The Forensic Big Shot's Psychic Darling - Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Zhao Gang fell silent for two seconds, his tone growing meaningful.
“I can check her background, but I won’t do anything illegal. Also, why are you asking me to look into a young girl in the middle of the night? Where is she right now?”
Qin Zhan glanced at the sofa. “In my office.”
“Just the two of you?”
“She fell asleep.”
A fit of violent coughing burst through the receiver.
Qin Zhan’s face darkened. “She’s in an unstable mental state. I’m reviewing the surveillance footage.”
“You’d better spit out the full story at once,” Zhao Gang said, holding back a laugh. “I’ll give you the files tomorrow morning. She passed a background check when she was hired, and her record is clean. She isn’t going to suddenly turn out to be a spy.”
“I want her complete file.”
Qin Zhan hung up the phone, unwilling to listen to any more of Zhao Gang’s nonsense.
He found a spare blanket and tossed it over Lin Yaoyao. The blanket covered half her face; she shifted uncomfortably for a moment before settling down and quietly drifting off again.
Qin Zhan sat back down at his computer, reviewing that evening’s surveillance footage frame by frame.
It wasn’t until dawn was approaching that he noticed an anomaly from a different camera angle.
When Lin Yaoyao passed the back door of the cafeteria, the red string around her neck was still intact. By the time she entered the office building, only a short stub of string remained.
Qin Zhan pulled up all the footage between those two timestamps.
On the screen, Lin Yaoyao was carrying a stack of files through the first-floor lobby when she happened to bump into a cleaner pushing a utility cart. As she stepped aside to make way, her ID badge lanyard caught on the edge of the cart.
At that moment, Lin Yaoyao was so focused on steadying the files that she didn’t realize the red string around her neck had been snapped.
A dark copper coin fell to the ground, rolling behind a potted plant.
Around seven o’clock, the cleaner swept the lobby, sweeping the coin into a trash bag along with dust and waste paper. That black trash bag was subsequently taken to the station’s backyard.
Qin Zhan hit pause and looked up at the sofa.
Lin Yaoyao had woken up at some point and was sitting there wrapped in the blanket. Her hair was a messy bedhead, but her eyes were staring intently at the screen.
“My copper coin!”
She jumped off the sofa and ran toward the door before even putting her shoes on properly.
Qin Zhan caught her back collar just in time. “Come back here.”
“The coin was thrown away!”
“I saw.”
“When is the garbage truck coming?”
Qin Zhan checked the time. “Eight in the morning.”
It was already 7:40 AM.
Lin Yaoyao grew so anxious that tears welled up in her eyes. “There’s no time!”
She pulled away from Qin Zhan and dashed out toward the backyard. Qin Zhan grabbed his phone and followed. Just as he reached the ground floor, he saw her blocking the path of a trash haul truck.
The driver leaned his head out of the window. “Little girl, are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“Sir, wait a moment!” Lin Yaoyao ran to the side of the truck’s rear bin. “Something of mine is in there! Can you let me look for it?”
The driver waved his hands repeatedly. “The trash inside has already been compacted. How are you going to search through that? Besides, I’m rushing to my next stop—I can’t afford to be delayed here.”
Qin Zhan walked over and pulled Lin Yaoyao to a safe area first.
“Yesterday’s trash from the lobby is still in the backyard. It might not have been loaded onto the truck yet.”
Seeing Qin Zhan’s badge, the driver’s attitude softened considerably. “The big bin in your backyard hasn’t been emptied yet. There wasn’t much trash in it, so I was planning to collect it on my way back.”
Lin Yaoyao turned around and sprinted off.
A large, sealed trash bin—about waist-high—was stationed in the police station’s backyard. She lifted the lid, and a wave of sour, foul-smelling air surged out, forcing her back two steps in disgust.
Qin Zhan stopped beside her. “Scared now?”
“The coin is inside.”
Lin Yaoyao covered her nose and leaned forward to peer inside. Layers of trash bags were piled together; it was impossible to tell which one came from the first-floor lobby.
The driver couldn’t wait too long, so he agreed to return in the evening to clear it out before driving off.
Qin Zhan pulled up the cleaner’s duty log and quickly found the corresponding trash bag number. However, when the staff on duty organized the backyard that morning, they had shifted the trash around, pressing that particular bag all the way to the bottom.
“Go to work first.” Qin Zhan closed the bin lid. “We’ll look for it before the evening pickup.”
Lin Yaoyao refused to leave. “What if someone throws more things in there?”
“It’s a trash bin. Of course people will throw things in.”
“Then my coin will be even harder to find!”
She squatted by the bin, looking as though she wished she could climb right inside that very moment.
