Chapter 651: The Missing Reporter

Translator: Azza

Editor: Conspiracing

Using that oil painting as reference, Chen Shi looked for the specific location in the video. He pointed to an area of the floor and said, "Here."

Peng Sijue took out the luminol reagent and sprayed it there. The luminol reagent was very sensitive and couldn detect even a drop of blood that falls into a tank of water. No matter how many times this area was wiped, there would be residues.

An irregular blue fluorescent stain appeared on the ground. Chen Shi excitedly said in a lowered voice, "Found it!"

"Sampling!"

Peng Sijue took a sample with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol. Chen Shi heard footsteps. Looking around, there seemed to be someone passing by the door on the other side of the corridor. The person opened the door and the two were very frightened because the investigation wasn’t a formal one. If found, it would be extremely disadvantageous to them.

The big hand holding the doorknob was tattooed with a naked woman. The hand stopped for a moment, then closed the door again, pretending that nothing had happened.

Chen Shi was relieved and continued to work with Peng Sijue. He thought of the angle of the picture in the video. He looked up and saw a potted plant on the front. Could it be that there was a pinhole camera there? So, he searched inside but didn’t find anything.

After sampling, the two immediately left. At this time, the secretary hadn't returned yet. Lin Qiupu was chatting with Dong Xiao. Lin Qiupu caught a glimpse of the two coming out and Chen Shi quietly made an ‘OK’ gesture.

So, after getting the company's employee list, Lin Qiupu led the group of people to leave.

After leaving the office, several police officers started chattering in the elevator. "Wow, that woman is really a national beauty.", "She’s more beautiful than a celebrity.", "How can she be with such a person? It's really a heavenly flower stabbed in cow dung."

"Pay attention to the impact of your words!" Lin Qiupu reprimanded, "When investigating a case, don't discuss other people's private affairs."

"Anyone who looks at that woman and remains unmoved must be gay," someone said.

"Who said that? Who said that?! Xiaodong, was it you!" Lin Qiupu angrily looked for the culprit.

"It wasn’t me!" Xu Xiaodong waved his hands innocently.

"Ahem!" Chen Shi interrupted them. "We found blood stains in the smoking room next door, but I have to say something. When Old Peng and I were taking samples, someone almost came in and saw us there. Instead of alerting anyone, they closed the door quietly."

"Who was it?"

"If I guessed correctly, it should be Lu Qi. I saw the tattoo on his hand yesterday."

"Lu Qi? The vice president? Why did he not say anything when he saw you guys? Was he the one who sent the video?" Lin Qiupu guessed.

"Isn't that impossible? He’s the vice president of the company. He’s under one person but above 10,000. Why would he betray his boss?" Old Zhang questioned.

"It may not be the case. Lu Qi relied on selling out his former boss to take hold of his current position. Maybe he wanted to use the police's hands to knock Dong Xiao down." Lin Dongxue said.

"No matter what the person who reported the case’s purpose is, as long as Dong Xiao did kill someone, we can't ignore it! Other things are not within our jurisdiction!" Lin Qiupu said.

Chen Shi thought of the scene where Lu Qi opened the door for Su Chan yesterday. This detail showed that Lu Qi’s status wasn’t actually high. He was more like a little horse next to Dong Xiao. Of course, he hadn’t officially met Lu Qi yet. It was impossible to say what kind of person he was and what purpose he had.

When the elevator was approaching the first floor, there was a loud noise outside. A person shouted, "Return my friend to me! You’re a company that eats people without even spitting out their bones!”[1]

Everyone looked at each other. When the elevator door opened, a man with glasses was being pushed out by the security guard. He was held up but he still struggled with flailing limbs and yelled. Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue hurriedly chased after him, but the man disappeared.

Chen Shi asked the security guard standing at the door, "Where was that person just now?"

"I don't know..." The security guard had cold sweat on his face, and even his sunglasses couldn't hide his panic.

"Huh, you’re so bold doing this kind of thing in front of the police!"

