Chapter 40 Shadows in the Sunlight
The two arrived at the classroom and found a large group of people gathered together, discussing something. Everyone's face showed unease and tension, as if something major had happened.
This surprised both Lu Yanhe and Li Pengfei, who didn't know what had happened.
"What's wrong?" Li Pengfei immediately went over to ask.
The topic of discussion is a message that circulated in various group chats last night: it is said that a body was found in a garbage dump last night, and it was a murder.
We are no longer in a chaotic world where countless accidental deaths occur every day. In this peaceful era, the occasional appearance of a body that has died an unnatural death is like a bomb, which can blast a calm pond into a huge splash.
Just like this group of students now.
murder.
The word is so far removed from their lives that when it happens in the city where they live, it feels too close to them.
"It looks like a woman," a classmate said uncertainly.
But these words inexplicably brought to mind the woman named He Ting.
She was wearing a sun hat and was petite.
She stood in the crowded bus and glanced back at him through the crowd.
It was evening, and the car door was already open. Her face was in shadow against the light, so Lu Yanhe couldn't see her face clearly and didn't know what her expression was like at that time.
Could it be her?
When this thought popped into Lu Yanhe's mind, it was accompanied by a chilling feeling.
Lu Yanhe quite enjoys watching crime films, especially those where ordinary people are unexpectedly drawn into a conspiracy or accident. Not the kind of stories like Mission: Impossible or The Bourne Identity that don't actually take place in the world of ordinary people, but rather stories like The Unknown, that take place in a real world. Only when the story's background is in a world that's familiar and relatable to him can he truly empathize with it.
However, at this moment, Lu Yanhe realized that a movie is ultimately just a movie. You know it's a movie, and no matter how immersed you are in it, you still know it's just a story.
But the real world is not like that.
Lu Yanhe sat down and sent a message to Officer Qiu, asking: Officer Qiu, my classmates are saying that a woman was murdered here last night. Is that true?
Officer Qiu, who replied instantly yesterday, hasn't responded to any messages this morning, even after the start of early self-study.
It can't be that much of a coincidence, can it?
Lu Yanhe frowned slightly, suppressing the unease surging within him like earthworms, and focused his attention to begin listening to the lecture.
-
Old Town.
While it was raining heavily on the other side of the 13th Middle School, this area was bathed in sunshine.
Same city, different weather.
A breakfast shop by the roadside had seven or eight tables set up along the street.
A man wearing a white vest with a fierce tiger's head tattooed on his right arm walked over and sat down at a table on the side.
"Boss, a bowl of beef noodles, and an extra serving of steamed buns!" he called out.
"Okay!" the boss replied.
After a while, the owner brought over a steaming bowl of beef noodles and a steamer of xiaolongbao (soup dumplings).
He placed the noodles in front of the man, smiling, and said, "Eat slowly."
Halfway through the meal, a woman wearing sunglasses appeared.
She sat down at Luo Hu's table.
This scene did not arouse any surprise among those around them.
This old town area is home to both lazy, good-for-nothing men who live off their savings and many well-dressed or impeccably made-up elites. The former are remnants of the city, while the latter are outsiders. If there is anything in common between them, it is that neither has been accepted by the glamorous side of the city, so they can only live in this backward old town.
The lazy can leisurely eat for an hour, while the elites must finish within ten minutes and rush to work in the CBD area ten kilometers away. The old city is just their dreamland, the CBD is their true dream.
But the woman wearing sunglasses and with an elegant demeanor was not in a hurry.
After she sat down, she took a pair of disposable chopsticks, ate a small steamed bun slowly, and then asked in a barely audible voice, "Did you handle the person?"
"I brought it, I'll handle it." Luo Hu didn't even raise an eyebrow.
"The surveillance footage shows that she secretly took photos and recorded videos. Did she say who she gave the items to?" the woman asked.
"She said she wanted to give it to a policeman before, but she didn't have time. After you reminded me, I kept an eye on her, and she didn't find an opportunity."
"Just in case, we should still leave," the woman said. "You brought this person here, saying he was honest and reliable, but I never expected him to be so treacherous behind our backs. We finally managed to establish a foothold here, and now we have to give it up."
"Let's lie low for a while and see how things go. It's just one person who died. As long as no one sees those photos and videos and no one finds out what we actually did, it's fine. I've already checked her phone. She's a woman from the countryside, she doesn't know how to use a computer or anything. There's no problem, don't worry."
"You told us before that the person was from your hometown and that we could rest assured, but you still pulled tricks behind our backs, didn't you?" The woman frowned.
"Alright, I'll handle the trouble I caused myself."
"The police have already found the woman's body."
“No matter how you investigate, it’s suicide,” Luo Hu said. “I didn’t kill him.”
"You didn't kill him? Who did you hire to do it? Are you crazy? You dare to hire someone else to do this?" The woman became agitated for the first time after sitting down.
"Calm down, no one else is handling this." Luo Hu smiled slightly. "It's just suicide."
The woman was taken aback.
"Since I dared to bring her here, I naturally have ways to control her." After saying this, Luo Hu put down his chopsticks. "Let's lay low for a while and see how things go before we contact each other again. I'm leaving."
Luo Hu is gone.
He just lied. He Ting did find an opportunity; before she died, she told him that she almost gave the item to a policeman she had met before that night, but he spotted her, and so the opportunity she had finally found was lost.
Luo Hu sighed. The thought of He Ting kneeling on the ground begging for mercy last night filled him with irritation. Why, why couldn't she just clean the house properly? Why did she have to force him to use her daughter to threaten her into jumping off the building?
But he had no intention of telling this woman any of this.
She doesn't need to know. She just needs to know that the crisis is over.
The woman continued eating the xiaolongbao until she finished the last one, then paid the bill and walked in another direction.
This is the old town area, and surveillance cameras haven't been installed here yet, so they can leisurely have breakfast here and then leisurely leave.
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(End of this chapter)
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