茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Zhao Feng turned his head to look at Wang De’an, who had also stepped out of the room, and saw a grave expression on his face.

Clearly, he’d picked up on something being wrong during the brief exchange between Zhao Feng and the man in the room.

They exchanged a glance, didn’t say a word, and went straight to find the service staff on this floor to contact the manager.

Wang De’an showed his credentials to the manager—who, in fact, knew him since the hotel was near the local police station, often serving as the lodging place for visiting colleagues from other regions.

After explaining the situation, Wang De’an and Zhao Feng checked the registry for the adjacent room and examined the hallway’s surveillance footage from that period, confirming that the only person in the room was indeed the registered guest.

The guest was a 37-year-old male from Guangdong Province who, judging by the surveillance footage, seemed somewhat dazed. Since entering the room at noon, he hadn’t come out.

“What do you think?” Wang De’an asked Zhao Feng privately after dismissing the hotel manager.

Zhao Feng frowned thoughtfully before saying, “I still think there’s a problem… Not just from the brief glimpse we got through the window, or the conversation at his door, but also his voice, what he said, all were problematic. Plus, those strange knocking sounds on our window—it wasn’t only ours that was knocked, but also the adjacent room’s, as if someone was deliberately trying to draw our attention towards it. But who’s knocking on the window?”

Instinctively lowering his voice, Wang De’an said, “Is it once again ‘that’… giving us a warning?”

Zhao Feng knew what ‘that’ referred to, and shook his head, “I don’t know, but I think… probably not.”

After some discussion, they decided to enlist the hotel’s help to cut off the power to that room and then send someone under the guise of maintenance to check inside.

But, unexpectedly, there was no response from within the room after the power cut-off.

Could it be that the person has really fallen asleep?

So they asked the service staff to knock on the door, but even after some knocking, there was no answer.

At that moment, Wang De’an and Zhao Feng suddenly heard the sound of a heavy object falling to the floor within the room.

Reacting quickly, Wang De’an blurted out to the service staff, “Open the door, quickly!”

After the room’s door was opened, they immediately saw a man seated on the ground, his face covered in tears, his body smeared with blood, attempting to cut his own throat with a knife.

Wang De’an and Zhao Feng rushed in together, held the man down, and took away his knife.

The hotel manager who’d followed them in hurriedly used his walkie-talkie to instruct the hotel’s staff to restore power to the room. Once the lights were on, they discovered several gashes on the man’s neck and also some injuries on his wrists. His blood was everywhere.

However, perhaps because the knife was too blunt, or because the man had not been forceful enough when cutting himself, the wounds weren’t deep and, fortunately, no arteries had been damaged.

On the nearby floor was an air-conditioning vent cover, torn off by a piece of rope, and not far from there was a toppled chair.

Anyone could understand upon seeing this scene—the man was attempting suicide!

And it looked like he’d first attempted to slit his wrists, then tried to hang himself, and after failing at that, tried to cut his throat.

The thought of what had just taken place brought a sense of dread to the hotel manager, who, upon Wang De’an’s prompt, hurriedly dialed for an ambulance.

Wang De’an promptly made a call to report the incident to his department, and Zhao Feng asked the hotel service staff to fetch clean towels from the bathroom to cover the man’s wounds.

“Mentioning your troubles might help alleviate your pain. What’s bothering you so much that you want to end your life?” Zhao Feng attempted to divert the man’s attention.

“I deserve to die, don’t bother with me, let me die. I’m useless, a burden to others; just let me die…”

From the man’s sobbing and disjointed, incoherent words, Zhao Feng and Wang De’an learned that the man had become addicted to online gambling and had borrowed money to keep playing. He’d even mortgaged his house to continue gambling but ended up losing everything. He was now drowning in debt and in a state of despair. He bought a knife and rope, wanting to commit suicide in the hotel, but unexpectedly failed multiple times.

When the man found out that Zhao Feng and Wang De’an were police officers, he immediately clutched their legs sobbing, “I’ll provide evidence and testify against those running the online gambling. They must have cheated. They’re breaking the law. Please, help me get my money back…”

“Calm down. Don’t get too worked up. We’ll follow up with you about this matter once your wounds are treated,” Wang De’an reassured him.

However, he knew, tracking down these online gambling rings is highly challenging. With the servers and key criminals often offshore, and the rapid speed of money transfers, apprehending culprits and recovering money were both difficult tasks.

After the man who attempted suicide was sent to the hospital, a canary hidden in a discreet corner outside the window fluttered its wings, seemingly drained, and flew off in the direction of Xiao Pingguo’s house.

It wasn’t that Xiao Pingguo didn’t want to know what would happen next or to continue eavesdropping on Officer Wang and Officer Zhao’s conversation. Instead, Canary had exhausted a tremendous amount of energy and needed to return for rest and food.

In this tour, it was dedicated to flying everywhere, gathering sensory information under high-intensity levels, searching for individuals, eavesdropping, and dodging. This was far more exhausting than just freely flying and wandering around at will.

