A perfectly good person died just like that.
The news did indeed surprise Lü Qingqing. Although she wasn't close with Huang Yuan, they had met once and were in the same class. Hearing the news of her passing so suddenly still brought a touch of sadness.
"Mm, I heard she didn't have a breath left by the time they took her to the infirmary," Ouyang Wen said. "What? Were you at the scene at the time?"
Lü Qingqing nodded. "Yes, we had physical fitness tests today. She might have overexerted herself, leading to sudden death."
"Sudden death? The alarm I received was for death by poisoning," Ouyang Wen stated.
Poisoning?
This time, not only Lü Qingqing was shocked, but Hu Jia was too.
Someone had harmed people within the academy?
And in front of so many people.
No, I have to go and see.
Seeing Lü Qingqing wanting to go along, Tong Meng became displeased. "What? Has someone who just entered the academy for two or three days already forgotten the rules for police officers?"
Lü Qingqing froze. Tong Meng was right. She wasn't in a suitable position to view the scene now.
After all, she knew the deceased and was in the same environment. In other words, Lü Qingqing was a potential suspect.
Even though she knew Tong Meng was just making a fuss, Lü Qingqing couldn't refute her.
"I'll go take a look!" Hu Jia, understanding Lü Qingqing's thoughts, stepped forward.
"Heehee, Brother Hu Jia, let's go together." Tong Meng's previously stern face was suddenly full of smiles. She skipped and squeezed between Lü Qingqing and Hu Jia, just about to reach out and link arms with Hu Jia, when Hu Jia deftly dodged her. "Who are you?"
Hahaha...
Lü Qingqing almost burst into laughter on the spot.
"Brother Hu Jia," indeed. In his eyes, you're just a stranger on the street, nothing special.
Wait!
Why was she calling Hu Jia "Brother Hu Jia?" Lü Qingqing glanced suspiciously at Tong Meng, then at Ouyang Wen.
Something wasn't right.
Didn't she like Ouyang Wen? Why was she so much more energetic towards Hu Jia?
Ouyang Wen looked at Hu Jia and said nothing, tacitly agreeing to Hu Jia's involvement.
"Come, follow behind me," Hu Jia said, looking back at Lü Qingqing.
Lü Qingqing, with a smile in her eyes, replied, "But I knew the deceased."
"And you know me," Hu Jia directly retorted, shutting the mouth that Tong Meng was about to open.
Lü Qingqing cast a triumphant glance at Tong Meng and followed him with a few quick steps.
On the way to the infirmary, Lü Qingqing told Ouyang Wen about Feng Si's information.
"No full name?"
"No, Chen Yongqiang only overheard his father mention it once."
Ouyang Wen found it a bit tricky. A person who had disappeared for so many years, with no full name or address, searching for them was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
"Sigh, this is the only clue. No matter how difficult, we have to try," Ouyang could only comfort himself.
"Oh, right, do you know anyone with a mole on their left shoulder?" Lü Qingqing remembered the person who had contacted Li Yongqiang.
A mole?
"I'll have someone look into it." The two of them analyzed the mysterious person. Since they could monitor Li Yongqiang anytime and anywhere, they were likely people from the academy.
Little did they know, at that very moment, a pair of eyes were watching them from the small second-floor building.
"This Lü Qingqing and Ouyang Wen seem to have a good relationship."
"She's just a messenger."
"A messenger? Heh heh, sometimes messengers are the most detestable."
Hearing the mysterious man's emotionless voice, Li Yongqiang's heart trembled. "This is an academy, aren't you afraid of being discovered?"
"Afraid of what? Didn't a female student just die? It doesn't matter if another one dies." The man then turned his head and glanced at Li Yongqiang's clenched fist. "What? Want to make a move?"
His clenched fist slowly loosened.
"Hahaha..." A contemptuous voice echoed. "Coward!"
...
At the school infirmary, the doctor and Ouyang Wen were discussing the case.
"The deceased, Huang Yuan, was a police officer transferred from the Taipingmen Branch. There were no obvious wounds on her body, but her skin had many red rashes. Preliminary estimation is death by chronic poisoning."
"Has the poison been identified?"
"Castor bean!"
Castor bean, a common toxic substance in daily life.
Due to its ease of cultivation and economic value, it is found everywhere in China.
However, castor bean seeds contain a low concentration of water-soluble toxins. This is a highly toxic compound, over 100 times more potent than cyanide and about 3 times the potency of cobra venom.
If a person accidentally ingests castor bean seeds, about 20 seeds can be fatal to an adult, and about 7 seeds can cause poisoning and death in children.
However, ricin toxins can have a latency period of up to three days after entering the body, meaning Huang Yuan could have been poisoned up to three days ago.
"Oh, now that you mention it, I remember. Yesterday afternoon, Huang Yuan had diarrhea. I asked her this morning, and she said she was feeling much better," a female student said.
"Yesterday afternoon? Where did she have lunch then?" Ouyang Wen asked.
"Just normal food, all from the cafeteria."
"We all ate, and there were no problems."
The students chattered, all speaking at once.
The school cafeteria had four-person tables, using the traditional way of serving dishes and rice. The utensils were also provided by the academy. Yesterday, Huang Yuan sat at the same table with three other female police officers.
Zhou Fengjiu, Li Juan, and Yu Xiaohui.
"We got our food together, and it was all the same," Zhou Fengjiu recalled. "The only difference for Yuan Yuan was that she had soup."
Had soup?
But many people in the cafeteria had soup, and they were fine.
"Did she leave your sight at any point?" Since the food was prepared uniformly by the school, there shouldn't be any issues. The only possibility was that someone poisoned her when she was alone.
"I don't think so," Zhou Fengjiu remembered they were all sitting together, and no one seemed to leave individually.
"No, she did leave," Li Juan seemed to recall something. "When Xiaohui was serving us pumpkin cakes, Yuan Yuan dropped her chopsticks. She went to get a new pair."
After Li Juan's reminder, Zhou Fengjiu and Yu Xiaohui also remembered.
"But she only changed one pair of chopsticks, and it was only about ten steps away. And her food container was on the table, and no one came near it."
Despite this, it was the only moment Huang Yuan left their sight.
"Could the chopsticks have been poisoned?" Tong Meng thought of a possibility.
Chopsticks poisoned?
This suggestion was immediately refuted by the cafeteria manager. "Our chopsticks are all washed and stored uniformly. With hundreds of pairs of chopsticks lying there, who can guarantee that Huang Yuan would randomly pick a poisoned pair? The possibility of poisoning this way is too small."
Indeed, Lü Qingqing also felt this possibility was almost zero.
Just then, Hu Jia noticed a male student in the crowd. He looked flustered, constantly rubbing his hands.
"You? Have you thought of something?" Hu Jia pointed directly at him.
Huh?
The male student waved his hands repeatedly. "Nothing to say, I have no no no words to say."
The boy's stuttering immediately drew everyone's attention.
"Why are you so nervous?" Ouyang Wen stepped forward.
"Not nervous." The boy was sweating profusely.
"You can't even speak properly and you're sweating profusely. What is that if not guilt? You have a problem, did you do the poisoning?" Tong Meng walked directly up to the male student.
This terrified the boy immensely. "It wasn't me, it really wasn't me."
"Then what did you see in the cafeteria yesterday?" Hu Jia judged from the other person's expression and tone that he likely knew something.
"I saw it when Huang Yuan was picking up chopsticks. She didn't randomly pick them from the chopstick holder; someone handed her chopsticks."