Chapter 98 Chapter 11 “Who are you, how come…” …
"Who are you? How come..."
Come in without knocking?
When Wei Sheng barged in somewhat rudely, Pan Song was very annoyed. He was about to scold this impolite young man, but after seeing who the person was, he swallowed the second half of his words.
"Are you the younger brother from yesterday?"
Li Zheng did not attend the reception the day before, so Pan Song and his leader went to pick up the inspection team's car.
At that time, this young man got off the car, talking and laughing with a group of people on the bus.
Although he explained as soon as he got off the car, saying that he was just hitchhiking, and that his family was worried about him going so far alone to visit a friend, so they just happened to bring him along.
It turns out he is not from the inspection team.
But does it matter?
There are at least two very important nodes that will never change, and he is from Jinghai.
Jinghai, there are so many powerful people in that place that you can easily hit an important person by throwing two bricks. And seeing how familiar those people are with him, you can tell that his family must be extraordinary.
At that time, Pan Song went up to chat, but he didn't expect that the friend the young man was looking for would be Li Zheng, so he left in a hurry after a few words. Later, another case happened and he left too.
I didn't expect to meet him again so soon.
"You are the one that day..."
Pan Song forced a kind smile.
"Why are you here? Actually, Cheongdam is a bit boring for you young people, but I know a few fun places..."
He mentioned several restaurants with relatively high average consumption, and mentioned that he had been there before. The environment, taste and service were all very good, and he highly recommended them.
Wei Sheng didn't even say a perfunctory word.
He had just heard a warning from the system saying that the target of the mission was experiencing strong emotional fluctuations, so he hurried up. As soon as he came in, he saw Officer Li staring out the window with a dazed look on his face.
"Did you see that?"
He was still looking out the window, but his words seemed to be addressed to Wei Sheng beside him.
Wei Sheng followed his gaze and looked out the window.
It was just an ordinary window. Outside the window was the courtyard of the Municipal Public Security Bureau. There was a row of ordinary trees planted in the courtyard, and the blue sky and white clouds.
The weather was pretty good that day.
What's going on outside the window?
"That crow. Gone again."
"crow?"
Is this setting in comics and games? Wei Sheng thought carefully for a while. There was no mention of crows in the plot, but there might be player props. It functions like a monitor. Players can see what they want to see through the crow's eyes.
According to the setting, this crow can only be seen by the owner of the prop, and the person being monitored should not be able to see it, but can Officer Li actually see it?
Wei Sheng was once again impressed by Officer Li's exceptionally sharp observation. As a system NPC, he could actually spot the props that were monitoring him. He was also thankful that he had considered using the surveillance device when he first arrived in this world, only to discover that the prop was malfunctioning and showing as occupied.
He cursed the system in his mind for a long time, and the system said it didn't know why. It had checked several times and said there was no problem.
Fortunately, he didn't do that.
Otherwise, you will definitely be discovered.
But since he didn't do it...
That……
Wei Sheng suddenly thought that this might be related to the later death of Officer Li.
Whether in the comics, the linked games, the Easter eggs, or the extra plots, there is actually no clear explanation of how Officer Li died.
When he was found, he was already dead. In the river. Because so many crimes pointed to him at the time, some people said he committed suicide out of fear of punishment.
After his death, those bizarre cases did not happen again, so over time, it seemed that Officer Li really became the murderer.
It was not until the real protagonist appeared that Officer Li was cleared of the charges. As for the cause of Officer Li's death that year, it was only vaguely stated that he might have been under too much pressure and fell into the river accidentally in a trance.
So is that really the case?
The true culprit behind the serial killings from years ago remains unanswered. Years later, the protagonist has limited witnesses and clues, ultimately deducing that the killer is an awakened NPC who exploited the game's path, and who may have a connection to Officer Li.
But who is the NPC who awakened in the first generation?
This remains an unknown mystery.
Could it be related to this crow?
Before Wei Sheng could ask the question in his mind, Officer Li, who had just been staring blankly at the window, quickly returned to the expression he often saw in the past.
He frowned and looked at Wei Sheng.
"Why are you here? Don't run around. There are some rooms you can't enter. If you have nothing to do, go play around. There's an internet cafe nearby."
cybercafe?
Wei Sheng laughed: "Do you really treat me like a child?"
Li Zheng didn't explain anything and continued to speak in a tone that sounded like he was assigning a task: "Since you don't want to go to the internet cafe, go to my office first. You should know where it is. Wait there and I'll come find you."
Wei Sheng: “Oh.”
There were only two people left in the office again.
One of them lowered his head and scanned the case information at a glance, while the other looked at Li Zheng from head to toe and back again as if it was the first day he met him.
"It seems you're not as indifferent to fame and fortune as the rumors say." He said jokingly, "How did you get to know him?"
"ah?"
Li Zheng was so focused on reading the information that he didn't hear what Pan Song said. After reading all the information about the case, he expressed his opinion very carefully.
"I think there seems to be a very tenuous connection between these cases."
