Case Files Chapter 16: Debut (14)

Translated by Vivian of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

 

In the morning, when Guan Jin went to the police station, he discovered that the atmosphere in the office was very strange.

“You didn’t catch them?” Guan Jin said casually, as if this had nothing to do with him.

Zheng Fei looked irritated, and he threw down the notes in his hands. “They practically walked into us, and we caught all of them!”

Guan Jin was a little surprised. “You caught them? Then why do you guys look so unhappy?”

“That guy led the others scurrying down alleys like fools, and we caught them at once. Unexpectedly, he’s good at keeping his mouth shut, and even after an entire night of gruelling interrogation, blackmails, and bribes, he’s still stubbornly refusing to speak. If this was during the Chinese Revolution, he would be like the male version of Sister Jiang!” complained Chen QiaoYu, who had stayed up the entire night, as she laid on the desk.

“Who’s Sister Jiang?” Guan Jin inquired shamelessly.

“Sister Jiang was a martyr in the revolution. After she was caught by the enemy, they tortured her to extract information, but she would rather die than yield,” Gu Xiang explained patiently.

“Guan Jin, don’t you just have dissociative amnesia? You shouldn’t have forgotten common sense and general knowledge, right?” Wen JingHan suddenly said. He had been quietly leaning against the doorframe of the small office the entire time.

Guan Jin stiffened almost imperceptibly, but he slowly looked up and met Wen JingHan’s gaze. “The brain is a complicated thing, so who knows? Perhaps I’ve never known, or perhaps I’ve really forgotten.”

Wen JingHan shrugged and smiled. “That’s a possibility. But, this is also a good thing, since you won’t be restrained by your experience and can think outside of the box. Try to think of how to get Wang BingKang to talk.”

Guan Jin glanced at the interrogation room. “Is he really comparable to a revolutionary martyr? I don’t think so.” Then, he walked towards the interrogation room.

Gu Xiang followed him worriedly, and the others also went to join in on the fun, knowing that it was quite hopeless but still thought it was worth a try.

Inside the interrogation room, Wang BingKang was already a little unshaven, and he looked very exhausted and irritated.

“This is the spirit of a revolutionary martyr?” Guan Jin was doubtful.

“He might look weak, but he sure can keep his mouth shut when needed,” Zheng Fei said resentfully.

Guan Jin crossed his arms and looked at the person in the room for a while. Then, he grabbed a blank notebook, opened the door, and walked in.

Wang BingKang looked up alertly, and when he saw Guan Jin, his expression couldn’t help but change.

Guan Jin clearly didn’t intend on reminiscing. He sat opposite of Wang BingKang and placed the paper and pen on the table, crossed his legs, and remained silent. The two of them stared at each other like this for a long time…

“Say, how long are they going to affectionately look at each other for?” Lin Bai yawned and blinked.

Wang BingKang seemed to be restless, and he shifted on his chair. He said hoarsely, “Officer, I’m thirsty, can you give me a cup of water?”

“No,” Guan Jin said unhurriedly.

Wang BingKang was taken aback. “Officer, how can the police ignore human rights and abuse a criminal?”

“Since you’ve admitted you’re a criminal, then why don’t you explain what crimes you’ve committed?”

“I…”

“Explain them obediently, and you’ll be happy, or else we can take it slowly. I have all the time in the world.”

Wang BingKang was evidently frightened by Guan Jin’s expression and tone, which were even darker than that of a criminal. “What, what do you want to do?!”

Guan Jin casually spun the pen in his hand. “Let’s negotiate a condition. If you obediently tell me exactly what role you play in this case and who you work for, then I’ll use this pen simply to make some notes. If you continue refusing, then I’ll change its use. How about making it a fork? Where should I insert it? Why not… in your eye?” Guan Jin’s tone was as nonchalant as if he was talking about what he had eaten for breakfast.

“Wha- What?!” Wang BingKang was stunned and said in disbelief, “Are you kidding? Are you really going to use torture?”

“Kidding?” Guan Jin stood up, still spinning the pen skillfully in his hand. “Do you think I have the free time to invite you to the police station just to kid around?”

Wang BingKang was practically glued to the back of his seat, and he seemed to want to shrink into the back of his chair.

The people outside the room couldn’t see Guan Jin’s expression, since his back was facing them. Zheng Fei rubbed his chin. “Ha, I never expected that Guan Jin would know how to intimidate someone. But with his small figure, I’m afraid he doesn’t seem very threatening.”

“Is that so… How come I think that Wang BingKang looks very scared?” mumbled Lin Bai.

Guan Jin slowly walked to the other side of the table. Wang BingKang looked at him with wide eyes, and his spine tingled. What kind of expression was this? In the eyes of this little policeman, Wang BingKang seemed to just be an ant that he could easily step on and kill. Wang BingKang saw him raise his hand slowly and reach towards him.

He was going to die. This policeman was going to kill him, that’s what his expression said. Wang BingKang wanted to shout for help, but he couldn’t make a sound.

The corner of Guan Jin’s mouth suddenly hooked up, and he held Wang BingKang’s face with one hand, his finger holding his left eyelid open and pressing him firmly against the chair. Then, he used his other hand to plunge down the pen without hesitation.

Everything happened almost instantaneously, and the people outside didn’t react in time. Ding Ding’s scream was stuck in her throat, and before she could make a sound, a scream sounded from inside the interrogation room.

Zheng Fei and Gu Xiang were about to rush in, but Wen JingHan motioned for them to stop.

