Case Files Chapter 35: Angel of Death (15)

Translated by Vivian of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

 

The next day, Guan Jin was surprised to see Lu YunYang sitting in his seat.

“Your seat is over there, why are you in mine?!” Guan Jin also found it odd. Why was it that when he was dealing with Min Yan, both of them with their own secret plans, he could still keep a cool head, but when he saw that Lu YunYang, he would get angry at once?

Lu YunYang good-naturedly and obediently sat back into his own seat, offhandedly handing a cup of coffee to Guan Jin. “Here, this shop’s lattes are quite good.”

Guan Jin snatched it, not caring about being in debt to him anymore. Anyway, Guan Jin still owed him for saving his life, so he didn’t need to bother about the other debts.

“Has there been any progress these past few days?”

Guan Jin frowned and continued to flip through the data, “No. Most people don’t fit the description, and as for the ones that do, when we look into them, they’re all married and have kids, as well as roots we can follow. As for the nonemployees, it’s relatively troublesome to look into them, since they were sent by a different company, so we’re not finished checking them yet.” 

He had requested not to look through the employees’ files, since he really didn’t want to have that useless information occupy his precious brain storage. In the end, Wen JingHan had mercifully approved him to come back and look at information to continue to explore new ideas. Actually, he had already memorized all of the information, and he only didn’t understand one thing: what would looking at it a few more times do?

“Look at it some more, and perhaps you’ll find connections that we’ve overlooked before, or come up with new ideas.” Lu YunYang seemed to see through his confusion.

Guan Jin gave up on denying it. “Say, shouldn’t you also cure your own workaholism? Is it really that enjoyable to see through everyone?”

“It’s hard for doctors to cure themselves. And, observing and understanding other people’s thoughts is very tiring. Sometimes, living in a bit of confusion and ignorance will be a lot easier.”

Guan Jin was silent, and his heart stirred.

“It’s not like I can control how talented I am. You understand the pains of being gifted, I’m sure.”

Guan Jin was speechless. He shouldn’t have believed that this person could ever say anything interesting to listen to.

“Yesterday, I found out that the shopkeeper of a convenience store near the clinic is familiar with a lot of Hospital Three’s employees, and he’s even more familiar with the people at the neighboring clinic. I thought that it was a major discovery, but that shopkeeper’s background was very easy to look into, and it was very clean,” Zheng Fei said regretfully.

“I know that shopkeeper, isn’t he at least forty years old?” Chen QiaoYu glanced at Zheng Fei.

“Hey, I was just trying it out. Maybe the person we catch in the end isn’t Yu Meng, but some old man instead.”

“Lu YunYang, he’s questioning your inference.” Guan Jin tried to sow discord.

“Little Jin, this is the first time you’ve called me by my name!” Lu YunYang was surprised.

“That’s not the point!”

“For me, there’s nothing as important as this. Next time, if you can call me by my name and without my surname, then I’ll be even happier.”

Zheng Fei secretly rejoiced at having escaped; he had thought that he was going to have to get into a professional debate with the professor, but fortunately, the professor was more interested in Guan Jin… But why did that sound so strange?

“We checked the entire hospital, but how can no one meet the requirements? This is so strange.” Ding Ding gloomily pounded the table with her fist.

“We only checked the household registration system and files, so it’s not possible for us to do a detailed investigation and verify every single person one by one. Perhaps there’s a fake among them.” Gu Xiang frowned.

“YunYang, do you have any new ideas now?” asked Wen JingHan.

Lu YunYang pondered for a moment. “They’re not really new ideas, merely more comprehensive ones. As I said before, the killer is a male, between 25 to 35 years old, very strong, and has low self-esteem. He experiences hindrances during social interactions, and when he was young, he was very pressured by a female guardian who worked in healthcare, so he both fears and hates those types of people. And, from the recent cases, I’ve discovered that the killer had carefully cleaned and cut the used infusion tubes, which means that not only is this person cautious, he’s also hygienic or has OCD to a certain degree. 

“When this person walks, he usually keeps his head down, and he’ll occasionally peek cautiously at and observe the people around him, but once he makes eye contact with someone, he quickly averts his gaze. Perhaps he can do his job very well, but he doesn’t deal with interpersonal relationships, and he occasionally talks with people he’s familiar with, though he speaks very little. Outside of work, he practically doesn’t talk with or might even purposely avoid females. Two years ago, when he first used this method to kill someone, there must’ve been a trigger, either a sudden attack or conflict.”

Wen JingHan thought for a moment and said, “I’ve always had a question, how does this killer choose his prey? If it really is because of quarrels between these nurses and patients, then how does he know about them?”

