"You drank my medicinal wine?" Yan Xie's first reaction was, "How can you push all the blame on my medicinal wine?!"
Only Jiang Ting's expression changed slightly, while Yang Mei and Qi Sihao were confused, not even knowing what the medicinal wine meant.
Fang Zhenghong laughed briefly, and there seemed to be an irrefutable ruthlessness in his expression: "Yan Xie, Chief Lu has always been on your side. I followed you and was discovered. Even if I jump into the Yellow River now, I won't be able to make it clear to anyone. Besides, everyone here is on your side as well. Naturally, you can deny as much as you want. Even if you speak nonsense, these people will only believe you and not me. Since this is the case, do you even need to pretend to be confused with me? Aren't you stooping too low?"
"..." At this moment, Yan Xie really felt the injustice of innocent citizens being brought to the Criminal Investigation Division for questioning: "But I really don't know. When did you drink my medicinal wine?!"
Fang Zhenghong said angrily: "Didn't you send it to my house?!"
Yan Xie: "Do you think I'm stupid, why would I send something to you?!"
These two were like cats and dogs by nature, always quarreling when they met. Fortunately, Jiang Ting coughed and asked, "What the hell is going on? Please explain slowly, Captain Fang."
Fang Zhenghong always held a strange and reluctant trust in Jiang Ting. He exhaled fiercely when he heard the words, "That was when I was injured a year and a half ago. All the departments of the Municipal Bureau sent condolences to my house. At that time, towards this kid surnamed Yan, I was not so—not so— "
Not so nitpicky to find faults in him, and the two still maintained a harmonious and calm working relationship on the surface.
"Ah, yes." Yan Xie finally remembered: "At that time, Chief Lu ordered everyone to express their condolences to the captain to build team spirit. I was afraid that the price of the gift I chose randomly would be too high, making the other departments look bad, so I casually instructed Ma Xiang to prepare some cheap nutritional supplements or something…"
"The ones delivered to my house were two boxes of nutritional supplements and two small bottles of medicinal wine," Fang Zhenghong said angrily, "The condolence card that you wrote was hanging on the medicinal wine."
Yan Xie was immediately furious when he heard the words: "Why would I handwrite something to give to you? Is your brain okay, Old Fang? After graduating from the police academy, I have never written Chinese characters other than my own name, and even Jiang Ting hasn't received my handwritten love letter!"
Jiang Ting: "..."
Fang Zhenghong: "..."
Jiang Ting rubbed his temples and asked, "Then what?"
"I used to not have much of an opinion on traditional Chinese medicine, but after the injury, my muscles and bones were indeed not as good as before. In addition, I was also influenced by the people around me, so I knew that medicinal wine was very effective in promoting blood circulation and rheumatism." Fang Zhenghong paused for a while, then admitted reluctantly: "Although this kid, Yan Xie, is frivolous, he gives people good things. I saw that it was sent by him, so…"
"You drank all the wine," Jiang Ting confirmed.
Fang Zhenghong nodded angrily.
Jiang Ting and Yan Xie looked at each other, and the latter had "WTF" written all over his face.
"Then you were poisoned immediately?" Jiang Ting asked again.
"I drank a small cup every day. I didn't feel anything wrong at first, but after a while, my heart felt uncomfortable and it would often beat abnormally. I first thought this was caused by fatigue, so I gradually reduced my working hours and no longer did all the work. I thought I would recover after a while, but the disease had become more and more serious, and I hadn't been able to find out what happened when I went to the hospital."
Fang Zhenghong took a breath, shook his head, and said, "It just dragged on like this until a few months ago an old acquaintance of my wife who studied Chinese medicine came to visit and suggested that I might have ingested toxins from Chinese herbal medicines. I immediately thought of the two bottles of medicinal wine. At that time, only a small amount was left in the second bottle. I took it to an acquaintance for analysis, and sure enough, he found an extremely trace amount of aconitine, which was not enough to kill."
Aconitine!
Yan Xie and Jiang Ting stood up straight at the same time.
"So you suspect that I deliberately poisoned you?" Yan Xie asked incredulously, "Then why didn't you say it at the time?"
Fang Zhenghong was angry and annoyed: "I said it! I immediately took the physical evidence to Chief Lu for a thorough investigation, but do you know how Chief Lu responded?!"
