The Byoukidere Is Her Sweetie

Chapter 124: 124: The truth is revealed and the Luo Family is tormented
 

“Luo San is of the Luo family’s bloodline.”

“If he’s of the bloodline, and the only boy, why don’t they treat him right?”

Zhou Xufang was silent for a while before speaking in a low voice, “Luo San may not be a boy.”

If the fragments in her mind were real, the little bald kid living in the attic must be a girl.

Shuangjiang asked, “Then who are her parents? Why hide her gender?”

Zhou Xufang shook his head.

At that moment—

“Here’s a task.” Shuangjiang sent over a screenshot, “Client: Tang Xiang.”

Zhou Xufang, who had been deep in thought, looked up immediately upon hearing the name Tang Xiang, “What’s the task?”

“Get a person’s hair.”

“Whose?”

Shuangjiang replied, “Yours.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on ɴ0νǤ0.сο

Tang Xiang wanted Zhou Xufang’s DNA.

The payment was eight million.

Shuangjiang didn’t know Tang Xiang, “What does she want with your DNA?”

Zhou Xufang pondered, holding a can of milk and intermittently tapping the table, “There are two possibilities, related to my background, or related to the Genetic Laboratory.”

Whenever the Genetic Laboratory was mentioned, Shuangjiang became very wary, “Then don’t do it, it’s too risky.”

If someone found out she had a genetic superpower…

“I’ll do it.” Zhou Xufang stated, “I also want to know who I really am.”

Shuangjiang had a bad feeling and was full of concerns, “Should you tell Jiang Zhi?”

She said not for now, “If I can’t handle it, I’ll find him.”

Telling him would only worry him needlessly.

She liked to share good news, not bad. Regarding her own background, there wasn’t a single good memory. She didn’t really want Jiang Zhi to know, especially about that Genetic Laboratory.

At nine o’clock, she lay on the bed with no intention of sleeping, just staring at the two lamps Jiang Zhi had given her, lost in thought.

Ding—

It was a WeChat message from Jiang Zhi, who sent over the wave emoji.

Zhou Xufang typed back, “Why aren’t you asleep yet?”

Mr. Xue had said that Jiang Zhi used to sleep by eight-thirty, and only began staying up late after getting together with her.

Staying up late wasn’t good.

The voice message Jiang Zhi sent seemed to be from under the covers, his voice a bit soft and muffled, but very pleasant, “At this hour, I figured you’d be missing me.”

The next line—

Jiang Zhi wanted to say: I miss you.

Instead, Zhou Xufang sent back, “I’m not thinking of you, I’m thinking about other things.” She was thinking about the Luo San issue.

“…”

He wanted to flirt with her, but she blocked him without saying a word.

So lack of romance!

Jiang Zhi replied with an emoji pack of “[Pin you to the ground and kiss you till you cry].”

The emoji pack had cartoon versions of Jiang Zhi and Zhou Xufang, easy to recognize, with Jiang Zhi in blue hair, and Zhou Xufang all in black with only her eyes showing. The little blue-haired person was pinning the little black-clothed person to the ground…

It was the first time Zhou Xufang had seen this emoji pack, and she found it very cute, “This emoji is adorable.”

Of course!

Jiang Zhi proudly said, “I had someone make them,” now sounding smug, “I made a whole set.”

Zhou Xufang, “You’re so amazing!”

Jiang Zhi, “╯^╰”

Zhou Xufang, “Can you send them to me?”

With the tone of a big bad wolf luring a little white rabbit, “You’ve got to ask in a more begging manner.” Jiang Zhi made a demand, “Send over a kiss first.”

Zhou Xufang sent a kissing emoji.

Seeing her obedience, Jiang Zhi sent her the whole set of emojis.

“[Kiss Jiang Zhi]” The little person all in black with just eyes showing lay down, stars sparkling in her eyes as she looked up at the blue-haired little person above her, with “Jiang Zhi” written in big letters.

“[No matter what, I’ll spoil you!]” The blue-haired little person, arms crossed and turning his head with a charismatic expression, as if to say ‘if you don’t spoil me, I won’t talk to you.’

