I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 150: Chapter 148: Retrieved the USB Drives and Memory Cards

The Columbarium

Su Miaoyi stared at the urn. After a few seconds, she took it down.

A staff member came forward, intending to stop her.

Song Yucheng blocked her.

”You can’t just move that,” the staff member said.

Song Yucheng took out his police badge again and showed it to her. ”Police business.”

The staff member fell silent.

Su Miaoyi held the urn in her hands and examined it.

The ceramic urn was sealed.

Su Miaoyi asked the staff member to help her open it.

The staff member said, ”I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Song Yucheng frowned.

’What is with this employee?’

Lu Zhishen slowly spoke up. ”We’d like to move it to a better urn, to make its home a little more comfortable.”

’So ”police business” didn’t work. Time to play the customer.’

The staff member said, ”I’ll go get the tools then.”

She brought back tools to open the urn and a new one.

After the urn was opened, Su Miaoyi stepped forward. ”I’ll do it.”

The staff member made way for her.

Su Miaoyi poured the ashes from the urn onto a cloth she had prepared.

At this moment, Lu Zhishen struck up a conversation with the staff member.

Song Yucheng stood beside Su Miaoyi, blocking the staff member’s line of sight.

Su Miaoyi took out a sealed bag from the bottom of the urn and put it in her pocket.

Song Yucheng was surprised.

He had seen it—the sealed bag contained memory cards and a USB drive.

He looked at Su Miaoyi.

Su Miaoyi glanced at him.

Song Yucheng held his breath and said nothing.

Su Miaoyi looked again at the ashes on the cloth.

It wasn’t entirely bone ash; there was some incense ash mixed in.

”All right, please go ahead and seal it up,” Su Miaoyi said.

The staff member went over. Su Miaoyi stood to the side and exchanged a look with Lu Zhishen.

Lu Zhishen understood her glance and gave a slight nod.

They waited for the staff member to seal the new urn and place it back.

They also left some food offerings.

Su Miaoyi paid for the new urn, and they left.

Back at the municipal bureau, Su Miaoyi met with Kang Ting.

”You’re here? Get something to eat first, then we’ll...”

Su Miaoyi said, ”Captain Kang, I need a computer. Let’s go to your office.”

Kang Ting was taken aback for a moment but immediately headed for his office.

Once in the office, he got a computer, and Su Miaoyi took the sealed bag out of her pocket.

Kang Ting looked at the three memory cards and two USB drives inside.

Su Miaoyi tried inserting one of the USB drives into the computer first.

It wouldn’t open. The drive was password-protected.

The other USB drive was the same.

Su Miaoyi then took out the memory cards. Just as she did, Song Yucheng came in from outside with a card reader.

”Here.” He was a bit rushed from running back and forth.

Su Miaoyi took it. She checked all three memory cards, but they were also password-protected and couldn’t be opened.

”What is this...?” Kang Ting finally managed to ask.

”Something Mo Xiaoxiao left behind,” Su Miaoyi said.

Kang Ting nodded, but then the words registered, and he blurted out, ”What?! Whose?!”

”Mo Xiaoxiao’s,” Song Yucheng said.

Kang Ting looked at him. ”How do you know, too?”

”We just went to retrieve it.” Song Yucheng explained what had happened.

”You didn’t run into any trouble on the way, did you?” Kang Ting suddenly thought of something. ”You have to be extremely careful these next few days.”

”I know,” Su Miaoyi nodded. ”Jiang Junrui doesn’t know this exists. Although the columbarium requires an ID from the person registering, the information isn’t uploaded online. It can’t be found through a web search.”

”Mo Xiaoxiao probably counted on that fact—that it couldn’t be traced,” she said. ”I asked. Mo Xiaoxiao paid in cash at the time, for ten years of storage.”

Kang Ting nodded, then asked, ”So, are these the videos of the Fengjiang Group?”

”We don’t know,” Su Miaoyi said. ”They could also be videos of her dog from when it was alive.”

Kang Ting opened his mouth but couldn’t find any words.

Su Miaoyi pressed her lips together.

’If these really are just videos of Mo Xiaoxiao’s dog, then I’ve been a little disrespectful.’