A year ago, the Jianning Municipal Bureau——
"He has always been very uncooperative with my work and has a lot of personal prejudice! This was his motive!" In the chief's office, Fang Zhenghong banged the big desk, his face flushed with anger: "It makes sense that a frivolous and high-profile rich boy like Yan Xie would hold a grudge because he was reprimanded several times by me, so he deliberately took revenge! Otherwise, how can you explain the clear aconitine in this examination result?!"
Chief Lu sat behind his desk, his round face expressionless until Fang Zhenghong had finished roaring and venting, at which point he slowly opened his mouth and said, "You have no evidence, Old Fang."
"How is this not called evidence? It's obviously—"
"If aconite is not processed through strict procedures, it is common for traces of aconitine to remain. There will be no disease reaction as severe as yours if this dose of alkaloid toxins is given to a normal, healthy person. Therefore, it is difficult to prove that Yan Xie intentionally poisoned you."
Fang Zhenghong was furious: "You are obviously shielding him, you are clearly…"
"I'm not." Chief Lu said quietly, "I'm just stating a fact. The fact is that you can't prove that this bottle of medicinal wine was given to you by Yan Xie and not bought by yourself."
"..." Fang Zhenghong stared at Chief Lu in disbelief, as if he was meeting him for the first time today.
"Old Fang," Chief Lu seemed to realize that his words were heavy and changed his tone to a more gentle one: "You have a conflict with Yan Xie. Everyone knows this, but I know you well. You wouldn't deliberately frame him. I just want to remind you that you have to take into account two possibilities: the first is that you have a deep personal prejudice against him so that you are emotionally inclined to think that he would harm you; the second is…"
"You two are on the same side." Fang Zhenghong stepped back, gritted his teeth, and said, "You two are on the same side."
Chief Lu frowned: "Old Fang—"
"I understand." Fang Zhenghong's complexion changed from red to pale. He clenched his hands tightly into fists by his side, saying, "I will prove it to you."
Chief Lu got up and raised his hand as if he still wanted to explain something, but Fang Zhenghong had already turned around and rushed out the door, and the only answer to him was the loud slamming of the door.
...…
"I didn't send that," Yan Xie shook his head absurdly in the hotel room, "At that time, I casually ordered people to buy some supplements, but I definitely didn't ask them to send medicinal wine!"
Fang Zhenghong stared at him coldly.
"What a joke! The more familiar people are with medicinal wine, the more they know that this thing can't be sent casually. If the medicinal properties conflict with the disease, it will be detrimental to the patient. Besides, my relationship with Captain Fang wasn't that good to begin with. What would I say if something goes wrong? Even giving two bottles of Melatonin* is better than giving medicinal wine!"
[*T/N: Medicine to help with sleep (usually used for insomnia)]
This was the truth.
Yan Xie looked carefree on the surface, but he was actually very cautious. He did have the calmness and arrogance of a rich man, but he also understood how sensitive people could be.
Sending medicinal wine of unknown origin to his workplace opponent was not something Yan Xie would do.
Jiang Ting asked, "Who sent that?"
Yan Xie paced around twice, suddenly stood still, took out his mobile phone, and made a call: "Hello, Ma Xiang?"
"Hey, Brother Yan! Brother Yan, you finally called. Our whole team misses you very much. Does Consultant Lu need someone to accompany him for the pregnancy test? You can tell me whenever you want…"
Yan Xie interrupted him: "When Fang Zhenghong was injured last summer, Chief Lu asked our team to send something to express our condolences; who prepared the gifts at that time?"
Ma Xiang over the phone was obviously taken aback: "Ah?"
"Who prepared it?!"
"You…you asked me to prepare it. I was busy at the time and had no idea what to do, so I just bought two boxes of Melatonin and two boxes of liquid supplements for menopause…"
The corners of everyone's mouth twitched slightly, and Fang Zhenghong's face turned red again.
It was impossible for Ma Xiang to be "busy and had no idea what to do". His small notebook contains detailed records of what he did each day: how many overtime shifts he has, and how much the country owes him for overtime, travel allowance, holiday expenses, spiritual damages, and psychological compensation fees—the so-called "busy and had no idea what to do" period was when he was busy scraping the city bureau wifi.
