American Zombie Detective

Chapter 135 Sister Separates, Sister Reunites as Husband and Wife (Four Chapters, Please Subscribe)

Through the swirling smoke, Lily's eyes held a complex mix of pity and despair: "Everyone outside says Lin Hao is madly infatuated with my body. Yes, we slept together, which was crazy, but only I know—" She paused, flicking away the ash from her cigarette: "What he was after wasn't sex, but maternal love!"

Carter and David exchanged a surprised glance, while Qin Jin remained expressionless, merely raising his chin slightly to signal her to continue.

"Many times, he held me and cried like a lost child. That feeling—it was fear, and also despair." Lily's voice became low and trembling. "Every time he finished with me, that fear became more pronounced, as if he was being chased by something. He once said that he was afraid of his parents, very afraid, and wanted to run away."

"Why?" Qin Jin finally spoke. It seemed he had come to the right person; she knew some real secrets.

Lily shook her head, as if recalling something: "He couldn't explain it clearly either, it was just a feeling, a feeling that his parents were looking at him strangely from behind, like they were looking at something, or planning something—he told me that his parents definitely wanted to kill him, just like his siblings."

"The same? What do you mean?"

Does Lin Hao have siblings? Why isn't that mentioned in the case file?

Qin Jin glanced at Detective Carter, who stood awkwardly and nervously to the side, his body tense and his expression extremely unpleasant.

"It means the same thing, naturally, that his older brother and sister are both dead. Can you believe it?" Lily added, "One older sister and two older brothers, the older one has been dead for over twenty years, the younger one for seven or eight years—Lin Hao believes that his parents killed them. He has always been very scared until three or four months ago, when he suddenly told me that he had found a way."

"A way?" Qin Jin withdrew his gaze, looking at Lily thoughtfully. "A way to leave home, or a way to survive?"

"A way to survive!" Lily nodded, certain of herself. "He said he knew how to survive, and once he succeeded, he would take me away to live somewhere else—" She shrugged self-deprecatingly and took a deep drag on her cigarette. "At the time, I thought he was drunk, so I didn't ask any more questions. When he came back later, he didn't mention it again."

Qin Jin remained silent for a few seconds.

Lily's testimony was highly indicative, depicting a young person struggling in a dysfunctional family environment and ultimately having a premonition of misfortune. However, this intuition and belief alone lacked any substantial evidence, which even Qin Jin, someone who could handle cases without evidence, found too far-fetched.

"Lily, I have to say, everything you're providing right now is speculation; there's no concrete evidence whatsoever, do you understand?"

Qin Jin's tone softened, and he spoke more slowly: "Your explanation won't get us to take any action."

Lily bit her chin, lost in thought. After a while, her eyes suddenly lit up: "Ah! That day! It was a few days after he told me he had a way. One night he came to my house and made a phone call downstairs. When I went down to check on him, he looked completely distraught, and his clothes were covered in blood, quite a lot of it."

"He's injured?" David blurted out from the side.

"No, he wasn't injured; it must have been someone else. I took him upstairs, and Lin Hao was shaking all over, constantly saying 'soon, soon'—I didn't have time to ask more questions, I just told him to change his clothes quickly. Now that I think about it—could he have stabbed his parents?"

Lily recalled the scene with lingering fear on her face.

"No, his parents weren't injured!" Carter finally found a way to show his serious side, and he immediately told Qin Jin, "I've investigated this matter, and Lin Hao's parents haven't been injured in the past few months."

Qin Jin nodded and noted down this point of doubt.

He took out his phone, pulled up several pictures of talismans he'd found online, and handed them to Lily: "Have you ever seen anything like this? Does Lin Hao have a booklet with these strange patterns drawn in it?"

Lily leaned closer to take a look, her eyes lighting up: "Yes, I've seen it before, right here—at their secret base, Lin Hao had a booklet like that."

"A secret base?!" Carter and David exclaimed in unison, their faces filled with surprise. Carter immediately pulled out his phone: "Where exactly is it? What's going on?"

