CH 137

It wasn’t a bright and clear morning. The clouds were dense, blocking the sun that should have been there, turning the weather dark and gloomy.

Cycling in and out of sleep on the sofa, Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan had their hands full the whole night. Yet, similar to this accursed weather, they made not the least bit of progress. 

Having more exposure to criminal cases was a double-edged sword when looking into something.

The advantage was the wealth of their experience, which gave them keener intuition than the norm. In the vast majority of cases, they could hit the nail on the head with one glance, probably a conditioned reflex that they had honed over the years.

The disadvantage was established thinking patterns.

They were both aware that in homicides, the murderer had a tendency to return to the scene of crime. 

There were those who wanted to personally witness if they had achieved their desired outcome, and there were those who wanted to admire their masterpiece.

The murderer might have watched from a distance, or might have hidden in the nosy crowd of onlookers, pretending to be an ordinary passer-by. But whichever it was, they ran the possibility of some traces being left behind.

This was actually a commonly employed tactic in criminal investigations. Despite being professionals in a field obliquely related to detective work, Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan were no exception.

The people that Joe and Eunice were following up on, such as Professor Zhou, whose memory had deteriorated, ultimately dying from dementia, as well as Ms Lucy, who was in possession of two mining lines, eventually getting committing suicide in prison, and so on…

If the circumstances surrounding them weren’t as simple as it was thought to be, if there was truly a human factor involved, then the suspects might also have exhibited behaviour like ‘returning to the crime scene’.

So, when screening the photos, Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan took half each, selecting photos of Professor Zhou, Ms Lucy, etc, before and after the turning points, circling some people with irregular behaviour, then comparing the annotated photos side by side, looking for logical links or similarities.

Unfortunately, their gains were disappointing.

It was like hitting a bottleneck; they were unable to move up or down. 

Yan Suizhi flung aside the photos he had pored over the whole night, rubbing his neck, saying peevishly, “I feel like I’ve returned to my university days, when professors from various courses were simultaneously holding out their hands, demanding case analyses—shoving a case into my brain from all directions, then ramming together at a major road junction, and filling my entire sight with a wreckage of butchered arms and legs; I just don’t know whose bodies to piece these limbs to.”

“…”

Lawyer Gu, who was just about to prepare two sets of breakfasts, mutely stayed his hand, staring at him numbly.

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“I have a hunch, though.” Yan Suizhi slid his sunny-side up onto a dining plate, then flipped the one for Gu Yan over.

“What hunch?”

Gu Yan stood next to him, tossing a large bowl of protein-packed salad, before portioning the mix onto the two plates. 

“A hunch that we’re just about to catch hold of a lead,” Yan Suizhi said calmly, “A tangled mess without form often implies that we’ll uncover a bountiful harvest. Compared to finding a few scattered clues, this is actually a good omen. Once we find a loose thread, everything will unravel.”

This was the way he had always been. The most troubling things would become much easier when they reached his mouth, without any cause for anxiety or worry. Every time when he spoke of this, his slow, calm, and collected manner was truly very likeable.

At least, Gu Yan liked it a lot.

Under the premise that he wasn’t deliberately poking fun at people. 

“Experience tells me that it can’t get any messier, so it’s about time,” Yan Suizhi said. “Those butchered arms and legs should soon be able to be pieced—”

Before he could finish his words, Gu Yan stabbed a fork into a tiny strawberry in the salad, stuffing it into Yan Suizhi’s mouth, stopping this person from cooking up any more metaphors that would affect his appetite.

With one hand holding the fork, the other hand swiftly responded to a few new emails.

Yan Suizhi glanced over his shoulder and saw a successive series of responses that went “sorry”, “no time”, “it’s fine, thanks”. 

Most lawyers wouldn’t only take on one case at a time, because it typically took a long time for each case to move from investigation to evidence collection, then to prosecution in court. Ages ago, it was normal to take a year or two, or even a good several years, for a case. Now, with the alliance’s system and efficiency, this process was greatly sped up; even so, the shorter ones would still take around slightly less than a month, whereas the longer ones would go upwards of half a year.

However, in this period of time, Gu Yan did push away many offers. For now, all of his attention was focused on the Elderly Bobblehead case, Yan Suizhi, and Joe’s cases.

Other First-Class Lawyer prospects reduced their workload during the public notification period, choosing to play safe and avoid controversy. He also reduced his workload, yet contrary to others, everything that he dipped his fingers into was dicey and controversial.