"What connection?" Pan Song paused, thinking of some rumors about the bureau. "Those kids were just joking, and you believed them? You think it was a ghost?"
"I………"
Li Zheng inevitably thought of what Wei Sheng had said to him, the crows that seemed to be visible only to him, and the bizarre causes and scenes of death.
Li Zheng has a lot to say.
He is a very cautious person. He will not make a conclusion before something is 100% confirmed. So he added: "I can't be 100% sure now. It's just a guess."
Pan Song hummed, his eyes falling on Li Zheng's obvious dark circles, thin shoulders, and legs that looked no different from those of a normal person.
"I think you need a break sometimes."
There have been several murders in Qingtan in recent days. People who know the news are in a panic. In order to stabilize the situation, the police bureau has doubled the number of police officers for daily patrols. However, the deputy captain of the Qingtan City Criminal Investigation Brigade seems to be unaffected.
He picked up the tea on the table with one hand, lifted the lid with the other, scraped off the foam, and took a leisurely sip. "Work is work, life is life. We must learn to separate the two. We just need to do our best. Why push ourselves so hard? You can't let me lose my life, right?"
He said this without blushing or beating his heart. Li Zheng did not refute, but he did not agree either.
"I'm going to the scene first."
Li Zheng returned to his office. About ten steps away, he heard a faint meow of a kitten. The closer he got, the clearer the meow became.
When he opened the door, he saw a white cat hiding under the table. Wei Sheng was squatting with his back to him, constantly making sounds to tease the kitten under the table.
“Mimi, Mimi…”
"What are you doing?"
Hearing the noise behind him, Wei Sheng turned around and asked Officer Li who was standing at the door, "Did you feed this kitten?"
“…”
Li Zheng didn't say anything.
But the next moment, the kitten that had been shivering and hiding under the table seemed to smell something again. It ran towards Li Zheng with its tail erect, meowing, and rubbed its head against his legs and the surface of his shoes affectionately.
The kitten is a tortoiseshell cat, which looks to be no more than four or five months old. It doesn't look very good. Its fur is too colorful and patchy, like it's smoky. The whole cat looks very sloppy, but from its chubby body, you can tell that it usually eats well.
Wei Sheng pointed at the door and described it vividly:
"I was just sitting around with nothing to do, so I thought I'd clean your office. Just as I finished wiping the table, that ugly cat appeared. As soon as it saw me, it crawled under the table..."
Li Zheng took a thick bag of files and walked to his desk. He placed the files in the middle drawer and closed it.
The kitten followed him like a tail.
Meowing non-stop.
"No, this cat is really yours? So you like kittens. Don't say it, actually, if you look closely, this kitten looks really... really unique."
Wei Sheng used the image to lure the kitten over again, holding the pendant on his phone to attract the kitten's attention. "What's its name? How old is it?"
"I didn't raise him."
This cat was born to a stray cat. When its mother gave birth to them only one month ago, she was run over and killed by a speeding car while crossing the road.
Because the highway is not far from the Municipal Public Security Bureau, a few kittens often appeared in the yard within a few days. They were fine during the day, but they started howling sharply at night.
The other cats in the same litter, including a white one, two orange ones, and a black one, were adopted by other colleagues one after another. This one didn't look that good, and was too afraid of people, so it was left behind.
Later, when Li Zheng was working overtime in the office late at night, he saw the kitten running towards him. At the time, the kitten was skinny and bony. He bought some cat food on his phone. After feeding it once, the kitten started coming over frequently to beg for food, and eventually it became fat.
Doesn't this count as raising?
Li Zheng corrected himself again: "...I don't like cats. I didn't raise it, didn't give it a name, but it's called a cat."
He walked to a row of cabinets behind his desk, opened the door of the bottom one, and took out a bag of cat food and two white porcelain bowls.
I filled one bowl with cat food and filled the other bowl with water from the water dispenser next to it and placed it on the ground. The kitten started eating without me having to tell it to.
When everything was done, he stood up.
"I'm going to the scene now, are you coming?"
It can be seen that Officer Li did not touch the kitten at all during the whole process. He probably really doesn't like cats, but he still fed it for such a long time and raised it to be fat.
Officer Li is such a kind person.
"What are you standing there for? Aren't you going?"
"Ohhhh here it comes."
The weather that day was indeed very good, neither too cold nor too hot, but perhaps because he had just seen the crow not long ago, Li Zheng always felt uneasy.
Last night he checked the intranet to see if there had been any such cases in recent years, but he found nothing. In other words, did it start with the case at the Electricity Bureau?
As I was thinking, I passed a red light at an intersection. This time the red light lasted for a particularly long time.
Li Zheng stopped the car and turned off the engine.
I could vaguely hear a sirens coming from outside. After a while, an ambulance with lights flashing sped past from the emergency lane, followed by two or three police cars with sirens blaring, all heading towards Mingzhu Square.
Li Zheng glanced over for no apparent reason. He remembered that he was in this direction when he had coffee with an old classmate.
Earlier, during the two years when he was in school, Mingzhu Square was much more lively than it is now. It has been a little quieter in recent years, but it is still one of the iconic landmarks of Cheongdam City.