Lily described the location: an old house next to Ontario Park, the former home of the Mike family, which had been largely neglected and had become their base.

"Thank you so much for your information, Lily. It's very important to us," Qin Jin said, expressing his gratitude.

Lily stubbed out her cigarette: "I hope you can find out the truth. That child—shouldn't have died so mysteriously."

1

Leaving Hellfire Bar, without Qin Jin needing to speak, Carter had already called his team: "Investigate the deaths of Lin Hao's brother and sister immediately! Right now! Find out the time, cause of death, and everything else—get it tonight!"

Just then, Qin Jin's phone rang; it was those thugs calling.

"Feed?" Qin Jin answered the call and pressed speakerphone.

A voice with a rooster-like hairstyle came from the other end of the phone, sounding both boastful and eager: "Boss! We found it! We asked several old neighbors, and finally got the information!"

Get to the point.

"Yes, yes, yes! The Lin family became rich about twenty years ago! Some people say that Lin Guofu and his wife went back to China, taking Lin Hao's eldest sister and two older brothers with them to live with their aunt—and as a result, not long after they returned, the family became rich!"

"Be specific!"

"Yes, yes, to be specific, it seems that Lin Guofu bought a broken cabinet or box, opened a hidden compartment and found tens of thousands of dollars! My God, tens of thousands of dollars from twenty years ago! He used the money to open a fruit shop, and the business was very good. It quickly became a big shop, and then opened branches. They even won the lottery, and they never lost at mahjong."

"Do you know how Lin Hao's sister and two brothers died?" Qin Jin only cared about the core issue.

"I asked around. His sister died when she went back that time. She didn't even bring her ashes back. She was buried directly in her hometown. Seven or eight years after she came back, her eldest brother died. Seven or eight years after that, her second brother also died. They all died from sudden illnesses."

The man with the rooster-like haircut had investigated very thoroughly and also answered all the questions Qin Jin hadn't asked: "Lin Hao was born after his parents came back that time, and he got pregnant again the following year, but it seems he miscarried."

"Well----"

The information basically matched up: a family lost three children in a short period of time, leaving only Lin Hao, and the parents' behavior made Lin Hao feel a deadly threat—plus the Lin family's bizarre history of sudden wealth, which seemed to have been "priced"—

Who knows if there's something fishy going on here!

As Qin Jin was pondering, the man with the rooster-like hair dropped another bombshell: "Oh yeah, there's something else! Boss, did you know that Lin Hao's current mother isn't actually his biological mother? His biological mother and father divorced after that miscarriage—"

"Wait! Divorce?" Qin Jin suddenly raised his voice: "Then who is Lin Hao's wife?"

"That's Lin Hao's aunt, not many people know that!" The man with the mohawk said smugly. "I only found out by asking the old man next door. Now everyone thinks Lin Hao's mother is Chen Zhenni, not many people know it's Chen Anni!"

"Chen Anni is... Lin Hao's mother?"

Qin Jin suddenly felt his brain wasn't working properly. What? Chen Anni was still connected to this? What exactly happened?

The whole thing is getting more and more bizarre—

Qin Jin felt that after collecting all the information today, he needed some time to organize his thoughts. The current tangled mess of clues was truly confusing.

He thought for a moment, then hummed in agreement, "Well done!" Qin Jin's tone softened, and he said to the man with the mohawk, "Continue investigating Lin Hao's family, and while you're at it, investigate the secondhand shop owner as well. Be thorough. Also—where are you guys right now?"

"Behind the old temple in Chinatown, we're going to get some McDonald's—"

"Old Mai?" This was Qin Jin's area of ​​ignorance: "What's that?"

"McDonald's, boss, hehe." The man with the mohawk chuckled twice.

"Alright, you wait here. I'll have someone bring you money as a reward! And if you find out the rest, I'll give you another bonus!"

A mohawk-haired man's excited voice came from the other end of the phone, and Qin Jin hung up immediately, pulling out $500 and giving it to David: "Drive over there and give them this $500—then come find us."