The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 125 Driver
"Oh? Currently, the only people known to be father and son at the scene are Ying Shuigen and his two sons. You said it's unknown, so Ying Shuigen can be ruled out first." Wu Shanqiu tapped her chin with the pencil she carried with her as she analyzed.

The fluorescent ceiling light in the hallway reflected a white arc of light on Xiao Tao's glasses. "You're right. This relationship has nothing to do with Ying Shuigen. It's Huang Daqiu's. This person's DNA is related to Huang Daqiu. It can be basically confirmed that he is his son."

"I haven't heard that Huang Daqiu has a son?" Qi Fei blurted out. The previous case of Hong Mei had already given him enough understanding of Huang Daqiu's situation.

"No, no, no," Wu Shanqiu immediately waved her pencil, raising a different opinion. "Huang Daqiu has never publicly announced his son, but because he's such a playboy, there are rumors circulating that he has many illegitimate children, but he's never acknowledged them!"

……

The fluorescent lights in the police station hummed. As Qi Fei dragged the progress bar for the third time, his elbow knocked over a half-cold cup of instant coffee. Brown liquid spread across the case file, but he didn't even raise his eyelids. The glare from the pale screen cast a sharp shadow on his chin. The ferry terminal's surveillance footage looked like it had been sanded, the thirty-year-old camera lingering in the river fog, each frame switching with a piercing electrical hum. Indeed, as Qi Dongjun had said, with the river wind and island fog, the moments when the footage was clearly visible were few and far between.

"47 seconds." He rasped as he bit into a new glue stick. The printed surveillance logs piled up like a dangerous building on his desk. When Wu Shanqiu, wrapped in a mint green cardigan, approached, she saw the muscles in his shoulders and neck tensed like bowstrings. On the screen, the pale river mist slowly dissipated, and the headlights of the black Maybach flickered like candles in the film-textured black and white frame.

Wu Shanqiu's fingers unconsciously scratched at the keyboard cover. "This fog is so thick you could wring water out of it. Huang Daqiu really knows how to pick the right day." Her nose practically touched the monitor as she spoke. The image was frozen at the moment the car turned a corner, and the driver's side window reflected the remains of a hand, like a rubbing from a low-quality printer.

"Zoom in on the right side." Qi Fei suddenly straightened up, the blue light from the monitor rubbing against his pupils, nearly sparking from the crude image quality. Pixels multiplied wildly into a mosaic vortex, but they were still visible. The hand gripping the steering wheel was eerily clear—pale, smooth, like a specimen in a medical rubber glove.

"Hmm? A little too white?" She grabbed a business photo of Huang Daqiu on the corner of the table. In the photo, the greasy fat man was smirking at the camera. "Huang Daqiu looks so dark and fat. His hands could be used as a hand model."

Qi Fei suddenly grabbed his coffee cup and gulped it down. As his Adam's apple rolled, brown liquid leaked from the corner of his mouth and trickled down his jaw. He slammed the spacebar, the image frozen in time on that strange hand. "The image is too blurry. If it's not the color difference..." He suddenly tapped his index finger on the edge of the screen. "It's very likely that this person is wearing white gloves. If Huang Daqiu was driving himself, he wouldn't be wearing gloves, right?"

In the office, the dust, blown by the cool early spring breeze, was suspended in the beams of light coming through the windows. Wu Shanqiu blinked. "Ah, a professional driver?"

"That is to say..." Qi Fei grabbed the phone on the table, and the phone case creaked when he squeezed it. "On the day when Huang Daqiu had the accident, there was another person at the scene."

Wu Shanqiu sat up, stared at the black and white screen, and asked suspiciously: "If this is true, why didn't this person call the police?" "We must quickly ask where Huang Daqiu's driver is!" Qi Fei pressed the hands-free button on his mobile phone and dialed the number of Huang Daqiu's company.

A puzzled voice came from the other end of the phone: "Mr. Huang always drives to Jiangting Island by himself. Why is there a driver accompanying him this time? When Mr. Huang's phone couldn't be reached before, we asked the driver, and he said that Mr. Huang didn't ask him to drive!"

This answer made people even more suspicious: "Where is this person now?" he asked, his hand already grabbing the car keys.

After the heavy rain, Nancheng finally felt a sense of revival. The inappropriate temperature of the police station's heater made Qi Fei pull at his hot collar. The three frames of the ferry surveillance were playing in a loop: a man in a black suit staggered onto the deck and almost missed a step and fell into the river.

Qi Fei grabbed the driver's address he had copied from the company, stood up and kicked the swivel chair away: "Shan Qiu, let's go meet this guy."
-
As Qi Fei's Oxford shoes rolled over the piles of express packages at the entrance of the alley, the smell of moldy cardboard mixed with condensation from the old air conditioner outdoor unit hit him. The exterior wall of Wu Chun's red brick building, built in the 304s, was covered with cracks and moss, and the rusty security nets crisscrossed in the twilight. He raised his hand to signal Wu Shanqiu to flank him from the other side of the stairs, while he climbed up the peeling concrete railing to the third floor. Qi Fei crushed the dried instant noodle seasoning packet at the entrance of the hallway, and the smell of hot and sour noodles mingled with the smell of food wafting from Wu Chun's house. The iron door of Room , with the corner of the Chinese character "Fu" (blessing) missing, suddenly trembled, and the man in the gray jacket half-hidden.

Wu Chun's pupils shrank to pinpoints upon seeing Qi Fei. Even though Qi Fei was in plain clothes, the mere presence of this young stranger was enough to jolt his already apprehensive nerves. He bolted, flinging the security door open and dashing toward the fire escape on the other side. The old-fashioned security door rebounded heavily on its springs, nearly striking Qi Fei in the face. Years of dust clung to the lintel, choking Qi Fei and causing him to sneeze.

"He's coming down from you!" Qi Fei yelled. Wu Shanqiu braked suddenly on the second-floor landing, grabbing the mop handle leaning against the wall and shoving it across the gap between the stair railings. Wu Chun was caught off guard, his knee colliding with the railing. With a cry of "Ouch!", he fell forward and tumbled down the stairs.

Qi Fei had already leaped from the third-floor staircase to the second floor opposite. The hem of his khaki windbreaker brushed the back of Wu Chun's neck, and he was about to grab him, but they had underestimated Wu Chun's ability. He scrambled down the first floor, slamming open the door to his apartment, and fled toward the residential green belt. He climbed over holly bushes, clambered over rusty gym equipment, and tried to scale the wall, but his suit pants were snagged, leaving a triangular tear.

Qi Fei suddenly threw a bunch of keys from three meters away, and the metal hit Wu Chun's knee with precision. Wu Chun's legs went limp, and he stumbled to his knees.

"Why are you running?" Qi Fei had already arrived behind Wu Chun and grabbed his arms behind his back.
-
The fluorescent tubes in the police station office cast spider-web-like shadows over Wu Chun's head. He huddled on the plastic chair in the interrogation room like a puppet with its joints removed. His fingers kept twitching, especially when he heard the words "Jiangting Island".

"The dashcam shows that you returned to the city at 3:17 p.m. that day." Qi Fei pushed the tablet across the table, and Wu Chun's uneasy face was reflected on the edge of the tempered film. "But the car navigation system replanned the route to Jiangting Island Wharf at 4:09." His index finger suddenly hovered over a certain coordinate point.

(End of this chapter)