In the observation room next door, Ji Mingrui’s mind was spinning completely out of control.
Holding a pen in his hand, Chi Qing was pondering the exact same question: “The killer deliberately deleted the video that incriminated her. Who would do something like that for her?”
Ji Mingrui racked his brain but couldn’t come up with anything: “No one, probably…”
Right, no one.
Therefore, Jiang Yiyun remained a prime suspect.
Evidence was crucial.
People could lie, weave intricate traps, and forge information, but evidence did not. The videos on the phone had been deleted; Jiang Yiyun usually maintained close contact with the three victims; and, having been threatened by these three students, she possessed a clear motive for murder.
When all these points converged, no matter what she said—even after giving this whole performance in the interrogation room today, claiming she was blackmailed and admitting that videos existed—all the evidence laid out on the table still pointed uncontradictably to her.
Ji Mingrui: “But she still admitted that there were videos.”
Chi Qing: “If she had stubbornly denied everything, it would prove even more that she knew the videos were already gone.” And the only person who would know the videos no longer existed was the killer who had personally deleted them.
So at this stage, if she were the killer, practically anything she said would incriminate her.
Thus, she was very likely pretending to be oblivious to the deletion of the videos to extricate herself.
After all, admitting to being blackmailed was nothing compared to a murder charge.
Ji Mingrui: “But it still isn’t a guarantee that she did it…”
“It isn’t a guarantee,” Chi Qing agreed. “It’s also possible that someone is deliberately shifting the suspicion onto her.”
But who was this person who had yet to surface?
Inside the cramped, oppressive room on the other side of the glass window, a heavy silence continued to spread.
“You suspect me?” Jiang Yiyun asked.
“It’s hard not to suspect you, Miss Jiang. On that day, you had no classes at the school, and your husband happened to be working overtime. What’s most bizarre is that we found out the surveillance camera in your apartment elevator ‘just happened’ to be broken these past few days. No one can prove you didn’t leave the house that night.”
“…”
As Xie Lin reached this point, the smile lingering in his eyes fractured into a sharp coldness: “Three people died, and every single one of their times of death perfectly overlapped with a window where you have no alibi. That’s quite a coincidence.”
This was precisely why the police had continuously followed up on Jiang Yiyun’s lead.
Wang Yuan and Jin Hongbo died around the time school let out—she had no classes then, and there were no other teachers in the office. Ma Hui died in the early hours of the morning, and again, no one could prove Xue Yiyun hadn’t gone out that night.
…
Jiang Yiyun cried out, “I didn’t kill them! Someone is trying to frame me!”
“Whether someone is deliberately framing you is something we will investigate thoroughly,” Xie Lin said, rising to his feet. “Until the truth comes to light, you will remain under our surveillance.”
It was just that they couldn’t tell yet whether this hypothetical person framing her was trying to help her or harm her.
That day at noon, after finishing the interrogation of Jiang Yiyun, the group headed to the Main Bureau’s cafeteria to grab lunch.
Chi Qing rarely frequented such public spaces. Looking around, he noticed everyone would grab an empty tray while queuing up. Just as he was trying to figure out where to collect one, Xie Lin walked over carrying two sets of utensils, stuffing one into his hand. “Have you never been to the cafeteria before?”
Chi Qing took it and gave a quiet, “Mm.”
Standing in line amidst a crowd felt strange, and the surroundings were incredibly noisy.
Xie Lin: “Not even back when you were in school?”
The idea of someone never going to a school cafeteria seemed pretty unbelievable for anyone else, but the moment it was applied to Chi Qing, it somehow felt entirely normal.
The queue moved quickly, and it was soon their turn.
As Chi Qing picked out his dishes, he said, “Back then, I hated the crowds. Too much trouble.”
“Then where did you eat?”
“Brought my own lunch,” Chi Qing replied. “Or went out to eat.”
Whether in middle school, high school, or university, Xie Lin had always been the central figure in any environment. Even if he sprawled out on his desk to sleep during recess, a group of people would always surround him.
Since this case was tied to a school, the image of Chi Qing wearing a school uniform involuntarily surfaced in his mind.
A misfit, sitting alone in the corner of the classroom, giving anyone who tried to approach him a thoroughly uninviting look.
Chi Qing quickly selected a few dishes and noticed that Xie Lin had been staring at him continuously since getting his food.
