custom rival

The three of them found a Starbucks in a shopping mall and sat down. Huo Mingxu deliberately took off his uniform and put on a thin shirt. At this time, he sat upright in the casual and comfortable environment of the Starbucks and looked at the two high school students in front of him with a serious face.

After he got Lian Guangji's business card from Zhang Qijin, he got in touch with him without delay, but Lian Guangji was in a meeting, and the secretary answered the phone to tell the situation, and immediately sent Xi Zhikong's work address to him. Gave it to him and said it would arrive later.

Jiang Yan looked at Huo Mingxu, and Huo Mingxu stared straight at Xi Zhikong, the aura between the three became more and more strange.

Finally, Xi Zhikong couldn't stand being stared at anymore, he cleared his throat and said, "Well, hello, you just said that you are the prosecutor of the Southern District Procuratorate, right?"

Huo Mingxu still nodded seriously, the expression on his face remained unchanged, and the word "violation of peace" was written all over his body.

Jiang Yan took a sip of the Frappuccino, "May I ask why you came to see us today—"

"I'm here to find Xi Zhikong, if you can wait a while, I hope you can avoid it."

"..."

Xi Zhikong thought to himself, what an upright prosecutor.

Jiang Yan laughed dryly and said, "I'm sorry, this uncle—"

"You're not very old, so it should be your elder brother." Huo Mingxu corrected him seriously again.

Xi Zhikong couldn't help laughing. It was originally a very serious conversation, but when he heard Jiang Yan's "tricks" with the young prosecutor in front of him, no matter how serious the atmosphere was, it was destroyed.

He smiled and said, "Hi, prosecutor, he is my brother, and he knows everything I know."

Huo Mingxu nodded, probably because he had been tense for too long, and the indifferent look on his face finally loosened a bit. He looked Jiang Yan up and down, adjusted his sitting posture and talked to Xi Zhikong: "I originally dealt with the case logically. I shouldn't meet with you in private, but this case is a bit special, I hope you don't find it abrupt."

"The case?" Xi Zhikong was taken aback for a moment, and then realized: "You mean my father's case?"

"It's still not completely sure that this case is related to your father's case, but just now Mr. Lian asked me to come over after answering my call. He may also come over later, so I think this place-" Huo Mingxu turned his head and looked around After looking at the relatively complicated environment around him, he said again: "I suggest that you can change to another place and talk about it in detail."

Jiang Yan raised his eyebrows noncommittal.

——The place was chosen by him, and he didn't think so much just now.

In his heart, he slandered this Huo Mingxu for "going back on what he said". He obviously meant to find a random place, but now he is not satisfied with finding such a place.

Always picky.

Huo Mingxu seemed to be much friendlier to Xi Zhikong, and I don't know if his Kongkong is cuter, Jiang Yan felt a little uncomfortable.

He put down the drink in his hand and said, "Then change to another place. After my dad——comes, we'll go directly to his company."

"Your father? Mr. Lian is your father?"

Huo Mingxu was startled.He couldn't help but associate this ordinary high school student in front of him who didn't look like a son-in-law with the son of the famous entrepreneur Lian Guangji, "What's your name?"

"Jiang Yan."

Jiang Yan simply dropped two words, and added: "My surname is my mother's."

Lian Guangji called to say that the meeting had just ended, Jiang Yan hung up the phone, put the phone back in his pocket, and said, "My dad finished the meeting, let's go out and wait for him by the side of the road."

The three of them stood on the side of the road where cars were passing by, Jiang Yan was carrying Xi Zhikong's schoolbag on his back, and Xi Zhikong was holding Gu Yishu's manuscript in his arms.Huo Mingxu has never been stingy with his gaze since he appeared until now, as if he wanted to see through the two of them.

He stared at Xi Zhikong for a while, and asked him, "Are you a sophomore in high school this year?"

"Well, you're a sophomore at the beginning of school?"

"You said Jiang Yan is your brother?" He asked again.

