Chapter 195 143: Correct, But Guilty

To be honest, that's not very likely.

Why?

Because the clothes they're wearing now are blue.

And the uniforms of the people who chased, cursed, and beat them on the streets... are also blue.

"Alright, I understand."

Monk Du'e nodded and said quietly.

"Where in Linlan City have they been distributing bread recently?"

Xu Huo was sitting on a stone bench in the orphanage courtyard. He looked at the monk, gesturing for him to sit down and talk.

"Distributing bread…"

Monk Du'e trailed off.

"Don't say it's not happening. I have a solid chain of evidence proving it is. You're free to deny it, but if you do, you'll have to come to an interrogation room at the station to see our evidence for yourself."

Xu Huo said casually.

Du'e fell silent.

The two of them sat in silence. They didn't even look at each other; not a single movement broke the stillness.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Standing nearby, Li Jianye was on pins and needles.

Qian Hua looked at the two children, and after a moment's thought, pulled out a red banknote.

The little tire-tread girl tilted her head. She put her index finger in her mouth, nibbling on it, her eyes gleaming as she watched.

She reached out her hand, but…

"SHK!"

Xiao Long snatched her hand back, his eyes full of hostility as he looked at Qian Hua. He and Xiao Hu shielded the two younger children behind them.

The one you couldn't see was named Xiao Bai, and the tire-tread girl was Niuniu.

Niuniu was now bent over, looking up at Qian Hua from below. Her clear eyes blinked, and she tilted her head in confusion.

"Officer, that boy… did he do something wrong?"

After a moment, Monk Du'e finally spoke.

His tone was slightly heavy.

"A boy?"

"Mm-hmm. Looks like he's the killer. So you have seen him."

Xu Huo smiled.

"What did he do? Theft?"

Du'e spoke again, ignoring Xu Huo's words.

"A bit more serious than theft," Li Jianye said sullenly, plopping himself down on a stone bench as well.

Hearing this, Monk Du'e fell silent once more.

The December weather was chilly.

Leaves rustled in the courtyard, strands of hair danced in the wind, and dust swirled up from the shaded ground. All around, children with flushed red faces were constantly sneezing.

Li Jianye unconsciously pulled his coat tighter around himself.

Qian Hua was still teasing the children. He pointed behind Xiao Long and Xiao Hu.

Xiao Long turned to look, only to find that Xiao Bai and Niuniu were no longer behind him; they had started playing with the other orphanage kids. When he turned back, he saw Qian Hua's teasing, half-smiling gaze.

Xiao Long and Xiao Hu immediately flushed with embarrassment, grabbing the bewildered Xiao Bai and Niuniu and pulling them back.

"Take your time thinking. You have all day to consider it."

Xu Huo glanced at the time.

The hour and minute hands of his watch showed it was nine-thirty in the morning.

"If I'm not mistaken… he should show up sometime between afternoon and evening. Hmm, which means you have at least eight hours to think."

"If that boy disappears without a trace from now on, can you let him go?"

Monk Du'e suddenly asked again.

"Whoa, Monk, are you trying to save his soul?" Li Jianye was intrigued.

Du'e didn't speak, just stared at Xu Huo.

"I don't care who he killed, and I don't care how many."

Xu Huo suddenly spoke, his tone indifferent.

"What's important is that he's competing with the police for the right to enforce the law."

"I can see that the boy is not bad at heart."

"Neither are the police."

Xu Huo said lightly.

"He won't make a mistake," Du'e said, shaking his head.

"But he broke the law," Li Jianye interjected, invoking the law.

Du'e fell silent.

After a long while, Du'e gave in.

He looked at Li Jianye and asked, "If I tell you now… can I get the reward money?"

'Reward money?'

'This monk is after the reward money?'

Now even Qian Hua was stunned, instinctively turning his head to look.

"Yes. Provide complete and valid information, and the reward is fifty thousand."

Xu Huo nodded, sealing the deal.

Li Jianye was dumbfounded, looking at Xu Huo in disbelief.

"That's too much…" he said in a low voice.

'Linlan City isn't poor, but its police force is. Solving a major case under Xu Huo only gets you about a hundred thousand, yet a single tip is worth fifty thousand…'

Xu Huo ignored him, his eyes fixed on the monk.