Qin Zhan looked at her for a few seconds. “I’ll ask Logistics to seal it off temporarily, and I’ll bring some tools over tonight.”
Lin Yaoyao looked up. “You’re going to help me search?”
“I’m only responsible for supervising so you don’t fall in.”
Throughout the day, Lin Yaoyao ran to the backyard every half hour. She even brought her lunch over to eat by the window, staring at the trash bin as if guarding a chest of gold.
Having finally endured until the end of the workday, she was the first to rush into the backyard.
Qin Zhan had changed into casual clothes, walking over with gloves, face masks, and a pair of long-handled tongs. Seeing that Lin Yaoyao held only a small flashlight in her hand, his brows instantly knit together.
“You plan to rely on that to find it?”
“The copper coin reflects light.”
“There are hundreds of things in that trash bin that reflect light.”
Lin Yaoyao handed the flashlight to him and put on her gloves. “I’ll climb down and dig through it. You can shine the light from above.”
“You’re going inside?”
“The copper coin is mine.”
She stepped onto a small stool nearby. Just as half her body leaned in, her feet wobbled.
Qin Zhan reached out, caught her by the waist, and hauled her back to the ground.
“Stand to the side.”
“But…”
“Shut up.”
With a dark expression, Qin Zhan took the flashlight from her hand and shoved the long-handled tongs into her grasp. He found a waterproof apron, put it on, stepped onto the stool himself, and began lifting out the top layer of trash bags.
Lin Yaoyao stared at him, stunned. “Didn’t you say you were only here to supervise?”
“At your pace, we wouldn’t finish searching by tomorrow morning.”
Qin Zhan tossed down a trash bag. “Check the bag number.”
The backyard was soon filled with bags of all sizes.
Instant noodle cups, waste paper, and spoiled fruit were mixed together, emitting a stench that made one dizzy. Qin Zhan was famous throughout the municipal bureau for being a extreme germaphobe—normally, he wouldn’t even use a cup that someone else had touched. Now, with dirty water clinging to his gloves, his expression was cold enough to freeze over.
Lin Yaoyao didn’t dare slack off either.
Squatting on the ground, she opened the trash bags corresponding to the target area and carefully sifted through them bit by bit using the tongs. Along the way, she found three beer bottle caps, two arcade tokens, and a commemorative coin that someone had thrown away.
Everything except her soul-soothing copper coin.
As time ticked by, the trash bin was nearly empty.
The spark of expectation in Lin Yaoyao’s eyes dimmed along with it.
“Could it have been picked up by the cleaner?”
Qin Zhan dragged out the last few bags. “Not in the surveillance footage.”
“Then why can’t we find it?”
She squatted beside the pile of trash, her nose red from the stench, as her eyes gradually grew misty.
“My master said that copper coin accompanied her for many years, and that it could shield me from three major catastrophes. The first was when I fell into the river at seven years old. The second was when I encountered a mountain fire at fourteen. Now there’s only one last time left.”
Qin Zhan’s hands paused.
“You actually believe that kind of talk?”
“I believe my master.”
Lin Yaoyao sniffled. “It’s not worth much money, but my master only had this one. When I was leaving the mountain, even though she claimed I was useless, she still gave the copper coin to me.”
The more she spoke, the sadder she became, tears welling up in her eyes.
Qin Zhan glanced at her, feeling a dull ache in his temples.
“We haven’t finished searching yet. What are you crying for?”
Leaning back down, he pulled out a torn black trash bag from the bottom of the bin. A cloud of dust leaked from the base, accompanied by thick, foul water dripping down its edges.
Enduring the discomfort, Qin Zhan dumped the trash onto a waterproof tarp.
Lin Yaoyao immediately leaned closer, carefully illuminating the pile with her flashlight.
Underneath a cabbage leaf, a dark red thin cord was revealed.
Her breathing tightened, and she reached out to push aside a crumpled wad of paper. The old copper coin lay quietly in the dirty water. Grease smudged its surface, but its edges emitted a faintly familiar gleam.
“Found it!”
Lin Yaoyao snatched up the copper coin, wiped it off haphazardly, and gripped it tightly in her palm.
A wave of warmth quickly flooded through her body, which had been chilly all day.
She lifted her head, her eyes curving into bright crescents as she smiled. “Qin Zhan, we really found it!”
Qin Zhan stood amid the floor full of trash, his shirt and trousers stained, radiating an indescribable odor.
He should have felt thoroughly miserable and humiliated.
Yet, looking at Lin Yaoyao’s bright, beaming smile, he suddenly felt that digging through this trash bin hadn’t been so miserable after all.
