YBCB2: V7C8

Translated by: TaffyGirl13

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Chapter Eight

“Zeng Jian Zhe did have a grey minibus under his name.”

After sending the students back, Yu Yin returned home late at night to receive a message from Yu Xia, along with several photos attached. “Uncle said that the grey minibus appeared multiple times in photos during the investigation follow-up. Most of the time, it had different girl passengers. He checked some other resources and found that this vehicle was inherited from the father. Here, look at this photo.”

Dong Feng took the cellphone to see a photo of the grey minibus that did have a bunny in sight. Just as Shu Xing Yu had said, it was placed in front of the windshield.

“But the vehicle is nowhere to be found. The investigators in charge are searching for it too. It’s not in the vicinity of the abandoned house, and the neighbours said they haven’t seen it in a long time. There are even a few people that don’t remember ever seeing it at all.” Yu Yin yawned and adjusted his sitting position so that he was leaning comfortably against the sofa. “Should I share my opinion about this first?”

“Go ahead.” Dong Feng returned the cellphone to its owner.

Yu walked out to the living room with hot water and tea cups. He sat next to them and poured drinks for everyone.

“Zeng Jian Zhe was definitely an internet addict. He went around online tricking junior and senior high school girls.” After going through the photos, it seemed that the age difference between these girls wasn’t very large. It was evident that this guy had been targeting a specific age range. Yu Yin continued, “This included the older sister, Ji Ya Xuan, and their other classmate. It’s evident how much time he spent waiting on the internet with bait to hook his victims in, even going through the effort of decorating his second floor the way it was. This meant he was extremely set on bringing his victims back home, rather than just hooking up with them. This is clearly very abnormal.”

These actions were too excessive if the objective was just for one-night stands, so Zeng Jian Zhe hadn’t been in pursuit of young girls just to vent his frustrations on.

“He wanted to kill the girls he captured…Wait, that means the ones dragged up to the third floor could have been—!” Yu Yin suddenly thought of the large amounts of blood in the tub on the third floor. He honestly hoped that his conjecture was wrong.

“I’m afraid that all of your thoughts so far are correct.” Dong Feng took out his own cellphone to send the other possible conjecture to Yu Xia. “In addition to ensuring the girls were brought back to his home, this person did not hesitate to decorate the second floor as needed, and saved all the records and many photos. It looks like he definitely had some type of controlling and possessive mentality. If we also consider the things you saw, I doubt the bodies were hidden too far away.”

They can probably be found in the yard and vacant areas of land nearby…

Yu Yin sighed. He had really been hoping Dong Feng would say he was totally off, but considering how obvious the situation was now, there was truly no way to think optimistically. “In any case, he wasn’t just addicted to the internet. I’m guessing he tricked naive girls into running away from home by offering them a place to live and providing whatever they wanted. With the amount of money he inherited, he could buy more expensive things to reel the children in. And once it was time, he…”

“Basically, this would prevent the deceived children from raising their guards.” The victims had trusted the internet so much, to the point of abandoning their families either voluntarily or because of an online friend…It was unfathomable how they would do so much, even offering their own bodies in exchange, because of their avariciousness for a bit of money and material gain. Sometimes, Dong Feng wondered how kids these days had such skewed sense of value, and who should bear the responsibility for it.

“Since high school kids are still naive, it’s not surprising to see what happens when they encounter someone so cunning.” Yu Yin shook his head, at a loss on how to criticise the children.

“…What, would you sell your ass to someone that tossed you fifty thousand dollars?” Dong Feng deadpanned.

“Absolutely not,” Yu Yin instantly replied.

“Then go ask Shu Xing Yu and Fang Yi Xun that question. Don’t blame everything on the excuse of being naive. High school students should already understand simple right from wrong.” Dong Feng did not believe everything could be excused by naivete.