Yan Xie rubbed his aching eyebrows: "You gave Fang Zhenghong self-made medicinal wine?!"
"What, no, medicinal wine?" Ma Xiang was full of grievances: "Can that be given casually? Am I that careless?!"
Yan Xie looked at Fang Zhenghong, whose expression also changed.
Jiang Ting stood by the side with his arms crossed and raised his chin: "Ask Ma Xiang how the condolences that Ma Xiang prepared were sent to Fang Zhenghong's house."
"Hey, is that Consultant Lu!" Ma Xiang heard Jiang Ting's words and greeted him enthusiastically: "Hello, Consultant Lu! Our whole team misses you very much. Has Brother Yan stopped doing housework or made you angry? If you need a thug to say hello, please let me know ha…"
Yan Xie: "He asked you something!"
"Oh, yes, after I placed an order on Taobao, it was directly delivered to the Municipal Bureau and then transferred to the General Affairs Department. This kind of work, like writing condolences to build team spirit, is for the General Affairs Department. They should have gathered all the gifts from each department and delivered them to that surnamed Fang's residence." Ma Xiang reacted to something and wondered: "What happened, Brother Yan, why did you suddenly mention this? Does that goblin, surnamed Fang, come to pester you again?"
No one dared to look back at Fang Zhenghong's expression.
Yan Xie reprimanded weakly: "How can you talk like this? You must learn to respect senior police officers. Ask the General Affairs Department to investigate who was responsible for sending the condolences to Fang Zhenghong's house a year and a half ago. If you can't find out, ask someone to transfer the surveillance around Fang Zhenghong's house at that time. This matter is very important, so do it immediately! Stop talking and hang up."
Ma Xiang was still babbling, so Yan Xie hung up the call as if running for his life.
The room was silent, and after a long time, only the little goblin surnamed Fang said coldly:
"You criminal investigation police officers really follow their superiors, and they're really well educated!"
Yan Xie knew that he was wrong, so he smiled, saying that Xiao Ma was young and ignorant, and he would definitely teach him properly in the future.
Jiang Ting forcibly changed the embarrassing topic: "So when Captain Fang saw Qin Chuan preparing to drink medicinal wine, he was naturally very angry, thinking that Yan Xie might use the same method to harm someone again?"
Fang Zhenghong rolled his eyes at Yan Xie, turned to Jiang Ting, shook his head, and said sternly: "Actually, it's not that. No matter how confused I was, I wouldn't think that Yan Xie had the guts to kill people in the city bureau—if he had secretly given the medicinal wine to Qin Chuan, I guess I would have had another reaction."
"So you were just disgusted?" Jiang Ting confirmed it with him.
"Yes. Since that incident, I have had a great psychological shadow. Anything I eat in my mouth will never be given to me by others, and things like medicinal wine will not even touch my teeth."
Jiang Ting had one hand on his chest and the other rubbed his throat as he pondered, "How many people in the city bureau are aware of your psychological shadow?"
Fang Zhenghong answered clearly: "I only told Chief Lu. It was when I came back to work a few months ago, and he asked me why I wasn't eating in the cafeteria."
The surroundings were unusually quiet, and everyone seemed to understand whether they did or not; only Yan Xie suddenly thought of something and looked at Jiang Ting.
Jiang Ting nodded without saying a word, and then asked the last key question:
"Then, does your Vice-Captain, Qin Chuan, know?"
Fang Zhenghong's face changed, and he stood up from the bed: "Qin Chuan? No, it's impossible—it can't be Qin Chuan!"
"I'm just guessing." Jiang Ting's attitude was very calm, and the facial muscles that would never be tense remained relaxed: "There is no monitoring, no witnesses, and no evidence for the poisoning incident, and the criminal investigators can only use their own way of thinking to try to figure out the murderer's thoughts. If I am Qin Chuan, who has a good relationship with most people in the Criminal Investigation Division, and is able to enter and leave the large office of the Criminal Investigation Division at will without causing suspicion, then I have sufficient time and conditions for poisoning…"
"But if it wasn't for me to stop him, Qin Chuan would've already drunk the poisonous wine!" Fang Zhenghong objected fiercely: "And he wasn't pretending to drink a little; the medicinal wine he was going to drink was an absolutely lethal dose!"
