Animal Detective

Chapter 174: The Third Possibility

The topic of children should have been a sensitive one, but it seemed to have opened the floodgates for Yang Huixia. Shen Xin had no choice but to follow her lead.

He asked where the monkey came from.

"It was a gift."

Yang Huixia beckoned to Bubu. He immediately scampered over, perching on the back of the stone bench and glaring at Shen Xin.

"Back then, when we were preparing to open Cute Pet Paradise, we went out of town to buy animals."

"My husband wasn’t planning on buying any monkeys at the time. But he happened to see a group of them, and in the middle of it was a baby monkey, clinging to its mother and nursing."

"The thing is, the mother monkey was already dead. It was such a pitiful sight. The owner had so many that he didn’t care, but my husband is a softy, so he offered to buy it."

"The owner told us to just take it, so my husband brought him back. He was just a tiny, skinny thing. My husband raised him by hand."

Shen Xin looked over at Bubu. He stopped teasing him and tossed the remaining half of the beef stick directly to him.

Bubu snatched it out of the air and began eating with great relish.

Yang Huixia stroked his head and sighed. "Officer, you should go. I just feel all choked up. I’ll sit for a bit longer, then I’ll head down."

She turned to look down the mountain. "My husband and I used to come sit here often. Right over there."

She suddenly pointed at a cluster of buildings in the distance.

’That must be Peony Garden, a very expensive, high-end residential complex.’

"My husband always told me that once we made enough money, we absolutely had to buy an apartment there. But in the end, we never saved up enough."

Yang Huixia gave a bitter smile and told Shen Xin to go on ahead, assuring him that she was fine.

Shen Xin didn’t dare leave. He said he happened to be free anyway, and since the view was nice, he might as well enjoy it.

Seeing his insistence, Yang Huixia simply got to her feet. "Fine," she said helplessly. "We’ll go down together. How about that?"

"Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill myself." She fell silent for a moment before adding, "Sometimes I want to die, but then I remember our son. I have to raise him, don’t I?"

She sniffled and started walking down the mountain.

Shen Xin immediately followed.

Bubu, however, didn’t move. He remained perched on the stone bench, looking all around.

"Don’t worry about him," Yang Huixia said. "He knows the way back."

Shen Xin nodded, gave Bubu one last look, and followed Yang Huixia down the mountain.

They didn’t speak on the way back. Upon returning to the park, Yang Huixia went about her work as if nothing had happened.

"Officer Shen, is she alright? Should we give her some time off?" Yang Daoqiang asked nervously.

He had been terrified earlier as well.

’You’re the manager,’ Shen Xin thought. ’Why are you asking me if she should get time off?’

’But where would she go, even with time off? She can’t go back to her husband’s family. In her heart, this park—the place she and her husband had worked so hard for, dreaming of a bright future—was probably her real home.’

Shen Xin stayed at the park until late afternoon, near closing time.

"So, these are the two alligators?"

Shen Xin was staring blankly at the two alligators when Zhao Tianxing’s voice sounded beside him.

The two of them had come to pick him up.

Zhao Tianxing pursed his lips. "Shen Xin, alligators aren’t parrots. Take it easy and don’t do anything reckless."

Beside him, Ding Yuwei nodded in agreement.

She had been on edge all day, afraid that Shen Xin, left to his own devices, would do something reckless and have an accident.

"I’m not that stupid."

Shen Xin dusted off his hands and left with the two of them.

Once in the car and heading back to the sub-bureau, Shen Xin asked them how their canvassing went.

Ding Yuwei gave him an update, shaking her head slightly. "Nothing new. It’s the same as what’s in the case file. We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary."

"We also went to Pingyu to see Yang Huixia’s parents. Oh, and by the way, do you know how Yang Huixia and Zhu Guishen met?"

Shen Xin shook his head.

Ding Yuwei explained, "Apparently, back when Yang Huixia was working here in Nanjiang, she was knocked over by a motorcyclist. The rider was afraid of being held responsible, so he just sped off."

"Just then, Zhu Guishen happened to be driving by in his van, making a delivery. He immediately chased after the motorcyclist and cut him off. Then he took Yang Huixia to a clinic to get her wounds dressed. That’s how they met."