“Sigh, it’s not something that everyone can do. Besides, they paid their price—and paid too much. The only thing left now is to send them home.” The girls in the stairwell no longer had the chance to do things they would regret. Yu Yin could not bear to say anything more about it either. There was one final task that he could help with at this point. No matter how good or bad these girls had been while alive, there was no point in persecuting their moment of confusion now that they were dead.

“…”

“Wait, so why did he make a move on the little sister? I don’t think elementary students were in his range?” Yu Yin had not seen any other elementary students in the photos, so from what he could see, Zeng Jian Zhen would not target children that young. One could say that making a move on elementary school students would have had more disastrous results; it was easier to trick the older ones that could run away from home on their own. It was simple to instigate adolescent girls.

“There are a few possible answers. One, he was following the older sister and simultaneously confirmed Shu Xing Yu was the little sister, and came into contact with her out of curiosity. Two, he was following the older sister, which the older sister and the parents knew about, resulting in the strict oversight of the little sister. Three, for some reason, he wanted to capture the little sister for something, perhaps as a type of warning. In any case, it was no coincidence that he lured Shu Xing Yu onto the car, nor was it on a whim. This person’s modus operandi is to first get close to the target and interact with them to lure the prey into his own territory; randomly kidnapping an elementary student on the street is basically impossible.” Dong Feng paused before voicing his own answer, “And four, all of the above.”

The most likely reason was that while following the older sister, the man had confirmed Shu Xing Yu was her little sister. Unfortunately for him, the parents and older sister had noticed his stalking, and did something that had made Zeng Jian Zhe decide to kidnap the little sister as retaliation to whatever they did.

“Do you think we’d get any answers if we went and asked the parents?” Now that everything was pieced together, Yu Yin believed that the only way to figure out the whole story was if they sought out the parents—and there was no doubt the parents would know.

However, there was a 99% chance they would not tell some random outsiders.

“There are others we can ask aside from Shu Xing Yu’s parents.”

“Huh?”

***

At 10 AM, the cafe opened for business as usual, and the first wave of customers arrived.

“Welco—It’s you guys again!”

Ji Ya Xuan heard the chimes and automatically started to say a greeting before belatedly discovering that the customers were the group from two days ago.

“We’re not here for you this time.” Dong Feng glanced at the mini chalkboard she was holding. “We’re looking for your boss, the one that registered this shop. Your former senior high classmate, Hu Bao Er.”

During their first visit, the reason Yu had been staring at the chalkboard wasn’t because he was hungry, but because they had noticed the handwriting on it matched that of the writing from classmates in the graduation yearbook.

Moreover, they had compared it and found it to resemble the writing on the postcard as well. While handwriting could be copied, there were certain habitual strokes that gave the imitation away, especially when it was a last-minute creation.

“Tell her that there are some words on the postcard that may appear to be written by Shu Xing Ling at first glance, but are actually nothing like her. The riddles she wrote to her class were more intimate and caring.” Dong Feng cut straight to the point, with no desire to give the other party the chance to divert.

As expected, Ji Ya Xuan was stunned for a few seconds. A strange expression formed on her face as she replied, “…Take a seat first.” She then turned to speak to several other staff members, who exchanged looks with each other and stopped what they were doing. They then opened the door to exit the shop one after another, shooting puzzled looks at their guests as they passed. Eventually, only the three of them remained in the cafe. The girl then flipped the store’s sign to “On Break” before walking straight to the back rooms.

Yu Yin and the others chose to sit in the slightly isolated seats from last time and patiently waited in silence.

Yu naturally began to flip through the menu, his gaze landing on the sweets provided in the morning.

With nothing to do, Dong Feng turned on his cellphone and continued deciphering the codes stored inside. Although Yu Xia had requested for others not to seek him out for these matters, he tried his best to figure out the ones he did know of.

Moreover, a portion of these were handled by Yu, who was more proficient when it came to language and linguistics.

