One last ti, Liwu and Linlin made a trip to the Dou mansion. Once again, they were not welco with smiles. The family was preparing for the mass, which was to be held at midday, followed by cremation.
Under the shadow of glaring eyes, Liwu delivered the news.
Mr. Dou tapped his ca. "So it wasn’t one of us or her past. It was so...charity case?"
Dawei smirked. "I told you, drug addicts and poor people. Pei Wu was both and he was a creep too."
Mrs. Dou sniffed. "How humiliating. To be killed by a stranger she insisted on helping."
Dachang exploded. "What is wrong with you people? Is this all you can say? She saved many lives. She was better than all of us." His voice cracked with grief.
"After the funeral, you are not allowed to step foot in this mansion again." Mrs. Dou told Dachang.
A small silence followed. Dachang did not even bother to respond, but it seed as if he agreed with that suggestion, judging from his lack of a reaction.
Liwu filled the silence. "The charity is not to be blad. The person who killed her was greedy and he simply couldn’t handle rejection. That’s the tragedy. Once again, I am terribly sorry for your loss."
Nobody responded to her. Their silence spoke volus however. Liwu had Linlin left, hoping that they would never have to return to the Dou mansion.
At the precinct, press was already swarming, demanding answers. Liwu was pushed out by Chief Abby to provide those answers. She stood before them, her tone sharp. The caras did not phase her because she had done this many tis before.
"Dou Yahui was killed by soone she helped. It’s a tragedy, not a scandal. I know that is what so of you have been hoping for. I hope that all of you that have been saring her na and shaming her family will apologize to them. Her legacy is her charity, not her past or her death."
So reporters scribbled furiously. Others searched for ways of twisting her words. To them, the charity angle was boring.
When she returned to her desk, Weijun was waiting with a smug smile and a bouquet of lavenders.
"See? I was right to assign you the case. You solved it in two days and closed it in three."
Liwu draped her coat over her chair, glaring, "Next ti you ddle, I will arrest you first."
He chuckled nervously. "You wouldn’t."
Liwu smirked. "Try ."
He stuffed the flowers into her arms and she placed them on top of a stack of files.
"What is going to happen to Pei Wu?" He pushed so of her files aside and perched himself on her desk. His body was twisted, a part facing her and another part facing the door. "System court?"
She pulled a drawer and retrieved so of the pink chocolate Madam Xu had ordered for Xixi on the day they t. "He is not a system host, so why would he go to system court? Police officers were waiting for him outside when I took his confession. I am pretty sure that he is already being transferred to prison as we speak. He will be arraigned in a week or two, tried and sentenced."
Weijun stole so of her chocolate. As he nibbled on it, he said softly, "I never thought this was how Yahui would die. I always pictured her being found in a high end hotel with a needle up her arm and a dozen glasses of champagne."
"If you knew how sophisticated drugs are now that we have hosts with chemistry systems, you would be surprised." She told him. "Needles are not the danger anymore."
She pushed her chair back, bent down and ca up with vials, tins and paper bags. All were placed on the desk and she lined them up. "These are so of the drugs flooding the market."
Weijun looked at the unfamiliar bright colored ones which looked like candies. "Are these all drugs...like contraband?"
Liwu shook her head. "Not all of them are contraband but they are really close," she corrected. She lifted a paper with a shimring yellow powder. "This is Xingyun powder. It looks like crushed starlight, but it calms anxiety instantly. One sniff and all your greatest worried are gone.."
Weijun smiled. "That sounds like a good thing." He thought to himself that he would not mind having so.
She laughed, because most people had the sa idea. "It also strips you of all caution that you can jump off a building, believing that nothing bad will happen. It turns people into stupid dare devils. It is banned in so provinces and legal in others. They Bureau is fighting to get it completely banned."
"It should be easy, considering the side effects." Weijun said, thinking simply.
Again Liwu laughed. "The combination for Xingyun powder is all natural. That is what has made the legal battle difficult." She picked up the bright colored candies. They looked like sweets soone would hand out at a festival. "This is Bright Spark, one candy can heighten your reflexes for an hour. It was made for soldiers but made its way to schools. I have seen kids on this play until they bleed just because they can’t stop."
Weijun shifted uncomfortably. If he had a child, he did not want that filth near them.
She picked up one of the vials with a liquid that glowed like burning embers and shook it. "These are ice cream drops. It is not actual ice cream but the taste is right up that alley. A single drop can erase fatigue, but too many burn the body within. For people with competitive and tight schedules, it seed to be the answer until they started dying. Do you know how many high school seniors grew addicted to it while preparing for University entrance exams?"
Weijun could only imagine. "I get your point, I think."
Liwu collected the samples and started shoving them back into her desk drawer. "When the Bureau asks city hall for permits granting them accessibility to schools for random searches, don’t just assu that we are doing it maliciously. In this new world, not much can be trusted.
All we want to do is safe guard the human race from destruction. In the end, nobody knows why systems fell in the first place, so we must be careful while treading in these new waters."
She focused on paper work, leaving him to find sothing else to do. Weijun stood up, and walked out of the office.
One hour later, Liwu and Linlin were invited to a cri scene, and this one was heartbreaking.
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