Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Jin Wan, the vice captain of the local criminal police was responsible for assisting with Zhao Yu’s investigation. He was about 10 years older than Zhao Yu and looked very vigorous and fierce.
After staying with him for a short while, Zhao Yu found that this man was not at all what he first appeared to be. Instead, he was careful, delicate, and experienced, a police officer who had worked for a long time and had solved many cases.
Currently, it was very early in the morning as Jin Wan turned to to Zhao Yu in the police car and said, “We have four groups of police forces from each branch office to assist you in your investigation. They will all be under your command and at your service at any time. If there is any need beyond that number, we can increase our forces at any time.”
Vice Captain Jin then said, “Also, our bureau chief said that the Yaoming Police Station would cooperate with your Special Investigation Group. If you find a suspect, we also have armed and anti-terrorism forces to support you.”
“Very good!” Zhao Yu said with an authoritative tone that officials usually used. He had started to use such a tone after hearing them use it.
However, Zhao Yu didn’t really need any armed police or anti-terrorism forces at all. But, due to his receiving the Kun hexagram that morning, Zhao Yu felt that he should take a few more precautions. So, now that he was assure that he had the strong support of the local police, he felt much more confident.
Jin Wan then turned to Zhao Yu with a piece of material in his hand and said, “Group Leader Zhao, the technical school that you are investigating closed five years ago. Later, it reopened as a private middle school before then being changed to an elementary school. But, one year ago, along with the city’s transformation, the elementary school moved. Now, all of the original buildings have been demolished, and the old site has become a harbor park.”
Cui Lizhu exclaimed in shock, “No way! It’s really gone?”
“However, according to the information that you have provided…” Vice Captain Jin said quickly, “We found several legal representatives of the technical school at that time, and we also found several teachers and some students of the school from the old address book. We are currently organizing the information, so we will know more about the people who are connected with the school soon. We just can’t know anything yet…”
Zhao Yu interrupted him, saying, “The Golden City police only found a form that had some personal information about Han Kuan from the oil company. It seemed like it had been submitted after he resigned. The form says that Han Kuan went to the school in 1998, so our goal is to find his teachers, classmates, and roommates from that time period.”
Vice Captain Jin wrote all of this down in his notebook, then saluted Zhao Yu and said, “You can rest assured that we shall find something soon, as four of our teams are acting together now!”
“Good…” Zhao Yu said as he waved his hand. “Let’s go and meet the leaders of his school first!”
After Zhao Yu gave the order, the four police teams immediately dispersed and took action. At first, Zhao Yu and Vice Captain Jin thought it would be easy to find out about Han Kuan from his old school. However, after spending the entire morning searching, not one of the four teams had found anything!
This was due to many mitigating factors. First of all, because the school had become different institutes several times since he had attended it, it was almost impossible for them to find old materials from the time when Han Kuan was enrolled there. Moreover, there were no remaining official records about the teachers or students, so they could only look for each possible person on their own.
Secondly, although they successfully found several school representatives, these representatives were all senior leaders, which meant that they didn’t participate in teaching at all. Hence, they could only provide information about the upper management, but were completely ignorant of Han Kuan’s situation.
According to them, this school had been very popular at that time, and 1998 in particular was the most prestigious year for the school. There were 16 classes of students for each year, with each class having more than 60 students. And, because 99% of the students who went to the school were from remote areas, it was very difficult for the police to find them now.
Moreover, Han Kuan had attended a five-year program, during which there was probably a change of classes and a probationary workshop practicum. This revealed that his situation was extremely complex.
At that time, the teachers at the technical school were state authorized staff. Later, because of the reform of the education system, the graduates wouldn’t have state guaranteed jobs, so the enrollment rate had declined sharply, leaving most of the teachers without jobs and scrambling to look for other employment opportunities.
Thus, it was not surprising that Zhao Yu and the others were only able to find a few teachers, even after a half day’s effort. Sadly, none of these handful of teacher had any recollection of having Han Kuan as a student in ant of their classes.
