“Did Mou Dianpei often steal your food?” Ji Chenjiao asked.

Now that the paraquat lead had emerged, food became especially important. Who had the opportunity to poison Mou Dianpei over a long period? Qingzi was undoubtedly one of them.

Qingzi said, “At first, whatever I made, he’d ask for a bite. After I mentioned it to him, he stopped asking to my face. But he would still help himself to the tissues, breakfast bread, and noodles I bought.”

Ji Chenjiao looked at the table, where there was a large bag of cheap, sealed small bread buns. It would be nearly impossible to put paraquat into these buns, and it seemed difficult to poison the dry noodles that Mou Dianpei stole to cook for himself.

Ji Chenjiao said, “How did Mou Dianpei usually handle his meals?”

“Well, I never saw him come back with groceries,” Qingzi said. “He’d either bum off my cooking or eat near the Third Hospital, where the cheap restaurants are. He even said he was like a brother to that boxed lunch owner and could eat there for free.”

At this point, a man called Li Ge chimed in. “Old Mou told me about that too. I also know Old Shen, and I even asked him if he really didn’t charge Old Mou for food. Old Shen just said everyone who comes to eat is treated the same. So yeah, he was just bragging.”

Ji Chenjiao intentionally told Qingzi that Mou Dianpei had been poisoned with an irreversible, slow-acting poison. Qingzi processed this for a moment, then suddenly shot to his feet, his face ashen. “It wasn’t me! I swear I never poisoned him!”

Ji Chenjiao observed his expression for a moment, then nodded. His tone became lighter, as if making small talk. “By the way, business has been tough lately, right? With that ‘Gui Yong Tang’ company showing up, has the impact on you guys been significant?”

Qingzi still hadn’t calmed down. “I’m, I’m okay. I just get the scraps.”

“Now that’s something I can talk about,” Li Ge interjected. “That ‘Gui Yong Tang’ came up from the south. I hear it’s a chain, and they wanted to break into our market as soon as they arrived. But us ‘Golden Impermanence’ undertakers have been doing this for years; our roots are here! Fengshi is a small city; we don’t go for those big-city ways. Don’t be fooled by ‘Gui Yong Tang’ making a big splash now. In the long run, it’ll still be us ‘Golden Impermanence’ guys on top.”

“But for people like Old Mou, things have definitely gotten harder. It’s not like me; I’m an old-timer. If they can’t survive, they’ll either have to change careers or go work for ‘Gui Yong Tang’,” Li Ge added. “‘Gui Yong Tang’ seems to be looking for some local ‘Golden Impermanence’ undertakers. For Old Mou, that could have been a way out.”

Qingzi had calmed down by now and asked, “How come I didn’t hear anything about that?”

Li Ge slapped him on the head. “You live off scraps. Why would they come looking for you?”

After they had chatted enough, Ji Chenjiao told Qingzi before leaving that they might need to talk to him again before the case was solved and to contact them anytime if he remembered anything. Qingzi timidly agreed.

“Old Shen’s Boxed Lunches” was two blocks away from Yide Lane. Ji Chenjiao and Ling Lie didn’t drive, instead taking a slow walk along the tree-lined road.

“Shen Wei had ample opportunity to poison Mou Dianpei,” Ling Lie said. “We have to investigate him for the paraquat. His motive is also plausible—he believed Mou Dianpei was the one who killed Tan Fabin. Since the police had no evidence, he took matters into his own hands.”

Ling Lie stopped walking. “Didn’t you think his reaction was illogical? He was thrilled that the police were reopening the investigation, yet he was also hiding something. Now we know why—because he had already killed the man he believed to be the murderer before the police could act.”

Ji Chenjiao pieced together the timeline.

The body was discovered at the funeral home, and the news spread throughout the city by dawn. At that time, the police hadn’t yet identified the victim, so Shen Wei couldn’t have known it was Mou Dianpei. But assuming he was the one who administered the poison, he could estimate when Mou would start showing symptoms. Mou appeared near the Third Hospital almost every day. When Mou didn’t show up that day, Shen Wei would have assumed he was already dead.

That same day, the police learned from a crematorium worker that the victim might be Mou Dianpei and went to his rented apartment to collect DNA. Given the chaotic nature of Yide Lane, the news that “the deceased is Mou Dianpei” would have spread quickly. Shen Wei, who was likely already trying to find out about Mou’s situation, would have learned that Mou was the victim in the funeral home case and would have surely been thrown into a panic.

