Winter Returns

Chapter 36 Start investigation

Is it Friday night?
Or Saturday?
Sunday?

Zhang Shutong was the first to rule out the first one.

Even if Song Nanshan is a rough person, he wouldn't have gone without making a single phone call over the weekend. Besides, Gu Qiu Mian's father should have inquired about it too. It's impossible for him to do so tonight.

He felt this was a kind of salami slicing tactic, at least to cut tonight's expenses first.

As for whether it's Saturday or Sunday, that's not something to consider right now. Zhang Shutong controlled his turbulent thoughts and focused on the most pressing problem that needed to be solved—

How can we find out who did these two things?

At this moment, Old Song opened the car door, grabbed his hair, squeezed out a handful of water, and looked pale.
"I can't get through to her dad; his phone is probably on silent."

Zhang Shutong glanced at his watch; it was already past seven o'clock.

Old Song lit another cigarette, but the cigarette was wet and wouldn't light no matter how hard he tried. He crumpled it up and threw it out of the car in frustration.

"Li Yipeng's mother has made me nervous too. Normally, smashing a flowerpot and poisoning a dog isn't a big deal, but sigh, of course, it's actually quite a big deal. I mean, I'm afraid she poisoned the dog for some other purpose..."

"So there's something strange." Zhang Shutong wiped the water from his forehead.

"How to say?"

"Poisoning dogs and smashing flowerpots are contradictory," Zhang Shutong frowned. "Is Gu Qiumian's nanny a live-in nanny?"

"right……"

"But one of these two things is to eliminate the commotion, and the other is to create it, so..."

Old Song already understood:
"You mean, if you really want to do something else secretly, you shouldn't smash the flowerpot?"

"Yes."

"So it was just a simple act of venting anger?"

"It's hard to say." Zhang Shutong certainly hoped that was the case, but at this moment, all he could say was, "Let's call the police."

Old Song picked up his phone, and the two men huddled in the car, silently staring at the lit window in the villa.

The call was answered quickly.

"Hello, can you hear me..." The signal wasn't good. Maybe there was a signal receiver installed in the villa, but they were outside. "Hello comrade, my name is Song Nanshan, a teacher at Yingcai Middle School... Yes, right now at my student's house... Um, you should have heard of Gu Jianhong's daughter... A guard dog was poisoned to death... Yes, I suspect it's retaliation for a business dispute, yes... What?"

Song Nanshan suddenly frowned.

He spoke a few more words quickly, hung up the phone, cursed, and slammed his phone on the steering wheel.

"What's going on?" Zhang Shutong asked immediately.

"Trying to smooth things over," Old Song said angrily.

"Are the police unaware of the conflict between her family and the commercial street?"

"That's why we did it this way. On one side is the big boss, and on the other are the island's residents. If we don't handle it properly, it'll be a ticking time bomb. They'll be trying to escape as fast as they can. They just told me we don't have enough police manpower. Three officers went out of the island on business, and the station is busy right now. They can come and patrol later, but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to investigate the dead dog..."

Zhang Shutong remained silent. It was indeed the case; apart from himself, no one could connect a dog with a human life.

Old Song said dejectedly:
"What a lame excuse, is everyone rushing to leave the island today?"

Zhang Shutong knew that the island's police station only had five or six police officers, and now that half of them were gone, plus the removal of a dispatcher, it was uncertain whether they would respond to such a case.

“It might not be an excuse.” He reminded Lao Song, “We just arrested two poachers the day before yesterday, and they even had guns. They might actually be being taken to the city’s police station.”

"Then let's call." Old Song suddenly seemed to have made up his mind, muttering as he flipped through his contacts, "She didn't seem to like that dog that much yesterday..."

The call was quickly connected, and the piano music in the music room stopped immediately.

"Hey Qiu Mian, have you eaten? I noticed your dog seemed a bit quiet... Oh, it's an old dog after all... Never mind it... Okay, your housekeeper isn't leaving tonight, right? Yeah, I just wanted to ask if you're okay. Shu Tong and I are just about to go find a place to eat. Okay, be careful tonight, don't go out. I'll come over first thing tomorrow morning..."

Old Song was about to hang up the phone when Zhang Shutong grabbed him.

"Wait, tell her to ask the nanny if she heard anything today."

After a while, the person on the other end of the phone finally responded, and Old Song shook his head in acknowledgment.

"What did she eat for dinner?"

"You..." Old Song didn't know what to say, but he forced himself to ask again, repeating his answer, "Sweet and sour pork ribs, braised fish, scrambled eggs, and a braised duck soup... It's quite a feast. It's alright, I was just worried you wouldn't eat well, so I'm relieved..." 'Any questions?' Old Song gestured with his eyes.

Zhang Shutong shook his head.

Song Nanshan finally hung up the phone, but in the end, he still didn't tell the truth.

