu wouldn't have had to suffer so much.

For once, Lin Xinluo didn't answer. She watched Luo Ningsang in silence.

After a long while, she stiffly changed the subject. "How did the autopsy go?"

"He died of suffocation."

"Then what are you still doing here?"

"I don't know."

Lin Xinluo stepped forward to undo his handcuffs, but he dodged her. "What on earth has gotten into you? There's one day left. Use your brain and investigate! Are you really willing to go to prison like this?"

"I'm not willing." Luo Ningsang's movement just now had been a little too forceful and had disturbed Liu Wenzhang's body, inevitably getting some bodily fluids on him. He shifted his arm farther away. "There's something wrong with this body. They can't find it, so I'll find someone who can."

"Who?"

Luo Ningsang fell silent.

Lin Xinluo really wanted to slap him.

Ring, ring—

Lin Xinluo's phone rang.

She pulled it out. The contact displayed on the screen was... Xie Shuyang.

Lin Xinluo answered. "What is it?"

"Xiao Yu ran off."

Lin Xinluo thought she was hearing things. "Are you kidding? He was transferred out of intensive care only three days ago, and he ran off right under your nose?!"

Luo Ningsang froze on the spot.