If it were any other bird, it would eat something nearby when tired or hungry or find a place to rest. But now that Canary’s tastes had become picky, it wouldn’t eat anything other than the bird feed specially crafted by Xiao Pingguo, no matter how hungry it was. Furthermore, since it wasn’t at home, or in its little cage, it was unable to rest or sleep comfortably anywhere else.

When Canary began its journey back, Xiao Pingguo in the bedroom finally sighed in relief, wiping the sweat that had gathered on her forehead.

As she used Canary to eavesdrop on the two officers’ conversation, Xiao Pingguo overheard some noises from the room next door.

A man was recording some words that resembled final testament, not only for his wife and children but also for his parents, then discussing the mistakes he had made and why he wanted to commit suicide.

Upon hearing this, Xiao Pingguo became anxious. Her first response was to call the police, but she realized she had no reason to do so and had no way to explain it to them.

Furthermore, by the time the police could confirm the situation, it might be too late.

Calling the police would only serve to implicate herself, bringing unnecessary suspicion and would not be of any help at all.

After she discovered that she could perceive the external world through Canary, Uncle Xiang had told her to remain an observer concerning other people’s matters or outside information and not to be a participant. If she runs across something that she truly could not ignore, she should contact Xiang Kun first and he would tell her what to do.

However, at this moment, she was not able to contact Xiang Kun, and the situation was extremely urgent. She couldn’t simply do nothing and allow this person to commit suicide.

Thus, in her panic, she had Canary knock on windows, alerting Officers Wang and Zhao to the situation next door by tapping on both windows.

If someone looked up at the hotel from the outside, they would see a canary pecking rapidly twice at one window, then move to the next window to peck twice, before quickly flapping its wings to fly upwards, hiding itself on the ledge of the window on the floor above and clinging tightly against the wall.

After repeating this twice, Officer Zhao finally noticed the anomaly in the room next door.

When Xiao Pingguo, through Canary, learned that the person in the room was trying to hang himself while Officers Zhao and Wang were at the door, she clenched her fists tightly, wishing she had the ability to remotely open the door to that room, but unfortunately, she didn’t possess such a power.

Fortunately, the man’s weight was too heavy, and the air conditioning grid was pulled down by the rope, causing the hanging to fail.

Officers Wang and Zhao finally had the door opened and rushed in, preventing the person from further harm.

The moment the two officers entered, her heart, which had been hanging in suspense, was finally put at ease.

After a while, an exhausted Canary finally flew back. Xiao Pingguo opened the window to let it in, prepared food and water for it, and gently stroked its back and feathers while it was eating.

When Canary was almost done eating, the phone’s WeChat chimed, indicating a message from Xiang Kun.

Xiao Pingguo immediately dialed him and informed him about how Officer Wang and Officer Zhao had sought her out and made a few guesses and deductions. Then, she told him about the information she overheard about Guo Tianxiang and Mijoe at the hotel through Canary, followed by the unexpected attempted suicide. She relayed all this to Xiang Kun.

…

Jianzhou City, the airport.

Upon arrival, Xiang Kun didn’t inform You Meng beforehand and chose not to ask anyone to pick him up. Instead, he hired a car directly with Old Xia, Tang Baona, and Yang Zhen’er and headed to Tongshi Town.

Seeing Xiang Kun, who was in the passenger seat, staying silent while on the phone after leaving the airport, Yang Zhen’er couldn’t help but curiously ask Tang Baona sitting next to her, “Who is Brother Xiang talking to? It’s been over ten minutes since he picked up the call, hasn’t it? It’s quite a lengthy conversation.”

“If I heard him correctly when Xiang Kun picked up the call, it should be Xiao Pingguo on the other end,” Tang Baona said.

Xiang Kun’s call lasted quite a while, only ending when they were nearing the hotel. He then told Xiao Pingguo, “Yes, you’ve done quite well. We just arrived at the hotel, so I’ll help answer those questions you’re having in a bit.”

After hanging up, facing the curious gazes of Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er, Xiang Kun said, “It was Xiao Pingguo asking some questions about Canary and some of the things I’ve taught her before. She ran into some issues.”

“What sort of issues?” Yang Zhen’er subconsciously asked, but immediately shook her head and muttered to herself, “Never mind, I’m sure it’s about something I’m not interested in and don’t understand. Otherwise, Xiao Pingguo would’ve asked directly in the group chat.”

As they had done in Star City, they once again booked two standard rooms – one for the three women and one for Xiang Kun.

As there were things that he didn’t want to speak about in front of Nana and Zhen’er, he soon called Xiao Pingguo back after returning to his room.

Of the things Xiao Pingguo had mentioned earlier, what he was most concerned about wasn’t about how Officer Wang and Officer Zhao had approached him, nor about the information related to Guo Tianxiang and Mijoe. Instead, it was Xiao Pingguo’s “intervention” in the suicide incident in the room next door to the two officers.