The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 340 Old Money 1
Old Qian glanced at it; it was a blue ballpoint pen. He casually replied, "It's mine." With that, he took the pen from Qi Fei's hand.

Qi Fei looked at Lao Qian and asked, "Did you just come back from outside?"

Old Qian finally finished packing his briefcase, stood up, and said, "Yeah, I just went to the right project." He then looked at the two people in front of him and asked, "Do you have a new lead to investigate?"

Qi Fei didn't answer directly, but patted Lao Qian on the shoulder: "We just happened to run into you, shall we go to your place for a while?"

Old Qian laughed: "You've forgotten my shabby place, it's just a storage room..."

"It's alright. You're a long-time employee here, so you know best what we want to know. It's nice to have an office where we can sit down and talk things over." Qi Fei said, giving Lao Qian a gentle push on the back, and together they passed through the turnstile and took the elevator upstairs.

It had been a year since he last visited, and the smell of smoke in Lao Qian's storage room seemed even stronger. He dusted off the ash from the cigarette on the chair and pushed it in front of Qi Fei: "Sorry, no one has come here for a long time. Please make do with this seat."

“In Tianmina, she never invites us to sit down.” Qi Fei looked at Lao Qian with mixed feelings.

"Oh, haha, she became a high-ranking leader at such a young age, it's normal that she sometimes doesn't notice," Old Qian said with a forced, dry smile.

Qi Fei did not sit down immediately, but closed the door and gestured for Wu Shanqiu to guard the door.

The atmosphere became tense.

Qi Fei sat in the chair that Lao Qian had brought over, and after a moment of hesitation, he spoke: "Lao Qian, where did you go to discuss the project? Can you give him a call?"

"It's not an important project. The other party is in another meeting right now. I'll have him call you later..." Old Qian declined.

Qi Fei didn't insist, as if this answer was expected. He pointed to the briefcase that Lao Qian had placed aside and asked, "Could you take out that blue pen again so I can take a look?"

Old Qian did as instructed, and a line of small white characters was printed on the blue pen: "Souvenir of the 2025 XJTLU Nancheng Alumni Event".

"You graduated from XJTLU?" Qi Fei asked, holding a pen.

“Yes,” Old Qian replied, his composure bordering on utter despair.

"XJTLU is a good school. It wasn't easy to get into this school in your time."

"I was the top student in my township when I got in. Others are test-takers from small towns, but I'm a test-taker from a small village. The college entrance exam was the highlight of my life back then." Old Qian's words were still filled with pride, as if he had returned to the moment when he passed the exam with flying colors.

“We have the list of alumni for this year’s XJTLU alumni event, and you’re not on it. So where did this pen come from?” Qi Fei looked up at Lao Qian, his eyes even filled with expectation, hoping he would give a reasonable explanation.

However, Lao Qian glanced at Wu Shanqiu, who was guarding the door, and after a moment's thought, he seemed to have made up his mind and stopped avoiding the topic. He said, "I don't deserve to be on that list. Those invited are all successful people. I, a middle-aged office worker, am not qualified. I am a member of this year's organizing committee, responsible for providing services for them. Ha, it's the same as the work I do at my workplace."

"You saw Dong Qianjin at the event, didn't he recognize you?" Qi Fei continued to ask.

These words stung Lao Qian, and he said indignantly, "People in their circle don't care about people like us who do the work."

"Even so, you still carry souvenirs from that event with you." Qi Fei looked at Lao Qian meaningfully.

"Hmph, I just casually put it in my bag." Old Qian denied it. "I don't know why you care so much about the alumni association?" "It's not just the alumni association. It all started when Zhong Xiaoyu discovered that anonymous letters were being sent to Nancheng Investment." As Qi Fei said this, a sly glint flashed in Old Qian's eyes.

Qi Fei continued, "After she appeared at Nancheng Investment, the mysterious recipient of Xi He's package disappeared. The only explanation is that this person knew Zhong Xiaoyu, also known as Zhong Kui, someone who had close contact with us. Lao Qian, you are one of them."

When we came to investigate, you created a chance encounter and revealed the relationship between Dong Ziwu and Tian Mi, causing us to shift the focus of our investigation to Tian Mi.

However, what truly aroused my suspicion about you was when Meng Qian recalled the person driving Dong Ziwu wearing a hat. What was the hat meant to conceal? Qi Fei shifted his gaze to Lao Qian's bald head. "It's cruel; everyone around Tian Mi and Dong Ziwu is young, only you are bald. You anticipated that someone like Meng Qian would see the driver, and your attempt to cover it up by wearing a hat only made things more suspicious. That pen was merely the final key to unlocking the answer."

At this point, Qi Fei paused for a moment, then asked in a deep voice, "Old Qian, is Tian Mi still alive?"

The room suddenly fell silent, a deathly silence.

Old Qian and Qi Fei sat facing each other, staring at each other, as if this moment was bound to come sooner or later.

Qi Fei stared at Lao Qian's face, watching the emotions on his face recede like the tide, leaving only cold features, as if he had been dead for a long time.

His lips were purple, and he uttered only two words between his opening and closing lips: "Dead."

Qi Fei was the first to look away. He felt his heart pounding, not from excitement, but as if it were the last beat before he died. Old Qian's eyes were like black holes sucking at his conscience, tempting him to cross the line between law and justice, making him believe that Tian Mi's death was deserved.

But he can't think like that.

"Where is he?" he asked Old Qian. "I need to see him alive or dead."

"I can give you the address, but on one condition."

"explain."

“You can send someone to find Tian Mi at the place I tell you to go. But you have to stay here.” Old Qian said, rubbing his nose with his yellowed fingers from smoking. “I will only confess my sins to you.”

"Okay," Qi Fei agreed.

Old Qian said with relief, "She is on the Path of No Two, near the end."

"Shanqiu, notify the bureau immediately!" Qi Fei hurriedly said, "You go and search first."

With Wu Shanqiu gone, only Qi Fei and Lao Qian remained in the room.

Old Qian took out a cigarette and was about to hand it to Qi Fei.

Qi Fei refused, but Lao Qian turned around and put the cigarette in his mouth, then lit it with a "click" of his lighter.

The red sparks flickered in rhythm with my heartbeat. The room was dimly lit and hazy. Old Qian's weary voice drifted out: "If I hadn't poured my heart and soul into building this computing power department, none of this would have happened. Dong Ziwu was just one of countless ordinary people trying to take shortcuts; it wasn't his fault. But I had to kill him..."