SFTD -Chapter 132 Campus Gunfire (Part 13)

Zhou Hai’s face darkened. His hands paused slightly while shabu-shabuing the meat.

“Once your Chinese gets better, I’ll tell you the continuation of the story in Chinese.”

Charlotte pouted. Fortunately, she didn’t throw a young lady tantrum. She raised her fork and turned her grief into appetite, stuffing all the shrimp in her plate into her mouth.

Lu Xi knew the two still needed time to adjust to each other, so she quickly changed the topic.

“Charlotte, about what I told you today—have you thought it over?”

The little girl shrugged. “I have no objections!”

Zhou Hai looked at Lu Xi, and Lu Xi explained: “After the holiday, Charlotte will start school in Dongnan. If she still uses the name Charlotte at school, she might get teased by classmates. Kids nowadays can be quite mischievous.”

“So, we discussed it and decided to pick a Chinese name for her—something similar in sound and easy to remember. We came up with two options and wanted your opinion: one is ‘Xia Luo,’ and the other is ‘Zhou Luoluo.’”

Lu Xi’s words surprised Zhou Hai a little. He looked up at her gratefully. This woman was truly considerate. She knew the relationship between him and Charlotte was a bit tense, so she helped mediate while also planning ahead for the next step. It genuinely moved him.

“Both are fine. Let Charlotte choose whichever she likes.”

The little girl leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Haha, Lu Xi guessed exactly what you would say—word for word.”

Zhou Hai felt a rare moment of awkwardness. He took a sip of cola. Lu Xi was smiling at him, her eyes gentle and beautiful, carrying a trace of understanding. The steam rising from the hotpot seemed to raise the room’s temperature. Zhou Hai felt a light sweat forming on his forehead.

“So, Charlotte, which one do you choose?”

The little girl shrugged. “I’ll go with Zhou Luoluo!”

Lu Xi gently rubbed the top of her head, causing the girl to hug her affectionately. The two of them played around for a while.

Zhou Hai sat opposite them, not smoking. After all, it wouldn’t be appropriate in front of the two women. But the heat from the hotpot seemed to warm his heart—warmth, long-lost liveliness, and something he had never dared to call “home” before. Suddenly, Zhou Hai seemed to understand something.

What attracted him most to Lu Xi… was precisely that feeling—gentle, warm, faintly comforting.

The three of them finished all the food.

Helplessly, Zhou Hai even went to buy hawthorn pills for digestion. That night, there were no sedatives and no nightmares. When he woke up the next morning, he even found it unbelievable—had ten years of pain just disappeared like that?

The next day, Zhou Hai sent Lu Xi and the little girl to the Polar Ocean World. This kind of immersive environment proved extremely effective for Chinese learning, so Lu Xi planned to take advantage of the child’s novelty and intensively improve her Chinese during the winter break.

When he arrived at the office, the three familiar figures were already there. Zhou Hai rubbed his stiff, frozen hands and glanced at his watch.

“You guys are really early. Have the lab results come out?”

Xu Biao yawned, completely listless.

“Yesterday, Lin Jiajia’s surgery was completed. The bullet was immediately sent to the center. Xiao Liang and I didn’t go back—we processed all the firearms sent over and did ballistic analysis overnight. But we didn’t find any handgun matching this bullet.”

Zhou Hai froze. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s a huge workload.”

Xu Biao chuckled. “It’s fine. Team Three’s trace evidence guys, Zhao Xinli and the others, got caught by me and came over to help all night.”

“Then go upstairs and sleep for a while. I’ll run a gunshot residue test.”

The three of them looked at him curiously. Xu Biao, being more professional, asked, “I’ve heard of this—you coat the suspect’s hands with a wax film and then analyze it under a microscope?”

Zhou Hai nodded. “Modern wax film extraction is very efficient.”

Xu Biao instantly perked up. “I’ll help!”

“Alright. Luo Yunfeng, contact Chu Menghan and check how their bank account investigation is going.”

Zhou Hai and Xu Biao quickly went downstairs. In the first autopsy room, there was a high-powered electron microscope. Zhou Hai placed yesterday’s wax film samples one by one into Petri dishes and added two reagents. Instantly, the bottom of the dishes turned a deep blue.

He began observing carefully.

Zhang Pengyu’s wax film surface was extremely clean—rarely so for a young man.

But on Cen Yimin’s wax film, there were many flakes of skin, fine hairs, large patches of dark filamentous fungal fragments, and some powdery substances. Even under magnification, Zhou Hai still could not identify what those powders were.

“Send the photos to my phone. Xu Biao, take these powders for testing—I want to know what they are.”

Xu Biao leaned closer. “They can’t be dyed… that means no starch. Could it be talcum powder?”

“Possible. She’s a chemistry major—having talcum powder on her hands isn’t strange. But better send it for testing anyway.”

Xu Biao nodded and headed to the third-floor lab.

At that moment, Zhou Hai’s phone rang. It was Chu Menghan.

He answered immediately.

“How’s it going over there?”

Chu Menghan sighed. “Following Zhang Pengyu’s lead, we did find that boy. His bank transfer record shows a cash deposit of 280,000 yuan. We traced the sending bank and went there—but the surveillance footage was hacked. We’ve hit a dead end.”

“Any progress from the cyber experts in the bureau?”

“No. But we can tell the footage was deleted this morning—just half an hour before we arrived.”

Zhou Hai narrowed his eyes.

For the first intrusion into the traffic police system, it happened after the accident. If that was a coincidence… what about this time?

It seemed the killer could obtain the investigation’s internal information—and in real time at that. Even Chu Menghan’s bank investigation was known to them.

“It wasn’t half an hour earlier. I think the system simply wasn’t online outside business hours, so they couldn’t act. Did you ask the relevant staff for their recollections?”

“Don’t even mention it. The bank clerk only remembers a man—burly, wearing a hat. Nothing else.”

Now all leads were completely cut off. This was the first case Zhou Hai had ever encountered with absolutely no direction.

But who could be receiving their investigative progress in real time?

Could there be a bug planted inside the task force?

“Chu Menghan, think carefully—who have you reported progress to in the past two days?”

Chu Menghan sounded irritated. “Who else? Director Liu and Director Song! Chief Hu called once. The network expert is Dr. Xu. The cyber security team leader, Captain Ceng, has been here the whole time. No one else!”

Zhou Hai pressed his lips together.

“Alright. Maybe I’m overthinking. I’ll go to the hospital to check on Lin Jiajia—and bring back that box mentioned by her mother.”

“Alright. I’ll also review whether anyone was missed. We still need to recheck internal personnel.”

After hanging up, Zhou Hai headed to the hospital.

Just as he entered, he ran into Lin Jiajia’s mother, who handed him a handbag.

“Forensic Zhou, this is Sun Jingya’s belongings. It’s best if you handle them.”

Zhou Hai took it and looked through it. Inside were many childhood photos of Sun Jingya, along with keys, beads, seashells, and other small items.

As he checked again, he found a kraft envelope with the words “To Sun Jingya—open personally.”

Zhou Hai paused.

The envelope felt strangely out of place. It was slightly dirty, as if it had been stored for a long time. One corner even had a faint water stain.

Why would there be water stains?