Lu YunYang speculated, “Quarrels of this degree won’t be very impactful if he only heard about them from another person. For example, we might say that so-and-so started arguing with a patient again, and that patient is so difficult, or so-and-so has such a bad temper. We wouldn’t describe the interactions between the two of them in detail. This killer is very decisive when he strikes, so if his standard was only when he found out that someone had a dispute with a patient, then there wouldn’t only be three dead people right now, since arguments between doctors and patients occur frequently in hospitals.”

“So you’re saying that the killer witnessed everything firsthand, which is why he got stimulated and struck?”

“It’s very likely.”

“It’s a shame that no one would remember who was present when these people were quarreling,” Zheng Fei said helplessly.

Guan Jin and Lu YunYang suddenly looked at each other and said in unison, “We remember! Lei Jing!”

“How could we have overlooked this?!” exclaimed Chen QiaoYu.

“We didn’t overlook it. Actually, I thought of it before, but because of Du XiaoYue’s different conditions, I gave up on the idea. It’s my mistake,” said Wen JingHan.

“But now it comes up again…”

“Based on Zheng Fei’s thinking, since a lot of people from Hospital Three pass by the clinic and are very familiar with the convenience store’s shopkeeper, it’s very likely that they’re also familiar with the people in the clinic, and they may have even gone in before to chat before. As people in the same industry, they’re technically rivals, but at the same time, because they’re in the same industry, they have more things to talk about,” said Lu YunYang. “If that’s the case, then that means that it must be a doctor.”

Lu YunYang seemed to be dissatisfied with his own deduction. He said to Guan Jin, “Little Jin, that day, when we were at the hospital, it must be imprinted on your mind like a photograph. As a mortal, it’s already fuzzy for me.”

Guan Jin was quite pleased with his self-awareness, and he thought back to the scene. “That day, when Lei Jing was quarreling with the patient, someone there must’ve seen it. That hospital room was relatively big, with four beds in it, and there were patients on all the beds. They were all female, and the other people there was a doctor doing their rounds, as well as two young assistants. All three of them were male. A male nurse was helping a patient, who seemed to have broken his leg, onto a wheelchair, and a male janitor was taking out the trash and cleaning up the used bottles. Finally, there was Doctor Wang and Lei Jing. However, I couldn’t completely see what they looked like, since some of them had their backs turned to me.”

“That’s okay. Zheng Fei, go to the clinic again, and this time, question them from a different angle, I’m sure that you know what you should ask. Ding Ding, Gu Xiang, you two go to the hospital and find all of the males who were in that patient room that Lei Jing was working in. Bring back pictures of them for Guan Jin to confirm.”

“Why don’t you let me go directly?” asked Guan Jin.

“They’re more experienced than you at investigating these things, and I need you to do other things. It’s high time I made use of your ability. Don’t think about the data. Instead, think back to the scenes and all of the possibilities we’ve discussed before, just like a movie, understand?” prompted Wen JingHan.

Guan Jin was impassive. A movie…

“…Okay, I’ll leave the job of enlightening him to you, YunYang.”

 Lu YunYang happily accepted, oblivious to Guan Jin’s resentful glare that seemed to say, “I’m a genius why do I need a mortal to enlighten me”.

Everyone went about their own work, but Guan Jin was still confused. Lu YunYang wanted to approach him, but Guan Jin raised his hand and stopped him. “If you’re going to preach something, no thanks.”

Lu YunYang narrowed his eyes. “How could I use such a dull method, it’ll damage my reputation as a professor. I have a more vivid method, and it’ll also be entertaining. How about trying it out?”

“I’m not interested.”

In the end, Guan Jin fumed at his past self that had somehow been persuaded to go into the car, but when there was someone smiling and staring at you for most of the day, no one would be able to stand it.

“…This is the entertaining and vivid method you were talking about?” Guan Jin, who was standing at the entrance of the Haitian Movie Theater, really wanted to turn around and leave immediately.

“Yep, how vivid. After watching a movie, perhaps the scenes in your brain will also become more vivid.” Lu YunYang still felt pleased with his suggestion.

Ha, in this lifetime, wait no, in his previous lifetime, he had only watched one movie. It was that old man ¹ who had brought him there, saying something about how “children should watch more cartoons, and if one has a sullen expression on them all the time, they might get facial paralysis when they grow up.” Who knew, the person who enjoyed watching it most was still that old man.

“…tickets.”

“What?” Guan Jin came back to his senses and realized that he had already unconsciously followed him in, and Lu YunYang seemed to have just said something.

“I finished buying our tickets.”

Guan Jin took them and glanced at them: Toy Story 3.

