Be in low spirits

They drove to the hotel and, led by Xiao Chen, entered the alley behind the hotel kitchen.

This is a narrow alley. After get off work, the kitchen cleans up the accumulated water and sweeps it here. The traces of the day have long been washed away. Xiao Chen said that there are almost no people walking here, and even fewer at night. It is dark and slippery.

Kong Zhixi felt that wherever she went, she would leave traces. She walked out along the alley and saw red water flowing out of a trash can in the distance. When she got closer, she saw that it was Sister Mensao's other high-heeled shoe. Because of the poor quality, the red paint on the artificial leather flowed onto the ground along with the liquid that seeped out of the trash can.

Li Li took out a plastic bag, packed it, sealed it, and prepared to take it back for testing. Kong Zhixi said, "With your technology, you can only check fingerprints. If there are no fingerprints, it will be useless."

"Maybe." Li Li felt that this was already the biggest gain.

"Let's go back to find Lao Sui." Kong Zhixi began to feel a little depressed. She sat in the car on the way back without saying a word. She began to hesitate whether she could continue to stay in this game.

"It's okay, we've found the murderer." Li Li saw her uneasiness and comforted her, hoping that she could get through this.

"...Yeah." Maybe she wanted to lie to herself, so after thinking for a long time, she replied with "Yeah."

"Do you...remember what happened outside?" she asked, trying to divert her attention.

"Outside? Where?" Li Li was a little confused.

Fu Yan was right, he had forgotten everything and only remembered what happened in the game.

"Parents and brothers? Or friends?" Zhixi did not give up and continued to ask.

"Father... I only remember that he was very strict with me when I was a child. What about your parents?" Li Li thought she just wanted to change the subject, so he asked.

"Uh... forget it. If you don't remember, we can talk about it later. By the way, what is Lao Sui's origin?" She started to ask about Lao Sui again.

"Lao Sui is a medical student. He is not very old, but I don't remember why I started calling him Lao Sui." Li Li couldn't remember the settings of many things in the game, as if he was just playing a role that didn't ask for reasons or know cause and effect.

Arriving at the police station, Li Li took his shoes and went straight to find Lao Sui. Zhixi stood in the interrogation room, looking at the people sitting inside, and a child handcuffed outside. She found a piece of bread, opened the package and handed it to the child outside, then sat next to him and asked him, "Do you know where your mother is?"

"Dad said Mom was too tired and was going back to heaven." The child was very hungry and ate the bread in big mouthfuls.

"Do you miss your mother?" Zhixi stared at his red wrists and felt very sorry for him, but she didn't dare to get the key to unlock them for him.

"Yes, but Dad said we will see each other soon." He just sat there today, and no one was there to wash his face or give him a bottle of water.

Zhixi brought a bottle of water, opened it and fed him a sip. "It's delicious, I want to save some for dad." What on earth did such a sensible child experience?

Zhixi found a wet tissue and wiped the dust off his face. He smiled at her, revealing his white teeth, his eyes still as clear as ever but with a little numbness.

Zhixi returned to the interrogation room and sat opposite the man without saying a word for a long time. She sighed and said, "The child is outside. Hasn't he had anything to eat in a long time?"

"Can I...see him?" The man raised his eyes, eagerly.

"Can you tell me?"

The man was silent again.

"We met four years ago. At that time, she was just a clerk, and I was a maintenance worker at the subway company. We fell in love, got married, and gave birth to Xiaoshu. Our lives were ordinary, but after having a child, the expenses became more and more. I know that a maintenance worker can't make much money. Occasionally, the workers would play cards and gamble a little money in their spare time. Sometimes I would also participate and gamble a little money, but later I started to bet bigger and bigger. A worker took me to the casino, betting on football and horses. At the beginning, I was a winner, I won a lot of money, and she didn't say too much when she saw me bringing money home. Later, I started to lose more and more, and owed a lot of money. I was fired by the company, and the debt collectors outside were looking for me everywhere, and there was no one to take care of Xiaoshu. So, I hid at home to take care of the child. My wife had no choice but to work as a hostess to make more money."