After approximately ten minutes, they finally saw Ji Ya Xuan walk out to nod at them before exiting as well, locking the door and pulling down the metal shutters. Then, the person they were looking for finally appeared.

The woman looked capable and experienced. She wore a black outfit with light makeup, giving the air of a manager at a large corporation rather than the owner or manager of a comforting cafe. She looked like she could go up against anyone in the business world.

If it weren’t for the fact that they had seen her in the graduation yearbook, it would be very difficult to match this woman to the inconspicuous student seven years ago.

“How did you know I was the owner?” The woman – Hu Bao Er – asked while striding up to them.

“The handwriting on the blackboard outside hasn’t changed much. You come to write it before working hours, don’t you? You have some chalk powder on your sleeve.” Dong Feng glanced at the office behind them.

“Mhm, this is my old home. When everyone moved away several years ago, I had it remodelled into a cafe; at the moment, I’m working for a foreign company as a department manager.” Hu Bao Er patted the chalk dust off and pulled out a name card stack to give each of them her card. “Why are you guys relentlessly pursuing something from seven years ago? It’s been so long since it happened, and Xiao Xing has left already. Even if it’s a request from the little sister, there should be no need to investigate any further at this point.”

“Rather than wasting time, let’s just get straight to the point. The main reason is because we followed the address in search of Zeng Jian Zhe and found some things out at his home that forced us to continue investigating.” Dong Feng took note of the brief changes in the woman’s expression, though she quickly covered herself by restoring her indifferent expression thanks to years of practice in a professional setting. Dong Feng continued, “Currently, the police are also investigating that house, and they found quite a few photos there. If you know anything, why not help out with a good deed?”

“Since you’re already saying all that, I’ll just give a straight answer. There’s no need to try tricking me into saying anything, we all know what’s in that house. Back then, Tang…or rather, Zeng Jian Zhe, was an extremely famous internet addict. He used quite a few names online to trick female students and used any means possible to get the ones he took a fancy to…That’s right, he had two types: the kind he played around with, and the kind he wanted. Most were the former, and few would get led to his house, into that castle-like room that many of the girls yearned for,” Hu Bao Er calmly replied with her arms crossed. “But everything’s over, no?”

“If you and the person inside can clarify what you mean by ‘over’, we can end this cleanly.”

“…” Hu Bao Er narrowed her eyes.

“There’s someone else here?” Yu Yin was a bit worried a hired thug would come out or something.

“If my guess is correct, it’s who we originally wanted to seek out. Hu Bao Er probably notified him after learning that we were looking into Shu Xing Ling’s matter. We even talked on the phone, didn’t we?” After the woman had come out, Dong Feng had realised that she had been apprehensive about the person in the office. While it had not been obvious from her expression, her unnatural movements had confirmed the presence of someone else.

“I’m enough to talk about this…”

“Bao Er, it’s fine.”

A deep, male voice interrupted Hu Bao Er, and the speaker strode out from the office. Despite having aged a bit, Yu Yin could recognise the man as the young teacher from the graduation yearbook. He had a steadier appearance after seven years; the previously gentle face had eroded over time to form mature and reliable features. He was likely still popular with female students.

What was truly unexpected was a boy behind Lin Hong Zhi — an extremely familiar face that had just been digging up dirt and eating late-night snacks with them last night.

“No need to be surprised, they knew each other from the start.” Dong Feng was not at all surprised by Lin Zhi Yuan’s appearance here.

Seeing that Yu next to him was also unfazed, Yu YIn began to wonder if his memories had been stolen by aliens for him to be the only one not in the know.

“When we first mentioned the teacher, he had zero interest in them and didn’t even ask about their name. Isn’t that strange considering how fervently he was questioning the treasure hunt? After all, this is a former teacher of his own school too.” Rather than zero interest, Lin Zhi Yuan’s response had been almost detached whenever the teacher was mentioned, which had made Dong Feng suspect him from the beginning.

