"I don't know about that." Zhao Xun shrugged. "The authorities don't announce changes in leadership to the public."
"True, ordinary people have almost no way of finding out what's happening at the top." Fan Xiaodan shrugged. "Nothing in the Tenth District is transparent."
"But there's no point discussing that now." She picked up the wet strips of cloth she had prepared. "Come on. What we should be doing is tying up those two suspects."
Zhao Xun asked no further questions. He followed Fan Xiaodan back to the living room.
Jiang Shuai and Liu Mei cooperated, letting Fan Xiaodan expertly tie them to separate chairs.
Once she had secured them both, Fan Xiaodan took a tissue from the coffee table and wiped her wet hands. "It's getting late. We should go back to our rooms, get our bedding, and bring it downstairs to sleep on the floor."
Zhao Xun suggested, "Let's split into two groups by floor. While one group fetches their bedding, the other can stay in the living room. That'll keep Jiang Shuai and Liu Mei safe and let us keep an eye on one another, so the real killer won't have a chance to attack anyone else."
Fan Xiaodan hesitated, then said to Zhao Xun, "Grandpa Feng is dead, and Jiang Shuai is tied up. That leaves only you and Grandma Feng among the residents on the second floor. That's not ideal."
She hadn't spelled it out, but Zhao Xun understood what she meant.
Fan Xiaodan hadn't entirely dismissed her suspicions of Zhao Xun. He was still one of the suspects.
If Zhao Xun insisted on going with Grandma Feng alone, she would become even more suspicious of him.
Of course, if two people went off alone and one died, the other would become the prime suspect. Even