Chen Shi walked behind a car and found that another security guard was covering the young man’s mouth and squatting behind the car. The young man’s glasses hung from his ears and he looked very battered. Lin Dongxue shouted, “Release him!”

The security guard let go of the man helplessly and the young man asked in anger, "Are you the police?"

"Yeah, who are you?"

"My name is Chen Gong and I’m a reporter. My colleague Cao Man came for an interview half a month ago and he hasn’t returned to the company since. I went to his house and couldn't find anyone. I couldn't get in touch with him at all. I came to this company several times. They always said that this person had never been here before. I don’t think he’d disappear into thin air!"

"You didn't call the police after he was missing for half a month?"

Reporter Chen was speechless. It seemed that there was a secret hidden behind this.

Chen Shi asked, "Does Cao Man have any relatives?"

"He has a younger brother."

The police immediately found Cao Man's younger brother, took his DNA, and compared it with what was found at the scene. It was a 99.9% match. The person in the video who was violently beaten by Dong Xiao was obviously Cao Man. He may already be dead.

Lin Qiupu asked Chen Gong, "Why didn't you call the police?"

"I didn't think the police could help..." Reporter Chen hesitated.

"Aren’t we investigating it now?"

"I didn’t expect it to be that way."

"Your newspaper is linked to a major newspaper, but you don’t have an official business registration. I think Cao Man's interviews weren’t legal, so even if he went missing, you wouldn’t dare call the police."

Chen Gong bowed his head in silence. Chen Shi ordered, "Show him the video!"

Lin Qiupu brought a laptop and played the video. Chen Gong was dumbfounded watching it. "Cao Man was killed?! He was killed by Dong Xiao? Why don’t you arrest him?"

"This video didn't even capture the corpse, only the face of Dong Xiao. Do you know how much effort we took to obtain Cao Man's DNA? You can talk now!" Lin Qiupu said.

"I persuaded him long ago that he shouldn't make that money!" Chen Gong cried with his face covered and whimpered when he learned that his friend was dead. When he cried enough, he explained, "Someone paid 700,000 yuan to buy news about the Zhuoyuan Company. Cao Man deliberately arranged a fake interview with the company regarding the latest technology intelligence to obtain news. A pinhole camera and a bug was installed there. It was probably discovered by that man surnamed Dong..."

"Who offered that money?"

"I don't know. It was a reward from the Internet. We do business like this sometimes. Some materials will be given to the newspapers and some will be sold to some channels on the Internet, such as celebrity affairs, police killing unarmed suspects, etc..."

"Speak carefully!" Lin Qiupu scolded

"Oh, I just gave you an example. I didn’t have the intention to cause offense. No offense!"

"What information was worth so much money?" Chen Shi said.

"We heard that Zhuoyuan Company was developing the latest mobile phone motherboards, which are not much different from the smart phones we use now, but the cost is very, very low. A smart phone would only cost a little over 300 yuan. Think about how big of an impact this would have on the national communications industry. By then, the phones they produce would be present everywhere. Let’s not talk about the Hanjie company, other mobile phone companies wouldn’t be able to handle this kind of price war. It’s definitely going to be a huge war!"

"Dong Xiao usually stays simple and has never held a press conference. How do you know this in such detail?"

"Because this technology was originally owned by the Ding Group. With Lu Qi switching sides, the Ding Group was suddenly annexed and now belongs to the Zhuoyuan Company. The CEO of the Ding Group mentioned it in a press conference before and it immediately caused the condemnation of those in the industry saying that this was unfair competition. President Ding didn’t dare to sell such ultra-cheap smartphones, but Dong Xiao is different. He is an overlord who doesn’t care about even his own relatives. He dares to fight such a price war. When this kind of mobile phone is launched, who knows how many telecommunications companies in the country will be destroyed by him!" Chen Gong nodded solemnly. "By then, Dong Xiao will dominate the entire mobile phone market!"

1. Ruthless and greedy.