“What is it, Yu?” Nie Yunkang could tell that something was off by the look on Mu Yu’s face. “It’s nothing, Sir Nie.” Mu Yu gradually calmed her nerves before she gestured for Jiang Wenwen to take a seat. She then picked up the call from Rong Jian as she walked out of the lab.

“Are you available for a chat now, Yu?” he asked on the line.

“Hold on.” She quickened her footsteps and ran toward the end of the hallway, making loud thuds along the way. She only replied to his question once she saw that there wasn’t anyone near her. “I can talk now,” she said softly. She was contemplating how she would tell Rong Jian about the DNA test results.

“Yu, I ran a DNA test.” His deep voice sounded from the phone.

“What? You did a DNA test as well?!” She was dumbfounded. Did he also…

“You did it too?!” He was equally shocked and in disbelief. “W-Whose samples did you use for the DNA test?” he asked.

“I gave…” Mu Yu hesitated with her words as she couldn’t tell whose samples Rong Jian used for the DNA test. She was afraid that her findings would give him too much of a shock, so she decided to question him first. “Whose samples did you use for the DNA test?”

“I ran the DNA test on Rubing and Qiqi’s samples,” he uttered in a deep voice.

“Oh! When did you do it?” Mu Yu was surprised to hear about it. She thought that she had been careful with her words, but she didn’t expect him to suspect the same possibilities that she did.

“This morning. I just got the results. I really hadn’t expected for… Ah…” Rong Jian didn’t continue with his sentence as he assumed that Mu Yu had run the same test. He simply heaved a long sigh. His sorrow was evident even through the call. Noting how he seemed glum, Mu Yu followed along with a long sigh. “I was surprised as well. There has to be something behind this! There must be something we don’t know yet!”

The phone was silent on the other end for a long time before Rong Jian finally spoke in a strained and hoarse voice. “Yu, I couldn’t sleep at all last night. I was conflicted; I didn’t know whether to do this DNA test. I really can’t believe it… I-I…”

Mu Yu quickly responded once he fell silent on the other end of the call. “I know, Chief Rong; I understand. I know what you mean, but you can’t be too dejected about this. There has to be some sort of backstory that we don’t know about! I think this situation is much more complicated than we assume it to be! Perhaps…” Her tone of voice changed as an idea popped up in her mind. “Chief Rong, perhaps Madam Feng never lied to you at all. Everything she told you about her youth could be true—Li Jianyun could’ve been that perverted man she referred to in her story. Perhaps she was already a few months pregnant when her grandmother brought her away from Linhe County. If that’s the case, she would’ve missed the right time to abort the baby; she’d have no option but to give birth to the child then. Maybe her grandmother found it shameful for Madam Feng to get herself pregnant before marriage; that could explain why the grandmother lied to their neighbors about Madam Feng’s sudden illness. That would also explain why they no longer contacted any of their family members and friends after they left Linhe County!”

“But, I found the landlord of a place that Rubing and her grandmother had first stayed at in the suburbs of Guangyang. I approached the landlord to ask about Rubing’s situation then, but the landlord didn’t mention anything about Rubing being pregnant—” Rong Jian had started by questioning Mu Yu’s words, but his sentence came to a halt as he seemed to realize something.

Mu Yu understood what he meant, so she continued his words. “We missed out on a period in between Madam Feng’s pregnancy and until she gave birth.”

“Yeah. I was too careless,” he uttered.

“Guangyang County is a small place and there are only a few hospitals there, so it shouldn’t take us too long to look into it,” Mu Yu said.

“I don’t agree. Although we’ve never actually interacted with Feng Rubing’s grandmother, judging by the way that her grandmother ordered Qiqi to call Rubing her sister, and the way that she helped Rubing to quit and transfer schools just so she could take her college entrance exams, I believe that her grandmother is an extremely opinionated, forward-looking, and vigilant woman. A woman like her wouldn’t have allowed Rubing to give birth in a proper hospital as she wouldn’t want Rubing’s future to be affected. My guess is that Rubing actually gave birth to Qiqi in an underground clinic. Alternatively, Rubing’s grandmother might have hired a doctor just to deliver the baby.” Rong Jian stated his opinions.

