Chapter 187: The Missing Woman (1/2)

“What?” Xiaotao asked, full of doubt. “Why would Xu Gang hide the person he hated the most in his wife’s tomb?”

“To mislead us, perhaps!” I answered.

Xiaotao made a brief phone call, and when she hung up, she told me, “What a bizarre coincidence! His wife was buried here in this cemetery!”

She then asked the person in charge to lead us to Xu Gang’s wife’s tomb. There were a bunch of withered lilies placed on the tomb. The photo above it was of a gentle and beautiful long-haired woman. I sniffed at the flowers and stated, “Xu Gang was here shortly before his death.”

“Pry the tomb open!” ordered Xiaotao.

The officers did so with a crowbar. When it was opened, one of them shouted, “There’s something in there!”

It was a small box, placed right beside the remains of Xu Gang’s wife. He must’ve left it there. None of the officers dared to touch the box. They feared that it could be a bomb.

“You cowards!” snapped Xiaotao. “I’ll do it!”

“No!” I held Xiaotao’s arm to stop her. “Let me do it!”

I slowly opened the box. There were fourteen syringes inside it, as well as a note that read, “Well done, Detective Song! You are as good as you’re rumored to be. These are the antidote to the hibernation drug.”

I was a little shocked that Xu Gang could predict my being there. There were fourteen syringes here to save the researchers. Evidently, Xu Gang didn’t realize that one of them had committed suicide.

The officers' expressions turned strange when they found out what was inside the box. They said nothing, but I could guess what those expressions meant. They were thinking that since the researchers were now saved, there would be no need to go on looking for the rich lady.

I asked them to take the syringes to the lab and test them. If there were no problems with them, then they could go ahead and inject the antidote into the researchers’ bodies. It was already dark by then, so Xiaotao told me to go back to my dorm and resume our search the next day.

The next morning, I went straight to the police station after getting up. Xiaotao was already there waiting for me. She informed me that the researchers were all safe and in stable condition now. Their statements matched what Xu Gang told me. Then, Xiaotao asked me, “Where should we search for the rich lady today?”

“Will it just be the two of us?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Xiaotao sighed. “It’s the end of the year, and the task force members are all exhausted, so I told them to rest today. Besides, we don’t necessarily need lots of people to find the rich lady.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then let’s go to the lady’s company, and then her house!”

The rich lady had been missing for close to a month by now. Her company had since weathered the storm and re-stabilized. The board of directors were in the process of electing a new president. When the directors spoke to us, they hinted subtly for us to end the search for their former president.

This disturbed me. The rich lady used to be the most important person in this company, yet now her employees had forsaken her and were eager to replace her. She was slowly rotting away somewhere in the dark, and the world outside seemed to have forgotten her.

We left the company and went to the rich lady’s house. We stumbled into a few people there. They were people who had set their eyes on the rich lady’s mansion. When those people found out that the rich lady had gone missing, they knew that the mansion would be auctioned sooner or later, so they came here to take a look at it before deciding to buy it in the future.

“Will I be forgotten this way too if I go missing?” Xiaotao wondered gloomily.

“Being forgotten is a fate that no one can escape,” I said. “But I will remember you as long as I live.”

Xiaotao smiled, then sighed again. “Oh, if only I had some spare time. I’d really love to go out with you on a proper date sometime.”

We both entered the rich lady’s mansion. It had been cleaned up a long time ago, but that was fine because we didn’t come here to find clues, only to find inspiration about where to go next. I looked at their family portrait and asked Xiaotao, “Where does her daughter go to school?”

“An exclusive private boarding school,” replied Xiaotao.

“Does she know what happened to her parents?”

“Most probably, yeah. It’s been quite a while after all, so I’m sure someone must’ve told her. I hear she’s been adopted by her relatives.”

“Let’s go and meet her!”

“Now? But it’s the weekend! I don’t know where her relatives live!”

I was about to call it a day, but then it occurred to me that we should just try our luck and go to the girl’s school anyway. Perhaps we could find some clues there.

The school was a combination of a junior high school and a high school. It had sophisticated infrastructure and looked nothing like the school that I went to. It felt like I was visiting those schools in movies and TV dramas. I’d never imagined that such a school would actually exist in real life.