Hegel's Confession

The next morning, XiaoTeng was still trying to contact Ji Fengjun"s landlord. That phone was out of service because of unpaid bills. Even if we paid for the bills, the phone was still switched off. In desperation, we could only look for his home address and plan to go to find him.

Chu Haoran pushed open the door and walked in from outside with a very serious look in his eyes. "It seems that we don"t need to wait for this case to end. Let"s go to the waxwork museum right now!"

"Why? Is there a clue over there?" I rubbed my head in disbelief.

Chu Haoran picked up his coat and said, "Right! Someone found that there"s a wax figure of Zhao Yu in the museum. Let"s go and check it out first."

When I stood up, Xiao Teng was already following up quickly. I thought there was something wrong about that. Although Zhao Yu was rich, he wouldn"t make his own wax figure in the waxwork museum. Besides, even if he wanted to, the museum wouldn"t agree to that. If they did, there would be no room for so many waxworks.

We all had doubts and made simple a.s.sumptions about this. We even suspected that the wax figure of Zhao Yu was the real person, not just an effigy of him, which meant that it was made from the body of Zhao Yu. But it was an incredible guess, and it weighed heavily on our emotions.

When we arrived at the waxwork museum, we went straight upstairs to the storeroom. The wax figure had been moved to avoid panic because someone thought it was wrong and looked like a corpse.

It turned out that the security guard in the waxwork museum thought it looked familiar, and it occurred to him that the police were looking for one him among the missing, and so he had called the police in time.

After clearly seeing the wax figure in front of me, I was surprised that it was too similar to the man. It was exactly like Zhao Yu himself, but the expression on his face looked stiff and unnatural.

After further examination, the wax figure of Zhao Yu we found that it indeed made from the body of that man, which indicated that the murderer had killed Zhao Yu and then made him into a wax figure. But how did the wax figure show up in the museum?

I restrained the doubts in my heart. Xiao Teng had gone out to investigate what had happened. Soon, Zhao Yu "s body was taken away and his family was informed.

As the case had developed to this point, not only was the missing man found, but now the case had even further intensified. The murderer was audacious in the extreme. No wonder we had never found the body of the missing man. It had been made into a wax figure. . .

At first, we were given only five days to solve the case, but now, two days later, the situation was even more difficult.

Xiao Teng came back with the deputy curator. Because it was not convenient to make an inquiry in the waxwork museum, we went directly to the police station.

In the interrogation room, the deputy curator shook his head repeatedly when talking about the wax figure of Zhao Yu. He said he had no idea it was made from a corpse, and thought it was just a normal wax figure. At that time, Lu Hui had inadvertently contacted him and said that the wax museum was about to open, so he wanted to send a wax figure to put in for display.

Because he had a good relationship with Lu Hui, he occasionally had to ask for Lu Hui, and so he agreed. But he never thought this would happen, and he said he would never have dared to agree with it if he had known the truth beforehand.

"Is the Lu Hui you"re talking about the boss of Lu"s Film and Television Group?" Chu Haoran looked at him quietly.

Because it involved a leader, Xiaohui"s surname had not been announced to the public; however, his full name was actually Lu Hui.

The deputy curator nodded several times. "Yes, that"s him."

After inquiring, we learned that Xiaohui contacted him the day before his disappearance, and then sent the wax figure of Zhao Yu to him. He didn"t care much at that time and just arranged for the staff to put it in the showroom.

"Did he say anything about the origin of the wax figure?" Chu Haoran inquired.

The deputy curator said helplessly, "Not at all. He didn"t say anything about it and I did not think it was appropriate to ask. I didn"t think to care too much about that at the time. I really didn"t know it was a body!"

After the investigation, we made sure that the deputy curator was not lying and let him go. Then Xiao Teng began to investigate the stores that sold the tools for making wax figures in the city, while I went to the house of Ji Fengjun"s landlord.

Due to the remoteness and a traffic jam, I finally arrived at my destination after more than an hour. Standing on the third floor, I knocked on the door in front of me and cleared my mind at the same time.

Someone in the room called out "Who is it?" as I knocked. I didn"t answer them and kept knocking.

After a while, the door opened, and an impatient man"s voice rang out in my ear, "Why the h.e.l.l are you knocking on the door? Are you in a hurry to get reborn?"

I knew my plan hadn"t fallen through this time. He was exactly the man I was looking for—the landlord of Ji Fengjun"s house in the suburb.

"Who do you want?" His manner noticeably improved after he saw me.

I took out the certificate to let him check it. "I am a cop and I am here to ask you some questions to investigate a matter."

 "I haven"t broken the law." He was reflexively resistant, as if he had done something bad.

I took out the picture of Ji Fengjun and handed it to him. "Do you know him?"

The landlord looked carefully and then nodded. Probably he clearly knew that I was standing here to investigate, not to fool around.

When I walked inside, I found his wife busy in the kitchen; perhaps she was preparing lunch. Sitting on the sofa, I asked him straight to the point, "Ji Fengjun rented your house in the suburbs a year ago, right?"

The landlord said, "Yes." A few seconds later, he added, "But she had moved out a long time ago. She paid for a year"s rent, so the house is now empty. The lease on that house has come up recently, and I intend to continue to rent it to others."

In communication with the landlord, I learned that Ji Fengjun had rented the house with her boyfriend at that time. They all came from out of town, and intended to struggle and succeed in the city. Then, for some reason, her boyfriend moved away. It seemed as if they had broken up, because Ji Fengjun had left without living there long.

When I asked about how the relationship was going between Ji Fengjun and her boyfriend, the landlord shook his head, indicating he had no idea about that. He said he only charged for the room and didn"t care about anything else. Luckily, he remembered her boyfriend"s name, and I left when I found there was no other clue to be found.

The landlady"s wife was nice and she invited me to have lunch with them before I left. I thanked her and went out of the house to contact Xiao Teng. I told him the name of Ji Fengjun"s boyfriend and asked him to investigate it. I asked him if he had found the place that sold waxwork tools, and he said Chu Haoran had gone to visit it.

In the afternoon, Chu Haoran came back with the news that Ji Fengjun had indeed bought the tools for making wax figures. However, she didn"t leave any of her contact information and address. At this time, multiple clues showed that Ji Fengjun was a suspect, and unfortunately, we couldn"t find where she was hiding.

Xiao Teng was still investigating Ji Fengjun"s ex-boyfriend and we put our hopes on him. At the same time, we also speculated about where Ji Fengjun might be hiding. It was a pity that the city was not very big, but it also was not exactly small, so it was really hard to search without any clues.

After half an hour, eventually Xiao Teng found Ji Fengjun"s ex-boyfriend, Lin Hao. According to the information Xiao Teng had found, Lin Hao was a senior executive of an internet company, and was not a low position for an out-of-town man who had come to this city for only one year and had no background. He was likely very talented, and yet he somehow had broken up with Ji Fengjun.

We went directly to the internet company to find Lin Hao. He was dressed in a suit and looked handsome and talented. Our appearance was a bit of a surprise to him. After knowing that we had come to investigate the case of Ji Fengjun, he immediately took us into the office without saying much.