”Let’s find someone to crack the passwords first,” Lu Zhishen said.

”We can do that. The municipal bureau has technicians,” Kang Ting said.

Lu Zhishen said, ”Captain Kang, the contents of these videos are critical.”

”I know,” Kang Ting said.

Lu Zhishen said no more.

...

After lunch, Su Miaoyi and Lu Zhishen followed Kang Ting to the Jiangcheng morgue.

They went to see the body of the young woman who was murdered in the alley behind the KTV near Jiangcheng University.

The deceased: He Yao, female, twenty-one years old, a current student at Jiangcheng University.

Su Miaoyi briefly examined the body.

There were no other external injuries on the body, nor any obvious signs of a struggle.

The killer was fast.

However, there were bruise marks on both sides of the victim’s face.

The killer forced her mouth open and cut out her tongue.

The autopsy report showed that her tongue was cut out while she was still alive.

Then her neck was immediately snapped, and the killer fled.

It all happened too fast.

Su Miaoyi touched the corpse’s neck. The moment her hand made contact, the scene before her eyes changed.

Everything was pitch black.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she was finally able to see her surroundings.

She was standing in an alley, seemingly waiting for someone, when she suddenly heard a shout from the street opposite the alley’s entrance.

She looked over.

A black car was stopped on the street across from her.

She took a few more steps toward the mouth of the alley.

She saw two men dragging a young woman into the car.

She wanted to go out and help, but she was too afraid.

So she took out her phone and recorded a short video of the car.

As soon as the car drove off, she immediately called the police.

She felt she should leave the alley.

But she was too scared. She didn’t dare go out, and she didn’t dare go anywhere else.

She thought the safest thing to do was to hide in the darkness of the alley, unseen, and wait for the police to arrive.

But just as the dispatcher was reassuring her not to be afraid, someone tapped her on the back.

She let out an involuntary cry.

Immediately after, her phone was snatched away.

She turned and saw the man’s eyes in the darkness.

The man was wearing a mask.

She tried to run, but the man grabbed her back with one hand.

She tried to scream, but the first sound wouldn’t come out. The man turned off her phone while simultaneously covering her mouth and pinning her against the wall.

The man was incredibly strong; she couldn’t break free at all.

The phone was thrown to the ground.

The man squeezed both sides of her cheeks hard with his left hand, dislocating her jaw. She couldn’t close her mouth.

In her panic, her hands flailed about, and she managed to pull down the man’s mask.

The man paid no mind to the mask on his face. He brandished a knife with his right hand and cut out her tongue.

Then he snapped her neck.

Everything went dark.

Su Miaoyi pulled back from the vision. She raised a hand to touch her mouth, but Lu Zhishen stopped her.

Su Miaoyi glanced at him, then grabbed his sleeve with her other hand.

She felt an incredible pain in her tongue.

Lu Zhishen looked down at his sleeve, which was now twisted into a knot.

Veins bulged on Su Miaoyi’s forehead from the pain.

Kang Ting stared at her, dumbfounded.

”What’s wrong?” Lu Zhishen placed a hand on her shoulder. ”Are you okay?”

Su Miaoyi tried to speak, but her tongue hurt too much, and she couldn’t get the words out.

She shook her head.

”Does shaking your head mean you’re fine or not fine?” Lu Zhishen asked nervously. He grabbed her arm, about to take her to the hospital.

’This wasn’t right.’

As he pulled her out of the autopsy room, Su Miaoyi managed to grab him. ”It’th... okay.”

When those two words came out, both of them froze for a second.

After a two-second pause, a colorful expression crossed Su Miaoyi’s face, her facial muscles twitching a few times.

”I’ve got a lithp,” she said.

Lu Zhishen looked at her. ”It doesn’t sound like a lisp. It sounds like your tongue is actually injured.”

”Can... you... undershtand?” Su Miaoyi asked.

”Yeah,” Lu Zhishen nodded.

”Let’th... draw the face,” Su Miaoyi said, pulling on his arm.

”Are you sure you’re okay?” Lu Zhishen was still worried.

She wanted to say she was fine, but when the words reached her lips, she changed her mind and just nodded. ”Mhm.”

...