“He must have wondered, ‘Did Mou Dianpei fall ill while transporting a body and collapse in the funeral home, where the staff mistook him for a dumped corpse?'” Ji Chenjiao theorized. “Or was he killed by someone else before the poison took effect? All sorts of rumors were flying around among the public. Captain Huang and his team haven’t released an official police report yet, so Shen Wei isn’t sure how Mou Dianpei died.”

“When we went to see him, the only thing he knew for sure was that Mou Dianpei was dead. He was naturally happy that the police were reopening the investigation, as a victim’s family member, but it was too late. The lead he had was that the killer was Mou Dianpei, which he couldn’t say. If he did, he would be suspected of murdering Mou. He was filled with regret and frustration, similar to Liu Xuelin’s reaction. Why couldn’t he have waited a little longer?”

Ji Chenjiao paused, replaying Shen Wei’s expression and Xiao Lu’s various hints in his mind. “If Shen Wei poisoned Mou Dianpei, was Xiao Lu aware of it, or was he a participant?”

Ling Lie said, “Somehow, I feel like that guy Lu has a more complicated role to play.”

As they spoke, the two arrived at the entrance to the lane. “Old Shen’s Boxed Lunches” was diagonally across the street. But the shop’s door was shut tight; it was closed for business.

Ling Lie and Ji Chenjiao exchanged a look and immediately crossed the road. Every other establishment on this street of eateries was open, making “Old Shen’s Boxed Lunches” stand out.

Ling Lie asked a woman selling congee and cold noodles next door, “Ma’am, did this boxed lunch place go out of business?”

“Ha! My place would go bust before his! Old Shen’s business is booming!”

“Then why is it all closed up?”

“Maybe he’s taking a vacation? I’m not sure. Old Shen closes for a while every summer, probably to go back to his hometown to escape the heat.”

Ling Lie asked around at other shops, but no one knew why Old Shen had suddenly closed.

Ji Chenjiao stood in front of “Old Shen’s Boxed Lunches” and saw a piece of paper taped to the roll-up door, written with a paint marker: Closed for one week. We apologize for the inconvenience.

With suspicion on Shen Wei growing, Ji Chenjiao notified Huang Yi and had the technical investigation team start tracking Shen Wei.

Huang Yi’s team had also found some clues. First, someone in the funeral business saw Liu Xuelin appearing multiple times in Yide Lane a few days before the incident. He was acting furtively, not like he was looking for clients, but more like he was watching someone.

Second, “Gui Yong Tang” was all thunder and no rain. Although it had intimidated many local “Golden Impermanence” undertakers, it hadn’t managed to capture the market. The longer it dragged on, the harder it would be. So the company was privately contacting some experienced but not yet veteran “Golden Impermanence” members to recruit them. Both Mou Dianpei and Liu Xuelin had been approached, and this happened before their fight at the entrance of the Third Hospital.

The pen Ling Lie had been twirling fell onto the table with a clatter. “The killer is Liu Xuelin.”

In the interrogation room.

“I’ve said it a thousand times! I don’t know why the body was in my car! After I delivered the body that day, I found another one, and it scared me to death! My brain just short-circuited. I thought if I dumped it, everything would be fine. I had already driven out of the funeral home when I realized I was screwed, but I couldn’t go back and put the body back in, so I fled!” Liu Xuelin clasped his hands together, pleading repeatedly, his expression anxious and agitated. “Please believe me, I really didn’t kill anyone!”

Ji Chenjiao stared at him. “Then answer a few questions for me.”

“Okay, okay, you ask.”

“On July 19th and 21st, someone saw you in Yide Lane. You weren’t soliciting business or talking to anyone, just loitering downstairs from Mou Dianpei’s place. You live on Heyong Road, and the Yide Lane area isn’t part of your daily routine. What were you doing there?”

Liu Xuelin’s eyes bulged nervously. “Who, who said that?”

Ji Chenjiao said, “I’m the one asking the questions.”

“They must have been mistaken! I haven’t been to Yide Lane. Why would I go there? There are already a lot of people in the funeral business there, so there’s no piece of the pie for me.”

