Zhu Qing had come this time intending to ask Sheng Peirong about the connection between Cheng Zhaoqian and the deceased He Jia'er, but unexpectedly, she stumbled upon new leads from the nurses' idle chatter.
Investigating with a child in tow was inconvenient, especially when that child happened to be the young master of the prestigious Sheng family.
Outside the sanatorium, Zhu Qing glanced around, preparing to send him home first.
Sheng Fang had a bad feeling: "What are you looking for?"
"Checking where the minibus stop is."
"Minibus?!" The little master's voice shot up an octave. "Call a taxi!"
Zhu Qing silently turned out her two pockets, letting the fabric flap in the air.
"What does that mean?"
"Empty."
The locations of affluent neighborhoods were always so impractical—winding roads up the hillside, requiring multiple transfers even for minibuses...
Not to mention taxis, where the meter could climb high enough to make her wince.
"Check again?" Sheng Fang refused to give up, stomping his foot indignantly. "How can you be this broke?"
Zhu Qing shot back: "Do you have money?"
The young master of the Sheng family nearly bristled with outrage.
Since when did young masters have to carry their own spending money?
Outside the sanatorium, the stoic policewoman and the temperamental young master were at a standoff.
Until a black sedan pulled up beside them.
"Madam." Sheng Peishan's voice remained gentle and composed. Her gaze then fell on her younger brother, shaking her head in resignation. "Misbehaving again?"
Sheng Peishan politely invited Zhu Qing into the car to drop her off at the police station.
The second young miss's personal maid, Aunt Liu, sat in the back with her, while Sheng Fang—small enough—squeezed into the space between them. Zhu Qing took the passenger seat.
It was clear that Sheng Fang rarely went out and had never ridden in his second sister's customized car. The modified sedan had a strong mechanical aesthetic, and the little one craned his neck to examine all the switches.
"Thank you, Madam, for looking after my brother."
"I heard from Maid Zhang that you came specifically to bring toys for him. My apologies for rushing out earlier without greeting you properly." Sheng Peishan paused before continuing, "The person inside is my sister..."
"With so many sudden changes at home recently, some oversights were inevitable. I never expected my little brother to hide in the trunk. Thankfully, Madam was alert."
After expressing her gratitude and apologies, the second young miss fell silent.
The nurses had mentioned how close the sisters were—even after Sheng Peirong became comatose, Sheng Peishan still insisted on reading the newspaper to her every month.
Zhu Qing recalled the scene from yesterday afternoon: Sheng Peishan sitting by the curved floor-to-ceiling windows of the hillside villa.
When the Serious Crimes Team B wrapped up, Mo Shazhan had specifically told her they’d contact her again once the autopsy report was ready.
At the time, Sheng Peishan had also spoken softly, saying, "Thank you for your hard work, officers."
As if she had mustered every ounce of strength just to maintain her dignity.
"That place—" Sheng Fang suddenly piped up, "Is that the Yau Ma Tei Police Station?"
As the car approached the station’s entrance, the young master recognized the familiar location from TV and nearly leaned his entire upper body out the window.
The driver panicked, slamming on the brakes.
"Young master!" Aunt Liu immediately grabbed the child to steady him.
Sheng Peishan also chided, "That’s dangerous."
The sudden jolt sent loose items tumbling from the storage compartment.
Zhu Qing bent down to help pick them up.
The curly-haired young master, now restrained by Aunt Liu, couldn’t squirm free—but his heart had already flown off to the impressive West Kowloon Serious Crimes Unit.
...
The moment Zhu Qing returned to the CID office, she knocked on Mo Zhenbang’s door.
After hearing her out, Mo Zhenbang pondered for a moment.
"You suspect that Chen Chaosheng and He Jia'er weren’t actually in a relationship?"
According to Zhong Rujun, He Jia'er had grand ambitions.
Would someone like that really be so lovelorn as to threaten a married man? Zhu Qing didn’t buy it.
"Every participant in the Hong Kong Journalism Rising Stars Program receives a commemorative gift—a dark green leather notebook with gold embossing and a custom pen." Zhu Qing pointed to the pen clipped to the deceased’s chest in the photo.
"Before slipping into a coma, Sheng Peirong clutched that notebook every day, insisting it held clues about her daughter."
"Where’s the notebook now?"
"Lost during the hospital transfer..."
"Even if the notebooks are identical," Mo Zhenbang tapped the desk, "that program has countless participants. Why assume it came from He Jia'er? The event always has celebrities backing it—the Sheng family sponsoring isn’t unusual. Maybe Sheng Peirong just kept it because it looked nice."
