Fang Dong's inference was easy to understand.
If the groom really intended to elope with someone, having his twin brother come to be a substitute makes sense to avoid a scandal breaking out in the family. But he was called away by his birth mother. What kind of reason would make him voluntarily give up his bride and have his brother complete this most important day of his life?
It was unlikely to be "voluntary" but rather "forced".
Although a birth mother does not necessarily harm her child, it is not guaranteed either. If the substitution was planned by her, there was no telling if more drastic measures would be taken.
"Miss Jian, I hope you can find Xiao Yan as soon as possible," said Fang Dong. It sounded like a "hope" but was no different from a command in tone.
Jian Jing said, "I'm not good at finding people, besides, the murderer has not been found yet. He is also your son, isn't the truth important?"
"The dead cannot be brought back to life, the living being safe is more important."
"She has already lost one child, what reason does she have to harm another one?" Jian Jing said sarcastically, "The chairman is omnipotent, he must have a way to resolve this."
Fang Dong crossed his hands with his chin resting on his interlocked fingers, gazing at her, "Miss Jian, very few people dare to speak to me like this."
Jian Jing's reaction was only to tilt her head slightly to the side.
Fang Dong smiled.
At his age, he might not necessarily be lenient to subordinates or gentle with his children, but he would never get too angry at a different and pretty young lady. In his eyes, her rebellion and sharp edges were "personality". Although Jian Jing's defiance surprised him, it also earned his appreciation.
"You still want to continue investigating the murderer?" he asked.
After thinking for a while, Jian Jing nodded, "Yes."
"Since you insist, I have no reason to stop you," Fang Dong said, "Find out who killed my son."
*
After straightening out the disappearance and death, distracting factors were eliminated and the case suddenly became clear.
First, it could be determined that the intended victim of the killer was the groom. The poison must have been prepared in advance, while the substitution happened spontaneously, so the killer probably did not know about it.
Therefore, the one who died was the twin brother, but the motive for murder still had to be found in the groom.
And the time the poisoning happened was undoubtedly after the swap, which was after 10:40am.
From 10:40am (the fake groom's return) to 1:30pm (discovery of the corpse), over two hours, was the time frame for committing the crime.
There were many ways to poison with nitrite, but the victim would not have been so foolish as to be injected with poison by someone—there were no puncture marks on his body either—so it must have been the most common method of poisoning food.
Just in time, the test results of the items sent for examination came back.
The vomit and blood both tested positive for nitrite, but no poison was found in the food samples submitted.
Jian Jing went over the whole process again.
The wedding time was from 11am to 12pm. During this, the groom did not eat anything, he drank grape juice, while the other groomsmen drank alcohol. But if the poison was slipped into the grape juice, with such a fast onset, he should have shown symptoms of vomiting and abdominal pain after ten-odd minutes.
But the fake groom was perfectly normal then.
Considering the inability to control exactly when the poison would take effect after being slipped in, she leaned towards the murderer only acting after the wedding. This would give them more ample time to destroy evidence.
In that case, there were very few people who could have done it, basically just relatives or the groomsmen.
She still had to figure out how the poisoning was done before she could identify the murderer.
She returned to the scene, searching the waiting room again for anything that might have slipped through the cracks.
There was a lot of food and drink in both the waiting room and lounge: fruit platters, candy, cookies, pastries, beverages, nuts... But apart from the fruit platter, everything was in sealed packages, making it difficult to tamper with.
Jian Jing remembered the bride saying the groom loved drinking soda water, but the soda water in the room was all bottled, and had all been sent for testing.
She counted the number of empty bottles in the trash can and the number submitted for testing, it matched exactly at six bottles. And for aesthetics, the soda water was arranged 3 bottles by 2 rows, the missing number matched with this.
So how was it done in the end?
She found the club service staff in charge of the groom's side and asked, "Other than the fruit platter, did you bring anything else today?"
Those capable of working as service staff here definitely had great memories: "Yes, we brought drinks."
Jian Jing immediately said, "Give me the same again."
"Okay."
Twenty minutes later, five cocktails were brought over.
The service staff specifically pointed out: "This 'Love River' cocktail is a specialty of our club, specially for the newlyweds."
Jian Jing picked up the Love River, the transparent red liquid in the heart-shaped glass looked clean and clear, shining under the light as if in a dream, completely unlike its name Love River.
This should have been for the groom.
She took a sip, sweet and slightly sour.
Nitrite was alkaline, salty and slightly pungent. Even slipped into the soda water it might not be noticeable, would the strange taste not be obvious in this sweet cocktail? And if he drank a mouthful and immediately reacted to the poison, the club would definitely investigate thoroughly. It would be too obvious if the murderer took over then.
Jian Jing racked her brains, unconsciously finishing the entire glass as she pondered.
"What did you say to uncle to be drinking depressed here?" Lu Banlang somehow appeared again, taking a martini and sipping it, "Got scolded?"
Jian Jing asked, "You guys ordered these drinks right?"
"Yeah, what about it?" Lu Banlang asked strangely.
"When were they brought over?"
"Around 12pm, got tired of the red wine, wanted to change it up." Lu Banlang shrugged.
She asked very carefully, "Who brought them over? Did the groom drink it right away?"
Lu Banlang said, "The service staff. Xiao Yan was in the bathroom then. When he came out we were about to go eat already." He thought back again, "After he came out he took it and sipped some. What, poison in the drink?"
Jian Jing slowly shook her head, then asked seemingly out of the blue, "Did you tell the others about discovering the secret passage?"
"Yeah I did," Lu Banlang said in puzzlement. "They asked so of course I told them."
