Not much content.

It has nothing to do with writing.

This should be a letter.

Judging from the tone, the author is undoubtedly Haytham. He used an extremely chaotic, helpless, and angry tone to describe that some “despicable maggots” on the market are deliberately imitating his creations, and expressed the hope that “necessary measures” will be taken against this.

Lots of information.

Judging from the fact that Robert deliberately tore off this page of paper, could it be that the plagiarism that Haytham angrily accused was related to him?

After reading the content, Hitzfeld glanced at the beginning and the end, but there were no names marked.

This meant it was impossible to identify who the letter was intended for.

“It’s either his editor or a higher-level unit.” Casimir said, “This is a letter of complaint.”

“Do you think Robert was the one who led the so-called plagiarism?”

“From what I have investigated, there are indeed several articles in the Southern Daily that deliberately imitate Haytham’s writing style. But I don’t know exactly what happened. I can only be sure that this matter is related to him, and that’s enough.”

That’s enough.

Hitzfeld nodded.

He was linked to the murderer, and was found to have knocked out the milkman, stolen the clothes and disguised himself to enter No. 215. Even if there was no direct evidence to prove that Robert was the murderer, he was a strong enough suspect.

Secretly deciding to buy a few copies of the Southern Times, Hitzfeld looked up and said, “Finally, Casimir… Can you tell me what happened after you sneaked into Robert’s house?”

After saying this, she… and Xia Yibing, noticed that Casimir’s expression changed.

This man had always looked nonchalant, but now his expression became extremely serious and solemn. Xia Yibing even noticed that he raised his hand to touch his nose, and that he pinched it hard as he retracted his hand.

Is this, fear?

What on earth had happened to him at Robert’s house?

“I said, ‘He disappeared.’ You think that was an exaggeration?”

“……What’s the meaning!?”

“literal meaning.”

Casimir took out a cigarette and put it between his lips, lighting the match with trembling movements.

“I could sense him before I went in, and I was sure…he was inside the house.”

“But when I went in he was gone.”

“There was a faint smell of blood in the house.”

“It was like there was an invisible monster lurking inside, and it just happened to eat him before I pushed the door open.”

Chapter 21: The First Card

After describing his experience, Casimir left.

Every piece of information he revealed later was extremely important to Hitzfeld. Before that, he had even tried to escape, which showed that he had a lot of tricks up his sleeve and hoped to use the information advantage to defeat him.

You can’t say he’s bad. Because if Hitzfeld didn’t ask, it would indirectly show that she was incompetent. Maybe in Casimir’s opinion, she was not qualified to know this information.

Then Hitzfeld sat in his chair for a while.

It wasn’t until Xia Yibing handed her a glass of hot orange juice that she realized it was already past 12 o’clock.

“You didn’t perform well today.”

Blowing the hot air from the rim of the cup while taking small sips, Hitzfeld looked at the black-haired woman with a smile.

Xia Yibing has a cold personality. Although she appears cold on the outside but warm on the inside to people she is close to, it is rare to see her lose control of her emotions.

She appreciated it today, and combined with the fact that she had become a father last night, she suddenly felt that this woman, who was much older than her, was also very cute.

“I have never had much patience for mental illness.” Xia Yibing turned her face away, tacitly agreeing with Hitzfeld’s statement that he was “performing abnormally.”

She knew that Hitzfeld was giving her face.

“Then do you have any ideas?” The mental crack was filled by Hitzfeld. Of course, she couldn’t expose him at this time. She went back to the case and asked Xia Yibing if she had any ideas.

“Guess?” Xia Yibing raised the corner of her mouth and took out a stack of newspapers from behind her like a magician.

“Xinzenan District News?” When Hitzfeld saw the title in front, a hint of surprise appeared on his face.

I don’t think she mentioned it to Xia?

Is this something she realized on her own?

Well, that was indeed a poor performance.

“What’s that look?” Xia Yibing was extremely dissatisfied with her unexpected look. “I am… Do you think I have to question this most basic analytical ability?”

Yes, she is not stupid.

There are only so many clues that can be investigated now, and the most noteworthy one, “plagiarism”, is actually the easiest to investigate.

Is it plagiarism?

Is it the style or something else that is copied?

If it is confirmed to be plagiarism, who is the author of the plagiarism?

What is the relationship between this person and Robert, who is tentatively judged to be dead?

Although Casimir said he didn’t know, the reason he didn’t know was not because he couldn’t find out.

He is short of time.

In fact, while buying the newspaper, Xia Yibing saw Casimir standing across the street. He did exactly the same thing as she did—he found another newsstand and bargained with the vendor with a large stack of newspapers.

It is very simple to verify these doubts. You just need to buy the “Xinzenan District Newspaper” during that period and read the serialized articles published in it.

Now that the newspapers were bought, Hitzfeld gave half to Xia Yibing. The two of them didn’t even have time to eat, and sat in the hospital corridor reading the newspapers.