“I’m really sorry, Senior. But when a bunch of strangers suddenly start asking about what happened seven years ago, and it’s related to the class my brother taught, it’s only normal for me as the younger brother to be particularly cautious, isn’t it?” Lin Zhi Yuan shrugged, not bothering to evade his relation to the male next to him and ignoring Dong Feng’s somewhat cold gaze at him. “If I’ve made you guys unhappy, I apologise for that too.”

“So you guys were brothers.” Despite the shared surname, Yu Yin had never considered this possibility because their first names had no connection, and it wasn’t hard to come across people that shared such a common last name.

“Yeah, after I told my brother about the treasure hunt digging last night, he drove here last night. He hadn’t expected for you guys to act so quickly and block us here.” Lin Zhi Yuan smiled as he turned to Dong Feng, “But bumping into you at the basketball court was a real coincidence. I didn’t know anything about Shu Xing Yu at first either, so it wasn’t premeditated.” He had truly just noticed the ‘girl’ from afar while playing ball with his friends.

“Wait, so you also know about what happened seven years ago?” Considering they were brothers, Yu Yin started to suspect if they had all been played by this third-year senior high student. Had they gone in circles around the school when Lin Zhi Yuan actually knew everything?

“Zhi Yuan doesn’t know much about what happened. At the time, he was living with our parents outside the city. I had come here alone for the job, and they only moved over a year after the incident. Just like you all, he only knew that a student in my class had died from illness, and that I had led the entire class to go on a treasure hunt. After all, the photo of the class finding the treasure is hanging on the wall of my home.” Lin Hong Zhi pulled some chairs aside to have Hu Bao Er sit before taking a seat himself. “Of course, in the three years he’s been attending high school here, he never knew this cafe was owned by my former student.”

“That’s right. I even told my classmates that we should try dropping by here in the future. If I had known my brother was acquainted with the owner, I would’ve asked if I could get any discounts,” Lin Zhi Yuan chuckled. Seeing as how the others needed to have a serious discussion, he asked the female owner to borrow the kitchen and left without a word to go prepare some tea.

After hearing the faint noises from the kitchen, Yu Yin, who had finally figured out the situation, glanced at Dong Feng. The latter appeared reluctant to speak, so he was the only one left to speak up. “So you two knew of Zeng Jian Zhe, then what? The police are currently investigating; there’s not much you can continue hiding at this point.”

Hu Bao Er exchanged a look with the teacher, then let out a sigh. “Ya Xuan already told you about her past encounter with Zeng, right?”

“She gave a general summary, including how she and her friend managed to squeeze some money from him.” Yu Yin naturally remembered how the pair had escaped the moment the situation had turned for the worse.

Hu Bao Er nodded. “Like I said before, Zeng Jian Zhe was just treating them as playthings, so it wasn’t a big deal. He did not make any moves on them after that. But he was very attached to Xiao Xing. After exchanging addresses, Xiao Xing thought of him as just a pen-pal…Xiao Xing made many friends on the internet, and would chat with all kinds of different people. It was practically a bad habit. Several of them ended up exchanging letters with her, though most were just for festivities and nothing else.”

“But Zheng Jian Zhe began to follow her?” Yu Yin could not imagine that kind of person would do nothing after getting the girl’s address.

“Yes. Xiao Xing also realised this, and finally told her parents when that disgusting man was already at her front door.” Hu Bao Er flipped her hair over her shoulder as she continued describing the memories she had locked away. “I heard her parents hired someone to beat that guy up, warning him to never go anywhere near Xiao Xing again…She told all this to me privately, when Zeng Jian Zhe did disappear for a while afterwards.”

“…But then the little sister was nearly taken away in his car?” It connected with everything they had previously conjectured.

