Chapter Forty-Two: The Ex-Girlfriend

The fat man's smile grew even broader, which surprised Zhou Yi. It was not easy to do; this person was usually so calm that it was rare to see any emotion on his face.

“I didn’t expect it either. Li Mei turned out to be that female driver involved in the accident. When I saw this name, Li Yugang, it took me a while to react. I checked it out—he really is in charge of culture, education, and health. Should we look into it more closely?”

Zhou Yi paused, pointing at the two tech companies the fat man had marked on the table.

“What about these two? Who are the legal representatives or shareholders?”

The fat man quickly pulled up the previous page, displaying a mess of information in tiny font—clearly not copied and pasted, but carefully filtered operational details.

“The interesting thing is here: the legal representative of Jiahua Technology is Yu Jianhua, and the registration date is the same day as Qilu Network Technology, which is Li Mei’s company. I checked—Yu Jianhua is Li Mei’s mother. Her parents have been divorced for years and are on separate household registrations.

A leader’s child registers two companies in one day, with a combined registered capital of eight million. Do you think that’s normal?”

Zhou Yi narrowed his eyes, drumming his fingers on the table and grabbing the mouse to check the household registration information. Although it showed Li Mei as married, there was no information about her husband.

“Check who her husband is. Usually, marriage would move her registration under her husband’s. Why is she still listed with her father? Maybe there are no sons in the family and they brought in a son-in-law?”

The fat man grinned; gossip like this was right up his alley. After a flurry of searching, some results soon appeared.

“It’s not easy to find… Here it is. Li Mei’s husband is Zhang Zhen, a doctor at Qilu Hospital of Shanda University. He went to Japan for advanced studies for eight months. Wait a second…”

The fat man paused, flipping through the content again. He blinked at Zhou Yi, who was puzzled as the fat man had landed on a page entirely in Japanese. Zhou Yi had no idea what he had found.

“What is it?”

The fat man pointed at the screen, his mouth agape for a while before opening the details. It appeared to be a news link, with photos, Japanese, and English text. Zhou Yi read through it and finally understood the fat man’s shock.

But the matter was rather unexpected. The fat man took a sip of water and said:

“Li Mei’s husband went to Japan last year and was murdered in April. It was so gruesome it made the news. You know how rare it is for incidents involving foreign students in Japan to get this kind of coverage.

Not only was he killed, he was dismembered and dumped in various places. By the time they found him, he was so decomposed he couldn’t be identified. Yet in May, Li Mei registered these two companies. Doesn’t seem like she was all that heartbroken, does it?”

Li Mei.

This person seemed to have been a constant presence from the start, yet logically, she should have had no connection with Cheng Zhi. Could their investigation have taken a wrong turn?

“Let’s put this aside for now. Did you find Cheng Zhi’s ex-girlfriend?”

The fat man nodded.

“Her name is Meng Xiaojiao, a junior at Shanda University. Should we go find her, or just call? She doesn’t live in the dorms; her family’s local, right here in Jinan.”

As he spoke, the fat man rummaged through the cluttered desk and picked up a slip of paper with a phone number circled in red.

Zhou Yi took out his phone. It wasn’t too late yet, so a call should be all right. The phone rang for more than a dozen times before it was answered by a middle-aged man. Zhou Yi quickly said,

“Hello, I’m a counselor from the dormitory administration office at Shanda University. Is this the home of Meng Xiaojiao?”

The man paused. On hearing it was someone from the university, his initial gruffness gave way to a much more polite tone.

“Hello, teacher. May I ask what this is about with our Xiaojiao?”

Zhou Yi smiled, trying to sound as relaxed as possible.

“It’s like this—we’re checking the dorms, and there’s a student from her class who hasn’t returned. There aren’t many locals in that class, so I wanted to ask if she might know anything. If this is a bad time, I can ask someone else.”

The man’s wariness dropped by half at these words.

“No trouble at all, no trouble. Please wait a moment, teacher. I’ll call my daughter to the phone.”

The fat man gave a thumbs-up from the side; Zhou Yi’s relaxed tone was very convincing, probably a habit from his former life as a doctor, which made people trust him instantly.

After a moment, the call was picked up again, followed by a click. The fat man quickly scribbled “extension” on a piece of paper and held it up.

Zhou Yi nodded.

He understood the fat man’s meaning—Meng Xiaojiao must have answered in her room, and the extension in the living room had been hung up. Judging by her father’s attitude, it seemed Meng Xiaojiao had been under some kind of watch lately, maybe related to Cheng Zhi.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Meng Xiaojiao?”

“Yes, are you a teacher from the dorm office?”

Zhou Yi affirmed,

“Yes. Some students from another school, together with police officers, came to the university. They wanted to find you, but I stopped them since you don’t live in the dorms. I wanted to confirm with you—do you know Cheng Zhi?”

That preface made Meng Xiaojiao pause. Her previously nonchalant tone instantly became flustered.

“Ah, the police want to see me?”

“Yes. They say Cheng Zhi is involved in some kind of case, and they haven’t been able to contact him. The police found out you’re his ex-girlfriend, so they want to ask you a few things. You can tell me the truth; if you hide anything, I won’t be able to help you.”

On the other end, Meng Xiaojiao had already started crying, scared out of her wits. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Teacher, ask whatever you want. I’ll tell you everything I know. But we really did break up—I don’t know where he is now.”

“Did Cheng Zhi ever plan to start a company?”

“I don’t know. He bragged a lot—always saying he wanted to be the top hacker, the richest man in the world. I heard it so many times, I couldn’t tell what was true and what was just talk.”

Zhou Yi continued,

“When did you break up?”

“May.”

“He had his graduation photo and certificate mailed to your place, didn’t he? How could you have broken up in May?”

Meng Xiaojiao grew anxious; Zhou Yi could hear the sound of a chair scraping.

“It really was May. He told me we were breaking up—I was stunned. It was like he just vanished. I went looking for him twice and never saw him, and he wouldn’t answer my calls. Then in July, I got a package at home and realized he’d mailed his things to me.

My dad even yelled at me because of it. Around mid-July, he came to get his stuff. He called from the gate, and I brought it down to him. Since we’d broken up, I didn’t want any more ties with him, but he looked like he was doing well.”

The fat man was a bit excited.

He hadn’t expected Zhou Yi to coax so much information about Cheng Zhi from her. Quickly, he wrote a note and held it up. Zhou Yi glanced at it and asked,

“Which day in July? I need the exact date to check the surveillance footage to clear you from suspicion.”

Meng Xiaojiao seemed to be flipping through a calendar.

“July 15th, a Saturday. I’d just finished lunch when I brought his things down. My dad was off that day; he probably heard my phone call and came down with me. He even yelled at Cheng Zhi, told him to stay away and not bother me again.”

“Did he come alone? Did he take a taxi or drive? Did you notice?”

Meng Xiaojiao tried to recall.

“I’m not sure. No cars are allowed parked in front of our military compound, so I don’t know how he arrived. But he was dressed nicely, even on such a hot day—long-sleeve shirt, tie, sharply creased trousers, spotless shoes.”

“All right, that’s enough for now. If you remember anything else, you can call me. You shouldn’t mention this investigation to your family, to avoid worrying them. I’ll do my best to help explain to the school. If word gets out, it won’t be good for your reputation or your studies in the future.”

Meng Xiaojiao was deeply moved, showering Zhou Yi with thanks. After all, if this got out, her reputation would be tarnished, and being dumped was already embarrassing enough.

After hanging up, the fat man gave Zhou Yi a thumbs-up.

“That was brilliant—the girl was so scared she cried. Not a trace of chivalry in you.”