She nodded, saying slowly, "I see, I want to ask you guys some things again, starting from A."
"You can ask me first," offered Lu Banlang.
"I want to ask is Xiao Rou," she glanced at him coolly, "You know right?"
Lu Banlang: "...I'll go get someone."
A came very quickly. After a tiring day, there was some fatigue evident in his brows and eyes too: "You want to ask Xiao Rou?"
"Yes, what was her relationship with the groom, how did they get to know each other, and why did they break up?" Jian Jing asked in detail.
As a good buddy of the groom's, A was very clear about all this: "Actually Xiao Rou can't really be considered Yan Zi's girlfriend, she was just a...how to put it, a plaything. We often come across girls who take the initiative, those we don't click with, it's a one night thing; those we do click with, we might date for a few months, eventually it has to end too. "
Xiao Rou was with Yan Zi for quite a while, over two or three years. She thought herself the official girlfriend but actually when Yan Zi was with her he had other girlfriends too, just all split already, making her look like the one left.
Over half a year ago, Yan Zi met Rong Rong and started officially dating. After meeting the parents, he broke up with Xiao Rou. I heard there were several scenes, threatening suicide, jumping off buildings, pregnancy etc, just the usual antics of crying, making trouble and hanging herself. I helped Yan Zi give her a sum of money to make her go away."
"From your description, the groom doesn't seem like a faithful man. Why was he with Xiao Rou for so long then?"
"Xiao Rou used to know her place very well, just to Yan Zi's taste. But over time, she lost sight of her own status and position, even hoping to marry into the Fang family. " A shook his head, not continuing.
But his face was full of "ungrateful".
Jian Jing took a deep breath, decisively using her logic card status.
—Deductive reasoning requires calm, no mixing in of personal emotions.
"No other questions, right, call over C."
Groomsman C was the shortest of the groomsmen, but had fair, delicate skin like a young lady's, cooperating a bit reluctantly with Jian Jing's interrogation: "What do you want to ask?"
"How's your relationship with the groom?" Jian Jing asked.
Groomsman C said, "Brother Yan treats me very well, looks out for me usually too."
Jian Jing said, "For example?"
"He lends me money, never forgets me for anything good." Groomsman C was suspicious, "What are you asking this for?"
"I want to know what kind of person the groom is." She said calmly, "Keep talking."
But Groomsman C had become wary: "Nothing else."
“Let’s talk about Xiao Rou,” she said. “I think she is highly suspicious.”
Groomsman C sat up straight, his face full of surprise. “Xiao Rou?”
Jian Jing said, “Do you know how they met? If the groom was as good as you said, why did he break up with her and immediately marry a girl he had only known for half a year?”
Groomsman C hesitated for a moment before saying, “Xiao Yan never intended to marry Xiao Rou. He was just fooling around.”
“You didn’t answer my question about how they met.”
He was silent for a moment before saying in a low voice, “They met at a party. Xiao Rou went with some friends and that’s how she met Xiao Yan. But she’s just an ordinary girl. Murder...I don’t think she’s capable of that.”
"You're close with Xiao Rou?" Jian Jing seemed to suddenly remember something and asked casually, "That's right, didn't you try to contact Xiao Rou before? Is she still in this city?"
Groomsman C was slightly embarrassed, "My friend couldn't find her. She also changed her phone number."
"She changed her number? It looks like she was prepared to flee," Jian Jing bluffed without changing her expression. "Does she have any family here?"
Groomsman C said, "I don't know."
"Really?"
"Are you doubting me?" Groomsman C suddenly stood up, his face flushed. "Let me tell you, you can eat carelessly, but you can't speak carelessly."
Jian Jing said, "I have my reasons for saying this. Why are you so sympathetic towards a woman like her who tried to attach herself to a wealthy man? The others all look down on such a woman, so why are you defending her?"
"She can't even get into the wedding today. How could she commit murder?" Groomsman C said coldly. "I'm just being reasonably suspicious."
"Your suspicions make sense," Jian Jing said. "Because today, the only one who could have committed the murder is you."
Groomsman C had prepared a bellyful of rebuttals, but did not expect her to skip over the intermediate steps and go straight for the kill. "You're saying I'm the murderer?"
"Yes," she said very calmly, as if reading the news printed in a newspaper. "Given the special circumstances, the time the poison could have been administered was narrowed down to between 12:00 and 1:30pm. Only you few could have done it."
Groomsman C said coldly, "Then why me?"
"Because at 12:15pm, you were the only one who saw the groom," Jian Jing said. "The reaction to nitrite poisoning is very fast. The others all have alibis that period and you were the only one who went back to the lounge."
Groomsman C said, "Do you have any evidence? You're saying I poisoned him, so how did I do it?"
"Indeed, the method of poisoning troubled me for a long time," she saw the handsome girl across from her relax her body and lean back into the velvet armchair, fingers interlaced, full of a detective's composure. "No poison was detected in the food and drinks at the scene, and it was not possible to force-feed drugs given the circumstances at the time."
Groomsman C said, "So you're just randomly accusing me and making me a scapegoat?"
Jian Jing paid him no mind and slowly continued, "But then I figured it out - in addition to secretly poisoning and force-feeding, there is another way, which is to voluntarily make the victim ingest the drug."
"Did he go crazy? Who would willingly take poison?" Groomsman C retorted loudly.
"Not poison, but medication?" Jian Jing said. "He was allergic to alcohol. What if someone told him the drinks he had earlier contained alcohol, and had him take allergy medication?"
Groomsman C was like a choked chicken, suddenly struck speechless as he looked at her in horror.