Chapter 3: Favor

"I didn't!" Cui Lidong immediately retorted in a loud voice without a moment's hesitation. "I didn't kill him! I never have, and I will never kill anyone in the future! Stop framing me!"

Having heard his words, An Changpu nodded calmly, even offering him an apologetic smile. "If I was wrong, I take back what I just said."

"Cui Lidong, no matter what the final investigation results turn out to be, you know very well what your current situation is. We cannot let you leave for the time being, and we hope you can understand." Qin Ruonan did not want to provoke Cui Lidong, yet she also did not want to give him false hope, so she chose her words very carefully. "If you are confident in your own innocence, my colleagues and I will do everything in our power to find out the truth as soon as possible."

"I am confident! I'm not afraid of you investigating something I didn't do. Lock me up as long as you want! I don't care how long you keep me detained, because I know you will definitely be able to catch the real murderer and clear my name! Other people don't think I'm a good person, but I believe you wouldn't think that, Sister Qin. You are different from them!" Cui Lidong replied eagerly.

Qin Ruonan smiled awkwardly and motioned for An Changpu to end the conversation and leave the interrogation room.

Given that Cui Lidong was currently a prime suspect, letting him go was out of the question. Yet, he himself seemed not to mind being temporarily detained at all. This aspect actually made things much easier for Qin Ruonan and An Changpu; had Cui Lidong kicked up a fuss over this matter, it would have amounted to an unnecessary burden on their workload, wasting even more of their energy and time.

"How much do you know about Cui Lidong?" On the way to the food company where Song Chengliang, the victim of this case, worked, An Changpu asked Qin Ruonan curiously. "Don't you think his level of trust in you is a bit outrageously high? He's practically treating you like a straw to clutch at for dear life! The last time I encountered someone clutching at straws like that was a special patient with transient complete amnesia syndrome who was extremely dependent on the psychological counselor who had guided her for many years. You wouldn't happen to have been giving Cui Lidong psychological counseling in your spare time, would you?"

"Are you telling me a bad joke?" Qin Ruonan asked with a helpless, bitter smile. "No one is even counseling me through my own psychological issues, let alone having the leisure to counsel someone else! My knowledge of him is limited to idle chatter while getting my hair cut. He's usually a relatively quiet person who doesn't take the opportunity to push this or that product on you, which is why I prefer to go to him for haircuts. I did hear him mention before that the reason he came to the city from out of town was because his father back home was rather domineering and didn't support him pursuing a career in hairdressing. His relationship with his father was strained, so he ran away to develop his career elsewhere, and that's it. Everything I saw today regarding his past experiences and family background is something I only just learned, same as you."

An Changpu nodded, realizing inwardly that the faint hint of sympathy in Qin Ruonan's tone when speaking of Cui Lidong stemmed from the fact that she also had a domineering and overbearing father of her own. It was probably an empathetic sentiment born from a shared plight. However, Cui Lidong's level of favor toward Qin Ruonan seemed to transcend that boundary.

When the car turned into the gates of the food company and stopped in front of the main building, An Changpu timely reined in the speculations in his mind that were unrelated to the case. A vague sense of wonder lingered within him; he could not understand why he had suddenly become so terribly gossipy, caring so much about the possibility that someone might harbor romantic feelings for Qin Ruonan.

He must have been hanging out with Tian Yang for too long—proximity breeds contagion, and he had unconsciously picked up Tian Yang's gossipy habits! An Changpu found a very good excuse for himself.

Pulling his thoughts together, An Changpu and Qin Ruonan went inside the food company to find Song Chengliang's direct supervisor and his colleagues from before he died, in order to understand his work and lifestyle under normal circumstances, including the people he interacted with daily and his social circle.

Although Cui Lidong was temporarily detained in the holding room at the public security bureau due to unerasable suspicions, it could not be ruled out that Song Chengliang's death was brought about by grudges stemming from other social relations, so it was still necessary for them to conduct a thorough investigation and elimination process.

According to Song Chengliang's former leaders and colleagues, Song Chengliang was the kind of mediocre employee at the company who was like chicken ribs—tasteless to eat, yet a pity to discard. To say his work ability was strong would be inaccurate, as he seemed apathetic toward his work; yet to say he was entirely perfunctory and didn't put his mind into his work would also be wrong, because he could always figure out a way to hit his sales targets at the critical moment, leaving the boss with neither a reason to fire him nor any necessity to promote him.

Among his colleagues, Song Chengliang's relationships remained distant and aloof. It was said that although Song Chengliang had been working at this food company for two or three years, he was only warmly polite on the surface and had zero personal interaction with anyone behind closed doors. Colleagues all said it felt as though Song Chengliang had other important matters to attend to, as he would immediately vanish the moment work ended and would endlessly send text messages and make phone calls during work hours. Anyone unaware would have thought he was some kind of important figure.

