Seeing Chen Xintian trying to sit up, her mother quickly pressed her back down. "Stay lying down while you talk!"
Chen Xintian looked up at Lu Linjiang and said, "That older brother who went into the ICU a few days ago—I’ve seen him on the subway."
"Are you sure?" Lu Linjiang asked.
"That day, I was taking the train to school. I was standing next to the seats, and he was standing right in front of them," Chen Xintian recalled. "Someone knocked over some water, and it splashed right onto his pants. That’s why I thought he looked so familiar. The subway was crowded, so he couldn't move; he had to stand in the puddle for a long time. His pants and shoes were all soaked."
"Did he get off at the same station as you?"
Chen Xintian shook her head. "I didn't notice that. There were so many people. I just thought he was really unlucky, so I looked at him a few more times. If you hadn't asked today, I wouldn't have remembered."
"Just that one time on the subway?"
"Yes," Chen Xintian said. "I can only be sure that he was standing very close to me on the train, but I don't know what happened after that."
It was finally a lead. After thanking them, Lu Linjiang went straight to the subway station. The flu outbreak hadn't thinned the subway crowds much; after all, aside from students, office workers still had to commute daily. However, everyone was on edge, and every face was covered by a mask.
Lu Linjiang located the surveillance room and pulled up the footage from that day. Since Chen Xintian only remembered that her carriage was toward the rear of the train, he started searching from the middle section. The girl’s backpack was red and quite easy to spot; Lu Linjiang picked her out from the crowd instantly. Chen Xintian was standing directly under a camera, leaning against the partition next to the seats.
The "older brother" she mentioned, Zhang Zhiyu, was indeed standing to her front-left, facing the people in the seats.
"Stop here." Lu Linjiang pointed to the screen, to the right of Zhang Zhiyu. "Can you enlarge this area?"
The staff followed his instructions and zoomed in. Lu Linjiang felt a jolt in his chest. It was a middle-aged man in his forties, looking up at the subway television. But that face was not at all unfamiliar to Lu Linjiang. There were two names on the first list of fatalities from this flu virus; this man, Liu Qi, was one of them.
This surveillance footage had captured many people. Among those identifiable, three were part of the first tier of infection for this flu virus. This fact made it impossible for Lu Linjiang not to draw a connection.
He had them continue the footage, his eyes fixed on the screen as he searched for more clues. Soon, he saw the person sitting in front of Zhang Zhiyu knock over a bottle of mineral water. The man, wearing a bucket hat, caused a small ripple of movement among those around him. Because it was too crowded to clean up, he could only watch helplessly as the water spread across the floor.
The subway traveled one more station, and the flow of people began to surge toward the doors from both sides. A woman who had been standing behind Zhang Zhiyu stepped forward. She suddenly looked down at her feet, then turned her head to look at the floor behind her. When Lu Linjiang saw her face clearly, his expression darkened further—she was the other deceased victim.
Lu Linjiang was now certain: this was absolutely no accident.
He took a copy of the footage back to the station and had the forensics department crop the faces of everyone in Chen Xintian’s carriage to create a set of images, intending to take them to the hospital for identification. This kind of task was simple for Sun Wen. She quickly cropped the images one by one, but soon discovered something wrong.
"Captain Lu, there’s one person who’s going to be difficult."
Lu Linjiang, who was looking through the printed photos, turned to the screen. "Who?"
Sun Wen used her mouse to circle a figure on the monitor. "This one."
It was the man in the bucket hat. The brim of the hat perfectly obscured his face. Even when he had looked up to apologize after knocking over the water, the angle prevented the camera from capturing him.
"What about after he got off the train?"
"I’ve checked. He boarded before Chen Xintian and got off at the railway station." Sun Wen operated the controls rapidly, then hit pause. The subway had reached Guangmiao Road, and people were streaming on and off. It was at this moment that the bucket hat man’s face appeared as a reflection in the window glass on the opposite side of the train.
"This blurry shadow is the best I can get." Sun Wen looked at him helplessly. "Or we could go to the railway station and ask for their footage."
"I’ve already reached out to them. It should be sent over shortly. Print this one out for now."