“That’s right.” It was Lin Hong Zhi that spoke up now. “Her parents called me and said that a stalker was following Student Shu, so for a period of time, I would take turns with her parents to bring her home. When I was driving Shu Xing Ling back one day, I just happened to spot her little sister about to go in Zeng Jian Zhe’s car. Student Shu screamed and ran over to stop her while I dragged the man out. But before we could call the police, he ran away. We had no proof that he was about to kidnap the little sister, so things were just left at that.”

Hearing this, Yu Yin glanced at Dong Feng and Yu…Their thoughts had been pretty much correct after all.

“But in the third-years’ second semester, I received a call from Mrs. Shu—That day, Student Shu was ill and had stayed at home to rest. While her parents had been out at work, Zheng Jian Zhe took advantage of no one being home and brazenly broke in with the intent of assaulting my student. Fortunately, nearby neighbours heard screams and rushed over to help. However, in attempts to run away at the time, Shu Xing Ling had accidentally fallen down the stairs and suffered numerous injuries. In addition, she was in shock from nearly landing in that scum’s hands. Her physical condition worsened, and she passed away from her illness before graduating.” Lin Hong Zhi’s hands clenched into fists, his jaw clenched as he tried his best to control his emotions. “She had asked me to help her hide everything for the treasure hunt because she could not personally give her classmates the graduation gifts. The first homeroom class I had ever led resulted in me having to burn a graduation yearbook in order to pass it onto my student. All because of that piece of trash! Do you know what that feels like?!”

“Teacher…” Hu Bao Er worriedly reached out to touch the man’s shoulder.

“And you kids are running around wanting to dig up treasure for fun…” Lin Hong Zhi glared hatefully at the strangers, not bothering to conceal his anger.

Before Yu Yin could explain themselves, Yu abruptly stood to his feet.

“I don’t have a graduation yearbook, so I don’t know what it feels like to burn one and tell my family about my graduation,” Yu stated in a low voice as he stared straight at the two people in front of him. “However, I know what it feels like to be a victim wanting help. Do you not think those girls who have died deserve the truth?”

Hu Bao Er and Lin Hong Zhi looked shocked, and they subconsciously looked at Yu Yin, the oldest of the trio.

“…He is the sole survivor of a familicide.”

Yu Yin sighed.

***

“Boss’s phone is ringing.”

Jiu Shen was hiding behind the spectrometer waiting for the analytical results when he gave a subtle tug at Ah Liu’s sleeve, who was also waiting for the results. They glanced over at a certain person slumped over a workstation to take a nap during their spare time. “Steal it and turn it off?” That person had fallen asleep less than five minutes after sitting down, so it was evident how inhumanly busy they had been recently.

“You steal it.” Ah Liu had no desire to try pulling hair off a lion’s mane.

“I-I…I’ll steal it.” After a few seconds of internal debate, Jiu Shen decided to take the risk and steal the phone so that Yu Xia could properly rest for a moment. The latter’s complexion was poor, and the ringing hadn’t woken him at all. Although he would probably explode when he opened his eyes, at their age, it was better to rest as needed.

With this mindset, Jiu Shen’s courage was boosted from 0.5 to 0.8.

Hands shaking, Jiu Shen snuck over to the workstation and leaned over to slowly reach for the phone. By some strange coincidence, the ringing cut off right that moment, and silence was restored. Thus, he crouched next to the workstation with the phone, opening it to turn off all other alerts so that it could never cry out again.

“What are you doing!”

“Uargh!” Jiu Shen had only turned off half before the back of his head was whacked, the burst of pain causing him to jump up in shock. He then crashed into the workstation with a massive bang. But the most disastrous part was that, while clutching his head that was tingling in pain, he discovered that the phone in his hands was gone. When he stared more closely, he spotted the phone that had already flown over to the opposite shore—well, it wasn’t actually that far, but it had fallen face-down on the floor. There was no knowing whether it was dead or alive.

He fearfully turned his head to see Yu Xia, who had woken up at some point and was also eyeing the phone that had just free-falled. Yu Xia then turned back to blankly look at Jiu Shen.