He was already feeling somewhat out of place, and being stared at made him even more uncomfortable: “What are you looking at me for?”
Xie Lin shifted his tray to his other hand, leaving his free hand right next to Chi Qing’s: “The reason I’m staring at you isn’t very convenient to say out loud. Do you want to hear it anyway?”
Chi Qing thought to himself, What could possibly be so inconvenient to say?
However, the moment his hand brushed against Xie Lin’s, the ambient noise of the cafeteria was replaced by the man’s inner voice, the first line being:
[I was wondering what you looked like wearing a school uniform.]
Chi Qing: “…”
[Do you have any photos? Or, do you still have the uniform?]
“…………”
He should have known.
Nothing good ever came out of this man’s mouth.
Chi Qing twitched his fingers, rolling his eyes internally. Just as he was about to pull his hand back and find an empty table to sit down and eat, he caught the final thought:
[I was also thinking… if I had known you back then, our story might have started a little earlier.]
A little earlier.
Then you wouldn’t have had to meticulously wear gloves every single day just to step out of the house.
You wouldn’t have been left unable to touch even a single shred of reality in this “fake” world.
Ji Mingrui finished getting his boxed lunch and sat at the same table as Chi Qing and the others. As he ate, he hesitated before finally asking Chi Qing, “Are you really hot?”
He felt like Chi Qing’s face was quite flushed: “…I know the temperature has been rising lately, but it shouldn’t be that hot, right?”
With a cold expression, Chi Qing replied, “I dressed too warmly.”
Ji Mingrui: “You’re not wearing that much though.”
This guy just had to argue.
They were all adults; was there really a need to pry into every little detail?
Chi Qing: “If you have time to worry about whether I’m hot, you’d better spend it thinking about the case.” He emphasized every word, “Has the killer been caught yet?”
“Have the documents been written up and submitted? Oh, and yesterday’s fire, has it been cleared up yet?”
“…” None of the above.
Sitting down next to Ji Mingrui, Jiang Yu nodded in agreement: “Yeah, Rui, the case comes first.”
Mentioning the fire, Su Xiaolan naturally steered the conversation in that direction: “Speaking of that fire, it’s bizarre enough. I heard from the officer in charge that they haven’t found any clues so far.”
“What about the victim’s identity?”
“Still verifying it.”
Chi Qing wasn’t paying much attention to what they were saying. He had barely managed to suppress the internal heat sparked by Xie Lin earlier, yet those words refused to leave his ears.
As Ji Mingrui and the others talked, a criminal investigator carrying a tray passed by and greeted them.
Ever since meeting Xie Lin, the voices around Chi Qing had grown much quieter.
Yet, they had also become much louder.
In the past, let alone eating in a public cafeteria, he would have preferred a single desk and chair during classes, or one-on-one teaching separated by a glass window.
Sitting here eating while casually chatting was a complete first.
Ji Mingrui waved at the investigator and then resumed the topic of the fire: “The fire was just too massive, leaving the body unrecognizable—burnt to a crisp like coal. Even the phone case was charred black…”
Chi Qing instantly caught three words: “phone case.”
Xie Lin placed a shrimp from his own bowl into Chi Qing’s, asking softly by his ear, “What’s wrong?”
Chi Qing: “Yesterday when we were watching the movie… didn’t you keep asking me why I was staring so intently at that crime scene photograph?”
“I felt like something was off about the photo at the time, and now I remember. It was the phone case.”
“The phone case?”
Chi Qing recalled the photograph of the scene.
The scorched phone beside the victim had a raised pattern printed on its case. Because it had discolored and deformed under the intense heat, he hadn’t recognized it immediately, only sensing that something was strange.
After a pause, Chi Qing said, “The pattern on the victim’s phone case… I’ve seen it before.”
Chi Qing had met very few people recently.
The moment he spoke, Xie Lin immediately realized who it was: “Are you saying…”
While the two of them understood completely, the others were left utterly bewildered: “Who?”
Meanwhile, during the noon break, Ren Qin secretly slipped away to the nearby convenience store to chat with Yu Lan.
“Welcome—” a slightly plump girl inside the door said with a smile.
The person standing at the cash register was clearly not Yu Lan.
Ren Qin: “Hello, is Yu Lan not on shift today?”
