Dude, something's really wrong with your abilities.

Chapter 17 Lottery Station

This lottery station is located on a bustling street in the south of the city, a place with heavy traffic and complete infrastructure.

Fatty and Chang Biao observed the lottery station for a while. The station's glass door had a Double Color Ball lottery poster on it, and a handwritten number trend chart hung on the wall. Behind the counter, an old man wearing reading glasses was reading a newspaper. It was no different from any other lottery shop in the city.

Chang Biao pushed open the door and went in, with the fat man following behind. Chang Biao bought a quick pick ticket, paid two yuan, and casually asked how business was. The old man said it was so-so.

He asked again how long the shop had been open, and the old man said about ten years. Chang Biao said, "Then your shop is quite old." The old man pulled down his reading glasses, glanced at him, and saw a bald, bearded, scarred man standing in front of the counter, holding a freshly printed lottery ticket, his expression quite amiable. The old man said, "People buy lottery tickets every day, but it's rare to see someone like you specifically asking how long it's been open."

These words completely shut down Chang Biao's subsequent remarks.

The fat man walked around the store. Plastic boxes on the counter held scratch-off lottery tickets, rows of cigarettes and lighters were stacked in the glass display case, and the walls were covered with trend charts and a few promotional posters issued by the lottery center. There was nothing inappropriate in a lottery shop.

The two came out, but they couldn't get any information out of the shop. It was so ordinary that the owner could shut down any question with a single sentence: "It's a lottery shop, after all; everyone's a new face every day. Who remembers anyone?"

There weren't many other options at the moment, so the two could only stake out near the lottery station, appearing on that street without fail every afternoon from 2 PM to 5 PM. The fat man's reasoning was that this lottery station was the only remaining clue left by Zhao Zhiqiang that hadn't been broken. Besides this shop, they didn't know where else to go, so they could only wait.

The fat man sat on a bench next to the bus stop, his phone resting on his lap, the camera pointed at the entrance of the betting station, ready to press the shutter at any moment. Next to him was a pile of snacks; after finishing the potato chips, he switched to peanuts, and after finishing the peanuts, he ate sunflower seeds.

Chang Biao found a stool in the outdoor seating area of ​​a coffee shop across the street and sat down. The owner was a man in his thirties. The first time he saw a bald, bearded man with a scar on his face sitting at the entrance of the shop, not ordering anything, and sitting there for the whole afternoon, the owner hesitated for forty minutes before finally coming out to ask, "Sir, what would you like to order?" Chang Biao said, "No, I'll just sit for a bit and then leave."

The next day, Chang Biao came again. The boss wanted to call the police, so Chang Biao had to show him his work ID. On the third day, the boss didn't look at Chang Biao again and even brought him a glass of water.

They took photos for three days. Different people, at different times, all buying and leaving immediately. The fat man's phone album was filled with unfamiliar faces. They didn't know who these people were, where they came from, or where they were going.

But they decided to continue filming because Zhao Zhiqiang had arrived around that time. This betting station was the only remaining clue Zhao Zhiqiang had left behind. Besides this shop, they didn't know where else to go. So they could only wait; there was no other way.

At 4:12 PM, a man in overalls pushed open the door and came out with a lottery ticket tucked into his pocket. At 4:38 PM, a young woman with a shoulder bag went in and came out with a folded lottery ticket in her hand. Just after 5 PM, a tall, thin man in his thirties pushed open the door, and the fat man snapped a photo of his back.

On the same day that the fat man pressed the shutter, Sun Tiemei and Chen Shi went to Zhao Zhiqiang's sister's house. It was a nearly forty-minute drive from the bureau to their destination. For the first ten minutes or so, Chen Shi looked out the window without saying a word.

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk, but being alone with Sun Tiemei made him very anxious. Sun Tiemei was even less likely to initiate conversation. She kept her eyes on the road while driving, and the car radio was turned off.

After thinking for a long time, Chen Shi finally asked a question that had nothing to do with the case: "Team leader, have you ever mentored a new recruit before?"

Sun Tiemei didn't look at him. "Let it pass."

"What happened to them afterward?"

"He was transferred."

Chen Shi waited a few seconds and, realizing she had no intention of continuing, had no choice but to remain silent.

The light was red ahead. Sun Tiemei stopped the car and glanced at him. "Two were transferred to headquarters, and one resigned."

"Why did the one who resigned do so?"