“…Couldn’t you have chosen a more relevant movie?”

“Cartoons are actually very relevant and meaningful, since the world from the perspective of a child is the most genuine. Besides, children should watch more cartoons, and if one has a sullen expression on them all the time, they might get facial paralysis when they grow up.”

Guan Jin was stunned, and the person in front of him and the person who had left a long time ago seemed to overlap.

Lu YunYang was also a little surprised that Guan Jin hadn’t turned hostile and was only looking at him, though he seemed to have been dazed.

“Come on, let’s go in.”

Guan Jin hooked up the corner of his mouth disdainfully, only putting it down after they went into the theater. Soon afterwards, Lu YunYang noticed that Guan Jin was reaching into the popcorn box more and more often, and the sound of his chewing was nonstop.

Two hours later, the movie ended, and there was a small gift shop in the movie theater’s lobby. Guan Jin’s gaze strayed towards it.

“Do you want to go buy a Buzz Lightyear?” His tone was beguiling.

“Are you kidding me, why would I want him? To save the world?” Guan Jin rolled his eyes.

Guan Jin hastily continued walking, why would he want to play with these toys for little kids? In his childhood, there had been a toy store in the neighboring block. When parents brought their little children out of it, every child would look extremely excited, but when he thought back to it now, it only felt cringey.

When he sat into the car, Guan Jin’s happy mood dissipated, and his expression became gloomy again.

After a while, Lu YunYang sat in and closed the car door. Suddenly, he brought out a large box, and inside the transparent cover, there was a Buzz Lightyear around 50 centimeters tall with his hands on his hips.

“What do you think, isn’t he very cool? He’s just like in the movies, and he’s remote-controlled.” Lu YunYang shook it proudly.

Guan Jin’s gaze followed it. “Have you not been weaned yet? Playing with stuff like this.”

“This is a figurine, a must-collect for enthusiasts, it’s not just a child’s toy. But what you said is true. If I took this home and put it somewhere, it would ruin my room’s style, and if I put it in the office, it would affect my professional image.” Lu YunYang looked a little troubled.

“Evil rich mister, who doesn’t know about the troubles of the common people and spends money recklessly,” Guan Jin said sourly.

“They don’t accept refunds. If I threw it away, it would be too wasteful, and I don’t have any children in my family. Why don’t… you do me a favor?”

“What do you mean?” Guan Jin shifted in the seat.

“Help me keep him. Just treat it as a request and grudgingly take him back, you can put him wherever,” Lu YunYang said imploringly.

“You think my room doesn’t have style?”

“How come? That’s why I asked you, please don’t let him live on the streets.”

Guan Jin tutted and grabbed it, holding it in front of him. “You don’t need to do such a stiff performance, if you want to give it to me, just say it directly. I’ll definitely take pity on your respect for your senior.”

“Senior?”

“I joined the police team several years earlier than you, so aren’t I your senior?”

“Yes, yes. Please reluctantly accept a gift from your junior.”

Guan Jin looked disdainfully at the green robot in the box and thought, So ugly. Then, he hugged the box tightly in front of him, not letting go even when he got out of the car.

When arrived home, Guan Jin placed Buzz on his nightstand and looked at him for a long time. Right before he went to bed, he finally realized that he hadn’t gone for the purpose of watching a movie, he had gone because of a sad task: recall the scenes, link them up, and along with everyone’s discussions, form a complete story… 

The first person that was killed, the infusion tubes, the hospital room Lei Jing was arguing in, the infusion tubes that Doctor Wang asked for, Wu Meng’s recordings, the amazing Buzz Lightyear, Lu YunYang’s analysis, everyone’s—— Wait! Some strange thing seemed to have been mixed in just then…

Never mind, keep going! Next was everyone’s analysis and investigation, the underground passageway, Zhao MengQi stealing an infusion tube, Yu Hua’s death, Yu Meng’s misfortunes, Lu YunYang’s analysis, Wen JIngHan’s conclusion… Various scenes flew around in his mind, spinning and changing. He kept hearing various noises, and Guan Jin rubbed his temples, frowning deeply.

Slowly, a line thinly peeled off, and an image turned from blurry to clear. Yes, it must be him. But what happened with Du XiaoYue? It wasn’t very possible for him to have gone deeply into the clinic, so there must be some things that were missing somewhere.

 

Before Guan Jin fell asleep, his brain was buzzing. Sure enough, this special ability couldn’t be used too often. A few days ago, he had watched that costume drama. How did it go again? Old Evil Huang’s wife, who had photographic memory, had tried to write a copy of that book from memory, but she died from the stress ²… No! Guan Jin definitely wouldn’t die such a stupid death!