I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 70: Chapter 68: In the Interrogation Room Again

Jiangcheng. City Bureau.

Su Miaoyi was sitting in an interrogation room once again.

And before she was brought into the interrogation room, a lock of her hair had been cut off for a drug test.

Su Miaoyi knew then that the case involved drugs.

”Name.”

”Su Miaoyi.” She looked at the police officer who had brought her in.

After being apprehended but before getting into the police car, she had managed to gather some information.

The two men who arrested her were Kang Ting, the captain of the Jiangcheng City Bureau’s criminal investigation division, and Song Yucheng, the deputy captain.

”Age,” Kang Ting asked.

”Twenty-five,” Su Miaoyi answered, looking at the man in front of her.

She answered his questions while her mind raced.

Back in Jinghai, she hadn’t even been taken into an interrogation room. She had simply told Zhuang Yanzheng about the images she’d seen while they were in the fire escape of an apartment building in Jinrong District.

But what if it had been this officer in front of her back then?

’I wouldn’t have said a thing.’

’Thinking back on it now, aside from wanting to confirm whether I was truly ill or had actually seen a killer, it seems I had an inexplicable trust in Zhuang Yanzheng from the very beginning.’

’I felt that if I told him, Zhuang Yanzheng would believe me.’

But she felt no such trust for the man in front of her now.

In fact, because this place, Jiangcheng, made her uneasy, she felt uneasy about the man before her as well.

”Where are you from?” Kang Ting asked again.

”Jinghai,” Su Miaoyi replied.

”What are you doing in Jiangcheng?”

”Accompanying my younger brother for his art school entrance exam,” Su Miaoyi answered truthfully. ”I already mentioned on the way to the station that we have high-speed rail tickets back to Jinghai for this morning.”

Her phone had died while she was in the police car.

She had been out from yesterday afternoon until evening and hadn’t charged her phone. After walking for over seven hours to the woods on the outskirts of Jiangcheng, it had just enough battery for her to check the time before it shut down.

The drive from the woods to the police station had taken over an hour.

She had been walking all night.

Only after getting in the car did she belatedly feel the pain in her feet and legs.

But since she was being treated as a suspect, the police wouldn’t let her contact Cheng Jue, worried she might pass on information.

However, because Cheng Jue was a minor and they were out of town, the bureau had already sent someone directly to the hotel to find him.

”You came to accompany your brother for his art exam and had high-speed rail tickets for this morning, so why did you go to the woods outside the city?” Kang Ting asked.

”I... have a mental illness, and I sleepwalk at night,” Su Miaoyi said. ”The Jinghai City Bureau can confirm this. I once nearly jumped into a river while sleepwalking. They have it on record.”

”The Jinghai City Bureau must have nothing better to do if they’re handling cases of sleepwalkers jumping into rivers,” Kang Ting said, his words laced with skepticism and a sharp edge.

His tone of voice displeased Su Miaoyi greatly.

”Sleepwalking from your hotel to the woods outside the city and conveniently digging a necklace out of the dirt,” Kang Ting continued. ”Were you really sleepwalking, or did you go there when no one was around to retrieve your property?”

”Everyone at the Jinghai City Bureau is dedicated to their duty. When they’re on a case, sometimes they don’t even go home,” Su Miaoyi said.

Unsure why she had suddenly made such a statement, Kang Ting just watched her without speaking.

He did, however, glean one piece of information: she was very familiar with the Jinghai City Bureau.

Su Miaoyi continued, ”Even if they stay up all night, working around the clock for twenty-four, even forty-eight hours, they would never miss a piece of evidence as significant as a Jade Token necklace at a body disposal site.”

Kang Ting narrowed his eyes.

Su Miaoyi met his gaze.

”How did you know it was a body disposal site?” Kang Ting quickly seized on her words.

”The size of the pit that was dug up, and the smell of a decaying corpse in the soil,” Su Miaoyi said. ”It was discovered yesterday, wasn’t it?”

Kang Ting stared at her without a word.

The spot where Su Miaoyi had dug out the Jade Token with her bare hands was at the edge of the pit.

”I really did walk there in my sleep. It took over seven hours. You can check the hotel’s surveillance footage, and you can check the route I took,” Su Miaoyi said. ”If that Jade Token was mine, why would I walk for over seven hours just to get it?”

”I could have taken a cab there in an hour at most, dug it up, and left. It would have been so much more convenient in the middle of the night. Why would I walk for over seven hours? Do I have that much energy to burn?”

”Then why were you able to dig so precisely where the Jade Token was?” Song Yucheng asked.

”When I woke up from my sleepwalking, I was in an unfamiliar place, so of course I observed my surroundings. I saw the police tape and the dug-up pit, so I made some deductions about the place. Then I saw something sticking out of the dirt, so I dug it out,” Su Miaoyi said calmly.

In reality, she was already digging in the dirt by the time she woke up.

”You sleepwalked to an unfamiliar environment, a place like that, and you even deduced what happened there. Weren’t you scared?” Song Yucheng asked.

”Of course I was scared,” Su Miaoyi said. ”If you’d arrived a little later, you would have seen me crying from fright.”

Kang Ting wanted to tell her to be serious.

But seeing her utterly serious expression and tone, he swallowed the words before they could escape.

He stepped out to contact the Jinghai City Bureau.

Song Yucheng asked Su Miaoyi a few more questions.

Then Su Miaoyi was left alone in the interrogation room.

The minutes ticked by, one by one.

She counted the time in her head, worrying about Cheng Jue.

「Over an hour later.」

Kang Ting walked back in, sat down, and looked at Su Miaoyi. ”The Jinghai City Bureau says you’ve helped them solve quite a few cases?”

Su Miaoyi nodded. ”Have you seen my brother?”

”He’s already at the station,” Kang Ting said. ”He’s very worried.”

Su Miaoyi didn’t say anything.

But she felt a little relieved, nonetheless.

’At least the police station is safe.’

”What are your thoughts on this case?” Kang Ting asked suddenly.

Su Miaoyi looked at him. ”Are you asking me to give my opinion on the case based on a Jade Token, a necklace, a burial pit, and a patch of woods?”

Kang Ting seemed to be testing her with the sudden question, then continued, ”The deceased is Xu Shuxuan, thirty-five years old, a Jiangcheng local, married. Cause of death was drowning. His hands and feet were bound before death. The drug test came back positive. Time of death, over a month ago.”

”Are you allowed to tell me all this?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”If you’re innocent, you can help us solve the case. If you’re not innocent, you probably know more about the victim than I do,” Kang Ting said. ”Director Meng from the Jinghai City Bureau recommended you to help with the investigation.”

Su Miaoyi raised an eyebrow.

’Director Meng?’

’I haven’t even met her.’

’But I’ve heard of her by reputation.’

She asked, ”How was the body discovered?”

”A young couple went into the woods for fun. They saw the open space where the body was buried and decided to pitch a tent there. When they were hammering in the stakes, they hammered one right into the body.”

Su Miaoyi: ”...”

”The time of death was over a month ago. Had anyone reported him missing?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”Xu Shuxuan’s parents reported him missing,” Kang Ting said. ”That’s why we were able to identify the body so quickly.”

”What about his wife?” Su Miaoyi remembered that he had specifically emphasized the man was married.

”She’s missing, too.”

...