This made Joe Cole, who had been observing the situation from afar, feel extremely conflicted. After hesitating for a long time, he called over a gray-clad policeman, took out a few bills and handed them to him, asking him to pack lunch for the two of them.

There were a lot of newspapers, and after the two finished the meal brought by Joe Cole, they read from 12:20 noon until almost 1:50, only then were they sure that there was nothing missed.

“How does it feel?” Hitzfeld spoke first.

“One hundred percent.” Xia Yibing’s tone was full of amazement, “Not only the writing style… even the plot and some small habits in word choice are exactly the same!”

“But you can’t make a conclusion,” Hitzfeld pointed out, “because no article is really plagiarized.”

Yes, this situation is very strange.

None of the articles were plagiarized. Their actual contents were very different from Haytham’s work “Dream City”. However, the style, details, and habits of these articles were extremely similar to Haytham’s. And each article had a different signature.

For example, when Haytham is explaining something, he likes to use parallel sentences. When he wants to express the inner feelings of a character, he does not describe it directly, but is very good at using various punctuation marks.

The same is true of these articles in Southern Daily News.

These were too obvious to Xia Yibing, who had criminal investigation skills. She almost thought that these articles were ghostwritten by Hailson!

But this is not possible.

If that were the case, Haytham would not have written the letter of complaint.

“Could it be like this?” Xia Yibing put down the newspaper and paused. “Robert paid off most of Yalai United’s debts in his early years and planned to sever ties with this former friend. If nothing changes, he will indeed no longer have any intersection with Haytham, but his profession determines… when Haytham rises again, he will be the first to know the news.”

He is the editor-in-chief… These people have their own news channels and are always the first to know about things in the circle.

Hitzfeld nodded, motioning for her to continue.

“Maybe he was shocked by this.” Xia Yibing spoke slowly, guessing as he spoke: “Shocked by the quality of Dream City, shocked by Haytham’s progress… his talent! Out of professionalism, he predicted that Dream City would be a success, so he arranged a group of gunmen early on to practice imitating this style, so they can achieve such a similarity…”

“Xia,” Hitzfeld interrupted her, “how long has the newspaper war been going on?”

“More than a month.” Xia Yibing replied. Then she realized that Hitzfeld was just smiling at her, and after frowning, she immediately realized that her guess was not very realistic.

The newspaper war lasted for more than a month, and this period of time was the process of creating “Dream City”.

This novel only took so long to write.

This means that from the time Robert discovered “Dream City” until today, he has only had this much time to arrange and train the gunmen.

No matter how good a shooter is, it is impossible to achieve this effect in such a short time. Yes… this is unrealistic.

“Is this going to involve evil again?”

The woman smiled bitterly.

It doesn’t make sense from the perspective of practical logic, so the only explanation is supernatural powers.

This is very uncomfortable, because supernatural powers are illogical. It’s like forcing mathematics and literature to be mixed together, which makes people feel uncomfortable.

“There’s actually some logic to this.”

But Hitzfeld doesn’t see it that way.

“Didn’t you realize that the logic and rules here are the same as the logic and rules of the entire case?”

“You mean-“

“Before the newspaper war started, there was a fixed number of people in Nanxinze who were able to contribute to the newspaper. Let’s assume that this number was 100… and 30 of them participated at the beginning.”

She took out a pen and wrote down the number on the newspaper in her hand.

“Then the newspaper wars happened, and more people had this ability. It was like a growth spurt.”

She drew an arrow under the number “30” and wrote “300”.

“This is the macro logic of this case: the number of people with ability and wisdom is expanding from 30 to 300.”

“Then go back to Haytham. You can think of Haytham as ‘1’.”

Continue writing numbers.

“Think of these ‘plagiarists’ as ’10’…”

Xia Yibing’s pupils suddenly contracted.

“Did you find it?”

Hitzfeld smiled.

“It’s all expansion, it’s all proliferation.”

“Their macro logic is the same.”

“but–“

Xia Yibing’s breathing became a little rapid.

“But the relationship here——”

Hitzfeld’s words were like opening a door for her.

It broadens your horizons and opens up your thoughts.

She had a feeling that this macro logic was extremely important!

But it seemed like there was something blocking it, making it hard for her to understand and figure out… Why was it so important, why were these two logics similar, and what was the connection between them.

She looked at the girl and found that she was still smiling.

“Hitzfeld.”

Lowering her voice, Xia Yibing nervously grabbed the girl’s wrist.

“You, have any ideas?”

“That’s it.”

Nodding slightly, Hitzfeld shook the newspaper in his hand.

“Then what to do next?”

“Let’s go to the police station to check the information first, to prevent Casimir from missing anything. Then we just have to wait.”

“wait?”

“Ah.”

Keep nodding.

Yes…wait. Because today is already Friday.