Chapter 724

What a coincidence?

Yu Dazhang immediately sensed something was off.

There were so many people on the yacht, yet only the Yan Yuting family perished—no matter how you looked at it, it felt suspicious.

Even if it were coincidence, they couldn’t have all died so completely.

Yan Yuting, her husband, their child, her in-laws, and her own parents—seven people total, not one survived.

And on the entire yacht, only these seven died.

Even if one or two had survived, you could call it coincidence.

“They sure spent money freely.”

Yu Dazhang said, looking at the file:

“They took both sets of parents on vacation—given their family’s financial situation, they shouldn’t have been this generous.”

“And it was overseas travel—that’s no small expense.”

He felt this didn’t align with the Yan family’s values.

Normally, taking both sets of parents on vacation is rare, unless the family is exceptionally well-off; most just travel as a nuclear family of three.

Especially overseas travel, where costs are even higher.

If the Yan family had been wealthy, they wouldn’t have resorted to fraud—so the overseas trip itself made no sense.

“I’ve had someone contact the local police station—they’ve already sent officers to investigate.”

Xu Dui replied:

“They went traveling last year—the timing isn’t too long ago; we should be able to gather some relevant information.”

Coordinating with local police for door-to-door inquiries is a standard investigative method—it improves efficiency and saves manpower and time.

As soon as he finished speaking, the office door was pushed open from outside, and an officer entered to report to Xu Dui:

“The police station has responded—there’s one neighbor who was close to the family. According to this neighbor’s recollection, the family seemed to have won a prize.”

“It’s been nearly a year, so the neighbor doesn’t remember clearly, only that it required the entire family to participate.”

He paused briefly, then continued:

“The prize was a free vacation—they even showed off to neighbors at the time—but they never said how exactly they won it.”

Indeed, it was greed that caused the trouble... When Yu Dazhang heard it was a free trip, he immediately made up his mind.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Clearly, the Yan Yuting family was lured overseas by fraudsters.

The perpetrators counted on this family’s greed, using the prize as bait to get all seven of them together and trick them abroad.

Much simpler—no need to hunt them down one by one; just wipe them all out at once.

Since the incident happened overseas, local police handled it—and according to the records, it was ultimately ruled an accident.

“Should we investigate how they won the prize?” Xu Dui asked.

He too sensed something wrong with this “free vacation”—it was clearly a trap.

“No need.”

Yu Dazhang waved his hand:

“No witnesses left—investigating this now is meaningless.”

The Yan Yuting family perished overseas; even if we pursued it, we couldn’t solve the case.

Besides, the perpetrators never needed to contact the family directly—only to arrange their spending in advance.

Since they’d already set the trap, they must have had a complete plan.

He thought the file ended there, but Yu Dazhang noticed a second page.

Turning the page, he saw another homicide—this one occurred domestically.

In June 2014, Yan Yuting’s sister-in-law’s family suffered food poisoning; all three died despite emergency efforts.

Autopsy confirmed the toxin was “amanitin,” which destroys liver cells—and the family indeed died of liver failure.

Poisonous mushroom?

Yu Dazhang remembered his police academy instructor describing this mushroom and its identification methods.

This toxin doesn’t cause immediate death—after ingestion, vomiting and diarrhea appear, followed by a deceptive recovery period.

Logically, there should have been enough time to save them—but this family wasn’t saved anyway.