I See Murders Before They Happen

Chapter 156: Chapter 154: Three Identification Reports

Jinghai City. The hospital.

Zhuang Yanzheng stared at the two DNA analysis reports.

After a moment, he started walking out. As he rounded a corner, he ran into someone he knew.

Shen Yanzhou.

They both stopped and looked at each other.

After a few seconds, Shen Yanzhou glanced at the reports in his hand. ”What’s this? Getting ostracized at home and starting to question your parentage?”

Zhuang Yanzheng snorted. ”If anyone should be suspicious, it’s you.”

”I’m not suspicious. I look just like my dad,” Shen Yanzhou said.

Zhuang Yanzheng snorted again. ”Whose reports are those?”

”Whose are *yours*?” Shen Yanzhou countered. ”Does Captain Zhuang need to come here for DNA tests?”

Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t answer.

Shen Yanzhou didn’t say anything either. He turned and walked off to get his report.

Zhuang Yanzheng turned and followed him.

Shen Yanzhou saw him following but didn’t say anything.

After getting his report, Shen Yanzhou didn’t bother hiding it from Zhuang Yanzheng and opened it right away.

The result: no biological relationship.

It was the analysis report for Shen Shilan and Su Miaoyi.

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at the result.

They stood in silence. After a moment, Zhuang Yanzheng reached out and touched Shen Yanzhou’s forehead.

The gesture was rough.

He pushed so hard that Shen Yanzhou stumbled back a step.

”What are you doing?!”

”Checking to see if you have a fever and have lost your mind.”

Shen Yanzhou shot him a glare.

Zhuang Yanzheng glanced around. This wasn’t the place to talk, so he and Shen Yanzhou left the hospital and went to his car.

The car doors closed, and Shen Yanzhou looked at him.

Zhuang Yanzheng was silent for a moment before saying, ”I personally brought Le Yan’s body back.”

Shen Yanzhou’s pupils contracted as a thought struck him.

Zhuang Yanzheng’s voice paused for a moment before he continued, ”Yan Cheng performed the autopsy. He ran a DNA test.”

Shen Yanzhou frowned, taking a slow breath.

Even now, he didn’t dare think about what had happened back then.

Zhuang Yanzheng went on, ”Forget the DNA proof. The three of us... we grew up together. I was with the recovery team when they pulled her from the water, and I brought her all the way back. I’m absolutely certain it was Le Yan.”

”Even... when it was time for the cremation, we took her there together...”

”Let’s not talk about the past. Let’s talk about now. When you first saw her last year, you just thought she looked similar, you never actually thought it was her, right?”

”She only gradually started looking more and more like her.”

”So what were you thinking, using her current body to run a DNA test against your aunt?”

”What if the DNA had been a match? Given the current situation, isn’t that a possibility?” Shen Yanzhou countered again.

Zhuang Yanzheng opened his mouth, then closed it. ”It is.”

”Then why say so much? Just to show you’ve got a mouth and can talk?” Shen Yanzhou said.

Zhuang Yanzheng: ”...”

Shen Yanzhou looked at him and asked, ”Then whose body is this she’s in now? Su Miaoyi’s?”

Zhuang Yanzheng shook his head and handed him the two reports he was holding.

Shen Yanzhou looked at them. ”Who are these between?”

”The one showing no biological relationship is between your sister and Cai Qinglian,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”The one showing a direct biological relationship is between Cai Qinglian and...”

”And who?”

”The female corpse found under Xinyuan Square, the one your family is responsible for.”

Shen Yanzhou’s eyes widened. He was so stunned he froze for a moment. ”So those skeletal remains are the real daughter of the Ji Family? She’s... dead? Who killed her?”

Zhuang Yanzheng paused. ”The Jiang family from Jiangcheng.”

Shen Yanzhou was too shocked to speak.

Zhuang Yanzheng said nothing either.

Only then did it all make sense.

Jiang Junrui found out from Mo Xiaoxiao that the backup video had been given to a friend. He tracked down Su Miaoyi and immediately silenced her.

That’s why Jiang Junrui only came looking for the current Su Miaoyi several months later.

Because at first, he thought Su Miaoyi was already dead.

”Then whose body does Le Yan have?” Shen Yanzhou asked.