The plump girl’s smile faltered, her expression souring: “…You’re looking for her?”
“I don’t know what’s up with her either. Today was supposed to be her shift, but when opening time came this morning, she never showed up. We can’t get ahold of her at all. The store manager called me back at the last minute to cover for her. I actually had plans with someone today…”
The girl ranted for a bit; it was supposed to be her day off, so being dragged into work naturally made her unhappy.
Finishing her complaint, she asked Ren Qin: “Are you her friend? Can you contact her?”
Ren Qin found it rather strange. She shook her head: “I sent her a message, but she hasn’t replied today. That’s why I came over to check.”
As Ren Qin spoke, her gaze landed on the plump girl’s phone case: “Oh, your phone case looks a lot like Lanlan’s.”
Yu Lan was highly skilled with her hands. Her phone case was custom-made using polymer clay, featuring a vividly sculpted yellow Winnie the Pooh. Yu Lan had mentioned to her before that once you bake the polymer clay in an oven and take it out, the texture is barely any different from a store-bought one.
The plump girl replied, “She actually gifted this phone case to me a while back.”
Ren Qin took another look at the clay phone case: “Next time, I’m going to ask her to make me one too.”
“Yu Lan.”
After uttering the name, Chi Qing explained further, “We met once a few days ago. She came to my place to pick up the cat.”
Ji Mingrui had previously joked that the cat must have had eight lifetimes of bad luck to end up in Chi Qing’s hands.
Who would have thought that shortly after changing to a new home, the new owner would meet with a fatal accident.
Ji Mingrui bolted upright, pulling out his phone to call the team responsible for the arson case. Before the call connected, he asked once more to verify: “Are you certain it’s her? Which ‘Lan’ is it? The ‘Lan’ for orchid?”
“The ‘Lan’ with a mountain over wind (岚).”
With a target individual in mind, verifying the victim’s identity became significantly easier.
In the middle of Ji Mingrui’s phone call, Xie Lin suddenly lowered his chopsticks.
“Do you think… are there many people with the surname Yu in our Huanan City?”
“That student from Class 1, Grade 10 is also surnamed Yu. If I remember correctly, isn’t his name Yu Yang?”
During the lunch break, many students from the school went out to eat. The local officers were still tailging the two boys who might be connected to the case.
Bai Zhixing was thoroughly annoyed: “Didn’t I say that if I told you guys everything, you’d stop following me? How can even the police lie?”
The plainclothes officer replied, “Under certain necessary circumstances, special measures can be adopted.”
Bai Zhixing: “…”
The two followed the small path outside the school and walked into an internet cafe.
Plainclothes officer: “Skipping class again?”
Bai Zhixing: “I have nowhere else to go. Classes are boring. Though going to an internet cafe is getting kind of boring too, it’s the lesser of two evils. Comparing the two, surfing the web is slightly better.”
Plainclothes officer: “…”
On the other side, the officer following Yu Yang was clearly in a much better mood.
Yu Yang was politely calling him “Officer Uncle” with every sentence: “Officer Uncle, what are you doing for lunch? If you have to keep following me, I can find a restaurant right now so we can eat together?”
The officer smiled, genuinely taking a liking to the boy: “It’s fine, we can just grab some bread or something. Aren’t you heading home to check on your older sister? You said she hasn’t been replying to your messages. The lunch break is only half an hour; you’d better rush back. Besides, I’m not that hungry.”
Yu Yang’s last class of the morning had been PE. Because he had worked up a sweat playing basketball, he had changed into a fresh set of clothes, looking bright and cheerful: “Alright, then thank you for your hard work.”
“How old is your sister?”
“She’s three years older than me.”
“…”
Chatting along the way, they got off the bus and walked down a street, arriving at the residential complex where Yu Yang lived.
Yu Yang returned home, turned on the lights, and called out, “Sis?”
He pushed open the bedroom door and called again, “Sis—? Sis, are you there?”
However, the room was completely empty with no one inside. The light-colored blanket was neatly spread out, showing no signs of anyone having slept in it. Cosmetics were scattered loosely across the vanity table.
Only a cat slunk out from underneath the vanity, letting out several soft, plaintive “meows.”
Its food bowl was completely empty; no one had poured any kibble for it.
Standing at the doorway of the room, Yu Yang felt his right eyelid give an uncontrollable, sudden twitch.