He stared silently at the windshield, reaching for his cigarette, but then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he slapped his thigh, startling Zhang Shutong.
"Oh right, Shutong, I just remembered, don't your parents rarely come home? Why don't we just bring Qiu Mian to your place? This isn't to set you two up, seriously, my dorm is too small, there's only one single bed, you know that..."

Zhang Shutong considered the feasibility of this plan:
"Sure, but I'm not free tonight."

Gu Qiu Mian will be safe tonight. This is a precious "safe time." Perhaps only tonight can we temporarily ignore her and start investigating more clues.

"What are you up to now? No way, I don't need your permission, I'm making the decision." Old Song said, reaching for the phone.

Zhang Shutong was helpless upon seeing this:
"The person who poisoned the dogs has left."

"Who knows when he'll be back?" Old Song stared wide-eyed, feeling that this kid's problem was no longer whether he was quick to understand or not.

"It's not too late to go find them now."

"What do you mean?" Song Nanshan was taken aback, realizing that his student seemed to have changed. He used to be a quiet little kid, but now he was staring intently at him.

"I think I'm getting it."

Zhang Shutong took out his phone and glanced at the time. Water dripped from his hair down his chin, and his pants were gradually getting wet, but he was completely unaware.

"So we have other things to do now. If we really can't find any clues tonight, then we'll try again tomorrow..."

At this point, Zhang Shutong felt that timing this difference was not very meaningful and changed his tune:

"Then I'll pick up Gu Qiumian and take her to my house later."

"Are we still going to investigate?" Old Song asked somewhat reluctantly. "Then Qiu Mian can come along..."

“I don’t care, but you don’t want her to worry.”

"That's true." Old Song sighed, finally convinced. He started the car, then realized something. "I almost got led astray by you. Why did you insist on investigating tonight? I agreed before because we had nothing else to do, just for fun. But now there's something more important right in front of us..."

As he spoke, Song Nanshan realized:
"Wait a minute, you've already got a clue?"

“There are two key points: the dog and the flowerpot.” Fox slowly drove off the road in front of the villa, and Zhang Shutong looked out the window at the darkness: “I haven’t thought of the dog yet, but the flowerpot is a crucial clue.”

Now was not the time to keep him in suspense, so he explained directly:

"I checked the distance of that row of flower pots. They're not far from the house. We could hear Gu Qiu Mian playing the piano just now, which means the soundproofing isn't very good."

"So, if they want to smash an entire row of flowerpots without the nanny hearing a sound, when would they do it?"

"sleep?"

“No,” Zhang Shutong shook his head. “Like I said, it’s not just one flowerpot. One flowerpot might not attract attention, but in a row of flowerpots, there’s probably only one that doesn’t want to draw attention—”

He gave the answer directly:
"That means it was overshadowed by a bigger commotion."

"The rest is figuring out what sound is making so loud. Cleaning isn't enough. Making the bed isn't enough. Even doing laundry isn't enough. I was just thinking about that, but there's one thing that's enough..."

Out of the corner of his eye, Old Song kept his eyes glued to the road ahead, but he had already pricked up his ears. Zhang Shutong took one last look at the villa:
That's a range hood.

"There's only a range hood, and it's only for dinner. Breakfast is usually simple, and she eats out for lunch. The nanny usually just grabs whatever she can get by. But dinner is different; there are three meat dishes, all of which produce a lot of oil and smoke."

"So that's why you asked her what she ate?" Song Nanshan belatedly realized.

The car began to accelerate, the gearbox shifted into second gear, and then immediately into third gear. They drove back onto the small road they had come from, the dim lights illuminating the outline of the road ahead.

“There’s another thing that can prove this point.” Zhang Shutong simply nodded and began to speak faster. “Dogs need to be fed. Since the nanny hasn’t discovered that the dog was poisoned, it couldn’t have happened in the morning or at noon. And it’s not just when she was feeding the dog; she could have discovered it while watering the flowers or taking out the trash.”

"So the other party must schedule the poisoning of the dog at a time when they are certain she will not come out, which can only be at night."

"Only during this time period does the nanny cook for Gu Qiu Mian. After cooking, she will be almost home. By the time she finishes eating and cleans up the dishes, it will be around now. Who would be out at this time? If we find out, it will only be tomorrow morning."

"So in the end, we only need to confirm one thing: what time should we start preparing dinner? Five o'clock is about right. But if we extend the timeframe from five in the afternoon until now, from when the three of us left the school gate to Gu Qiumian's villa, we've only actually seen one so-called figure—"

As the car entered the curve, Old Song slammed his hand on the steering wheel, and a piercing horn blared in the desolate night. He couldn't help but swear, but he didn't forget to shift into fourth gear and blurted out:
"That van!"

(End of this chapter)