Chapter 1400: An Intense Battle

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

The mysterious black briefcase from the Military Intelligence Bureau had turned into the focal point of the case.

Candy Dad Jerry asked Huang Rong to open up the briefcase to be searched, and of course the latter refused. That was because those were military assets, and Faran Liang from the Special Bureau Headquarters was standing on Huang Rong’s side.

“Dad, don’t go overboard. Military assets aren’t something that just anyone could search and look at,” Faran Liang said in a nasty tone, as he licked his lips nervously.

Jerry laughed, “How did the Special Bureau become just anyone? Can either of you take the responsibility of impeding the Special Bureau when conducting a criminal investigation?”

Faran Liang froze. In accordance with Union law, everything pertaining to a special ability criminal’s case would be handled by the Special Bureau, and that included these matters. If Jerry were to report this matter to the higher-ups, even the military would very much stand in line with Jerry’s view, since the military had no wish to be placed under suspicion from the Special Bureau.

Just as both sides were in this stalemate, Huang Rong suddenly made eye contact with one of his men, and a military man dressed in casual clothes lifted the briefcase in the corner of the room and placed it in front of Jerry.

Huang Rong spoke, “You can search it if you wish, but let me pose you a different question: What will you do if you can’t find any relevant evidence inside?”

Jerry looked at Xia Fan, who revealed a mysterious smile. “I dare guarantee with my own head that evidence will surely be found inside that briefcase.”

“Heh!” Huang Rong chuckled and shrugged, “You can’t bear such a responsibility. What do you say, Dad?”

Jerry called Dunn, whose nickname was ‘Man in Black’, over. With a serious look on his face, he told him, “Go and see what’s in the briefcase. If there isn’t any evidence, I’ll resign from my post.”

The colleagues of the Investigation Bureau were all shocked! This was Dad putting himself on the line!

Qin Zimo looked at Xia Fan, seemingly appearing to have some gripes about him. After all, Xia Fan was the reason Dad was acting in such a manner. If there really was no evidence found inside, Xia Fan would be to blame.

Dunn frowned. He seldom spoke and wore a black windbreaker all year round, which was why everyone called him the Man in Black.

Xia Fan felt that of every single investigator in the Special Bureau, Dunn was the most mysterious. He was never in the station, and Xia Fan had no idea what he was busy with. Chenchen was his partner, yet Dunn would always leave him alone in the station.

Opening the briefcase, Dunn put on a pair of black gloves and retrieved the items within, as the expression of the Special Bureau members turned uglier with each moment.

“Huuu…” Dunn took one final look into the case and then silently shook his head at Dad, indicating that there was nothing inside the briefcase that had been stolen from the safe. He then glared at Xia Fan fiercely, like he wanted to skin Xia Fan alive.

Huang Rong laughed as he gloated, “All of you are finally appeased, right? Dad, we’re quite busy today, so me and Old Liang will buy you drinks next time.”

The overweight body of Dad swayed slightly, and shut his eyes unhappily. Never did he expect that his career would be over just like that, while everyone, including Cheyenne, was glowering at Xia Fan with resentment.

Suddenly, everyone heard Xia Fan chuckle and say, “Hold it!”

“What else are you trying to do?!” Faran Liang fumed angrily. “There’s nothing from the safe inside the briefcase?”

Xia Fan unhurriedly corrected, “I was not hoping to find the stolen items from the safe inside the briefcase in the first place. What I really want to find is this!”

With that, everyone expressed their surprise as Xia Fan walked over and took out a clear glass bottle from among the items inside the briefcase. The moment he retrieved the clear bottle, the expression on Huang Rong’s face changed as he silently clenched his fists.

Arriving in front of a wall in the living room, Xia Fan pointed at it and said with a smile, “The killer left an important message on the wall, but someone arrived at the crime scene before we did and used a special chemical solution to remove the words. If you don’t believe me, you can have it tested.”

“Erasing key evidence without authorization? You guys should sit tight and wait to be court-martialed!”

After Xia Fan was done, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sealable bag and placed the bottle of chemical solution inside, handing it over to Cheyenne.

They had actually been played by Xia Fan!