He spoke for a long time, and Zhixi felt that his words were heavier than Mount Tai, and every word was like a shackle on the child's life.

"Why didn't you call the police?" She knew that asking this question seemed meaningless.

"There are only a few police officers in the entire vocational city? Who can handle it? If her body was not found in the downtown area, would you care?"

“Why do we need to remove internal organs?”

"In Career City, the bodies of people who died peacefully will also disappear. When she was lying there, she was very quiet, just bleeding a lot, but her body was intact. I thought she was obsessed with going home, so I took her home, changed her into clean clothes, and put on nice makeup. She liked the pair of red high heels the most. That was the pair I gave her on our first date. But one of them was missing. I put her in the refrigerator, thinking that if I went back and found her, I could put them on for her, then she might not have any obsession and would be like all the people who disappeared in Career City. But I didn't find her. Did you?" There were tears in his eyes, as if he was telling a love story that was destined to be a tragedy.

"I asked you why you wanted to remove her organs?" Zhixi was a little annoyed and spoke in a heavier tone.

"Xiaoshu missed his mother, and I was afraid that I would never see her again. So I thought of stealing some formalin from the hospital, so that at least her heart would always be there."

Kong Zhixi didn't want to ask any more questions and walked out of the interrogation room. The man behind her roared and asked her if she had found the shoe.

She walked to the forensic room, and Li Li looked at her with some concern. "Are you okay?"

"Have you found out anything?" she asked Lao Sui.

Lao Sui said there was a fingerprint near the heel of the high-heeled shoe, and it is being compared now.

Li Li said that the comparison would take some time, pulled her out of the forensic room, into his office, and poured her a cup of tea.

"Are you really okay?" Li Li was still worried.

"No, this case...will they...disappear too?" She hadn't figured out how to ask him. "Oh~I'd better ask that bastard." Li Li held her hand, hesitated for two seconds, and said, "Ahem...actually, you can ask me first." Before he finished speaking, his ears began to turn red again. Kong Zhixi looked at the hand he was holding, and suddenly seemed to think of something, and said in surprise: "You remembered?"

Li Li just felt that as a manager, she should consult him first if she had any problems. Now Fu Yan has become a more useful person than him, and he feels a little uncomfortable.

"What do you want me to remember?" He was a little confused.

Kong Zhixi broke free from his grasp and sat down opposite him. It seemed that it would not be so easy to get through. "The murderer should not be Brother Fa Cai, and the child looks innocent. Now we can only see if there are any clues on the shoe."

She thought for a moment and then said, "Actually, is there any surveillance in that alley?"

"No, I asked at the beginning."

She nodded, thinking so.

It was already evening when Lao Sui got the result. It was a man named Qu Jingyou, who was said to be a middle-aged man working in a securities company.

When the two found the man's residence, his family was having dinner. The house was big, his wife was beautiful, and his children were excellent. It seemed like a happy family. When he was taken away, he explained to his wife and children that it might be a company matter.

He wore a nice shirt, had a slicked-back hair, and a big belly, a typical greasy man. While sitting in the interrogation room, he had to wipe the sweat from his forehead from time to time.

"Have you seen Sister Mensao?"

"I've seen it."

Kong Zhixi watched his behavior in front of the glass mirror and thought that he was 80% likely to be the murderer. Remembering that she hadn't eaten yet, she went to the forensic room to find Lao Sui, wondering if she could have a meal with him.

Lao Sui was not in the forensic room. The computer on his desk was still on, with the photo of the shoes on it. She stood there for a long time, hesitating whether to look through the computer. Maybe there was something on it that could prove whether he was an undercover agent.

"Zhixi! What are you looking at?" Li Li knocked on the window and called her loudly.

She was startled and looked up at him. "He is not the murderer." Li Li waved for her to come out.

"Huh? What?" She hadn't expected it.

"He did have a deal with Sister Mensao. The road was slippery that night and her high heels fell off when she was leaving the hotel. He helped pick them up and put them on for her. He wanted to take her home, but she refused," Li Li explained.