The fire tender, Lai Er’s relative, recalled that Lai Er had been in the kitchen alone for a while. But he didn’t know whether Lai Er had put the poison in the food.
Xiao Baoshan asked him where Lai Er lived because he had to find him.
…
Led by the fire tender, Xiao Baoshan found Lai Er’s home at the end of a lane. The door was wide open, showing the stark emptiness inside. Nothing was worth stealing. Two pieces of clothing were hung in the courtyard as if they had been forgotten for a long time. The rice jar was empty. So was the bed. The owner might have been out for two days and judging by the wine jar, Lai Er was an out-and-out alcoholic.
Without hesitation, Xiao Baoshan went to the local pubs to inquire about Lai Er’s whereabouts. A waiter in a pub told him that Lai Er had just left for the dock.
Xiao Baoshan hurried to the dock and asked Xing San and Skinny Monkey whether they had met a man holding a wine jar. But the dock was always packed with so many people that they had no recollection of this man at all. Therefore, Xiao Baoshan searched around the dock by himself.
At that moment, Lai Er was sitting under the canopy of a boat not far away. He was drinking, carefree, holding some heavy silver in his arms.
As the boat drifted away, another boat followed close behind it. Neither the boatman nor Lai Er paid much attention to it until two masked men in black suddenly jumped out from the boat. Then, they leaped into the water and turned the boat over with some strength.
Lai Er struggled hard in the river, his eyes fixed on the wine jar floating on the surface. There was still half of it left to drink.
…
The bodies of Lai Er and the boatman were found the next day. It was said that they had died from drowning. No wounds could be found on Lai Er’s body, and the money was also gone. It was assumed that some problem with the boat had caused the accident. Lai Er didn’t have any relatives, while the boatman’s relations knew that they were in the wrong and didn’t dare to voice a grievance.
The lead was lost.
Still, Xiao Baoshan didn’t lose heart. He returned to the restaurant and let Li Hongmei describe to him all of the patients’ symptoms. He didn’t want to miss any details.
Li Hongmei said, “They held their bellies with both hands at first, sweated and then couldn’t move at all. When the doctors arrived, some people had already got better. It was just like a normal stomach ache.”
Xiao Baoshan urged, “Mom, please give me more details.”
Li Hongmei thought carefully and finally added, “Well, one thing was different. Apart from stomach aches, some people also put one hand on their lower backs, as if they also ached there.”
After pondering for a while, he walked into the kitchen. The restaurant had been closed after the incident, but the leftovers hadn’t been thrown away. After listening to the descriptions of the patients’, he suspected that the problem lay in the meat. He made a fire and began frying the meat.
Xian, Little Five and Little Six, who lived in the backyard, didn’t understand why he was cooking the meat. It had been hot lately. Although the meat was preserved in salt, it was not that fresh.
Xiao Baoshan fried it until the delicious smell filled the air. Calmly, he used chopsticks to throw a piece of meat into his mouth.
“Brother Baoshan…” Little Five and Six were stunned by his behavior.
After finishing the meal, Xiao Baoshan sat quietly. The symptoms gradually manifested. As he held his belly hard, he felt a searing pain in his back, as if something was thumping his body from inside. Immediately, he was drenched with sweat.