The elevator came to a halt midway. Lu Linjiang and Yang Bo leaned back as Guo Junyi entered, clutching an e-reader. He let out a surprised "Yo!" before his gaze fixed on the bun in Yang Bo’s hand. "Eating?"
"...Brother Guo, you can't eat this one."
Guo Junyi rolled his eyes at him. "Stingy, just like your captain. You really lead all the good recruits astray!" He handed the e-reader to Lu Linjiang. "It’s decrypted. I took a preliminary look; it’s all papers and various experimental concepts. Highly technical stuff—laymen won't understand it."
Lu Linjiang took it. On the screen were several folders labeled *Papers*, *Experiments*, *Archives*, and *Other*. Without a second thought, he tapped the folder named *Other*. Inside were over forty documents. As Lu Linjiang scrolled through them, he asked casually, "Can you understand them?"
Guo Junyi scoffed. "I’m not an outsider like you lot! Though, as a graduate student in forensic medicine, even I find some of it a bit obscure."
Lu Linjiang: "..."
Yang Bo: "..."
"However..." Guo Junyi stepped out of the elevator first. "I can grasp the gist of it."
"For instance, there’s someone named Joseph Luo. In the folder you just opened, almost all the papers belong to him."
Lu Linjiang opened the documents one by one. Without exception, the author listed under each title was "Joseph Luo." Lu Linjiang skimmed the contents, but honestly couldn't make heads or tails of the technical jargon. "Is there anything special about them?"
"The data reflects a level of perfection that is suspicious, there are questionable choices regarding the hosts, and the conclusions on neutralizing antibodies are dubious," Guo Junyi explained.
Hearing the string of technical terms, a bewildered Lu Linjiang and Yang Bo looked at him. "Meaning?"
"Meaning many of these papers contain irrationalities."
"Which ones?"
"I don't know," Guo Junyi said innocently. "I didn't draw those conclusions. They were written at the bottom of Tao Minxing’s own final paper."
Lu Linjiang immediately pulled up the last document in the folder. Sure enough, Tao Minxing had explicitly listed the names of several papers and used red text to explain exactly why they were flagged.
"Tao Minxing called Jiang Cheng over in the middle of the night, intending to show him the e-reader, but he ultimately took it back. No one found this storage tube at first, but Luo Jia brought it out... By the way, where did Luo Jia say he found it?" Lu Linjiang looked at Yang Bo.
"In the suitcase."
Lu Linjiang walked over to the whiteboard, carefully examining the various pieces of information pinned there. "There were no fingerprints from Jiang Cheng on the suitcase. The only places his prints were found were on the laptop and the e-reader’s protective case. There weren't even any prints from Jiang Cheng on the e-reader itself; he hadn't even turned it on."
He drew an 'X' over the arrow connecting the e-reader to Jiang Cheng. Redrawing the diagram based on all current evidence, the figure that inevitably appeared at the center of the arrows was Luo Jia.
"We’re still missing key evidence." A trace of regret showed on Lu Linjiang’s face. "What time is it in Denmark? Have Jiang Langmin send over a copy of the hallway surveillance."
"4:30 AM," Xu Sichen checked the time. "I’ll send him a message now and another one in three hours."
"Right. Anything turned up on Luo Jia’s end?"
Xu Sichen displayed the gathered data. "Luo Jia’s family are early immigrants; he’s third-generation. His mother is Danish. They ran a local restaurant, but it went bankrupt due to poor management when he was in middle school. Luo Jia completed his studies almost entirely on scholarships. The family’s financial situation only began to improve after he joined Hughes."
"However, I think his financial situation seems a bit... unusually good."
"Why?"
"Three years ago, he purchased two properties in Copenhagen, paid in full, and upgraded his car. I checked; while the salary at Hughes is indeed high, given his family background, wanting to pull off a spree like that all at once would require winning the lottery jackpot."
"Can you track his other assets?"
"That will take a moment. I’ve already contacted the External Coordination Department. They’ll give me the data as soon as they have it."
"Send the source of funds over as well," Lu Linjiang ordered. He stared at the content on the screen, then turned back to the evidence on the whiteboard. Beside him, Guo Junyi’s stomach let out an unceremonious rumble like a beating drum. Three pairs of eyes simultaneously focused on Guo Junyi’s midsection.
"What are you looking at? The snow on the roads was too thick, so I walked here this morning. I asked you for a bun and you wouldn't give it to me!" Guo Junyi curled his lip. "If you don't need me for anything else, I’m going to eat."
The moment he left, Lu Linjiang, who had been focused on the case, set down his pen. He said to Xu Sichen and Yang Bo, "Go eat when it's time. I’m heading out for a bit."
Lu Linjiang followed Guo Junyi into the cafeteria, picking up a tray and lining up behind him. Guo Junyi, whose mind was entirely on food, only noticed him when it was time to swipe his card.
"No way, you’re going to eat that much by yourself?"
Lu Linjiang asked the server to pack the food to go and replied with little sincerity, "No, bringing it for someone."
Guo Junyi asked casually and nodded without much thought, dragging his tray off to find a seat. He didn't see Lu Linjiang carrying the lunch box toward the "little black room" where the suspects were held.
