I was just telling a story, why is the whole internet urging me to turn myself in?

Chapter 88: A chilling revelation – A twenty-year-old patricide case exposed.

Jiangzhou Defense Agency, Special Case Unit Office on the second basement floor.

Su Qing's notebook had been turned to the third page, which was filled with clues.

Xiao Li moved a chair and sat down close to her. The two of them squeezed together in front of the same laptop and watched the entire live stream.

After the live stream ended, the office fell into a long, deathly silence, with only the second hand of the wall clock ticking away.

Su Qing picked up her pen and wrote two words heavily in the blank space of her notebook: Origin.

Then a horizontal line was drawn below, with the shocking words "murderer of father" and "murderer of mother" written at the two ends of the line.

She stared at the notebook, her mind racing, frantically piecing together the fragments.

Two young children are bound together by a shared crime, one in the open and one in the shadows, one responsible for the murder and the other for the aftermath.

If this terrifying mapping pattern holds true again—

In some corner of the Jiangzhou Defense Office, or perhaps in some dusty filing cabinet, there really is a twenty-year-old case!

This case involves the unfathomable "Mr. Shadow" and his visible hand!

Su Qing was lost in thought when the landline on her desk suddenly rang.

It's an internal phone line.

At this hour, people are still making internal phone calls. In the entire National Defense Agency building, only the technical section staff are on night shift.

Su Qing picked up the receiver immediately: "This is Su Qing."

The voice on the other end of the phone came from Lao Han in the technical department: "Captain Su, I've found something here—you'd better come and see it in person."

"What is it?"

Old Han paused for a moment, then became more cautious in his wording: "You just watched Shen Feng's live stream, didn't you?"

Su Qing's hand gripping the microphone tightened suddenly: "I saw it."

"I saw it too." Old Han's voice dropped a octave. "After watching it, I couldn't sleep. I felt uneasy, so I went back to the office, logged onto the intranet, and did some quick research."

"Captain Su, I've searched the old case database for a set of cross-keywords: minor involved, relative's death, accidental classification, and the time frame is between 2002 and 2006..."

"7

"As a result, the system actually popped up a case."

"In November 2004, the owner of a hardware workshop in Chengnan District, Jiangzhou, was found dead in his warehouse. The forensic examination determined that the fatal injury was a sharp-force puncture to the neck, and the murder weapon was suspected to be needle-nose pliers or rusty industrial scissors. The scene was cleaned up very well, with no signs of struggle and no witnesses."

"The case was investigated for three months back then, but there were no leads. In early 2005, the higher-ups simply shelved it on the grounds of 'insufficient evidence and inability to determine whether it was a homicide.' The original case file was archived and put into the cold case archive of the Chengnan Branch Bureau."

Su Qing switched the microphone to her left hand, while her right hand was already rapidly scribbling in her notebook: "What was the deceased's background?"

"The deceased was named Tao Jianbang, male, 42 years old, a self-employed individual in Chengnan District."

"Captain Su..." Old Han's voice stopped abruptly here, "He is the director of the Logistics Support Department of our Defense Agency, Tao Zhiyuan's uncle."

"Clatter".

Su Qing's pen stopped on the paper, and a drop of ink spread across the paper.

Xiao Li, who was sitting next to him, also heard it. His eyes widened in disbelief.

Su Qing put down her pen, picked up her phone from the table, and glanced at the time.

10:47 PM.

"Old Han, is the original case file still in the cold case archives of the Chengnan Branch?"

"The system shows it's still there. I've already checked the archive number remotely: 2004-CN-1127. But that's the original paper document, and the person must be present with a high-level work ID to access it."

"What happened to the physical evidence from back then?"

"Not sure. It's been twenty years, and the evidence warehouse of the Chengnan branch has been moved twice. Whether anything was lost or destroyed as scrap, we'll have to go to the site to find out."

Su Qing closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then slowly opened them again.

She picked up her pen and added a third circle next to the two she had drawn in the notebook before.

The first circle: Liu Jianhua (deceased).

The second circle: ? ? ? (Mr. Shadow)

The third circle... Tao Zhiyuan!

"Old Han, you didn't make that call tonight, and I didn't answer it either. Before nine o'clock tomorrow morning, no one, regardless of who they are, is allowed to touch that numbered electronic file!"

"clear."

The phone hangs up.

Xiao Li stood to the side, his throat bobbing several times before he finally managed to utter a trembling sentence: "Captain Su—"

"No way?"

Su Qing closed the notebook, shoved it into the drawer with a "bang," and locked it with the key.

"Can't do what?"

"Tao Zhiyuan—he's worked in the department for twenty years, always smiling and cheerful. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, he personally pushed a cart to deliver mooncakes to each department—" Xiao Li swallowed hard. "Even on the morning Liu Jianhua died, he was still smiling in the corridor, asking me if the braised pork in the cafeteria was too salty—how could such a kind old man possibly be—"

Su Qing sneered, pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk, and took out a black tactical sealed bag. Inside were her spare sidearm and two magazines fully loaded with bullets.

"Little Li."

"exist!"

"You're not getting any sleep tonight. Drag out all the equipment purchase orders, infrastructure contracts, and outsourced maintenance records handled by Tao Zhiyuan over the past three years! Focus on the access control system and drinking water system on the second basement floor of the National Defense Agency. Find out which company contracted them and if he was the one who approved the contracts!"

Xiao Li gritted his teeth, grabbed the keyboard, and started typing furiously.

Su Qing walked to the window and looked down at the windows of the Defense Agency compound below, where lights were still on in the night.

Tao Zhiyuan is the director of the logistics department, a veritable "housekeeper".

The authority to issue access cards, the procurement and daily maintenance of water dispensers, and even the blind spots in fire exit monitoring... it's all under his control!

He had absolute authority to touch the glass of water in the interrogation room, from the moment it flowed from the water dispenser to the moment it was poured into the paper cup—every hand that passed through it!

Twenty years ago, his uncle died from a pair of scissors in a scrap warehouse.

How old was Tao Zhiyuan at the time of the incident?

Su Qing quickly calculated in her mind.

Tao Zhiyuan is 43 years old this year. In 2004, he was 23 years old, had just graduated from police academy, and was in his first year of internship at the National Defense Agency!

The murder case, for which there was overwhelming evidence, was ultimately classified as absurdly "unable to determine whether it was a homicide."

The agency that handled the case back then was the Chengnan Branch Bureau.

Su Qing turned off the overhead light in the office, picked up her car keys, and inserted her service pistol into the quick-draw holster on her waist.

"Captain Su, where are you going in the middle of the night?" Xiao Li looked up from behind the computer screen, his eyes showing nervousness.

"Southern Branch of the Public Security Bureau."

Su Qing's voice was cold and hard in the dimly lit office, "Before dawn breaks, before some people react—I want to see that dusty file with my own eyes!"

",