The Omniscient

Chapter 2: The Ironclad Signature

"Hm? What did someone see?" Wang Meng asked in surprise.

Huang Ji paused before answering, then pointed to the old tree by the roadside. "This morning, when I walked by, I saw Li Fan playing behind that tree from a distance. If Dr. Liang left her house, he should have seen it."

Wang Meng was startled. "Why didn’t you mention this earlier? It’s important!"

Huang Ji blinked blankly and replied, "Sorry, I’m slow. I just remembered."

“Uh…” Wang Meng was left speechless. After all, what could he expect from someone considered mentally disabled?

He was about to look for Li Fan when the village head stepped out of the clinic. Hearing the conversation, the village head furrowed his brow. “You mean Li Fan, the boy from the Xiao Li family?”

Huang Ji nodded.

The village head sighed. “I already asked his family. They said they hadn’t seen anything.”

...

Huang Ji stared once more at the old tree by the roadside. He was absolutely certain that Dr. Liang had been taken away by four men.

Moreover, at the time of the incident, Li Fan had been near the tree and must have seen everything.

“Didn’t see anything? No… he’s definitely the witness,” Huang Ji thought to himself.

However, his certainty came from his unique perception, something he couldn’t explain outright. As someone considered intellectually disabled, even if he spoke up, others would likely dismiss him as delusional.

Thinking quickly, Huang Ji turned to the village head and said innocently, “I saw Li Fan by the tree at seven o’clock. Was Dr. Liang gone that early?”

The village head nodded. If Li Fan claimed he hadn’t seen anything, that must mean Dr. Liang had disappeared before he started playing by the tree.

But this gave Wang Meng pause. That was awfully early.

The clinic usually opened around seven, and Dr. Liang disappeared after opening the door. If Li Fan had been there at seven, how could he not have noticed anything?

Wang Meng couldn’t help but ask, “Uncle, what exactly did Li Fan say?”

The village head replied, “What details? I just asked if he saw anything, and he said no.”

“Alright, let me ask again. Xiao Li! Where’s your son? Bring him over!”

Prompted by Huang Ji’s remark, both men decided to probe further.

Soon, Xiao Li brought his son, Li Fan, over. The boy, only twelve years old, looked nervous seeing so many people gathered around him.

“Did you see Dr. Liang this morning?” Wang Meng asked.

Li Fan shook his head hurriedly. “No, I didn’t.”

Wang Meng followed up, “Were you playing near the clinic this morning? Was the door open? What time was it?”

Li Fan hesitated for a moment. “How did you know?”

“Huang Ji saw you. Was it around seven?” Wang Meng asked. He didn’t suspect Li Fan of lying but simply wanted to confirm the timing of Dr. Liang’s disappearance. ɌаNՕВЁ𝐒

Unexpectedly, Li Fan retorted, “What does that idiot know?! I didn’t get there until 7:30!”

“Hm?” Wang Meng’s brow furrowed.

Huang Ji, however, remained calm and simply stated, “Seven.”

Li Fan shouted, “It was 7:30! You got it wrong!”

Huang Ji fixed his calm gaze on Li Fan and repeated, “Seven.”

Pointing at Huang Ji, Li Fan said, “Look, he just keeps repeating himself! That idiot must have remembered wrong!”

Wang Meng turned to Huang Ji. “How can you be so sure it was seven?”

“My grandpa told me to leave at seven to see Dr. Liang. I left a bit early, but I didn’t want to go for treatment, so I turned back just before I arrived. I saw Li Fan at that time, which must have been seven o’clock,” Huang Ji said, his expression steady, without a trace of guilt.

He was lying, and he knew it. That morning, he had indeed left at seven, but instead of heading to the clinic, he wandered around the fields before returning home.

Huang Ji hadn’t actually seen Li Fan but trusted his instincts—he strongly believed that Dr. Liang had been taken at the same time Li Fan was near the tree. He fabricated his account to steer the investigation.