Yan Suizhi understood his philosophy. They were innately like-minded people, so he didn’t touch on it. He only asked in passing, “Turning down another request for representation?” 

Gu Yan flashed the screen in front of his eyes, shaking his head. “No. It’s an email from Horace Lee.”

“Oh?” Yan Suizhi glanced through the email contents, then found that their client, Mr Horace Lee, who was getting a bit restless after being left hanging in the hospital for several days, asked Gu Yan when exactly he would be visiting him.

Yan Suizhi chortled. “When did he send it?”

“One yesterday morning and another one late last night,” Gu Yan said. 

“Late last night?”

“To be precise, it was in the morning, right during the time that I fell asleep.” Gu Yan said indifferently, “I only saw it when checking my mail just now. It’s been a couple of hours; I don’t know if Mr Lee has slept yet.”

Yan Suizhi asked, “What did you tell him?”

Gu Yan said, “I told him that I still have some matters to take care of today and can’t take the time to visit the hospital. I’ll check on the prosecution’s progress either tomorrow or the day after, then discuss it with him again.” 

What he was saying was to have Mr Horace Lee be less anxious and not to be impatient. His tone was polite and calm, just as if it were genuine.

But both parties were actually very clear about what was going down. He didn’t want to hear Horace Lee continue to spin his little stories; he only wanted to hear the truth.

So, it all depended on when Mr Horace Lee was going to cave.

When they sat at the dining table to break their fast at precisely seven o’clock, soft music incidentally played from the wall clock; resonant piano notes, backdropped by distant birdsong. 

“It even chimes at seven o’clock? Why don’t I seem to have heard it before?” Yan Suizhi unhurriedly ate his breakfast, saying, almost idly.

“If you stop refusing my invitations to join my morning runs, you can hear it every day.”

As they spoke, the birdsong turned even brighter, the mellow tune scaling a few keys in a very unique call.

“What bird is this?” Yan Suizhi didn’t have much knowledge in this area. 

“It’s slightly similar to a herdingbird.” Gu Yan said, “I previously sighted it on Eyrie when on a business trip and mistook it for the common greyfinch. They look very similar, but their birdcalls are completely different. The local guide said that it is a type of domesticated bird; it is friendly and easy to domesticate. The natives of the island I stayed at back then had a penchant for rearing this bird to tell the time; maybe the manufacturers collected the recording from there.”

Planet Eyrie had gained its name because of the numerous bird species on the planet, such that no one could comprehensively identify every species, making the human population there seem scant in comparison, like they were guests temporarily borrowing a lodge.

Catch any arbitrary bird from there and, aside from natives to Eyrie, barely a handful in the alliance would be able to name it.

After all, there weren’t many people who would take notice of the birds flying above them elsewhere. 

“Wait—” Hearing this, Yan Suizhi gave a start; something of the description was nudging at him. “This species of bird looks similar to the greyfinch?”

He did a quick search for herdingbirds online, which also pulled up a comparison between herdingbirds and greyfinches. He clicked into one at random, scanning it cursorily, then found that the only distinguishing feature this bird species had from the greyfinch was that its tail plume was tinged dark red on the edges.

Other than that, the greyfinch was a bird commonly seen across the interstellar alliance; it was considered the bird with the highest vitality, adaptability, and reproductive capacity. Of ten birds that flew across the sky, nine would be it. But the herdingbird was rare. It seldom appeared on other planets, unless it was brought there for a short stay by its keeper.

His reaction also alerted Gu Yan. The hand holding his fork paused, as though suddenly hit by inspiration, then drew the photos floating around the sofa over. 

They had sorted those photos overnight into two groups. One group contained duplicates of people at the scene, bad camera angles, or blurred shots. The other group contained photos annotated by them.

Seeing his actions, Yan Suizhi praised, “Do you live in my head? Your reaction’s so quick.”

Gu Yan arched his brows while swiftly searching with ‘bird’ as a parameter, instantly sieving a pile of photos out.

They’d spent the night trapped in an established thinking pattern, unconsciously focusing all of their attention on the people, yet neglecting other living species that frequently appeared in the lens—the birds flying overhead. 

If they didn’t remember wrongly, some of Jim Bens’ official photographs were accompanied by captions. Some of which made mention of rare bird sightings for that region, and the timing of those photographs coincided with the time that Professor Zhou had been hospitalised due to health issues.