Another Direction

At around 4:40 a.m., Su Tianyu, Bai Hongbo, Zhang Hao, and the others drove to the Third Floor warehouse. The torrential rain outside still hadn't stopped, and several officers were gathering evidence both inside and outside the warehouse.

Inside the car, Su Tianyu took his phone and called Yu Mingyuan. "Hey, we're here, but I see there are still cops in the warehouse."

"Don't go in yet. They'll seal the place once they're finished. Wait until they leave before you do anything. Don't touch any of the other equipment inside. Just clear out the speedboats and everything in the back yard." Yu Mingyuan was actually pretty irritated. He felt he'd been dragged into unnecessary trouble, but he kept his emotions in check as he instructed Su Tianyu and the others to clean things up.

"All right, got it." Su Tianyu nodded.

They talked for a little longer, then ended the call.

"Does Tang Baiqing seriously have nothing better to do? How the hell do you end up killing someone just messing around with women? Why not just enjoy it together?" Bai Hongbo really couldn't understand how a perfectly good relationship between a man and a woman could end in bloodshed. He was irritated too. "You think this'll affect our business?"

"Probably not," Su Tianyu said with a nod. "They're two separate things."

"Man, we're supposed to take in a new shipment tomorrow, and someone fucking dies tonight." Bai Hongbo lit a cigarette. "What a pain in the ass."

Su Tianyu hadn't thought much about it before, but Bai Hongbo's words suddenly made something click. "Holy shit! Tang Baiqing caused trouble at the warehouse, so... what about Big Bear?"

Everyone froze at that.

"He lives here. They probably took him in as an eyewitness," Bai Hongbo ventured.

Normally, since the Police Bureau had responded directly to Tang Baiqing's case, both he and Big Bear should have been taken back to the bureau for questioning. But Deputy Division Chief Uncle Yang hadn't arranged things that way. Instead, he'd had his officers take them to the criminal investigations office building in Zhannan District.

The torrential rain was still coming down outside. Tang Baiqing's father's minivan sat across from the Zhannan District criminal investigations office building, its engine running and lights off. It was packed with people.

"Make some calls! Pull some strings!" Tang Baiqing's mother urged anxiously. "We can't just sit here waiting!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Tang Baiqing's father snapped, frowning. "We haven't heard from Uncle Yang yet. What's the point of calling in favors now? What am I supposed to say? That your son killed someone?!"

"Then what do we do?"

"Wait. Until Uncle Yang gets back to us, don't create any more complications." Tang Baiqing's father waved a hand.

Tang Baiqing's mother sobbed, not daring to argue.

It was still early in the morning, and the division's staff hadn't come to work yet. The criminal investigations office building was largely empty.

After being brought back, Tang Baiqing had stayed in the officers' office on the third floor. Nobody questioned him or placed him under any restraints. Big Bear, on the other hand, had been questioned twice, both times about the basic circumstances of the case.

In the criminal investigations office area on the third floor, Uncle Yang sat by the window, looking down at the files on the victim, Tang Baiqing, and Big Bear.

"Tang Baiqing said that woman was pregnant. Was she?" Uncle Yang asked, flipping through the files.

"No. The medical examiner checked. She wasn't pregnant. She was probably trying to scare Tang Baiqing," the officer beside him replied, sipping his tea. "But we confirmed she'd been shooting up. That works in Tang Baiqing's favor."

"That's something, then." Uncle Yang nodded and narrowed his eyes as he studied the personal information obtained from questioning Big Bear. "This Wu Shixiong lives on Earth House Street? And he has two brothers?"

"Yes. He filled out the form himself," the officer replied. "I brought the kid in for questioning. He seems a little intellectually disabled. He keeps stuttering."

"Huh?" Uncle Yang looked up. "He has an intellectual disability too?"

"That's what he sounded like to me." The officer lowered his voice. "Boss, if this kid really does have an intellectual disability, that could be a problem. If we build the case around the woman shooting up and attacking first, with Tang Baiqing acting in self-defense, the prosecution might not accept Wu Shixiong's testimony if he's found to be intellectually disabled. But without a third-party witness, getting past the prosecution and the court on Tang Baiqing's statement and the evidence details we put together alone... won't be easy either."

Uncle Yang had been an officer here since the third year after the Dragon City Police Bureau was founded. His rank wasn't particularly high, but he had extensive experience handling criminal cases. A quick look through the files was enough to give him a rough idea of how to approach this.

"Come on. Let's take a look at this Wu Shixiong." Uncle Yang stood.

"You're questioning him again? Isn't that pointless?" The officer stood as well.

Uncle Yang said nothing and simply walked out of the office.

Five minutes later, in the interview room, Wu Shixiong immediately stood when he saw Uncle Yang enter. "H-hello, sir!"

"Heh, it's all right. Sit down, sit down." Uncle Yang smiled and waved a hand. "Do you smoke?"

"No." Big Bear shook his head.

"I read your statement. This doesn't really have anything to do with you." Uncle Yang sat behind the interview desk and spoke amiably. "Once we get back to the Police Bureau this morning, you can sign it and leave."

"Oh. S-sorry for the trouble." Big Bear nodded.

"I saw in your statement that you have two brothers?"

"Y-yes. Two older brothers."

"Are they both working? Oh, was your family relocated here from Summer Island back then too?" Uncle Yang didn't ask a single question about the case. Instead, he chatted with Da Xiong about his family.

It wasn't until around 6:30 a.m. that Uncle Yang finally came out of the interview room. "The workday's about to start. Wrap things up. We'll head back to the Police Bureau at eight."

"All right." The officer nodded.

"I'm stepping out for a bit." Uncle Yang grabbed a jacket, hurried out of the office building, and went through the light rain to get into Tang Baiqing's father's car. "Don't park here. Drive a little farther up."

The driver did as instructed.

"How's it looking, Uncle Yang?" Tang Baiqing's father asked immediately.

"Well, this can be complicated, but it can also be simple." Uncle Yang gave a conflicted answer, rubbing his palms as he explained. "Baiqing and that woman were both shooting up, but we can work with that. We can change it. The problem with the approach we settled on earlier is that the eyewitness at the scene is a little tricky... he has an intellectual impairment. We haven't tested how severe it is yet, but if it's serious, his testimony won't carry much weight with the prosecution."

"Right. Go on."

"I gave it some thought. We could actually steer this case in another direction." Uncle Yang leaned close to Tang Baiqing's father's ear and quietly explained his idea.

Just after seven that morning, Wei Xiangzuo sat in a breakfast shop near the Zhannan District harbor, enjoying soy milk and fried dough sticks with an apparently excellent appetite.

"Hall Master, have you heard?"

"What?"

"Something apparently happened to Tang Baiqing from the Coast Guard Team last night," a young man replied quietly.

"What happened?" Wei Xiangzuo asked.

"Apparently someone died, at that warehouse in Haiyan Pit." The young man sneered as he cursed. "Our Gang Leader wanted to see him yesterday. Who would've thought we wouldn't even be able to find him today?"

"What did he want with him?"

"What else? That business Tang Baiqing set up with the Dirty Gang has everyone pissed off. At first, the volume was small, so we let it slide as a favor. But now they're getting bigger and bigger, and the higher-ups aren't happy." The young man asked in return, "Hall Master, what do you think about it?"

Wei Xiangzuo drank his soy milk without answering.

Meanwhile, after finishing the cleanup at the Third Floor warehouse, Su Tianyu immediately drove with Bai Hongbo and Zhang Hao to the entrance of the Zhannan Police Division.