“You’ve really never been?”

“Never!” Liu Xuelin puffed out his chest, swearing confidently. “Yide Lane is crowded, and there are a lot of people dressed like us. It’s common to mistake one person for another.”

Ji Chenjiao nodded. “There are three witnesses. I will pull the surveillance footage based on the specific times and locations they provided. Although public surveillance in Yide Lane is sparse with many blind spots, the small shops all have private cameras. Once the request for assistance is approved, it won’t be difficult to verify their statements.”

Liu Xuelin’s face changed instantly. He stammered, “You’re, you’re still going to verify it…”

Ji Chenjiao: “What, are you scared?”

Liu Xuelin wrung his hands. “No, no, if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. It’s just… investigating me is a waste of police resources. I was framed. I’d feel bad if you wasted time on me that could be used to catch the real killer.”

Ji Chenjiao sneered. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

Liu Xuelin gave a fawning smile. “You’re right.”

“Then who do you think the real killer is? Who hated Mou Dianpei enough to kill him?” Ji Chenjiao asked again.

Liu Xuelin lowered his head, his lips moving constantly. After half a minute, he seemed to have finally thought of the perfect answer. “Isn’t it the person who poisoned him? You’ve searched my place, right? No paraquat, was there? Mou Dianpei was petty and couldn’t stand being slighted, but he always wanted to take advantage of others. I feel sorry for his roommate; he’s so dull-witted and doesn’t even know how to stand up for himself when he’s bullied. His roommate must hate him! And since they live together, poisoning him would be easy!”

Seeing an opening, Liu Xuelin became more and more excited. “And there’s that boxed lunch owner, Shen something. He’s from the same hometown as Mou Dianpei. Mou often took advantage of their shared hometown connection to eat without paying and even insisted that he help him drum up business! That’s not right, is it? Isn’t everyone’s money hard-earned? So I’m guessing, maybe Boss Shen secretly poisoned him and killed him?”

The interrogation room fell into a brief silence. Liu Xuelin grew increasingly uneasy under the stare, his head drooping very low.

Ji Chenjiao asked, “Are you finished?”

Liu Xuelin flicked his eyes up to look at him, then quickly looked away. “Uh, yeah, I guess that’s all.”

Ji Chenjiao dropped his pen. The crisp sound made Liu Xuelin flinch and shrink his shoulders. Ji Chenjiao leaned back in his chair. “It’s strange, Liu Xuelin. In the past few interrogations, you said you barely knew Mou Dianpei, that you just knew of him and had argued over business, but nothing else. How is it that after a few days in here, you know him so well?”

Liu Xuelin’s gaze froze. He sat motionless, his lips trembling as if he wanted to explain but couldn’t find the words.

“You know he had conflicts with his roommate, that he bullied his roommate, you even know his roommate is dull-witted, and you know where he often ate.” Ji Chenjiao leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the table. “I just learned all of this through my own investigation. Did you conduct an investigation too? Why? Are you very interested in Mou Dianpei?”

Liu Xuelin’s voice cracked. “No, no, no! Weren’t you asking me for clues? I was just telling you what I knew. I want the case to be solved as soon as possible, too!”

Ji Chenjiao: “That doesn’t answer my question.”

A large patch of Liu Xuelin’s chest was soaked with sweat. His breathing grew rapid, his expression caught between a desperate need to defend himself and the fear of saying too much.

After letting him calm down for a moment, Ji Chenjiao said, “You guess that Mou Dianpei’s roommate and Boss Shen might be the perpetrators, right?”

The relaxed tone made Liu Xuelin pause. He relaxed as well, thinking he had passed the test, and nodded like a bobblehead. “Right, right, they had plenty of opportunity to poison him, and they had a motive, didn’t they?”

“But did you forget something?” Ji Chenjiao’s eyes narrowed coldly. “What killed Mou Dianpei was a rope. He was strangled to death.”

Ji Chenjiao spoke very slowly, his gaze intentionally falling on Liu Xuelin’s hands. Liu Xuelin snatched his hands away as if they had been burned, hiding them under the table. A few seconds later, realizing his reaction was too extreme, he moved them back onto the table.

The surveillance camera on Liu Xuelin’s side showed that during the few seconds he hid his hands, his left thumb repeatedly pressed the web of his right hand.