Yes, it really didn't make sense.
If Qin Chuan was the poisoner, knowing that the medicinal wine was poisonous, he would not have poured a full glass of poison to drink, even if he had to clear his suspicions. Otherwise, he would be playing with his own life, and there was no need to do that at all.
As a criminal investigator, Qi Sihao, although he was really stupid, listened to the side for a long time and finally couldn't help but hesitantly raise his hand to speak: "That… didn't Captain Fang just say that he had a psychological shadow, what if Qin Chuan took advantage of this…"
"No, that's too far-fetched." As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Xie shook his head in denial: "What if Fang Zhenghong hadn't stopped him? What if Fang Zhenghong even came up and said that he wanted to drink it too? With that much uncertainty, gambling with a lethal dose of poisonous wine is impossible."
Qi Sihao was a little embarrassed: "I only thought this since you said that Qin Chuan is the vice-captain. It was obvious that he had benefited the most after Captain Fang became a suspect…"
Yan Xie said casually, "That's not necessarily the case. Many of the vice captains' authorities are restricted when they temporarily assume the captain's post. Just like my daily work has to be reported to Chief Wei, Qin Chuan also has a lot of work to report to Chief Lu. This way, if Captain Fang was gone, many specific decisions of the anti-drug division would be taken over by Chief… Chief Lu."
His voice stopped abruptly, and he and Jiang Ting both looked at each other; the faces of the two became unsightly.
Who was the "Old Lu" who was called by Yue Guangping in the middle of the night to complain about his sins?
Who was the one who visited the door at the last minute, had a private conversation with the undefended Yue Guangping, and killed him?
Assuming that Jiang Ting's existence has already been exposed, what was the psychology of Chief Lu, who has been quietly covering it up?
——Some sort of inexplicable professional conscience, or simply an instruction from the King of Spades?
The sun was shining brightly outside the window, but the cold and deep chill slowly filled their hearts, freezing their throats.
"It can't be like this, how can it be like this?…" Fang Zhenghong murmured while holding his head. He was already more suspicious and stubborn than ordinary people, and now he was scratching his hair nervously, "The person who wants to hurt me isn't Yan Xie, could it be… could it be…"
If this were normal, Yan Xie would definitely roll his eyes and mock him with a few words, but now he had nothing to think about.
"No, I have to go back and check it again. I will go back now." Fang Zhenghong stood up suddenly, gritted his teeth, raised his eyes, turned around, and rushed out: "There must be a way to verify this; there must be proof somewhere, there must be!
No one had time to stop him. Yan Xie stepped forward in three steps and two steps in anger: "Where the f*ck are you going?"
Fang Zhenghong had already rushed out of the hotel room, rushing forward in the red-carpeted corridor. Hearing this, he turned around and roared: "I think there may be clues somewhere, I'll look for it!"
The old boy surnamed Fang looked like he was about to have a heart attack, and he even forgot the basic professional qualities of a criminal investigator and just started shouting in the corridor. Yan Xie only felt that the scene was beautiful, but he didn't have the time to appreciate it. He followed behind to dissuade him, but in vain: "Wait first, we will pack up and return to Jianning with you…"
"I didn't intend to harm you; I have an alibi for that night when the shooting happened." Fang Zhenghong strode back toward the elevator, waving his right hand and gnashing his teeth, swearing: "Surnamed Yan, I never thought of harming you! Wait for my call!"
Yan Xie opened his mouth, and before he could shout, he saw Fang Zhenghong turn around angrily, almost knocking the passing waitress over.
Yan Xie: "..."
Fang Zhenghong rushed into the elevator under the terrified gaze of the little waitress, like a wild donkey off the reins.
Yan Xie really exhausted all his life's self-restraint to force the phrase "you're crazy" back into his throat and turned back to the room full of people: "Look at him, he's just like that, and he's still scolding our criminal investigation division all day long for not being reliable?!…"
Jiang Ting frowned and said, "He said just now that he still had a clue somewhere?"
Yan Xie shrugged inexplicably.
All of them didn't know how to react, but Jiang Ting grabbed his coat and car keys and made a decisive decision: "He can think of the murderer as well. Don't let Fang Zhenghong act alone; we will follow."