“How did Qiqi get her household registration book if she wasn’t delivered legally?” Mu Yu questioned his words.

“You can’t be a registered citizen with just a birth certificate; you’d need to show your parents’ marriage and birth certificates as well. But this incident occurred ten years ago, and both Linhe and Guangyang Counties are extremely rural; their household registration books were probably handwritten. They are rather different from large cities like An City; it’s probably easy for them to buy a household registration book for their child if they had the money,” he explained.

“Oh. I don’t know much about this. But, I don’t think it matters now; I think what matters is that we’ll have to run another DNA test for Qiqi and Li Jianyun’s samples—” Rong Jian interrupted Mu Yu’s sentence. “I ran the test already.”

“You did it already?” she asked.

“Yeah. The DNA report indicates similar percentages for both of Qiqi’s biological mother and father—Li Jianyun and Feng Rubing. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Li Jianyun was Qiqi’s father; I was more surprised to learn that Feng Rubing is her mother. Ah… Yu, although I was mentally prepared for this, it’s still a hard pill to swallow. I called you because I wanted you to run the test a second time, but I hadn’t expected you to… Yu, I really didn’t know what I was supposed to do next until I had this conversation with you. I was seriously dazed after finding out about… I…” Rong Jian started to jumble his words as he got extremely emotional.

Mu Yu understood how he felt, and she felt sorry for him. “Calm down, Chief Rong; would you like to stop somewhere to have a drink or a smoke?” she asked in a gentle tone.

“It’s fine.” The sound of Rong Jian’s deep breathing came from the other end of the line, and he spoke again after he took four or five deep breaths. “Regardless of what happened in the past, I think Qiqi is the real reason that Rubing has been rejecting me all along.”

“W-Well… Can you accept Qiqi for who she is?” Mu Yu asked.

“I’ve always accepted her, haven’t I? I’ve always treated her as my own younger sister. I just feel very flustered to learn that she’s actually Rubing’s daughter,” he uttered with a bitter smile. He then gave a long sigh before he continued with his words. “Yu, I’ve decided to put my feelings for Rubing aside for now. I want to shift my entire focus onto solving this case so that I can clear her name. Perhaps that’s the most that I can do for her.”

Mu Yu was sad to hear how dispirited he sounded, but she didn’t comment much on his decision. Love isn’t something that can be forced, after all. Furthermore, I’m sure Rong Jian’s smart enough to know what he’s doing.

“Yu?” he called.

“Yeah?”

“Yu, I haven’t sent these two DNA reports over to the bureau. Right now, I’m not afraid of revealing the complicated relationship between Li Jianyun, Feng Rubing, and Qiqi. I’m more concerned about how this might solidify her criminal charges if she had actually been involved with Li Jianyun in the past,” he uttered.

Mu Yu froze for a moment. She then felt goosebumps crawling all over her skin when she finally reacted to his words. She had always assumed that they would be able to clear Feng Rubing’s name after they fully understood her entanglement with Li Jianyun; she hadn’t expected that their findings would only increase Feng Rubing’s chances of being seen as the murderer.

“W-What should we do now, then?” She was flustered. They had already gotten so deep into the investigation; they couldn’t just pretend as if they didn’t know anything. If they actually did that, they would still have to watch Feng Rubing being framed as the murderer of the case. After all, Feng Rubing had actually admitted to killing someone when she was being interrogated in the interrogation room.

“Yu.” Rong Jian hesitated for a moment before he spoke in a quiet voice. “Are you still certain that Rubing isn’t the murderer now?”

“Well… I… Perhaps…” At this point, Mu Yu no longer dared to be too sure about anything.