It was a subconscious action, and he stopped as soon as he realized he shouldn’t be doing it.

In truth, his hands were very rough from years of carrying corpses, and there were no obvious marks from strangling someone. But this action might imply that when he strangled Mou Dianpei, his right hand exerted more force—a common trait for right-handed people. The rope would have dug deep into the web of his right hand, and though it left no mark, the pain lingered. Ji Chenjiao’s stare had made his nerves extremely sensitive, intensifying the sensation of pain.

Ji Chenjiao said, “Does your hand hurt?”

Liu Xuelin was already starting to panic and quickly shook his head. “No, no, I was just scratching it.”

Ji Chenjiao stared at his hand again. “What’s that mark on your right hand?”

“Mark? Where’s a mark?” Liu Xuelin clutched his right hand. “Ah, it’s from moving, moving things.”

Ji Chenjiao: “Why are you so nervous?”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Oh, right, we weren’t finished just now. Since you think either the roommate or Boss Shen poisoned Mou Dianpei, help me analyze this: why would they, after already administering poison and with Mou Dianpei about to die from it, take the risk of strangling him and dumping his body in your car? What kind of strange psychology is that?”

Liu Xuelin: “Because… because…”

Ji Chenjiao: “Because they weren’t the ones who strangled Mou Dianpei.”

Liu Xuelin gasped, and the sweat stain on his shirt grew larger.

Ji Chenjiao: “Liu Xuelin, that day at the entrance of the Third Hospital, your scuffle with Mou Dianpei wasn’t just about snatching a client, was it? Your multiple trips to Yide Lane were to scout the location before making your move, right?”

“No!” Liu Xuelin exploded with anger. “Are you trying to frame me? I’m going to sue you!”

“Frame me?” Ji Chenjiao laughed. “Putting a body in a car and playing the victim of a frame-up… it looks to me like you’re the one who’s a master of that trick.” As he spoke, Ji Chenjiao pointed to the two cameras in the room. “If you want to sue, feel free to take the surveillance footage with you. But on one condition…”

Liu Xuelin held his breath, feeling the entire interrogation room throb with his own heartbeat.

Ji Chenjiao said slowly, “The condition is that you are, in fact, innocent.”

The defiant anger that had just flared up in Liu Xuelin seemed to be extinguished. He slumped into his chair. “I, I request a break.”

“Not so fast. There’s one more question.”

“I need a break.”

“We’ve already been in contact with ‘Gui Yong Tang’.”

Liu Xuelin’s eyes went wide, his body lifting slightly from the chair back, his lips opening and closing.

Ji Chenjiao: “You and Mou Dianpei both had a chance to become part of ‘Gui Yong Tang,’ but it wasn’t easy. ‘Gui Yong Tang’ didn’t need many people; for the area around the Third Hospital, they needed three at most. If Mou Dianpei was chosen, your chances of being selected would have become minuscule.”

Liu Xuelin lowered his head. After a long while, he squeezed out a sentence. “I told you, it wasn’t me. I need a break.”

Huang Yi didn’t expect to get a full confession from Liu Xuelin in a single interrogation. Getting this far was already quite good. His reactions proved the police were on the right track; he wasn’t the one being framed. He had meticulously used the “frame-up” story to absolve himself of the crime.

Unfortunately for him, the police saw through his trick.

Ling Lie followed a team from the municipal bureau to Yide Lane to collect private surveillance footage from the shops along the street. While the team was busy, he wandered into a general store. Such stores were already rare in the city; people preferred supermarkets or online shopping. Only in an urban village like this, filled with a large population of lower-income people, could one still occasionally see a general store.

Looking like an idle loafer, Ling Lie went in and browsed around. The store truly had everything. Roach poison was three yuan a packet, next to two-yuan plastic vegetable washing basins and three-yuan toilet brushes. On the shelf behind him were mirrors with vintage pin-up girl designs and “Double Happiness” brand soap dishes, both common in the last century.

Further inside, there were domestic-brand shampoos for a dozen yuan and skin creams for a few yuan. On another side hung items like wrenches and faucets, which were priced a bit higher. Against a crowded wall was a locked glass cabinet displaying the most valuable goods in the store.

Ling Lie gave it a quick glance and saw video doorbells, door locks, cameras, and Bluetooth selfie sticks.

