TFS Chapter 14

Su Ting quickly noticed her gaffe, lowered her head again, and returned to her silent state.

“Do Guan Linger and Gao Liyang seem to be in a relationship?” Shen Qing’s voice was gentle, trying to appease the girl in front of her, but Zhang Shun did not move his scrutinizing gaze away.

Su Ting first glanced in Chen Fang’s direction, and unintentionally saw Zhang Shun staring straight at her, her face quickly turning red, “I don’t know, but they are very good friends. Sister Linger takes good care of us.”

“Not everyone at school necessarily likes them, right? Is there anyone who has been unsuccessfully pursuing love and harbors resentment?” Shen Qing thought of the possibility of a crime of passion.

Su Ting flinched a little, “No, they haven’t confirmed they’re together yet, Gao Liyang doesn’t care about these things at all, it’s useless if only Guan Linger is enthusiastic…”

As soon as she finished speaking, Chen Fang stood up and walked to the desk. Knowing that taking statements would still take some time, she quickly pressed the capsule coffee machine and made a cup of coffee for everyone.

Several people took the coffee and thanked her, Su Ting hesitated, and she looked at Shen Qing and Zhang Shun again, “I really don’t know either, there are just some rumors at school.”

“Do you know Lu Jie and Chu Wenli?”

Su Ting nodded, “They are in the same grade as me. I’ve heard of them. We’ve met, but I don’t know them.”
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“Does the student council do so few things that they often offend people outside of the students?” Zhang Shun asked urgently.

Su Ting’s heart tightened, she didn’t dare to look directly at Zhang Shun, “Things at school are trivial, the Film Academy is different from other comprehensive universities, the students here are more concerned about their future.”

Chen Fang nodded, adding, “Officer, especially your performance department is indeed different from other departments. It’s like thousands of people are crossing a single-plank bridge, and there are very few who can actually cross the bridge. It’s difficult to get into acting, natural conditions, ability, connections, and luck are all very important.”

Zhang Shun restrained his thoughts and continued drinking his coffee calmly.

*

At the entrance of the police station, a luxurious business car was parked not far away. Shen Qing saw the car from inside their vehicle and patted the window, “Boss, it seems like it’s looking for you.”

Zhang Shun glanced at the license plate number of the car outside the window, Jiang A88888. His face was gloomy, and he didn’t say a word.

“I’ll just go in myself, Boss, you guys have a good chat.” Shen Qing said, then had Zhang Shun park the car aside. She went back to the team first to busy herself with the investigation matters at hand.

Zhang Shun scratched his hair, a hint of impatience faintly suppressed in his eyes. He got out of the car and rudely patted the window of the business car, “Why are you here?”

The person inside the car slowly lowered the window, revealing half of a face hidden in the light and shadow. On closer inspection, it looked five parts similar to Zhang Shun. His features were distinct, his lines were tough, his eyes were bright as if they could see through people’s hearts, like a lone mountain, giving off an aura that could not be surpassed.

“Jun-ge couldn’t convince you, so I had to come myself. Get out of the car and talk.” The man sitting steadily inside said, and the driver sitting in the back row hurriedly got out of the car to open the door.

“I’m not so useless that I can’t open the door myself.” Zhang Shun said unhappily, refusing the driver’s kindness.

The atmosphere inside the car was a little heavy. Zhang Shun looked at the man inside, but his heart was surging.

“Weren’t you on a business trip?” Zhang Shun said coldly.

Zhang Yu smiled faintly, “I was going, but Dad isn’t just your dad, he’s in bad health, I always have to tell him. If you can’t come back in a short time, and there’s something urgent, he can’t feel like he gave birth to an unfilial son.”

Hearing Zhang Yu’s words, Zhang Shun’s expression softened slightly. He glared at Zhang Yu, “Stop using Dad as an excuse, what’s wrong with his health? Doesn’t the provincial medical team have regular check-ups?”

