Star Trace Gate

In a dark alley.

Ren also looked down at the phone screen with a confused expression.

There was only one call record in this phone, and it was from an unfamiliar number with no name noted.

"How about it?!"

Xiao Shuai asked anxiously: "Did you see anything?"

Upon hearing this, Ren Ye turned around and looked around carefully. He saw that this place was very remote and there was a lot of garbage. Normally, except for the staff of the surrounding restaurants, ordinary people would not go here.

He slowly bent down and looked closely under the trash can where Xiao Shuai found the phone. He could vaguely see some bloodstains, but they were not very obvious.

"What are you looking at?" Xiao Shuai asked.

"I suspect... Old Yan died here and was silenced." Ren Ye said thoughtfully, "There are two possibilities. First, the phone belongs to Old Yan. Second, the phone belongs to the murderer. But the former is more likely... We are very close to the truth, but we lack the evidence to connect all the clues."

Xiao Shuai thought for a moment and said, "We do have some clues, but I don't think we are close to the truth, right?"

"No, we already have enough clues." Ren also shook his head, and all he said were clues that Xiao Shuai had overlooked: "The timeline that the teahouse owner repeatedly emphasized; the mahjong game; burning paper for others, and the half-missing video footage, as well as the accumulation of details of the mission a few days ago, etc. There are many clues, but they are not complicated."

"Are the details accumulated over the past few days also related to this case?" Xiao Shuai was a little surprised.

"Yes, the detailed descriptions of the previous and next tasks must be linked, echoing each other and fitting in perfectly."

Ren Ye slowly stood up and looked down at his phone: "We now need a point to connect all the things together, and this point is who is the owner of the phone and who is the owner of this strange number."

"Do you have any directions?"

"Yes, find the guard and ask if there is a permanent express delivery receiving point here." Ren also turned his head and looked at him: "Let's go, hurry up, there is no need to check here."

"go!"

After saying that, the two of them ran out of the alley.

……

In the evening, around 10 o'clock.

On the first floor of Tiangong Building, inside the parcel storage area.

Ren Ye held up his phone and whispered to a lady boss who was having a midnight snack, "Help me check if you have any record of this strange number?"

The proprietress of this shop looks to be about 250 pounds, with a face full of fat, but she is warmer-hearted than you might think.

She reached out to take the phone and glanced at it, without even needing to check, and said, "I know this number."

"Do you know him?" Ren Ye asked immediately, "Whose is it? Is it from this building?"

"It's Song An's on the 39th floor." The proprietress replied, "He has a lot of packages and often comes here to harass my daughter."

"call……!"

Ren also let out a long breath: "Are you sure?"

"Sure." The lady boss nodded and said, "This little bastard is really a piece of shit. No one in the whole building doesn't annoy him."

Ren Ye thought about it for a moment, and immediately asked again: "Would you please tell me your phone number? I also want to see if you recognize this phone number."

"Yes." The proprietress was very happy and didn't waste any more words.

"Okay, go ahead and I'll call..." Ren Ye nodded and dialed the number according to the other party's instructions.

After a while, the proprietress looked at the number on her phone screen and said calmly, "This is the call from Lao Yan, the manager of the inner treasury."

"Sure?"

"Yes, that's right. Neiku also often orders things. Look, I have his phone number saved in my mobile phone." The proprietress turned on the screen.

Ren Ye stood there, thinking again and again, and nodded slightly: "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I hope you can succeed before I finish this meal..." The proprietress murmured in a silly voice, "This is the last meal..."

Ren Ye looked at her chubby cheeks and replied inexplicably: "I'll try my best."

……

After another three to five minutes, Ren Ye and Xiao Shuai entered a stairwell and sat side by side on the steps.

Xiao Shuai held his chin and whispered softly: "Everyone here...seems to know that they will die."

"Perhaps the reflection of the past is full of unwillingness...!" Ren Ye stared blankly at the dim ground and said softly: "However, I have tried to deduce the truth based on the existing clues. There is evidence, and it must be him who did it."

"what?"

Xiao Shuai looked at him and said, "Then tell me quickly."

Ren Ye sat on the steps, rubbed his palms, frowned and said: "Let's start with the inner treasury. This is where the treasures are hidden in the Tiangong Building, so it must be managed extremely strictly. I guess that the key to this inner treasury... should only be held by the chief officer and the main leader. There may be one or two more people, but there is one person who will never change. That is - Song Mingzhe of the Song family, one of the leaders here."

"At first, I suspected that Song Mingzhe was stealing from his employer, because from his conspiracy with Lu Wentian from Changsheng Temple, this person is also very profit-oriented and obsessed with the work of craftsmen. He loves what he does, so a fourth-grade Tiangong Fire Talisman is definitely very tempting to him."

"However, I asked the traitor in the inner treasury, and he was not killed by Song Mingzhe to silence him. And a stranger could never enter the inner treasury. In addition... considering Song Mingzhe's identity, even if he wanted to do it, he would not do it himself." Ren Ye pondered, "So, based on all the information and clues, I ruled him out."

"So, you are indeed Song An?" Xiao Shuai.

"Correct."

Ren also nodded and said, "Song Mingzhe has the key to the inner treasury, so Song An, as his son, has the possibility of stealing. Moreover, he is the son of Pan Lianrong and Song Mingzhe, so he must be familiar with the fire talisman and knows its information. Therefore, he has the ability to bribe the treasury manager in advance and sneak into the inner treasury to kill people...!"

"There are several supporting evidences. The woman on duty in the inner storehouse was raped and died in a very miserable way... She was almost tortured to death."

