The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 188: Honest Brother
The door lock of the interrogation room turned, and accompanied by the sound of high heels, Zhong Kui appeared in Lu Ying's sight with her long hair fluttering.

Under Lu Ying's thick false eyelashes, there was a hint of envy in her eyes - envy for the beautiful face in front of her.

When Zhong Kui passed by Qi Fei, he took his signature pen, pinched the end of the pen with his fingertips, and hung it in front of Lu Ying.

The pen tip swayed left and right. Lu Ying's eyes were focused on Zhong Kui's gentle and comfortable voice: "Do you remember the sound of Chen Hao's call that day?"

Lu Ying nodded involuntarily. "I was so sleepy that day that I didn't even have time to pack my luggage. Just as I was about to fall asleep, my phone started ringing. It kept ringing, ringing, ringing. It was so annoying..."

"You picked up the phone and heard the other person's voice."

"He said, 'Hey, Miss Lu, you got the wrong thing.' I asked him, 'Who are you?' He didn't answer, but said that he got the wrong thing at the airport and asked me to check the suitcase now. I said I had taken melatonin and was going to sleep to adjust to the jet lag, and would go check later. I spoke to him very patiently, but he suddenly became unhappy and said, 'No, you have to go check now, start a video, I want to confirm it.'" Lu Ying seemed to be imitating Chen Hao's tone of voice, with the ending tone rising, probably the same as when she described Chen Hao's voice as "quite sharp" last time.

"You are very angry." Zhong Kui guided.

"I don't know where this guy got my phone from. He's a man, how could I have taken his things by mistake? I mean, if you want to harass me, you have to find a better reason. How did you know I just got back from the airport? Pervert!"
He said, why are you cursing?!

It’s you I want to scold, pervert!”

Lu Ying was so absorbed in her recollections that her hands, which had been exquisitely manicured, were waving in the air.

Zhong Kui took a look and said, "You threw your phone away."

"Humph, I threw my phone away and fell asleep."
-
Qi Fei escorted the unhappy Lü Ying all the way to the police station gate. Before she left, she warned him, "Next time you come to me and ask questions without a valid reason, I'll file a complaint! Humph!"

Qi Fei looked at her enchanting back as she left with a melancholy look and sighed, as if he had cast a net with great enthusiasm, but only caught a deflated puffer fish and nothing else.

"Unfortunately, from my judgment, this hot-tempered girl is telling the truth. She did not fabricate the fact that she had a quarrel with Chen Hao." Zhong Kui's words made Qi Fei's frustration even worse.

"But..." Qi Fei stroked the stubble on his chin, "The memories you made her recall under hypnosis are different from what she told us last time.

She remembered that it was Chen Hao who said she took the wrong luggage.

But after listening to the conversation, Chen Hao probably meant that she put the wrong things in the suitcase.

I thought it was strange at the time. If the wrong person had taken the entire suitcase, even if the person wasn't Lu Ying but another passenger, how could they not have noticed after so long?

Zhong Kui twirled her hair with her fingers and said slowly, "If it was just the wrong thing, wouldn't that be even more strange? Lu Ying is a girl who just returned from traveling abroad, and how did Chen Hao's things, an older man, end up in Lu Ying's suitcase?"

As he was speaking, a dark-skinned woman timidly walked to the gate of the police station and passed by Lu Ying who was leaving the compound.

The woman who came over was wearing an indigo cloth shirt, her hair was dry and yellow, the corners of her mouth were chapped, and she was carrying a large travel bag, looking exhausted.

Seeing the facial features that bore some resemblance to Chen Hao, Qi Fei guessed that it was the person from Chen Hao's hometown whom they had notified. "I'm here looking for Chen Hao," the woman said to the guard in a Northwestern accent, wiping her nose with her hand.

Qi Fei had already taken two or three steps to her. "I'm Qi Fei, the police officer in charge of Chen Hao's case. May I ask who you are?"

"I'm his sister, Chen Yan," the woman said, her innocent eyes showing restrained panic. "They say he's in trouble, and my mother fell ill after hearing the news. She can't come, so I came here in her place."

She said the word "accident" instead of "death", as if that would make her feel better.

……

The freezer where Chen Hao was stored was slowly opened.

Chen Yan's hand left three fingerprints on the stainless steel door handle of the autopsy room. She hunched over Chen Hao's lifeless face, her unkempt hair already streaked with gray.

Hoarse sobs echoed in the cold autopsy room. Her rough fingers brushed across Chen Hao's pale cheekbones and stopped at the corner of his stiff mouth.

"Comrade police officer." She suddenly turned around and bowed ninety degrees, her plastic earrings clanging against the stainless steel freezer. "Chen Hao, be honest. You must find the person who bullied him!"

As she said that, she took out a bag of brick tea from her backpack and insisted on giving it to Qi Fei. The two of them pushed and shoved for a long time before they persuaded Chen Yan to take it back.

"When was the last time you contacted each other?" Although it was cruel, Qi Fei still needed to find out the situation from Chen Yan.

"For two months now, my brother hasn't contacted our family much. Every time I call him, he says he's busy and hangs up in a hurry after just a few words."

"So, two months ago, did he say anything special?"

"My brother is a pilot and is very busy. My mom always says, 'When will we build an airport in our hometown?' So my brother can come home." Chen Yan wiped her nose with her frayed sleeves, which was full of snot from crying. Qi Fei saw this and quickly pulled a tissue from the side for her.

When Qi Fei heard the word "pilot", he was surprised for a moment, but his expression remained calm. He probably understood the twists and turns in the matter.

Sure enough, after blowing her nose, Chen Yan said, "My brother is the first college student in the village, and he's a pilot. My mom is so proud. But he's too busy. He hasn't found a wife in all these years. My mom nags him, and he gets anxious. Oh, the last time he called home, my mom was so happy. She said my brother had applied with the company to stop being a pilot and become a supervisor. He'll have more time to come home in the future. Who would have thought..."

……

"I asked the ticketing company, and they told me that although Chen Hao's sales performance was outstanding, they rely solely on commissions, so there's no such thing as promotions," Wu Shanqiu said. "Chen Hao mentioned at the company that he submitted many resumes after graduating from university, but because his degree wasn't good enough, he couldn't find a decent job, so he ended up working in sales."

"Alas, as the first college student in the village, the expectations he carried made him lie to his family." Qi Fei sighed.

"Oh right." Wu Shanqiu thought of something. "Didn't Lu Ying imitate Chen Hao's speech in the interrogation room? Don't you think her tone is very similar to Xiao Hei's cursing tone?"