"Physical fitness did not meet the standard."

Chen Shi fell silent. He felt he shouldn't have asked that question.

Sun Tiemei restarted the car and added after crossing the intersection, "Your physical fitness didn't meet the standard either, but you're still pretty good." Chen Shi wasn't sure what she meant, but her tone was a little softer than usual when she said it.

The fat man's words suddenly floated into his mind: the boss wasn't good at praising people, but if she said "not bad," then you really were not bad.

Zhao Zhiqiang's sister lives in an old-style neighborhood. The living room is small, and the furniture is quite old. She's in her early forties and looks very tired. She pulled out a group photo from her phone's album. In the photo, Zhao Zhiqiang is wearing a work uniform, has a buzz cut, and is smiling somewhat awkwardly, but it is indeed a smile.

This photo was taken three months ago. He came to celebrate his nephew's birthday that day and bought a big cake. The siblings and the child took this photo together.

"He was especially happy that day." The sister wiped the photo with her finger; there wasn't actually any dust on it. "He never came back after that. I called him a few times, but he either didn't answer or said he was busy and hung up after a few words. I thought he was probably really busy, so I didn't think much of it."

"Did he contact you a few days before the incident?" Chen Shi asked.

The older sister nodded. "It was very late that night, almost ten o'clock, when he suddenly called. I asked why he wasn't asleep so late, and he said he couldn't sleep and wanted to talk to me for a bit." She paused, her fingers tracing the corner of the photo album. "He told me, 'Sis, I'll come see you in a couple of days and give you a surprise.' His tone was different when he said that; he sounded especially happy."

Sister Zhao waited for two days, but her brother didn't come. On the third day, the patrol team called her. She went, identified the body, and signed the papers. From beginning to end, no one told her what the surprise was. She said that Zhiqiang had never been very talkative since he was a child, and he always shouldered everything on his own. That night on the phone, she could tell that her brother was genuinely happy.

Sun Tiemei didn't say much from beginning to end.

This trip yielded no significant clues, and the content was largely the same as the previous police interrogation records. The only notable finding was about three months ago. From the conversation, it was learned that Zhao Zhiqiang three months ago was a perfectly normal adult, completely different from when Chen Shi first met him. So what exactly happened during those three months? What had he been through?

Sun Tiemei started the car. Chen Shi sat in the passenger seat, looking down at his phone's map to search for bus routes near his sister's house. The map showed that the bus stop that used to be closest to the neighborhood had been canceled last year, and the new stop had been moved several hundred meters south. He entered the address of the new stop, zoomed in, and saw a lottery shop next to the platform.

He suddenly remembered the address of the betting station printed on the expired lottery ticket. He zoomed in on the map—the location of the bus stop and the betting station completely overlapped. That evening, Zhao Zhiqiang left his sister's house, walked to the new stop to wait for the bus, and, having nothing to do, went into that betting station and bought his first lottery ticket.

"Team leader, head south."

Sun Tiemei didn't ask why, and turned the steering wheel. Chen Shi kept looking at the bus route on his phone map, mentally piecing together Zhao Zhiqiang's route from that day.

Sun Tiemei parked the car on the street corner. Chen Shi saw the betting station and the bus stop through the car window, and then he saw Pang Daqiang. The fat man was still sitting on the bench next to the bus stop sign. When he saw Sun Tiemei's car, he immediately picked up his phone and sent a message to Chen Shi: "Don't get out of the car. Chang Biao is at the coffee shop across the street. If you come over, his location will be exposed."

Chen Shi showed the message to Sun Tiemei. Sun Tiemei didn't turn off the engine; she glanced at the rearview mirror. Chang Biao was at the coffee shop stall across the street, his back to the corner, looking down at photos he'd taken a few days ago on his phone. Sun Tiemei glanced at the betting station, then shifted gears and drove away.

Back at the station, Pang Daqiang sent the photos from his phone to the technical department. The technical department spent two days performing facial recognition, and when the results were sent back to Group 5, everyone was astonished:

Among these people who enter and exit the betting station at fixed times, several are registered in the Authority's internal system and are all classified as Level F.

These people were unlikely to have any interaction in their lives, and they either didn't live in the south of the city or worked there. Their only connection with Zhao Zhiqiang was that they would go to the same betting station one afternoon each week, buy a two-yuan quick pick ticket, and then go their separate ways.