Animal Detective

Chapter 174 The Third Possibility

The topic of children is usually quite sensitive, but Yang Huixia seemed to have opened up, so Shen Xin had no choice but to follow her lead and ask more questions.

They asked where the monkey came from.

"It was a gift from someone."

Yang Huixia waved to Bubu, and he immediately obediently ran over, squatted on the back of the stone chair, and glared at Shen Xin.

"Back then, we were planning to open a pet park and we went to other places to buy animals."

“My husband wasn’t planning to buy a monkey at the time, but he happened to see a baby monkey nursing in its mother’s arms among the group of monkeys.”

"Actually, the mother monkey was already dead, so it looked particularly pitiful. The owner had many of them and didn't care. My husband was soft-hearted and said he would buy it."

"The boss said he would give it to us directly, so my husband brought it back. It was a small and skinny one, and my husband raised it by hand."

Shen Xin looked at Bu Bu, stopped teasing him, and threw the remaining half of the beef strip to him.

He took it and ate it with relish.

Yang Huixia patted his head and sighed, "Officer, you can go now. I feel really upset. I'll leave after sitting for a while."

She turned her head and looked down the mountain, saying, "My husband and I used to come here often to sit, right there."

She suddenly pointed to a group of houses in the distance.

It should be Mudan Garden, a rather expensive high-end residential community.

“My husband always tells me that once we make money, we must buy a house there, but in the end we still haven’t saved enough money.”

Yang Huixia gave a wry smile and told Shen Xin to go first, saying that she was fine.

Shen Xin didn't dare to leave, saying that he had nothing else to do anyway, and since the scenery here was beautiful, he might as well just enjoy the view.

Seeing this, Yang Huixia simply stood up and said helplessly, "Fine, let's go down together, okay?"

"Don't worry, I won't kill myself." She paused for a moment, then said, "Sometimes I do think about dying, but then I think about our son, and we have to raise him."

She sniffed again and walked down the mountain.

Shen Xin immediately followed.

Bubu didn't move; she remained squatting on the stone bench, looking around.

"Don't worry about it, it will know to come back on its own," Yang Huixia said.

Shen Xin nodded, took one last look at Bubu, and followed Yang Huixia down the mountain.

They remained silent the whole way back to the amusement park, and Yang Huixia acted as if nothing had happened, continuing with her work as if nothing had happened.

"Officer Shen, is she alright? Should we give her a day off?" Yang Daoqiang asked anxiously.

He was terrified just now.

Shen Xinxin said, "You're the manager, you're asking me whether or not I get a day off?"

But where could she go on vacation? She couldn't go back to her husband's home. Perhaps in her heart, the farm where she and her husband worked hard together, hoping for a better future, was her home.

Shen Xin stayed in the park until it was almost closing time in the afternoon.

"These are the two crocodiles?"

Shen Xin was staring blankly at the two crocodiles when Zhao Tianxing's voice rang out beside him.

The two of them came to pick me up.

Zhao Tianxing pursed his lips and said, "Shen Xin, this crocodile is different from a parrot. You'd better be careful and don't do anything reckless."

Ding Yuwei nodded in agreement.

She was on tenterhooks all day, afraid that Shen Xin might act recklessly and something bad might happen.

"I'm not that stupid."

Shen Xin clapped his hands and followed the two away.

After getting in the car and returning to the branch office, Shen Xin asked them about the situation of their visits and investigations that day.

Ding Yuwei explained, shaking her head slightly, "We didn't find anything. It's the same as the situation in the case file; we didn't find anything unusual."

"We also went to Pingyu and met Yang Huixia's parents. By the way, do you know how Yang Huixia and Zhu Guishen met?"

Shen Xin shook his head.

Ding Yuwei said, "It is said that Yang Huixia was working in Nanjiang at that time. One time, she was knocked down by a motorcyclist on the road. The motorcyclist was afraid of taking responsibility, so he rode away."

"It just so happened that Zhu Guishen was driving by in his van delivering goods at that time. He immediately chased after the man on the motorcycle, stopped him, and then took Yang Huixia to the clinic for treatment. That's how the two of them met."

