"What do you want to drink?"
Zhang Shutong asked Gu Qiumian.
"They actually have yuanyang milk tea?"
She leaned her head over from the back of the line, looking at the price list in the shop, as if this was her first time here.
"They do, but I'd advise you not to get your hopes up."
Zhang Shutong knew that yuanyang milk tea was a mixture of milk tea and coffee, a style that became popular from tea restaurants. The more particular places would even add condensed milk, but that was absolutely impossible at a small shop like this.
The so-called "yuanyang" was probably yuanyang-flavored milk tea powder mixed with hot water. Hearing this, Gu Qiumian lost interest and said to just order whatever, anything but strawberry flavor—she couldn't stand that one.
Zhang Shutong nodded, telling her to browse the street but not to wander too far, while he went to queue up alone—there were some things he needed to ask that weren't suitable for her to hear.
Six people stood in line ahead of him. It would probably take several minutes. He recalled the intelligence Ruoping had provided.
——This "Come Get a Cup" milk tea shop wasn't a mom-and-pop operation, but strangely enough, both husband and wife took turns helping out there.
According to Ruoping, it used to always be the woman working, but suddenly one day, about a week ago, it switched to the woman's husband. When they came to the Hometown Lake Fish Restaurant for dinner that time, the milk tea was made by that man.
And today it was the woman again.
Zhang Shutong immediately made three deductions:
First, the couple taking turns helping out was definitely not the norm. Either the shop could support the whole family with both of them there, or one of them had another job.
Therefore, that "one week" rotation period probably meant something had happened at home.
The second deduction: looking at the woman's age, in her forties, about the same age as Gu Qiumian's family's housekeeper, her child was probably his age, attending middle school—right when expenses were high.
He observed the woman's clothing—two dirty sleeve covers, an apron washed until it was faded white. Then he saw the phone on the counter, still a button phone, which fit the hypothesis of modest economic circumstances.
As for the third, rather than a deduction, it was more of a puzzle.
In his view, the "culprit's" family shop must be barely surviving, which would drive them to take desperate risks, but this milk tea shop seemed to be doing decent business—one of the few places on the street with a queue.
But whether speculation or puzzle, the answer would be revealed soon enough. He just needed to wait patiently.
Besides waiting for milk tea, he was also waiting for Du Kang's reply.
Not long ago, Du Kang had messaged saying he could see the outline of the Gu family villa from a distance. He should have ridden there by now.
Sure enough, the next second his phone notification came. Du Kang indicated he'd safely arrived at the "castle" and even sent a photo.
The scene in the photo was similar to what they'd seen in the morning—a wild field, but with less mist.
Zhang Shutong glanced at the time. Just past eleven o'clock—meal preparation time.
"Good." He quickly made further arrangements. "...But you must be careful. If anything seems wrong, just bike away."
Du Kang replied with an "OK" emoji, saying to just wait for his good news.
Five people remained in the queue ahead of him.
His chat with Du Kang had taken about three minutes. This shop's milk tea was made from instant powder—just add hot water. Even calculating generously, one minute per cup would be enough.
Zhang Shutong observed the woman's operation process and overturned his previous guess—
The reason for the queue wasn't that business was particularly good.
Rather, the woman wasn't very practiced at the operation. Even with the simplest milk tea powder, she often couldn't find the right flavor and had to rummage for ages.
When it was finally Zhang Shutong's turn, he ordered two of the most complicated ones, everything added—pudding, pearls, Oreos, all maxed out—using this opportunity to chat with her.
Zhang Shutong opened with "Auntie, it's been a while."
The woman was quite amiable. Hearing this, her face lit up with a smile, saying what a coincidence, this was actually her first day back—her husband had been manning the shop before.
She opened a container and complained how he'd only caused trouble, working just a few days but rearranging everything into a mess so she couldn't find anything.
After chatting a bit more, Zhang Shutong learned she'd twisted her ankle a few days ago and couldn't stand for long, so her husband temporarily helped out.
"So Uncle can finally rest for a few days." Zhang Shutong deliberately fished for information.
"Not at all. As soon as I came in today, he went back to his busy work."
"To his job?"
"Can't really call it proper work," the woman said dismissively with a jerk of her chin. "Look, just at that mall."
"That mall" naturally meant the one owned by Gu Qiumian's family.
Zhang Shutong caught the key words:
"Really? I just came back from there."
"You students all like going there now, running wherever it's lively."
"Not really. I specially made a detour to buy milk tea—" Zhang Shutong forced a smile despite feeling nauseated, "Auntie's milk tea is still the best. Can't buy it in the mall."
Anyway, he picked only nice things to say, and the woman chimed in, "Exactly, exactly. What's so great about the mall? Let me tell you, the stuff they sell there is exactly the same as what's on our street. Like those clothes—same place gets the goods, but once they hang them on the rack, the price immediately jumps by dozens of yuan. Unconscionable business."