Since it is the center of the old city, there are many hospitals and schools nearby. In fact, even if a vehicle is heading there, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, right?
After the red light ended, Li Zheng subconsciously turned the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator to change direction.
When the car stopped in the underground garage of Mingzhu Plaza, looking at the completely unfamiliar scene outside, Wei Sheng belatedly realized that Officer Li had changed the destination.
“Is this the Sunshine Community?”
"No." Li Zheng did not argue, got out of the car and walked towards Mingzhu Plaza.
He walked quickly and in a short while he was out of the parking lot and on the first floor of the square.
As soon as I came up, I found that there were a lot of people up there. I vaguely heard a few onlookers saying that someone had died again?
Dead people?!
Li Zheng pushed through the crowd and walked into the mall. There were two police officers setting up a cordon in front of a restaurant. They happened to be acquaintances of Li Zheng.
"Captain Li, why are you here so quickly?"
"what happens?"
He wanted to ask more about the deceased when he suddenly heard someone calling him from behind. He turned around and saw it was his old classmate Hu Hui, whom he had met in a cafe before.
Compared to the last time they met, Hu Hui was obviously still in a state of panic.
When people are afraid and see someone familiar, they will naturally move closer to the other person. Therefore, even though he was being questioned by a young policeman at the time, when he saw Li Zheng, he immediately stood up and walked towards him.
The young policeman who was taking notes subconsciously wanted to stop him, but when he noticed that it was Li Zheng on the other side, he didn't stop him.
"Oh, Li Zheng, it's really you who came. I said I would call you later."
If they were unrelated people, they should be outside the cordon at this moment. Those who could be kept for questioning would either be witnesses or people related to the deceased.
Li Zheng asked briefly: "What happened?"
"I don't know what happened. I just went to the bathroom and when I came back..."
"Who's in trouble?"
Li Zheng interrupted Hu Hui's long speech and continued to ask the key points.
"Liu Yingying. The girl I told you about before, the one in our class. Didn't I say I could be your matchmaker?"
Li Zheng felt as if his brain exploded, and everything that happened before his eyes and the sounds he heard began to become blurry.
Another one... related to him...
"I contacted her online first and casually mentioned you to her. I thought she didn't know you were back in Cheongdam, but when I told her, she said she knew. She said she had seen you from a distance before, but you were on a mission at the time, so she didn't come up to say hello."
Hu Hui has had the bad habit of chattering since he started school, and it seems that he has not corrected this habit until now. He continued to chatter about how he talked to her.
"I tried to test Yingying's feelings, and she seemed a bit interested. I tried to persuade her, since we were old friends and knew each other well, and she agreed. Then we arranged to discuss it in detail here today..."
"We had a good chat today, but I went to the bathroom. I just went to the bathroom. It took about three minutes, maybe five?"
"My wife and I had a phone call, and before we even finished, I suddenly heard a lot of people screaming outside. When I came out, Yingying was sitting in her original position, with the lamppost above her standing straight up... Oh my God... Oh my God, if I had known this would happen, I would... I... I..."
At this point, Hu Hui seemed to recall some very scary scene, his brows were tightly furrowed, and his speech became a little incoherent.
"I...this...this..."
Li Zheng patted his shoulder.
"I roughly understand. Has the person been taken away by ambulance? Is he still breathing?"
"I don't know, but there was so much blood, oh my god. What's wrong with this store? They didn't even check for such a safety hazard?"
Seeing that he could not get any useful information from his old classmate, Li Zheng turned around and glanced at the policeman who had just questioned Hu Hui.
"How about it."
"He's still breathing a little bit." The young policeman said solemnly, "But he's bleeding too much. The situation is very serious..."
“………”
Li Zheng was silent.
Several more policemen came one after another to check the fallen chandelier, some were taking pictures, some were evacuating the crowd, and several men and women in uniform were being questioned in another room. They should be the store clerks and the owner.
As the leader present, Li Zheng naturally maintained order at the scene. Suddenly, he looked behind him.
Where is Wei Sheng?
Ever since he showed up, don't keep clinging to him like a piece of sticky candy that you can't get rid of.
And now it's gone?!
Where did he go?
Nothing will happen, right?
Li Zheng took out his cell phone and just as he found Wei Sheng's page in the address book and was about to touch the dial button, a call came in.
Two words flashed on the screen: Wei Sheng.
The call was connected, and the man on the other end was a little breathless: "Officer Li, I... I seem to have seen that man. He was about to kill me, but I found him. He's in the mall. Wait a minute..."
The call ended.
A very incoherent sentence.
Who did Wei Sheng see? Who was that person? What did he mean by wanting to kill him but being discovered? When?
It was very strange that even with such a strange sentence, Li Zheng suddenly understood what it meant.
That person...
The real culprit of this series...
This is outrageous!
Li Zheng's scalp instantly went numb and he almost had difficulty breathing. Hu Hui beside him continued to blame himself.
"It's all my fault."
“I wish I hadn’t decided on that position.”
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