40 Where is the connection?

Back at the bureau, Jia and Huojin couldn't mask their shock. "Drug addict?"

Mingshen stretched his arms lazily. "She was fidgeting a lot, right? She is also underweight. She had a messy appearance too and her eyes looked glazed."

Jia thought back to the time at the hospital where she met her.

Wu Yue indeed looked shaky, agitated and very thin.

"That was because of drugs?"

"For the most part of it. She has just started it recently though it seems because her addiction signs are like a newborn baby. That's why you couldn't tell it. It's hard to decipher until you keenly look at the signs, and they could be confused with any other regular symptoms like depression or other health issues. Anyway, I got my confirmation when I learned what she was doing at my hospital."

"She said it was to take care of some formalities for her grandmother's death certificate."

"Bullshit," he slid a prescription on the desk in front of them.

Huojin struggled to read the handwriting. "Why do doctors have such terrible writing?"

"Excuse me? I feel offended. My entire existence is perfect down to my handwriting. The next time you include ME with the rest of the doctors, I will hang you down from the ceiling and overflow your body with opioids. Which this girl was having by the way."

Jia read from the prescription. "Buprenorphine."

"One of the medications to treat opioid addiction," he smiled.

"So she was there to get rid of the addiction," Jia said.

"And I will get rid of the drug supply chain, my dear Spicy~" Mingshen expressed a sense of pleasure as if he found some new toys to play with.

"You see, Spicy. Drugs cannot flow into or out of the system without my consent. The Yang family highly regulates the supply of them, especially illegal ones. I am informed when people visit my hospitals for drug addiction treatment because it means that there is a supply chain going somewhere. And it seems that some pests have grown wings to challenge my authority in the Underworld, which I highly detest."

"And you are gonna dig them out?" Jia questioned.

"Naturally."

"Feels like this is the work of the police."

"I don't need help in busting a puny drug supply chain."

"Why do you think everything is always about you?" Jia sourly expressed. "The police must be a part of the investigation if drugs are being distributed. It's for the sake of civilians, not you."

Mingshen eyed her with a raised brow and shrugged a moment later. "Whatever, I don't care. In the end, the culprits will be awarded to me, not to the law. They are tiptoeing in secrecy and breaking my rules."

Jia watched him with an acute stare. "They should be punished according to the court."

He chuckled with a villainous ring to it. "The cooperation between the Underworld and the law doesn't say so."

Her brow twitched.

That damn cooperation!

She made a mental note to herself to properly understand what this cooperation meant and how far these powers went.

She parked that issue aside for now and looked at Huojin. "We need to join Mingshen's forces to find these drug suppliers. Wu Yue will be our lead for that. Tracking her can lead us to the ringmaster. But we cannot alert her."

"Excellent idea which is also what came to my mind. Spicy, we are always in such great sync, yet you refuse to acknowledge our special connection~"

Jia would have already squeezed the life out of him, if not for the question that came across her mind which broke his needless flirtatious atmosphere.

"You pointed out Wu Yue's drug addiction as the motivation behind harming Mrs. Dai and not her grandmother? You think Mrs. Dai could have accidentally witnessed her taking drugs when they met before or something related to it?"

Huojin asked, "But isn't Wu Yue trying to get rid of her addiction? Yang Mingshen, since when did she start taking treatment at your hospital?"

"Around three weeks back."

Jia raised her brow. "Seems around the time her grandmother passed away. Maybe her death changed her, but the coincidental meeting with Dai Yaling had already happened."

"Maybe something more happened between Wu Yue and Dai Yaling that she isn't telling. Maybe it's related to Dai Yaling possibly knowing that she is an addict? That could have made Wu Yue feel threatened. If she is trying to change, then she wouldn't want anybody to jeopardize her future."

Jia frowned. "Even if all our guesses are true, it still leaves a question. It cannot be a crime of passion at the last moment. How would have Wu Yue known that she should be having fur on her body and seated exactly opposite Mrs. Dai to-"

She suddenly stopped talking, slipping into a trance.

