Lin Dongxue picked up the piece of paper in disbelief. "But our parents were just..."

"I know. They were just ordinary people. Why would someone fake an accident and murder them? I want to know that more than you do!" Lin Qiupu exhaled. "Let’s stop overthinking it. We will continue to investigate the case at hand. When this guy is arrested, the truth will naturally surface. I called you here because I felt that you have the right to know. That's all."

Lin Dongxue lowered her head and said nothing. Lin Qiupu asked, "Are you feeling sad?"

"No. Brother, why don't I feel anything at all when it comes to my parents? It's like we’re talking about other people. I feel so ashamed."

"You were young then. Of course you have no impressions of them."

Lin Dongxue wanted to say something but hesitated, so she took her leave.

At the same time, Chen Shi knocked on the door of the professor's house. The professor, who was sitting paralyzed on the sofa was startled. After he saw who had come past the door chain, he opened the door.

"How did you find me here?" the professor asked in surprise.

"What can’t the police find out?" Chen Shi looked around. The living room was clean and tidy, but there was a faint weird smell. "You just said on the phone that it was ordinary rice?"

"Correct."

Chen Shi observed the professor's expression and noticed that his expression was quite unnatural. Chen Shi's eyes fell on the table where an envelope lay under the tea cup. He reached for it, and the professor said hurriedly. "Don't touch it!"

The envelope was still swiftly picked up by Chen Shi. There was only a photograph of a boy in the envelope. Chen Shi glanced at it and asked, "Your son?"

"Wuu..."[1]

"Someone must have just been here. He was right there when you called? Your tone over the phone was different from your tone in the morning!"

"Haii, no wonder you are a police consultant." The professor walked to the window and took a look. "Could you arrange for someone to pick up my son from school and bring him here? No, bring him to a safe place."

Sure enough, someone was threatening him. It was really despicable of them. Chen Shi immediately called and asked Xu Xiaodong to perform this task.

The two of them sat in the house without saying a word. Chen Shi heard the sound of the microwave oven. It seemed as if something was being baked, but it didn't smell like food.

"How many people were here just now?" Chen Shi asked.

"Don't... don't ask. As long as my son is safe, I can tell you."

"You can call the police for this kind of thing. No matter how savage they are, they won't dare to cause trouble in front of the police."

"You still have the face to talk about this?! I was living a good life. If you hadn’t come to me with the rice in the morning, these things wouldn’t have happened today. My blood pressure hasn't even lowered yet, haii..." The professor took out a blood pressure lowering medicine and popped two pills into his mouth.

Chen Shi shrugged and stopped talking.

After a while, Xu Xiaodong called and said that the professor’s son was safe. The professor breathed a sigh of relief. He walked into the kitchen and came out with a clay smoking pipe in his hand. He sat down on the sofa and lit it up. Then he took a puff and his brows relaxed. He said, "Sure enough!"

"What's going on?"

"That test data only recorded the process but not the results. I had a conjecture, but I can't use the laboratory equipment right now. I can only test it out in the most direct way... Do you know what I’m smoking?"

"I don’t."

"The rice leaves you brought this morning. I dried them in the microwave..." The professor took another puff. "Have a puff."

"I don't smoke." Chen Shi had already vaguely guessed something.

"This isn’t nicotine. It's marijuana!" The professor lowered his voice mysteriously. "I have never even dreamed of such a thing. Someone used genetic modification technology to create a new type of marijuana that looks like rice. That person was even my student."

"I don't understand this. Is it possible in theory? The genes of rice and the genes of marijuana, what is it called, integrated together?"

"Did I say that it was the genes of rice? This isn’t rice at all. It is a type of little-known South American nettle. My student has recombined the genes of the two plants together. I don’t know how many experiments have been performed, but this new crop that resembles rice was produced. However, it’s essentially marijuana - a drug!" The professor took another big puff from the pipe and exhaled the smelly smoke.

"Actually, genetic modification technology has also been applied to animals, but so far there have been no decent results. The laboratory has produced deformities that cannot survive at all. Some foreign scientists claim that new life has been created using genetic modification technology but it's actually just a type of virus. It can’t even be considered an animal."

"However, genetically modified plants are already well-known. Even the aunties who sell vegetables in supermarkets all know what genetically modified soybeans and genetically modified cucumbers are. That’s because plant genes have a kind of self-improvement nature. They will repair the unreasonable gene fragments that have been edited by humans, creating new species characteristics..." The professor took another puff. "The genes of the two plants A and B are recombined. Ten thousand experiments may produce over nine thousand new types of plants. There may be particularly sweet watermelons, particularly large corn, etc. This thing was created after an extremely large number of experiments. I don’t know if I should call it a cancerous tumor or a lucky accident."

The professor sighed. "Science brings us new technologies, and it also brings new hidden dangers. There are always people harbouring evil intentions who use new technologies to commit crimes. Mr. Chen, this is probably a historical moment. A genetically modified drug has been born in Long'an!"

"I want to ask what your student Chang Guoqing was like."

The professor was still smoking his pipe. As there were too few leaves, he had already finished smoking them. He regretfully knocked the pipe on the table. "My impression of Chang Guoqing is that he was a very clever young man. His girlfriend Mo Jingya, who later became his wife, had met him when they were in graduate school. They were together every day, and they were also good partners in scientific research. To be honest, I really don’t believe Chang Guoqing would do this kind of thing unless... unless someone gave him a lot of money."

Chen Shi said, "The criminals slapped their heads and said, ‘I want to create a genetically modified drug. It needs to look like rice but actually be marijuana. Then we’ll find the best relevant people to develop it.’? I don’t think that’s possible. No matter how many experiments and failures there were, I think it must have been a coincidence for this to have been created in the beginning. Then your students sold it to people who 'needed' it... We’ll investigate this carefully. The most important piece of the puzzle has been solved. Thank you, professor. By the way, you will have to come when we need a witness in court."

"As long as the safety of me and my family can be guaranteed..." The professor took out a box of shredded tobacco and stuffed it into the pipe.

After leaving the professor's house, Chen Shi called Lin Dongxue and told them not to get off work yet as he’d head over immediately. He had important things to say.

Looking at the evening sky, Chen Shi thought that this secret that had been hidden for a decade had been revealed, and the gang that worked hard to operate all of this couldn’t possibly let it go at that!

1. Crying noise.