Chapter 139: A Headache

Kang Ning slowed down the vehicle and brought it to a halt by the ditch where Du Jianwu had intercepted him, killing the engine. Reaching into the compartment beneath the dashboard, he retrieved a lighter, the three stolen bags, four SIM cards, and the bags used during the crime. Placing all these items inside an empty black briefcase, he cradled it in his arms and walked into the roadside woods.

Kang Ning walked twenty meters into the woods, stopped, and set the items down. He heaped them together and set them ablaze, occasionally fetching dry grass and tree branches to stoke the flames. Just as the objects on the ground were about to burn out completely, Kang Ning stripped off all his clothes, trousers, and shoes, tossing them into the fire. Only after everything had been thoroughly incinerated beyond recognition did he return to the rear of the off-road vehicle.

Opening the back door, Kang Ning took a crisp Armed Police non-commissioned officer uniform from the trunk and put it on. He laced up a pair of leather shoes tightly, glanced at the newly acquired eight hundred thousand yuan in cash inside the case, closed it casually, locked the rear door, and climbed back into the driver's seat. Glancing back at the hazy outline of Ganlu Temple on the mountain, he sighed and drove off along the old route toward Chengdu.

After driving more than ten kilometers, Kang Ning stopped once again by the edge of a wide fish pond. He disassembled the two Type 64 pistols and hurled the pieces far out into the water. Brushing off his hands, he got back into the vehicle and continued his journey, thinking to himself that this would certainly give Du Jianwu a massive headache.

Du Jianwu was indeed experiencing a severe headache!

Upon receiving the bizarre report, he did not dare to take it lightly. He immediately alerted the precinct bureau while rushing urgently to Echo Disco. He knew this was one of Ni San's major enterprises, where numerous dirty transactions took place. Half a year ago, Du Jianwu had conducted a surprise raid there and had been severely reprimanded by his superior as a result. Now, if a major incident had truly occurred at Ni San's establishment, it would be the perfect opportunity to vent the lingering resentment in his heart.

Parking his car in front of the disco, Du Jianwu strode swiftly inside. Seeing the crowd dancing as frantically as ever on the dance floor and the security guards lounging about just as leisurely, he could not help but wonder if the caller had played a prank. However, when he reached the door of the private room at the far end of the second floor, a pungent wave of the smell of blood caused his expression to change drastically.

Du Jianwu drew his pistol, chambered a round, kicked open the door, and rushed into the room: "Don't move! Police..."

Not a single person in the room responded to him. A security guard lay sprawled in the corner like a dead pig. Not far from the door, a large man covered in blood lay face down on the polished marble floor, completely motionless. Three other victims had fallen in different parts of the room. The blood on the floor was still slowly spreading, covering five or six square meters of the surface. The heavy stench of gunpowder had not yet dissipated. On the sofa, a victim with a bullet hole right between his eyebrows still stared with wide, fish-like eyes, as if trying to tell Du Jianwu of his innocence.

Du Jianwu immediately pulled out his phone. Instructing the security guards who had rushed up behind him to seal off the entire disco, he made another call to the bureau's duty room, then stepped outside, closed the door, and stood guard to secure the crime scene.

To Du Jianwu's immense fury, the panicked security guards fled downstairs and began shouting frantically to their gathering companions. The news spread instantly, causing utter chaos. The music stopped, and countless men and women scrambled off their seats and dance floors, fleeing the disco in sheer terror. The two thick glass doors at the entrance were smashed apart, producing a deafening crash. For a time, screams and cries filled the interior and exterior of the disco. The parking lot descended into turmoil, echoing with the roar of engines and blaring horns, while the guards at the parking lot entrance were nowhere to be found.

Seven or eight police cars arrived in succession, their sirens wailing harshly. Dozens of police officers quickly surrounded the entire disco, and after nearly ten minutes of frantic effort, they managed to control the scene. However, by that time, fewer than a third of the original guests and vehicles remained. This homicide, the largest in Leijiang in recent years, spread rapidly across the city along with the fleeing crowds.

An Audi A6 bearing a Sichuan O license plate arrived at the scene. Two grim-faced figures, clearly senior officials, stepped out of the car, and Du Jianwu, as the first to arrive, was immediately summoned to brief them.

"Director, three dead and two heavily injured. The wounded have already been rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, and the forensics team is currently examining the scene. Preliminary findings indicate that all three victims were shot dead. Judging from the five spent casings scattered on the ground, they were fired from a Type 64 pistol. Additionally, about six kilograms of drugs, such as ecstasy, were left on the coffee table inside the room," Du Jianwu reported concisely.

The plump director turned pale with fright: "Are you certain the casings came from a Type 64?"

"Certain! Having handled guns for over a decade, I haven't forgotten that basic knowledge."

