Chapter 395: The Dog Breeder (2/2)

The manager smiled, ”As long as you pay it back, you can borrow as much as you want.”

”Fine then, let’s go with a hundred thousand first!” I declared.

”Alright,” nodded the manager. “Show me your ID please... I can tell you’re a big boss, especially since you’ve got two beautiful women with you. Which one is your girlfriend?”

Right then, Xiaotao grabbed her badge and threw it on the desk. The man’s shrill screams filled the room. ”You’re cops?” He stood up as if preparing to flee. Then all of a sudden, he sat back down and scratched his head. ”My apologies, that was a conditioned reflex,” he cried.

Two years ago, the state first announced the legalization of private loans. It seemed the man often had run-ins with the law in the past.

Putting away his frightened expression, he squeezed out a smile, ”Officer, I am operating legally. I can assure you I’ve never broken the law.”

”We’re not here to investigate your company,” Xiaotao folded her arms. “We’d like to ask you about someone–Huang Xusheng!”

Without a second thought, the manager answered, ”He’s borrowed money from me.”

In truth, I didn’t expect our interview to go so well. The manager explained Huang Xusheng had borrowed a large sum of money to run a Tibetan Mastiff breeding site in Nanjiang City without much thought or planning. As a result, there was no market for these expensive dogs at all so the business failed miserably.

With usury, the debt ended up snowballing as time passed. Eventually, Huang Xusheng was forced to sell his house, though the money was barely enough to return a small part of his debt. Every so often, the company sent people to urge him to settle up, but the sneaky bastard managed to hide himself. It was like fighting guerilla warfare.

Huang Xusheng was single—his wife and children left him a long time ago. Afraid of getting into trouble, the guarantor who signed at the beginning also ran away. Hence, they were forced to splash paint outside his apartment. However, Huang Xusheng seemed to come into a lot of money lately, perhaps winning the lottery or something of the sort. All of a sudden, he brought a large sum of money and came to pay off his debts.

”Looks like his money is dirty. If we knew that, we would never have accepted it!” the manager assured us.

”Please, it’s no use pretending,” sneered Xiaotao. “Do you think I don't know what you’re really like?”

Having obtained some answers, we left the moneylender. ”Huang Xusheng must have used the money given to him by the four rich kids to pay off his debts,” I thought out loud. “Perhaps the breeding compound has privately changed hands though it hasn’t been officially registered.”

”The compound is located in such a remote area. It would be easy to hide a crime,” snorted Xiaotao. “They specifically purchased the property to commit murder! These rich kids really know how to mess around!”

From Huang Xusheng’s sudden disappearance, the murderers might have realized their exposure and told him to flee.

The clues we had on hand required time and effort to follow up, but as the whole, the case was progressing smoothly. As long as we found a breakthrough in one of the clues, arresting these murderers would be inevitable.

Xiaotao and Bingxin returned to the station while I visited the store. They promised to contact me if there were any new developments in the case.

When I returned, I found a thick pharmaceutical encyclopedia to try and match the molecular formula of the capsule found in the male victim’s stomach. After three hours of continuous perusing, I finally identified it. As it turned out, the contents of the capsule weren’t some sort of medicine but a health supplement called Rhodiola Rosea extract.

Few people consumed this health supplement so the victim either purchased it from a pharmacy or ordered it online.

Since this might very well be a random murder, the victim’s identity wasn’t a vital clue so I planned to work on this alone. I searched for stores selling Rhodiola Rosea Extract online, browsed the comments and evaluations section, and jotted down each store located in Nanjiang City.