“I-I-I-I-I-I-I’ll buy a new one for you!” Jiu Shen frantically retreated to the other side, eyes locked onto the phone’s owner in trepidation. “Any model of your choice!”

“Then that would obviously just be the most expensive kind,” Ah Liu added to the warzone unsympathetically.

“Oh, um…I’ll just eat only bread this month then…” Jiu Shen was crying tears of blood now.

Yu Xia wordlessly picked up his phone, glancing at the crack on the screen before turning back to the perpetrator.

“I’ll buy the most expensive type!” Jiu Shen bravely offered to cut off his own arm. He truly believed that this would be better than having his head cut off.

“Give me your phone,” Yu Xia icily ordered while stretching his hand out. Once the other phone was passed over, he swapped the SIM cards and tossed the broken device over. “Go get this fixed.”

“I’ll do it immediately after work!” Jiu Shen was extremely grateful that the phone hadn’t been shoved violently down his throat instead, and he felt like he had just been revived. He quickly wrapped the phone and put it away as carefully as possible.

Right as Yu Xia turned the phone on, he received a second call.

When Jiu Shen saw Yu Xia leave the workspace to answer the phone, he finally let out a sigh of relief.

“By the way, weren’t you going to tell Boss about the thing related to the secret files from An Tian Qing’s case?” Although they had been interrupted by Song Ou last time, Ah Liu felt that these files were very important. However, as so much time had already passed and it was something retrieved in private by the staff that had been in charge, it would not be effective from a legal standpoint and could only be a reference.

“Oh yeah, I was going to tell him.” Jiu Shen checked the time. It was actually past work hours already, so he could just ask the other person to head out with him and pass on the information on the way.

At that exact moment, Yu Xia strode back in while ending his call.

“Ah Yin just called to say they found related witnesses for Zeng Jian Zhe’s case.” The case was not in their jurisdiction, but Yu Yin was still pursuing it, so Yu Xia had passed the information onto the officers in charge before informing Jiu Shen and Ah Liu. “The homeroom teacher from seven years ago and Shu XIng Ling’s friend seemed to have gone looking for Zeng Jian Zhe after their graduation ceremony to make him light incense in apology towards the female student that had died from illness. They ended up fighting…”

This was the information Yu Yin had gotten from Hu Bao Er and Lin Hong Zhi.

After Shu Xing Ling’s death, the class had carried out one of her last wishes by searching the school for their graduation gifts, then gathered together to burn a yearbook for her. The afternoon of the ceremony, Lin Hong Zhi and Hu Bao Er had both coincidently decided to go to Zeng Jian Zhe’s residence. Hu Bao Er had arrived first and started a fight with the man. Lin Hong Zhi had arrived a bit later and mistakenly assumed the man was attacking his student. In addition to the bad experience with the man before, Lin Hong Zhi immediately grabbed an item in the house to smash it onto Zeng Jian Zhe’s head.

“But they both swore Zeng Jian Zhe had been alive after that. After Lin Hong Zhi knocked him out, Zheng Jian Zhe kept shouting that he would retaliate, and they ran away in panic. On the way, they saw some unidentifiable boxes in the yard outside with suspicious stains that looked like blood, placed next to a hole that had been dug up.” Unfortunately, it appeared that Dong Feng had been correct; they would have to start searching the soil around the house. Yu Xia clicked his tongue. “When they went back at a later time, the boxes were gone, and Zeng Jian Zhe’s car was nowhere to be seen. Because Lin Hong Zhi had attacked someone while having the status of a teacher, the two of them ultimately decided not to say anything. Because they also hadn’t realised what had been inside the boxes at the time, they just left things like that.”

Following these events, Hu Bao Er had heard online rumours that a few girls who had been in touch with Zeng Jian Zhe had disappeared. There had been photos circulating around that appeared to be of dead bodies as well, which is how Hu Bao Er finally guessed what had been in those boxes. She had gone back to the house a few more times after that to look around, but Zeng Jian Zhe had seemingly vaporised without a trace, both online and in real life. Just like that, he had gone missing, never seen again.

