Ma Fuqing also saw Qingmu at this moment. His expression froze instantly with shock, and the long rice noodles on his chopsticks remained suspended in the air, motionless. The woman sitting opposite him waved her hand in front of his eyes, and he seemed to wake from a dream, put down his chopsticks, stood up and walked towards Qingmu.
" Teacher Qingmu, what are you doing here?" Ma Fuqing offered Qingmu a cigarette and asked, bowing slightly.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Qingmu refused his cigarette; there were no-smoking signs on the restaurant wall.
Ma Fuqing awkwardly took the cigarettes back and said, "You know my brother's situation; the prosecution dropped the charges. My mother is gone too, and being alone at home reminds me of her, which makes me feel sad. I wanted to come out and clear my head. I used to work in Spring City, so I'm familiar with this area. I didn't expect to run into you here!"
Qingmu said "Oh," and then said, "So you used to work in Spring City."
Ma Fuqing was nodding when the woman sitting next to him came over, put her arm around his shoulder, and asked, "Oh, where are these friends from? Fuqing, why don't you introduce them to me?"
Ma Fuqing quickly pulled her away, pushing her along as he apologized to Qingmu, "I'm so sorry to have disturbed your meal, Teacher Qingmu. I'll come visit you another day!"
Qingmu felt that Ma Fuqing's attitude was a bit strange, but he was too lazy to think about it too much.
Yao Jingjing asked curiously, "Your friend?"
Qingmu said, "Not a friend, more like a former client."
"Oh, a client?" Yao Jingjing became curious about Qingmu's business again. "Is what's written on your business card true?"
Qingmu asked, "What's real or fake?"
"It's things like dream interpretation and psychological counseling," Yao Jingjing, looking at him intently.
"Well, of course it's true." Qingmu scratched his hair vigorously, as if he wasn't used to being scratched by Crow's claws for many days. "You don't want me to interpret your dream too, do you?"
Yao Jingjing said, "No, I just think you're very mysterious."
What's so mysterious about it?
"It's just a feeling! I always thought people like you would wear traditional Chinese clothing, have lots of strange bracelets, and have long hair and beards. But..." She looked at Qingmu and suddenly burst out laughing, "I never expected a master to be like you!"
"I'm no expert." Qingmu grabbed a goose wing, put it in his mouth, and started gnawing. "Have you ever seen an expert eat like this?"
Yao Jingjing giggled.
Ma Fuqing finished eating quickly and hurriedly came over to say goodbye to Qingmu: " Teacher Qingmu, I'm leaving now!"
The woman with her complained, "What's wrong with you today? Why are you eating so fast!"
After Ma Fuqing left, Qingmu and Yao Jingjing chatted for a while longer. When they went to pay the bill, Yao Jingjing insisted on paying, but the waiter told them that someone had already paid.
Qingmu was taken aback, and it took him a while to figure out that Ma Fuqing had paid the bill.
On the way back, Yao Jingjing asked Qingmu how the food was. Qingmu said it was good, quite unique. Actually, he didn't think it was that delicious; he just wanted to have something to brag about to Crow when he got back.
Yao Jingjing, unaware of his true feelings, happily asked, "What about dinner? What would you like to eat?"
"Huh? Dinner?" Qingmu looked at the bright Sun in the sky. "It seems like that's still a long way off!"
Yao Jingjing laughed and said, "A person who doesn't plan for the future will have trouble in the present! Especially when it's something as important as eating!"
Qingmu laughed out loud, thinking that those words sounded exactly like something Boss Coal would say.
When they returned to the hotel to say goodbye, Yao Jingjing said, "If Mr. Qingmu hasn't made up his mind yet, I'll arrange dinner."
Remembering that Shi Dazhuang and Yu Meiren would probably be back for dinner, Qingmu said, "No need, I have to keep Beauty tonight."
Yao Jingjing was slightly taken aback, her face suddenly paling. "Oh, are there any Beauty?"
Qingmu didn't react for a moment, then said, "Yes, she's very cute."
The elevator had reached the fifteenth floor by then. Yao Jingjing said "Goodbye!" and got out, then turned back and waved to Qingmu with a smile.
