Chapter Forty-Three: Blood Type

Ning Shuyi paused, then smiled. “Is that so? You’re not the first person who, after meeting my parents, has instinctively assumed that I’m the sort of hothouse flower who was exceptionally well protected.”

“I never thought that,” Huo Yan replied, shaking his head. “Hothouse flowers aren’t as stubborn as you.”

The assessment left Ning Shuyi torn between laughter and tears. For a moment, she could not tell whether it was meant as praise or criticism.

The two of them bought some food along the way, then drove back to the vicinity of the crime scene. Sitting in the car, they quickly filled their stomachs and quietly kept watch over their surroundings.

As time passed, fewer and fewer residents remained outside the building. The two of them grew increasingly focused, carefully watching for the slightest disturbance.

They waited until midnight, but nothing unusual happened. After the night deepened, no one entered or left the unit where the crime scene was located.

“We waited for nothing tonight.” Huo Yan frowned, looking somewhat irritated.

Ning Shuyi waved a hand at him. “Not entirely. At least we’ve confirmed whether the old man’s rushing out to investigate earlier might have alerted someone.

“According to what he told us, no one should have gone upstairs after that. But before he ran out with his flashlight to see what was happening, the old couple had heard footsteps more than once.

“So I was wondering whether the situation might not have involved someone playing a prank on the deliveryman at all. Perhaps the old man’s sudden appearance startled the person, which would explain why the couple truly heard nothing afterward.

“We heard absolutely nothing during the several hours we spent here tonight. That also supports this possibility. The person whose footsteps attracted the old man and his wife’s attention earlier hadn’t simply learned to walk more quietly—they hadn’t come back.

“And even setting that aside, we still have whatever Zhao Dabao found!”

“Did he confirm the vehicle’s owner?” Huo Yan knew that Ning Shuyi had asked Zhao Dabao to investigate the car matching the characteristics mentioned by the old man.

“Yes.” Ning Shuyi nodded, signaling that Huo Yan could drive back to the station. “Thanks to the old man remembering the make of the car, two digits from its license plate, and its color, finding vehicles matching those three criteria wasn’t difficult.

“Zhao Dabao was thorough. After locating vehicles that met the conditions we provided, he compared them against footage from the road-monitoring cameras and confirmed a second time that it was definitely that car.

“However, the owner isn’t a woman, as the old man said, but a twenty-nine-year-old local man. Zhao Dabao looked into his personal information and found that he works for a public institution in the city.

“It’s too late tonight. Tomorrow morning, we can contact him and find out who the woman driving his car was.”

Huo Yan nodded as the car turned from the side road onto the main road. “Are you staying in the duty room tonight?”

“Yes. If I sleep at home, I’m afraid mushrooms will start growing on me.” Ning Shuyi joked with a laugh. Her home was simply too damp to live in at present. “Since it’s already this late after all that running around, I’ll make do at the station for half the night. If we finish early tomorrow, I’ll stay with either Ren Yaya or Yan Xue.”

Since she already had a solution, Huo Yan said nothing more. It was truly late, and he had no intention of returning to the dormitory either, so he went back to the station with Ning Shuyi.

A little after seven the next morning, Ning Shuyi called the vehicle owner using the contact number they had obtained. It took several attempts before he answered, and he sounded somewhat impatient, his attitude far from pleasant.

He seemed especially displeased when he learned that Ning Shuyi and the others were from the police bureau and wanted to know who the woman driving his car that day had been.

“She’s my ex-girlfriend. We broke up nearly a month ago. As for anything involving her, could you contact her directly and deal with it yourselves? To be honest, our breakup wasn’t particularly pleasant, and it wasn’t clean or straightforward either. I don’t want to have anything more to do with her.”

Ning Shuyi had never particularly cared whether he wanted to be involved in the matter, so she readily agreed. The man let out a sigh of relief, gave her the woman’s name and contact information, and then hurriedly hung up. Clearly, he truly did not want any further connection with his former girlfriend.

The woman’s identity was therefore confirmed with ease.

Her name was Zhang Guanghui. She was a thirty-one-year-old teacher at one of the city’s key secondary schools, a local resident whose household registration was listed at the same address as her parents’. She had no criminal record.

The household-registration records showed that the family of three had moved to the city from elsewhere approximately thirty years ago. Coincidentally, their original place of registration was the same hometown as Deng Qingrong’s family.

Ning Shuyi handed Zhang Guanghui’s personal information to Huo Yan. “Look. The old man was remarkably accurate yesterday. Zhang Guanghui really does resemble Deng Qingrong by sixty or seventy percent!

“And besides sharing the same hometown as Deng Qingrong, there’s another interesting point about her family.”

As she spoke, she pointed to the section listing blood type. “Look here!”

“Zhang Guanghui has type B blood.” Huo Yan glanced at the information Ning Shuyi had singled out. “But one of her adoptive parents has type O blood and the other type A. Those two blood types couldn’t produce a child with type B blood, could they?”

“Exactly. And Deng Qingrong’s husband, Chang Rong, who died after suffering illness and injury, also had type B blood.” Ning Shuyi nodded. “Now that is interesting. Zhang Guanghui closely resembles Deng Qingrong, and her blood type doesn’t match those of the parents listed on her household registration. Instead, it’s exactly the same as Chang Rong’s. What does that suggest to you?”

Huo Yan’s brows drew together as he looked at the few sheets of paper in his hands. “When Deng Qingrong lived in the area around the crime scene, she told her neighbors that she had suffered terribly in life. Before Chang Junchao, she had given birth to two other children, but neither had survived. Both had died shortly after birth.

“She had also let slip on several occasions, whether intentionally or not, that she favored sons and believed she absolutely had to have one—that life was impossible without a boy.

“An old neighbor also told us that Deng Qingrong had repeatedly implied how great a contribution she had made by giving her husband, Chang Rong, a son.

“Judging by the ages involved, when Zhang Guanghui was born, family-planning policies were still quite strict. If Deng Qingrong had already given birth to one child, regardless of whether it was a boy or a girl, she would not have been permitted to have another.

“Even if they had violated the policy, the resulting fine would have been substantial—probably more than Deng Qingrong and Chang Rong could afford given their financial situation at the time.

“So it’s possible that after giving birth to Zhang Guanghui, Deng Qingrong and her husband secretly abandoned her or gave her away.”