Two hours later, the factory dormitory area was still calm and unruffled, and no workers had any accidents because of eating meals from the canteen, which made everyone feel relieved to eat the meals they packed back.
As the time approached 10 pm, Yue Xingwen asked Qin Lu: “Did that Old Peng pass your friend request?”
Qin Lu replied: “I sent a friend verification message over and there has been no response. If he really went to country M, the time over there should be 10 am. He is definitely not sleeping, so I guess something might have happened to him?”
Qin Miao said calmly: “He suddenly blocked Moments for everyone, and he didn’t accept the friend request, so maybe he is no longer alive, and his mobile phone is in the hands of the murderer.”
Yue Xingwen also felt this possibility was quite high, and he asked in the chat channel: “Senior sister Lin, have you found out the contact information of the other two employees who resigned? Let’s call them and see.”
Lin Manluo replied: “Senior sister Lan took a photo of all the information and wrote it down. Why don’t we create a group and post it in the group?”
Each of the employees of the Chemical Factory was equipped with a mobile phone, the same model, which was obviously purchased uniformly by the factory. Yue Xingwen typed down his own number in the chat channel and asked everyone to add him as a friend, then he created a group. Lan Yarong then sent the photos taken to the group.
The employee information of the personnel department showed that Peng Yong, Yi Jianqiang, Cheng De, these three people, came to the Chemical Factory at the same time 25 years ago. There were a total of 7 people in this batch, 5 men and 2 women. In addition to these 3 people who had ‘resigned’, the remaining 4 employees, currently 1 woman and 2 men, were still working in the factory, and the other 1 died of illness last year.
The information of the same group of employees, Lan Yarong, also took photos with her mobile phone and posted them in the group.
Ke Shaobin said: “Qin Lu, have you tried to call these old employees who resigned?”
Qin Lu replied: “When we found everyone’s contact information in the afternoon, I dialed their numbers, except for Old Peng’s phone number, which was ‘not in the service area’, the remaining two are ‘Sorry, the number you have dialed is turned off’.”
Qin Miao said: “Therefore, we discussed a countermeasure, taking advantage of meal time to let Xiao Lu approach the employees of the same department as Old Peng, inquire about news, and add others as a friend. As a result, the friend verification has not gone through so far.”
Lan Yarong analyzed: “The probability of these three people are most likely not in their hands. Most likely, all three were killed and the resignation report was forged by the murderer. The murderer is very familiar with the family situation of the three, and using the excuse of ‘resignation’ to make the three disappear from the factory naturally does not arouse the suspicion of colleagues.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ke Shaobin looked at the information compiled by senior sister Lan and senior sister Lin, and carefully analyzed: “The time of their resignations was on Tuesdays, so I think there are two possibilities. One is that the murderer happened to be on the night shift on Monday night and did something to the three men during the night shift, and so, on Tuesday, the three men quit and didn’t come to work; Second, the murderer was not working the night shift at a fixed time, but just deliberately wrote the resignation report on Tuesday, maybe it has something to do with the boss and finance’s convenience in approving the report on Tuesday?”
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Ke Shaobin held up his glasses and said with a smile, “I know, you’re trying to praise me for analyzing the situation correctly and having the temperament of a famous detective, thank you for the compliment.”
Yue Xingwen typed: “Young Ke is right, we currently have two clues to check, the first is the duty schedule in the past few months. It’s definitely not convenient to kill people in the daylight, I’m more inclined to believe that the murderer is doing it at night, then, all the personnel on duty on Monday night are the focus of investigation.”
Liu Zhaoqing said: “I took photos of the duty schedule on the workshop’s side, Zhuo Feng and I are responsible for analyzing it.”
Xin Yan said: “The duty schedule of the laboratory is handed over to me and Ke Shaobin.”
Yue Xingwen said: “Then, the rest of the people, check the interpersonal relationships of the three resigned employees. Who they have had grudges with, and the turnover of personnel at the Chemical Factory over the years.”
When people received the task, they immediately devoted themselves to the work.
Yue Xingwen carefully read the information sent by Lin Manluo, and discussed with Jiang Pingce in a low voice, “In July 25 years ago, the Chemical Factory began to recruit new employees across the country, and there were 7 people in the same batch who entered the factory, 3 resigned, 1 died of illness, and there were 3 left. Could it be that something happened back then and someone took revenge on them?”
Jiang Pingce quickly sorted out the seven pieces of data and made them into a table for easy comparative analysis.
The age difference of 7 people, with a difference of less than 5 years, all participated in the company’s recruitment and came to work in the Chemical Factory after graduation.
Among them, 3 people who had resigned, Peng Yong, Yi Jianqiang and Cheng De, were from the same local college; One person who had died, named Wang Wei, had only a high school education. His hometown was in a remote rural area, and his cause of death was lung cancer.
There were still 3 people who were still alive. Chen Xiumei and Xue Xiaolian, two women, graduated from a university with a bachelor’s degree, were both in other places in their hometown, and were responsible for clerical and logistics work in the factory; Lin Yusen, graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry of a key university, was a special researcher, and judging by his position, he should be Ke Shaobin and Xin Yan’s top boss.
Yue Xingwen looked at the form sorted out by Jiang Pingce, touched his chin and analyzed, “More than twenty years ago, university students were not as common as they are now. Those who could be admitted to key universities were the best among students. Four of the seven people who entered the factory together have died, and three who are still alive are all pretty much suspect.”