“The doctors from the medical team said that Dad’s body needs rest. I don’t know how many things in the province need him to make decisions. Meetings are one after another, and you can’t help with anything.” Zhang Yu said, adjusting his cufflinks while looking at his older brother, Zhang Shun.

Zhang Shun didn’t speak. Since more than ten years ago, the relationship between their family had become very delicate. The culprit was Zhang Yu, who was right in front of him, at least that’s what Zhang Shun thought.

“You know, you should come back and see when you have time.” Zhang Shun said, “If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave.”

“When will you have time?” Zhang Yu asked back, looking at him again.

Zhang Shun was choked by him, “If there are fewer people like me in society, you will naturally have time.” He also refused to be outdone.

Some people say that brothers are also enemies from the previous life. Zhang Shun strongly agreed.

But Zhang Yu wasn’t angry when he heard this, he just smiled, “In short, that’s also my dad, it’s not just you who has the obligation to be filial. After I protect the people’s property and life safety, I’ll think about my father first.”

Zhang Shun didn’t say anything more, and directly opened the car door and left. Zhang Yu looked at his back as he walked into the police station from the car window, his eyes obscure and inexplicable. The relationship between their brothers might never be repaired from the beginning when they chose sides.

*

After being sealed off for several days, Huasheng Film and Television Base became quiet and desolate, and the streets were empty.

The general manager’s office was filled with smoke. The responsible manager, Chen Feng, was a little apprehensive. He had been rotating between various crews these past few days, running around trying to keep afloat. Because of this case, other projects that were still being filmed were affected. Almost every day, people from the base were calling him to inquire about the unsealing time, and they had to calculate all the costs of the delayed work on Huasheng’s head, but the legal department’s judgment based on the current conditions was ambiguous, and it was difficult to predict whether the judge would determine that the sealing of the base was an act of force majeure.

It wasn’t until the secretary knocked on the door to announce that the police officers had arrived that Zhou Lingyuan’s eyes changed.

After Chi Zijian and Chen Can showed their work permits, without any extra formalities, Chen Can patted Chen Feng’s stiff back regarding the unsealing question that Chen Feng asked, “If you want to unseal as soon as possible, you have to actively cooperate with our work. If we find out the truth, it will naturally be unsealed.”

“That’s natural, we will definitely cooperate.” Chen Feng said, wiping the cold sweat that hadn’t yet seeped out of his forehead.

“We carefully examined the architectural floor plan that we took, and saw that the printing date was two years ago. Do you still have the earliest version from before that?” Chi Zijian asked.

Zhou Lingyuan thought for a while, “Our company generally has several different specifications and batches of film and television bases according to the land area. The soft furnishings inside may be different, but the hard furnishings are almost the same. The engineering department has them, I’ll have someone send the electronic version over.”

Chi Zijian nodded, “Then that would be great. Also, regarding the adjacent crews at that time, we learned that on June 19th, they hired some martial arts teachers as extras. They were filming a night scene. I wonder if we can contact the director and the costume and styling teacher? We still have some questions we want to ask them.”

Chen Feng looked at Zhou Lingyuan, Zhou Lingyuan said, “Go arrange it. If they want to be unsealed, they also have to actively cooperate with the police work.”

After taking the architectural floor plan, Chi Zijian and Chen Can entered the scene again.

From the earliest floor plan to the current version, the difference was not large. It mainly involved the modification and reconstruction of fire protection measures, etc. It did not involve the secret space or hidden doors, or other escape exits that they had envisioned.

“In that case, hiding in the crowd is the most inconspicuous.” Chen Can sighed and continued, “We’ve already watched the surveillance for several days, but we haven’t found anything.”

“It’s expected, many extras are paid by the day. Not to mention you, even the aunt who sells box lunches in the base can’t clearly explain exactly how many people eat working meals here every day, and she can only make a rough estimate. The murderer chose this place for a reason of concealment.” Chi Zijian looked at the blood bags and camera props in the prop box one by one, they were made very realistically.

