Chapter 203: The Simple Truth

He gave himself goosebumps by asking that question. Miao Ying understood that very minute and looked at Zhao Yu.

"I don't know!" Cheng Guangming said weakly, "It should've been around the mid nineties. 1994 or 1995 I think. Anyway, it is pretty sudden. That b*stard popped out of nowhere and opened quite a number of building material companies with one goal, as if he could fight our family! My dad argued with him but I don't quite remember."

Zhao Yu turned around and looked at Miao Ying without saying anything. They seemed to be communicating with their brain waves.

Miao Ying turned back and said, "That's not right. Hao Gang was born and bred in Qinshan, in the city, not Mafang Town! And..." Zhao Yu did not say anything but drowned in his thoughts.

Miao Ying was starting to shake, so she shut her mouth and waited patiently for Zhao Yu while he put on his thinking cap. After a two-minute silence, they exchanged eye contact and left the interrogation room.

Zhao Yu saw that there was no one out there. He spoke softly, just loud enough for Miao Ying to hear him. "I think I need Zhang Jingfeng to work overtime!"

Miao Ying understood what Zhao Yu was thinking and said, "Don't worry about that, Hao Gang is different from Han Wenjun—he is a public figure. I can take care of it. Zhao Yu, I think this is quite urgent. We will take a break from Qu Ping's case for tonight. Let's find out about Mianling case first."

"Cool. I was thinking the same thing!" Zhao Yu nodded but he was raging inside. "This cunning Miao Renfeng. I'll see how long you can pretend for," he thought.

Both of them went back into the detention room and asked Cheng Guangming some more questions. They left Qinnan Prison and went to the police station when they could not get anything new information from him.

They got back to the office at around seven. Most of their colleagues had left so the office seemed rather empty. Zhao Yu walked into the office, picked up his pen and wrote Han Wenjun and Hao Gang's name on the whiteboard.

"What if..." Zhao Yu tapped on the two names while talking to himself. "What if these two people are related. That would be exciting! We need to look into it again."

While Zhao Yu was talking, Miao Ying had already gotten her hands on Hao Gang's resume. Hao Gang was the so-called 'Michael Jordan' of Qinshan's business world. Anyone could easily get his information with a quick search on the internet.

The both of them were struck by lighting by just one glance at his resume. He resume said that he had served in the military, and he had also worked as a police officer in demobilization, but he started his own business after a while.

He started off with building material, then moved into property exploration, exporting business, then logistics, and he succeeded in everything. Hao Gang built Rongtian Corporation, which was the pioneer corporation of Qinshan and was considered one of the most elite in the country.

He was in the military and was a police officer?! That made him really suspicious! Miao Ying thought that even though a police officer was different from a police detective, being in the same system, he could possibly understand how detectives handled a case.

Zhao Yu looked at the timeline on his resume. It said that Hao Gang gained fortune in the nineties and established Jin Yang Building Material Co in 1996. He lived a glamorous life from then on!

1996, that was five years after the Mianling Case. Where did the capital for Hao Gang to start his business oame from?

Zhang Jingfeng, Liang Huan, Li Beini along with colleagues from Team B, like Zhang Yaohui and Lan Bo, came into office mis discussion. These were the people Zhao Yu requested help from. He knew that it was a crucial time for Mianling Case, and it would not be possible for him and Miao Ying to deal with the amount of work by themselves.

Furthermore, they were Zhao Yu's best friends and all knew the importance of the Mianling Case. No one rejected Zhao Yu's request, and all of them got to the office on time to investigate alongside Zhao Yu.

In big cases, it was common to report to the higher-ups when they found an important clue; however, Zhao Yu did not inform Captain Liu Changhu, Mao Wei, or Peng Xin. What happened between him and Liu Changhu did not matter, but he felt a sudden change in atmosphere in team A since Mao Wei's return.

Although Mao Wei was very nice to everyone, he was rather stubborn when it came to delegating tasks and deciding the investigation approach. He did not accept any suggestions regarding the case. Zhao Yu was afraid that he would try to take charge of the investigation after Zhao Yu told him what he had found out, which might complicate Zhao Yu's investigation strategy.

Anyway, he was not afraid of Liu Changhu and Mao Wei's accusation as he had Miao Ying alongside him. What he wanted most was for them to piss off Miao Ying. Zhao Yu was the only person that knew Miao Ying's background! If he was on the same side as this violent police woman, he would never need to be worried or afraid.

Miao Ying did not look like she was planning to report to the higher-ups either. She was busy delegating tasks to everyone. It seemed that she did not want any disruption from them, and only wanted to focus on the investigation.

As Miao Ying was the team lead of Team B, she had the highest ranking, so everyone worked under her guidance. The tasks revolved around Han Wenjun and Hao Gang. Looking into Han Wenjun was logical, but they were surprised when they heard about Hao Gang's involvement in the Mianling Case. It would make headlines across the entire country if a wealthy and famous businessman happened to be a kidnapper in this cold case.

At that moment, Zhao Yu was already in his own working mode. He constantly added new information on the whiteboard. He added whatever that he thought of and erased stuff that did not work out. He had filled up two whiteboards within two hours.

Miao Ying felt strange as she watched Zhao Yu pay full attention to his work. They had worked together on Jian Wenli's case, but he had never been so serious and careful.

Oh... Miao Ying seemed to understanding something. "No wonder this d*amn Zhao Yu can close so many cases. He had his own way around this! Well, I didn't know that this bastard was so persistent even though his mouth is so filthy!"

Li Beini brought Zhao Yu a freshly brewed coffee and told him that she added two bags of sugar while he was working. Zhao Yu took over the coffee and said thank you to her, then he put the coffee next to him. He looked up to read what he had written on the whiteboard and filtered them in his mind.

Running through the case, Zhao Yu felt a sense of familiarity, as if it had happened yesterday. From the moment he found the ransom money in the tunnel, to the discovery of every clue in the Mianling Case, it made it even more complicated!

This twenty-six-year-old cold case seemed to have a lot of unexplainable facets. How did the kidnappers take the ransom money? Why did they kill the hostages? Why did they bring the driver along? Why was the ransom money left with the skeletons? And why hasn't anyone found Liang Sisi's body? This girl, that would be thirty-three-years-old, was she alive or dead?

Ransom, skeletons, van, driver, mine tunnel... There just did not seem to be a logical connection between these elements. What was the truth?!

But just when everything about the Mianling Case seemed so complicated, Zhao Yu realized the truth that they had been looking for was right in front of him. The truth that they had been looking for since forever did not seem to be that complicated.

"Why? Why would I feel so...? Did I miss something? Or did I think of something earlier that was correct?" Zhao Yu wondered.

"Oh my, oh my!" Li Beini suddenly stood up from her seat and pointed at her screen as Zhao Yu was frustratingly pondering. "Brother, look at this. Hao...Hao Gang and Han Wenjun knew each other!"