I am a super cop

Chapter 3013 Boiler Operator

Inside the room, upon hearing Gu Chen bring up the matter, the bathhouse owner frankly admitted, "I heard a few days ago that several people in the neighborhood suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning."

After a pause, the boss asked Gu Chen again, "But what does this have to do with me?"

“We investigated that building, and on the same day, two families, three people, died simultaneously from carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“One is on the sixth floor, and the other is on the first floor. They are both in the same building, but the conditions that would lead to carbon monoxide poisoning are not present,” Gu Chen said.

The boss paused for a moment, then shook his head: "I don't understand."

"To put it simply, the deaths of these people were not normal; it would require a large amount of toxic gas to cause this kind of poisoning."

“But neither of these two households had this situation. It’s true that they suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, but the conditions for carbon monoxide poisoning were not present,” Yuan Shasha quickly explained from the side.

But the bathhouse owner still shook his head: "I still don't understand, what does this have to do with me?"

"Of course, we're still investigating." Seeing the boss's response, Officer Wang quickly added:
"We just noticed that your bathrooms here seem to use boilers for heating, right?"

“Yes,” the bathhouse owner said.

"Oh." Officer Wang nodded silently, then continued, "So what do you use to power your boiler here?"

"Coal, of course we need coal to power the boiler," the boss said.

"So that means your boiler here also emits gases from burning coal, right?" Gu Chen pressed on.

The shop owner, with a bitter expression, said, "Officer, although I do produce gas here, I always release it outdoors."

"So, you're saying that you're generating huge amounts of carbon monoxide here, am I right?" Gu Chen asked doubtfully.

After all, if the conditions for carbon monoxide poisoning in those two households were to be met, the bathroom would be a prime suspect.

After all, this is a bathroom with a boiler, and the boiler requires a lot of coal, which will produce a lot of carbon monoxide gas.

The problem is that the gas emissions from this bathroom are directly vented outdoors.

Gu Chen had noticed this before coming here; it was connected to a pipe that extended directly to the upper floors of the building, and the exhaust outlet faced the outdoors.

It can be said that the carbon monoxide gas produced by the boilers here is actually released directly into the air.

After listening to Gu Chen's explanation, the boss slowly said, "I do emit gases, but they are all emitted outdoors. Are you saying that the deaths of those two families might be related to my work?"

"I'm just investigating," Gu Chen said truthfully.

The bathhouse owner chuckled and said, "That's impossible. The outdoor area is so big, my discharge won't have any impact at all. It's not like I'm discharging into someone's home."

"Moreover, those two households you mentioned, one lives on the first floor and the other on the sixth floor. If something happened to those two households, why are the other residents in the middle okay?"

The bathhouse owner's explanation reflects everyone's concerns.

After all, this is inexplicable.

But right now, the only place that can emit huge amounts of carbon monoxide is this bathroom.

So Gu Chen was also very conflicted, not knowing where the problem lay.
But at least one thing is certain: there are no issues with the gas emissions from the boiler at this bathroom.

"Can I see your boiler room?" Gu Chen took a deep breath and quickly asked.

"Okay." The boss was a little unhappy at the moment, after all, the police were investigating him, which made him very depressed.

Gu Chen wanted to see the boiler room, and the boss was naturally happy to oblige, so he led everyone to the room where the boiler was operated.

At that moment, a boiler operator was adding coal and working. The room was very hot, and Gu Chen and the others simply inspected the boiler.

We discovered that the exhaust pipes here lead directly outdoors.

Then everyone opened the boiler room door and went outside, where they found ventilation ducts that ran directly along the wall towards the roof.

This wall has no doors or windows.

Gu Chen knew that such emissions would not cause the deaths of those two households, so he didn't take it to heart and turned back to the boiler room.

The bathhouse owner said helplessly, "There shouldn't be any problem with this, right?"

“It’s definitely no problem. You even knew to raise the pipes a bit higher, huh?” Lu Weiwei said.

"Sigh." The bathhouse owner sighed and said slowly:

“Before, my exhaust pipe was pointing directly outwards, and the old ladies in this community were unhappy about it and complained about me.”

