Today, the two of them were going to look for Zhang Chuang. He worked in a nightclub. The nightclub wasn’t open during the day. It took them some time to contact the manager and find out Zhang Chuang's residential address.

Before knocking on the door, Chen Shi asked, "Have you done your homework on this kid?"

"I’ve read his information."

"You’ll question him later."

Xu Xiaodong knocked on the door a few times. A drunk man opened the door and asked them who they were looking for. When he saw the police badge, he immediately sobered up and cleared his throat. "I am Zhang Chuang, what can I do for you?"

"Are you and Liu Jin friends?"

"Mm, we are drinking buddies."

"Did you know that he’s been wanting to buy a house as of late?"

"I do. Something like Tiancheng International Housing District. When we were drinking once, he said that he fancied a house there and asked me to lend him money for the down payment. How could I be so fucking rich? I’m so poor that I’m about to make jingling sounds.[1]" Zhang Chuang squeezed out an ingratiating smile. "What are the two of you investigating? Did Liu Jin commit an offence? I need to state that we’re just casual acquaintances."

Xu Xiaodong said, "But I checked Liu Jin's recent call records and he contacts you very frequently."

"It’s to borrow money. That kid has been looking for people to borrow money from everywhere." Zhang Chuang touched his neck. His nervousness was exposed in front of Chen Shi's eyes.

"Do you know someone named Zhang Haichang?"

"Mm... Let me put my pants on first. My legs have almost frozen while standing and talking at the door. Excuse me for a while."

Zhang Chuang was about to close the door, when Chen Shi braced his foot against it. He turned and ran like a frightened bird and jumped down directly from the second-floor window.

Xu Xiaodong was stunned. He didn't expect him to make his escape before they had even exchanged a few words. He immediately rushed downstairs in pursuit.

After a while, Xu Xiaodong escorted Zhang Chuang back, and Zhang Chuang started pretending to be pitiful again. He screamed, "Aiya, aiya," and said, "My ankle is sprained. Can you be gentler?"

"Why did you run?!" Xu Xiaodong asked.

"I... that... I thought..."

"Straighten out your tongue and speak."

Zhang Chuang was very nervous and couldn’t speak. Xu Xiaodong took out his handcuffs and handcuffed him to the railing of the stairs. Chen Shi glanced meaningfully towards the house, and the two walked into Zhang Chuang's residence together.

"It was a close call just now. Brother Chen, how did you know he wasn’t going to change his pants when he went in?" Xu Xiaodong asked.

"He looked flurried, was sweating profusely, and you could tell that he was lying at a glance."

"Sure enough, there’s something fishy. Otherwise, why would he run away when he saw the police?"

Chen Shi nodded, "When he answered your questions just then, I think he was lying."

The room was chaotic like a pigsty, with beer bottles and dust all over the floor. There was a bank card on the coffee table. Xu Xiaodong picked it up and rubbed the powder on the card between his fingers. He asked Chen Shi, "Are these drugs?"

"Taste it."

"You can taste this?"

"Numbed gums means it’s heroin. A piercing sour taste means it’s methamphetamine."

"Brother Chen, you even know this!" Xu Xiaodong admired him. He tasted it, and spat it out. "It's methamphetamine."

"Haha, take him back for a urine test later and detain him for a good round of questioning... Go and keep an eye on him outside. This kind of person can't be restrained just with handcuffs."

When Xu Xiaodong went outside, he saw that Zhang Chuang was trying to twist his thumb in the opposite direction. This kind of technique is often used in the movies, but it was actually useless. Xu Xiaodong furrowed his brows. "What are you trying to do?!"

"Nothing. I'm just playing with my fingers. Officer, you came to investigate the case early in the morning. Have you had breakfast?" Zhang Chuang plastered a smile on his face.

"Be more honest!" Xu Xiaodong didn't want to talk nonsense with this kind of person.

Chen Shi investigated the house and found a knife, walkie-talkie, rope, and a bottle filled with a suspicious liquid in a drawer. In addition, there was also a photo of Zhang Haichang's son Zhang Chao. Based on the angle, it had been taken secretly.

Chen Shi asked Xu Xiaodong to contact the team to come over and collect evidence as well as to take the computer away to see what was inside.

At 10:00 in the morning, Zhang Chuang was locked up, and Lin Qiupu sent someone to detain Liu Jin, because some chat records had been found in Zhang Chuang's computer, and the two had been plotting to carry out a kidnapping.

The kidnapping target was Zhang Chao, but from the current point of view, it seems that it had not been carried out.

Xu Xiaodong rushed excitedly to look for Chen Shi and informed him, "Brother Chen, a colleague found that Liu Jin had appeared in the surveillance footage on the day of the incident. He had been to the housing district. These two people must have committed the murder."

"No, you’ve made a mistake."

Xu Xiaodong had a bucket of cold water poured over him. "The evidence is solid. How can I be mistaken?"

"Has the DNA of the deceased been detected on Zhang Chuang's knife? They were only planning to kidnap him. Not commit murder. You still remember that none of the property at the scene had gone missing? The murderer’s goal wasn’t money, but the people... It was just a coincidence. It inadvertently let us discover two would-be kidnappers."

"This…"

Chen Shi patted him on the shoulder, "But you’ve done a good job. I won't be going to the interrogation!"

"Where are you going?"

"I’ll look at the files to see if anything’s been left out."

Sure enough, Zhang Chuang and Liu Jin divulged their plan. Liu Jin wanted the house, and Zhang Chuang urgently needed money to buy drugs. The two colluded together and targeted Zhang Haichao’s son. Liu Jin had heard Zhang Haichao saying that he planned to buy a house and pay for it in full at the sales department. He believed that he must have a lot of money.

In fact, they had planned a kidnapping a few years ago and demanded a ransom of 600,000. The victim didn’t call the police at the time, but they were still a little conscientious. They did not kill the victim after getting the money and let the child go back home by himself.

For the house, they had taken quite a risk.

Chen Shi sat alone in the conference room, looking through the collection of testimonies and material evidence they had on hand. Everyone from the previous list had been followed up with by the police. They all wanted House 1818 like crazy.

Looking at them all, there wasn’t one that fitted Chen Shi's expectations of the suspect.

Gong Jianqin did fit them, except that he didn’t know what her motive was. However, this was just suspicion.

From the view of outsiders, Chen Shi always figured out the suspect at once, just like an eagle catching a rabbit. In fact, he always had a vague outline of the suspect in his heart. Every time he encountered a person during the investigation, he would attempt to put the person inside the outline.

At the beginning of every case, Chen Shi's suspicion radar was turned on from the moment he saw the person who reported the case. This intuition of his was generally quite accurate.

If Gong Jianqin wasn’t the murderer, then the suspect was out of the police's field of vision. Perhaps the person wanted the house but never showed up, or their purpose was to bring down the real estate company.

"Maybe I can think of a way to verify it!" He thought. An absurd idea came to his mind...

1. If you’re so poor that you’re only left with coins, they’ll make jingling, rattling noises.