With a boom, lightning flashed across the sky.
The surrounding space was bright for an instant, illuminating Song Nanshan's rain-soaked hair and also the man's tense face: "Something's really going on. You need to come and see."
"Gu Qiumian?" Zhang Shutong asked reflexively.
At the same time, he had already quickly pushed open the car door and, braving the rain, followed Song Nanshan's footsteps.
No one was in the mood to go back to the car for an umbrella. They took a large detour and almost ran to the side and the back of the villa.
Song Nanshan had already turned on his phone's flashlight: "This is her backyard. Look—"
Through the faint light and the pouring rain, they saw an artificial lawn.
Some uniquely shaped shrubs and trees dotted the lawn, withering quietly in the rainy night.
The lawn was, of course, also surrounded by an iron fence. They were standing on a wasteland where weeds grew rampant, the highest of which nearly reached their knees. This desolate scene and the garden inside the fence were like two different worlds.
On the outermost edge of the garden, below the black iron fence, there was a row of potted plants. Zhang Shutong looked over and found that the row of flower pots had all been smashed.
The exquisite flower pots were shattered on the ground. The soil was washed away by the rain, and a dark yellow muddy water spread out from the fence, slowly flowing to their feet.
Zhang Shutong crouched down, the light from his phone lowered with him. He indeed saw scattered stones near the flower pots, each about the size of two fists put together. He moved sideways little by little and found several broken bricks.
He stood up again, keeping some distance from the iron fence, and frowned as he measured the gap between two of the bars: "Revenge?" His tone was not one of speculation, but of stating a fact. So Zhang Shutong rephrased, "Can we confirm this happened today?"
He subconsciously looked towards the villa. A very tall tree was planted behind the villa, blocking the view from both inside and outside the building. If you didn't specifically check, you probably wouldn't notice what was happening in the backyard.
"It should be," Teacher Song said in a low voice. "I came here to drop off Qiumian once yesterday. Although I didn't look over here, there's something else that can prove it. Do you see that black thing over there... Yes, shine the flashlight a little more inside."
Zhang Shutong moved his gaze according to his finger. A black shadow was lurking on the lawn not far away. On closer inspection, it wasn't a shadow at all, but a...
Big dog.
A black Doberman was lying on the grass, motionless as if it were asleep, despite the cold and fine rain that wetted their faces.
Then Teacher Song spoke again: "Yesterday, Qiumian took me on a tour. As soon as I walked this way, that thing rushed up and started barking..."
"So you didn't hear a dog barking just now, which made you come and check here?" Zhang Shutong immediately guessed the answer.
Song Nanshan nodded and said he had just unbuckled his belt when he saw the big dog lying in the yard from a distance. He was startled and instinctively changed locations. When he was on his way back after relieving himself, he suddenly realized something was wrong—
The dog might not have noticed him, but why would it be lying outside in such cold weather and heavy rain?
He went back to check and found the smashed potted plants under the fence, so he quickly called Zhang Shutong over.
Zhang Shutong already had a guess in his mind.
He simply knelt on the ground and asked Teacher Song to shine the flashlight. He himself parted the weeds on the ground and carefully examined them. Finally, he found a few fingernail-sized pieces of meat next to the fence.
He rubbed them with his hand, and the rainwater on his fingers turned the meat into a pulp. Zhang Shutong took a sniff and looked back at Song Nanshan: "Ham sausage."
"Poisoned?"
"Yes."
Zhang Shutong stood up. There was no need to look at the dog anymore.
The two of them turned off their phones. In the darkness again, Zhang Shutong subconsciously grabbed the iron fence in front of him. A chill ran down his spine.
Smashed flower pots, a poisoned guard dog... When did these things happen? And in this dark night, what else did they not discover?
Where was the culprit?
Zhang Shutong scanned the wasteland around them and then quickly ran to the front door of the villa. The lock on the main gate should not have been damaged; otherwise, Gu Qiumian would have noticed when she got home.
Moreover, the methods used by the culprit were limited to the outside of the fence, presumably because they couldn't get inside the villa. The probability of these judgments being correct was almost ninety-nine point nine-nine percent... but no matter how many decimal places there were, the probability was not one hundred percent.
So he first checked the door lock and then looked up at the villa's windows. In a small window on the second floor, there seemed to be the silhouette of a girl sitting.
A faint piano sound penetrated the window. The melody was graceful, making the speed of the falling rain seem slower in contrast. Zhang Shutong didn't understand classical music, but he could at least deduce some things from the lingering piano music—
It must be a piano room, Gu Qiumian must not know they hadn't left, and as Song Nanshan said, the girl was in a good mood today, so she went to the piano after dinner... But Zhang Shutong really didn't have time to think about what she did tonight. Song Nanshan also walked to his side, saw the silhouette by the window, and they both fell silent.
"A bunch of beasts," Song Nanshan cursed in a low voice. He held his phone tightly, his finger hovering over the contact list, but he was hesitant to press it.
Maybe Gu Qiumian was safe tonight.
But even if she was safe, they should inform her of the anomaly they found, yet they couldn't bring themselves to do it.
It was as if by making this call, they would also become the perpetrators.
"Let's tell her to be careful." It was Zhang Shutong who spoke up first.
Song Nanshan, however, had his own idea: "I'll call her dad first. You go wait in the car. Alright, don't be stubborn. You'll catch a cold..."
He didn't know about the murder case, so his hesitation was normal. And in a way, Zhang Shutong could understand his feelings. He wanted Gu Qiumian to be vigilant but also didn't want her to be frightened, especially since her father wasn't here these days.
Song Nanshan also had a careful and contradictory side. Zhang Shutong knew it was useless to persuade him now, so he went back to the car and recalled the details of the murder case again:
One theory was for money. Another theory was revenge. They could now focus on the latter. And the direction seemed to be clear. The dispute at the commercial street.
But knowing this didn't mean they could catch the killer. How many shops were there on one commercial street? Finding one person, or a few people, was not easy at all.
And even if they found them, the murder hadn't happened yet, so how could they solve this hidden danger?
The method he could think of right now was to first find the person who poisoned the dog. It was hard to say whether this even counted as a crime, but at least they could have the police detain the person before Gu Qiumian's father returned.
Zhang Shutong then thought of another thing: Besides the murder case itself, there was the impact it had at the time.
He remembered that Song Nanshan resigned in disgrace after this incident.
He used to think that Gu Qiumian's family had too much power, and the school had to give her father an explanation by making Teacher Song a scapegoat.
But now, it seemed there was more to the story.
First of all, the fact that Gu Jianhong went off the island should not have changed.
So, in the previous timeline, Gu's father should have also arranged for the head teacher to help look after his daughter for a period of time.
Perhaps on the previous December 7th; Song Nanshan also brought Gu Qiumian back this way.
But he wasn't in the car then, and Teacher Song might not have talked about the past. It's more likely he left directly after dropping Gu Qiumian off at home, so he didn't discover the clues about the flower pots and the dog.
And when Monday, December 10th, came, and the girl was found to be missing, it was all too late.
Zhang Shutong was now very annoyed with the subtle use of the word "missing." Yes, maybe it wasn't until Tuesday or Wednesday that Gu Qiumian was found to have been killed... but the question was: What day did she have the accident?
This question would determine where he was going tonight.