Having lied once already, he found this second lie surprisingly easy. As long as there are no inconsistencies and it can’t be disproven, a lie is as good as the truth, Huang Ji thought to himself.

Wang Meng patted Huang Ji on the shoulder and turned to Li Fan. “Huang Ji isn’t an idiot. He has mild intellectual disabilities, sure, but he remembers things like this clearly enough. Now, you—so young and already lying? Out with the truth!”

As a policeman, Wang Meng could see Li Fan was panicking in response to Huang Ji’s "dull but precise" assertion.

Li Fan was only twelve, far too inexperienced to hide his guilt. Under Wang Meng’s piercing gaze, he began to look away nervously.

Seeing his son’s demeanor, Xiao Li immediately caught on. Furious, he snapped, “You little brat! Lying about something this serious? Did you see Dr. Liang or not?!”

With that, he kicked Li Fan, causing the boy to tear up.

Faced with the mounting pressure, Li Fan realized he couldn’t keep lying. After a long hesitation, he stammered, “I… I saw her. She was taken away. Those men… they were fierce. One of them even had a knife. They said if I told anyone, they’d kill me. I was scared…”

“What?!” Wang Meng exclaimed, alarmed. The gathered villagers collectively realized the gravity of the situation—Dr. Liang had likely been kidnapped.

Only Huang Ji remained completely calm, unsurprised by this revelation. His blank expression blended in naturally, as everyone was used to his "daydreaming" and assumed he hadn’t grasped the full meaning of Li Fan’s words.

“You coward! They scare you a little, and you clam up? Useless boy!” Li Fan’s father was furious, delivering two more kicks to his trembling son.

“It’s true! I swear he wasn’t lying! If I tell anyone, Dad, he’ll kill me! He’ll kill you too…” Li Fan cried, voice quivering with terror.

“Useless!” his father grumbled angrily, though his frustration masked his own fear.

Wang Meng’s expression darkened. What had started as an ambiguous situation was now clearly a criminal case.

If Li Fan’s fear was this intense—his terror so palpable that he’d been too scared to speak until now—it meant the threats weren’t idle. The men’s tone, demeanor, and actions must have been deadly serious.

A typical prank or bluff wouldn’t have been enough to terrify a twelve-year-old boy to this degree.

Wasting no time, Wang Meng dialed the local station to report the incident.

With a witness account now in hand, the case could officially be classified as a potential abduction.

Meanwhile, the village head managed to piece together more details.

Before 7:00 a.m., Li Fan had left home for school but, being mischievous, didn’t head straight there. Instead, he stopped by the old tree in front of the village clinic to feed ants with a steamed bun, playing there for quite some time.

At about 7:05 a.m., a van drove into the village. Coincidentally, aside from Li Fan, there was no one else on the road at the time.

Four men got out of the van, entered the clinic, and swiftly dragged Dr. Liang out. The entire process was clean and bold, executed without hesitation.

As they left, the only armed man among them noticed Li Fan but, seemingly in a hurry, merely issued a single threat before departing.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Terrified, Li Fan promised to stay quiet. He then went to school, acting exceptionally well-behaved all day, repeating to himself: I didn’t see anything. I was already at school.

He clung to this self-deception so tightly that by the end of the day, he nearly believed it himself.

If not for Huang Ji, Li Fan might have taken this secret to his grave.

“Kidnapping... but why? For ransom?” the village head wondered aloud. It seemed improbable for such a crime to occur in their rural village.

Wang Meng meticulously recorded Li Fan’s account. Shortly after, he received a phone call. His expression turned perplexed as he hung up. “It’s not for money. Her mother hasn’t received any ransom demands.”

“What? Could it be revenge?” someone speculated.

“Nonsense! Dr. Liang is such a kind person; how could anyone hold a grudge against her?” another villager countered.

“Then what is it? Could they have been after her beauty?” someone else ventured.

