Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 385 (Fourth Update, Please Vote) Two Old Foxes

Fang Gexin arrived late, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a square face and a buzz cut.

Upon seeing the crowd waiting downstairs, he immediately walked over to Wu Yongcheng and apologized repeatedly: "Is this Captain Wu? This is Fang Gexin. Oh, I'm so sorry, I got a call from a school leader and I'm late."

"No, we're just early. Director Fang isn't late," Wu Yongcheng said with a smile.

"Come upstairs, let's talk upstairs. There are a lot of mosquitoes at night." Fang Gexin said, warmly inviting them upstairs to his office.

After entering the office, Wu Yongcheng pulled out chairs and poured water. After exchanging pleasantries, he introduced his team members, saying that he would introduce them to Director Fang so that they wouldn't make a fool of themselves when they needed his help later.

Fang Gexin kept praising it.

Zhou Yi realized why the school had sent Director Fang to assist the police; the man's demeanor was quite sophisticated, and he spoke with an official air.

The characteristic is that they seem very warm and friendly, but in reality they are not pragmatic.

Sure enough, he spoke first: "Captain Wu, has your municipal bureau confirmed that the deceased is a student from our school?"

"It's just a suspicion; it's still under investigation, isn't it? That's why we're bothering you through the municipal party committee."

"Well, since the higher-ups have spoken, we definitely have to do our job well, right? But... these kinds of things are actually quite taboo. After all, there are over 20,000 people in the whole school. Any little thing that happens usually spreads like wildfire. If something that's not confirmed gets spread like this, it'll probably cause even more trouble."

Wu Yongcheng said earnestly, "Director Fang is right, so we need to hurry up and launch an investigation. The sooner we get to the bottom of things, the sooner we can stabilize public sentiment."

Zhou Yi thought to himself that things weren't so simple at the school after all; they just wanted to distance themselves from the case and prevent such a heinous crime from being associated with the school.

That's why the two old foxes were testing each other back and forth.

Zhou Yi stood at the window with her arms crossed, looking down from the fourth floor. Although she couldn't see very far, the vastness of the night was still so quiet.

It was so quiet it was almost eerie.

Wu Yongcheng knew that the other party was a master of playing the game, so he did not intend to give the other party a chance to beat around the bush. He directly took out the list that Zhou Yi had prepared earlier and placed it in front of Fang Gexin.

"Director Fang, I know your concerns, and they are my concerns as well. These students are just children in our eyes, and we don't want to cause them sleepless nights. So for now, as long as we have the list and information, I assure you that before we confirm the identities of the deceased, we will minimize contact with students and faculty. We will start with the information, and you can supervise us 24 hours a day."

As soon as Wu Yongcheng said this, Fang Gexin was so frightened that he waved his hands repeatedly: "How can that be? The leader sent me here to supervise... ah, ah, ah, I misspoke, he sent me here to assist you."

He picked up the paper and looked at it. "These lists and materials are fine. I'll arrange it immediately and give them to you as soon as possible. As for the two people you want to interview, Gao Xiaofang is fine; I'll arrange that. But Teacher Xiao's supervisor..."

Fang Gexin put down the list and asked, "May I ask why we're investigating Teacher Xiao?"

Wu Yongcheng did not answer, but instead asked, "Does Director Fang know anything about this teacher, Xiao Bing?"

"Well... I don't know much about it, since our student affairs office mainly serves students."

Seeing Wu Yongcheng smile without saying a word, Fang Gexin, in an attempt to salvage the situation, said, "How about this, I'll ask their department head tomorrow and arrange a meeting for you two, what do you think?"

"Not today?"

"Hiss... Director Wang is getting old and his health isn't too good. How about we do it tomorrow?"

“Okay, no problem, I’ll follow Director Fang’s instructions,” Wu Yongcheng readily agreed.

"Thank you for your understanding, Captain Wu," Fang Gexin said with a smile.

"The documents and Gao Xiaofang, are they all settled today?" Wu Yongcheng asked with a smile.

Fang Gexin was taken aback for a moment, then laughed awkwardly, "You guys have quite a workload."

Looking at Director Fang, who clearly understood the leaders' thoughts better than the students and faculty, Zhou Yi suddenly pondered a question.

Perhaps people subconsciously have too much of a rosy view of universities.

This is not just a university of higher education, but also a small human society.

Since it's a society, there must be both right and wrong.

Fang Gexin was clearly not the kind of cadre who would do the work himself. He made a phone call and summoned the student affairs staff that Wu Yongcheng and the others had met during the day. They worked overtime to organize the list and information for Wu Yongcheng and the others. Then he sent someone to the girls' dormitory to find Gao Xiaofang and talk to her.

Zhou Yi asked the school staff who went to the girls' dormitory to keep an eye on the situation in room 307, especially to see if Lu Xiaoshuang and Xu Liu had appeared.

In theory, there is only one day off for Labor Day. We have to go to school tomorrow, and most students who went out should be back at school tonight.

Unfortunately, the staff who went to the girls' dormitory brought back Gao Xiaofang, but did not bring back news of Lu Xiaoshuang and Xu Liu from room 307.

Gao Xiaofang appeared to be a tall girl with a large frame, medium-length hair, and dressed very simply. She seemed a little reserved as she followed behind, because the teacher from the student affairs office had not explained why she was being called.

