Chapter 329: The Dark Truth

What happened?
He instinctively looked at Ash, who nodded at him.
“It’s the room on the second floor…” Ash’s expression also darkened. “Let’s go take a look.”
Yan Chuan disregarded everything outside and followed Ash upstairs.
However, when they arrived, a crowd had gathered in the corridor, surrounding a door.
The door was open, revealing dark stains and a young woman slumped on the floor inside.
A slightly overweight man lay on the floor, his head on the ground.
He wore a grimy gray coat, which was not only smeared with mud but also had dried bloodstains on it.
The deceased was Hans.
He was the man who stood up for Yan Chuan when Vincent harassed him by offering gold to do things he didn’t want to do.
Yan Chuan vaguely remembered that Hans had taken a piece of gold from the table when he left.
“I don’t know…” Lina, the girlfriend from the young couple, stared wide-eyed, her expression vacant, her voice slightly odd.
Her hair was disheveled, and her clothes were wrinkled, clearly indicating she had just woken up.
Brandon and Berkley were also there, the first to arrive. Seeing the gruesome murder scene in the room, they grimaced.
Mrs. Lang, wearing a headscarf, was patting her chest, trembling as she took a metal cross out of her handbag, mumbling something.
Officer Brandon had some experience in handling cases, and now was the time to put it to use.
He took out gloves and signaled everyone to keep away from Hans’s body to protect the crime scene.
With Berkley’s assistance, Brandon conducted a preliminary autopsy on Hans.
Turning the body over revealed a bullet wound in his chest.
“It was a gunshot,” Brandon confirmed after examining other body parts, noting there were no obvious injuries elsewhere.
A gunshot.
Just like the case from yesterday afternoon.
The young officer frowned.
“How could he be dead…”
Lina babbled incoherently.
Kneeling on the ground, she was limp and couldn’t even stand up. Thankfully, Mrs. Lang helped her, allowing her to lean on her.
“He was fine last night, he just said he wanted to drink some beer before sleeping…” Lina looked bewildered, clearly in shock.
“You didn’t hear anything last night?”
After a brief assessment of the scene, Brandon stood up and asked Lina seriously.
This might be a standard procedure for officers, questioning every witness present.
Lina looked dazed but continued to respond.
“Yes…” She stumbled to her feet, grabbed a bottle of beer and a small bottle of pills from the table.
The table was also set with leftover bread and corn chowder for two.
Lina handed the pill bottle to Brandon.
“I have migraines and poor sleep,” she shook her head. “I have to take a sedative before bed; otherwise, I can’t sleep…”
“Once I take the medicine, I sleep deeply.”
Brandon examined the pill bottle.
He continued to ask, “So Hans didn’t leave before you went to sleep?”
Lina nodded.
“Yes,” she replied weakly to the officer’s question. “He said it was too early to sleep, and he ignored me while looking at the gold in his hands under the lamp…”
Lina’s words suddenly halted.
Brandon became alert, catching that specific word.
“Gold?” he asked back.
“The gold Hans had?”
Lina’s expression turned even paler.
She pressed her dry lips together.
Her gaze flickered toward the Asian shopkeeper outside, hesitating for a moment before continuing,
“It was something he took in the afternoon…” she confessed reluctantly. “Hans was a pickpocket… he would steal things…”
This statement implied that she acknowledged Hans had indeed taken the gold from the group of prospectors.
Outside the door, Yan Chuan furrowed his brow.
He confirmed his memory: Hans had indeed taken something when he left.
But Lina described Hans as a pickpocket, a thief?
Lina went on,
“He served time in prison and met me after getting out…” Her face was pale, as if all hope was lost. “He promised me he wouldn’t steal anymore and would find work… but he still couldn’t shake off that habit.”
“When I saw him, I urged him to return what he had taken, but he wasn’t the type to be easily deterred…” Lina fell silent, changing the subject. “He refused, saying they wouldn’t notice if he lost one piece.”
Brandon interjected, “So you couldn’t persuade him, and you just took the medicine and fell asleep?”
Lina nodded.
Looking at Hans’s pale face, her expression became increasingly blank.
“How could there be a gun…” As she spoke, her voice grew hoarse, as if it had been worn down by rough sandpaper. “Who fired the gun? Why didn’t I hear anything…”
Her emotions were clearly falling apart as she kept glancing at the corpse on the ground.
Yan Chuan pressed his lips together.
At this point, the truth was becoming clear.
Hans, this young man with a habit of petty theft, had seen gold in the afternoon and couldn’t pull his eyes away, even attempting to get some sort of financial secret from Vincent.
When he left, Hans had also secretly taken a piece of gold.
While everyone else was asleep, he had been killed without anyone noticing.
A gunshot.
This word now only brought one person to Yan Chuan’s mind.
He looked at Brandon, noticing the same expression on his face.
There was a firearm in the hotel, and it was connected to the “dispute” Hans had with Duncan and his gang.
Yan Chuan chewed his lip in distress.
Brandon walked over.