Chapter 128: The Time Bomb (2/2)

Sun Tiger suddenly pulled out his mobile phone. Xiaotao and I were both puzzled at what he was trying to do.

“That woman must be nearby!” he barked. “How else could she hypnotize your friend here?”

“No, Uncle Sun,” I tried to explain. “She’s not here. Lao Yao was hypnotized by that thing!”

I pointed at the computer. To my surprise, the screen was completely blank. As expected, Li Wenjia was utterly thorough. Not only did she look straight into the camera, she must’ve hidden some hypnotic audio in the video too. That way, anyone analyzing the video would fall under her spell. She must’ve instructed Lao Yao not just to attack Xiaotao, but to also destroy the video evidence that might lead back to her.

That was the real purpose of the video—she was sending the third time bomb to Xiaotao. After all that we’d been through that day, none of us suspected that she would have this last trick up her sleeve. It was a really close shave this time. Xiaotao was nearly killed!

Now that she’d used three of my friends as her tool, I felt the rage surging up in me. I vowed to catch this madwoman no matter what it took!

I asked Sun Tiger if there was enough cause to arrest Li Wenjia now. He shook his head wanly and said, “No, kiddo. But at least we can get a warrant to search her house now. Wang Yuanchao is still missing and these three students are all connected to her, so she can be legally identified as a criminal suspect and her residence can be searched in accordance with the law!”

“Great! Then we’ll go there first thing tomorrow morning—”

“Tomorrow?” asked Sun Tiger. “There’s no time to waste. We’ll leave now! Or are you too tired, kiddo?”

“Not at all!” I answered firmly.

Sun Tiger immediately dispatched a group of officers to Li Wenjia’s house. I went with Xiaotao in her car. When we were alone, she thanked me for saving her earlier.

“Don’t mention it,” I told her. “Besides, the battle is not over yet.”

The police car sirens broke the tranquility of the campus as we arrived. Lights were turned on following the ruckus. We arrived at Li Wenjia’s house and searched through every inch of it, but we found absolutely nothing.

I looked around and suddenly noticed that something was wrong.

“Wait, where’s that fox?”

At that moment, a man wearing glasses arrived at the door. He was holding Li Wenjia’s pet fox in his arms.

“What happened to Professor Li?” he asked.

“Professor, do you know her?” I asked, hoping to find a new clue to track down Li Wenjia.

“Well, not quite,” he answered. “We talk to each other now and then. She told me she’d be going on vacation for a few days, so she left her pet with me while she’s gone.”

Everyone was visibly deflated after hearing that answer. We’d come to another dead end.

“There must be some way that we can track her down,” muttered Sun Tiger through gritted teeth. “She bought a mask and a wig online, didn’t she? Go check her account activity. Get the list of online stores that sell these items and we’ll go through them one by one!”

The police officers started to execute Sun Tiger’s orders immediately. His decisive and authoritative manner was truly admirable. It reminded me that he did not rise through the ranks through connections at all, but through grit and sheer dedication.

The man in glasses was confused by this scene and was about to leave, but I stopped him. I asked him if he noticed anything unusual about Li Wenjia lately, but he couldn’t give me any helpful answers at all. After all, to most people around her, Li Wenjia was just a demure and pretty woman who would never harm a fly. No one would’ve guessed that she was a dangerous criminal.

I asked the man for his name and number and told him to contact the police immediately if Li Wenjia returned. It was only then that I realized that he was the professor of one of my classes this semester. I didn’t recognize him at all because I’d skipped all his classes!

As soon as we returned to the police station, reports came in from various districts in Nanjiang City about dozens of missing people. There was no doubt in my mind that Li Wenjia had a hand in this.

By that time, it was already four in the morning. Everyone was anticipating a short break, but Sun Tiger unexpectedly announced that a meeting was going to be held immediately. This made many officers grumble, especially those who were used to working with Xiaotao as they tended to be more considerate.

The meeting went on in a room full of cigarette smoke. The police officers all had dark rings around their eyes and were smoking cigarette after cigarette to keep themselves awake.

We had come to a point where Li Wenjia’s whereabouts were completely unknown and there wasn’t a single clue that could lead us to her at all. We were at our wits’ end when, suddenly, Sun Tiger turned to me and asked, didn’t Grandpa have a special technique to smoke out the criminal’s hideout?

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