Jiang Yan glanced at him, suddenly felt an inexplicable possessive desire from the bottom of his heart, raised his hand to put on Xi Zhikong's shoulder and put it in his arms, "It's his brother."

——Not only his brother, but also his boyfriend.

"Ah...it's my brother who grew up with me, sorry prosecutor."

Huo Mingxu curled his lips and nodded, noncommittal.

The three of them waited on the side of the road for more than ten minutes, when a black Buick business car stopped in front of them, the driver rolled down the window, Huo Mingxu bent down and saw Lian Guangji in the back seat.

He thought to himself, Lian Guangji's name is very popular, but he is quite low-key, and his cars are "ordinary" commercial vehicles.

Jiang Yan was sitting in the co-pilot, looking at the restless Xi Zhikong in the rearview mirror from time to time - he originally wanted to sit in the back row, but when he opened the car door, he found Jiang Wen was also behind, and as soon as he lifted his leg, Jiang Wen drove him away went to the front.

"Hello, Lian Guangji." Lian Guangji stretched out his hand to Huo Mingxu, with an apologetic smile on his face, and greeted him: "I'm having a very important meeting when you called today, so I asked you to come and wait first. ,terribly sorry."

Huo Mingxu held his hand: "Mr. Lian, hello, I'm Huo Mingxu—"

"I know, Lao Zhang told me all about it."

"Old Zhang?" Huo Mingxu's mind turned quickly, and then he said: "You are talking about... Chief Prosecutor Zhang?"

As smart as he is, he immediately understood all kinds of relationships.

Why did no one dare to take such a difficult case? He did not go well and even the leaders of the courtyard avoided seeing him, but he actually stopped Zhang Qijin, and even got the contact information from Zhang Qijin to find the person who was involved in the case back then— — Family members of the suspect.

And this "family member of the suspect" has such a special connection with the famous entrepreneur Lian Guangji, and he is a friend of his son who grew up together.

Even if Huo Mingxu had done his "homework" before coming here, he never expected that there would be such a relationship.

"Yes, you Chief Prosecutor Zhang." Lian Guangji took a sip of tea, pointed to Xi Zhikong behind him and said, "Xiao Kong grew up with Yan Yan, and I grew up as my own son, I know The purpose of your coming to us today."

Huo Mingxu pursed his lips and did not answer.

Jiang Wen and Lian Guangji looked at each other, coughed twice and said, "Prosecutor Huo, please don't mind, Xiao Kong's current guardian is me, so I and Yan Yan's father will help him with everything. He's just a high school student now..."

Huo Mingxu waved his hand: "Mrs. Lian, I'm actually here today just to learn about the specific situation, related to the case—ahem."

He stopped here, and Lian Guangji followed his line of sight and looked at the driver.

"Then let's talk slowly at the company later."

During the rush hour, Buick business shuttled flexibly in the traffic flow. Although it was stuck in traffic for a while, it was not too late when we arrived at the company.

Lian Guangji took him to the meeting room on the top floor, specifically told the secretary not to be disturbed by anyone, and cautiously locked the lock with his backhand and clicked, Xi Zhikong looked back.

Huo Mingxu: "...Mr. Lian, you don't have to—"

"It's okay, it's okay, tell me, prosecutor, there are no outsiders now."

Huo Mingxu murmured in his heart, why does this scene look so strange?Obviously he just came to understand the situation, and it was like an illegal transaction.

He crossed his fingers on the table, looked down at the name of the project involved in the information, and said, "Because there are so many similarities between these two cases, I doubt there is any connection between them—Xi Zhikong is Bar?"

"I'm here." Xi Zhikong nodded, because he looked very nervous because of his nervousness.

"Don't be nervous, I'll ask you a few questions now." Huo Mingxu took out his notebook and took notes, looking much more casual than when we first met, "You filed an appeal after your father's case was pronounced at the first instance, I want to ask— "

"At that time, the method of committing the crime was extremely cruel, and the public opinion overwhelmingly condemned it. Why did you want to file an appeal?"

