Chapter 88 (1/2)
Killer Nights
Chapter 88: Yao Tianyu’s Recollection
Jiang Zhengkai sat in front of the computer monitor in his office. On it was displayed a map of Guangxi Province. Jiang Zhengkai pored over the electronic map in search of A-Xiu’s hometown. The border hamlet was just a tiny dot on the screen, but Jiang Zhengkai did manage to find it in the end.
“So it’s here!” exclaimed Jiang Zhengkai as he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his weary eyes. Staring at a computer monitor for extended periods of time definitely takes its toll on a person’s eyesight. On the map, it appeared that A-Xiu’s hamlet was no more than a few kilometers away from A-Di’s hamlet. The tiny dots representing these two neighboring hamlets were practically next to each other on the map. Combined with information provided by A-Jiao and A-Ping, there was now sufficient circ.u.mstantial evidence to determine that A-Di’s first trip to this city was in fact to look for A-Xiu. Furthermore, it was highly likely that A-Di already knew A-Xiu while still in Guangxi. Again, this was corroborated by A-Ping’s statement.
If that were the case, then why did A-Di not want to come to the city this time around? Was it because she knew A-Xiu had already left and had gone missing, or was there another reason? Perhaps he was approaching this from the wrong angle. Was it possible that A-Di didn’t want to come here because she didn’t know A-Xiu had gone missing? If so, then didn’t that imply A-Di and A-Xiu had some kind of a falling out since their last meeting? At this point, Jiang Zhengkai was somewhat vexed. It looked his top priority right now was to figure out the exact nature of A-Di’s relations.h.i.+p with A-Xiu and whether the two had any sort of conflict between them. You never know, maybe their relations.h.i.+p must just turn out to be the key to cracking this case. At the thought of that, Jiang Zhengkai picked up his phone and dialed Zhang Qian, “h.e.l.lo, Zhang Qian. This is Jiang Zhengkai.”
“What’s going on, my dear Inspector Jiang?” said Zhang Qian over the phone. The two of them had a close relations.h.i.+p as both had been “apprentices” to Yao Tianyu. As such, they liked to make fun of one another every time they saw or talked to one another.
“Hehe, greetings, my fair comrade sister! How is the old man doing?” Seeing how Zhang Qian was in a mood to joke around, Jiang Zhengkai dropped any pretense of formality as well.
“My my, dear brother, your timing is impeccable!” Zhang Qian said in a weird voice, “He just came back a few minutes ago at around noon.” Zhang Qian lowered her voice considerably and said, “The old man looks like he’s in a pretty good mood. If you want to talk to him, now’s the time to do it!”
“Excellent! Remind me to buy you dinner the next time I see you!” said Jiang Zhengkai before he hung up the phone. On the other side of the call, Zhang Qian heard the line click as the call ended and muttered to herself, “Buy me dinner? Ha, from a cheapskate like you? No freaking likely!”
When Jiang Zhengkai heard from Zhang Qian that Yao Tianyu had returned from the provincial police department to the munic.i.p.al police bureau and that his mood was not bad, he immediately gathered up all relevant doc.u.ments and drafted a formal request for temporary a.s.signment in Guangxi. He then darted out of his office and speedily drove to munic.i.p.al police headquarters.
Cui Jing returned to the preschool. Her present unstable mental state coupled with her disheveled clothing made it impossible for her to teach the audited cla.s.s. Princ.i.p.al Li made a last minute decision for A-Jiao to take over responsibility for the cla.s.s. Luckily for Cui Jing, her friends.h.i.+p with A-Jiao meant that she managed to teach A-Jiao the basics of piano-playing. As a result, A-Jiao was able to muddle her way through the afternoon’s audited cla.s.s without bringing too much embarra.s.sment to herself and her preschool.
But if Cui Jing thought her troubles were over, she was gravely mistaken. The auditors from the school board may not have been tell who was Cui Jing and who was A-Jiao, but Princ.i.p.al Li sure as h.e.l.l knew which one was which. After the school board representatives had left, Princ.i.p.al Li tore Cui Jing a new one. Princ.i.p.al Li had purposely scheduled this audited cla.s.s to provide Cui Jing an opportunity to score a high a.s.sessment from the higher ups at the school board. However, Cui Jing repaid Princ.i.p.al Li’s kindness by completely s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the audited cla.s.s and bringing shame to the preschool’s reputation. No wonder Old Lady Li completely lost her cool.
Princ.i.p.al Li yelled at Cui Jing for a good ten minutes, but she soon realized there was something else on Cui Jing’s mind as Cui Jing seemed to not have heard anything she had said. For those who dealt with young children everyday, their tempers flared quickly but also subsided quickly. Otherwise, the preschool’s children would have driven them crazy ages ago. Princ.i.p.al Li saw something wasn’t quite right with Cui Jing, so she quickly changed from criticism to support. “Cui Jing, are you feeling alright? Do you have something on your mind?” she asked in her normal friendly tone of voice. Deep down inside, Princ.i.p.al Li still very much liked Cui Jing, just like how she liked A-Jiao. One of them excelled at music while the other excelled at painting. The two of them were the main money makers for the preschool. If it weren’t for the fact that her afternoon cla.s.s was being audited by the school board, there was no way Princ.i.p.al Li would have summoned enough anger to yell at her.
“No, it’s nothing…” replied Cui Jing as she stiffly shook her head, “I’m sorry! It was my fault!”