I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 30: Chapter 28: Recognize the Suspect? Denies Going to the Scene

”We don’t need a sketch. I know who it is.”

Zhuang Yanzheng asked, ”You know him?”

”I’ve seen him before,” Su Miaoyi said. ”I saw him when I was a child.”

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at her.

Su Miaoyi said, ”You know Ji Sheng from Shengyao Group, right?”

”Yes,” Zhuang Yanzheng nodded.

He was her biological father.

”The person I saw in the vision was his brother-in-law. His surname is Cai, but I don’t know his first name,” Su Miaoyi said.

”Are you sure it was him?” Zhuang Yanzheng confirmed again.

After all, Su Miaoyi had said she saw him when she was a child. So many years had passed; her memory could be faulty.

”It was him, I’m sure,” Su Miaoyi said, then added, ”But... why at this abandoned amusement park again?”

Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t say anything.

”Is the feng shui here really that bad?” Su Miaoyi quipped.

Zhuang Yanzheng replied, ”This place is deserted, and the surveillance system is inadequate. It’s an easy choice for criminals.”

Su Miaoyi nodded, then thought of Shen Yanzhou. ”So... are they still going to develop it?”

...

”Develop my ass!” Shen Jun roared. ”You want to develop a place where an amusement park already went out of business. Great! Now, in less than half a month, there have been two murders—one body dismembered, the other buried!”

Shen Yanzhou, sitting on the office sofa, glanced up at his furious father, then at his mother, who was long accustomed to such scenes.

”This is cursed,” Shen Jun said, pacing around the office. ”Are we being set up by our competitors? Do you know what the media is saying out there? They’re saying that because the feng shui of that place is bad, the Shen family found a high school student to use as a human sacrifice!”

Xia Ye sat composed on the sofa and said calmly, ”Aren’t you a capitalist yourself? Who in Jinghai can compare to you? Has our family not been targeted countless times to get where we are today? What’s there to be surprised about? Your son is more level-headed than you are.”

”Him, level-headed?” Shen Jun looked at Shen Yanzhou, walked right up to him, and leaned down to get a good look.

Shen Yanzhou silently watched his father, whose face was nearly touching his own.

Shen Jun snorted, straightened up, and commented, ”Level-headed my ass. You’re just putting on an act. You’re thirty, but you act like you’re sixty. That’s you, and that’s Zhuang Yanzheng. One of you was a sneaky little brat, and the other was an obvious one. Now you’re all grown up and respectable, but I bet the whole district still remembers your terrible reputation from when you were kids.”

Shen Yanzhou remained silent.

Xia Ye said, ”Sit down. Stop pacing.”

Shen Jun meekly sat down. A moment later, his secretary knocked on the door to announce that the police had arrived.

Shen Yanzhou said, ”Understood.”

Shen Jun grunted in dissatisfaction.

Shen Yanzhou stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. ”I’ll go see them.”

Xia Ye stood up as well. ”This might just be an accident. Don’t panic.”

Shen Yanzhou nodded.

”He’s a grown man; he knows how to handle things,” Shen Jun said, but then he couldn’t resist adding, ”When other people get questioned and they have, say, a powerful uncle, they’d be asking for special consideration. But look at him! He’s so afraid someone might give him special treatment because of who he is that he tells the municipal bureau over and over not to treat him any differently and to be extremely thorough with the investigation.”

”Your son hasn’t committed a crime, so why should he be treated differently? Why does he need special consideration?” Xia Ye said. ”Only if the case is investigated impartially will your son be completely cleared. What’s wrong with that? You’re just biased.”

Shen Jun, silenced by her retort, said angrily after a moment, ”My sister never should have married him. She would have been happier with anyone else.”

After he spoke, he slowly raised his eyes to look at Xia Ye.

Xia Ye was staring at him with a cold expression.

Shen Jun coughed lightly and turned his head to see Shen Yanzhou was still there. ”Why haven’t you left yet?”

”Just watching the show. I’m leaving now,” Shen Yanzhou said.

Shen Jun watched his retreating back and, after a moment, muttered, ”Rebellious son!”

...

「Municipal Bureau.」

「Interrogation Room.」

Cai Ke sat in the interrogation chair, looking at Zhuang Yanzheng and the officer beside him. ”Officer, what crime did I even commit to be brought here for questioning?”

”Didn’t the officers tell you when they came to your house?” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

”They said I was a suspect in a case involving a buried body on Qingyang Road,” Cai Ke said. ”But I had nothing to do with it. Still, I came to cooperate with the police, and I trust that the police will clear my name.”

”Do you know Shi Tianyu?” Zhuang Yanzheng ignored his statement and asked directly.

”Shi Tianyu?” Cai Ke thought for a moment. ”The name sounds familiar. Who is that?”

Zhuang Yanzheng watched his expression.

The officer beside him showed him a photo of Shi Tianyu.

Cai Ke looked at it and said, ”Isn’t this the student who was reported missing on the news today? What happened? Is he dead?”

”Have you ever met Shi Tianyu in person?” Zhuang Yanzheng asked.

”No. He’s a student. We have no reason to cross paths,” Cai Ke said.

”Your son is in his class,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”Have you ever heard your son mention him?”

”No.” Cai Ke shook his head, cooperating with every question. ”Kids these days rarely talk to their parents, let alone about who they know at school or what’s going on with them.”

He finished, paused, and then added, ”Is the boy really gone? Oh, my. So young. How could something like this happen? How will his family ever cope?”

”This afternoon, we found Shi Tianyu’s body on Qingyang Road, buried in the abandoned amusement park there,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”According to a witness, you went to Qingyang Road at night.”

”Me? I went to Qingyang Road? When?” Cai Ke thought about it very seriously. ”I haven’t been to Qingyang Road recently. Besides, I don’t have a habit of going out at night, so I definitely wouldn’t have gone to Qingyang Road at night.”

”The witness claims that at night, holding a shovel and a flashlight, you furtively entered the amusement park in a state of panic and found a place to dig a hole.” Zhuang Yanzheng stared into Cai Ke’s eyes. ”It was the same spot where the body was found.”

Cai Ke met Zhuang Yanzheng’s gaze. His calm and composed expression suddenly turned serious. After a few seconds, he said, ”Who is this witness? If he identified me, he must know me, right? I suspect this witness is lying and trying to frame me.”

Zhuang Yanzheng watched him.

Cai Ke’s expression grew even more serious, now tinged with anger. ”Isn’t there any surveillance near the amusement park? Officer, you must have checked the cameras, right? Can’t they prove my innocence? I’ve never been there. Why would I go to a deserted place like that? And at night, no less. Am I crazy? Why would I go to a place like that at night?”

Zhuang Yanzheng continued to watch his expression.

They had, in fact, found nothing on the surveillance footage.

There were no cameras inside the amusement park, nor on the street at its entrance.

Only farther out, on Qingyang Road itself, were there cameras, but the system was incomplete, with too many blind spots.

In the last dismemberment case, the perpetrator might have intentionally ignored the cameras or simply hadn’t thought to avoid them, which was why their vehicle was captured.

But this time, based on the preliminary time of death Yan Cheng had provided, they had checked the nearby surveillance footage from that night and found nothing.

Not a single person appeared on the recordings that night.

”Officer, it must be that so-called witness who’s framing me. You absolutely cannot let him get away with it,” Cai Ke said. ”You have to find out the truth of the matter, clear my name, and punish that witness.”

...