To avoid making her too nervous, Fang Gexin suggested that there should be fewer people in the conversation, although he himself must be present.

So it was finally decided that Qiao Jiali would be in charge of the questioning, while Wu Yongcheng and Fang Gexin would watch from the side.

That makes sense. Qiao Jiali is a policewoman, and if Fang Gexin is there, Wu Yongcheng naturally has to be there too. Zhou Yi and Chen Yan waited outside, but Zhou Yi didn't intend to sit idly by. He tried to get close to the teachers in the student affairs office, saying nice things and offering to help him move all the materials.

The teacher agreed without much thought and took them to the archives.

However, he also made it clear that the students' files are kept in the archives of their student affairs office, but the files of faculty and staff are managed by the personnel department. They probably can't get them tonight. Even if they do get them tomorrow, they'd better get approval from Director Fang, otherwise the personnel department definitely won't give them to them.

Zhou Yi thought to himself, "Hey, how come Fang Gexin didn't mention something so important? As a leader, he couldn't possibly not know. It seems he probably did it on purpose."

Zhou Yi casually remarked, "Your Director Fang is quite dedicated to his work."

The teacher gave a slight, cold laugh, but said nothing.

Zhou Yi understood.

Since the student information is for Lu Xiaoshuang's class of 1996 Financial Management, it's all stored together, so we just need to retrieve it all.

The real time-consuming and laborious part was making copies of all 57 people's information.

Because the school does not allow them to take the original documents, they can only take photocopies.

But there was only one printer in the archives, so the sound of printing kept echoing throughout the room.

Zhou Yi flipped through the files one by one. The files were arranged according to student ID numbers, and he soon found Mo Youyou's file.

The next one is for Lu Xiaoshuang.

Looking at the name on the file folder, he was stunned, his mind seemingly going blank for a moment.

The last time I saw this file folder with Lu Xiaoshuang's name on it was also in the archives.

It was just in the provincial capital's archives, nineteen years after the major case had occurred.

"What's wrong?" Chen Yan, who was helping with the photocopying, noticed that Zhou Yi wasn't moving and asked.

"Oh, it's nothing." Zhou Yi snapped out of her daze and continued flipping through the pages.

After flipping through a few more documents, I came across Xu Liu's file.

Zhou Yi took out this file separately. The top one was a large student management card, which contained the student's basic information and ID photo.

As can be seen from her ID photo, Xu Liu has delicate features and long hair. Although she looks a bit rustic in the photo, her beauty is still undeniable.

The place of origin column reads Huaixing City, Jiangbei Province.

“Huaixing… why does that sound so familiar…” Zhou Yi thought for a moment, but couldn’t remember it right away; his mind had been a bit muddled these past two days.

Continuing to look down, I found nothing special; the specific registered address was in a local town.

Indeed, you can't tell much just by looking at the information, because qualifications are the most basic and objective statistical information. They don't reveal a person's personality traits, let alone their daily behavior and experience.

After they finished copying all the materials for the 1996 Financial Management major and returned to the Student Affairs Office, they found that Wu Yongcheng and his team had already finished asking questions, and Wu was smoking a Daqianmen cigarette.

"Captain Wu, so fast?" Zhou Yi was somewhat surprised.

Wu Yongcheng shook his head: "There's not much useful information. Gao Xiaofang said that she was indeed quite close to Xu Liu at first. Although they weren't in the same major, they were both from Huaixing, so they naturally became closer. But that was only in the first semester. Later, they drifted apart because she said Xu Liu always claimed to have a very good family background and acted superior when they were together, which made her feel very uncomfortable, so they saw each other much less."

Zhou Yi frowned and asked, "What do you call yourself?"

Wu Yongcheng chuckled, a cigarette dangling from his lips, "You always get to the point. That's right, most of what Xu Liu said about her family's circumstances was just her own account. But Gao Xiaofang said that the county where Xu Liu's family lives is a poor county in Huaixing."

Impoverished counties do not mean there are no wealthy people, but the problem is that the national poverty alleviation system for impoverished counties was only established in 1986. The reform and opening up and the market economy in 1997 made it very difficult for the winds of reform and opening up to reach impoverished counties and allow a very small number of people to become rich, so the probability is relatively small.

More importantly, the contact number field on Xu Liu's student record is blank, meaning her family doesn't have a phone, which makes it hard to believe she's wealthy.

"It's alright. Contact the police in Huaixing tomorrow and have them visit Xu Liu's house to investigate."

"Yeah." Zhou Yi nodded.

Just then, Wu Yongcheng's phone rang.

He took out his cigarette, glanced at it, and said, "It's Biaozi. Could it be some major discovery?"

"Hey, Biaozi, what's up? Speak."

Jiang Biao's voice came through the phone: "Captain Wu, there's something I'm not sure if it's related to our case. The Xinbei Town Police Station said they found a young woman in an abandoned mine."

Zhou Yi snatched the phone and asked impatiently, "Brother Biao, is this Lu Xiaoshuang?"

"It's uncertain. The local police said the person was still alive when they were rescued, but was unconscious and their identity could not be confirmed. They have now been sent to the county hospital."

(End of this chapter)