Hospital 444
Chapter 90 - 3 Intricate Mystery

Chapter 90: Chapter 3 Intricate Mystery

Lu Yanran suddenly began to notice...

The looks in the eyes of the police officers started to become a bit intriguing.

The only female officer would occasionally whisper with the others.

Was there something they couldn’t say in front of her? This made Lu Yanran realize that the police might suspect her.

After all, if her statements were lies, then many things would make sense.

The door lock showed no signs of tampering, and there were no traces of a struggle in the room. It was hard to imagine an adult man being forcibly taken away under such circumstances. And if it was an acquaintance who committed the crime, they didn’t know anyone in the building. Coupled with her own testimony, it instead seemed they had a bad relationship with their neighbors. Plus, the fact that Zhang Bei called her so many times without ever calling the police was even more puzzling. Most importantly, if Zhang Bei were to die, she would be the biggest beneficiary.

The police then immediately began to search the entire building while also gathering more officers.

"Ms. Lu."

Inside the rest area of the community property management, Officer Zhang from the criminal police continued to question Lu Yanran, "From various indications, although it’s impossible to access the internal surveillance of the building, it’s very unlikely that your husband was taken away by force. Just to be certain, let me confirm once more, your household keys—there are no duplicates, and you haven’t given them to anyone else, right?"

"No."

At this moment, Lu Yanran was still struggling inside. After all, she had concealed a very important clue from the police.

"Officer, please finish searching the entire building quickly! My husband must be inside somewhere!"

"We’ve already gathered our forces for an urgent search, this time our entire department is involved," Officer Zhang asked another question, "But I need to remind you, Ms. Lu, that if you could provide more clues, our search efficiency might improve. Think again, is there someone you particularly suspect?"

"This... I really don’t know... Why don’t you start by thoroughly searching our floor first?"

"We will. Okay, Ms. Lu, why don’t you just stay here in the property office for now? After all, we can’t guarantee that nothing dangerous will happen during the search. Once we’re done, we’ll come to notify you."

"Okay, alright."

"If you think of anything, call my cell phone," Officer Zhang said, writing down his mobile number and handing it to Lu Yanran before he left.

Lu Yanran felt that Officer Zhang didn’t believe her. The latter didn’t seem to hide this fact and probably wanted to pressure her.

While they were gathering officers to search, he still stayed behind to question her again, obviously hoping to break through with her as the focus. He suspected her involvement in the case and wanted to find out Zhang Bei’s whereabouts.

Lu Yanran immediately felt very distressed.

Staying inside the property management office, Lu Yanran began to ponder the entire event, but she had no leads whatsoever.

At that moment, Lu Yanran suddenly remembered something important.

Meat!

Zhang Bei had instructed her to consume a gram of meat from the fridge both morning and evening!

She hadn’t eaten it yet!

She needed to go back...

No, that won’t work!

There might still be police inspecting the house? Returning now to eat raw meat would seem too strange, wouldn’t it?

And running back to the building suddenly, while the police were searching everywhere, and she just calmly staying at home—wouldn’t that be odd? Could that deepen the police’s suspicion of her?

So she thought, forget it, it’s just a gram of meat, she could eat two grams at night instead.

The Dusky Skyrise had a total of twenty-two floors, nearly a hundred households. Even with a lot of police force, searching the entire building would take some time.

As time passed...

Lu Yanran, sitting in the property rest area, waited until the sun went down.

During this period, Zhang Bei’s uncle and uncles, among other relatives, contacted her—the police had gotten in touch with them. They first expressed their sentiments, but didn’t plan to visit her. After Zhang Bei’s parents passed away, his relationship with some relatives was not great; they seldom interacted.

Her own parents also called to ask about the situation, but as her sister-in-law was pregnant and close to her due date, her parents said they couldn’t leave, so they were just offering comfort without planning to come to the city of W. This didn’t surprise Lu Yanran; her parents have always favored boys over girls quite severely. When her good-for-nothing brother got married, she forked over a lot of money, and afterward, her ties with her family cooled considerably. To be honest, if someone told Lu Yanran that she wasn’t biologically related to her parents, she wouldn’t find it odd at all.

As for her brother, he didn’t even bother to make a token phone call. He and Zhang Bei had first met at their wedding. Zhang Bei himself didn’t think highly of this brother-in-law, and Lu Yanran didn’t find him well-mannered. People in the village, as well as her parents, assumed that since she worked in the city, she must be living a superior life, completely unaware of the hardships of city work.

After the calls, Lu Yanran suddenly felt a strong sense of loneliness.

In the years she had been in W City, she hadn’t made a single true friend.

Lu Yanran still tried to call Zhang Bei periodically, every once in a while.

Who could have locked up Zhang Bei?

Neither she nor Zhang Bei were wealthy, so it was hard to imagine it being a kidnapping. Besides, what kind of kidnapper keeps their victim in the same building and doesn’t take away their phone?

What exactly was the meat Zhang Bei stored in the fridge? Should she tell the police about it?

And, what concerned her the most was... not being able to leave the Mu Yang Building for more than twelve hours?

On reflection, over the past month, Zhang Bei, despite working overtime frequently, had been coming home earlier than usual. She remembered, about a week ago, when he was complaining about being forced to work overtime by his boss, he particularly mentioned that he would try to finish his work as early as possible, even when working late.

Wait...

Lu Yanran suddenly thought of something.

He finished work at nine o’clock yesterday.

He usually left the house at eight o’clock, arriving at the office by nine, and he got home at nine o’clock last night, which meant... he had been away from the building for more than twelve hours yesterday!

Then, something happened to him...

Is there some causal connection here?

Last night when he came back, he did indeed seem burdened with heavy thoughts, but Lu Yanran had just assumed it was because he had worked too late and couldn’t stand it anymore.

Could it be...

Twelve hours...

The one gram of meat in the evening...

Being locked up somewhere in the building with a phone but not calling the police or asking for help from others?

Why?

From what Lu Yanran understood about Zhang Bei, he was someone who behaved very rationally.

When they were in a relationship, if they argued, he would never give in easily. He would always discuss facts and logic with Lu Yanran. If he believed he was right, he would never simply apologize first. In his actions, he always sought the optimum decision-making plan. If he considered something unlikely to succeed, he would never waste time on it.

Which means... he didn’t call the police or ask relatives for help but only called her for one reason: he thought that calling the police or asking others for help would be useless.

"Hmm? Then why did he think calling me would be useful? Just because I’m in the building? But I didn’t answer the dozen or more calls he made, so why didn’t he call someone else? And even if he didn’t trust the police, he could have called the fire department, right?"

She had once watched a TV series starring firefighters with Zhang Bei and had only then realized that firefighters are not only responsible for fighting fires but also carry out other emergency rescue missions.

Zhang Bei surely knew this too.

The police and the fire department were both unable to save him?

How could that be?

But she could save him?

"No, that’s not right!"

Lu Yanran suddenly understood.

Zhang Bei didn’t call her for help.

His purpose was to entrust her with those matters!

The meat-eating, and the part about not leaving for more than twelve hours!

And, just before the call dropped, his last words were...

"Go into our room, and then..."

Their room!

Zhang Bei had hidden something there!