“[Your little ancestor is online]” The blue-haired little person sat obediently with a big head drawn.

“[Don’t want to sleep]” The blue-haired little person lay with the covers kicked off the bed, his fingers enticingly beckoning.

“You can’t use periods, you have to hold back,” a little person all in black with only their eyes showing is desperately holding back, their expression looking constipated.

“If you use a period again, I’ll make you cry,” a little person with blue hair has the all-black one pinned against the wall, one looking like a grand demon king, the other pitifully close to tears.

“I’m the fairy who lifts the seal,” the little person all in black is spinning in place, with a colorful glow suspended above their head and a magic wand in their hand.

“Goodnight Fang Bao,” “Goodnight Jiang Zhi.”

The last two images…

The little person with blue hair is lying down, with their clothes half-unbuttoned, while the little person all in black is sitting on top of them, one hand lifting their chin, the other pressing on their abs…

All the ones before were great, but Zhou Xufang felt… she felt a bit hot looking at these two “goodnight” emojis, kicked off her blanket, got up, drank a glass of water, favorited them all before she replied to Jiang Zhi’s Weibo message.

Zhou Xufang: “Jiang Zhi, you can’t send dirty pictures.”

Jiang Zhi sent an audio message, you could tell he was laughing: “What’s dirty about it?”

Zhou Xufang, embarrassed to spell it out, typed: “Your clothes aren’t on right.”

Jiang Zhi still laughing: “Aren’t yours on right?”

Zhou Xufang: “.”

Jiang Zhi: “If you use a period again, I’ll make you cry.”

Jiang Zhi: “This is how you are in my dreams.”

Hmph.

Jiang Zhi is a little hooligan!

Zhou Xufang sent him the new emoji she favorited: “You can’t use periods, you have to hold back.”

Jiang Zhi: “Finally, no periods.”

Zhou Xufang has OCD, she must be the last one to end the chat: “You can’t use periods, you have to hold back.”

Jiang Zhi thought that was it and put his phone down, but two minutes later, Zhou Xufang sent another message.

“Jiang Zhi.”

Jiang Zhi sent an emoji back: “Your little ancestor is online.”

Jiang Zhi sent another one: “Don’t want to sleep.”

Zhou Xufang rarely sent a voice message: “Were you a ‘bottom’ before?”

“Are you, or not?”

Jiang Zhi: …

He didn’t answer, so she kept calling “Jiang Zhi, Jiang Zhi” over and over.

He couldn’t take it anymore and accused her: “Have you been reading some messy novels again?”

Zhou Xufang: “It’s not messy, I read a BL novel, it’s really good.”

Jiang Zhi took a moment to understand what ‘BL’ meant, while Zhou Xufang kept pestering him.

“Are you a ‘bottom’?”

“Are you or not?”

“Are you or not?”

Instead of answering, Jiang Zhi sent an emoji: “I’ll pin you to the ground and make you cry.”

Zhou Xufang: “.”

A long time passed, so long that Zhou Xufang was almost asleep, before Jiang Zhi replied with one word: “Yes.”

No wonder, she topped him.

Zhou Xufang crawled under the covers, laughing for a while, and replied to Jiang Zhi with an emoji: “Goodnight Jiang Zhi.”

The next day, at nine in the morning, entertainment news exploded – Tianxing’s leading actress Luo Ying was accused of beating an assistant on set, with photos as evidence.

Instantly, netizens blew up.

Action movie global shopping: “Damn! The most poisonous woman’s heart! @LuoYingheV”

I’m a sweet little thing: “She looks skilled at hitting, must not be her first time, no wonder she changes assistants so often.”

You have your candle, I have my whip: “Another persona collapses.”

Please call me handsome pot: “Get out of the entertainment industry! @LuoYingheV”

Don’t change my nickname until I lose 30kg: “You can’t get the whole story from just a snippet; don’t judge without knowing the circumstances.”

Mom and dad go to work, I go to kindergarten: “Defending her even now? Hitting is wrong, no matter the reason, it’s inexcusable.”

I’m a mink, the world’s skin: “People aren’t saints; getting angry and hitting happens, don’t blindly hate without knowing the whole story.”