The shop owner saw Ling Lie stop by the glass cabinet and walked over with a cigarette dangling from his lips. “What can I get for you?”

Ling Lie had actually come to the general store to ask if they sold paraquat, and if not, where he could buy it. In his experience, in a place like Yide Lane, the general store would bear the traces of a person’s life. The residents couldn’t compete with young people for online deals, and things in supermarkets were expensive. They would even ask the general store owner for help with things like lock-picking and unclogging toilets.

A drug like paraquat couldn’t be bought online through legal channels, which left only the general store. But at that moment, Ling Lie became interested in the items in the glass cabinet. “You even sell high-tech stuff like this here?”

“Tsk! I’ve got everything.” The owner patted his beer belly and sized Ling Lie up. “You new here?”

Ling Lie said, “Yeah. What would you recommend?”

“Are you sharing a place or living alone?”

“Living alone.”

“Then you need to buy this.” The owner took out a sensor. “Stick one part on the door and the other on the frame, press it to arm it. If someone opens the door while you’re asleep at night, it’ll…” As he spoke, the owner pressed it hard, and the sensor let out a piercing shriek, startling awake a dog sleeping by the door.

Ling Lie smiled. “Wow, that’s useful. Is it really that chaotic around here?”

The owner said, “Well, it’s all people like us here. Petty theft isn’t strange, and the security isn’t great. Towards the end of the year, thieves from outside also come here to ‘make a living’. You want a camera? You can install it by your door, but if you live alone, a camera or a video doorbell isn’t very useful.”

Ling Lie asked, “Why not?”

“You’re not trying to guard against people inside, but people outside. You can mount a camera by the door, but no matter how securely you fix it, it’s easy for someone to knock it off.” The owner grumbled, “A lot of people your age come to me for compensation. I’m not paying for that; it wasn’t me who knocked it off.”

Ling Lie’s mind raced, feeling as if he had just grasped an important clue. “In that case, what if I’m my age, sharing a place with someone older who has sticky fingers? How can I protect myself from him?”

“Easy!” the owner said proudly. “Buy this. I’ve recommended it to many people. Take this camera home and install it in a common area. Turn it on when you’re not home and see if he’s stealing your things.”

Ling Lie took it. It was a small, uniquely shaped camera, not easily recognizable.

However, to a professional, it was still clearly a camera. Mou Dianpei’s home had been searched. If there had been a camera, it shouldn’t have been missed.

Ling Lie thought for a moment. The owner, thinking he was hesitant to buy, enthusiastically introduced other cameras. He suddenly asked, “Do you have any pinhole cameras here?”

The owner froze, quickly looking left and right, and lowered his voice. “That’s not something that can be sold openly!”

Ling Lie put on a knowing expression and also lowered his voice. “So you do have them, an under-the-table deal?”

The owner became serious. “You really want one?”

“Let me see it first.”

The owner took out a pinhole camera from a wooden cabinet under the glass display, acting secretively. “Very few people buy this. You install it in a power socket…”

Ling Lie asked, “Is it really effective? Won’t it be discovered?”

“No, no! Someone bought one and has been using it just fine!”

“Who?”

The owner became wary and quickly put the pinhole camera away. “What are you asking that for?”

“If someone else is using it well, I’ll feel more confident using it.” Ling Lie didn’t press further about the pinhole camera. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about another business.”

“What?”

“That paraquat, or any other strong poison that can kill a cat or dog instantly. Do you have any here?”

The owner’s eyes widened. “You’ve got some bad intentions!”

Ling Lie scratched his head. “Can’t be helped, too many stray cats. They keep me up at night. Can you get it here?”

The owner hesitated for a moment. “I have it, but…”

Ling Lie watched the owner search for a long time. “Out of stock?”

“I remember now,” the owner said. “I sold it to someone a while ago.”

“Who?”

“How could I tell you that? I have to protect my customer’s privacy.”

Just then, a team member from the municipal bureau called out from outside the shop, “Teacher Ling, there you are. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

The team members were in uniform. The shop owner panicked when he saw them. “You, you!”

Ling Lie took out his credentials and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to cause you trouble. You just need to tell me who bought the last bottle of paraquat.”

The shop owner swallowed hard and told him everything he knew. “It was that Old Mou. He’s dead now anyway, sigh!”