Chapter 379: Everyone Has Friends

But Xing Chuyang and Gan Yuzhen were both dead.

Xiao Yu’s thoughts were in turmoil.

Whatever their purpose had been, they were already gone. How could he possibly figure out what they were trying to do now?

No—actually, not just them. Even the primary suspect, Jiang Huiying, was missing.

If she were dead too, would that mean the entire case would just end in mystery?

“Dammit… I reincarnated just to get beaten down by a case like this?” Xiao Yu muttered under his breath.

But the drive to solve the case forced his mind into clarity.

If he didn’t crack this, he wouldn’t be able to go home. For the sake of his wife and their baby, Xiao Yu had to keep fighting.

Stepping out of the interrogation room, he walked outside the detention center.

His eyes turned sharp for a moment, losing all trace of warmth.

“Suppose… I am the murderer Jiang Huiying. Why would I use wolves to avenge my sister?”

“Wait… something’s wrong. That reasoning doesn’t hold up.”

“First of all, I’m a woman. Second, I’ve never learned how to tame wild animals. And third, why wait twenty years before taking revenge?”

“None of it makes sense.”

“Even if I only discovered the truth after twenty years, if I just found out the Brotherhood killed my sister, what’s the first thing I’d do? Seek revenge?”

“No, I’d look for my sister’s remains first.”

“Without even finding my sister’s bones, how could I even think about revenge?”

“Besides, even the perpetrators themselves might not know where they dumped her body.”

“Alright. Let’s assume I didn’t want to alert my enemies and decided to kill them first. Even then, how did I train wolves in just two years? With no beast-taming experience, how could I control them from 200 meters away? How could I command them to infiltrate a heavily monitored residential area and attack specific targets?”

“Unless…”

“The murderer isn’t Jiang Huiying at all.”

‘Re-evaluate everything. Start over.’

“If I were the murderer, why would I target the Brotherhood members? And… if I wasn’t a relative of the victim, then what’s the connection?”

Suddenly, Xiao Yu’s head snapped up.

“Jiang Huiting, the victim from 23 years ago, was close friends with Gan Yuzhen, a member of the Brotherhood.”

“If Gan Yuzhen had friends, then it stands to reason that the other members did too.”

“Then what about the victim, Jiang Huiting?”

“Did she have close friends?”

“Could it be that someone close to Jiang Huiting discovered the truth, that she had been murdered by the Brotherhood and decided to take revenge?”

“Not a relative, but someone just as close.”

“Her boyfriend?”

***

Interrogation Room

“Twenty-three years ago, the five of you, members of the Brotherhood, gathered for drinks. Gan Yuzhen invited her little sister, Jiang Huiting.”

Xiao Yu leaned forward, his voice turning cold as he stared at Fang Jie.

“Did you all know Jiang Huiting?”

“Of course.” Fang Jie nodded. “She was our classmate… and actually, she was also our class beauty.”

A school beauty at eighteen… would she really have had no suitors?

Xiao Yu’s eyes turned sharp.

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“This…”

Fang Jie furrowed his brows, struggling to recall.

“I can’t remember exactly. I know someone was chasing her, but he wasn’t from our class. I don’t know his name. But I do remember she was seeing someone at the time.”

More than twenty years had passed. Memory could be unreliable, but Fang Jie’s statement was enough.

Xiao Yu pressed further.

“The person Jiang Huiting was involved with was he also close to any members of your Brotherhood? Like Xing Chuyang or Gan Yuzhen?”

Why ask this?

Because Xing Chuyang and Gan Yuzhen had acted suspiciously as a couple.

Why had they reached out to three Brotherhood members after twenty years of no contact? And more importantly, why harm them?

Normal people don’t just randomly drug their old acquaintances for no reason.

What was their motive?

“Uh… hold on.”

Fang Jie frowned, thinking hard. Then, his eyes lit up.

“I remember now! There was someone like that. He and Jiang Huiting were close, and yeah, he was tight with Xing Chuyang too. He wasn’t just some regular guy either. Back in school, our Brotherhood called ourselves ‘scholars,’ but this guy? He was a top student. Smart as hell. Played well in both school and society. And he was a total bully.”

“In fact, when Jiang Huiting got together with him, we used to joke that ‘the cabbage got eaten by the pig’—it was a total disaster.”

Xiao Yu’s eyes darkened.

“What’s his name?”

“This…” Fang Jie scratched his head, then sighed. “I forgot his full name, but I remember people calling him… ‘Old Ding’.”

A nickname wasn’t much to go on. But was that a problem?

Not at all.

Education records stay with a person for life. As long as they could trace the school records from 23 years ago or even ask former classmates, they’d find him.

***

Four Hours Later—Criminal Investigation Brigade

“Fang Hongding, male, 41 years old, born in Bincheng City. He has a criminal record, served twelve years in prison for drug trafficking. Reduced sentence once for good behavior. After release, he moved to Z City where he studied animal training and even obtained a Senior Animal Trainer Certification. He worked at Z City Zoo, the very same zoo that Jiang Huiying once contracted. But the most interesting part? He’s the younger brother of the owner of  Fierce Dogs kennel, the place that sold two prairie wolf cubs two years ago.”

Guo Qiang finished reading the report aloud.

Xiao Yu let out a cold laugh.

The Fierce Dogs kennel. Wasn’t that the exact same farm that sold those wolf cubs?

And this Fang Hongding…

He was the former boyfriend of the victim, Jiang Huiting, close to Brotherhood member, Xing Chuyang, spent 12 years in prison for drug trafficking, trained in animal taming—held an official certification, worked in the very zoo that Jiang Huiying once managed and had direct ties to the location that sold the wolves.

The connections lined up perfectly.

A tangled mess of clues had finally unraveled into a clear chain of evidence.

Every detail—every clue—spun in Xiao Yu’s head like a high-performance CPU, rapidly connecting dots.

The woolen ball in Xiao Yu’s mind had been combed through—one thread at a time. Finally, the tangled mess had turned into a straight line.

“Is it you?” Xiao Yu murmured, his mind operating at full speed.

“Find Fang Hongding,” Xiao Yu issued the order. “I don’t just want him. I want his residence, his frequented locations, and even his hidden spots investigated.”

“Understood!”

The entire Criminal Investigation Brigade sprang into action.