Captain Lu was aloof again today.

Chapter 186 Chess Pieces
Lu Jingming seemed to be thinking, and after a moment of contemplation, he said, "I think that the connection between Duan Wenlan and the Yan family is not the focus of this case. Don't be too anxious. Let's take a good look together and see if there are any details that we have overlooked."

This hits the point.

Wei Qingsong rubbed his temples in frustration and let out a heavy sigh: "Yeah, why am I worrying about this now? Come to think of it, this case has taken on so many complications since the beginning. The Hua family father and son are a given, it's inevitable that the Yan family will be involved, and now Duan Wenlan is involved too. It's all too messy."

The various forces were like different colored clays, haphazardly mixed together by an invisible hand, so chaotic that their colors could no longer be distinguished.

Lu Jingming's calm and gentle voice soothed her restless heart like a gentle breeze: "Don't rush, we'll sort it out slowly."

Wei Qingsong stood up and paced back and forth in front of the hospital bed, saying slowly, "You're right, we should sort things out properly. So far, things seem to be developing in a good direction, after all, we have so many clues. But unexpected things have happened along the way. I always feel that something is not quite right."

“Then let’s review the case from the beginning.” Lu Jingming’s voice was calm, his gentle gaze falling on Wei Qingsong for a moment before lingering. “I’ll tell you, and you listen. See where things don’t make sense.”

“Okay.” Wei Qingsong nodded solemnly.

"To trace the origins of this case, we have to start with our chance encounter with Hua Hengchen at the restaurant that day. Hua Hengchen was carried away with his pride and brought Pei Dongmei to the dinner party. During the meal, he made unwanted advances towards Pei Dongmei, which was witnessed by Pei Jiacai, who was secretly following them. A conflict broke out between the two sides, which is what caught our attention."

"Immediately afterwards, Hua Hengchen revealed that his father worked for the Yan family in Bailiwan. He was extremely arrogant and was subsequently taken away by me on charges of provoking trouble. On the way, you noticed that the Pei siblings were acting strangely. Under your questioning, the Pei siblings exposed the inside story of the Liyang Hotel's secret sex transactions."

Wei Qingsong listened attentively, afraid of missing a single detail.

"To avoid alerting them, we've decided to investigate Liyang Hotel discreetly," Lu Jingming continued.

“Wait a minute…” Wei Qingsong interrupted him, her brows furrowing slightly. “Have you noticed that this is actually a false premise? Since Hua Hengchen has already been arrested, it means that we have already alerted him.”

“Yes.” Lu Jingming nodded in deep agreement. “So, when we arrived at Liyang Hotel the next day, the actual person in charge of the hotel, the manager the girls were talking about, was already on guard. She instructed the hotel receptionist not to receive unfamiliar faces, and she also arranged for thugs led by Zhou Dahu on the sixth floor of the hotel, and even equipped them with guns.”

At this point, Lu Jingming's speech slowed down.

Wei Qingsong suddenly looked up, and their eyes met: "You've noticed it too, haven't you? Something's not right here!"

“Hmm.” Lu Jingming nodded slightly. “Since the hotel didn’t intend to receive unfamiliar faces from the beginning, it should have closed and sealed off the hotel, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. But we were not only received, but we also learned about the hotel’s criminal activities.”

Wei Qingsong continued, "Then, we learned that a girl was being held hostage by thugs on the sixth floor of the hotel and was in danger, so we went up to the sixth floor to rescue her. During the standoff, the thug leader, Zhou Dahu, was shot and killed, and you were also injured as a result."

A cold glint flashed in Lu Jingming's eyes: "From the moment we entered the hotel, our every move was being watched by the person behind the scenes. Until Zhou Dahu was killed, that person had not left the hotel."

"So, we were tricked into a feint attack." Wei Qingsong gritted his teeth. "What a clever scheme."

