Chapter 552

"I think you're being way too stereotypical. Investigating a case still requires paying attention to evidence."

……

Chen Fan said, "You go in first and interrogate him again. Li Tian and I will go search his room. We might find some clues."~

Old Song agreed.

Chen Fan left the police station, took Xiang Qinqin and Liu Mengyan, and together with Li Tian, headed to the man's house.

The man's home was on the other side of the city. Because the man was a manager at a listed company, he lived in a wealthy district.

When the group arrived at the door of the villa, they happened to see the live-in housekeeper sweeping the courtyard.

Li Tian walked over and immediately showed his credentials.

Seeing that the visitors were police, the housekeeper quickly opened the door and let everyone in.

Xiang Qinqin and Liu Mengyan were in charge of examining the scene.

Li Tian and Chen Fan were responsible for asking the housekeeper some questions.

"Five days ago, the day your male employer went on a business trip, did anything happen in this house?"

Li Tian got straight to the point.

The housekeeper thought carefully for a moment and said, "Anything happen? It seems not. I've worked in this house for two or three years now. I won't say the relationship between the male employer and the female employer was great, but they treated each other with due respect."

"Just occasionally, both of them would be in a slightly off mood, and they'd have a bit of a cold war. As for arguments, generally there weren't any. They seemed to never quarrel with each other."

Li Tian continued, "Think carefully again. Your female employer is currently missing, and your male employer is now being held at the police station."

The housekeeper was surprised. "You're saying my female employer is missing?"

"How could that be? Didn't she go to the neighboring city to visit her sister?"

Li Tian asked, "How do you know about this?"

The housekeeper replied, "It was the day the male employer was about to go on his business trip. Oh, right, that day they seemed a little unhappy, like they had a small quarrel. At that time I heard the female employer say she was going to the neighboring city, but then it went quiet soon after."

"In the afternoon, after I finished my work at the house, something came up at my own home, so I hurried back."

"I don't know whether anything happened that afternoon either."

From the conversation with the housekeeper, it could basically be pinned down that the flight attendant had likely gone missing that afternoon.

The scene shifted to inside the villa.

A cameraman was following Liu Mengyan and Xiang Qinqin, conducting the on-site examination.

The villa was rather large, and the work was extremely time-consuming.

The two split up to search, going through every room carefully from top to bottom.

In the end, they regrouped in the villa's living room.

"How did it go? Did you find any clues?"

Xiang Qinqin asked.

Liu Mengyan shook her head.

There were no suspicious points or clues in the villa. Could it be that Mr. Li really hadn't done anything to his wife?

"It definitely can't be that simple."

Liu Mengyan said, "Today at the airport, we told him right away that his wife was missing, and his first reaction wasn't to worry about his wife, but to question our identities."

"Later on he acted so concerned about his wife. That's clearly not right."

Xiang Qinqin said, "Indeed it's not right. I believe Chen Fan and the others saw it too, which is why they took the opportunity while Officer Song was interrogating him to bring us here to look for clues."

"Let's not worry about that for now. Let's go out and report to them."

Liu Mengyan said.

The two walked out of the villa. Li Tian was in charge of chatting with the housekeeper, while Chen Fan was inside looking for some key information.

Seeing that the two had already come out, Chen Fan watched them.

Xiang Qinqin and Liu Mengyan shook their heads at the same time.

And just at that moment.

Chen Fan suddenly said to the housekeeper, "Wait, what did you just say?"

The housekeeper said, "Oh, what I just said was, cleaning such a big house is killing me. Especially that floor mat in the master bedroom. The material is very comfortable, but once it gets stained, it's really hard to wash."

"A few days ago I went home for a bit, and when I came back I found that carpet was gone. I was afraid it was my mistake that caused something to go missing from the villa, so I called the male employer to ask."

"He said the carpet hadn't been replaced in several years, so he had it thrown out and bought a new one to put in its place,"

Li Tian also caught the key information at this point.

Chen Fan has already given the order:

"You two, follow me."

Xiang Qinqin and Liu Mengyan quickly followed Chen Fan, matching his footsteps as he headed outside.

Chen Fan got into the driver's seat and immediately headed straight for the residential area's garbage collection station.

Because it was a wealthy district, the garbage collection station was set up in a relatively remote spot.

Luckily it was winter. Although the garbage collection station was full of trash, it didn't have that foul stench of summer.

Plus the three of them put on masks, so it was still bearable?

"Teacher, that carpet has been gone for four days. Is it possible it was disposed of with the other garbage?"

Liu Mengyan asked.

Chen Fan said, "Stop asking questions. Hurry up and look. That should be the only piece of evidence."

Xiang Qinqin and Liu Mengyan quickly focused their energy on searching for the carpet.

The garbage pile was a small mountain. The three of them dug from different positions, from top to bottom.

But after digging for a long time, they still hadn't found anything resembling a carpet.

Although this was a wealthy neighborhood, the trash in the dump was only a little better than what you'd find in an ordinary residential area.

"I thought the dump the rich people used would be full of designer clothes tossed around everywhere, but looks like it's nothing special."

"Heh, some people really think that rich folks just squander money and toss things around willy-nilly? Let me tell you, even rich people don't spend money carelessly."

"And don't go hoping to find anything super valuable in the trash cans of a wealthy neighborhood—rich people aren't fools either."

"I often watch those bloggers who pick through trash in wealthy areas. At first it seems normal, just stuff worth two or three hundred yuan, but then later they supposedly find designer bags and watches worth tens of thousands, all brand new. Now that I've seen the actual trash from a real wealthy area, I'm even more sure those people are just putting on a show."

……

Chen Fan took the two women and searched through the dump for a good two or three hours.

In the end, the three of them nearly collapsed from exhaustion in the dump, still having found nothing.

After searching for another half hour.

Xiang Qinqin, usually so observant, suddenly lit up and.