Chapter 26: No Longer Involved

Since Wu Ping was still breathing when she was discovered, the policewoman did not perform chest compressions or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Instead, she merely loosened the collar and belt of Wu Ping's restrictive clothing to help her breathe more easily.

Finally, the policeman carried Wu Ping on his back and left first to reach the vehicle.

The policewoman stayed behind to photograph and document the surrounding traces, recording details such as the size, depth, and spacing of the suspected perpetrator's footprints.

Watching her collect samples of the surrounding water plants and soil into evidence bags, Fu Yuan asked curiously, "Are these things useful too?"

The policewoman turned back and smiled: "I don't know. Evidence can only be too little, never too much. What if it's needed?"

Captain Guo stood to the side, watching Wu Ping’s figure, lost in thought.

With the task mostly done, the same policeman drove them back to the hospital, with Wu Ping sitting in the middle of the back seat.

*

The hospital. The familiar emergency room.

The doctor quickly checked for obstructions in her nose and mouth, assessed her vital signs, and after examining her breathing, heartbeat, and pulse, hooked her up to a saline drip.

It was the same female doctor as yesterday. She looked at Fu Yuan with a hesitant expression.

"...This situation requires an X-ray. Here is the slip; go pay for it later." She handed the slip over directly, checked the nasal cannula and the temperature of the space heater on Wu Ping, and said nothing more.

Ten minutes later, Wu Ping slowly regained consciousness.

Captain Guo and his team had gone to meet others to exchange intelligence, leaving Fu Yuan to watch over the hospital bed.

Seeing that she had woken up, Fu Yuan prepared to take her leave.

She had done what she could; the rest was up to the police.

According to the company's schedule, she was to return after lunch today. If she missed the company bus because of this, it meant paying for the return trip out of her own pocket.

The woman’s expression was pale, her dewy eyes gazing at her, "Leaving so soon?"

Fu Yuan turned her head away, unwilling to look at her. "I have already called the police for you, and they have begun to intervene. I think there will be results on the case soon."

"Alright..." The woman lowered her head, her tone disappointed, without pressing her to stay.

"When are your parents arriving?" Fu Yuan stood up, stretched, and asked her.

The woman swiped through her phone and frowned. "They seem to be arriving later. They usually live in the countryside and aren't very familiar with the roads in the city."

Fu Yuan looked out the window and asked, "Where is your hometown?"

The woman scrolled through her phone, browsing text messages while answering, "Jiang City."

"I'm from Jiang City, too," Fu Yuan said, shifting her gaze to the woman's phone. "That's good quality."

The woman looked up, followed her gaze, paused for a moment, and smiled, saying, "This is a Fruit 16; it's waterproof."

Fu Yuan remarked, "You're quite wealthy."

The woman tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, a hint of smugness in her eyes, and said dismissively, "That deadbeat husband of mine had nothing else, but he was always willing to spend money on me."

Watching her, Fu Yuan felt a sense of discomfort.

She wanted to ask how the children were being handled, or how old her eldest brother was and whether he could take care of them.

Seeing the woman's expression, Fu Yuan decided against asking. After holding it in for a long time, she finally said, "I have already told the police that you woke up. Someone will come to question you shortly."

With that, she placed the doctor's slip on the quilt covering the woman. "Here is the slip. Pay for it yourself, or you can ask the police officer to help."

Having said this, without waiting for a reply, Fu Yuan turned and left the hospital.

The woman opened her mouth, wondering whether she should still pay for the 50-yuan takeout from yesterday.

On the bus.

Perhaps because it was close to the station, there were still seats in the back, so Fu Yuan sat down.

From morning until now, she hadn't checked the company’s WeChat group. Upon opening it, she found that the company's "Travel Group A" already had "99+" messages.

She scrolled up and found that the eyewitness from yesterday had posted a message—a bulletin regarding the deceased issued by the "Lin City Travel" official account.

The situation was much as she had understood.

The deceased, Wu Ping’s late husband, was surnamed Lin, 42 years old, and had accidentally drowned while playing at the Changwan Beach in Lin City.

The account did not provide detailed information. At the end of the article, the editor urged everyone to pay attention to safety and be a civilized tourist.

Most of the group was discussing why it was a drowning. Everyone had different guesses; conspiracy theorists suggested that someone might have bribed officials to declare it a suicide. Others said there were big fish in the water, and since it was the sea, it was normal to have sharks...

Otherwise, how could one explain the body being dismembered? Many people from the company had seen it at the time.

Fu Yuan looked at the group chat with a headache and sent a message: "Do not believe rumors, do not spread rumors."

She truly didn't want to get involved any further. Initially, it was just curiosity that led her to explore the truth, drawing her closer to Wu Ping step by step.

But everything that happened this morning had completely changed her perspective.

From Wu Ping being mysteriously taken away to the dying state she was in when discovered, everything left Fu Yuan deeply shaken.

This was no game; it wasn't children playing house. It was a real murder case.

If they had arrived a moment later, Wu Ping might have truly been nothing more than a cold corpse.

Even now, sitting on the bus, she couldn't figure out how Wu Ping was transported out of the hospital that morning. Was it really through that ambulance, as Captain Guo suggested?

And who was driving the ambulance?

Why did Qiu Siyuan, the person on duty in the monitoring room today, block the surveillance?

Why would the killer have the ambulance return, switch to a sedan, and then lead everyone to a remote landfill?

Did "He," or "They," truly intend to murder her? If so, why not kill Wu Ping in the car and dump her in the water, instead of keeping her alive?

Weren't they afraid of exposing their identity?

On one hand, perhaps because of her attitude toward her relationship, Fu Yuan didn't have a good impression of Wu Ping and felt she wasn't entirely innocent. But if Wu Ping was completely innocent, a pure victim—why would the killer target her?

Was it extortion, or was she blocking someone else's interests?

Neither seemed likely.

On the other hand, Fu Yuan felt she was leaning toward victim-blaming. In this matter, Wu Ping was entirely the image of a victim.

Her husband died, she was poisoned, and she ended up in the hospital.

Fu Yuan even suspected that if she hadn't accompanied her to the hospital, she might have missed the optimal window for treatment.

Furthermore, it was Fu Yuan who called the police for her. If she weren't innocent, why would she want to attract the police's attention?

What good would that do her?

Fu Yuan felt a bit hungry.

She had eaten plenty for breakfast, but she was still starving.

Checking her phone, the managers were calling everyone in the group to go out for dinner, saying the company would reimburse them.

She rubbed her stomach, recalling the corpse she saw on the beach yesterday, and felt a wave of nausea.

She turned off her phone, cleared her mind, and warned herself: Curiosity killed the cat; those matters are not for you to get involved in.