Once the topic turned to the mall, sure enough she wasn't smiling anymore, with little good to say.
Zhang Shutong knew his opportunity had come, so he casually asked if she'd heard about what happened last night—it wouldn't stay secret much longer anyway.
The woman sighed, her tone rather complex, saying the news had spread pretty fast, but did he know? Those people were from their Commercial Street, arrested by the police. Everyone disliked the Boss Gu's family, true, but doing that kind of thing was going a bit far.
Her expression didn't seem fake.
Zhang Shutong observed carefully for a moment. Seemed the woman belonged to the second faction.
Similar to the Hometown Lake Fish Restaurant's owner—disliked them, but not enough to have a falling out.
Honestly, at this point, he could basically rule out the milk tea shop. The culprit surely wouldn't skip revenge to specifically go work for Gu-father at the mall—in the extremists' eyes, that would be tantamount to surrender.
But Zhang Shutong had finally found a target meeting the conditions, so for the sake of certainty, he made one final confirmation:
"Then why does Uncle still go work at the mall?"
"I don't know what he's thinking either. I've tried to talk him out of it several times—you can make a living anywhere, why specifically run there, putting up with people's attitudes every day, isn't that bad luck? But he won't listen. What can I do?"
The woman was adding pearls and, after speaking, threw the metal spoon onto the counter with a crisp clattering sound.
"Uncle doesn't resent the Gu family?" Zhang Shutong asked with feigned surprise.
"How could he not? He curses them to high heaven, especially after drinking a bit—guaranteed to curse them bloody, even bringing our son along to curse with him. I tell my son not to learn from his dad, but he won't listen either."
The woman put her hands on her hips, grumbling:
"Damn troublemakers. Since I can't control them, I just let them be."
Seemed like every middle-aged woman habitually cursed her own family a few times. His own mother was rather atypical in that regard.
But though the woman said this, she didn't seem to take it too seriously, as if cursing the Gu family a few times was a heaven-given right—not cursing would be abnormal. As long as they didn't get physical, that already counted as magnanimous.
This reminded Zhang Shutong of Li Yipeng. Growing up in such an environment, it was hard to say the child wouldn't be affected.
Now only one question remained: was the woman's husband actually the mastermind behind the "six minus one" he was looking for?
From any angle, it seemed somewhat forced.
Zhang Shutong held a pessimistic attitude.
Unless the man going to "work" at the mall was a lie to his family, and he was actually doing something else.
But that still didn't explain why he went to work at the mall. They couldn't deduce from this alone that he harbored ill intentions.
Or there was another possibility—the culprit from the original timeline, because the arson case happened early, was afraid of being caught, so temporarily canceled this weekend's action.
But as he'd told Qingyi before, their abilities were limited. If they tried to figure out the culprit's circumstances, there were simply too many possibilities.
Being scared off by the "kill the chicken to warn the monkeys" could make them cancel the action; drinking too much cold water in the morning and getting diarrhea could make them cancel; the possibility they simply hadn't planned to act today couldn't be ruled out either...
So figuring out "possibilities" had no meaning whatsoever.
Rather, use reverse thinking—
No matter how many possibilities existed, what Zhang Shutong had to do was eliminate them all cleanly, leaving only one:
That the culprit would definitely act today, on Saturday, December 8th.
Maybe it was drawing the target before shooting the arrow, but without this target, it would be difficult to conduct any investigation.
Otherwise they could only mark time.
He roughly understood the situation. With a bit of a headache, he'd already taken out his phone preparing to continue checking shops with Ruoping.
On the other side, the milk tea he'd ordered was almost ready—pudding and pearls stuffed full in a large cup, only the crushed Oreos not yet added.
Just then, he heard the woman call back:
"Stop just hugging that computer playing around. Bring the Oreos out for Mom—"
Her husband had gone out, so the person she was speaking to could only be the "son" she'd just mentioned.
The woman urged several times before there was movement from the storage room in back.
A cloth curtain hung over the storage room. The person reached out from behind the curtain, handing over the large container of Oreos to his mother.
Zhang Shutong's gaze moved from that hand to the large Oreo container, looking thoughtful.
So that's how it is...
All the clues came together in this moment.
He really did have a connection with Oreos.
"Where does Uncle work in the mall?" he suddenly asked. "Maybe I even ran into him."
"Him? He's in the supermarket inside, there's a prepared foods counter there."
As she spoke, the woman had completed the final preparation. She placed the milk tea under the sealing machine and smiled:
"Next time you want pig head meat or pig ears or something, just go find him there. Tell him you're from Come Get a Cup milk tea shop and he'll cut you some extra."
"Thanks, Auntie."
Zhang Shutong also smiled.
Next, he only needed to confirm one thing.
The operation officially entered the third phase—
...
"What did Shutong say?" Feng Ruoping watched as Qingyi stared intently at his phone. A second ago, another new message had arrived.
