When Yan Yue found out about Lu Lingxi’s forced plant evolution, he pressured him to go to the hospital the next day to have his body checked. This was already the second time Yan Yue had asked Lu Lingxi to have a full body check-up. The last time was when Yan Yue got to know about the existence of the white panel and dragged Lu Lingxi to have a check-up at once.
After half a day’s examination, although there were some results that could take a few days to see, the current situation seemed to be that Lu Lingxi’s body was very healthy and there was nothing wrong at all.
“Look, I’ve said it’s fine.” Lu Lingxi whispered defiantly. Perhaps because of his experience in his previous life, he was subconsciously repulsed by physical examinations. But his resistance was useless in front of Yan Yue. Yan Yue rubbed his hair, his voice low and doting, “Be obedient and see what the doctor says.”
Lu Lingxi reluctantly agreed, and Yan Yue looked at him gently, “Next time, no matter what the reason is, don’t turn on the plant evolution forcibly.”
“Oh.” Lu Lingxi nodded obediently. This time he had started the plant evolution completely unintentionally; he didn’t know that the panel would be disturbed by his emotions. Next time, if it wasn’t an emergency, he definitely wouldn’t force the evolution without Yan Yue’s instructions. He owed the panel five points of the power of nature and he was heartbroken.
The two of them were standing in the hospital corridor talking when Su Lang pushed the door of the office open from inside and saw Yan Yue and Lu Lingxi. Su Lang was a little surprised and quickly greeted them.
Yan Yue raised his eyebrows; he didn’t expect to meet Su Lang by such a coincidence. He habitually put one hand on Lu Lingxi’s shoulder in a possessive gesture and smiled at Su Lang.
“Why are you guys at the hospital? Xiao Xi is not feeling well?” Su Lang saw the checklist Lu Lingxi was holding in his hand.
Lu Lingxi shook his head, “It’s just a physical examination.”
Su Lang suddenly asked, “Or is it about the injury back then?”
Lu Lingxi didn’t deny it, sort of acquiescing to his statement.
“You should have come another day, the hospital is crowded today, and it takes half a day to queue up to pay.”
“Is there something wrong?” What Su Lang said was exactly what Yan Yue was wondering about. The hospital was unexpectedly crowded today and felt like a vegetable market.
Su Lang sighed and nodded. “Collective cyanide poisoning. Patients have been sent here one after another since midnight last night, and I heard that they are all from the same village.” Su Lang had classmates who worked at this hospital, and he came over today for some personal business, just when his classmates were at their busiest. According to Su Lang’s analysis, the only reason for such a massive cyanide poisoning would be that the village’s drinking water had been contaminated, and it was likely that someone had deliberately poisoned it. The hospital obviously thought the same and after receiving a certain number of patients decisively chose to call the police, who were now involved in the matter.
Hearing Su Lang mention cyanide, Yan Yue frowned slightly, “Do you know which village it is?”
“It seems to be Songjia Village in the north.”
Lu Lingxi and Yan Yue looked at each other and probably understood what was going on.
The two understood but the police were not sure. After Fang Lei received the call from the hospital, he immediately rushed to the hospital. Directly afterwards, they launched an investigation into these patients who were hospitalised and the patients’ relatives, but nothing unusual was found. After learning that these people were all residents of Songjia Village, Fang Lei again led his men to Songjia Village.
According to Fang Lei’s judgement, this was clearly a case of deliberate poisoning. It was just that he had asked, and although the poisoned people were all from the same village, there were all kinds of people, so it wasn’t a targeted poisoning, but more like an indiscriminate poisoning. Fang Lei was puzzled, how much of a grudge must there be against Songjia?
With this question in mind, Fang Lei rushed to Songjia. In the past few days, the power supply in Song Village was unstable and there were frequent power outages. The people of the village would sometimes go to an old well at the back of the village to fetch water when they needed it urgently. Fang Lei looked around the old well for a long time and ordered someone to collect some water and bring it back for testing. If there was no mistake, this well should be the one that was poisoned. This was also proved by the poisoned patients in the hospital; all the people who had been poisoned had someone in their families to come there to fetch water.
Some villagers looked at the old well and felt happy, “Fortunately, two large water tanks at home were filled up and we didn’t come here to fetch water.”