Jiang Wen saw that Xi Zhikong was trembling after listening to his question, so she couldn't help but said a few words for him, "Prosecutor, our Xiaokong's father—"

Unexpectedly, Huo Mingxu not only ignored it, but went on to ask a more pointed question: "Also, during the first trial, the defense lawyer did not submit the relevant suspect's mental illness certificate, why did there be such a certificate in the second trial? ——Although It didn't work."

Huo Mingxu didn't change his face and buried himself in writing, he didn't care about Xi Zhikong's reaction at all.

Even Guangji couldn't stand it anymore, and said, "Prosecutor Huo, Xiaokong was still young at that time, and he didn't know many problems."

"But he attended the whole court hearing, and he and his aunt handled the appeal. He didn't know, did you know?" Huo Mingxu asked rhetorically, blocking even Guangji's next words and Jiang Yan who moved his lips to speak. went back.

Xi Zhikong took a deep breath to calm himself down, and said for a moment: "Hi, prosecutor, the appeal is because I know that my father will never kill anyone, and the condemnation of public opinion will not affect this fact. It was not adopted in the end.”

Huo Mingxu immediately lowered his head and smiled: "Okay, due to some objective reasons, the information I can access is limited—" He raised his eyes and looked at Xi Zhikong, and said meaningfully: "What we can see now is not all the facts. , and I believe the prosecutors who handled the case could not see it.”

"40." Xi Zhikong swallowed, wringing his fingers uneasily, "Someone sent me 40 after the verdict was pronounced in the second trial."

Huo Mingxu paused at the tip of his pen, then slowly put down the pen, "Someone sent you 40?"

"Yes, a few months or half a year, I don't quite remember."

"Where's the money?" Huo Mingxu asked again.

"I haven't moved the money. Uncle Lian helped me put it in a safe place a few days ago."

Huo Mingxu glanced at Lian Guangji, and Lian Guangji quickly explained: "I even carried the safe away, absolutely no fingerprints or anything!"

"...I don't mean fingerprints."

"Then I must have never moved!"

"I'm not saying that you moved the money..." Huo Mingxu actually had a smile on his lips, but it was only fleeting. He immediately returned to his serious expression, and turned to ask Xi Zhikong: "They gave you cash of?"

Xi Zhikong nodded.

Huo Mingxu wrote a huge "40" in his notebook.

Originally, he had no problem with the case file, but Xi Zhikong said that he received 40—who would be so kind to send 40 yuan to the son of a murderer who killed people in extremely bad ways? Thousands of dollars?

Xi Zhikong: "Uncle——"

Huo Mingxu looked up at him, and he quickly changed his words: "Brother, my father is really not a murderer. I think there must be something wrong with the money, but I didn't dare to say it at the time, I was afraid..."

"Afraid of what?" Huo Mingxu asked back.

Xi Zhikong lowered his head, bit his lips, and said with difficulty: "Our family has not been a very wealthy family since I was a child. It is impossible for my dad to sell himself for money. The 40 yuan may be just someone else Additional conditions for him."

Huo Mingxu looked at Xi Zhikong and smiled again, he leaned on the back of the seat and stretched: "You are young, you think a lot."

"I--"

"It's okay, it's normal, and the situation you mentioned is not impossible." Huo Mingxu, as if remembering something, took out a computer-generated photo and an ordinary photo from his briefcase and handed them to Xi Zhikong. Personal, do you know him?"

Xi Zhikong tilted his head to look at the two photos on the desktop and said, "I know this, he is—he is the victim." Then he looked at the drawn photo and frowned carefully for a while before saying: "This person... I'm not sure, but I seem to have seen it. Although I haven't been to the company where my father works, I went to the construction site to find him once - no, I'm not sure, I just looked familiar. "

Huo Mingxu immediately sat up straight with his eyes bright and leaned over, looked at Xi Zhikong and asked, "Think about it again, you were in your teens at that time, right? Should you still remember?"

