I Have a Friend

That afternoon, the group of colleagues who had gathered to smoke and swore they would never buy lottery tickets all, without exception, made their way to the nearest lottery shop right after work.

Everyone was there to try their luck.

Although the salary and benefits for police officers were decent, who would say no to more money? Who wouldn’t want to hit the jackpot like Xu Mo and win millions?

“Uh… everyone’s here, huh?” Li Chen chuckled awkwardly as he looked at his colleagues standing before him.

“Yeah…” Chen Ke’s expression was a bit unnatural, his hands fidgeting as if they didn’t know where to rest. “Well, you see… I have this friend who loves buying lottery tickets. He couldn’t make it today, so he asked me to buy some for him.”

“Oh, right, right! Me too. I also have a friend who asked me to pick some up for him.”

“…”

Chen Ke had set the tone, and the officers quickly found their excuses.

Some claimed they were buying for friends, others said their father-in-law had asked them to, and the excuses varied wildly. The common thread was that no one admitted they were buying for themselves.

After all, that afternoon, they had gathered and trashed the idea of buying lottery tickets, saying they were worthless. Words once spoken couldn’t be taken back.

The “I have a friend” excuse was clearly a cover, but they all tacitly agreed not to call each other out. In this situation, exposing someone else’s lie would mean exposing their own.

…

The next day.

At the police station.

Xu Mo’s office was unusually lively.

It wasn’t yet work hours, and taking advantage of the free time, several officers had come to Xu Mo’s office to ask him questions.

“Captain Xu, I heard you won a big prize?”

“Yeah, how did you know?” Xu Mo didn’t deny it and nodded.

“It’s all over the news. Seven million! Hard not to know,” Li Chen said, rubbing his hands nervously, looking like he had something more to say. “Captain Xu, I…”

Thinking Li Chen might be short on cash and looking to borrow some money before payday, Xu Mo reassured him.

“Whatever it is, just say it. If I can help, I will.”

The next moment, Li Chen pulled out a few crumpled lottery tickets from his pocket.

“Well, I have this friend… he really likes buying lottery tickets, but he’s never won anything. When he heard you won, he asked me to come and see if you could take a look at these tickets, see if there’s any chance of winning.”

After saying this, Li Chen glanced at his colleagues nearby and added, “It’s not me asking, by the way. It’s my friend. He asked me to ask you.”

Xu Mo: “…”

That “friend” is probably you, isn’t it? Xu Mo saw through it but didn’t call him out. “I don’t know much about lottery tickets either. I just bought a random set of numbers. I can’t tell if your friend’s tickets have any chance of winning.”

“Random numbers? Is that how you win?” Li Chen straightened up.

The other officers also perked up their ears.

Before Xu Mo could answer, there was a rapid knock on the office door.

The knocking was urgent.

“Captain Xu, we’ve got a case!”

Hearing this, Xu Mo immediately stood up, and the officers who had come to ask about lottery strategies quickly shifted their focus. The case came first.

As for lottery tips, they could ask later when things were less hectic.

Xu Mo walked to the door and opened it, looking at the officer who had knocked. “Go on.”

“Alright,” the officer continued. “We just got a report. A security guard at a mental hospital in the east district found a black plastic bag at the entrance. Inside the bag was a human head.”

“Also, there was a note at the scene.”

“A note? What did it say?” Xu Mo asked.

The officer’s expression darkened as he relayed the contents of the note: “Come and catch me if you can.”

He also showed Xu Mo the photos sent back from the scene.

This was a blatant provocation.

Leaving such a note at the scene showed that the perpetrator was not only arrogant but also a bit unhinged.

A normal criminal would try to erase all traces of their presence at the scene, leaving no evidence behind, let alone a note that taunted the police.

Leaving such a note would only anger the police, offering no benefit to the perpetrator. It was clearly a losing move.

Based on this, Xu Mo had already begun to suspect that the culprit might be a patient from the mental hospital.

He thought only a madman could do something like this.

Of course, this was just Xu Mo’s initial speculation based on the note. Whether it was true or not would require further investigation at the scene.

After all, there was also the possibility that someone left the note deliberately to mislead the police.

…

East District Mental Hospital.

Several police cars pulled up one after another.

Han Fei, Xu Mo, and the other officers got out of the cars.

The entrance had already been cordoned off by the hospital staff, and no one was allowed near it. The hospital director and some senior staff were waiting at the entrance for the police to arrive.

Seeing the police cars stop, the director and his team immediately stepped forward to greet them.

“Officers, we’ve sealed off the scene. No one has been allowed near it.”

The director understood the importance of preserving the scene.

“Good,” Han Fei nodded. “Take us to see it.”

“The security guard found the black plastic bag inside the hospital grounds, near the wall by the entrance. Follow me.”

The director led the officers to the wall behind the entrance and pointed to the black plastic bag lying by the base of the wall.

“This is the bag,” the director said, then gestured to a middle-aged man in a security uniform standing nearby. “Officers, this is the security guard who found the bag. Old Ding, tell the officers what happened.”

As soon as the director finished speaking, Old Ding turned to Han Fei and began recounting how he had discovered the black plastic bag.

“This morning, during my patrol, I noticed a plastic bag by the wall. At first, I thought it was just trash, so I went to pick it up and throw it in the bin. But as soon as I lifted it, I saw a pool of blood underneath. It scared me so much that I dropped the bag immediately. When it hit the ground, the bag opened, and I saw a human head inside… I called the police right away.”

After saying this, Old Ding glanced nervously at the black plastic bag. His expression made it clear that he had been deeply shaken by the discovery.

Xu Mo crouched beside the bag, put on gloves, and examined it.

“Can you tell the approximate time of death?” Han Fei asked.

Xu Mo shook his head, indicating it was impossible.

“With just a head, it’s hard to determine the exact time of death… But based on the state of the blood, I’d guess it wasn’t long ago, probably last night.”

Xu Mo looked at the security guard. “Did you notice anything unusual last night?”