31 - Getting Ready to Move

31 - Getting Ready to Move

The next day.

After breakfast, Li Bai was about to continue cultivating when he heard a knock at the door.

"Are you home? I'm Officer Xiao Wang from the Public Security Bureau."

Li Bai opened the door, looking surprised.

It had only been a day, and one of the two officers who had taken him to the district bureau to give a statement—the young officer, Xiao Wang—was back.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing major. I'm here to take your closing statement!"

Only Xiao Wang stood outside; the older officer, Old Zhang, wasn't with him.

"All right. Just a moment."

Li Bai understood and immediately turned back to get ready to go out.

The Yao Family was involved in a major smuggling case, and its members had been caught red-handed. The police were focused on that case, so they dealt with minor, unrelated matters—such as the dispute over Li Bai's psychological evaluation of Yao Bing—quickly and decisively, rather than wasting time and effort on them.

As he locked the door, Yang Fa, the landlord from across the hall, poked his head out and said with a cheeky grin, "Well, Doctor Li, off to wipe out another family?"

He had no shame about saying something so brazen in front of a police officer.

After being given a scare last time, the guy had held a grudge. Now he'd finally found an opportunity to come out and needle him.

"Yeah, that's right! You'd better keep your door locked, Brother Yang. You never know when your place might be next."

Li Bai couldn't be bothered to take him seriously, so he played along and made a joke.

Officer Xiao Wang had also figured out that the landlord was no good, and didn't bother responding to him.

"You..." Brother Yang, getting nowhere, sneered. "Your next rent payment is due. We agreed on a thirty-percent increase. Are you paying now, or should I come by tonight? I need the money!"

To Li Bai, the man's smile looked entirely insincere. He clearly had something up his sleeve, so Li Bai pretended to look troubled. "Brother Yang, could you give me a few more days? I'm still short on cash. I need some time to scrape the rest together."

Thinking his status as landlord gave him leverage over Li Bai, Yang Fa lifted his chin and said arrogantly, "Three days. I'll give you three days, tops. If you don't have the money, move out. Plenty of people want to rent from me."

"Sure, sure! Three days it is!"

Three days would be enough time to find a new place, and since he happened to have some free time lately, Li Bai pretended to agree.

Let the guy enjoy his high horse for a little while!

Once they were outside the building, Officer Xiao Wang finally spoke. "Having a heartless landlord like that must be a real headache."

"Can't be helped. That guy's obsessed with money. He cares about cash, not people—he's greedy to the core."

Li Bai shrugged helplessly. He'd been unlucky with his choice of apartment. He'd lived here for just over a year, and the rent had already gone up five times. It was nearly double what he'd originally paid, and the lease might as well have been worthless. Whatever the landlord said the rent was, that was what it became.

Because he kept raising the rent, Yang Fa had gotten into plenty of arguments with his other tenants. He never lifted a finger when pipes leaked, power tripped, or belongings went missing. The only thing he was enthusiastic about was collecting rent.

His reputation preceded him. Of the four apartments he rented out, only three were occupied. The fourth had been empty for more than half a year and still hadn't found a tenant.

With one rent payment missing, the greedy miser naturally decided to squeeze the three tenants he still had, trying to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Xiao Wang casually offered, "No problem. I can ask around when I have a chance and see if there are any suitable rentals. I know this area well."

He was the officer assigned to this neighborhood. He'd made a habit of conducting security checks and visiting every household, so he knew the area particularly well. He might even hear about available places sooner than a real estate agent.

"Thanks. If you find me a place, I'll buy you dinner."

The young officer's friendly offer came as a welcome surprise to Li Bai.

"Sure. There's no car available today, so I'll have to call a cab first."

Since he was the only officer on duty, Xiao Wang couldn't take out a patrol car that was supposed to remain on standby. He planned to flag down a taxi and take Li Bai to the district bureau.

"Call a cab? No need. Take my car!"

Li Bai led Xiao Wang to the Santana 2000 parked beside the main road through the residential complex.

"Hey, a Pusa! Where'd you get this car?"

Xiao Wang examined the vintage car, intrigued.

Li Bai opened the car door and replied vaguely, "I just got it recently."

Despite looking dusty and battered on the outside, the interior was still about eighty percent like new. He'd taken it to a car wash and had the whole thing cleaned inside and out, leaving it spotless.

Last time Li Bai had visited the Nanhu District Public Security Bureau, the place had seemed empty, with hardly anyone around. This time, more than half the parking spaces were occupied, and officers were coming and going throughout the building. Armed special police had also secured the area.

