Friday night?
Or Saturday?
Or maybe Sunday?
Zhang Shutong ruled out the first option immediately.
No matter how rough Song Nanshan's personality was, he wouldn't go the entire weekend without making a single phone call. Besides, Gu Qiumian's father would surely check in. Tonight was impossible.
He felt this was like some kind of salami-slicing tactic—at least they could slice tonight off the table.
As for whether it was Saturday or Sunday, that wasn't the question he should be considering right now. Zhang Shutong controlled his churning thoughts and focused on the most urgent problem that needed solving—
How to find whoever did these two things.
At that moment, Old Song pulled open the car door. He grabbed his hair and squeezed out a handful of water, his face looking awful:
"Can't get through to her father's phone. It must be on silent over there."
Zhang Shutong glanced at his watch. It was already past seven.
Old Song lit another cigarette, but the roll had gotten wet and wouldn't light no matter how long he tried. He crushed the cigarette and irritably threw it out of the car:
"Li Yipeng's mother has gotten me all nervous too. Technically speaking, smashing a flower pot and poisoning a dog isn't that big a deal. Well, of course, it is pretty serious. What I mean is I'm just afraid the dog poisoning was done to enable something else..."
"So there's something very strange about this." Zhang Shutong wiped the water from his temple.
"How so?"
"Poisoning the dog and smashing the flower pots together is contradictory." Zhang Shutong frowned. "Gu Qiumian's housekeeper is a live-in housekeeper, right?"
"Right..."
"But these two things—one is meant to eliminate noise, the other is specifically meant to create noise, so..."
Old Song already understood:
"You're saying that if someone really wanted to secretly do something else, they shouldn't have smashed the flower pots?"
"Exactly."
"So it's just simple venting?"
"Hard to say." Zhang Shutong naturally hoped that was the case, but right now all he could say was, "Let's call the police."
Old Song picked up his phone. The two men huddled in the car, silently staring at that lit window in the villa.
The call connected quickly.
"Hello, hello, can you hear me..." The signal wasn't good. Maybe the villa had a signal receiver installed, but they were outside. "Hello comrade, my name is Song Nanshan, I'm a teacher at Yingcai Junior High... That's right, right now at my student's house... Yes, you should have heard of them, Gu Jianhong's daughter... A guard dog was poisoned to death... Yes, I suspect it's retaliation arising from a business dispute, yes yes... What?"
Song Nanshan suddenly frowned.
He quickly said a few more sentences, hung up the phone, cursed, and slapped his phone down on the steering wheel.
"What's the situation?" Zhang Shutong immediately asked.
"They're brushing it off." Old Song said angrily.
"The police don't know about the conflict between her family and Commercial Street?"
"It's precisely because they know that they're acting this way. On one side is a big boss, on the other are the island residents. If they don't handle it well it's a powder keg—they can't avoid it fast enough. Just now they told me they don't have enough manpower, three officers left the island on business, the station is busy right now. They can come patrol and take a look in a bit, but for a dead dog they'll have to wait until tomorrow to investigate..."
Zhang Shutong said nothing. The fact was exactly that—except for himself, no one could connect a dog to human life.
Old Song said sullenly:
"What kind of bullshit excuse is that? They all just happened to leave the island today, is that it?"
Zhang Shutong knew that the island's police station only had five or six officers total. Now half of them were gone, and you had to subtract one dispatcher—they really might not dispatch officers for this kind of thing.
"It might not be an excuse." He reminded Old Song. "The day before yesterday they just arrested two poachers, and they had guns too. It's really possible they're escorting them to the city's Public Security Bureau."
"Then let's just call her." Old Song suddenly seemed to make some kind of decision. As he flipped through his contacts, he muttered, "When I looked at her yesterday, she didn't seem all that fond of that dog anyway..."
Soon the call connected, and the piano music in the music room stopped accordingly.
"Hey Qiumian, have you eaten? I just noticed your dog doesn't seem to be moving... Oh, it was already an old dog... No need to worry about it... Alright then, your housekeeper doesn't leave at night, right? Mm-hmm, I'm just asking if you're okay. Shutong and I, we're about to go find a place to eat. Alright then, pay attention tonight, don't go out, I'll come over first thing tomorrow morning..."
Old Song was about to hang up when Zhang Shutong grabbed him:
"Wait, have her ask the housekeeper if she heard any unusual sounds today."
After a while, the person on the other end of the line responded. Old Song shook his head to indicate no.
"Then what did she have for dinner?"
"You're..." Old Song didn't even know what to say. He steeled himself and asked with concern again, repeating the answer as he went: "Sweet and sour pork ribs, braised fish, fried eggs, and she made an old duck soup... Pretty abundant, it's fine, the teacher was just worried you weren't eating well, now I'm relieved..."
'Any more questions?' Old Song indicated with his eyes.
Zhang Shutong shook his head.
Song Nanshan finally hung up the phone, but right up until the end, he still didn't tell her the truth.
