Chapter 109

After hearing his own name, Leon, who had both hands and his shoulder wrapped in large amounts of bandages and was secured to a hospital bed, turned his head with some difficulty. He saw an old man with graying hair, the muscles between his eyebrows knotted into a “chuan” character.

“You are?”

“You don’t need to care who I am.”

The old man, flanked by two guards, didn’t answer Leon’s question. With a stern face like iron nails and no expression, he said: “You only need to know that you’re now the prime suspect in the Lane blood case and are currently under investigation.”

So… is this guy from the Secret Investigation Bureau? But shouldn’t interrogators bring assistants? Why bring guards instead? And they don’t seem like ordinary guards?

Glancing at the two guards behind the old man, Leon roughly guessed their professions from their upright posture and the calluses on their tiger mouths. After noticing these details, Leon couldn’t help but furrowed his brows and turned his head back.

“Hmm?”

The old man immediately noticed the subtle change in Leon’s expression. His eyes narrowed slightly, like a hawk, as he stared intently at Leon’s profile and coldly questioned, “Do you have any objections to the Military Department?”

Leon gave the old man a sidelong glance. While racking his brain to guess the man’s identity, he bluntly countered, “Am I not allowed to?”

“Watch your words!”

As expected, following countless classic film tropes, after Leon challenged the seemingly high-ranking old man, the two guards behind him, filled with admiration, immediately became angry and shouted:

“Do you even know…”

“Stop!”

The old man raised his hand toward the back, stopping the guards from revealing their identities. Then, with his tightly clenched lips curving upward slightly, he appraised Leon: “You want to know my identity?”

“I already do.”

Even though the black goat wasn’t around to observe the state of the old man’s soul, looking at his expression and tone, Leon vaguely felt that the other party seemed to enjoy dealing with “capable troublemakers.” Taking a direct approach, Leon revealed:

“The strange sunburn marks on your chest fabric are probably medals. You aren’t wearing shoulder badges, but there are clips for them on your clothes;

The two guards behind you have calluses on their tiger mouths and wear boots issued to officers, thicker than regular officer boots, so they’re likely junior officers, and they don’t look older than thirty;

To have two thirty-year-old junior officers as guards and still have the privilege to frequently wear medals, there can’t be many people like that in the entire military department. And the one who might have some connection to me is just one person.”

Taking a quick glance at the old man, who showed no outward reaction but whose eyes were quite satisfied, Leon couldn’t help but secretly let out a sigh of relief before maintaining a straight face and saying, “Minister of Defense, right?”

…

“What did I say! Look at that!”

Seeing Leon deduce his father’s identity with just a couple of glances, the female police officer waiting outside the ward couldn’t help but feel relieved.

“I told you he’s smart! You should ask directly instead of going through all this nonsense. Tsk tsk…”

After complaining about her mother a bit, she was about to rush into the ward in a hurry when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Don’t cause trouble!”

Hastily stopping her reckless daughter, the middle-aged woman sighed in relief, then pinched her waist hard.

“Ow!”

The female police officer, feeling pain, became unhappy. Just as she turned her head to say something, she noticed her mother’s furious gaze.

“You’d better behave! Aren’t you causing enough trouble already?”

Recalling the scene from yesterday when her daughter rushed into her bedroom and told her that the suspect in the Lane Blood Night was innocent, having helped her investigate rebels, made the middle-aged woman extremely upset. She pinched the female police officer’s thigh again!

“It hurts!”

“Let it hurt until you die!”

Dragging her troublesome daughter away from the ward entrance to prevent her from causing more trouble, the middle-aged woman angrily scolded her,

“Do you know how much risk your father took just to clean up after you?”

“A lot, a lot…”

“And making your dad go to the princess, talking about using this opportunity to suppress the old nobility—do you think the princess would definitely agree? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Yes, yes, yes…”

“And what’s your relationship with that person? He’s willing to take such a big risk helping you investigate and hasn’t exposed you yet?”

“Just a friend…”

“Nonsense! Would an ordinary friend go to such lengths? Besides, I sent someone to ask around at your bureau, and why do so many people say they saw you two being all touchy-feely?”

“So what were you arguing about?”

“Just normal arguments…”

“Is stir-fried food good?”

“Not bad, not bad…”

“…”

Not bad my foot!

Looking at her daughter who was tiptoeing to sneak a peek into the ward while absentmindedly responding to her questions, the middle-aged woman couldn’t help but feel anger rising again and pinched her troublesome daughter once more.

“Ouch!”

Finally snapping back to reality, the female police officer quickly covered her thigh and ran a few steps away, then complained,

“Mom! Why do you always pinch me?”

“You deserve it!”

…

Listening to the chatter of his wife and daughter outside the ward, and the sudden tensing of breath from the two officers behind him, then looking at Leon’s somewhat odd expression, the old man, embarrassed, took a deep breath and ordered the officers behind him,

“Go! Tell them to be quieter!”

“Yes!”

With a strained expression, the young officer responded clearly and jogged out of the ward. The noise outside finally subsided, though whispers and occasional muffled groans could still be heard.

“Since you’ve figured it out yourself, I won’t hide it anymore.”

Forcing himself to ignore the commotion outside, the old man, whose figure was slightly hunched but still retained traces of his youthful stature, seriously began,

“I am indeed Isa’s father, and I obtained an order from the princess to bring you here.

But this isn’t because of Isa’s plea; it’s the necessity as Minister of Defense… tell me, what exactly happened that night at the Lane family?”

What happened that night? Hearing this, Leon couldn’t help but laugh, then seriously replied, “Things that should have happened long ago.”

“…”

“Before we discuss this good thing that came too late, I have a few things I want to ask you.”

Glancing at the old man’s furrowed brows again, Leon, under the glare of the two young officers, seriously asked, “On the day of the incident at the Lane family, at noon, I got on the same train as your daughter. At that time, she was escorting a rebel. Do you know what happened to that rebel and her husband?”

“Isa has told me.”

Upon hearing this, the old man’s expression darkened slightly. He nodded and said, “I’ve already invited people from the Secret Investigation Bureau to come to the Military Department to investigate everyone involved back then. Although it’s been a long time, the investigation will take longer, but it’ll give her an answer within one or two months!”

“That’s good, but her enemies are probably all dead already, so your explanation might not be necessary.”

After getting the answer he wanted, Leon couldn’t help but nod and continued asking,

“You must have investigated me, right? What about the overdue compensation owed to my family?”

“Before you went to the Lane family, Isa had already given me a list. All the withheld compensations will be compensated.”

At this point, the old man paused briefly, slowly exhaled, and his figure bent further.

“As for those severely negligent in the process of distributing compensations, they are also under interrogation and review by the Secret Investigation Bureau, starting with me, the Minister of Defense.

Before coming to see you, I just underwent a related review. The reason I’m not wearing shoulder badges and medals isn’t to conceal my identity but because I removed them during the review.

Once everyone has completed the review, punishments will be carried out within two months. The lowest penalty is a year’s salary deduction, and the highest is confiscation of all assets and execution. Confiscated assets will be used to compensate the families of martyrs who had their compensations withheld…”

“Alright, I have no issues.”

After hearing the handling results of these two matters, seeing the remorseful eyes of the old man, Leon couldn’t help but feel surprised and nodded before confessing:

“The Sun Newspaper’s report was correct; I did kill Bobby Lane.”

(End of Chapter)