Netherworld Investigator

The executive kept us waiting in his office for a few minutes. He returned with a list of drugs, which I glanced over and didn’t find what I was looking for at all.

“You’re the director of the R & D department, aren’t you?” I asked. “Are you involved in the development of each new drug?”

Director Wang shook his head and explained, “Only in the paperworks.”

“Do you know of any drugs in development that could cause fake death-like symptoms?”

Director Wang frowned and fell silent for a while, then answered, “None that I know of, no. What do you mean fake death-like symptoms? Can you describe it more specifically?”

I told him of the symptoms I observed on the victims. Director Wang listened intently and shook his head in confusion. Then he added, “I’m not sure if it had anything to do with this, but I do remember the president personally supervising the development of a drug which began last year. That’s all I can tell you, though. Any information regarding this drug, including the personnel involved, is confidential.”

“Can you get us the data of this study?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” Director Wang smiled weakly. “I don’t have the access to the data.”

“Who has the access then?”

“Only the president herself.”

This definitely smelled fishy. “Can you take us to the president’s office?”

Director Wang did so, and when I saw a computer on the desk I asked, “Is that where the research data is stored?”

“Yes,” Director Wang nodded.

“Can we bring the computer back with us?”

“No,” Director Wang shook his head frantically. “Absolutely not!”

“Do you want your president to die?” I countered.

“Even if that happens,” Director Wang argued, “I can’t let you take away such important trade secrets. If I do that, the president will surely fire me!”

“How would she do that if she’s dead?” I chuckled in amusement.

“Then the board of directors will fire me!” maintained Director Wang. “No, it doesn’t matter what you say. You can’t touch this computer without the permission of the board of directors or a proper search warrant from the court!”

He urged us out of the office as politely as he could and left us. Dali cursed under his breath when he was gone, saying, “How ridiculous! The president is in trouble and all he thinks about is his job?”

“You’d be surprised how cutthroat the society within a company can be,” Xiaotao explained. Then she asked me, “Do you think Lao Yao can hack into the computer?”

“Unlikely,” I sighed. “The computer isn’t even turned on, and we couldn’t get anywhere near it. In this case, even a genius hacker like Lao Yao would be stumped.”

“How about we try to convince the board of directors?” Dali suggested.

“No, that would take too much time,” I replied. “By the time they’re convinced, the president would be dead. At least we learned something from this. I’m pretty sure that this company did indeed develop the drug that caused the fake death-like symptoms. The most important thing right now is to focus on finding the murderer!”

We were about to walk out of the building when we heard Director Wang running up to us, shouting, “Stop right there, you thieves! Give it back to me now!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Are you seriously accusing the police of theft?”

“Drop your act!” spat Director Wang. “That police badge you showed me was probably fake! You were probably sent by our competitors to take advantage of the chaos we’re in right now!”

“Careful, Director Wang,” Xiaotao warned. “Before you go any further, why don’t you call the police station and ask them if we’re fake police officers?”

His face fell and he hesitated.

“What went missing?” I asked.

“The hard drives of the president’s computer!” he answered. “I had a bad feeling after you left, so I went back into her office and checked the computer. Turns out only the shell of the CPU remained! Everything else is gone!”

Xiaotao and I exchanged looks. We rushed back to the office, and sure enough, the computer hard drives were gone. I scanned the room and noticed a surveillance camera in the hallway facing the president’s office.

“Can you get us the video from that camera?” I asked Director Wang.

“Sure,” he said, “but you see how the glass separating the president’s office is opaque, don’t you? I don’t think the camera captured anything at all to be honest…”

“I’d like to take a look nonetheless.”

Director Wang led us to the security department where we obtained the video from said camera. At around 10 o’clock last night, someone was captured sneaking into the president’s office. When the person’s face was clearly shown, Director Wang gasped and remarked, “But that’s the president!”

The lady left the office door open when she sneaked inside, which made it possible for us to see her taking the hard disks. She seemed to be constantly looking in one direction. I had a hunch that someone must’ve been standing there at the time, monitoring her every move. It was very likely that the person was the mastermind behind this case.

The lady left the door open when she got out. She might have done this intentionally. I examined the video more closely and noticed another small detail—the lady was constantly tapping her foot on the ground.

“Do you think it’s a secret code?” I asked Xiaotao.

She tried repeating the way the lady tapped her foot and tried to decipher it according to the rules of Morse Code, but found that the message didn’t mean anything. She tried it again using the Four-Corner Method[1], but to no avail. 

“You’re overthinking this, Xiaotao-jiejie!” Dali interjected. “She’s simply tapping out numbers—41163222222. That’s a phone number, right?”

Xiaotao watched the video again and snapped her fingers, “Damn it, you’re right! It’s handy to have simple-minded people around sometimes!”

“Hey!” Dali pouted. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment at all!”

“Numbers starting with 411 are foreign, though…” I muttered. “I don’t think it’s a phone number. Director Wang, do you know of any 11-digit numbers that are related to work?”

Director Wang thought for a moment and said, “Give me a moment!”

He left the room, then returned with a pile of documents. He told us that these were the company’s projects in development, and they were all given 11-digit project numbers. I searched through the documents and finally found one with the same number that the lady was signalling—but it was just an anti-cancer drug.

I didn’t know much about pharmaceuticals, so when I read through the project report, it all seemed to involve normal medical research and nothing stood out to me.

“Are you the one supervising this project?” I asked Director Wang.

He glanced through the document and shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “There are just so many anti-cancer drugs that we’re producing.”

I watched his eyes closely and confirmed that he wasn’t lying.

This puzzled me. Had we reached a dead end? Were we just running around in circles here? Xiaotao called the station to get the number checked, and after a while she received a call informing her that it was an Australian phone number, but they were unable to identify the phone owner.

“Looks like that’s it for today,” said Xiaotao. “You guys should go back to your dorm for now. I’ll call you if there’s any progress.”

I kept staring at the document silently in deep thoughts, not hearing what Xiaotao was saying. She had to call my name several times before I finally looked up at her and asked, “What?”

“Seriously!” Xiaotao laughed. “Don’t stress yourself out too much, this is an abnormal case and you’ve never worked on anything like this before. It’s only natural that we need a bit more time to solve it. You should go back to your dorm and relax.”

“I’ll have to study when I go back since final exams are coming up soon,” I sighed. “Not exactly my idea of relaxing.”

“Your final exams are coming up soon?” asked Xiaotao, surprised. “You guys shouldn’t have come out here with me! Go back and study now!”

I nodded, but my mind was still fully on the document. I handed it to Xiaotao, and she read through it and commented, “Ah, it’s a medicine targeting liver cancer. I’ve got an aunt who has liver cancer. Maybe she can try taking this medicine. Is it on the market, Director Wang?”

“You’ll have to ask the sales department about that,” he replied with a sheepish smile. 

“What do you know?” Xiaotao joked.

Because of Xiaotao’s question, I quickly did a search on the computer in the room and said, “It’s never been marketed. In fact, there are no reports about it on the Internet at all, almost as if it’s never been developed in the first place!”

“But that’s preposterous!” cried Director Wang. “Could someone be misappropriating the funds for this project?”

“Who do you think would do that?” I sneered.

Director Wang hesitated to answer, so I helped him, “It’s your president, obviously.”

Director Wang scratched his head and mumbled, “But that doesn’t make any sense! Why would the president do that? It’s her own company!”

“There could only be one reason for it,” I declared. “She was secretly developing another drug using the funds for this anti-cancer medicine!”

1. A character-input method used for encoding Chinese characters into a computer.