Xi Zhikong stared at it for a while, and then covered his face with his hands and thought in silence. He quickly recalled the scene of going to the construction site to find Xi Chuzhi in his mind. Some scattered pictures slowly pieced together a complete memory fragment in front of his eyes.

That day he was going to deliver traditional Chinese medicine to Xi Chuzhi, and when he arrived, Xi Chuzhi was calling for a crane to pick up building materials.He walked all the way behind Xi Chuzhi, tiptoed and patted him on the back, calling him, "Dad!"

Xi Chuzhi turned his head, his face was covered with ashes, and his face was covered with sweat after being wet.He took off his hard hat and put it on Xi Zhikong's head, and led him to the prefabricated house, saying as he walked, "Next time, don't come here without a hard hat. It's too dangerous. I almost had an accident yesterday."

Pushing open the door of Xi Chuzhi's temporary dormitory, Xi Zhikong sat on a chair and asked him, "What happened?"

“A leader was inspecting. When he came in, there happened to be a worker not wearing a safety helmet. He just said that the situation was dangerous, but suddenly a stone fell from the top and hit the worker’s feet. Do you think it’s dangerous or not. "Xi Chuzhi unscrewed the thermos, found a cup of medicine in a plastic cup, turned around and saw Xi Zhikong rushing towards him with a tissue in his hand.

"Dad, aren't you a security guard? Why are you here?" Xi Zhikong sat on the chair next to Xi Chuzhi and wiped his sweat. "It's really hard work here."

Xi Chuzhi said with a smile: "For me, it's the same wherever I work, and I can go wherever the company arranges."

Xi Zhikong curled his lips, seemingly not agreeing with his statement.

"You go back first, cook the rice, Dad comes back to cook - Dad must come back early today." Xi Chuzhi stood up and looked out the window, and hurriedly waved at Xi Zhikong: "Come on, let's wait for the leader to check Seeing someone without a hard hat, Dad will be scolded again."

"Okay, then I'll go home and cook first."

As soon as Xi Zhikong opened the door of the prefabricated house from the inside, the dust rising outside dazzled his eyes.He blindfolded by reflex, and Xi Chuzhi hurriedly stepped forward to cover his mouth and nose and lead him into the cabin.

"Cough, cough cough!" Xi Zhikong choked hard twice, and when the dust dispersed, he saw a few people standing in the open space not far away with shovels and hoes.

Xi Chuzhi squinted his eyes, pulled Xi Zhikong to stand behind him, and took two steps outside.Xi Zhikong poked his head out behind him, and he pushed his head back, "Go back!"

After being pushed back, Xi Zhikong poked his head out from the other side to look, and the two people on the opposite side walked towards them, neither of them had polite expressions on their faces.

——Recalling this, Xi Zhikong gradually got an impression of the person in the computer-generated photo that Huo Mingxu took out.

Because that person almost hit Xi Chuzhi later, holding a shovel in his hand and yelling "Give me money!", "If you don't pay me, we will go to the provincial government!", "Call your boss out!" and similar words.

There are more and more pictures in Xi Zhikong's mind, and there are more and more voices in his ears. He closes his eyes and carefully recalls the appearance of that person, and the person in the portrait gradually overlaps with the person in his mind. Together.

He suddenly put down his hand and knocked on the table with a muffled sound."I remember!" he said.

"What do you remember?" Huo Mingxu asked.

"I remembered this person, his name...what's his name..." However, all of Xi Zhikong's memories were stuck on this person's name again.

At that time, a few people came directly towards Xi Chuzhi, and they wanted to pull him out without saying a word, saying that they wanted him to take him to the general manager, and they wanted to ask for an explanation.Xi Zhikong was locked in the prefabricated room by Xi Chuzhi, so he could only nervously watch from the window.

Apart from that group of people, many workers soon gathered around.Xi Zhikong faintly heard the leader pointing at his father's nose and scolding "You are just a watchdog".

—You are but a watchdog.