"Later, people from the community came to inspect and said that I couldn't discharge directly outside and asked me to correct it, at least so as not to affect the residents on the first floor."

"So I had no choice but to listen to them, so I raised the pipe height. Surely raising it wouldn't bother them, right? After that, the old ladies stopped saying anything."

"When did this happen?" Gu Chen asked curiously upon hearing this.

"I rectified the situation according to regulations a while ago, so I guess I'm the only one who's easy to talk to."

After a pause, the owner pointed outside and said, "Look at those restaurants, don't they also direct their exhaust pipes directly to the back of the first floor?"

“The old ladies also reported them, but they didn’t care about any of that; they still had to queue.”

"So every mealtime, all sorts of cooking fumes from behind the apartment complex blow up into the back. I'm easygoing, which is why I had the pipes raised."

"Okay." Hearing the bathhouse owner say that, Gu Chen felt there was no problem.

At least they made some changes, and they were quite reasonable.

So Gu Chen went back to the boiler room.

At that moment, the boiler operator also put down his shovel, walked to the side, picked up his thermos, and took a sip of water.

Gu Chen walked up to the boiler operator and asked curiously, "Isn't it hot working here at such a height?"

"It's hot. When it's hot, just stand at the door and let the air blow on you," the boiler operator said with a smile.

Gu Chen nodded to him, then led everyone away.

Leaving the bathroom, Gu Chen was still puzzled. After all, the gas emitted from the boiler was released outdoors and would not have affected the deceased's family at all.

Therefore, Gu Chen had no choice but to lead everyone away first.

……

……

Over the next two days, the investigation hit a bottleneck. Gu Chen visited the crime scene multiple times and interviewed local residents, but still found no clues. Frustrated, Gu Chen could only walk into a nearby restaurant.

Lu Weiwei, who was with Gu Chen, walked up to him and said dejectedly, "This case is too strange. There really isn't a single clue. Could it be a ghost?"

"Don't talk nonsense, Senior Sister Lu, what do you want to eat?" Gu Chen interrupted Lu Weiwei's complaint.

Lu Weiwei sighed, walked to the dining table, picked up the menu and started ordering: "Let's just have these?"

"Okay, boss, this, this, and this soup, and two bowls of rice."

"Okay." Upon hearing Gu Chen's order, the owner immediately got busy.

So Gu Chen and Lu Weiwei could only sit aside and wait.

These days of investigation have left Gu Chen feeling somewhat disappointed, since in the past, he was able to investigate cases based on clues found at the scene.

At least a breakthrough can be found in the deceased's interpersonal relationships.

The deceased's interpersonal relationships did not seem to be complicated.

Pan Xu, as He Lili's boyfriend, warned Zhao Yanwu, who was pursuing He Lili. Zhao Yanwu was also sensible and gave up pursuing He Lili after Pan Xu's explicit warning.

Moreover, Zhao Yanwu has a new partner, so given his personality, he doesn't care about this at all.

He Lili's roommate and former colleague, Liu Si, had some conflicts with He Lili, but those conflicts only arose from competition at work.

Moreover, He Lili's professional skills will decline sharply after losing Zhao Yanwu's help.

Therefore, Liu Si is not a threat at all. Since He Lili has already resigned, there is no longer any competition between them.

However, after He Lili's boyfriend, Pan Xu, arrived at the rented apartment, the relationship between the three of them became somewhat complicated.

Although Liu Si is not willing to live with this couple now, it doesn't warrant killing them.

Therefore, in terms of interpersonal relationships, Gu Chen can completely rule out these suspicious individuals.

The question then returns to how these victims were poisoned.

Even now, after investigating many locations, Gu Chen still cannot explain the reason for this situation.
"Boss, one twice-cooked pork rice bowl, please."

Just as Gu Chen was pondering, a man walked into the restaurant and shouted to the kitchen.

"Okay, just a moment, have a seat, it'll be ready soon," came the owner's reply from the kitchen.

The young man then looked around and saw an empty seat next to Gu Chen, so he sat down there.