The two had just walked out of the mall, discussing where to go. Qingyi's bike was gone, but hers was too small, a typical women's bicycle that would struggle carrying two people, so they wandered aimlessly nearby.
Who told Shutong to give them the instruction to "stand by for now"?
She thought somewhat helplessly that "stand by for now" might mean they temporarily couldn't go anywhere.
The girl was getting a bit tired. Today she'd come happily to go shopping—how did it turn into just wandering the streets?
The scene before her eyes was rather desolate. People coming and going—to find the so-called "culprit" from this sea of humanity, even if Shutong's brain was exceptional, she felt it was impossible.
Might as well have listened to her from the start and stayed at the police station.
Surely they couldn't claim the few of them were more capable than the police.
Just as this thought arose, things seemed to take a new turn.
Qingyi suddenly turned off his phone:
"We need to go back."
"Don't tell me someone forgot something..." Feng Ruoping said weakly.
Or was it related to that "operation entering phase two" line he'd sent in the group earlier? These boys were always so mysterious—so childish.
"No, it's to find a place in the supermarket." The boy frowned. "A prepared foods counter. Do you remember it?"
"Selling prepared foods... should be on the north side." Feng Ruoping asked curiously, "So why is it the prepared foods counter now? Didn't he say earlier he found a suspicious shop on Commercial Street? How did the investigation go?"
"There's a lead." Qingyi said briefly. "Let's go first, then we'll talk. He wants us to hurry..."
"He's got it good, going on a date himself while making us run around..." Before finishing her sentence, she noticed Qingyi had already turned and run off. The girl could only stamp her foot in annoyance and quickly follow. "Slow down! I'm not wearing sneakers today!"
...
"Is your family's auntie nearsighted?" Handing a fully loaded milk tea to Gu Qiumian, Zhang Shutong asked casually.
"A little, I think?" Gu Qiumian said uncertainly. "She has glasses but doesn't wear them often. I'm not sure how bad it is."
Zhang Shutong nodded.
That explained it.
He sent another new message to Du Kang on his phone.
"I might need to trouble you in a bit." The two of them walked toward the bicycles holding their milk teas. Zhang Shutong patted the rear seat. "I'm taking you somewhere now."
...
"He left?" Meng Qingyi panted. "Just left? To the bathroom?"
The prepared foods counter was empty except for the pig liver hanging on hooks.
Next to the counter was a stall selling scallion pancakes, with a plump woman in a white apron inside.
The plump woman was kneading dough. She wiped flour from her face with her pinky, not even looking up as she called out:
"No, he said there was suddenly something urgent at home. First day on the job and he's already left. You two walk around and come back in a bit—the manager will arrange someone else soon."
Meng Qingyi recalled what Shutong had told him and asked again:
"Did he have anything unusual about him when he came today?"
The woman couldn't help but laugh:
"You two kids playing detective games? Just like my youngest son—all day holding that what's-it-called Adventure Tiger Team book."
Then she waved them away:
"Go on, go on, I'm busy here. Go play somewhere else if you want."
"It's Adventure Young Tigers..."
"Stop arguing." Ruoping pushed Qingyi aside with distaste, first sweetly calling out "Auntie," then saying she'd buy five yuan worth of pancakes. While the woman was busy, she chatted about her youngest son—how old he was this year, what grade he should be in... The woman said third grade, and Qingyi's face immediately darkened.
Anyway, once the woman's chatterbox was opened, Ruoping pushed Qingyi forward, signaling him to ask whatever he wanted quickly.
Only then did the woman say with a mix of tears and laughter that the girl didn't need to go through so much trouble. Mainly Auntie really didn't know what to say—what counted as unusual?
Saying this, she subconsciously recalled:
"Nothing really different. Just chatting while working, talking about how the boss's house got burned yesterday, asking if we knew."
"And then?"
"Who would know about such a big thing? I thought he was lying, but then in the morning the manager suddenly called us out for a meeting, saying no matter what we heard, don't spread it around. The boss was sending people back today..."
"This morning?"
"Around ten-something."
"That's right before we came?" Ruoping interjected.
"Then it all connects." Qingyi suddenly understood. "No wonder he came to work today—it was for this news."
"What do you mean?"
"This isn't a good place to talk. Let's walk and talk."
It was the lunch rush now. After just a few questions, other customers came. But the boy seemed to have gotten the intelligence he wanted and called Ruoping to leave.
"We can basically confirm who it is now." Qingyi walked while typing, suddenly sighing. "A blind cat catching a dead mouse."
"You're the blind cat."
"I'm not talking about us. I'm talking about that man. In a certain sense, his luck is pretty good. Now he doesn't have to worry about who it is."
"Try being cryptic one more time?" Ruoping extended her devil claws.
"Shutong just told me he and Gu Qiumian came here to buy pig liver."
"And then?"
"Then it's just like what we heard. As soon as they left, the guy selling pig liver left too."