It was worth noting that Dr. Liang was indeed a strikingly beautiful woman, fair-skinned and refined—a city dweller whose appearance stood out in the countryside.

As the speculation grew wilder, Wang Meng raised his voice. “Stop guessing! This is a matter for the police. Go home, everyone!”

The crowd dispersed. About twenty minutes later, a police car arrived at the scene.

The officer driving the car stepped out, phone in hand, his face a mixture of surprise and disbelief. “What? They ran away?” he exclaimed into the phone.

Wang Meng, startled, asked, “Did you catch the suspects? Did they escape?”

The officer shook his head, ending the call. Looking bewildered, he said, “Not the suspects. It’s… it’s Liang Yuan’s family who ran away.”

“Huh?” Wang Meng was thoroughly confused now. Liang Yuan was Dr. Liang’s name.

What could it mean for the victim’s family to run away?

“What’s going on? Explain,” Wang Meng demanded.

The officer frowned. “Earlier, we contacted Liang Yuan’s mother at her rented apartment in the county, informing her that her daughter might have been kidnapped and asking if she had received any ransom calls. She said no...”

“Then our colleagues from the county arrived at Liang Yuan’s mother’s house to set up surveillance, anticipating potential ransom calls from the kidnappers.”

“But when they got there, they found the place completely empty. Liang Yuan’s parents had packed up their belongings and left.”

“We checked the surveillance footage and discovered their car had entered the provincial highway, heading toward Shandong Province!”

Wang Meng was stunned. What was going on? The victim’s family fleeing like criminals?

“There’s definitely more to this,” Wang Meng muttered.

“No kidding, but that’s not for us to handle. Our job is to document the scene and get that kid to draw sketches of the suspects,” said the officer who had driven the patrol car.

Wang Meng sighed in frustration. As a low-ranking officer, major criminal cases were out of his jurisdiction. He was only tasked with guarding the scene because of staffing shortages.

The two officers took notes and photographs of the site, but the scene offered little value. After a full day of villagers trampling through, preserving it was no longer necessary. They still submitted their report and evidence to the county office.

As they prepared to leave and look for Li Fan to assist with suspect sketches, Wang Meng noticed a piece of paper tucked under the police car’s windshield wiper.

“Is this some kind of parking ticket?” The driver also noticed it but couldn’t make out the details in the dark.

Who would issue a ticket to a police car in this remote village?

Approaching the car, they discovered it wasn’t a ticket but a piece of paper with writing on it.

In neat, formal script, it read:

“Liang Yuan is with us. Exchange her parents for her.”

The signature at the bottom was: “Lü Zongmin.”

Wang Meng and his colleague exchanged a shocked glance, a chill running down their spines.

Was this from the kidnappers?

They glanced around nervously. The village entrance was pitch black, with no one in sight.

It was unbelievable. They’d only been inside the clinic taking photos for a short while, and yet someone had left a note on their car!

The audacity! Not only were the criminals operating nearby, but they’d also bypassed traditional ransom demands to deliver a threat directly to the police. What’s more, the demand wasn’t for money but for the victim’s parents in exchange for her!

“They’re still close by… They haven’t left the area!” Wang Meng said.

The two officers scanned their surroundings and searched the car’s interior but found no further clues. Whoever left the note had already slipped away.

Wang Meng immediately called the station chief to report the situation. “...That’s the situation. We’ve secured the note, and although the signature might be fake, it’s worth investigating, right?”

The station chief was just as shocked upon hearing the report. A kidnapper brazen enough to demand the police’s help in apprehending someone? And even leaving a name behind? The audacity was simply mind-boggling—like they had an "ironclad" head impervious to fear or consequences!

To make matters worse, Liang Yuan’s mother had mysteriously fled without explanation, further deepening the mystery.

For a rural village like this, Liang Yuan’s kidnapping was already an unprecedented event. Adding these bizarre twists, it became clear that something much larger and more complex was unfolding behind the scenes.

...