CH 604

604: Han Xia Disappears

Although the old lady was sad remembering, she still did her best to share what information she could remember about her daughter’s family, hoping it would help Feng Wu.

If the files disappeared, any hope of catching the murderer would be lost, so they could not lose the precious files.

Feng Wu stayed at the old lady’s house for several hours asking every question she could think of to fill in as many details as she could.

The old lady wasn’t in good health and in the end, it was the deceased’s younger brother who answered Feng Wu’s questions.

It was a blow to the family that the murderer was still not caught after all these years.

Next, Feng Wu went to visit the other four other families and specifically asked for portraits of the victims.

By the time Feng Wu got back to school, it was already dark. She left campus to and got a few dishes from one of the small restaurants nearby.

Coincidentally, Ai Lin also just returned and was out looking for something to eat when she saw Feng Wu eating.

Ai Lin was living her best life having formed her own mercenary group with like minded individuals. They took up tasks and had all kinds of adventures.

Since entering the fourth year, everyone had their own interests and rarely saw one another.

Ai Lin was surprised to see Feng Wu, and the two girls sat together to share a meal.

Feng Wu told her about the cold case from twenty years ago and how she was trying to fill in missing information from the damaged file.

Ai Lin loved reading mystery novels. There was an unsolved serial murder case and it turned out there was a 200,000 gold reward. It was a lot of money! If she solved the case, she’d be richer by 200,000!

She really wanted to solve the case so she asked Feng Wu all sorts of questions.

Feng Wu shared everything she knew. Basically, a total of five families fell victim to the murderer. The families were just your ordinary family with ordinary people.

The investigator who worked on the case at the time didn’t think it was done by a magician or a sword master. Since all the victims were ordinary people, he felt the perpetrator had to also be an ordinary person. A magician or swordmaster wouldn’t have bothered to kill ordinary people, even if it was to vent their anger.

No self-respecting magician or swordmaster would do such a thing.

The continent also had laws protecting ordinary people: as long as ordinary people did not take the initiative to challenge a magician or sword master, a magician or sword master could not kill ordinary people just because. Without such a law, ordinary people would have a very hard time surviving.

Being a magician was one of the most noble professions on the continent and it was impossible for one to be so bored as to target ordinary people. Therefore, it was impossible for the murderer to be a magician. Besides, the murder weapon was a sword.

As for it being a sword master, that was also unlikely. A sword master was very powerful and had great control over their weapon. Killing an ordinary person would only take seconds, but these victims died very messily, with scars all over their bodies. It didn’t look like the act of a capable person.

Ai Lin looked at the relevant information and asked some more about the situations of all the families involved, especially the first family.

Based on the above reasoning by the investigator, the possibility of it being a magician or a sword master was nonexistent, therefore, it had to be an ordinary person.

Murderers like this usually chose people they knew and resented for their first kills, so the first case would have the most clues.

The information Ai Lin got was mostly from Feng Wu’s interviews and was not publicly available, so she promised to split the reward if she ever solved it.

After dinner, the two girls went back to their respective dorms. Feng Wu had to complete the files one by one and transcribe all the interviews over again. It was laborious and took her more than two hours to complete.

Once finished, she contacted Ming Xi and the two chatted for over half an hour before going to sleep.

...

As the new Moon emperor, Ming Xi was busy in the early days of ascending the throne, but thereafter, things settled down and he had been taking it easy since. Except for some particularly important tasks he needed to handle himself, everyday tasks were handled by his minister.

When Ming Xi’s father abdicated, the old minister also retired, which left a vacant position. The current minister was an old friend of Ming Xi’s.

With a super capable minister by his side, Ming Xi had it easy.

“Is work in the document processing department very tiring? Xiao Wu look really tired.” Ming Xi frowned and asked.

His minister to the side glanced at Ming Xi. “It should be because she is unaccustomed to it. I’m sure she’ll be fine once she adjusts.”

“That makes sense.” Ming Xi nodded. If she was still tired after awhile, he would need to see if someone was deliberately targeting her and arranging an inordinate amount of work. After all, how could an ordinary clerical job be so tiring?

...

Feng Wu only completed the files she was supposed to sort out after spending all day on them. Wu Chang was very pleased with her efficiency and had praised her appropriately.

This made Feng Wu happy.

She and Zhao Yan both finished their files, but there was still no news from Han Xia. She hadn’t shown up to work in three days. Something wasn’t right.

Wu Change sent Feng Wu and Zhao Yan to Han Xia’s house to check and make sure she was OK.

They went only to find she hadn’t been back in three days. Three days ago, Han Xia and her brother Han Jiang left home in a hurry and had been gone since.

This was bad news. Both missing? Could something have happened to them?

Zhao Yang rubbed his nose then said, “Xiao Wu, do you think Xiao Xia took her brother to investigate the disappearance of Hong village?”

Feng Wu blinked her eyes. “Did she say that?”

“She said she wanted to solve the case so Boss Wu Chang would praise her. The day she dragged her brother out, it was probably to investigate the case together.” All that time spent in the old archives reading files together gave Zhao Yang a good understanding of Han Xia.

The girl was like a tornado, loved to join in the action and make lots of noise. It looked like something happened this time.

“Wow, what kind of monster is that! So cute!” Zhao Yang had no resistance to small cute things. When he saw Rui Baby appear his eyes instantly flared wide with interest.

The unsolved disappearance of Hong village had been investigated over twenty years ago. Nothing was resolved back then. As a little recorder, you should just go and obediently hand in the files; not try to do more than you could handle.

Zhao Yang complained in his heart.

Feng Wu thought for a while, then said, “Then let’s go to the place where Hong village used to be. She might be there.”

That was the only clue they had so they rushed off to where Hong village used to be.

Once they got to the old site, all they saw was bare dirt.

Never mind finding Han Xia, they couldn’t even find a single person in the area.

Ever since Hong village disappeared, no one dared stay in the area because they were afraid they would disappear too.

Feng Wu and Zhao Yang checked around several times, but couldn’t find anything. Feng Wu was about to leave when Rui Baby, who had just returned from the spirit world, suddenly appeared.