“But if the murderer chose this place in order to hide the trajectory of the crime, then why kill so many people? Could it be to confuse us, a false intention? Among these seven people, we can’t find any second commonality besides the crew.” Chen Can was a little discouraged, “I originally thought that after doing these years of criminal investigation, I finally encountered a major case that could showcase my ability, but we haven’t even found out the murderer’s motive.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with their work. This crew has actual work strength. Except for Yan Haoyu’s script, which we can’t verify now, the others are real. People’s inferiority may cause them to be jealous of others who are doing well, but people have strength, no one will kill so many people just because they are envious.” Chi Zijian analyzed.

“Could it be aimed at the director, Shang Chao? His state of being victimized at the scene is the most suspicious.” Chen Can proposed a new view.

“Perhaps we will have to visit other crews in the same period to see what other people think of Shang Chao.”

Just as the two were talking, Chen Feng waved to them inside the cordon.

The group returned to the general manager’s office again. Zhou Lingyuan was no longer there. Chen Feng saw the two police officers’ scrutiny and said, “President Zhou has a dinner appointment at noon that he really couldn’t refuse. I was there the whole time. The crew you want to find, the director is still revising the script today, they live in the business hotel that comes with our film and television base, I will write down the address and room number for you later. This is the costume and props teacher, Tong Meng.”

Chi Zijian looked at the empty office, “Let’s take Tong Meng’s statement first.” In his heart, he was thinking about whether to thoroughly investigate Zhou Lingyuan’s background.

Tong Meng, thirty-four years old, active among various crews, specializing in actor costumes and styling design, mainly for costume dramas. She dresses fashionably, her clothes are simple yet stylish, showing that her income is considerable.

Chi Zijian explained the intention of inviting her over, she thought for a moment, and said, “At that time, the director asked you to prepare 10 sets of night suits, because at that time, your script was that these night people came from another prairie ethnic group, so their hairstyles all had the braiding characteristics of this ethnic group in history. So I remember it more clearly, but you only prepared 9 sets, the procurement business only had 9 sets, because of this, the director also had some opinions on you, saying that you could only adjust the personnel positioning on the spot.”

“Were all 9 sets used? Do you remember how many extras there were with martial arts skills at that time?” Chen Can asked.

Tong Meng replied without much thought, “Of course they were all used, and there was also a teacher who didn’t wear a night suit, so a small leader character was added, he wore a straw-woven veil hat.”

“What is a veil hat?” He continued to ask.

“It’s a straw-woven hat with a layer of tulle inside, generally used to hide the identity of a mysterious person. Speaking of this, I remembered one more thing.” Tong Meng recalled, “That veil hat was found by your assistant, he was mainly responsible for hairstyles, and then he looked for half a day and couldn’t find it and complained that other people in the props group took things randomly, it took a lot of effort, and then he found it mixed with the knives, and a cameraman helped to find it.”

Chen Can asked Tong Meng to simply draw the movement distribution of the day, and asked her to take them to the prop room to find the veil hat.

…

Not long after, Chen Can opened his phone and started taking pictures of the knife box and veil hat. Chi Zijian carefully checked all the knives in the knife box. There were still many suspected blood stains around the box, but it was impossible to tell whether it was artificial blood or real blood. They left Tong Meng their contact information, and the two of them took the evidence back to the police station.

When these exhibits appeared in Zhang Shun’s office, Lin Tan also entered Zhang Shun’s office with the evidence report from Yan Haoyu’s home. Looking at the table full of scattered knives and items, he frowned, “The evidence department is in trouble again.”

Zhang Shun took the test report he handed over. DNA was detected from the toothbrush and matched in the database. They finally locked in the mysterious woman from Yan Haoyu’s house, “The DNA belongs to two people?” Zhang Shun looked at the gentle-eyed girl in the photo, this person had not appeared in their sight before.

Lin Tan hinted, “This boy is called Chen Yi, she also has a twin sister.”

Zhang Shun raised his eyebrows slightly, pondered for a moment, and thought of that person, “Chen Xin.”

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