Don’t call me, I’m under the covers watching a movie: “Yeah, when I get angry, I also kick my little brother, what’s wrong with that?”

Quick, kowtow to your elder, reply @Don’t call me, I’m under the covers watching a movie: “No problem, let me kick you first to try?”

“…”

In a little while, the shares and comments broke new records.

Luo Yinghe had smooth sailing since her debut, the little princess pushed by Tianxing; no matter if real fans or haters, her Weibo followers had surpassed fifty million. She always had good resources, working with top stars, but her acting skills were not improving. Many who disliked her and wanted to take her down were waiting for an opportunity. Now that the scandal broke, the discussion kept spiking high, and in less than two hours, Luo Yinghe’s incident of hitting an assistant with roses made the hot search headlines.

Bang—

Luo Yinghe slammed the tablet onto the table, her eyes burning with fury, “What is the public relations department doing? Why hasn’t the hot search been taken down yet?”

Agent Yang Fan replied, “The topic is too hot, we can’t pull it down.”

Emotions running high, Luo Yinghe suddenly stood up, knocking over a chair with a loud bang, and yelled at the agent, “Then why don’t you find a way? Tianxing pays you so much money for you to be useless?”

…

If it wasn’t because Luo Yinghe was the second daughter of the Luo family and half the owner of Tianxing, Yang Fan would definitely not have become an agent for such a princess who was all temper and no brains.

She took a deep breath, “First, issue an apology statement—”

But Luo Yinghe was unwilling to comply, completely unreasonable, “Why should I apologize? I pay the assistant, and if she can’t do the job, why can’t I discipline her?”

Bullying the weak and fearing the strong, arrogant and self-important.

That’s the upbringing of the Luo family.

Yang Fan was too lazy to argue with her and was getting impatient, “Even if the PR does a fantastic job, it’s no use if you don’t apologize.”

Luo Yinghe’s eyes bulged with rage, “You—”

She was interrupted.

The door to the studio was pushed open, and Luo Qinghe stood at the entrance, dropping a casual remark, “That’s enough.”

Luo Yinghe immediately fell silent.

It was clear that she was intimidated by her older cousin.

Luo Qinghe, with her single eyelids, looked aloof and indifferent, always carrying a sense of haughty ferocity in her eyes. She ordered, “First, issue an apology statement.”

Luo Yinghe didn’t dare to be presumptuous, only refusing in a low voice, “I don’t want to.”

“Don’t want to?” She smiled, her tone light and dismissive, “If you don’t want to, then get out of Tianxing.”

Luo Yinghe’s face turned pale, and she stopped talking.

Her temper as the young mistress might flare up at anyone, but she dared not challenge Luo Qinghe, who she feared the most in the entire Luo family, and of course, whom she also despised the most.

Luo Qinghe entered, closed the door behind her, pulled up a chair to sit down, her legs together, wearing her business suit immaculately. She asked Yang Fan, “How does that assistant usually perform her duties?”

Yang Fan replied, “Quite meticulous.”

Luo Qinghe tapped her fingers on the table, composed, “Then find something less meticulous.”

Yang Fan understood what she meant and then asked, “What about the hot search?”

She looked up, her slender eyes like fine drizzle as she looked at people, but they conveyed a stark intensity, “If it can’t be pulled down, then find something more sensational to overshadow it. Do I really need to teach you such a simple principle?”

Yang Fan was struck dumb, not daring to add to the conversation.

Unlike Luo Yinghe’s erratic and spoiled vase, Luo Qinghe was not someone to be trifled with. In her many years in the business world, her skills were no less than any man’s.

At that moment, the cellphone rang.

Luo Qinghe answered; on the line, the secretary said, “Younger Luo, the autopsy report is out.”

She rose and walked out, “Get Han Feng over here.”

At the police station.

Once the autopsy report was released, the Criminal Investigation Team held an emergency meeting.

The projector was on, the curtains in the conference room drawn, Vice Captain Xing held a pointer, indicating the content of the report on the screen, “The time of death was around three in the afternoon, the fatal injury was in the lung, the victim didn’t have many wounds, indicating a clear murder intent from the perpetrator, nearly a fatal strike with a single blow.”