"Shen Xin, this can be considered a real-life hero saving a damsel in distress."

Shen Xin nodded and asked if there were any other useful clues. Ding Yuwei said, "No, there really aren't. By the way, we checked Yang Huixia's bank statements and found that she earns 5,500 yuan a month, keeps only 1,500 yuan for herself, sends 3,000 yuan to Zhu Zhenyuan, and sends 1,000 yuan to her parents."

"Then Gou Jinlan accepted it as well."

Ding Yuwei felt a surge of anger whenever she thought of Gou Jinlan.

He spoke ill of his daughter-in-law in front of Zhu Yuchen, but he accepted all the money without missing a single penny.

"That's all?" Shen Xin pressed.

Ding Yuwei nodded, "It's really gone."

Zhao Tianxing, who was driving, said, "Shen Xin, there are only two possibilities for this case: either Yang Huixia killed him and then managed to dispose of the body, whether by burying it or feeding it to the crocodiles."

"Or, Zhu Guishen ran away on his own. He had had enough of life and wanted to avoid his debts, so he disappeared and never came out again."

Shen Xinxin said that what you said was nonsense.

After a pause, Shen Xin said, "Actually, there is another possibility."

Seeing the two looking at him, Shen Xin said, "That means Zhu Guishen encountered an accident somewhere we don't know about."

Seeing that the two were puzzled, Shen Xin said, "Just like Brother Xing said, there are only two possibilities: either he's hiding, or he's been killed by Yang Huixia."

"Hiding is impossible. He has parents and a son. Can he really resist the urge to see them for over two years?"

"And he was killed by Yang Huixia." Shen Xin paused, then said, "I now think that's unlikely too."

Ding Yuwei was surprised and said, "Didn't you say before that the murderer was definitely Yang Huixia?"

"That was before."

Shen Xin said somewhat awkwardly, "Given the situation in the case file at the time, so many suspicious points pointed to Yang Huixia, so I think it wouldn't be wrong for me to think she was the murderer."

Ding Yuwei nodded, then asked Shen Xin how he had changed his mind.

Shen Xin hesitated for a moment, then said, "I just feel that she might really love Zhu Guishen."

At the mountaintop, when Yang Huixia pointed to the Peony Garden and said that they wanted to work hard to buy a house there, her eyes truly shone.

"Of course, it's also possible for love to turn into hate."

Shen Xin immediately changed his tune and said, "But I think this should be a direction for investigation."

Since the two existing approaches are unlikely to work, we can only consider a third possibility.

That is, that one percent.

"We didn't know where Zhu Guishen was during the few days that Yang Huixia went back to her parents' home after arguing with him. It's possible that something happened to him during those two days."

"For example, someone murders you, the body is disposed of, and then the case is never discovered."

At this point, Shen Xin said, "I have an idea, Ding Yuwei, come with me to investigate tomorrow."

The next day, Shen Xin took Ding Yuwei to Dingshan Temple.

This is a free municipal attraction; the construction of the mountain road and scenic area was funded by Dingshan Subdistrict.

So there's a management office on the mountain with sanitation workers responsible for cleaning the mountain.

The person in charge was surnamed Li. Shen Xin asked him who was in charge of cleaning the Lotus Peak area two years ago.

"We take turns over there."

He thought for a moment, then took Shen Xin outside and found a sanitation worker collecting trash from the bins.

A middle-aged woman named Fan Ting.

“May 13, 2015.” She thought carefully for a moment, then shook her head: “It seems like I went there to collect the garbage, but I don’t remember much. It’s been two years.”

"What about number 14?"

Shen Xin pressed for more information.

Yang Huixia reported the case on the 15th.

Therefore, the most likely time for the incident is between the 13th and the 14th.

"Nothing special," she shook her head again.

Shen Xin frowned.

It's possible that there really was nothing wrong, or it's possible that she just can't remember.

After all, it had been two years, and it was just an ordinary day. Unless something special happened, she might not have remembered it.

(End of this chapter)