Zhuang Yanzheng tilted his head to look at him and, after a good while, said, ”Well... something like coming back from the dead has already happened. Having a new body isn’t too much of a stretch, right? It’s plausible, isn’t it?”

”That’s true,” Shen Yanzhou said, then fell silent again.

This time, he was silent for nearly two minutes before finding a cigarette in Zhuang Yanzheng’s car and lighting it.

”Don’t smoke in my car,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

Shen Yanzhou ignored him.

Zhuang Yanzheng looked at him for a few seconds, then took out a cigarette and lit one for himself too.

Half a cigarette later, Shen Yanzhou said, ”It’s a good thing this happened to my family. If anyone else told me this kind of story, I’d send them straight to a psychiatric hospital. I wouldn’t believe it even if you beat me to death.”

Zhuang Yanzheng chuckled. ”Is it a bad thing that it happened to your family?”

”Of course it’s good.” Shen Yanzhou managed a small smile, raising a hand to brush away a tear from the corner of his eye. ”For the past two years, I’ve kept thinking... our Shen family, the Qin Family... going back generations, we’ve never done anything to be ashamed of. We’ve donated money and supplies, built bridges and roads, and done plenty of good deeds. So how could something like this happen to my family?”

”Before my grandfather passed away, he was always worried about Le Yan. He clung to life for over three months, but he never got to see her again.”

”Such a little kid, always following me around when we were young, calling ’Brother, Brother’ all day... and then she was just suddenly gone. Who could bear that?”

”As I recall, you were the one who’d sneak off without her, and that’s why she’d be behind you, shouting your name,” Zhuang Yanzheng said, looking at him.

Shen Yanzhou glanced at him. ”You don’t have a sister. What would you know?”

Zhuang Yanzheng: ”...Alright, alright. We get it, you have a sister. Stop showing off. You’ve been showing off for years.”

Shen Yanzhou rolled down the car window to air out the smoke.

Once the smell had mostly dissipated, he rolled the window back up.

”Wait, how did you know?” Shen Yanzhou suddenly remembered to ask.

”She came straight to the city bureau after college, right into the field team. Before she went undercover, we worked together for nearly five years. And I grew up with her,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”I know her better than I know my own mother. How could I not recognize her?”

Shen Yanzhou frowned.

’Why does that sound so unpleasant?’

”Besides, considering my line of work, how could I not recognize her?” Zhuang Yanzheng said, a little smugly. ”How could two people in this world look that much alike, unless they’re the same person?”

”I just... I thought it was too absurd. I couldn’t be sure.”

That was why, for a time, he had been so fixated on the idea of resurrection.

Like with Yao Ying.

But when he had mentioned it, Su Miaoyi’s tone had all but called him crazy.

Deep down, he was actually quite sure, but the logical part of his brain told him something like this shouldn’t happen.

And Su Miaoyi had denied it—her denial wasn’t faked.

So he’d become unsure all over again.

”So what made you sure again?” Shen Yanzhou asked.

”Minister Qin saw her,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”That look in his eyes... a parent would never misidentify their own child. Plus, these two reports. The evidence.”

Shen Yanzhou looked at him.

”But she doesn’t remember. She... doesn’t have her own memories. It seems like she only has Su Miaoyi’s memories. She gives me the feeling that she thinks she *is* Su Miaoyi,” Zhuang Yanzheng said.

From when they first met during last year’s case until now, so much time had passed. She truly didn’t remember them, didn’t recognize them. Her only memories of them were from the past year.

It definitely wasn’t an act.

If she were pretending, he was certain he would’ve seen through it.

”Why do you think she became Su Miaoyi?” Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t understand. ”Why use her identity?”

”Someone who was gone and came back needs a legitimate identity. Almost no one knew that the real Su Miaoyi was gone, so it was possible to use her identity,” Shen Yanzhou said. ”With so many strange things happening, one more isn’t surprising. As long as she’s my sister, it doesn’t matter whether she has her memories or not.”

Zhuang Yanzheng nodded.

There were many things they couldn’t confirm, so all they could do was guess.

”But her DNA doesn’t match Cai Qinglian’s. Will that cause trouble later on?” Shen Yanzhou asked, worried.

”Let’s just take it one step at a time,” Zhuang Yanzheng said. ”As for the future, who knows what will happen.”

...