From the moment Ye Chen landed in Melbourne, the pace of events had unconsciously quickened, pulling him along.
On the way there, his mind had been constantly pondering, envisioning various scenarios for meeting Tang Sihai, preparing several sets of words, and readying himself psychologically for different possible replies from Tang Sihai, so as soon as he got off the plane, he rushed straight to the hospital where Tang Sihai was.
Yet he never imagined that upon arrival, he would learn Tang Sihai had gone missing again!
At this moment, his mind was solely focused on quickly locating Tang Sihai’s whereabouts, without realising that this was actually Tang Sihai throwing himself into the game, laying down a disorienting maze for him.
The three of them hurried without pause to the nearest police station in Melbourne, where they met a senior inspector.
According to Chen Zeke’s prior investigation, the initial case where Tang Sihai was attacked by those teenagers had occurred within this police station’s jurisdiction, the case handled by this very station, and now with Tang Sihai missing again in the same area, they naturally had to seek their assistance in resolving it.
The senior inspector they met was named Trevor Davidson, and upon learning the purpose of Ye Chen and the others’ visit, he said to them, “The Mr Tang you mentioned has no clear information registered here, after the incident he was sent to hospital for treatment, due to his severe injuries, our officers did not question him immediately, so we do not have his true identity on record, as for him having left the hospital as you say, we cannot spare the manpower at present to help search for his whereabouts.”
Ye Chen frowned and asked, “So you mean, you still have not clarified his true legal identity in Australia?”
“Yes.” Trevor Davidson nodded casually and said, “This person’s identity remains highly suspicious at present, based on my personal experience, he is most likely not a legal immigrant, probably an illegal entrant or an overstaying foreigner.”
Ye Chen found this somewhat strange, in the chat records Xiao Churan had shown him, the whistleblower said Tang Sihai was a new immigrant, but now it seemed this information was inaccurate.
He could not help but speculate that perhaps Tang Sihai had left the hospital despite his injuries precisely because he lacked legal status in Australia, hence fleeing in haste?
In Ye Chen’s view, the channel through which he had obtained the information was entirely coincidental, a coincidence within a coincidence, Tang Sihai leaving the hospital injured certainly would not be to avoid him, it was highly likely he was evading the Australian police.
This was precisely the brilliance of this chain of schemes, it began with coincidence, creating an illusion for the involved party of being an outsider, lurking in the shadows.
And once Ye Chen fell into habitual thinking and logical traps, he drifted ever further from the true core of the matter.
Realising he could not obtain any useful information about Tang Sihai from the police here, Ye Chen turned to the inspector and asked, “What is the current situation with those teenagers who did the beating?”
Trevor Davidson spread his hands, shrugged nonchalantly, and smiled, “All of them have been released.”
“Released?!”
Ye Chen frowned and demanded, “The victim was beaten so badly, yet in just one day, why have the assailants been let go?”
Trevor Davidson smiled and said, “As you said yourself, those are teenagers, they are not that old, all we can do is criticise and educate them, if the victim seeks compensation, he can sue their guardians through the courts.”
Ye Chen asked further, “If I recall correctly, in Australia, the minimum age for criminal responsibility is ten years old, right?”
Trevor Davidson waved his hand dismissively and said perfunctorily, “Ten is just theoretical, true criminal responsibility starts at fourteen and above, moreover, under our laws there is a provision that if the prosecution cannot prove a child under fourteen clearly knew their actions were wrong, they can be presumed to lack criminal responsibility, this is called ‘doli incapax’, you can look it up in a law book.”
Seeing that Trevor Davidson seemed inclined to favour the other side, Ye Chen said, “I saw the video of the incident, among those criminal suspects who did the beating, several were at least one metre seventy tall, I dare not say they all exceed fourteen, but at least one should, right?”