“When I questioned Susan and Xiaoya, I didn’t think of such details. Now, if I ask them about these details again, it should prove that the manager gave different instructions to each of them. She cleverly used the psychology of everyone in the hotel, understood their thoughts thoroughly, and accurately predicted all their reactions.”

Yes, while she and Lu Jingming were still dealing with Susan, that manager was still in the hotel.

They were all completely fooled by that woman.

"Perhaps, from the moment we took Hua Hengchen away from the hotel, the person behind it had already made the decision to cut off their own tail, pushing them out as shields, and deliberately arranging the drama of shooting Zhou Dahu, and even injuring me. All of this was under their control," Lu Jingming analyzed slowly.

Wei Qingsong felt a chill run down her spine: "She killed Zhou Dahu because he knew too many secrets. Neither the girls who were victimized in the hotel nor the Hua family father and son were likely to have had any contact with Zhou Dahu, who had a criminal record in a border crime group. In other words, the fundamental reason for Zhou Dahu's murder was that he knew the woman's true identity."

"And why did she want to kill you? Was it simply to provoke the police?"

Wei Qingsong paused slightly at this point, sounding somewhat uncertain.

She couldn't figure out what the woman was thinking.

Zhou Dahu was killed to silence him.

But what compelling reason did she have to fire a second shot at Lu Jingming?
Even though Lu Jingming reacted quickly and dodged in time, a bullet still pierced his shoulder. If he hadn't noticed it in time, then now...

Wei Qingsong took a deep breath, trying her best to remain calm: "First of all, after you were shot, she didn't go all out and return to the hotel to kill everyone in our room. This shows that, apart from Zhou Dahu, she didn't see anyone else as someone to be eliminated."

"Secondly, she planned everything meticulously, setting up an ingenious game, which shows that she is shrewd and well-versed in psychological warfare. With the truth about to be exposed, she waited for us to arrive at the hotel and witnessed things unfold as she had planned before killing Zhou Dahu, making the final move perfectly on the chessboard."

"It's clear that she's an extremely arrogant person with a provocative personality, extremely high intelligence, and utterly conceited. Furthermore, I suspect she has a background in psychology; otherwise, she wouldn't be able to exploit these girls' psychology to such an extreme. In her eyes, the Liyang Hotel is a chessboard, and we are all pawns manipulated by her, including the Hua family father and son."

At this point, Wei Qingsong suddenly thought of Mu An, that psychological institution that exuded an eeriness.

An inexplicable feeling of unease welled up inside me.

Hopefully, she's just overthinking things.

"I don't know why she wanted to kill me. Anyway, she didn't achieve her goal, so she failed, didn't she? There's no need to overthink questions that rely too much on subjective guesses. Once we find her, the mystery will be solved. Instead of wasting time on figuring out these incomprehensible questions, let's look at other details."

Lu Jingming remained calm, seemingly not considering her a formidable opponent: "She is too arrogant. Her attempt to show off will only expose more flaws, leaving us to figure them out one by one."

“That’s true. We’re not just pawns to be manipulated. She stayed at the hotel and watched us get played before leaving.” Wei Qingsong also let out a slow breath, her gaze slightly cold. “This way, we can roughly estimate the exact time frame of her departure from the hotel and make a more accurate psychological profile.”

“You see, as long as you can calm down and patiently sort out the case, you can always find new clues.” Lu Jingming chuckled softly.

Wei Qingsong was slightly taken aback, then realized that he was teaching her.

She doesn't have much experience in traditional criminal investigation and has always relied on criminal psychological profiling, which involves a lot of subjective speculation.

If you encounter a bottleneck in your reasoning, it's easy to get stuck in a dead end.

At this point, we must return to the facts of the case itself and not make unfounded and baseless inferences. Instead, we must find new entry points based on the existing details of the case and unravel the mystery step by step.

Wei Qingsong recalled all the details of the case in his mind, and suddenly his eyes lit up: "So there is one more thing that we have been overlooking all along."

(End of this chapter)