Chapter 39: Exhaustion at Three

"Over here, over here!" By the time they reached the southernmost end of the pedestrian street, they could already see Song Nanshan waving his hand to call him over.

Zhang Shutong hung up the phone and, freeing a hand, waved back at Old Song.

The situation before them seemed to require no further inquiry.

At the south end of the pedestrian street, a silver Jinbei van was parked on the west side of the road, and Song Nanshan was standing right in front of the hood.

Zhang Shutong handed him the raincoat. Old Song tore off the plastic packaging, draped it over himself haphazardly, and rubbed his palms together.

"I’ve done a lap, and this must be the one. There’s no one in the van, but I’m not sure which shop it belongs to."

Zhang Shutong looked past the van toward the rear. It was parked exactly between two storefronts: one was a stir-fry shop, and the other was a small convenience store.

"Could it be either one?"

"It’s only two shops anyway. How about your end?"

"The lake fish restaurant was closed. I went to a clothing store, but I can't say I gained anything." Zhang Shutong recounted the incident with Li Yipeng and his mother.

"So they were gloating, were they? We’ll drag them out tonight and see if they’re still laughing." Old Song’s eyes narrowed, and he started to walk toward the convenience store. "Since it’s just these two shops, we might as well ask them one by one."

"Wait, let me look first." Zhang Shutong held him back, turned on his phone’s flashlight, and stood on his tiptoes to peer into the van’s trunk.

"You’re a sharp one, kid." Old Song leaned in as well. Being tall, he made a new discovery at a glance. "I see cabbage leaves—two of them—stuck to the right hubcap. That should mean it belongs to the stir-fry shop..."

Zhang Shutong had to stop him again, explaining helplessly that he wasn’t just looking for vegetable leaves; he was actually trying to see if there was anything else inside.

"What kind of evidence are you talking about?"

"Well, the brick they used to smash the flowerpot must have been brought by them. Apart from that, there’s..."

Weapons. Or, murder weapons.

In this day and age, people still threw knives, daggers, or batons into their cars. Zhang Shutong didn't expect to use them for a conviction, but at least he wanted to understand the extent of their "armament."

The two moved to the rear window. The glass was covered in running droplets of water, and after wiping it for a while, it only became blurrier.

Song Nanshan simply wiped it with his sleeve, and they finally saw some cargo left inside: a box of opened mineral water, what appeared to be cardboard boxes for holding white liquor, and resting on top of the boxes were several cylindrical objects. Zhang Shutong squinted and realized they were sausages.

"Shutong, look, is that a brick..."

Song Nanshan had made a discovery as well. His face was pressed nearly against the glass, his hands forming a canopy over his eyes.

"Looks like it..."

They searched for a while longer, and fortunately, they found no knives or clubs.

Song Nanshan took photos of the contents of the car with his phone, and Zhang Shutong glanced at the screen from the side. Hearing the shutter click a few times, he exchanged a look with Old Song; they had their answer.

"Let’s go. Just like we discussed on the way," Old Song said, waving a hand. "I’ll do the questioning. You stay on the side and don't make a sound. Have the recording ready. If there are any loopholes in what they say, point them out."

Zhang Shutong nodded and followed. He didn't think this method was particularly good, but he couldn't come up with anything better for the moment.

They lifted the plastic door curtain, and it became much warmer inside. The air was thick with the smell of cooking oil. It was a stir-fry shop; the space was small and essentially had no tables, as customers usually ordered at the front window and took their food to go.

Only then did Zhang Shutong notice that this was likely the same building as the convenience store next door, just partitioned into two shops.

A woman with yellow-dyed hair was curled up on a recliner, playing Minesweeper sideways. Hearing them enter, she stood up. Before she could speak, Old Song cut her off:

"You’ve been caught. Close the computer first!"

His eyes were fierce, and his tone was convincing. Combined with the white shirt he was wearing—which was already wrinkled beyond recognition—it was certainly enough to intimidate someone.

The woman was indeed stunned. She stood blankly for a long moment before asking:

"Officer, what’s going on?"

She had even subconsciously changed how she addressed them.

"Is that van at the door yours?"

The woman nodded.

