A Case Too Embarrassing to Speak Of

When he arrived at the detective agency, Lin Xiaosu caught a whiff of fragrance the moment he stepped through the door.

The scent was elegant, unmistakably the kind of high-end stuff.

The beautiful middle-aged woman seated opposite Miao Ruolan clearly had plenty to offer as well. At the very least, her figure was impressive; in her younger days, she must have outshone every other beauty.

More importantly, she carried herself with poise and refinement, completely unlike upstarts such as Sister Song.

"Is this Detective Lin?" the beautiful woman asked.

"Yes! May I ask your surname, Sister?"

"Zhuang. Zhuang Mengdie."

"What an elegant name!" Lin Xiaosu said. "Tell me what happened..."

Zhuang Mengdie began speaking...

Her circumstances were much the same as those of most wealthy wives.

The similarity was that she lived in luxury while her husband ran businesses.

The difference was that she was unlike the others. Other women chased mistresses everywhere and racked their brains trying to fight them, but she had seen through all that. There was plenty of money at home. If her husband liked giving it to others, then let him. If he liked venting himself on other women, all the better—she was happy to have some peace and quiet.

Why bother?

A human life was but one season for grass and trees. Wasn't it foolish to waste limited time on something like that?

Yet the tree wished to stand still, but the wind would not stop.

She did not want to deal with mistresses, but one mistress wanted to deal with her!

There were signs that one of them wanted to kill her.

That mistress believed Zhuang Mengdie, the legal wife, was blocking her path. If she killed her, the mistress might have a chance to become the real wife.

That was why she had come to the detective agency: to find that mistress with crooked intentions, teach her a lesson, kill a chicken to warn the monkeys, and make everyone in Phoenix City understand one bottom line—touch her moneybag if they wanted, but touching her person was forbidden!

After hearing the case, Miao Ruolan was stunned...

Could someone really be that clear-sighted?

Lin Xiaosu smiled. "If Sister Zhuang wanted to find every mistress, that would be difficult. But if she only wanted to find one, there should be no need to hire a detective, right?"

Zhuang Mengdie gently shook her head. "This is not as simple as you think. If I wanted to find mistresses, I could grab a whole bunch in one go. That part is easy. But how would I know which one among that bunch had those crooked intentions?"

Lin Xiaosu's eyes flickered. "Why don't you tell me how you determined that one mistress wanted to harm you? Has she taken any concrete action?"

"This is difficult to speak of, but to save my life, I have no choice but to say it..."

Last night, after my husband came home, we did it.

I did not think much of it at the time, but this morning, something felt wrong down there. It was numb and itchy. I called the family doctor over for an examination, and the result gave me a terrible shock. It was an extremely contagious Genetic Toxin. Its means of transmission was simple and direct: contact. Once infected, it would cause the lower body to fester. It was exceptionally stubborn and difficult to treat, and in serious cases, it could be fatal.

"A Genetic Toxin?" Lin Xiaosu was startled.

These days, anything related to genes was a sensitive subject—Gene Humans, Genetic Modification, Genetic Toxins. Others might not know about Genetic Toxins, but he did.

Zhuang Mengdie said, "Yes. This Genetic Toxin was developed in South Mo Prefecture. Its most unusual feature is that it infects women but not men!"

"It combines with women's XX chromosomes and triggers genetic mutation..."

"Detective Lin, you know about this toxin?" Zhuang Mengdie's eyes lit up.

"I do! If this toxin was truly deployed by one of the mistresses, then the ingenuity behind it is really something else." Lin Xiaosu said. "Her target was probably not just you."

Zhuang Mengdie was startled. "Right! Her target was every mistress other than herself, plus me, the legal wife!"

She knew her husband well. He was the kind of man who never used protection.

After all, in his dictionary, he had more money than he could spend. What did a few extra sons matter?

Whenever he encountered a mistress and felt the urge, he could get to work anywhere—his office, a chair, a car, or out in the wild.

So long as he caught this Genetic Toxin, every mistress and legal wife who entered his field of vision would probably be doomed.

That way, all his mistresses and his legal wife would be swept up in one net.

The only person left would be the one who had poisoned him!

She could have this billionaire all to herself.

When others fought mistresses, they showed their faces and battled in the streets. But when she fought mistresses, she used the man as a weapon and had him personally subtract from the group.

Tell me, wasn't she brilliant?

Though Miao Ruolan had blushed and her heart had raced throughout the conversation, her mind was clear. "Sister, this case doesn't seem simple."

"Yes! I can pay a high price!" Zhuang Mengdie said. "Someone told me your cases start at thirty thousand. I'll pay one hundred thousand. Find that bitch, and I'll make her pay the price!" One hundred thousand!

Miao Ruolan's heartbeat quickened...

Lin Xiaosu slowly raised his gaze. "Take it. Give me some time!"

After the contract was signed and a thirty-thousand deposit paid, Sister Zhuang left the agency. A small red car silently pulled up, then merged into the flow of people in Phoenix City.

The red car was a limited edition, with a market price well over a million.

"Do you know who her husband is?" Lin Xiaosu slowly raised his eyes.

"Wang Changfa! That name sounds familiar..." Miao Ruolan said.

"The name sounds familiar because he occasionally appears on television and in newspapers!" Lin Xiaosu said. "He is the owner of Red Star Pharmaceuticals."

"Red Star Pharmaceuticals?" Miao Ruolan picked up her phone and searched.

Sure enough, a piece of local news appeared...

On March 17, Red Star Pharmaceuticals held talks with Dell Company, the largest pharmaceutical company in the area. The two sides reached a preliminary consensus and were committed to advancing pharmaceutical cooperation in order to better serve the people across the region.

Lin Xiaosu glanced at it. "What do you see?"

Miao Ruolan said, "It says it right there. Very simply, the two largest local pharmaceutical companies are preparing to operate jointly."

Lin Xiaosu smiled faintly. "You have read a pile of detective books and stuffed your belly full of professional knowledge. You need to learn about other things too."

"Such as?"

"Such as understanding the news."

Miao Ruolan's eyes widened. "I didn't understand this news? That can't be it, right? It's only a few sentences. Even a ten-year-old child could understand it..."

"You understood the literal meaning, but you did not understand the news!" Lin Xiaosu said. "This is a press release. Press releases are written for the public, but as detectives, we need to learn to see through the surface and grasp the essence! For instance, what you saw was two major pharmaceutical companies pursuing cooperation, while what I saw was a deep conflict between them."

"A conflict? Where do you see that?" Miao Ruolan truly did not understand.

Lin Xiaosu said, "When two major pharmaceutical companies hold talks, they cannot have had no items to discuss, right? If even the smallest item on the agenda had reached a consensus, it would have been stated in the press release. But was it? There was absolutely no substantive content, only empty official clichés. What did that mean? It meant that despite the grand fanfare around the talks, the two pharmaceutical giants had not reached even the slightest consensus. Besides, do not overlook the fact that this was news from a government platform..."

Miao Ruolan was even more confused. "What is the significance of a government platform?"

"It meant the talks were being pushed by government departments! If companies wanted to continue developing locally, they generally would not refuse to give government departments face. Yet they had stubbornly refused to do so. That was enough to show that their contradictions and differences were irreconcilable."

"I'm convinced!" Miao Ruolan said. "After hearing you, I really think it makes a lot of sense."

"Of course it makes sense!" Lin Xiaosu stood up...