"According to common sense, even if a thief kills people and steals treasures, he will not take the time to release his inner beastly desires. This is... abnormal and mentally ill, and Song An happens to be not a normal person. He has a tendency to violence and a twisted jealous heart."

"That's what I mean. There is a lot of connection between the previous scenes. Many details are buried in the previous scenes."

Xiao Shuai thought for a moment and said, "That makes sense. Please continue."

"When I joined the game of mahjong, the three friends said something very crucial, which was... they were waiting for the warehouse manager, Old Yan, to come to the table together." Ren Ye frowned slightly: "That is to say, Old Yan could have appeared in the inner warehouse at any time when the crime happened."

"So, the whole process of the crime is like this. Because there is only one door to the inner storehouse, outsiders cannot enter by other means, so the man who acted as an insider pretended to enter the inner storehouse to check before the mahjong game started, and suddenly shouted that he had discovered the thief. The other two went in to support, but were ambushed by Song An who was lurking outside... The two sides fought fiercely, and the man with the silver nail in his eye was killed first, and then the woman was raped, and finally died from torture...!"

"I don't know if Song An is an enlightened person, or what level he is, but I suspect that, in addition to the traitor, he must have accomplices, otherwise he would not have the time to abuse women. But I don't know how many people they are."

"After Song An snatched the fire talisman, he suddenly killed the traitor to silence him, and then left calmly with his accomplices."

"But what he didn't notice was that Old Yan, who happened to be playing mahjong, saw something in secret. It could be the whole thing, or it could be their backs as they left. In short, Old Yan must have discovered something."

"Afterwards, the crime scene was discovered, and Old Yan was called away by the police for investigation. However, due to Song An's identity, as well as the status of Pan Lianrong and Song Mingzhe, he did not tell the truth."

"After finishing the investigation, he went to the 39th floor, hoping to talk to Song Mingzhe and Pan Lianrong and secretly mention this matter, but Song Mingzhe was not at home, and Pan Lianrong was not there either..." Ren also thought for a moment: "The tea boss repeatedly emphasized the timeline. It was a little after 11 o'clock, and Old Yan went to the 39th floor. According to the previous information, Song Mingzhe should be in the villa at this time, or on his way home."

"Then why are you so sure that Pan Lianrong is not at home?" Xiao Shuai asked puzzled.

"If Pan Lianrong was at home, she would never let Song An chase her out and quarrel with Old Yan right at the door." Ren Ye said with certainty: "Song An should have been alone at home at the time... As soon as Old Yan went there, he knew what it was for. He might have tried to bribe or threaten... But Old Yan insisted on meeting Song Mingzhe and Pan Lianrong, so the two of them couldn't reach an agreement and quarreled."

"After Old Yan left, Song An, who was impulsive and violent, chased him out of the house and had an argument with him in the stairwell, and then the two parted unhappily."

"When Old Yan went downstairs, Song An became more and more scared, so he called him and asked him to meet at the teahouse, because at that time, the teahouse was the only one open in the entire building."

"After Song An arrived downstairs in the teahouse, he felt that he could not show up, so he asked Lao Yan to come downstairs to talk, and then killed him."

"Old Yan must have been unwilling to die, so when he was struggling, he stuffed the phone he had received into the trash can."

"Mrs. Wang from Room 1804 said that unclean things often happen in this building. This might be a reference to the fact that Song An was haunted by something strange after killing someone... That's why he went to Mrs. Wang to ask about the matter and ordered set meal A for Old Yan to cook on his behalf."

Ren Ye paused here: "The mobile phone number is the most direct evidence: the woman who was raped in the inner storehouse, and the several storehouse managers who died of torture, all clearly fit Song An's characteristics! I dare to conclude that he is the culprit who stole the fire talisman."

Xiao Shuai thought for a moment and frowned, "If that's what you said. Is it possible that Old Yan is Song An's accomplice? The main official unit has the key, and he is the warehouse manager, so he must have one... and with him around, it's easier to bribe the traitor in the inner warehouse. It doesn't make sense to put him in the whole truth! Song An might have killed him because the spoils were not evenly divided."

"Do not."

Ren also waved his hand and said arbitrarily: "Old Yan is definitely not an accomplice."

"Why?!"

"I still say that after a criminal gang has done something big, they will instinctively avoid appearing in the public eye. If Lao Yan was an accomplice, why would he be so rash as to go to the 39th floor and look for Song An in such a blatant way? And even have a conflict with him?! This doesn't make sense at all. They could just make a phone call and meet in a teahouse or somewhere else." Ren Ye said softly, "Lao Yan discovered the truth later. There may be some problems with his motives, such as blackmail... or wanting to curry favor with Song Mingzhe and Pan Lianrong to gain some benefits for himself, but he is definitely not an accomplice."

"Oh, now that you've mentioned this, I understand everything."

"Now we just need to confirm one thing and we can finish our mission."

"what?!"

"Go to the department in charge of the inner treasury and ask who has the key to the inner treasury." Ren Ye replied.

……

Tiangong Building.

In a duplex building, Song An sat on a couch, looking at a dozen or so "members of his organization" with a smug expression on his face.

Brother Hong was standing aside. I don’t know when his hair was dyed pink. He looked like an old man pretending to be young.

Tonight, he and the old cadre followed Song An's line, and after going through a series of tasks, they all found that Song An was a lunatic and an abnormal person.

The old cadre was sent out by Song Anwei and has not returned yet.

Brother Hong was a little worried, so he gritted his teeth and called out the name that Song An forced them to call: "Great Darkness Commander, they haven't come back for so long, nothing will happen to them, right?"

"...Haha, no matter how big the problem is, there are always people to clean up my mess. What are you afraid of?" Song An replied with a sneer.