He flipped a page, continuing, “The forensic team made a comparison, the fruit knife left at the scene is the murder weapon.”

Colleague Zhang Wen raised a question, “Then why didn’t the killer take the murder weapon with them?”

Leaving the murder weapon would risk exposing fingerprints, DNA, and even fibers from clothing. A smart criminal would definitely not leave the murder weapon at the scene unless they dropped it in a panicked escape, or they wanted to challenge the police by leaving it there.

But the scene was clean, ruling out the possibility of the killer making a mistake.

Vice Captain Xing said, “I don’t understand this point either, and besides the victim Chen Li’s blood on the fruit knife, there was someone else’s blood on it.”

Zhang Wen asked, “Is it the killer’s?”

Vice Captain Xing shook his head, “Not the killer’s.” He flipped a page on the projection, “It’s the victim from the suitcase abandonment case, Duan Xi.”

The suspect no. 2 in that abandonment case had been photographed with a watch. The killer who pushed Jiang Zhi into the sea had also been caught wearing the same watch. Could it be that these three cases are related?

“The killer in the suitcase case was a woman,” speculated one of the Criminal Investigation Team, “Could it be Chen Li?”

Vice Captain Xing couldn’t conclude, “The fruit knife does match the fatal wound on Duan Xi, and Duan Xi’s blood was also found in Chen Li’s kitchen, but one thing doesn’t add up. If Chen Li killed Duan Xi, why did she bring the murder weapon back home? She didn’t even clean up the blood.”

Then, a leisurely voice added, “It’s a case of hired killing, leaving no evidence, how else to extort money?”

It was Captain Qiao from intelligence.

He was there to listen in.

Sitting across from him, Captain Cheng of the Criminal Investigation Team asked, “Why do you say it’s a case of hired killing?”

Qiao Nanchu flipped through the materials on the table, handed a page to Captain Cheng, “Chen Li and Duan Xi didn’t even know each other, there’s no motive for murder, and she was on drugs. A bartender’s salary wouldn’t cover it; she was very likely doing it for the money.”

Most importantly, Jiang Zhi said his girlfriend overheard Chen Li talking on the phone with a man named Mr. Han. The conversation included details about disposing of the body and transferring money.

It could only be a case of hired killing.

Vice Captain Xing combined Qiao Nanchu’s speculation with his own inference, “So you’re saying someone hired Chen Li to kill Duan Xi, and after Chen Li dumped the body in a suitcase, she took the murder weapon with the intention of extorting money from the employer, but couldn’t reach an agreement with the person who hired her and ultimately was silenced by the same knife?”

Furthermore, since Duan Xi was a victim of sexual assault on the cruise ship, if we follow this line of reasoning, the abuser is very likely to be the murderer’s employer.

Qiao Nanchu was noncommittal, only saying, “Chen Li had wounds on her hands; simply check Duan Xi’s fingernails to see if she’s the one who killed Duan Xi.”

That hit the nail on the head.

This guy, he should be in the Criminal Investigation Team.

Captain Cheng turned to his colleague and ordered, “Call the forensic department.” After giving the order, he shot Qiao Nanchu a teasing look, “Captain Qiao, would you be interested in transferring to my Criminal Investigation Team?”

Qiao Nanchu leaned back in his office chair, “No.”

Captain Cheng continued to make his case, “Your investigative skills are being wasted in the intelligence unit.”

He replied with a cold indifference befitting someone devoid of compassion, “Not a waste, I’m versatile.”

“…”

This guy!

Dropping the jokes, Captain Cheng proceeded with the case discussion, “We can now be fairly certain that the person who pushed Mr. Jiang into the sea and the person who hired Chen Li to kill Duan Xi are the same person, or an accomplice.”

Vice Captain Xing followed up, “Luo Changde has an injury on his arm, the clue from the watch checks out, and moreover, Luo Changde has a history of sexual violence along with the motive. So, doesn’t it mean that if we can find financial transactions between him and Chen Li, we can convict him?”

