828 Outside the house, a large crowd of onlookers had already gathered.
Zhang Dayou and Liu Haiquan, two veteran officers from the Songxin Town Police Station, along with two trainee officers, Zhao Le and Wu Wei, had pulled up the police cordon and were maintaining order.
Inside the house, the criminal investigation team was busier than ever—some were busy securing evidence, some were digging up the body on the balcony, and others were collecting evidence in the bedroom.
As for the culprit, Gu Youguo, he was taken away as soon as the criminal investigation team arrived.
In the living room, Zhang Haiyang was reporting the situation to Zhao Donglai, captain of the criminal investigation team, and Zhou Weimin, chief of the police station, while Luo Fei stood by attending to them.
It took about ten minutes for Zhang Haiyang to finish explaining the general situation.
When Zhang Haiyang mentioned that it was Luo Fei, a trainee police officer, who had first noticed something wrong and discovered the murder case, Chief Zhou Weimin and Captain Zhao Donglai both looked very surprised, and then they praised Luo Fei at length.
At seven o'clock in the evening, Luo Fei got off work and headed home.
Since he didn't have a car, Luo Fei walked back.
Luo Fei's home was at the cement factory on Longxing Street, about three kilometers from Xingfu Residential Community—not very far.
Twenty minutes later, Luo Fei arrived at the courtyard in front of the cement factory's employee dormitory building.
The cement factory's dormitory building was run-down and dilapidated, with terrible living conditions and sanitation. It was so worn down it was hard to tell when it had been built. The cement factory workers had long since stopped living here; those who lived here now were mostly elderly people who had come from the countryside to take care of their grandchildren while they attended school.
Only these impoverished people had no choice but to rent here, because compared to other places, the rent here was indeed much cheaper. Luo Fei's family also rented here—they simply had no money.
When he first transmigrated, Luo Fei had thought about making money to improve his family's situation, but apart from writing a bit of suspense fiction, he didn't know how to do anything else, and his writing was only third-rate, so he couldn't earn much money at all.
Later, Luo Fei placed all his hopes on his golden finger, stopped thinking about anything else, and single-mindedly prepared for the civil service exam to bind his golden finger, without considering anything else.
Luo Fei's home was on the third floor. Just as he was about to go upstairs, he saw his younger brother Luo Hao coming down the stairs with a basketball in his arms.
Luo Hao had just gotten into high school this year. His grades weren't very good, but with a bit more effort, he still had a chance of getting into a second-tier university.
"Did you finish your homework today?" Luo Fei asked. It had been half a year since he came to this world, and in that time, Luo Fei—an orphan who had never known the warmth of family—had fully integrated into this family and truly taken on the role of the elder brother. He hoped Luo Hao would study hard, get into a good school in the future, and find a decent job after graduation.
"Done." Luo Hao quickly nodded in reply.
Ever since he was caught by his elder brother and beaten badly for secretly learning to smoke with his classmates in the alley below the cement factory, Luo Hao had developed a fear of Luo Fei. Now that Luo Fei had become a police officer, Luo Hao feared him even more.
"Mm, then go play ball. Be back before nine tonight, and don't make Mom worry." Luo Fei nodded at his words, then gave a few more reminders. Only after Luo Hao left did he go upstairs.
"Luo Fei's back."
"Off work already?"
"This kid is going places—he became a police officer. He'll definitely have a bright future."
In the third-floor corridor, the old men and women sitting around chatting and gossiping all greeted Luo Fei. The people living here were all elderly folks at the bottom of society, without any relatives or friends in the county town, and with no other forms of entertainment, it was only natural for them to gather together to chat and gossip.
At his own door, Luo Fei saw his mother from a distance, stringing bracelets—threading pearls onto bracelets and then tying the two ends of each bracelet in a specific way. Once that was done, a bracelet was finished, and each completed bracelet earned a dime in piecework wages.
Normally, his mother could make seventy to eighty per hour—that is, seven to eight yuan. If there were enough pearl bracelets, his mother could do about three hundred a day outside of her work hours. To her, this already counted as a considerable income.
Unfortunately, the bracelet-stringing work wasn't available every day. Only because Luo Fei's second aunt worked at the bracelet factory could she occasionally bring home a certain quantity of bracelets to make.
To help out Luo Fei's family, the second aunt would usually set aside some of the work for his mother.
As for the others, without connections, even if they wanted to do the work, they had no way to get the goods—after all, there was only one bracelet factory in all of Ningjiang County.
His mother Wu Yan was working with great concentration. It wasn't until Luo Fei had nearly walked up to her that she noticed him.
"Xiaoxiao, your brother's home. Come out and eat!" Wu Yan called inside, then stopped her own work, set the materials aside, and stood up.
Luo Fei walked into the house. The home was very small—just two rooms, connected in an open layout, less than thirty square meters in total.
The first room upon entering served as both kitchen and bedroom, where Luo Fei and Luo Hao lived. The inner room had a worn-out sofa, a coffee table, and a secondhand television—it was both bedroom and living room, where his mother and his little sister Xiaoxiao slept.
There was no bathroom, only the public toilet downstairs on the first floor. The cement floor of the room was pitted and uneven, and the walls were smeared black with grime—oil stains and scratch marks everywhere, impossible to wipe clean.
Luo Fei had wanted to move out of here for a long time, but the most urgent matter before him had been passing the civil service exam to become a police officer. Luo Fei hadn't had a single cent of income, and back then, the family of four had relied entirely on Wu Yan's meager salary. Words about moving out and renting a place were definitely not something Luo Fei could bring himself to say.
Now that he had passed the civil service exam and had a stable monthly income, the first thing he considered was naturally moving out of this place.
Luo Fei saw the covered dishes on the table and said with some reproach, "Mom, didn't I call and tell you I'd be back late tonight, and that you all shouldn't wait for me and should eat first?"
"We stay at home all day not doing anything, so we're not that hungry. You've been working all day, so you must be starving. Xiaoxiao, serve your brother some rice."
Honestly speaking, this feeling of having someone who cared about him was truly wonderful.
Two dishes and one soup: stir-fried shredded potatoes with cured pork, smashed cucumber salad, and a small cabbage soup. Very simple home cooking, yet Luo Fei ate it with exceptional relish—it tasted like home. He ate three bowls of rice in one go.
After dinner, Luo Fei originally wanted to help his mother string the bracelets, but Wu Yan refused. She said Luo Fei had already worked all day and told him to rest and watch television instead. Luo Fei didn't insist.
Luo Fei had originally wanted to lie down and rest for a while, but after looking at the room he shared with the kitchen, which offered no privacy whatsoever, he lost the desire to lie down.
After saying goodbye to his mother, Luo Fei left the house and headed toward the small path behind the cement factory.
"So the case counts as solved, right? Then why hasn't the system reacted? Do I have to wait until the case is fully closed and the court delivers its verdict before it settles?" Sitting on a rock on the hillside behind the cement factory, Luo Fei pondered with a conflicted expression. This question had been lingering in his mind since noon.
The golden finger was his greatest reliance. Without the golden finger, Luo Fei knew he really was nothing—no background, no education, mediocre abilities. He probably would never leave the Songxin Town Police Station for the rest of his life.
But he had already lived enough of that mediocre life in his previous one. Having been given another life, Luo Fei refused to live it in mediocrity—otherwise, he never would have gone mad studying to become a police officer for the sake of his golden finger.
Just as Luo Fei was anxious over the golden finger's silence—
"Ding! Congratulations, Host, on solving a murder case. As this is the Host's first solved case, double rewards have been granted: 2,000 gold coins."
Qidian's collections are truly down bad—this is just pitiful.