Even in broad daylight, the lights blazed in many of the rooms. Something major had clearly happened, and the entire bureau was on high alert.

Li Bai's closing statement took less than five minutes. They asked him a few questions, had him sign twice and take a fingerprint, and that was it. In reality, the minor fuss over his psychological evaluation had never even been serious enough to warrant opening a case.

"All right, I've got your number. If I find a suitable place, I'll call you!"

Before they parted, Officer Xiao Wang had also done a good deed to help a member of the public. Since he'd already promised, he was sure to follow through.

"Okay, thanks, Officer Wang!"

Li Bai took a tissue and vigorously wiped the red ink from his index finger.

As soon as the two of them left the statement room, they ran into Officer Zhang, whom they'd met last time. Three other officers walked beside him, talking as they went.

"Old Zhang!"

Officer Xiao Wang greeted him first.

"Hello, Officer Zhang!"

Li Bai greeted him as well.

"Hello, Doctor Li. Xiao Wang, were you taking Doctor Li's statement?"

The older Officer Zhang looked toward Li Bai.

The three officers beside him nodded to Xiao Wang and Li Bai in greeting.

"Yeah! How's the interrogation of Yao Donghu going today?"

Xiao Wang recognized the three officers accompanying Old Zhang. One was Sun Mu from their bureau, another was Chen Chu from the Hua'an District Bureau, and the last was Jia Zixuan, an interrogation expert from the Provincial Department. All three were well-known interrogation specialists in Huxi City.

Old Zhang didn't seem to mind that Li Bai, an unrelated outsider, was there. He answered directly, "The guy's stubborn as hell. If we didn't have hard evidence, he'd be really difficult to pin down." In other words, they'd run into a tough opponent.

To secure a conviction, the police needed at least one of the following: a confession, witness testimony, or physical evidence. At this point, they had physical evidence linking Yao Donghu to the major smuggling case, as well as testimony from the smugglers. That was enough to close the case, but if they wanted to dig deeper, follow the trail, catch the big fish, and completely dismantle a smuggling operation worth a billion yuan a year, they would need a detailed confession from Yao Donghu himself.

But now that the case had reached this stage, Yao Donghu's refusal to speak had brought them to a dead end.

"Looks like you're in for a long fight. Thanks for all your hard work, everyone!"

Xiao Wang wasn't on the task force, so all he could do was sympathize with the senior officers.

Getting suspects like this to talk wasn't easy. All-night interrogations were inevitable; it was like wearing down a hawk to tame it, each side waiting to see who would give in first. As for Heaven and Earth Hanging, Golden Bell Shield Iron Shirt, Electric Baton Disco, truth serum, and the like, those things existed only in novels.

If a suspect refused to talk, even a lie detector was useless. The bigger the city, the less likely the police were to use torture. In a provincial capital like Huxi City, it was even less conceivable.

If they got unlucky and ran into a real hard case, it wouldn't be unusual for him to hold out for a year or two. The Public Security System didn't have the time or manpower to focus on one case for that long; otherwise, a police department with limited resources would be overwhelmed.

Just the Yao Family smuggling case had forced the Nanhu District Public Security Bureau to request personnel from other district bureaus and the Provincial Department, drawing in capable officers to form a temporary task force. The people at the bureau alone were already run off their feet dealing with the endless petty thefts and break-ins alongside the officers from the local police stations.

Jia Zixuan, the Provincial Department's interrogation expert, sighed. "The higher-ups gave us a strict order: we have to make progress within ten days, or we'll have to close the case."

Old Zhang and the other two looked grim. This was a tough nut to crack.

The order had not only come suddenly, but it was suspicious as well.

It was obvious that a big fish was backing Yao Donghu—someone powerful enough to exert influence even at the Provincial Department level.

Sometimes, you knew exactly where the problem lay, but you could only watch helplessly, unable to do anything about it.

Xiao Wang was just as helpless. He managed a strained smile and said, "You guys carry on. I'll see Doctor Li out."

As Li Bai and Xiao Wang had just left the district bureau building, a Coaster minibus pulled up at the foot of the steps. Several officers escorted a man and a woman out. The man sat in a wheelchair, his upper body clad in a strange garment with no visible sleeves.

Li Bai's eyes happened to meet those of the middle-aged woman.

"It's you!"

The middle-aged woman glared at Li Bai. To everyone's surprise, she suddenly charged at him without warning.

"Give me back my son! You did this! You ruined our whole family! Go to hell! Go to hell..."