"Captain, someone died on Yangliu Street!"
Late at night, just as Li Shuangjin was dejectedly getting out of a cold shower, his door was violently kicked open by his subordinate.
If he hadn't made it a habit of not running around naked, he and the person who entered would have been in a very awkward situation.
He was wrapped in a bath towel, and his already displeased mood turned even more furious. He picked up the towel he was using to dry his hair and forcefully threw it at his subordinate's face.
The other party, slightly dazed, caught it with his hand but failed to hold on, finally taking it down from his own face. "Captain, you were taking a bath."
Li Shuangjin asked while getting clean clothes, "What's the matter?"
The subordinate's thoughts immediately returned to the main issue. "Captain, someone on Yangliu Street reported a death. Several brothers have already gone. Do you want to take a look?"
"Mm." He walked behind the screen and began to change his clothes. "Tell me the specifics."
"The deceased is a woman. Her son reported it. Her son is a gambler. When he went out this morning, his mother was fine. When he returned in the evening, he found her dead in the house."
Within a few sentences, Li Shuangjin had changed into clothes suitable for going out. He grabbed the crutch by his bed and, leaning on it, walked out of the room.
After getting into the car, he continued to ask, "Are there any suspicious aspects?"
"It seems she was scared to death, very similar to the others before."
Li Shuangjin had thought he might find some evidence this way, but after he surveyed the scene and returned to the police station, the forensic pathologist who was to perform the autopsy arrived first.
The moment the pathologist saw him, they said, "She wasn't scared to death. Although she was indeed frightened, she was crushed to death."
Hearing this, he frowned.
Thinking of some small details he had observed at the crime scene earlier, he asked, "Can you tell what she was crushed by? The crime scene was very tidy. There were two sunken pits on the ground, which indeed looked like something had been pressed into them. There was also blood, possibly from her knees. What kind of object fell and crushed her to death?"
But he hadn't seen anything that could be considered a "murder weapon" at the scene.
The pathologist shook their head. "It's hard to say for now. Not much has been detected yet. Her knees are broken, and there are bruises on her shoulders. Normally, if something fell from a height and hit a person, the injured areas would be towards the back, not the shoulders. The location is a bit strange, and it doesn't look like something that slid down from a height smashed her. The most crucial thing is that the object that killed her hasn't been found."
"Continue the examination, see if there are any other clues on her body. I'll go to Yangliu Street again tomorrow."
"Okay."
The house where the incident occurred was sealed off, and there was no progress for the time being. It was not yet dawn, so Li Shuangjin returned to his residence to get some sleep.
Haicheng was not a small city. The Li family's residence, the grandest and most influential family, Marshal Li's mansion, was nearly a two-hour drive from the police station. Therefore, he usually didn't go home. He bought a small courtyard near the police station and lived there.
He had actually already gone to bed earlier, but thinking about the woman who had provocatively teased him during the day, he felt an unbearable, growing heat in his chest. He was in his early thirties and naturally knew why he felt uncomfortable.
So, he decided to take a cold shower to clear his head.
He never expected that as soon as he finished, his subordinate would bring him a case.
Now, returning, Li Shuangjin thought that after being busy all day, he should be calm enough to sleep well. However, as he passed by that person's room, he couldn't help but pause for a moment, and finally, with a sigh in his heart, he returned to his own room.
Lying down, unable to sleep, he sat up and read a book by his pillow. The densely packed characters on the page, at first resembling words, began to look more and more like a person.
Lively, charming, every glance and smile, made it impossible for him to look away.
"Bang."
The book fell onto his lap. Li Shuangjin picked it up.
However, no matter how he focused his mind, the words on the page seemed to be jumping around, and he couldn't concentrate on them at all.
That face kept flashing before his eyes, making it increasingly difficult to calm down.
"Damn it!"
Li Shuangjin couldn't help but curse, thinking it was truly a curse.
He hadn't slept well all night. Desire could be suppressed for a long time, but once indulged, it was like a old house doused with gasoline, burning uncontrollably even with a torrential downpour. Especially when he thought about the person he longed for was in the room next door.
He used all his self-control to review all the clues of the unsolved case in his mind. If he found any loopholes, he would think about it more carefully, delve deeper.
After a night of restless thoughts, he managed to sleep for a little over an hour before dawn, only to be woken up again.
Someone had died last night, and he had to investigate today.
—
Zhu Zan had no idea that she had almost pushed things too far.
Even if she had known, she would have just smiled and thought the other party had poor stamina.
While the person next door tossed and turned, she slept soundly all night, waking up only when the person in charge of Li Shuangjin's daily life called her.
Perhaps because she didn't have that on her mind, Li Shuangjin's household was mostly filled with unremarkable individuals, all male. There was only an old woman cooking in the kitchen and a maidservant managing miscellaneous tasks.
"Miss Qin."
When Li Shuangjin brought her back last night, he had already introduced her. There were very few people in this courtyard, and Zhu Zan was the first woman he had brought to his residence. Now, everyone here knew her identity.
"Master Six instructed me to wake you up for breakfast and asked you to stay here and not wander around."
That's exactly what was said, and she swore she hadn't missed a single word or changed anything.
"Mm." Zhu Zan looked around. "Where is he?"
"He went to the police station." The maidservant wasn't wary of her, as women of the Qiao Shi in this era were pampered. If Li Shuangjin hadn't personally come to pick her up, Mr. Qin would never have let anyone take her away.
"Someone from the police station came late last night to report a case, and Master Six went out for a while, returning just before dawn."
Zhu Zan was completely unaware of this.
From what she currently understood, the "little guy" had a powerful background in this world. He was the male protagonist's uncle, so he shouldn't die so easily unless he was a villain.
The breakfast here was quite good.
A bowl of eight-treasure congee that looked like it had been simmered for a long time, several light and refreshing side dishes. Especially a dish of lotus sprout and meat, which was particularly tender and refreshing. Zhu Zan finished it all in one go.
After eating and resting for a while, she began to subtly inquire about the "little guy." Listening to the maidservant's rambling account, especially when she said, "Before Miss Qin, Master Six had never brought any other woman home," Zhu Zan felt a strange yet extremely satisfying sensation.
The happiness of a female protagonist in a dominant CEO novel, she had acquired it instantly.
Unfortunately, before she could even be happy, what actually happened that morning shattered her illusions.
Li Shuangjin was carried back, covered in blood.