It wasn't until the elevator doors closed that Qingmu realized Yao Jingjing had misunderstood him, mistaking one Beauty for Beauty.
He found it a little funny and shrugged at himself in the elevator mirror.
Back in his room, he sent Shi Dazhuang a text message: " Ma Fuqing is in Spring City. Could you have someone check on him?"
He always felt that Ma Fuqing's attitude was suspicious, and when they were in Wuzhong, he had told Hu Xing that there were many suspicious points in Ma Fuqing's family case.
In the evening, Shi Dazhuang and Yu Meiren returned.
Shi Dazhuang asked Qingmu, "Why did you think of Cha Ma Fuqing?"
Instead of answering, Qingmu asked, "Is there a result?"
Shi Dazhuang said, "You didn't say what direction you were going to take, so it's hard for people to investigate. I had someone roughly find out what was going on. The procuratorate in Wuzhong withdrew the case just the day before yesterday. Ma Fuqing also left Wuzhong the day before yesterday. But what's strange is that he seems to know when the procuratorate withdrew the case; he booked his plane ticket in advance."
"Do you know why he came to Spring City?" Qingmu asked.
Shi Dazhuang said, "He owns three houses in Spring City. Based on the information we have so far, he has been traveling between Spring City and Wuzhong for many years, and this should be where he works long-term."
"Three houses? They're rich!" Qingmu exclaimed. "Can you really earn that much working?"
"It's a bit far-fetched, but not impossible," Shi Dazhuang said. "What exactly do you want to investigate? If you don't tell me, it's not easy for me to let them investigate further. You know, the police can't just investigate anyone randomly."
Qingmu laughed and said, "I reckon you're going to do something great again this time."
"What?" Shi Dazhuang was baffled.
Qingmu said, "Although you've taken down Wu Suotun and Mu Ka's hideout and arrested most of the drug traffickers in Ruihekou, you haven't uncovered their downstream network. Through what channels are the drugs circulated to the north, such as the Three Wu area?"
Shi Dazhuang said, "Yes, the Medicine Granny is dead, and we couldn't get anything out of those mentally ill people. We don't know which buyers they'll sell to, which is the biggest regret. Do you have any way to get anything out of those mentally ill people?"
Qingmu shook his head. After the dream in that cave collapsed, the seeds of consciousness that Du Juan and the Medicine Granny had planted in those people also disappeared.
"However, I think I've found another clue now," Qingmu said.
Shi Dazhuang asked in confusion, "You mean Ma Fuqing?"
"That's right," Qingmu said. "Do you remember the cave I told you about with the pig cages?"
Shi Dazhuang said, "How could I not remember? That's unbelievable!"
Qingmu had only briefly mentioned his experience in the cave to Shi Dazhuang, and he was even more vague about the official accounts. In fact, even if he had told the truth, no one would have believed him. The cave's greatest use now was as additional evidence of crimes committed by the Japanese army during their invasion of China.
"When I first went into the cave and saw the pig cage, it seemed familiar. Now I remember, Ma Fuquan was also locked in a similar iron cage in the basement of his house."
Qingmu didn't explicitly say was that the scene he saw in Ma Fuquan's dream was even closer to the Zhulong Mountain Cave.
"You mean, Ma Fuquan was also driven mad by the Medicine Granny locking him in the cave?" Shi Dazhuang asked in shock.
Qingmu nodded and said, "Not only that, it's very likely that Ma Fuquan was personally imprisoned by Ma Fuqing."
After hearing what Qingmu said, Shi Dazhuang went through all the steps in his mind and immediately understood.
He was a seasoned criminal investigator, a hundred times better than Qingmu in terms of reasoning and case-solving. The reason he couldn't figure it out was because he didn't have Qingmu's special abilities, and this case just happened to involve an unbelievable, man-made dream.
Although he didn't handle Ma Fuqing's case personally, he had reviewed all the case files and remembered every detail very clearly.
"I'll go arrange the surveillance!" Shi Dazhuang stood up and left, but turned back at the door and said, " The Beauty is in your hands now!"