Chapter 201: The Sinful Gift

The door to Room 301, Guiyue Apartment, was knocked.

Since Zhong Kui had lived here, the only person who would come to knock on the door was Qi Fei.

Meng Apo opened it impatiently. Standing behind the anti-theft iron gate was not Qi Fei, but a courier in uniform.

"Is this Miss Zhong's home? There's a delivery."

"Just give it to me," Meng Apo said with a wooden face.

"Uh, are you the person herself? This delivery needs to be signed for by the person herself." The courier looked at Meng Apo, slightly hesitant.

The "chuan" character wrinkle between Meng Apo's brows became more obvious: "Give me the pen."

As she spoke, she wrote the two characters "Zhong Kui" on the receipt.

The courier carefully identified the sloppy handwriting and checked the delivery information: "This item is addressed to Zhong Xiaoyu. You wrote... Zhong~ um, Zhong Kui?"

No sooner had the courier finished speaking than footsteps came from two places at the same time.

One was from downstairs in the hallway, and the other was from inside the room.

In an instant, Qi Fei and Zhong Kui appeared at the door almost at the same time, one inside the door, one outside.

"Give me the delivery," the two said in unison, and then looked at each other through the anti-theft iron window.

In the police station, the palm-sized delivery box was placed in the center of the evidence table.

The ordinary yellow cardboard box was stained with dust, looking no different from ordinary delivery packaging.

"Qi Fei, you said there's a diamond worth 20 million inside?" Liu Tong tilted his head to look at the box, quite incredulous.

"To be precise, it's 10 million. According to the clues provided by Jin Yan, a young man wearing a mask offered double the price, requesting to buy a loose diamond, and explicitly said it was to be given to Zhong Xiaoyu..." Qi Fei said, unable to help but look at Zhong Kui.

Liu Tong laughed immediately after hearing this: "Ha, Qi Fei, wouldn't this person be you?"

Qi Fei was speechless: "Team Leader Liu, can we be serious when investigating a case?"

Zhong Kui leaned against the wall, playing with her long black hair, actually looking like it had nothing to do with her, and said unhurriedly: "What Liu Tong said isn't entirely unreasonable. Didn't he claim it was to be given to his girlfriend Zhong Xiaoyu?"

"Eh?" Qi Fei turned his head to look at Zhong Kui in surprise, not expecting her to specifically add the information about "girlfriend."

"Girlfriend, these two words are very key." Zhong Kui raised an eyebrow and looked at Qi Fei. "It seems Xi He's obsession with Zhong Xiaoyu has increased rather than decreased. 20 million, hehe, that's not a small amount."

This was a very strange scene. Zhong Kui was using Zhong Xiaoyu's body, standing from the perspective of an outsider to evaluate her relationship with Xi He, with no waves on her face, even looking more objective than Qi Fei.

Liu Tong patted Qi Fei on the shoulder with a smile: "You are already a mature criminal police officer. You still have to be clear about public and private matters. Zhong Kui is right. The information that the other party considers Zhong Xiaoyu to be his girlfriend is very important. You can't omit it when reporting to me."

Qi Fei changed the subject: "Everyone, take precautions. I'm going to open this delivery."

This might be the most serious delivery unpacking ever.

It's hard to say whether the result of this unpacking is a surprise or a shock.

Qi Fei carefully cut the tape on the box with a utility knife.

The overhead light on the evidence table cut the shadow of the box into several sharp angles. When the blade slowly sliced along the sealed edge of the tape, everyone present couldn't help but hold their breath.

Bubble wrap tightly wrapped a square paper box.

Qi Fei peeled off the bubble wrap like peeling a zongzi. On the black paper box, the ancient Greek characters were hot-stamped. Qi Fei was now very familiar with them—Man spends his whole life looking for his other half.

It confirmed that this was Xi He's masterpiece.

Zhong Kui, who also saw this passage, suddenly stepped forward and pulled off the mask on her face, making Qi Fei panic: "Be careful of poison!"

"This is a gift he gave to Zhong Xiaoyu. Don't worry, he won't poison it. If he wanted to kill her, he would have done it in Baicheng that year." Zhong Kui's voice was cold, like a hunter seeing a target.

She stretched out her white jade-like hands and slowly lifted the lid of the box. Inside the box was a purple velvet jewelry box, and a card. Sure enough, it had the pattern of that monster smiling drawn on it.

"Hmph, this damn sense of ritual." Zhong Kui sneered and took out the jewelry box. When she opened the lid, a dazzling light entered everyone's eyes, and the whole room seemed to have been pressed on the mute button—a cherry-blossom-colored diamond lay in the velvet depression, and the cushion-cut facets refracted layers of iridescence under the cold light. The outermost layer was light pink like peach petals, but inside surged starlight intertwined with light purple and orange-red.

"Mommy..." Wu Shanqiu couldn't help but exclaim. "This looks better than the one Xiao Hei snatched!"

Zhong Kui raised her hand slightly, and the iridescence flowed down her black hair to her pale collarbone: "It looks good, it looks good. This quality has many similarities with the previous one. It seems they are all from the Angola mine.

The problem is, where is the person who carried it back from Africa now?"

"It's over. Xi He has already gotten the diamond. Then Su Jing, isn't she..." Wu Shanqiu's excitement was instantly covered by worry. "The phone number obtained from Jin Yan has been canceled..."

Qi Fei applied to Liu Tong: "Team Leader Liu, Su Jing disappeared near Nanling. We must immediately conduct a carpet search of Nanling."

At this time, Zhong Kui, who had been staring at the diamond, suddenly spoke: "Hmm? What is this?"

Her fingertips lightly brushed over the scratches on the edge of the jewelry box. Sunlight leaked in from the gaps in the blinds, casting fine golden threads on the velvet lining. Looking closely, there were actually crescent-shaped indentations on the velvet-wrapped box: "Xi He, this perfectionist, would actually allow such subtle damage on the box?"

Wu Shanqiu hurriedly grabbed the magnifying glass from the side and aimed it at the place Zhong Kui saw: "Huh? This kind of trace is so familiar!"

As she was speaking, Qi Fei's phone rang. He picked up the phone, and the voice of an unexpected person came through, sounding extremely anxious: "Officer Qi, I am Liu Binjie from the Nancheng Zoo."

"Binjie, what happened?" Qi Fei said, turning on the phone's speakerphone.

"Xiao Hei disappeared last night. We searched the entire zoo and couldn't see its trace. We need your help!"

Wu Shanqiu, who heard this, immediately took the jewelry box from Zhong Kui's hand and pointed excitedly at the indentations on it: "I remember! These are bird claw marks! I've seen many of them on the perch in Xiao Hei's livestream!"

Zhong Kui had already walked between Liu Tong and Qi Fei at this time and said: "With Xi He's style of doing things, he already completed his performance in the Nanling Labyrinth last time. This time, repeating the same mistake and imprisoning people in Nanling is very unlikely." As she spoke, she sneered, "Zoo? This kind of place is to his taste." ===== CHAPTER 202 =====