He did say there would be evidence found inside the briefcase, except he did not specify what kind of evidence. What he had been looking for was not the items that had been stolen from the safe, but the bottle of chemical solution!

Faran’s gaze was lifeless, while the color of Huang Rong’s face went from white to red, before finally becoming livid.

“Bold move, kid!” Chenchen made his way over and happily patted Xia Fan on the back.

Though Xia Fan had found the important evidence that the military attempted to erase evidence with that chemical solution, the expression on Dad’s face only grew even more solemn than before.

Huang Rong merely looked him in the eye and shrugged, not saying a word. Every military personnel instantly went mute like Huang Rong, as well. No matter what Dad asked, not a single one of them said even a word.

“At this rate, you’ll all be going to military court. Is that worth it?” Dad asked again, but all of them maintained their silence, as if they had made the decision to hide the truth of the matter.

Xia Fan softly said, “Dad, aside from them, there’s also the maid who discovered the crime scene. Perhaps she might have seen what was written on the wall. The maid should now be giving a written statement at the local police station.”

Jerry nodded, “Qin ZImo, have the police send the witness to our station.”

Qin Zimo nodded and left the living room, heading to the hallway to ring up the police.

Not too long later, he returned to the living room with a furrowed brow, whispering into Dad’s ears.

“Dead?!” Jerry blurted out in shock the moment he heard him.

…

Cheyenne was right. It was best when the Special Bureau had nothing to do, because whenever they were mobilized, it would naturally become a major case.

The six military personnel from the Military Intelligence Bureau had been detained. As they were part of the military, it was necessary to report that to both the headquarters and the military, and just that alone kept the Special Bureau busy.

As for Faran Liang, Dad merely reported his status to the headquarters, and then had his freedom of movement restrained, without physically detaining him.

The on-site investigation was handed over to Chenchen and Dunn. Qin Zimo was in charge of escorting Huang Rong and the others back to the station, while Xia Fan and Cheyenne were sent to investigate the scene of the maid’s death.

　…

Her name was Bai Dongmei, forty-seven years old. She lived in a low-class community some thirty-seven kilometers away from Wu Jie’s villa. She had five children, and her husband worked in construction. They did not have too much in terms of income, and the family lived in extreme poverty.

Wu Jie and his wife were military-born and were in great physical shape. There was technically no need for anyone to take care of them, but because their children worked too much, the old couple had to hire Bai Dongmei, putting her in charge of cooking and taking care of the grandchildren whenever they were sent over.

The police needed to take her to the police station to get her written statement, but while they were driving through a tunnel, the car suddenly lost control and crashed into an oncoming truck. The police car turned into a ball of flame upon impact, and the two policemen and Bai Dongmei died almost instantly. The driver of the truck was also heavily injured from the collision, and was sent to the local hospital. He remained in a coma even now.

After they were done examining the scene of the crime, Xia Fan and Cheyenne returned to the station. By then, it was 1 PM in the afternoon. Jerry decided to immediately call for a plenary meeting and summarize all aspects of this case.

—

There were only six investigators in the Special Bureau of Brenia, including Candy Dad Jerry, so the conference room was still fairly spacious even when everyone was gathered.

Dad sat in the middle of the conference table and said with a furrowed brow, “Dunn, you go first.”

Dunn, still in his black windbreaker, nodded and with a push of a button on the remote he was holding, he projected high resolution pictures of the crime scene for all to see.

“It’s a tragedy,” Dunn began. “Two elderly individuals, three kids, and just as Xia Fan had speculated, they were all executed. There were bruises on the knees of the children, which was a clear sign that the killer made them kneel in that living room for at least thirty minutes before killing them.”

“Traces of tears were also found mixed with the blood on the floorboards from under the three children. It’s apparent that they were frightened into tears by the killer.”

“The killer then used a knife with their left hand to slit the throats of the kids, starting with the youngest, before ending with Wu Jie. That is to say that Wu Jie had to watch as his own grandchildren and wife were slain before he was also taken care of. This was most likely because the killer felt that letting Wu Jie die wasn’t enough, and so they employed psychological torture before he died.

