The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 255 Going Through the Procedure

Zhao Hongda hesitated for a moment and walked toward a small door behind the counter. Qi Fei quickly stepped in front of him.

Zhao Hongda smiled wryly: "I'm not running away. If you're worried, come with me."

Passing through the small door behind the counter, you reach the back of the shop. Zhao Hongda's keys jingle as he leads the group through a cluttered stairwell and into his second-floor residence.

"This is where I'm staying temporarily while I'm minding the shop. You can't tell my wife about Li Yang'er; it happened so many years ago." As he spoke, he rummaged through the messy boxes and finally found a kraft paper package. It was so old that the surface of the kraft paper was already frayed. He handed it to Qi Fei without saying anything.

Qi Fei opened the package, and what was inside was something he hadn't expected—a passport.

Opening the passport, the photo inside was none other than Li Yang'er's.

"How did Li Yang'er's passport end up with you?" Qi Fei asked warily.

Zhao Hongda said with shame, "Back then, there were indeed many rumors that Li Yang'er was planning to go abroad. I was obsessed with her at the time and was afraid that I would never see her again after she left. I had a stupid idea that I think about now. It was that woman in the red sweater who inspired me. The day I saw her leave, I imitated her and swaggered in. The cleaning staff wouldn't remember whether the room was for men or women. Seeing how confident I was, they assumed I was a roommate. So I tried to look through the room and actually found her passport."

"You stole someone's passport?!" Qi Fei found it utterly unbelievable.

“I didn’t intend to steal it! I told you I was head over heels in love with Li Yang’er back then, and I planned to wait for her to come back, take my passport, and confess to her, begging her not to go abroad. I waited for her for a long time, clutching my passport, but when she came back, I hesitated. I didn’t have the courage to go up and talk to her even after she closed the door. After thinking it over, I had no choice but to come back with my passport first. I thought she would eventually come back to the market to do business, so I would make up an excuse that I found it and return it to her. But after that, she never showed up again.”

"Heh, no wonder you didn't remind her that someone had entered her room. Turns out you did something bad too," Wu Shanqiu said irritably.

Zhao Hongda denied it: "I was just a coward, I didn't mean to do anything bad. But I knew she couldn't leave the country during that time, she would have to spend time getting a new passport. But a few days after that, the merchants in the market couldn't contact her. I was worried that something had happened to her."

"Huh? You're worried she might get into trouble and won't call the police?" Wu Shanqiu couldn't hide her speechlessness.

"I'm afraid the police will mistake me for a thief. Besides, I went into her room. If something really happens to her, I'll be in deep trouble," Zhao Hongda argued. "Besides! When I left, I realized I accidentally touched the stamp she kept in the drawer, and my hands got ink on them. Don't they say in TV dramas that the police use fingerprints to convict people? There might be my fingerprints in the room. I'm not 100% sure Li Yang'er is in trouble. Calling the police would just be asking for trouble."

However, none of this mattered to Qi Fei. They knew that Li Yang'er was most likely dead. What Qi Fei cared about was another piece of information he had mentioned: "You just said that you got ink on the seal? Are you sure?"

The air conditioning wasn't on in the room. Zhao Hongda's oily face was contorted in pain as he searched for his memory, just as he had searched for his passport earlier. "What's wrong?" He didn't understand why this matter suddenly seemed so important. "I thought about it later. The stamp was in the drawer, without a box. I got quite a bit on my hand. We business people can definitely tell the difference between ink and stamps."

"You said Li Yang'er's schedule is very regular. According to her habits, what time should she have left the hotel that day?" Qi Fei asked.

"Um, I don't know. Don't we usually leave in the morning?"

"It was already evening when you went into her room, wasn't it? Because you wanted to wait for her to come back from work?" "Yes..." Zhao Hongda answered blankly, not understanding what Qi Fei meant by these questions.

Zhong Kui had already guessed what Qi Fei was concerned about, and said from the side, "If Li Yang'er left early in the morning, even if she used the seal, it would have been almost completely dry by the time you arrived. If there is more than a little bit of ink on your hands, it means that the ink left on the seal is still wet. It seems that we have found the purpose of that lady in the red sweater sneaking into Li Yang'er's room."

Wu Shanqiu also realized what was happening and chimed in, "Oh! She stole Li Yang'er's seal and forged the contract?"

“Well, if they want to take over Li Yang’er’s earnings, they can’t just say that she’s gone and it’s automatically theirs. They still have to go through the proper procedures,” Zhong Kui said coldly.

“Come with us to identify the people…” His heart was heavy.

"Huh? Acknowledge, acknowledge whom?" Zhao Hongda asked nervously.

Qi Fei didn't answer, but instead took out his phone and operated it alone in the corner for a while before handing it to Zhao Hongda.

There was a set of photos on my phone. I scrolled through them, and they were all of young women, but their clothes looked like they were from more than 20 years ago.

"Who was that person you saw wearing the watermelon-red sweater?" Qi Fei asked.

Among the photos, Qi Fei tried his best not to focus on one of them, which was a picture of his mother, Xi Ziyun. The tension between being a police officer and being a party involved almost tore him apart. He knew that this was a trap set for him by Xi He. In order to save Qi Dongjun, he could not stay out of it from the very beginning.

Zhao Hongda was still looking back and forth at the photos. Only a minute or two had passed, but for Qi Fei, it felt like an eternity.

He hoped that all the clues he had previously investigated related to Xi Ziyun were just coincidences, and that Zhao Hongda would shake his head and tell him that there was no one he knew in the photo.

However, Zhao Hongda's hand, which was swiping through the photos, finally stopped at one of them: "Although I don't remember it very well, if you ask me which one is closest, it's this woman."

As expected, without any unexpected twists, Zhao Hongda's finger landed on Xi Ziyun's photo.

"Are you sure?" Qi Fei pressed.

“After all these years, I can’t guarantee it, but the woman is very pretty, with big eyes, and it’s almost certainly the woman in this photo,” Zhao Hongda replied.

Everything became clearer, and everything was even more disappointing. Qi Fei dejectedly went downstairs and walked through the crowded corridor toward the clothing store.

Zhong Kui's voice came from behind: "Huh? Is this mannequin's hand always in this position?"