"Shen Xin, talk about a real-life hero saving the damsel in distress, huh?"

Shen Xin nodded and asked if they had found any other useful leads.

"Not really," said Ding Yuwei. "Oh, right, we checked Yang Huixia’s bank statements. We found that out of her monthly salary of fifty-five hundred yuan, she only keeps fifteen hundred for herself. She sends three thousand to Zhu Zhenyuan and another thousand to her parents."

"And Gou Jinlan is the one who collects it."

The thought of Gou Jinlan made Ding Yuwei fume.

’She bad-mouths her daughter-in-law in front of Zhu Yuchen, yet she doesn’t hesitate to take every last cent.’

"That’s it?" Shen Xin pressed.

Ding Yuwei nodded. That was really all they had.

Zhao Tianxing, who was driving, said, "Shen Xin, there are only two possibilities in this case. Either Yang Huixia killed him and figured out how to dispose of the body—whether she buried it or fed it to the alligators."

"Or, Zhu Guishen ran off on his own. He got tired of his life, wanted to dodge his debts, and just disappeared without a trace."

’That’s just stating the obvious,’ Shen Xin thought.

After a pause, Shen Xin said, "Actually, there’s a third possibility."

When they both looked at him, Shen Xin continued, "That Zhu Guishen met with an accident somewhere we don’t know about."

Seeing their confusion, Shen Xin explained, "It’s like Brother Xing said. There are two main possibilities: either he’s in hiding, or Yang Huixia killed him."

"Hiding is unlikely. He has parents and a son. Could he really go more than two years without contacting them?"

"As for being murdered by Yang Huixia..." Shen Xin paused. "I’m now starting to think that’s unlikely, too."

Ding Yuwei was surprised. "But weren’t you dead set on Yang Huixia being the killer before?"

"That was before."

Shen Xin said, a bit awkwardly, "Based on the case file at the time, so many suspicious details pointed to Yang Huixia. It wasn’t a stretch for me to think she was the killer, was it?"

Ding Yuwei nodded, then asked what had changed his mind.

Shen Xin hesitated. "I just get the feeling she really, truly loved Zhu Guishen."

’Up on the peak, when Yang Huixia pointed to Peony Garden and talked about working hard to buy an apartment there... for that one moment, her eyes were truly shining.’

"Of course, it’s also possible for love to curdle into hate."

Shen Xin quickly backtracked. "But I think this should be an angle for our investigation."

’The two existing avenues are leading nowhere, so we have to consider the third possibility.’

’The one percent chance.’

"During the few days after Yang Huixia argued with Zhu Guishen and went back to her parents’ home, we don’t know Zhu Guishen’s whereabouts. It’s possible he had some kind of accident during that time."

"For example, what if someone else murdered him and disposed of the body, and the case just never came to light?"

At this, Shen Xin said, "I have an idea. Ding Yuwei, come with me tomorrow to check something out."

「The next day.」

Shen Xin took Ding Yuwei to Dingshan Temple.

It was a free municipal tourist spot, and the mountain roads and park facilities had been funded by Dingshan Street.

Because of this, there was a management office on the mountain, along with sanitation workers responsible for keeping the area clean.

The person in charge was a man named Li. Shen Xin asked him who had been responsible for cleaning Lotus Peak two years ago.

"We rotate shifts over there."

He thought for a moment, then led Shen Xin outside to find a sanitation worker who was emptying trash cans.

She was a middle-aged woman named Fan Ting.

"May 13th, 2015." She thought hard, then shook her head. "I think I was the one who collected the trash there, but I don’t really remember much. It’s been two years."

"What about the 14th?"

Shen Xin pressed on.

’Yang Huixia had reported him missing on the 15th.’

’So the most likely time frame for the incident was still the 13th to the 14th.’

"Nothing special." She shook her head again.

Shen Xin frowned.

’It could be that there was genuinely nothing out of the ordinary, or it could be that she just didn’t remember.’

’After all, two years had passed. If nothing special had happened on an otherwise ordinary day, there was no reason she would remember it.’