"As for her fixation on its contents... you said it yourself—she suffers from severe PTSD and depression. Hallucinations and delusions are common symptoms."
Zhu Qing pressed, "But how do you explain Cheng Zhaoqian—"
The case files for the skeletal remains were spread across the desk. Mo Zhenbang stood, planting his hands heavily on them.
His voice was low and imposing.
"Maybe you should explain something to me first."
"If Chen Chaosheng and He Jia'er weren’t lovers, how do you account for the engraved couple’s rings? Or him halting construction in the middle of the night to rush the fireplace’s completion? And the deliberate falsification of an alibi—"
Mo Zhenbang took a step forward, his gaze sharp. "Zhu Qing, investigations require evidence."
Outside the office, Sister Zhen, the admin clerk, answered a call and called out loudly,
"Hey, some kid’s on the line asking for 'the Broke One.'"
"Who’s 'the Broke One'?"
Zhu Qing: "..."
After Zhu Qing left with her head down, Mo Zhenbang rubbed his temples.
The tangled web of suspicions made him wish he could dismiss it all as coincidence.
His eyes fell on an old photo on his desk—a group shot from his early days in the Hong Kong police force, back when he was young, stubborn, and full of edge.
Before sitting back down, he picked up the internal line.
"Twenty years ago, Sheng Peirong and Cheng Zhaoqian’s daughter..."
"Look into it. I want to know how that child really died."
...
Under the bewildered stares of her colleagues, Zhu Qing walked over to the phone.
"What kind of code name is this?" Uncle Li chuckled. "The Broke One Hotline?"
Gossip was human nature.
The officers in Team B had long been curious about this enigmatic new recruit, and now, with the nickname given by the kid, the murmurs swelled.
"Marysa gets a new outfit every day after work, while Zhu Qing’s shirts are washed until they fade!"
"Who turns down tickets to Aaron Kwok’s concert...?"
In this tight-knit team, Zhu Qing alone remained a mystery.
Liang Qikai, newly transferred, listened to his colleagues’ banter, his gaze unconsciously following her straight-backed figure.
Was this ice-cold policewoman even incapable of a casual phone chat?
"Go ahead, I’m listening," Zhu Qing said into the receiver, one hand holding the phone while the other organized the documents she’d brought into Mo Zhenbang’s office.
"I just got home. There’s someone with a long-lens camera in the tree at three o’clock," the young master’s calm, childlike voice came through the line. "I saw them through my telescope."
Back when Mr. Sheng was alive, he could shield Sheng Fang from any danger.
But now, with him gone, paparazzi had infiltrated the Sheng estate as early as the day the skeletal remains case was filed—their lenses trained on the third-floor nursery, likely already suspecting the truth.
"Are you scared?" Zhu Qing lowered her head to flip through the folder.
"I’ll shoot him with my slingshot." The sound of a rubber band tightening came through the phone, followed by Sheng Fang’s reluctant admission, "But it’s too far. I can’t reach."
Zhu Qing tucked the phone receiver between her ear and shoulder. "Let the adults handle the paparazzi."
"Marysa and the bodyguards? They’re just doing their jobs—half-hearted about it." Sheng Fang sounded worldly beyond his years.
Marysa, the live-in maid, took care of daily needs, while the bodyguards handled security. Yet in the vast Sheng household, the young master could think of no one to talk to except for the policewoman on the line.
"You could always go to—"
Suddenly, Zhu Qing paused mid-sentence as she noticed a faint scent wafting from the folder.
She didn’t know who to suggest. The only one left in charge of the Sheng family now was Second Miss Sheng, who was barely keeping her own head above water.
"Mom and Dad?" The young master finished her thought. "They’re dead. They can’t protect me."
Zhu Qing fell silent.
Everyone had tacitly agreed to keep the truth from Sheng Fang, but the clever boy had pieced it together from their evasive words.
"Doesn’t matter," she offered a hollow consolation. "Not all parents protect their kids anyway."
"Would yours protect you?"
"Parents? I grew up in an orphanage."
Liang Qikai watched the exchange quietly.
What kind of person could discuss such facts with the calm detachment of talking about the weather?
"I’ve seen it on TV—orphanages have lots of kids," Sheng Fang pressed curiously. "They’re called… orphans, right?"
Zhu Qing flipped through the folder again.
When the driver had slammed the brakes earlier, she’d helped gather the scattered medical records. Maybe something had slipped in by mistake.
She sifted through the pages absently. "Yeah."
There it was.
Tucked between the folder’s layers was a velvet-textured invitation card, its faint perfume lingering in the air.
Over the phone, Sheng Fang sighed, his voice softening. "Qing, I didn’t know you had it this rough too."