"Provide crucial information that helps the police directly arrest the suspect, and the reward is one hundred thousand."

'One hundred thousand!?'

Li Jianye's eye twitched.

"Alright."

Du'e didn't hesitate, nodding in agreement.

"That boy hasn't appeared many times. He first showed up about a month and a half ago. I didn't notice him at first, either."

Monk Du'e slipped into recollection, past memories surfacing in his mind.

"Until one day, Xiao Long and Xiao Hu suddenly pulled out a few banknotes."

"They'd stolen it. But the method they used for stealing wasn't taught by me, so I guessed someone else was teaching them."

"I didn't call them out on it. After all, being a thief, even one who ends up in jail, is far, far better than being a vagrant."

"But I couldn't rest easy, so one day I followed them."

"I saw the person who taught them to steal. He was a kid, very young, around twenty or so…"

At this,

Li Jianye quickly pulled out his hand, which he had just managed to warm up, and took out a wanted poster.

"Is it this man?"

Du'e glanced at it, then nodded.

"It's him."

"I've seen him a total of four times, all in different places."

"Sometimes I'd see him squatting on a street corner, handing out food he was carrying."

"Other times I'd see him doing nothing at all, just squatting by the roadside in a daze."

'In a daze?'

Qian Hua froze. He stopped teasing the kids and walked over, his expression serious.

"Was it near Baosheng Street?"

Du'e looked puzzled, but nodded nonetheless.

Hearing this, Qian Hua fell silent. He said to Xu Huo and Li Jianye, "That's where the incident six years ago happened. Six years ago, that place was a street full of small vendors with roadside stalls…"

"Does he have a regular haunt?"

Li Jianye asked.

"I haven't seen him enough times to tell if he frequents any one place more than others."

Du'e shook his head.

Xu Huo looked away from him and turned to Qian Hua.

"Are there any abandoned areas in Linlan City?"

"There are quite a few. Abandoned vehicle depots, deserted factory sheds, things like that," Qian Hua replied instinctively.

"Did an eighth victim turn up last night?"

Xu Huo asked again.

Last night, he hadn't rushed to bring Du'e in for questioning. Instead, he had gathered a large police force to conduct a detailed search focusing on the city management officers.

"No one from the City Management Brigade is missing, and none of their family members have been harmed."

Qian Hua said with certainty this time.

The information from the court was complete. The people hiding in the shadows had all been killed, and the two who were out in the open were killed as well.

In other words, the suspect… has no more targets.

'No, he has no more murder targets!'

"What's the scale of the wanted poster distribution?"

After a moment, Xu Huo asked again.

"We printed a lot. We've basically plastered the area around the crime scene. His picture is on every utility pole and front door."

Li Jianye replied.

Xu Huo smiled and suddenly said, "Do you know why I distributed the wanted posters, even though I knew about Du'e?"

Li Jianye paused, then shook his head.

'Du'e is the informant. His information would be far more effective than any tips from the public.'

'Logically, there should have been no need to print so many wanted posters, but Xu Huo had actually ramped up the effort…'

"The wanted posters aren't for the residents to see. They're for Sun Jiang to see!"

Xu Huo explained.

"When it comes to thieves, few people understand the police's search capabilities better than they do."

"The posters are there to tell him that the police have already figured out his real identity, including his face."

Xu Huo had said it before: to commit a perfect crime, the best method is to not let the police find the body and not let them get too much information!

Conversely, once the information is out…

The case enters a phase of rapid resolution!

"And right now, Sun Jiang is in that phase."

"He's running out of time, but his objective isn't complete. In such a contradictory situation, his mindset and actions are bound to become more extreme."

"And any extreme action he takes to achieve his goal is all about efficiency—killing two or three birds with one stone, trying to cram two seconds of work into one."

"And as for the killer's actions, the most extreme thing he can do is…"

"Confront multiple targets at once."

"And a place like that…"

As he spoke, Xu Huo paused.

Finally, his gaze locked onto one location. It was a place mentioned in the intel from last night, near an orphanage from which many children had run away.

And its name was…

"The garbage dump."