Pausing briefly, Du Jianwu added, "We are currently tracing the person who called my phone to report the crime. I have already provided the phone number to the tech department, and now we can only wait for the investigation results."

The director and his companion exchanged glances, their faces etched with panic and anguish. Both men knew that if the ballistic comparison tests proved the bullets were fired from their missing weapons, their official caps would be blown away by the wind. Even more terrifyingly, they had no idea how much liability they would have to bear; if things went wrong, they might actually end up spending time behind bars!

Meanwhile, Kang Ning was well on his way to Chengdu. Early the next morning, he parked the car in a small parking lot in the middle of the third section of Renmin South Road in Chengdu. Packing nearly a million yuan in cash into a military rucksack, donning a peaked cap, locking the car doors, and slinging the bag over his right shoulder, he walked away at a leisurely pace.

Kang Ning entered a roadside teahouse, ordered a few pastries and a pot of tea, and picked up a newspaper from the table to browse through slowly. It was not until half an hour after the banks opened that Kang Ning finally walked into a nearby Industrial and Commercial Bank. Using the name Nie Xiaoning from the non-commissioned officer certificate, he opened an account and deposited forty thousand yuan in cash. After stepping out, he sought out another bank and split the remaining nine hundred and fifty thousand yuan into two new and old bank cards. By then, it was already noon.

After casually grabbing lunch, Kang Ning hailed a taxi and headed to the Dongfeng Cinema at No. 54 Dabei Temple Road. He bought a booth ticket and entered the theater to watch a marathon of films, waking up from a nap only as evening approached.

Entering the restroom to clean up slightly, Kang Ning emerged and hailed another taxi to return to the parking lot on Renmin South Road. He drove around the city center in a large circle, stopped at a gas station to fill the tank, had dinner in the outskirts, and drove to the Grain Bureau guesthouse. Using his military ID, he rented a single room, took a refreshing bath, changed into a brand-new uniform, darkened his skin slightly with eyeshadow powder, donned his peaked cap, and drove toward West China Second University Hospital.

At eleven o'clock that night, Kang Ning drove through the hospital gates and immediately spotted a total of seven people monitoring the pedestrians and vehicles both inside and outside the entrance. Two of them glanced apathetically at Kang Ning in his armed police uniform before quickly turning their gaze back to the passersby.

Kang Ning parked the car in the hospital parking lot, removed his hat, locked the doors, and avoided the line of sight of the operatives sitting in the two Leijiang-plated cars. Walking with his head held high, he entered the first-floor lobby and took the interior staircase up to the second-floor laboratory department.

Finding only one of the dozen or so rooms illuminated, Kang Ning strolled over. Peering through the doorway, he saw two middle-aged female doctors working overtime to analyze specimen samples. One was bent over and recording data with her side facing the door, while the other sat with her back to him, using a computer plotter to map out charts, paying no attention whatsoever to Kang Ning at the entrance.

Kang Ning looked around, slipped quietly inside, and lifted a relatively long white lab coat from the wall. Stepping back outside, he quickly put it on and buttoned it up securely. From a hook outside a closed laboratory door, he casually grabbed a blank aluminum clipboard, pulled a pre-prepared doctor's white cap and face mask from his trouser pocket, put them on along with a pair of glasses, and stepped into the elevator. Glancing at his reflection in the elevator mirror, he looked quite professional, except that the ID badge pinned to his chest belonged to an elderly specialist in his fifties. With no other choice, Kang Ning unpinned the badge and flipped it around to wear it blank-side out.

Instead of stopping directly at the floor where Lu Jing's ward was located, Kang Ning rode the elevator all the way to the top floor and then took it back down to Lu Jing's floor. Stepping out of the elevator and turning into the ward corridor, Kang Ning indeed spotted two police officers—a man and a woman—seated on plastic chairs outside Lu Jing's door, clearly assigned to monitor the room.

Kang Ning walked up to the duty nurse pushing a small cart, glanced at the ID badge on her chest, pulled down half his mask, and flashed a charming smile: "Xiao Zhong, I'm a newly arrived doctor from the lab. Our director has some questions regarding the routine test results for Room 6 and asked me to double-check them. If you have a moment, could you show me to the room?"

Seeing how amiable Kang Ning was, Xiao Zhong smiled and replied cheerfully, "No wonder I've never seen you around. I didn't expect our hospital to get such a handsome guy. Hehe, sure! Let me drop these things off first, and I'll go with you. But you've got to treat me to tea sometime."

"Piece of cake!"

Kang Ning stood patiently at the intersection and waited. Hearing Xiao Zhong step into the duty room to brief another nurse before coming right back out, Kang Ning adjusted his mask, clutched his clipboard, and walked side by side with Xiao Zhong toward Lu Jing's ward.