Chapter 292- "Yes, I am here." (1)
Tong Xuelu did not give him a chance to talk. She carried on to say, “We can fight later, Manager Liu. What’s important right now is to get his man to the hospital. We will all be in trouble if his man dies!”
Liu Dongchang gave him a vicious stare and had two patrons head over to the police station to make a report and to get an ambulance from the hospital respectively.
As the other patrons needed to stay behind as witnesses, all of them were retained at the restaurant.
Fang Jingyuan held Tong Xuelu’s hand. “What’s going on? Why would he get poisoned all of a sudden?”
Tong Xuelu shook her head. “I have no idea either. All we can do now is to wait for the cops to get here.”
Fang Jingyuan gave Liu Dongchang a look and said in a low voice. “Why do I feel that the bald manager had something against you?”
Tong Xuelu, “Your feeling is correct.”
Her hunch told her that this was all a set up for her.
The cops arrived quickly.
Three cops came today – two men and a woman. The female one was the one who handled Su Xiuying’s domestic violent case last time.
Seeing Tong Xuelu, she seemed to have been taken aback a little. Naturally, she wasn’t going to go up and greet Tong Xuelu under the given circumstances.
The ambulance arrived shortly thereafter.
One of the male cops and the hospital staff headed over to the hospital with the patient and the other two stayed to take witness statements.
As they were not certain whether the patient was, indeed, poisoned, or that he was ill, the two cops were only doing preliminary investigation.
They asked about the time of the incident; whether something else took place around the same time; what steps they had taken after the incident, etc. After the preliminary interviews, the patrons at the restaurant were free to go.
Many wanted to stay behind for the drama but, as they needed to return to work, had to take off reluctantly.
Fang Jingyuan went outside to make a call but returned shortly.
She didn’t say anything but Tong Xuelu knew that she stayed behind for her.
After roughly an hour, the other cop returned from the hospital with some news—
“The hospital had confirmed that it was organophosphate poisoning, farm chemicals, in short. As the quantity that he had ingested was very minor, the patient was fine. The patient claimed that he had eaten nothing before visiting the restaurant and only started to vomit after having the braised pork at the restaurant.
Farm chemical poisoning.
Tong Xuelu was not surprised at all when she heard that.
In fact, she was sort of expecting that.
As nothing had been touched at the restaurant, the dish of braised pork that Cao Dagang had earlier was still sitting on the table.
The cop earlier brought the plate of braised pork back to the cop station for testing and the others were kept at the restaurant to wait for the result to come out.
With this incident, the restaurant was closed temporarily.
Two to three hours later, the result was out and that farm chemicals were detected in the braised pork.
With that, all restaurant employees were suspects.
The male cop immediately carried out a more in-depth interrogation.
“Which of you know Comrade Cao Dagang or had conflicts with him in the past?”
Those at the restaurant shook their heads, indicating that they did not know him nor did they have conflicts with him.
When Liu Dongchang responded to the question, Tong Xuelu looked squarely at his face. Liu Dongchang looked very nonchalant, as though he really had nothing to do with the incident.
The male cop asked, “Who purchased the ingredients?”
Liu Dongchang, “It was me. I am the manager of the restaurant and I am the only person who shop for the ingredients. However, I swear to it that I did not do anything illegal. Not to mention that the ingredients were supposed to be washed after I have brought them back. Even if there were farm chemicals on them, they should have been washed off.”
Tong Xuelu almost busted out laughing.
Surely he did not mention her by name but anyone with half a brain would know that only three people handled the food – Liu Dongchang, Guo Weiping, and herself.
Guo Weiping was only responsible for rinsing the vegetables. The same logic stood. Once they were rinsed, the farm chemicals would no longer remain.
In short, she was the only one who could have added the farm chemicals in the food.