"I can tell you responsibly now that the surveillance cameras caught what happened this afternoon."

"What surveillance? I was in the shop all afternoon..." The woman asked tentatively, "Are you from the neighborhood committee?"

That was the one question Song Nanshan couldn't answer. He adopted the tone of a reprimanding superior and said in a deep voice:

"You don't need to worry about which department I'm from. Right now, I'm questioning you. Are you sure you didn't leave the shop?"

"No..." The woman shook her head vigorously.

"Then who drove the car this afternoon?"

"The car? My partner drove it..."

"Where is your partner?"

"He just went out to go home and pick something up..."

"Did he just come back driving the car?" Old Song sat down directly on a stool and tapped the table with one hand. "I told you, the surveillance caught everything. Think carefully before you answer."

The woman reached for a cup to pour hot water, but Song Nanshan waved it away, maintaining a stern look that made the woman feel guilty herself.

"He hasn't been back long..."

"What was he doing driving the car? What time did he leave?"

"He went to get supplies, around three o'clock. There was a batch of dried bean curd sticks..."

"Why would he go home during the busiest time?"

"Officer, you know how things are on our street. He came back and waited for a while, then it started raining. There weren't many people in the shop, so he went home to get some things."

"Was he alone?"

"Should be..." The woman finally couldn't help but ask, "What did he do? Did he hit someone or scrape someone's car?"

"It’s much more serious than that. He didn't go to get supplies at all!"

"That can't be." The woman was confused. She pointed to the foam boxes on the floor. "The goods are right there. We just picked them up from the wharf this afternoon. Or... Officer, have a drink of water first. Should I make a call and have him come back?"

"Go ahead." Old Song waved his hand, crossed his legs, and acted every bit the official.

The woman hurried upstairs. Once her silhouette disappeared, the aura Song Nanshan had projected vanished instantly, and he whispered to Zhang Shutong:

"That must be her partner, right?"

Before Zhang Shutong could speak, the woman came back downstairs and handed him the phone. "He said he wants you to take the call..."

Song Nanshan was preparing to use his previous tactic, but the man on the other end was impatient, telling him to say what he had to say or, if he had nothing, to identify which department he was from and drop the act.

Old Song was bluffing, after all, and once he encountered someone like this, he was at a loss. He could only hold the phone and glare in frustration.

Both of their voices grew louder. Zhang Shutong listened for a moment and then stepped outside.

The timing didn't match.

The woman said her husband hadn't been back long before it started raining. But when they were taking Gu Qiumian home, they had run into that van in the rain.

Lying? It didn't seem like it. If she were lying, she couldn't have made it up so quickly, and the other party wouldn't have known about the "rain" clue.

So, rather than a lie, a more troublesome conjecture surfaced in Zhang Shutong's mind.

He quickly walked to the van and crouched down. At this moment, Song Nanshan also came out, still speaking on the phone:

"Then I'm puzzled. What about the sausages in your car? You eat them as snacks? Fine, what about the brick? Two things match up, what else do you have to say? What? Used to weigh down vegetables?"

Old Song was so angry he laughed.

"I see you really won't give up until you see the coffin. Fine, I'll call the police, and we can settle this face-to-face..."

As he was saying this, Zhang Shutong suddenly tugged at his raincoat.

Old Song covered the mouthpiece and mouthed, "What, a flaw?"

More than a flaw.

Zhang Shutong sighed and said in a low voice:

"We found the wrong car."

Old Song was stunned, forgetting he hadn't hung up the phone. "What do you mean?"

"The tires are dry." Zhang Shutong shone his phone on them. "Look, except for the part touching the ground, the rest is dry. It couldn't have come back from the rain, but when we encountered the van..."

Old Song understood at this point, his face turning pale.

"So we found the wrong car?"

"Right. The van we saw at that time wasn't this one."

"Wait for me."

Zhang Shutong watched Old Song rush back into the shop, hand the phone to the woman, and fumble in his pocket for a long time before pulling out a crumpled red bill.

"...Buy something for the kid..."

The woman was still bewildered. Old Song apologized again and walked out with a dark face.

"But I've already checked every car on the street. This is the only van. Maybe we were wrong from the start, and they never drove toward the commercial street."