Xi Zhikong's temples were swollen, and there was only this sentence in his ear.Then the picture in front of him shattered again, and he vaguely saw the man holding the hoe and almost swiping at his father.

Then his companion—the victim in Xi Chuzhi's case—took his arm and said, "Lao Qi, calm down, don't kill anyone."

Old Qi, it seems to be this person!

Xi Zhikong shook his lips, took a deep breath, and finally said in a trembling voice: "Old Qi, they call this man Lao Qi!"

"So, you have indeed met this person?" Huo Mingxu's eyes filled with surprise.If he judged that the two cases were related based on half the evidence and half the intuition before, now he can basically conclude that there is indeed an inextricable connection between the two cases-not only the modus operandi is the same, but the victim is also We used to be partners who asked for salary together.

Xi Zhikong looked at the portrait again and again for a while, and finally said with certainty: "Yes, they call him Lao Qi. I saw him once, at Dad's construction site."

Huo Mingxu wrote down the word "Old Seven" and asked him: "Old Seven must be a nickname, do you remember other things about him?"

Xi Zhikong hesitated and shook his head, then bit his lower lip and said: "When I went home and applied medicine to my father, he seemed to answer a phone call, and someone called him... Ask him to persuade him?"

"Advise? Advise who?"

"I don't know who to persuade, but they said that they made an appointment to meet at the company. After hanging up the phone, my father told me that the two people came to ask for wages. They were small contractors. They brought many fellow villagers to work, but they didn't get any money."

"These two people are fellow villagers?" Huo Mingxu pointed to the two photos on the table and asked, "Are you sure that what you said is correct?"

Xi Zhikong pursed his lips and said softly: "I will tell you what I can remember, and I don't know how to say what I don't remember clearly..."

Huo Mingxu coughed twice: "Then you should recall carefully."

"I really can't remember the others—there seems to be a word 'Qi' in the name of this 'Old Seven'. I only heard so much, on the phone."

"Okay, it's okay, then..."

……

This "conversation" lasted until eleven o'clock in the evening.

Even halfway through, Jiang Wen couldn't sit still anymore, and refused to leave first, so she went to the lounge next door to rest for half an hour accompanied by Lian Guangji.

Huo Mingxu's notebook was full of dozens of pages, and he asked almost all the questions he could ask about Xi Chuzhi.What Xi Zhikong knew, Xi Zhikong said, the year before Xi Zhikong was born, he didn't know, so Jiang Wen said, he also asked Xi Zhikong for his aunt's phone number, and agreed to meet in front of them time.

Downstairs in the company, Lian Guangji asked the driver to drive Huo Mingxu home, but Huo Mingxu declined, and took a taxi back to the office to work overtime.Before getting into the car, he turned his head and looked at the "family" behind him carefully, and swallowed his words after a moment of silence.

He intended to remind the family that if he really overcomes all difficulties to find out the case, if there is indeed a problem behind it, then the people behind the case will definitely not let it go easily.

It took such a high price to hide the truth, in order to cover one lie, there will be a thousand lies.

On the way home, when Lian Guangji was driving, Jiang Wen sat in the back row leaning against Jiang Yan and fell asleep.Xi Zhikong sat in the co-pilot and looked out the window. He didn't know what he was thinking. When the intersection was waiting for the green light, Lian Guangji patted him on the shoulder: "Xiao Kong, didn't the police ask you about what you said today?"

Xi Zhikong shook his head and said, "No one has ever asked me. If the prosecutor hadn't asked me today, I would have almost forgotten about it."

He really forgot how hot and chaotic the scene was when he delivered the medicine to Xi Chuzhi. At the last moment, Xi Chuzhi held on to the door of the prefabricated house to prevent them from breaking in.And he stood at the door trembling with fright, and waited until there was no movement outside before he dared to open the door to go out, and then he saw a gash on the back of Xi Chuzhi's hand oozing blood.

If it wasn't for Huo Mingxu and the portrait in his hand, he would have completely forgotten about the wound and the afternoon when the air was filled with dust.