Jiang Pingce said, “Judging from the photos, Chen Xiumei has white skin and a beautiful figure, and is more popular with men; Xue Xiaolian’s face has obvious pigmentation, and is relatively fat. Suppose that 2 young women and five young men join the workforce at the same time, since the Chemical Factory is located in the suburbs, it is usually difficult to have contact with the outside world. They eat and live here, and over time, some disputes may arise because of feelings.”
Yue Xingwen followed this topic and said, “For example, several men go after the beautiful Chen Xiumei, forming a rivalry, and a love rival killing someone out of love is a plausible motive; And between two young women, it’s also possible to have hatred because one of them likes someone who likes the other?”
Jiang Pingce was silent for a moment and said, “Something is not right.”
Yue Xingwen looked at him, “What?”
Jiang Pingce said, “If it’s because of love and hate to kill people, the murderer wouldn’t have waited so many years to do it, and the murderer also killed three people in a row after many years.”
Yue Xingwen thought about it and said, “3 people, do you also think that the one who died of cancer last year was not a victim?”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “Most of the murderers’ operandi is consistent, and what we encountered this time is likely to be a high-IQ crime that uses chemical knowledge to kill people. The difference between the death of the person who died of cancer last year and the cause of death of the three recently resigned employees is so great that it should not be the work of the murderer.”
Yue Xingwen also thought the same thing. Among those 7 people, excluding 1 who died of cancer, the remaining 6 people, 3 dead and 3 alive, what was the grudge between them?
“Lin Yusen wears glasses and looks cultured. He is the head of the research department, Xin Yan’s direct superior, I think he is more suspicious.” Yue Xingwen paused and said, “He has worked in the Chemical Factory for many years and is very familiar with the environment here; Graduated from the key university, he also has a thorough grasp of the toxicity and lethal dose of chemicals. If he had done it, he could indeed make several old employees disappear unnoticed, and forged their handwriting to write a letter of resignation.”
The two looked at each other, and Yue Xingwen frowned slightly. “But what about the motive? It’s not emotional entanglement, is it a work dispute? However, the three people alive are all university graduates, and they are all currently in managerial positions in the factory, which is much better than the three who disappeared.”
Jiang Pingce was silent for a moment, and said in a low voice, “That’s right, work disputes are usually the result of grudges and retaliation after being robbed of an opportunity, or after being calculated, which affects one’s promotion and salary increase. But now it seems that the work development of these three people who are still in the factory is much smoother than that of the missing people. Xue Xiaolian is the financial director, Chen Xiumei is the logistics supervisor, and Lin Yusen is the director of the laboratory, so it’s difficult to make sense of their motive for retaliation for killing people due to work disputes.”
Yue Xingwen concluded, “But at the moment, the most obvious clues are only these few people, let’s first use these three people left at the factory as a breakthrough, and investigate step by step.”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “En, I think so too.” He gently raised his right hand and skillfully drew a coordinate axis. “It’s good that we can use skills.”
Yue Xingwen immediately understood his train of thought. “Do you want to leave the dormitory with a coordinate system tonight and fly into the air to monitor the movements of the factory?”
Jiang Pingce got up from the bed and said in a low voice, “Tomorrow is Tuesday, if the ‘Black Tuesday’ Ke Shaobin said is a correct inference, something is likely to happen again tonight. Therefore, I’m not going to sleep tonight, I’m going to walk around outside and see if the employees in the factory are doing anything unusual.”
He walked to the window, it was already 11 pm. Most of the employee dormitory lights had been turned off, apparently people here used to go to bed early, and several dormitories had lights on and curtains closed.
The sky was dotted with stars, and as Jiang Pingce pushed open the window, a gust of night wind blew in his face, ruffling his hair on the side of his ear. Yue Xingwen looked at Jiang Pingce’s familiar back and subconsciously followed him, standing side by side with him and said, “I’ll accompany you, it’s good to have someone to look at each other.”
Jiang Pingce turned his head to look at Yue Xingwen, and that look seemed to ask, you don’t mind being alone with me anymore?
Yue Xingwen’s ears burned slightly at his look, rubbing his nose and coughing lightly. He pretended to be calm and said, “I also wanted to see if anything would happen in the factory at night. In case the murderer comes out to act, and tomorrow is Black Tuesday. We may be able to find some clues.”
A shallow smile appeared under Jiang Pingce’s eyes. “En.”
Sure enough, even if Xingwen couldn’t give him a clear response about the relationship problem for the time being, he wouldn’t distance himself from him for a long time. No, he was still awkward this morning, embarrassed to talk to him, and now he’s following me around naturally.
Jiang Pingce stretched out his left hand, gently hugged Yue Xingwen’s waist, and quickly wrote down a line of formula with his right hand. “Let’s go, let’s take a look and see what the devil hiding in the Chemical Factory is going to do.”
Yue Xingwen’s heart skipped a beat when he was hugged suddenly, and he immediately tensed his body.
But soon, he didn’t have time to ramble on——
He saw that on the top roof of the dormitory building, there was a sturdy figure dangling in front of him like a ghost, and soon disappeared!
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If this were real life, I’d wonder if maybe it was someone who loved killing and was choosing the people most likely to retire. As it is, I suspect it’ll be related to the death of the cancer guy. Like, maybe some toxin in the factory caused his cancer and the others knew about it, so the murderer is getting revenge. Guess the rest of the arc’s up so I can find out how close I am. 😅