He lit a cigarette irritably.

"But this is a real problem. Do we have to go door to door?"

Just as Zhang Shutong was about to speak, Song Nanshan had already pulled him toward the car.

"Forget it. I think it’s just not meant to be found today. Don't waste time looking. Shutong, let me take you home. If it really doesn't work out, we'll come back tomorrow morning..."

Zhang Shutong followed him without a word.

Old Song kept rambling.

"Don't forget what you promised me. Since we can't find them, just obediently take Qiumian to your house. You said it yourself, don't go back on your word..."

Zhang Shutong neither nodded nor shook his head. They soon reached the car, and Old Song shook the water off himself vigorously.

"Are you still deducing? Stop thinking about it. Can you really deduce where that van went?"

He looked at Zhang Shutong again.

"I'm going to find a place to buy some tissues, wait here."

He was about to hurry off, but Zhang Shutong suddenly spoke:

"I just thought of a question."

"Why did we see that van?"

Old Song didn't care at all and replied dismissively:

"Why else? Unless it was a hallucination."

"Then let me ask it a different way. Why did that van let us see it?"

"What do you mean 'let us see'? You're asking such strange questions. I told you to stop thinking about it, are you being stubborn, kid?" Song Nanshan knew he had to act with the authority of a mentor, but just as he was about to glare, Zhang Shutong met his gaze.

"Since they went to the trouble of avoiding people and smashing the flowerpot, there is no reason for them to let us see their car. Isn't that walking straight into a trap?"

"What do you mean?" Song Nanshan froze, as if something monumental had exploded in his mind, but he couldn't quite grasp the thread.

"It means that if they knew what time Gu Qiumian ate dinner, there is no reason they wouldn't know what time she got out of school."

"And at that time, we just happened to run into them."

"So?" Song Nanshan suddenly felt a sense of agitation.

"So, if it were just to poison a dog, why not wait until the middle of the night instead of choosing a time slot where they could be discovered?"

"There are two possibilities. One, it was truly an accident; the group is just stupid. But there’s another: a deliberate red herring."

"To make people think they have really left, when in fact they haven't."

Zhang Shutong closed his eyes and opened them again, recalling the road they had taken.

"There is a fork in the mountain road to Gu Qiumian's house, right? What if they didn't drive away, but specifically parked in the fork to wait? Waiting for us to leave Gu Qiumian's house so they could go back?"

"No, what’s the point of that? Why would they..." Old Song was dumbfounded.

"Because of Li Yipeng's mother," Zhang Shutong said thoughtfully.

"What about her?"

"What if I told you they didn't intend to strike tonight?" Zhang Shutong asked.

Only he knew that, in fact, that was true. Perhaps on the original timeline, Gu Qiumian was safe tonight. But Li's mother's every move on the commercial street this afternoon became the butterfly flapping its wings to set this murder in motion.

So Zhang Shutong continued to analyze:

"The threats that woman made in the office—about 'wait and see' and 'bigger things are coming'—I only learned after going to the clothing store that she had spilled all of this on the commercial street this afternoon."

"She herself isn't important. The people who heard her are important. Or perhaps the speaker was unintentional, but the listener was intentional."

"Let's make a worst-case assumption: maybe the people in the van didn't want to strike tonight, but were worried that the woman's words would leak to Gu Jianhong, so they moved their operation up."

"But they couldn't be sure of our attitude, or rather, the Gu family's attitude. Was it being taken seriously or not?"

"Whether it's taken seriously doesn't really matter, so they made two preparations."

"If it wasn't taken seriously, all the better. They could go over now and strike without anyone noticing."

"But what if it was taken seriously?" Old Song seemed to have imagined a terrible scene.

"That explains why we saw that van."

"Is that what you call a red herring?" Song Nanshan suddenly dove into the driver's seat and turned the key to start the engine.

The little Ford Focus shuddered, and Zhang Shutong continued:

"Exactly. It was a deliberate attempt to meet us on the road. We went up the mountain, they came down, creating the illusion that they had already left. This way, everyone's focus would be on where that car went—searching the commercial street, searching other places—but the only place they would overlook is Gu Qiumian's villa."

"So you're saying, they turned back?"