Jiang Cheng hadn't slept since Lu Linjiang’s midnight visit. The breakfast brought by the guard in the morning was unexpectedly decent. After eating, his blood sugar rose, allowing him to doze off for a short while. During his waking moments, the names Luo Jia and Jiang Langmin circled endlessly in his mind. On the day he was brought in, he had stayed in the room alone, desperately trying to find a single clue amidst the chaos. But before he could sort through his thoughts, the police had arrived at his door.
He didn't believe the police had found that storage tube. Otherwise, Lu Linjiang wouldn't have told him privately that there was no problem with the case. In other words, the tube must have been discovered the following day. Jiang Langmin hadn't been there then; the only person with the opportunity to access Professor Tao’s luggage was Luo Jia.
But even before Jiang Langmin, the only people who could have accessed Tao Minxing’s luggage—even back in Denmark—were the two of them. This point had always made Jiang Cheng suspicious. One was the professor’s right-hand man, the other a genius the professor had personally recruited. If the motive for killing the professor was because he discovered someone had falsified data, what reason would either of them have to do such a thing?
Jiang Cheng felt as though he had walked into a dead end. Unable to break through to the left or right, he was trapped, ending up behind bars.
A breath of frustration stalled in Jiang Cheng’s chest, and he punched the wall. However, even beating his hand until it bled wouldn't save him. Yet, the sight of his reddened knuckles allowed his chaotic thoughts to temporarily settle.
Jiang Cheng looked at his hand and subconsciously rubbed his fingers. He thought of that mysterious storage tube. Since Luo Jia was certain it belonged to the institute, when was it taken out?
The facilities for storing viral strains at the institute were comprehensive; it was virtually impossible for anyone to bypass the requisition procedures to take a strain privately. For the storage tube to be found in Professor Tao’s luggage, there was only one possibility: someone had requisitioned the strain for experimental use.
Their respective research topics were not secrets. In fact, they would often discuss them to see if new ideas emerged. For Jiang Cheng, it wasn't difficult to recall Matthew mentioning he wanted to use a flu virus to test some antibodies.
The guard opened the door and brought in a meal. Jiang Cheng hadn't felt hungry at all these past two days; what he’d eaten in the morning was still sitting heavy in his stomach. The lunch box in his hands was still slightly warm. He opened it instinctively; the dishes were actually quite good, a balance of meat and vegetables that was worlds apart from yesterday’s meal. He looked at the guard in a daze, but the man simply nodded and walked out.
Jiang Cheng’s mind was occupied with how the strain Matthew requisitioned had been smuggled out. He mechanically took a few bites before losing interest entirely. When the guard returned at the designated time, he glanced at the lunch box. "You haven't eaten?"
Jiang Cheng shook his head numbly. "I'm full."
The guard gave him a look of pure disbelief. "Captain Lu went out of his way to bring this."
Jiang Cheng’s brain lagged for a beat before he finally reacted. "Captain Lu? Lu Linjiang?"
"He brought breakfast, too. If you’re really not hungry, I’ll go tell Captain Lu so he doesn't have to keep running back and forth."
The guard was young, his pale face carrying an unreadable expression. Jiang Cheng thought about it and realized the man was likely an admirer of Lu Linjiang, looking down on him for acting difficult while half-imprisoned and wasting his idol’s kindness.
But Lu Linjiang bringing him food? That news was more explosive than a dinosaur escaping from Jurassic Park. Based on Jiang Cheng’s understanding of Lu Linjiang, at most it was a matter of convenience, or more likely, he’d ordered a subordinate to deliver it.
However, he wasn't stupid enough to offend the guard. He lowered his posture, acting as though he were truly struggling. "I really can't eat. Can I see Captain Lu?"
The guard’s brow furrowed. "I’ll go tell him."
Jiang Cheng was soon taken to the interrogation room. Lu Linjiang arrived quickly. "What is it? Do you have a lead?"
He opened with business immediately. This meant the mountains hadn't collapsed and the earth hadn't split; Jiang Cheng’s heart settled. He forced out the words that had been weighing on him for so long. "It might be inappropriate to say this, but... I’m afraid the problem lies with Luo Jia."
"Why not Jiang Langmin?"
Jiang Cheng wasn't surprised by the question. He answered almost without hesitation, "I said there was something wrong with the professor’s cause of death. Actually, I should have realized sooner—the only person who could make the professor so hesitant was Luo Jia. From another perspective, Jiang Langmin is a genius. If someone needed to falsify data to make their research look reliable, it certainly wouldn't be him. He has absolutely no need to do something that would destroy his own future."
"But Luo Jia..." Jiang Cheng hesitated. "For all these years, Luo Jia has never had any particularly outstanding academic performance. It’s not that the professor didn't try to mentor him, but due to various intersecting reasons, he never had any results worth showing."
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 郭俊毅 | Guo Junyi | Forensic expert/Medical examiner. |
| 修斯 | Hughes | The research institute/company where the characters work. |
| 姜朗旻 | Jiang Langmin | A colleague of the victim and Jiang Cheng, described as a genius. |
| 马修 | Matthew | A colleague mentioned in relation to viral strains. |
| 中和抗体 | Neutralizing antibodies | A technical term related to the research in the story. |
| Joseph Luo | Joseph Luo | The English name used by Luo Jia in his academic papers. |
| 小黑屋 | Little black room | Slang for a detention cell or interrogation room. |