“I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!!!” Wang BingKang yelled hoarsely. Being less than a millimeter away from his opened eye, he could practically feel the ink at the tip of the pen touch his pupil.

Guan Jin let go and casually walked back to his seat. He put down the pen, and his expression was still as calm as ever, as if nothing had happened at all. Behind him, Wang BingKang was slumped back in the chair, panting heavily, and his shirt was soaked with cold sweat; he felt chills both inside and out.

Guan Jin opened the door and walked out. He said to everyone, who was dumbfounded, “I don’t have any experience in knowing what to ask, so you guys can go.”

Lin Bai swallowed with difficulty. “If, if you couldn’t control it and really stabbed him in the eye, what would happen?”

Guan Jin wondered, “If that happened, then we can just send him to the hospital. Criminals can get treated too, no?”

“…”

Wen JingHan coughed. “QiaoYu, Zheng Fei, go get a recorded statement. Everyone else, go do what you’re supposed to be doing.”

Everyone, who was still shocked, avoided Guan Jin and dispersed quickly.

“It looks like I’ll have to ask Gu Xiang to go over the police handbook with you again.” Wen JingHan looked at Guan Jin, who didn’t understand. “During interrogations, the police can never use violence.”

“Violence?” Guan Jin frowned as he thought about it for a moment. “It’s not like I beat him up just then, he didn’t even lose a strand of hair.”

“In principle, using threatening means aren’t encouraged.”

“Principle?” Guan Jin shrugged and walked past Wen JingHan. “Then that doesn’t matter, seeing as you’ve never had principles.”

“…”

Wen JingHan spent the entire morning in his office thinking about whether or not he should create a fair and strict image for himself again.

“Boss,” Ding Ding said as she put down her phone, “Tan Qu just called, and he said that he remembered something. Before, he unintentionally overheard sprinkles of a conversation, and they were saying that it doesn’t matter if Tan Qu and the others died or not, since they were just a decoy anyway.”

“Decoy?” Wen JingHan mulled over it. “Sure enough, this isn’t as simple as human trafficking or child pornography distribution. We should focus on the guests, but what does the mastermind behind the scenes want to get from them?”

“Those people aren’t that simple, so I’m afraid it’d take a lot more than this to bribe them,” said Gu Xiang.

At this time, Zheng Fei and QiaoYu walked in excitedly. “Boss, we got all of it!”

It turned out that Wang BingKang was a human trafficker in Southeast Asia, but later, because he offended some powerful people there, he was forced to give up his career and return to China. Soon after he returned, he opened a brokerage company and wanted to use signature fraud. Soon after the opening of the company, someone found him and suggested they work together. They said that after it was done, they could help him solve his troubles from before and also gave him a large sum of money. 

Wang BingKang was ecstatic, and he agreed immediately. He didn’t know who the person in contact with him was, and they only told him that he was to go find young people with relatively good appearances but were usually troublemakers, and whose disappearances wouldn’t attract a lot of suspicion or trouble. At the time, he didn’t think too much, but later, he felt that it was strange, since this wasn’t the usual way of selecting targets in this industry. Moreover, their operations were all gathered in one city, which was unusual. 

Wang BingKang wasn’t that type of person who followed orders strictly, so he secretly tracked someone who had come to pick up the goods. The person went in circles and disappeared in a busy street. Later, when someone was shot at the film set, Wang BingKang heard rumors of it and wanted to find the person who gave him instructions, but he couldn’t contact them anymore. Thus, he rented a house nearby and hired a few bodyguards, hoping that he could find some clues. 

Unfortunately, before he could find them, he exposed his whereabouts and was arrested. However, he did confirm something, which was that the person who gave him instructions was connected to the Zilab Clubhouse, because on the scrap of paper that they wrote down contact information and gave to him before had the same patterns on it that Zilan Clubhouse staff used. 

“It seems that we’re headed in the right direction. Surprisingly, this Wang BingKang is quite useful, and was able to find this small clue that helps us a ton.” Gu Xiang sighed.

“You already guessed that Wang BingKang was only being used, and that after things were exposed, he was abandoned, which is why you didn’t care about putting them on guard and was so determined to arrest him,” Guan Jin said definitely.

Wen JIngHan nodded. “This whole thing is very secretive, but the opponent assassinated someone so they couldn’t talk right in front of us and made things bigger, making us easily shift our gaze to the people involved in the film set, and then finding Wang BingKang. It was too obvious to be true. Thus, we could only boldly speculate that Wang BingKang was only a smoke bomb for them, the goal to make us change directions. We merely pretended to go along with it to relax their guard. It was just that they didn’t expect that Wang BingKang had done some detective work.”

“How come I didn’t know about these things?” Guan Jin said accusingly.

“This is the conclusion everyone came to during the analysis meeting before the arrest. At the time, you had other important tasks, so I didn’t inform you,” Zheng Fei assured quickly, scared that Guan Jin would use his pen to stab around again.

Hmph, it’s not like I care about what you guys discuss, I’m not on the same side as you all!

“Good news!” Le Fan suddenly ran towards them. “Someone from the Zilab Clubhouse called Jin MaiLong to invite him to go tonight, and they said that there’s going to be a special activity.”

“What’s that phrase again?” Wen JingHan smiled.

“A steady flow of successes ¹!” Ding Ding quickly answered.

Everyone put their thumbs up.

 

Guan Jin closed his eyes; this type of tacit understanding was too annoying!