He silently stared at the windshield. He was about to pull out a cigarette to smoke, but then suddenly thought of something and slapped his thigh, startling Zhang Shutong:
"Right, Shutong, I just thought of this—your parents don't usually come home anyway, why don't we just have Qiumian stay at your place? This time it's not to set you two up, I'm serious. My dorm can't accommodate people, there's just a single bed, it's not like you don't know..."
Zhang Shutong considered the feasibility of this plan:
"That works, but not tonight."
Tonight Gu Qiumian wouldn't be in danger. You could say this was precious "safe time." Maybe only tonight could he temporarily not worry about her personally and instead begin investigating more clues.
"What are you being stubborn about now, kid? No, we don't need your consent. I'm making this decision." Old Song said and was about to make the call.
Zhang Shutong saw this and said helplessly:
"The person who poisoned the dog has already left."
"Who knows when they'll come back?" Old Song stared directly at him, feeling like this kid wasn't just a matter of being dense anymore.
"If we go look now, we can still make it in time."
"What do you mean?" Song Nanshan was stunned. He discovered that this student of his seemed to have changed completely. Clearly he used to be a quiet little brat, but now he was staring at him with burning eyes.
"I roughly have a lead."
Zhang Shutong pulled out his phone and glanced at the time again. The water from his hair dripped down his chin bit by bit, and his pants were also gradually getting soaked, but he was completely oblivious:
"So right now we have other things to do. If we really can't find any clues tonight, then tomorrow we'll..."
Speaking to this point, Zhang Shutong felt there wasn't much point in timing this gap precisely, so he changed his words:
"Then we'll pick up Gu Qiumian and take her to my place in a bit."
"We still have to investigate?" Old Song was somewhat reluctant. "Then it's fine to have Qiumian come along too..."
"I don't care either way, but you're the one who doesn't want to worry her."
"True." Old Song sighed and was finally convinced. He started the car, only then realizing a problem. "I almost let you lead me astray. Why do you have to investigate tonight? Before, I agreed because we had nothing else to do, it was just entertainment for us two. Now isn't there a more important matter right in front of us..."
As he spoke, Song Nanshan caught on:
"Wait, you already have a lead, kid?"
"There are two key points: the dog and the flower pots." The Focus slowly drove out of the road in front of the villa. Zhang Shutong looked out the car window at the darkness: "I haven't figured out the dog yet, but the flower pot is a crucial clue."
This wasn't the time to keep them in suspense. He explained directly:
"I looked at the distance of that row of flower pots. They're not far from the house. We could hear Gu Qiumian playing piano just now, which means the soundproofing isn't that good.
"So then, to smash an entire row of flower pots without letting the housekeeper hear the sound, what time would they choose?"
"When she's sleeping?"
"No." Zhang Shutong shook his head. "Like I said, it's not one flower pot. One flower pot might not attract attention, but an entire row of flower pots not attracting attention is only possible in one scenario—"
He directly gave the answer:
"That's when it's covered up by an even louder noise.
"What's left is to figure out what sound would be that loud. Cleaning, not enough. Making the bed, still not enough. Even doing laundry isn't enough. I was just thinking about this problem, but there's one thing that qualifies..."
In his peripheral vision, Old Song was staring intently at the road ahead, but had long since pricked up his ears. Zhang Shutong took one last look at the villa:
"That's the range hood.
"Only the range hood, and it can only be during dinner. Breakfast is generally simple, she eats out at lunch, and the housekeeper probably just makes do when eating alone. But dinner is different—three meat dishes, all types with a lot of cooking smoke.
"So that's why you asked what she ate?" Song Nanshan belatedly realized.
The car began to accelerate. The transmission shifted into second gear, then immediately switched to third. They drove onto the small road they'd come from, the hazy lights illuminating the outline ahead.
"There's one more thing that can prove this point." Zhang Shutong just nodded and also began to speed up his speech. "Dogs need to be fed. Since it was poisoned to death and the housekeeper still hasn't discovered it, it couldn't have been morning or noon. And it's not just feeding the dog—she could discover it coming out to water flowers or throw out garbage.
"So they definitely had to time the dog poisoning for a period when they could ensure she absolutely wouldn't come out. That can only be evening.
"Only during this time period is the housekeeper preparing food for Gu Qiumian. After she finishes cooking, Qiumian should be almost home. After she finishes eating and cleans up the dishes, it's roughly now. Who would still come out at this time? Even if someone discovers it, it would only be tomorrow morning.
"So in the end we only need to confirm one question: what time does dinner preparation start? Five o'clock is about right. So if we broaden the time from five o'clock this afternoon to now, the three of us left the school gates and went to Gu Qiumian's villa—actually, we only saw one so-called figure—"
The car entered a curve. At this moment Old Song heavily slapped the steering wheel. In the lonely night, a harsh honking sound immediately rang out. He couldn't help but curse, though he didn't forget to shift into fourth gear, blurting out:
"That van!"