Chapter 50: Where is the Alley?

Yue Fengsheng's corpse still retained the posture of kneeling in front of the toilet. He was placed face-up on the autopsy table, and Xiao Tao was holding the corpse's feet, carefully stretching them as if performing rehabilitation training for a patient.

"Uh, Dr. Tao, what are you doing?" Wu Shanqiu couldn't help but lean forward to ask.

"The corpse is stiff; I have to stretch it to make it lie flat for further autopsy." Xiao Tao maintained his professional demeanor, saying without a trace of emotion: "I know you are in a hurry. The toxicology test has already been done. The cause of death is relatively clear: a disulfiram reaction caused by cephalosporin and alcohol. Cephalosporin inhibits acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in the liver, preventing ethanol from being oxidized into acetaldehyde and then further decomposed, leading to the accumulation of acetaldehyde in the body..." The usually taciturn Xiao Tao became talkative when discussing his profession.

"Speak human language..." Qi Fei had to interrupt him.

Xiao Tao pushed up his glasses, accustomed to Qi Fei's impatience, and smiled as he changed his way of explaining: "People often say, 'Cephalosporin with alcohol, you're ready to go.' It means these two things shouldn't be taken together. Generally, if taken by mistake, it causes adverse reactions like headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, palpitations, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing. But in Yue Fengsheng's case, he had already consumed too much alcohol, and the child added an excessive amount of cephalosporin to the wine. That's no longer just a matter of adverse reactions; it caused death by acute heart failure. Since this reaction looks similar to the state of being drunk, it is very deceptive. It's likely that neither the deceased nor his family expected it to be fatal."

"That matches up. The evidence department detected cephalosporin residue in the pocket of Xiao You's jacket. It seems he brought the pills back in his pocket and put them into the wine glass," Qi Fei said.

"This is too incredible. Yue Fengsheng is a grown man; didn't he notice the foreign object in his wine glass?" Wu Shanqiu shook her head slightly.

"Listening to Lv Xiuxia, when Xiao You returned, Yue Fengsheng was already dead drunk, on the verge of blacking out. When a person reaches that point, let alone having something in the wine, even if you replaced it with urine, he would probably drink it without hesitation," Qi Fei said. "The killer clearly knows Yue Fengsheng's situation very well."

"We searched Yue Fengsheng's home and didn't find any cephalosporin-type drugs. They say Yue Fengsheng was someone who avoided medical treatment and hated seeing doctors, so they didn't keep medicine at home. It seems Xiao You really did bring it from outside," Wu Shanqiu said.

"This Daddy-Long-Legs is fictional. The key is who Xiao You saw. We found witnesses from that night who saw Xiao You return home; they all said they saw Xiao You running home alone, and no one brought him back. This also explains why the Daddy-Long-Legs in Xiao You's words knew his home address—actually, Xiao You went back himself. But where did the cephalosporin in his pocket come from?"

"In that case, Lv Xiuxia still has significant suspicion. It's not hard for her to instill the idea of a Daddy-Long-Legs in the child, and she had enough opportunity to put the cephalosporin in the child's pocket. After all, the marital relationship between Yue Fengsheng and Lv Xiuxia was average," Wu Shanqiu said.

"Of course, we can continue to interrogate Lv Xiuxia. But I've been thinking: if Lv Xiuxia is the killer, there are many parts of the process that don't make sense. If she wanted to frame it as the child's doing, why would she be in such a hurry to wash the dishes after discovering Yue Fengsheng was dead?"

"Xiao Tao just said that Yue Fengsheng's time of death was between 3:00 and 4:00 AM. Lv Xiuxia had enough time to clean the scene. The water stains on the wine glass hadn't dried, which means she washed them in a rush before we arrived. If she had the level of skill to teach a four-year-old child to commit a crime, why would she be negligent in this step? Crucially, there was no need to do this to increase her own suspicion. She could have just said the child put the medicine in. But she clearly covered up the fact that medicine was added to protect Xiao You."

"Damn it, whoever it is, using a child to kill is truly unforgivable!" Wu Shanqiu said indignantly.

"However, look, this person used cephalosporin, clearly knowing that Yue Fengsheng was an alcoholic and that taking it with alcohol would cause trouble. Xiao You is a child; if they had used something highly toxic, what if he had eaten it too? He would have died."

"You mean, this person has the intention of protecting the child?"

"At the very least, it shows that this person's target was only Yue Fengsheng."

Looking at Yue Fengsheng, who had finally been straightened out by Xiao Tao and was lying face-up on the autopsy table—because of years of alcoholism, he looked much older than his peers—Qi Fei couldn't help but mutter: "It's a pity this drunkard went around causing trouble everywhere. Who exactly did he kick that was so tough that he had to die?"

"How about we let Zhong Kui help with some clairvoyance or something?" Wu Shanqiu said, half-seriously.

As they were speaking, the sound of Zhong Kui's high heels came from behind, and she said with no small amount of triumph: "I know that Xiao You didn't come back alone."

"We've already asked the witnesses, and there were several of them; they all said he went back alone," Qi Fei said.

"Because you were all led by the nose by a child," Zhong Kui said.

Qi Fei wasn't convinced: "We are professional criminal investigators; how could we be led by the nose by a child!"

"It's precisely because the other party is a child that you would believe it. It's not just older people who have authority; a child's innocence can sometimes be a very deceptive authority, making you naturally believe them. Because Xiao You told you he saw the Daddy-Long-Legs in an alley, of course, I was also biased, and like you, I thought this person must have brought Xiao You back from outside."

"However, after learning the origin of Daddy-Long-Legs from Zhou Li, everything Xiao You said has to be reconsidered. The small alley—is it possible that it was also something he imagined? In Lv Xiuxia's home, Xiao You also has a picture book of Andersen's Fairy Tales. There is a famous story—'The Little Match Girl.' The little girl was by the wall in a street corner alley, imagining many beautiful things. The little girl in the fairy tale was cold and hungry, needing food and warmth; the Xiao You in reality is abused by his stepfather, needing a reliable person like Daddy-Long-Legs to save him. So, the place where Daddy-Long-Legs appeared turned into a small alley."

"Doesn't that make our search range even more boundless?" Qi Fei said with a headache.

"I might have found the place where Xiao You met Daddy-Long-Legs," Zhong Kui said, not without triumph.

"When did you find it?" Qi Fei asked, half-doubting.

"Didn't I tell the onlookers that I was a fortune teller?" Zhong Kui laughed. "Waiting for a rabbit by the tree—didn't business come quickly?"

"Absurd. Are you using our police station's banner to scam money from the common people?" Qi Fei was speechless after hearing this. ===== CHAPTER 51 =====