But when he saw Gu Chen and Lu Weiwei, the young man greeted Gu Chen, "You're eating here too?"

"Huh?" Gu Chen was called out to, and he subconsciously turned around to look. He found that the person looked somewhat familiar.

Lu Weiwei asked curiously, "Do you know us?"

"I've seen you before, a few days ago, in the boiler room of the bathroom," the young man said with a smile.

Gu Chen suddenly realized and quickly smiled, saying, "So you were the one working in the boiler room that day? I didn't recognize you at first because you were wearing that uniform."

“Yes,” Lu Weiwei said with a smile, “I remember you were shirtless back then.”

"Yes, the boiler room is too hot. If you wear clothes, you'll get soaked in sweat, so I usually take off my shirt when I work in the boiler room," the young man said with a smile.

Gu Chen looked the young man up and down and asked curiously, "Do you do any other work besides this?"

“Yes.” The young man nodded silently, speaking without further ado:
"There are usually more people coming to the bathhouse at night, so I work there at night. During the day, I drive a tricycle to deliver goods, mainly to some wholesale markets."

"Is that so?" Hearing the young man say this, Gu Chen nodded silently: "That's good, make good use of the time."

"Yes." After picking up the kettle from the table and pouring himself a glass of water, the young man took a sip and asked Gu Chen, "Are you still investigating the cause of death of those two families?"

“Yes.” Gu Chen nodded silently, and said without further ado:
"Based on the current situation, both families died from carbon monoxide poisoning, but the only place in the vicinity that could produce a large amount of carbon monoxide is your bathroom."

"But your bathhouse owner's exhaust vent is facing outdoors."

After a pause, Gu Chen shook his head: "But this arrangement won't affect those two households."

With a soft sigh, Gu Chen said helplessly, "So the investigation is now almost at a standstill."

"Is that so?" Hearing Gu Chen say this, the young man nodded silently: "That's quite troublesome."

Lu Weiwei asked curiously, "When you first started discharging waste from your bathroom, did you do it like those restaurants, discharging it directly into the back row of the first-floor apartments in the residential area?"

"Yes, it's behind the row of houses at the very front of the complex. But because it's directly facing the back, residents passing by often smell a pungent odor."

"A few old ladies got very angry, so they went to argue with our boss, but our boss didn't care about that, because all the restaurants put their food out like that."

"So those old ladies went directly to the community to complain. Eventually, the community staff came and suggested that we modify the pipes. They also suggested that our boss raise the exhaust pipe so that it wouldn't face the road."

"So you're also making rectifications in accordance with regulations," Lu Weiwei said.

"Yes." Taking a sip of tea, the young man added:

"But during the two days of rectification, because it would take some time to install the exhaust pipe, but the boiler room couldn't be shut down, the boss asked me to run the exhaust pipe into the sewer for two days."

"Once the pipes are installed, we'll connect the exhaust pipe in the boiler room to the external ventilation pipe."

Hearing the young man's nonchalant description, Gu Chen frowned slightly and quickly asked:

"You mean, during those two days of rectification and installation, you directly discharged gas from the boiler's exhaust pipe into the sewer?"

"Yes, because the external pipes were removed and a taller pipe was installed, but the inside needed to be vented first, right? Otherwise the smoke from burning coal would be very pungent, so the boss told me to vent the exhaust pipe into the sewer for two days."

Upon hearing this, Gu Chen's eyes suddenly lit up, and he blurted out, "Could it be that this sewer is connected to the residents' homes?"

“Yes!” Upon hearing Gu Chen’s statement, Lu Weiwei quickly stood up and said, “That’s entirely possible.”

Turning to look at the young man, Lu Weiwei quickly asked again, "Are the sewers in your area connected to the sewers in the residents' homes?"

"Uh, this... I don't know!"

It started as a casual remark, but the two police officers suddenly became serious.

The young man was unaware of the situation or whether his words would affect the bathroom.

So when the two policemen suddenly seemed to have broken through something, his heart skipped a beat, and he was somewhat at a loss.

……