“Being able to restrain Wu Jie so easily indicates someone with an Intermediate Starbase cultivation, going to show that the killer’s cultivation was very high, and the same could be said about their combat strength. The only thing I haven’t figured out is why the killer was so cruel with his methods. Given how deep a hatred he must have had toward Wu Jie, why did he simply stop short at just slitting the throats of the family, and not do anything further to their dead bodies?

“If we are talking about some deep-seated grudge, then surely an appropriate revenge from the killer would be cutting Wu Jie’s body into pieces, right?”

The entire conference room was deep in thought, until Xia Fan commented softly, “This case could make sense if the killer was from the military.”

“How so?” Dunn asked, baffled. Everyone turned to regard Xia Fan.

Xia Fan explained, “I read this from a book, the third volume of Union Military Culture Studies, which includes Marshall Ricardo’s fourth Great Cosmic War’s memoirs. It was said that ever since the first Great Cosmic War, the military of the Three Major Federations have the custom of exchanging their dead.

“During times of war, military personnel would regularly set aside a date for the exchange, so that the dead soldiers could be sent back to their homes and be given proper burials. Mutilating a corpse was considered a serious taboo, and was viewed as a cowardly behavior by soldiers. Such a custom is maintained even today.”

Chenchen scratched his blond hair and asked, “So you mean to say that the killer is a soldier?”

Xia Fan responded noncommittally, “Wu Jie joined the military when he was seventeen and worked with them his entire life. His social connections and friends are all in the army.

“Just now what Dunn said; the killer made the family of five kneel on the ground for as long as thirty minutes, scaring the kids witless during that time, yet the killer showed no compassion whatsoever, nor did he panic. That sort of calculated cruelty isn’t something your average criminal could demonstrate.”

Dad did not say a word for a long time. After he was done thinking, he asked Xia Fan, “Any clues from the Wu Family maid?”

Xia Fan answered, “The body has already been burnt to a crisp. Cheyenne and I found a pair of black diamond earrings in the wreckage, and after analysis, we concluded it was something that Wu Jie’s wife wore, a wedding keepsake that the two had. The price of the item when it waswas around two hundred and eighty-seven thousand Union dollars. The transaction records were found in the archives of the Jeweler’s Association.

“If I’m not mistaken, the maid wasn’t some good person at all. She came to the Wu Family’s Villa in the early morning, discovered that the five were dead, and then grew bold enough to steal the lady’s expensive earrings.

“That was why Faran Liang’s deduction that this was a robbery-murder simply couldn’t stand. Stealing something specifically from the safe, when the precious jewelry worn on their persons was left untouched? That was just abnormal.

“Even stranger is the fact that the cars built nowadays all have accident prevention systems, and yet the police car’s safety measures completely failed, accelerating into oncoming traffic. It’s really hard for me not to find that suspicious.”

“What do you mean?” Cheyenne asked nervously in her haste.

Xia Fan shrugged helplessly, “It’s clear that there is an unknown force that is stopping us from getting to the truth, and if I’m not mistaken, even if it isn’t the military, it’s surely someone with ties to them!

“I suggest we use the truth serum and interrogate Huang Rong overnight. He’s bound to know something.”

Truth serum?!

Everyone was stunned. The truth serum was a type of powerful chemical drug that the moment it was administered, the subject would lose control of their mind and answer any question without a single untrue word.

But while the truth serum was a powerful drug, it also had severe side effects, putting the subject into a trance. In more serious cases, it could even induce mental illness and cause death.

Huang Rong had already been detained by the Special Bureau, but he was still a military officer. Using the truth serum on him would most likely incur the great displeasure of the military.

That was when Jerry slapped the table and said in a decisive tone, “Then let’s do just that. Dunn, go get the truth serum from storage. Qin Zimo and Xia Fan, join me in the interrogation room. If Huang Rong still refuses to cooperate, then we’ll inject him with the drug.”

“Got it.”

“Understood.”

As everyone rose from their seats, the doors of the conference room promptly burst open as Faran Liang came walking in with a somber look on his face. He swept his gaze across the room before finally taking out a printout bearing the Special Bureau’s insignia and placing it in front of Jerry.

“This is an Appointment and Dismissal Order from the headquarters. From here onward, you have been effectively relieved from your work,” Faran Liang said in a hoarse voice.