Fang Lei guessed that it could have been done by people in the village. Taking advantage of the power outage in the village, knowing that the village people were going to use the well, someone deliberately poisoned it. Just before he could say anything, a youngster shouted, “It must be someone from Lingshui Village. Lingshui Village is the only one around here who has a grudge against us.”
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“Lingshui Village? What’s going on?” Fang Lei asked.
Seeing that Fang Lei asked, the young man who spoke added fuel to the fire and told them about the last conflict between the plastic factory and Lingshui Village, with emphasis on the strange incident of the dogs surrounding the plastic factory. The young people in the village didn’t believe in the rumours of a dog king and were determined that someone was behind all this, and that it must have been the people of Lingshui Village.
He spoke in graphic detail; from hearing the wolf howl and discovering that the village dogs were causing trouble until the dogs surrounding the plastic factory and them going out to rescue the people there, the plot was simply a series of twists and turns, ups and downs, and for a while even the few policemen around were fascinated.
“Is it really true?”
“Of course it’s true.” The young man patted his chest and assured that everyone in their village knew about it, and basically everyone in the nearby villages knew about it too, so feel free to go out and ask around, you will definitely not be lied to.
The few villagers around him heard this and nodded, following along with the assurance that what the youngster said was true.
One of the policemen wanted to continue to ask but Fang Lei interrupted him, “What does the truth or falsehood of the story have to do with this case? We are here to solve the case, not to listen to stories.” But what the young man said about the conflict with Lingshui Village was a clue; he could go to Lingshui Village and take a look.
Leaving the two men to continue checking in the village, Fang Lei asked for directions to Lingshui Village and drove there alone. From a distance, he saw a little boy, four or five years old, hiding outside a small courtyard at the entrance of the village, doing something. A big yellow dog was following the little boy.
Not long after, the door of the small courtyard opened and a man in his thirties came out. The little boy’s eyes lit up and he patted the big dog beside him, which lurched forward and blocked the man who had just come out. The man panicked at the sight of the big dog and instinctively tried to run back, but soon there were several more dogs at the entrance to the small courtyard, blocking his retreat.
Because of Dahei, Fang Lei was very interested in dogs and subconsciously watched them carefully. He saw that the dogs behind the man seemed to know the man and hesitated to block his way. But the big yellow dog crouched low and growled threateningly. The dogs behind the man looked very afraid of the big yellow dog and didn’t dare to move after the big yellow had growled at them, firmly blocking the man’s way back.
The man among the dogs was on the verge of tears. Another old dog came out of the yard. This one didn’t seem to be afraid of the big yellow dog outside at all, barking loudly at the big yellow dog. The two dogs faced each other at a distance, and the big yellow dog moved its gaze from the old dog to the man, bared its teeth, turned around and slowly walked away.
The initial interest on Fang Lei’s face turned into surprise. He had the illusion that the two dogs just now seemed to be negotiating. This feeling was too obvious, but how could it be? That big yellow dog looked fierce, so why would it be afraid of an old dog? And why would it retreat? Fang Lei shook his head, thinking that he must have been influenced by Dahei. After seeing such an intelligent dog as Dahei, he seemed to feel that all the dogs around him had become intelligent. When Fang Lei drove past the entrance of the village, the man who had been blocked by the dog before already ran away, but the little boy and the big yellow dog were still in the same place. The big yellow dog was barking in a low voice at the little boy, who nodded in a serious manner, as if he could understand what the big yellow dog was saying.
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The thought was so absurd that Fang Lei collected his thoughts and refocused his mind on the case.
Behind the car, Dong Xiaolei stroked Ah Huang’s head and said seriously, “I see, it’s Dahei who won’t let you scare Xu San, right? Next time Brother Xiao Xi comes, I’m going to talk to Brother Xiao Xi about it. Xu San is a bad guy, we are not doing a bad thing by scaring him, we are doing a good thing, right, Ah Huang?”
The big yellow dog barked, seemingly agreeing with Dong Xiaolei’s words.
Dong Xiaolei hugged Ah Huang and grinned widely.