During peak hours, people were constantly getting on and off. Using the duration of Chen Xintian’s trip as a boundary, Lu Linjiang made screenshots of everyone in the carriage. A rough count put the number at about three hundred people. Lu Linjiang organized the photos and packed the digital versions into a file, then headed back to the city hospital with his materials.
By the afternoon, several of the colleagues who had arrived early had already left. Lu Linjiang grabbed a teammate and sent him the digital files. "While you’re getting your IV drips these next two days, keep an eye out. Have any of these people shown up?"
This unique "sticker pack" was quite large. Seeing his colleague’s eyes glaze over, Lu Linjiang quickly explained, "I don't need you to watch them like you're on a shift. Just... look at as many as you can. Just a glance is fine."
Having relieved the man of his mental burden, he went straight to the inpatient department. It was currently overflowing, with patients even staying in the hallways. Lu Linjiang had already witnessed the congestion that morning; this time, he simply walked through, examining everyone closely.
Some patients were lying on their sides, others were buried under their blankets. Lu Linjiang started from one end of the corridor, slowly wandering from the wards to the hallway, taking notes in a notebook as he went.
Hu Jiafan came out after checking on a patient and ran into Lu Linjiang writing in his book. "What are you doing?" Hu Jiafan looked at him with a headache. "Don't you think it's crowded enough here already?"
Lu Linjiang’s eyes lit up when he saw Hu Jiafan. He asked for an address and transferred the digital photos over. "Could I trouble you to look at these photos and see if any of these people have been to the hospital?"
Hu Jiafan accepted the file and flipped through the photos as he walked. "I’ve seen this one, and this one too. This one is named Zhou Mengjia; she’s currently hospitalized here."
Lu Linjiang was overjoyed. "What about the other two?"
Hu Jiafan scratched his hair. "Right, when they came that day, the beds were completely full, but their condition was quite serious, so I had them transferred to another hospital."
This matched Lu Linjiang’s hypothesis. He asked further, "What about Zhou Mengjia? Is her condition serious?"
"Let me put it this way: with the current situation at the hospital, if we can let you go home to recover, we definitely won't give you an IV. If we can get away with just an IV, we definitely won't admit you." Hu Jiafan handed the photos back to Lu Linjiang. "Don't pin too much hope on us, though. We’re so busy these days that I doubt we'll have time to flip through photos."
Lu Linjiang hadn't expected much from Hu Jiafan in the first place; the medical staff were simply too busy. If he hadn't happened to run into him, he wouldn't have even asked. "I understand. I’ve already done one round myself. Why didn't I see Zhou Mengjia?"
Hu Jiafan shook his head. "The Respiratory Department ran out of beds, so we borrowed the surgical ward downstairs. She’s there."
Lu Linjiang frowned. He had just finished a circuit and had already identified eighty-three people among the inpatients who had been in the same subway carriage as Chen Xintian. He had specifically marked a few of them; clearly, these people had all been very close to Chen Xintian.
"You must help me look at this one." Lu Linjiang pulled out the photo of the man in the bucket hat. The man’s head had blurred just as his face was finally exposed, as if he were looking at the platform. Combined with the fact that the photo was a screen capture from a projection, the image was exceptionally blurry. But Lu Linjiang had no better choice. The surveillance from the railway station had already been sent to Sun Wen, and the brim of the bucket hat had covered his face so thoroughly that even though the man wasn't intentionally avoiding the cameras, there was truly no way to get a clear shot.
Hu Jiafan took the photo and studied it carefully. "Haven't seen him. He’s not very easy to recognize."
Lu Linjiang didn't take it back. "You don't need to return it. Just keep it. If this person shows up, please remember to notify me."
Hu Jiafan accepted it readily, though whether he could actually find the man was not something he could guarantee. Yet Lu Linjiang still showed no sign of leaving. Hu Jiafan asked, "What, is there something else?"
Lu Linjiang said politely, "Just one small question. In a moment, I’ll give you a list of names. Could you tell me the severity of their symptoms? Whether they are moderate, serious, or extremely critical. It will help me investigate the case."
