Chapter 133: Adoptive Father, Fatty Lu Pays a Visit

Duan Kun—the name made my heart constrict violently. He was the person I had been desperately searching for all these years.

I asked Luo Feng if it might just be a coincidence of names, but he said he couldn't be sure. His subordinates were highly efficient and soon located the roommates who had lived with Hu Yufang back then. They had all graduated by now. While they remembered Hu Yufang quite clearly, they had only met her so-called adoptive father once. Hu Yufang had only briefly mentioned the man's name, so Luo Feng could not rule out the possibility that they had misremembered.

However, Luo Feng felt it was too much of a coincidence.

Furthermore, the man suspected to be Duan Kun was rather strange. During the three years Hu Yufang spent at the medical school, he appeared only once and never showed up again. Hu Yufang, for her part, always stayed at the school, regardless of whether it was a holiday or a school term. Her roommates had once asked her why she didn't spend the holidays with her adoptive father, but Hu Yufang merely smiled and never gave a direct answer.

"Keep digging. Dig deeper. I don't believe this is a coincidence," I told Luo Feng. If it were just a coincidence of names, it might be plausible, but given that Hu Yufang came from the Hong Kong district and Xuanyi had led me to that crime scene, I feared there was a genuine, inevitable connection between them.

After Luo Feng told me to be careful, he hung up. I couldn't sleep all night. It was very late when I suddenly caught a foul odor. I immediately woke up Wang Yazhuo and the little ghost, telling them to cover their noses. Then, I slid off the bed and walked slowly toward the hotel room door.

It was three in the morning. I quickly identified the scent as that of a hypnotic incense. I checked through the peephole; there was no one outside. I carefully opened the door, found the corridor empty, and after checking several times, I looked down.

Sure enough, beneath the door gap lay a stick of incense that hadn't finished burning. I stomped it out, picked it up, closed the door, and opened the window for ventilation. Only then did Wang Yazhuo ask me what was going on. I shook the incense in my hand and told her that someone had tried to drug us. Fortunately, the hotel room was large, and the incense hadn't taken effect quickly enough.

Wang Yazhuo, still shaken, stared at me and asked, "Who on earth are you? Why does everyone keep trying to harm you?"

I gave a cold laugh. "Do you regret it? If you do, go back to Beijing."

Wang Yazhuo gritted her teeth and shook her head. My gaze grew even colder. I wondered who was trying to hurt me—this wasn't the first time. After some thought, I decided we would change hotels at dawn; our location had been completely compromised.

Wang Yazhuo dared not sleep again, though the little ghost soon drifted off. I kept a close watch on the hallway, but the person who had placed the incense never returned. At daybreak, we packed our things and moved to a different, larger hotel.

We were extremely cautious, constantly observing our surroundings to see if anyone was following us. Once we had moved, Wang Yazhuo felt more at ease, but I couldn't afford to be careless. If someone truly wanted to harm us, changing hotels indefinitely would be useless; it was merely a stopgap measure.

At noon, Luo Feng called me again. His men had uncovered more information about Hu Yufang. The results of this investigation left me stunned: Hu Yufang had visited Sansong Temple several times. Few people knew of these visits; Luo Feng’s men had only found out after tracking down her last remaining roommate.

That person said that several times, when Hu Yufang didn't go to work on weekends, she had found it strange and asked where she had gone. Hu Yufang hadn't hidden it, saying she had gone to Sansong Temple. Her roommate was surprised, as she had never known Hu Yufang to hold such religious beliefs.

Hu Yufang’s explanation was casual: "Better to believe it exists than to believe it doesn't."

At the time, her roommate had teased her, asking if she had gone to pray for a romantic partner. Although Hu Yufang came from a poor background, her grades were excellent. Back then, graduating from medical school guaranteed a decent life, and several medical institutions had even tried to recruit her before she had finished her studies. In her roommate’s eyes, the only thing Hu Yufang might need to pray for was a boyfriend.

In her roommate's memory, Hu Yufang hadn't seemed unusual when she answered. She had said that while she did hope to find a good family to marry into one day, she didn't go to Sansong Temple for love, but to pray for her family's safety.

Hu Yufang had no relatives; her only "family" could only be her so-called adoptive father.

When asked if something had happened to her father, Hu Yufang just waved it off, saying nothing serious had occurred. Yet, she continued to visit the temple repeatedly, even though it was a long way from the medical school. Hearing this, I frowned. If the man suspected to be Duan Kun hadn't been in any serious trouble, Hu Yufang wouldn't have made such arduous, repeated journeys.

The fact that she traveled so far for him suggested he was very important to her. If he had been suffering from a severe illness or facing immediate danger, Hu Yufang would have been anxious, not smiling and chatting with her roommate. But because she went so often, a possibility struck me: the man suspected to be Duan Kun was living under the shadow of a latent threat.

The deeper implication immediately followed: the man was on the run.

A life on the run is fraught with peril, but the threat was latent, which explained Hu Yufang’s demeanor. Duan Kun had indeed been hiding, successfully avoiding my attempts to track him. Beyond that, he was likely hiding from others as well. I was now almost certain that Hu Yufang’s "adoptive father" was indeed the Duan Kun I was looking for.

Luo Feng sighed. "It’s ten to one, then. I sent people to Sansong Temple, but none of the Taoist priests remembered Hu Yufang. I suspect that during her visits, she was meeting with the old Abbot or Xuanyi. One of them is dead, and the other is just like Duan Kun—hiding here and there."

While I was still talking to Luo Feng, there was a knock at the hotel door. I looked up sharply, and Wang Yazhuo stood up in a panic. I told Luo Feng to keep investigating and see if he could pinpoint Duan Kun’s whereabouts, then hung up. The knocking continued. It was broad daylight, and we had just moved; I didn't believe those who wanted to harm me would strike so quickly.

Still, I walked cautiously to the door and checked the peephole. I saw a face covered in rolls of fat. It was Fatty Lu.

After a moment of hesitation, I opened the door, and Fatty Lu walked in without ceremony. He sat down and said with a smirk, "I told you two looked like eloping lovers, even sleeping in the same room."

Wang Yazhuo stamped her foot in anger, but perhaps fearing she might cause me trouble, she didn't argue with him.

Fatty Lu's sudden arrival made me nervous. I worried he was here again about that gun.

I gestured for him to sit and asked why he had come.

Fatty Lu, unfazed, continued to watch me with a smile. "Don't you want to know how I found your new place so quickly?"

I shook my head. "No."

It was the truth. The police having certain methods was normal, and I feared that if I let him continue, he would launch into a boastful rant, so I cut him off. Unable to continue his train of thought, Fatty Lu scratched his head awkwardly and shrugged. "Fine. But there is one thing I must know."

"What would Deputy Captain Lu like to know?" I asked.

Fatty Lu’s smile faded. "You were staying at the other hotel just fine. Why the sudden move?"

"I wasn't comfortable, so I moved," I replied nonchalantly.

Fatty Lu countered, "Could it be that you had something to hide and were afraid of being watched by the police, so you had to change locations in a hurry?"

I stood up, locking eyes with him. Fatty Lu’s hand moved instinctively toward his waist—the place where he carried his service weapon.