“Haha.” Rong Jian gave her a light laugh before he changed the topic. “Lifeng rushed over to Guangyang County in the middle of the night yesterday. I told him to switch routes to head over to Linhe instead. I got him to look into Li Jianyun’s unlawful or immoral behaviors; I thought that it might help to reduce Rubing’s sentence.”

Mu Yu felt her limbs turning into jelly when she heard the words ‘reduce Rubing’s sentence’. She understood the meaning of those words; it meant that Rong Jian understood what she had meant when she said ‘perhaps’ earlier.

Right then, Rong Jian’s voice turned anxious as he seemed to have thought of something. “Yu, did you run the DNA test personally?”

“No. Sir Nie did it, but I didn’t specify the identity of the samples that were tested,” she replied.

“Okay. That’s great. Yu, please help me to keep this a secret for now.”

“I got it.”

“Thank you. I’ll continue with my work now,” Rong Jian said.

“Hold on!” Mu Yu frantically looked around her when she realized she had shouted a little too loudly. She then continued in a softer tone once she was sure that there weren’t any other people around her. “Chief Rong, I think we should return to the root of all the problems. Since we now know the relationship between Feng Rubing, Li Jianyun, and Qiqi, shouldn’t we just question Madam Feng directly and get her to tell us the truth? That way, we’d be able to run our investigations on Li Jianyun with a better direction in our minds. That would save us some time, wouldn’t it?”

“No!” Rong Jian briefly explained how his questions toward Feng Rubing had resulted in her vomiting blood and fainting. He then told Mu Yu about Rong Ying’s warning—that Feng Rubing couldn’t handle such triggering information right then.

His words left Mu Yu feeling a mixture of shock and pity. “Madam Feng’s reaction sounded really intense. It seems like Li Jianyun—that b*stard—was truly her nightmare.”

“He’s her greatest nightmare ever.” She could feel Rong Jian’s fury even through their phone call. “It seems like we can’t get anything from Madam Feng right now, then. We just have to spend more time and effort on our investigation,” she uttered exasperatedly.

“Yeah. Yu, I’m planning to take a trip to Linhe County myself,” Rong Jian said.

“When are you going?” she asked.

“I’ll head over right after dinner. Please help me to tell Huan that I won’t be able to meet him tonight.”

“Alright. Hey, Chief Rong, do you think Li Jianyun might be from Linhe County?” she asked.

“That’s what I thought. However, some error occurred ten years ago when Linhe County uploaded its population data into the computer. The household registration data of those who had left the county couldn’t be checked through the computers either. If Li Jianyun’s actually from Linhe County, and if he moved to Huacheng or somewhere else ten years ago, we wouldn’t be able to find any information on it,” he uttered.

Mu Yu quickly reminded him of something. “He doesn’t have any relatives in Huacheng or An City. Perhaps it’s because he isn’t a local in either one of those two places. If he’s actually from Linhe County, we’d be able to find relatives or friends who actually know him even if we can’t get his household registration data!”

“That’s what I thought as well. I’m planning to work on that first. I’ve asked Li to help me print out some sheets of Li Jianyun’s portrait; I’ll stick it up on the streets if I fail to find any of his friends or relatives. I suspect that the b*stard left his hometown because of Rubing’s incident.”

“Perhaps he left because he was trying to escape his debts,” Mu Yu suggested.

“That’s possible as well. Well, I’ll talk to you later, Yu. There are some other matters I have to handle before I leave An City,” he said.

“Alright. Let’s keep in touch.” Mu Yu finally relaxed a little once she heard Rong Jian calming down on the other end of the call. However, she still felt a heavy feeling in her chest. She put her phone away and stared out of the window dazedly, her mind running through all the details about Feng Rubing’s case.

As she was zoning out, she heard a voice screaming her name. She was shocked to realize that it was Jiang Wenwen’s voice. She immediately ran toward the lab as she thought that something might have happened to her friend.