A wall away from the small courtyard, the old dog squatted on the ground, looked at Uncle Li and barked a few times. Uncle Li sighed. Xu San used to bully Yu Xiaojuan and her son when Yu Xiaojuan’s husband passed away. Xu San would always come to Yu Xiaojuan’s house to make trouble. Who would expect the boy, Xiao Shi, to take it to heart and seek revenge when he found a chance. He realised that Xu San was afraid of dogs, so he asked Ah Huang to come and scare Xu San. Uncle Li thought that next time he would have to talk to Xiao Xi. He couldn’t let Xiao Shi do this. It was good to be able to communicate with dogs, but it had to be used in the right way; Xiao Shi, that boy, couldn’t be allowed to go astray.
Fang Lei didn’t know about these things. He drove straight to Li Dayong, the village chief of Lingshui Village, and asked what happened during the previous conflict with Songjia Village.
“What happened? It’s been a few months ago?” Li Dayong was suspicious and looked at Fang Lei with apprehension.
Fang Lei didn’t hide anything from him and directly told him about the poisoning of most of the people in Songjia Village. Li Dayong, who was honest but not stupid, immediately understood that he suspected them of doing it and immediately complained about injustice, “We did have some conflicts with Songjia, but the matter was settled long ago. Besides, they were the ones who were in the wrong, and they were the ones who bullied people! It was because they had built a plastic factory that was polluting the river behind the village, and I went to them a few times, but they refused to shut it down. How can this poisoning be blamed on our village? Besides, there aren’t many young people in our village, most of us are old men and women. These people don’t look like people who can go and poison anyone, do they?”
Li Dayong was afraid that Fang Lei wouldn’t believe him, and as the village had just counted the insurance contributions, he hurriedly took out the list of contributions and showed it to Fang Lei. From the photos posted it looked like most of the people in the village were really old people and there were not many young people. Fang Lei took a look at the list and then chatted with Li Dayong for a while. When he reached the entrance of the village, he saw the little boy again. The little boy stepped on his dog, trying to climb a tree, but now he was hanging on a branch and couldn’t get up, and his face turned red. Fang Lei laughed, thinking that this little boy was naughty enough. He stopped the car on a whim and walked over towards the little boy.
“Grr.”
The big yellow dog under the little boy’s feet immediately turned its head and growled at him.
Fang Lei wasn’t afraid of dogs, but looking at this dog that was about to pounce if he dared to come any closer, he stopped in his tracks.
When Dong Xiaolei heard the movement behind him, he tugged on the branch and jumped down, looked at Fang Lei and the police car behind him, and said curiously, “Are you a police officer?”
Fang Lei nodded.
Dong Xiaolei’s eyes lit up, “Are you here to catch the bad guy? I know where the bad guy is.”
Fang Lei laughed in his heart and cooperated by asking, “Where is the bad guy?”
“There.” Dong Xiaolei pointed to the courtyard at the entrance of the village, “The bad guy is there. No…” He immediately changed his words, “The bad guy just got off work, now there are only good guys here. Uncle Policeman, do you want to catch the bad guy? I know where the bad guy lives.”
As soon as Fang Lei heard that, he understood that the bad guy in the little boy’s eyes was probably the man he had just scared with his dog. He stifled a laugh and said, “I’m here to catch other bad guys, this one will have to wait for another time.”
“Oh.” Dong Xiaolei muttered with some dissatisfaction but his attention was soon drawn to the other bad guys Fang Lei was talking about, “What bad guys?”
Fang Lei didn’t take it too seriously and said casually, “Someone in the village in front of us has been poisoned by drinking water. I’ve come to catch the bad guy who poisoned the water.”
“Poisoned? Is it a stomach ache from drinking water?”
The people who were sent to the hospital basically had no life-threatening injuries, just stomach pains and physical discomfort. Thinking about it, Fang Lei nodded.
When Dong Xiaolei saw him nod, he immediately shouted, “I know how they were poisoned.”
His cry was tantamount to a stone-shattering shock. Although Fang Lei didn’t think a little kid knew anything, he still couldn’t help asking, “How did they get poisoned?”
Dong Xiaolei blurted out, “They must have drunk the water from the river; Ah Huang said the water in the river was poisonous and his stomach hurt when he drank it.”
Ah Huang… Fang Lei’s eyes fell on the big yellow dog on the side. For a moment the corners of his mouth twitched and he was speechless.
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