Lin Qiupu glanced back and Chen Shi put his arm around his shoulder. "Hurry up,” he said, before laughing wickedly.

"What?!"

"Imagine Dongxue calling you ‘brother’ affectionately."

"Fuck you. Why would I be happy with that?” Lin Qiupu was so happy that he couldn’t suppress his laughter and Chen Shi also laughed.

After laughing for a long time, Chen Shi and Lin Qiupu left. He whispered to Lin Qiupu, "Just then, we laughed for the woman to see. She looked at us through the window. We’re making her think we are hay bales[1] so we can make her numb and unguarded."

"You don't actually have to act. You already look that way."

In the face of his ridicule, Chen Shi smiled. "This is also one of the magic weapons in order to win. I don't look serious or heroic like you."

"Are you pretending to be that way?"

"No, I'm not a serious person to begin with!"

"Let’s have a nice talk between the two of us men."

"Go ahead!"

Lin Qiupu hesitated for a while before saying, "Never make my sister pregnant! Otherwise, I will chase you to the ends of the earth."

Chen Shi was surprised and said, "It seems you aren’t a serious person either."

It was already noon when they returned to the bureau. Lin Qiupu called for take-out and other police officers returned to the conference room one after another. They reported their findings as they ate.

They learned from the couple's acquaintances that their relationship wasn’t very good. The husband had been having affairs for a long time. He raised a mistress outside. There had been talks of divorce even before the kidnapping case.

The reason they didn’t finalize the divorce was because of the matters surrounding child custody. The husband somehow obtained his wife's psychiatric report, saying that she had a mental illness and was not suited to raising children.

As for the mental problem, it was verified at the hospital that she wasn’t diagnosed with any obvious mental illness, but she had an extreme personality and was easily irritable. The doctor also mentioned a term: "passive aggressive personality disorder". She had been taking medicine for her mental state over a period of time.

It is said that during the pregnancy, the husband constantly had affairs and the wife later suffered from postpartum depression. She once held the newborn Hao Jie and stood upstairs ready to jump off the building. Because it had been so long ago, the authenticity of this matter couldn’t be verified.

On another occasion, the wife found her husband's mistress and slapped her. After the husband arrived, he slapped the wife. The scene was very dramatic. This case was filed at a local police station and could be found.

Chen Shi said, "It seems that the relationship between the couple is close to emotional bankruptcy... Everyone should eat slowly. There’s an appetizing dish later."

"What? What?" Everyone was excited.

Lin Qiupu secretly thought that if the identification result came out and the child was indeed Hao Jie, Chen Shi would have slapped himself in the face. He didn't know where his confidence came from.

At this time, Peng Sijue came in and said, "The two sets of DNAs you brought back were from the same person. Then, I compared it with the deceased..."

"How was it?" Lin Qiupu asked impatiently.

"There’s no blood relationship between them."

The crowd was shocked. Most of them didn't figure out what had happened. Chen Shi clapped his hands. "This is the truth of the matter. The child who died was not Hao Jie, but his father's illegitimate child. This woman is suspected of killing that child. After the murder, she directed and produced a kidnapping scene that made everyone think Hao Jie was dead."

Everyone exploded in discussion and asked, "Is that true? I can't believe it!", "Then she must have an accomplice!", "What is she trying to do? In this manner, the child can’t get his inheritance."

Chen Shi slowly replied, "What she wants is the custody of the child. No matter what, she wouldn’t have gotten custody of Hao Jie in the divorce proceedings. If Hao Jie ‘dies’, she could divorce him and move to a place where no one knows them to live with Hao Jie."

Even after listening to Chen Shi’s reasoning, everyone was still immersed in surprise. No wonder the flaw in the kidnapping case couldn’t be investigated. It turned out that this was not a kidnapping case at all.

Chen Shi continued, "There was no problem in the investigation process itself. Abduction cases are generally due to revenge on the family members. This time, the killer was too tricky and everyone here was afflicted."

"We wouldn't have thought of this without Brother Chen!", "Brother Chen's thinking is too keen.", "Fortunately, our second team has Brother Chen."

Lin Qiupu also admitted defeat. He unscrewed the cap off a bottled drink and handed it to Chen Shi. Then, he said, "Assign the tasks!"

Chen Shi took a sip of the drink and said, "First, summon this woman into the bureau."

"Would it be too fast?"

"You just gave me a day!"

"Then I’ll give you-"

"No, one day is enough. I have my own business to do." Chen Shi said, "First, bring the woman in and then check her expenses over the past six months. Hao Jie lives elsewhere but considering that he still needs to go to school, it’s likely that he’s in a boarding school. Furthermore, this woman is a housewife, so her range of activities isn’t large. The deceased died of gas poisoning. I noticed that her family uses piped gas. You can go to the gas company to check her usage over the last half year. Another thing we need to investigate is the identity of the deceased. Perhaps Hao Jie’s father would be the clearest on this. Go to the hospital to find him. The most important thing is...” Chen Shi looked towards Lin Qiupu, “To find out who her accomplice is through questioning. This case happened six months ago, so the evidence would be very difficult to find. We can only find her accomplice through questioning. I believe that as the clues are exposed one by one, her psychological defense will become weaker and weaker."

After dinner, everyone acted separately. Chen Shi and Lin Qiupu went to visit Hao Jie’s mother again. When she saw the arrest order, she was stunned and said, "What do you mean by this? You’re letting the killer go, but arresting me? Are the police treating people like grass now?[2]"

"Compulsory summoning. I hope you will cooperate." Lin Qiupu said.

"What if I don't cooperate?"

"Then, we will make you cooperate."

Hao Jie's mother shouted, "The police are hitting me! Is there still any law in this world?!"

Chen Shi smiled and said to Lin Qiupu, "Why does everyone do this without people teaching them?"

Lin Qiupu showed the DNA identification report to her. "This report shows that the deceased is not your son Hao Jie. We need you to explain this to us!"

Hao Jie's mother stared at them and said, "I don't understand these professional terms."

Lin Qiupu was too lazy to talk nonsense with her and just directly placed handcuffs on her. When she was brought downstairs, a few neighbors were looking at them. Hao Jie’s mother raged and shouted, "The police hit me!" The neighbor looked blankly at her.

Chen Shi whispered in her ear, "If you really have to play this hand, we will publish in the newspaper afterwards and expose all your actions and actions. Hao Jie’s father will see it too. Think about the consequences!"

Then, Hao Jie's mother quieted down and glared at Chen Shi fiercely.

Back at the bureau, she was taken into the interrogation room. Lin Qiupu set up the video camera and sat down with another interrogator in front of her, saying, "Name."

Hao Jie's mother sneered. "You can only detain me for 24 hours. As long as I don't speak, you guys can’t do anything."

Chen Shi, who was watching from the outside, said to himself, "You will definitely speak. A mother has a weakness."

1. Useless people

2. Treating a human life like weeds that you step on without care. Back in the day, this was mainly used to describe government officials.