"Jia?" Huojin called out.

But it was as if her attention was focused on somewhere else.

"Jia?" He tapped her hand.

She abruptly broke out of her reverie, slightly sweating. Huojin stared at her puzzled while Mingshen sent a knowing gaze at her. Though she had no clue what that gaze meant.

She cleared her throat. "My bad. I was thinking about the case…" she slowly went on, "What I was saying about the seat was that perhaps Wu Yue booked the ticket in advance in such a way that her seat would be directly opposite Mrs. Dai."

Huojin gave her theory a thought. "She wouldn't prefer to sit beside her because she didn't want Mrs. Dai to recognize her. The immediate side seat would be too risky. But this plan would fall flat if Mrs. Dai had her inhaler."

"And Yin Xiaoling threw that away very conveniently."

"Not just that, she also ignored Yun's repeated calls to help her almost as if she was doing it purposely. Yin Xiaoling was also seated a row behind Wu Yue, so she could have easily told her which seat to book."

Jia bit the corner of her lip, thinking more deeply about it. "Yin Xiaoling and Wu Yue were very suspicious at the hospital too. Clearly, none of them wanted me to find them together. And Yin Xiaoling…" she asked Mingshen, "was she really sick?"

He laughed. "She reminded me of the little brats that use stomach ache as an excuse to skip school. I am going to charge her dear aunt for this tomfoolery very heavily~ You don't use my hospitals for petty excuses."

Huojin didn't even want to imagine the bill coming Yin Chin's way.

Jia thought about it. "What if she did all this so that Wu Yue could get a chance to meet her? She couldn't text her because her things are in custody, and she couldn't meet her here in detention either or it would have been suspicious. Maybe they planned for a quick secret meeting but didn't expect for me to come so soon."

"Speaking of accomplices, if we go by this theory, then Wu Yue's boyfriend, Wang Lei, comes into suspicion too."

"Naturally. He is in my radar too."

Huojin tried to tie the loose ends together. "I think both could have realized the common enmity they held for Dai Yaling when they met. An enemy's enemy is a friend. Maybe they would have made a plan later. Yin Xiaoling would somehow throw her inhaler away. But I think she couldn't do it in the washroom, which is why Mrs. Dai was already outside when the inhaler fell. Yin Xiaoling knew that she would be caught on CCTV, but she had no choice."

He then added. "What if they met today to talk about her detention? Obviously, Yin Xiaoling wouldn't be so thrilled to be the only one here when she had an accomplice. And all this means that Mrs. Dai somehow probably found her drugs' involvement at the time they met around a month ago in the mall, not at the theater because this required planning."

Jia agreed. "Wu Yue and Yin Xiaoling must have talked to each other to plan all this. Check Yin Xiaoling's phone records for all messages and calls with her. We have her and all her things in custody. Once we establish their connection, we can interrogate Yin Xiaoling harder for the truth," she narrowed her eyes.

"On it."

A whistle sound came from beside Jia which made her glare at Mingshen. "Don't whistle like a hooligan in the bureau."

Mingshen looked at her with dreamy eyes. "What choice did you leave me with, dear? It was so entertaining with your investigation skills just now that my chest overflowed with a tingling excitement all over it."

"Don't make me convert that tingling excitement into tingling pain all over your chest."

A few minutes later Huojin returned after checking the records but with bad news.

"There is absolutely no record of Wu Yue in Yin Xiaoling's contact list. No suspicious messages. No suspicious calls. No information about any planning at all."

"What?" Jia stared at him, wide-eyed. "It's impossible. They must have communicated to plan all this. At least there should be something on the phone."

"None at all."

"Then it must mean that…they met personally at all times to talk about it," she thought slowly. "They didn't leave any digital trail. Which means now we need to find out where that place is."