Captain Cheng countered Vice Captain Xing’s point, “It’s not that simple. We still haven’t found his watch, and there’s no direct evidence of murder—no fingerprints, DNA, or eyewitnesses, only circumstantial evidence. It will be difficult to win the case.”

The discussion reached this point when Xiao Zhong, who had been out in the field, returned.

“Captain Cheng.”

Captain Cheng asked how his search went, “Any large deposits in Chen Li’s personal account recently?”

Xiao Zhong shook his head, wiped his brow, grabbed a bottle of water from the table, took a gulp, and said, “Her account looks clean, and so do her relatives’ accounts, with no large financial transactions.”

“Could it be that it wasn’t a hired killing?” Vice Captain Xing grabbed his hair, feeling mentally stretched.

If it wasn’t a hired killing, then all the previous speculations would have to be overturned.

Captain Cheng looked at Qiao Nanchu across from him.

He didn’t make a sound, picked up a phone call, listened for a bit over a minute, hung up, and said, “There were no bank transactions, but she received two bags of cash and stored them in a locker at the Zhu Feng Building.”

So, it was still a case of hired murder.

Captain Cheng was surprised, “How did you know?”

Qiao Nanchu smiled without answering.

That evening, he called Jiang Zhi out and asked him the same question, “How did you know?”

Those two bags of cash were unearthed by Jiang Zhi.

Jiang Zhi leaned at the bar inside the private room, grabbed several glasses, and randomly mixed drinks, saying, “I guessed.” Going through personal accounts is too risky; if he were to hire a murderer, he would choose to use cash as well.

Qiao Nanchu, supporting his chin with one hand, casually watched Jiang Zhi, “Then guess again, is the murderer Luo Changde?”

Jiang Zhi added beer to the glass with ice, “It’s him,” swirled the glass, “but he’ll get off the hook.”

It was a bit warm in the private room, so Qiao Nanchu took off his jacket and threw it aside, “How so?”

“If Chen Li was silenced, why leave the murder weapon behind?” Jiang Zhi mixed drinks without any real method, speaking lightly, “Because it’s to be used to get acquitted.”

The intention was to link all three cases together.

Then, to put forth an accomplice or, alternatively, a scapegoat.

Qiao Nanchu’s phone rang at that moment; he took a call, and after hanging up, he laughed, “You got it all right; the ‘murderer’ has turned themselves in at the police station.”

Jiang Zhi looked up; the dim light of the bar shone in his eyes, “Han Feng?”

Qiao Nanchu couldn’t help but laugh, “You guessed it again?”

“Of the four suspects who pushed me into the sea, Jiang Xiaolin was ruled out, Huang Peidong was deliberately framed by Jiang Xiaolin, leaving only Luo Changde and Han Feng,” Jiang Zhi explained, dropping a slice of lemon into a cocktail glass, his misty blue hair hanging down, concealing his brows, his eyelashes casting long shadows across his face, “Besides, it was Han Feng who provided Luo Changde with an alibi.”

In other words, the two were accomplices.

Jiang Zhi speculated, “It must have been Luo Qinghe making a move, sacrificing a pawn to save the king.”

All the pieces matched.

It’s a good thing Jiang Zhi wasn’t a criminal; with a brain like that, if he turned to a life of crime, that would be something else.

“There’s one more thing,” Qiao Nanchu, propping his chin, looked at Jiang Zhi’s face, more delicate than a woman’s, “Why did Luo Changde try to push you into the sea? Could it be that you saw him sexually assaulting Duan Xi?”

Jiang Zhi shook his head, lifted his eyelids, his peach blossom eyes seemingly drunk yet sober, naturally captivating without trying, “Because of you.”

“Me?” Qiao Nanchu stretched out his legs, “What does it have to do with me?”

“I was on the phone with you before he pushed me overboard.”

The phone conversation was about—

Qiao Nanchu remembered, “The Luo Family arson case?”

Right, they were discussing investigating the Luo Family arson case.

So, Luo Changde killed two birds with one stone.

“What was just a suspicion, I’m now sure of,” Jiang Zhi’s eyes lowered, shielding the cold glint within, “That fire was set by the Luo Family themselves.”