Feeling desperate, the police then called every possible person that they could think of and asked them if they anything about Han Kuan. But, they still did not find anyone!
When it was time for lunch, Jin Wan invited Zhao Yu and Cui Lizhu to share a meal with him at a famous local restaurant in order to introduce them to some of Yaoming’s signature cuisine and culture. Just like in Quliang, since it was so close to the seaside, the restaurants there mostly served seafood.
But, as Zhao Yu had a tight schedule, he kindly declined the kind invitation and had requested to have lunch at a place that was closer instead. At that time, their police car was near the western part of the old city area, which happened to have a street that was lined with especially good seafood markets and vendors as well.
So, after Vice Captain Jin parked the car, he took Zhao Yu and Cui Lizhu to a small restaurant on that street. Unexpectedly, the small restaurant was very busy, and when they went inside, there was only one table available. So, they were lucky to get it!
After Vice Captain Jin looked at the menu, he ordered food for them. As he did so, Zhao Yu frowned tightly and said to Cui Lizhu, “I didn’t expect that it would be so difficult to find information about Han Kuan and his school! I’m thinking about letting Wu Xiumin ask Han Kuan to tell us some of these things directly, such as… What class was he in? Who were his teachers and classmates, and what dormitory did he live in?”
As Zhao Yu was talking, at a table next to them, a group of local people, who were all clearly drunk, were talking loudly. They all spoke with a local accent, which Zhao Yu could not understand. They were so loud that Zhao Yu had to practically yell into Cui Lizhu’s ear for her to hear him.
Zhao Yu turned around and looked at the people. In the past, he would have screamed at them furiously to shut up. However, he had since learned his lesson about fighting, so he tried to restrain himself and not lose his temper.
He then turned around and said to Cui Lizhu, “If Han Kuan answers us honestly, we won’t have a problem. But, if he pretends to not remember his time at school, it means that this information is important to the case and he is avoiding telling us in order to cover something up! Thus, I think that we should not question him ourselves. After all, if he knows that we are investigating him, he will get nervous!”
“I agree. In fact, there is no need for us to show up and make any of this more complicated. Let Wu Xiumin ask him herself…” Cui Lizhu could barely even hear herself speak at this point. Because of this, Cui Lizhu looked at the people at the next table with disgust in her eyes.
Cui Lizhu also had to speak with her mouth right next to Zhao Yu’s ear as she asked, “Why did Han Kuan choose to work as a freelance writer instead of at an oil company? Did he intentionally want to forget his past? If so, I really think there is something fishy about him.”
“Leader Zhao, I ordered some local dishes for us, um…” At this time, Vice Captain Jin held up the menu and wanted Zhao Yu to have a look at it. However, he could not help but frown at the next table as he noticed how loud the drunk people were being.
The drunkards were really going too far! They were making a ton of noise and were speaking loudly, while knocking their bowls with their chopsticks constantly! Some of them were even topless!
Not only was Zhao Yu annoyed by their antics, but all of the guests in the restaurant looked at the noisy people with disgust. But, none of the patrons dared to speak up when they saw that most of these people had tattoos all over their bodies.
“This is intolerable!” Vice Captain Jin yelled angrily.
He then put the menu down on the table and turned around and glared at the drunkards. It seemed that he wanted to give them a stern warning.
Unexpectedly, Zhao Yu suddenly reached out and grabbed him, while calmly advising him, “Captain Jin, let’s just eat our food. We are decent people, and they are not worth the drama or trouble.”
“What the heck?” When she heard this, Cui Lizhu clapped her hand down on the table and almost laughed out loud.
She then asked, “Boss, did I just hear you correctly? You are going to just take this lying down and not doing anything about it?”
“Hey… Tolerance is not my usual style, I know, but I am turning over a new leaf,” Zhao Yu said.
He then chuckled somewhat deviously, then pointed to Cui Lizhu and said in a commanding tone, “However, you can go over and sort all of them out for me! Otherwise, I will fire you!”