This trip to the food company turned out to be almost a wasted journey for An Changpu and Qin Ruonan. The people here evaluated Song Chengliang in ways that were far too ambiguous; whatever they could articulate was merely superficial, and solid information about who he was as a person was scarce, let alone any deep understanding of his social circle and interpersonal relationships.

"This Song Chengliang is either exceptionally cunning or simply a slippery eel." This was An Changpu's summary of his impression of Song Chengliang as they left the food company. "Moreover, his life's focus was not on his work; he probably had another sideline business! Just think about the price of the apartment he recently moved into, and then think about that meager salary of his at the food company! Even just paying the monthly mortgage would be a huge strain for him alone."

Qin Ruonan agreed with An Changpu's view. During the questioning earlier, An Changpu had tried his utmost to extract more details, but unfortunately, Song Chengliang's colleagues seemed genuinely to know very little.

She suddenly recalled the abrupt accusation An Changpu had made earlier in front of Cui Lidong and could not help asking out of curiosity, "By the way, why did you suddenly say that Cui Lidong grew enraged out of shame due to Song Chengliang's extortion, followed him, and killed him?"

"All's fair in love and war! I just wanted to see his reaction. Didn't you see it just now? When it came to the murder itself, he denied it very quickly without a single moment of hesitation. I figured either he genuinely didn't commit the murder, or he had rehearsed such a sudden attack in his mind many times over. On the other hand, I could also be almost certain that Cui Lidong did indeed follow Song Chengliang on the day of the victim's murder; when he refuted the crime I pinned on him, he didn't dare utter a single word denying that he had followed him!"

As for whether Cui Lidong had actually tailed Song Chengliang, the testimony of the residential complex's security guard alone was not sufficient; further investigation and evidence gathering were needed for confirmation. For now, their target was the hair salon familiar to Qin Ruonan.

What kind of person Cui Lidong was, and how the conflict between him and Song Chengliang came about—aside from the two of them, other witnesses were surely not hard to find within the hair salon.

The hair salon was not far from the place where Qin Ruonan lived. When she brought An Changpu over, the shampoo assistant greeting customers at the door first warmly greeted Qin Ruonan, but then, as she instinctively prepared to call over a stylist, the expression on her face instantly turned awkward.

"I'm not here for a haircut, you don't need to arrange one," Qin Ruonan hurriedly told the shampoo assistant.

The shampoo assistant breathed a slight sigh of relief and said with a forced smile, "Otherwise I was going to say I needed to discuss with you today about switching to someone else for your haircut, because of some special circumstances..."

"We're here regarding the matter concerning Cui Lidong," Qin Ruonan interrupted, stating their purpose.

The shampoo assistant looked somewhat surprised, failing to register Qin Ruonan's profession for a moment. Then, recalling that this regular customer standing before her was actually a criminal police officer, she finally understood their objective.

"Look at my brain, I completely forgot what you do for a living!" she said with a giggle. In her view, Song Chengliang's death and Cui Lidong's involvement seemed entirely unrelated to her and had no impact whatsoever. "So who do you need to see? Aside from the ones currently doing a client's hair who might take a little while, anyone else who's free, I can go get them for you!"

Although it was the afternoon, the hair salon was still filled with customers, and the roaring sound of blow dryers forced the shampoo assistant to raise her voice by several pitches.

"Is there a quieter place?" Qin Ruonan asked.

"You guys follow me!"

Walking ahead, the shampoo assistant led them through the hair salon to a small storage room at the very back. She opened the door, revealing a space that appeared somewhat cluttered and cramped.

"You'll just have to bear with it! We work in here during the day, and at night after the shop closes, we all go back to the dormitory rented by the boss to sleep, so there isn't any empty space in the salon for people to hang out. At least closing the door here is a bit quieter than outside!" The shampoo assistant pulled the storage room door shut, and the noise from outside indeed muffled somewhat. "Before I came in just now, I had someone outside call the boss to come over. The boss wasn't actually planning on coming in today because of something."

The girl smiled, feeling rather proud of her own prudent action. Qin Ruonan thanked her, and before she could even say anything, someone outside the door called out to say that the call had gone through, the boss was hurrying over now, and was estimated to arrive in another twenty minutes or so.

The shampoo assistant looked An Changpu up and down from head to toe and tentatively asked, "Handsome, aren't you guys waiting for our boss? Since waiting is just waiting anyway, why don't you get your hair done while you're at it? I think getting a perm would look really good on you, I guarantee it would look even more handsome than your current hairstyle!"

An Changpu hurriedly waved his hands to reject her business pitch. "No trouble needed, we have police appearance and grooming regulations. Anyway, just like you said, your boss will take a while longer to get here, so why don't you start by telling us about Cui Lidong?"