Chapter 207: Suffocation

"Police comrade, I swear, I really didn't steal the unit's cleaning agent. This 84 disinfectant was borrowed from the aunt who cleans the restroom!" As soon as Wang Jiefang saw Qi Fei, she chattered and explained.

Qi Fei looked at this cleaning aunt with a confused face and pulled Zhong Kui aside: "You want me to mediate this matter at this time?"

Zhong Kui curled her lips and laughed wickedly: "Officer Qi, it seems your chemistry is not learned well. You bring them over, and you will know why." As she spoke, she pointed to the testing personnel who were still busy.

Sure enough, the testing personnel in work clothes talked to the aunt and found the problem: "Do you use 84 to clean bird droppings directly?" The testing personnel had an expression of disbelief.

"Yes!" Wang Jiefang answered righteously. "This is not illegal, right?"

"The main component of 84 disinfectant is sodium hypochlorite. It's not a big problem for daily use, but bird droppings belong to weakly acidic substances. After contact with disinfectant, a reaction will occur and release chlorine."

"Chlorine?!" Qi Fei heard this and blurted out, just like Xiao Hei hearing an instruction. "Isn't that Chen Hao's cause of death?"

Zhong Kui paced to the center of the crowd: "The acidity of bird droppings is not strong, and the speed of chlorine production is not fast, so most people, including this Auntie Wang, are fine. But there are always exceptions." She pointed to the glass trestle bridge as she spoke. "Chen Hao should have gone under the trestle bridge to find that diamond. That place is a depression, and there is glass blocking the top.

At that time, it was several hours after Auntie Wang used disinfectant to clean the bird droppings. The chlorine produced by the reaction between the new bird droppings and the residual disinfectant had already accumulated to a certain concentration near the ground.

He had consumed a lot of physical strength chasing Xiao Hei before. At that time, he should have been breathing heavily. Plus the anxiety of losing the diamond made him too focused on finding the diamond, ignoring the discomfort brought by inhaling chlorine, and finally fell there.

Su Jing's respiratory tract damage is similar, because when she was in a coma, she was thrown on the ground of the Bird Pavilion, with her face close to the ground, inhaling quite a bit of chlorine accumulated near the surface."

"This is too coincidental, right?" Qi Fei was skeptical.

"It's also very simple to know if this inference holds. We can ask this aunt to clean the Bird Pavilion according to the usual operation today, at the same time, with the same disinfectant, and then ask the testing personnel to detect the chlorine concentration under the trestle bridge during the time Chen Hao died," Zhong Kui smiled slightly, looking very sure.

In the Nancheng Zoo in the middle of the night, the Bird Pavilion was brightly lit, and everyone waited for the detection result of the chlorine concentration under the glass trestle bridge with different moods.

"The detection result is out—the chlorine concentration at the bottom of the trestle bridge reached 430ppm." The testing personnel checked the data and said.

"What is the concept of this value?" Qi Fei asked.

"If you don't wear any protection, exposure for more than one minute may be fatal."

Hearing this, everyone's eyes looked at Wang Jiefang on the side.

Wang Jiefang, who had not yet realized the seriousness of the matter, was sleeping soundly leaning against the rockery at this time...

Chen Yan rubbed the old suitcase with one hand and raised the other, wiping the tears and snot on her face with her sleeve: "You said my brother's death was an accident?"

"Yes, that night, he wanted to find the lost diamond too much and went under the trestle bridge full of chlorine..." Qi Fei said.

"Why is he so stupid? We never needed him to make a lot of money, just to live, safe and sound..." Chen Yan said, sobbing, her tears falling "pitter-patter" on Chen Hao's broken suitcase.

Qi Fei sent Chen Yan to Nancheng Airport—the place where Chen Hao once wandered and once took risks.

Chen Yan took Chen Hao's ashes and boarded the plane back to her hometown in the northwest.

In front of the huge glass curtain wall of the terminal, Qi Fei looked up at the plane crossing the sky and sighed for a long time.

A hand fell gently on his back, stroking gently. Zhong Kui's voice sounded in his ear: "This is his life. You don't have to be so sentimental."

"Kui..." Qi Fei rarely used such an intimate address, his tone was low. "Do you think Chen Hao is a good person or a bad person? He was so diligent and so dedicated, but because of greed, he lost his life."

"Neither. He is one of the majority of people in this world, an ordinary person, living hard, wanting to fight for a breath, as if he would drown if he lost this breath.

Before he was drowned by chlorine, he must have been suffocated by that expectation of 'must get ahead,' right?" Zhong Kui said, reaching out and handing Qi Fei a small box.

"Hmm? What is this?"

"A gift, celebrating that you solved another case."

Qi Fei opened the box, and inside was a specimen of a myna bird. He was startled and asked nervously: "This isn't Xiao Hei, right?"

Zhong Kui deliberately showed a cold expression: "What do you think?"

Suddenly, the specimen in his hand began to speak: "This isn't Xiao Hei, right? What do you think?"

"Ha, it's a toy. I didn't expect you to have such a childish side." Qi Fei breathed a sigh of relief.

That toy myna bird was still repeating Qi Fei's words persistently.

Deep in the dense forest, sunlight left dazzling spots on Xi He's face through the gaps in the leaves.

Wherever the sunlight reached, his eyelashes shone with gold. Along with that strange "idiot" sound in his ear, a murderous intent flashed in those cold eyes that could never be warmed: "Stupid bird, shut up!"

"Shut up, shut up!" Xiao Hei stopped on the branch surrounded by new green, as if deliberately irritating Xi He, imitating his words.

Xi He grabbed the sharp knife at his side and pointed it at Xiao Hei: "If you are so noisy again, believe it or not, I will kill you?!"

Xiao Hei flapped its wings, not afraid, but "chirped" and started singing: "You are my little, little apple~"

The cold light on the sharp knife flashed with fire. It was Xi He's hand trembling slightly, and the fierceness on his face was loosened by this absurd scene.

In the police station, Wu Shanqiu grabbed her phone and ran to the office excitedly, almost bumping into Qi Fei.

"What are you doing, rushing around all the way early in the morning?" Qi Fei blocked Wu Shanqiu with his hand, letting her make an emergency stop.

Wu Shanqiu shook her phone and turned on the speakerphone: "Fei-ge, Fei-ge! It's a call from Liu Binjie, Xiao Hei has been found!"

"Oh? Where was it found?"

On the other end of the phone, Liu Binjie's voice was trembling, clearly also very excited: "To be precise, Xiao Hei came back by itself! Early this morning, I went to the Bird Pavilion and saw Xiao Hei in the place it likes to hide things the most..."

Liu Binjie hadn't finished speaking when Xiao Hei's familiar voice rang out on the other end of the phone: "Stupid bird, so annoying, stay away from me!" The tone of this speech was exactly the same as Xi He's. ===== CHAPTER 208 =====