“…What a terrifying internet addict.” Jiu Shen was convinced that making friends without seeing their faces was very dangerous.

“But there’s something weird about that. If he attempted to assault the older sister and wanted to kidnap the younger sister, why didn’t the parents report him to the police?” Ah Liu had been questioning this from the first part of the story. Any normal person would have sought out the police for protection.

“I’m not too sure about that. Ah Yin also asked Lin Hong Zhi and Hu Bao Er, but they didn’t know either. However, while the parents did not report anything to the police at the time, they did apparently seek out friends to help keep an eye out.” Yu Xia had found it strange as well. Could the Shu family have been hiding something else for them to not contact the police? Considering it got to the point where he broke into their home to assault the older sister, why wouldn’t they have tried to get help? 

It seemed like they would have to look into this more.

 

“By the way, Jiu Shen has something to tell you, Boss.”

Now that they had figured out the story behind the abandoned house, Ah Liu brought up a different topic. “With regards to that teacher…”

“Wait!”

Jiu Shen dashed out of the workspace and ran back in with the files to hand over to Yu Xia. “I called and requested these from some officers that had been on the case at the time.”

Yu Xia flipped through the thick stack of files and discovered that they were someone’s private investigations for An Tian Qing. These had not been reported to the office at the time. There were several samples that the creator of these records had tested themselves, as well as the analytical data. This person had evidently not followed the official regulations, instead using their own resources to handle these items.

The creator of the records had not signed their name anywhere.

“This officer already died in a car crash. There are no issues with the crash itself; the offender is still paying compensation to the victim’s family.” Jiu Shen explained how he had gotten the information, then pulled out an old name card from his wallet that he had requested from his contact. “His name was Jian Shi Wei, and he was only around twenty-eight years old that year. He was one of the officers responsible for this case. His colleague said that right after the case had occurred, he had received a concerning call from a senior official, and his group that had been handling the case was under extreme pressure. Jian Shi Wei went through several security cameras and various records from around the building, and out of personal habit, created a backup copy for himself.”

Yu Xia saw the two discs in the folder of files. As Jiu Shen had likely seen them already, Yu Xia was in no rush to check them out. Rather, he was more interested in one of the samples: a cigarette butt.

“That was found during the execution of a search warrant. There were several cigarette butts in the stairwells of the building. His team’s investigator was assisting with the case as well, so they had made the samples per procedure. Only after testing did they discover something was off, so they specially made a duplicate.” Jiu Shen leaned over and earnestly explained, “Didn’t Dong Feng accuse a senior high student, calling him out as the culprit? But as we all know, there were witnesses to confirm that the student was in school at the time. The strange thing is that among the cigarette butts Jian Shi Wei collected, one of them tested to match that student. In other words, at some point, the student had tossed that cigarette butt in the stairwell.”

Of course, the ones in charge of the case had interrogated the building’s cleaning staff too.

Yu Xia flipped through more pages to see the testimonial from the cleaning staff that morning. They had cleaned the stairwell as usual, which included mopping the floors.

“Wait, what about the police’s data?” When Li Zi Hong had asked for them to investigate this, he had given Yu Xia and the others a copy of the files the police had.

“I compared them. The police’s data was modified. Two days after the incident, the cleaning staff had changed her testimony to say she had slacked off that day and did not actually clean the stairwell. She claimed she had originally lied in fear of having her pay docked from the manager.” Jiu Shen paused for a moment before continuing, “Everyone else’s testimonies changed too. After a few days, the people in the school confirmed the student had skipped class that day to hang out with his friends. The director said he chased after them for smoking. I analysed the two cigarette samples and found that they did match that student.”

“But his cigarettes couldn’t have possibly appeared there for no reason.” Yu Xia did not believe in such coincidences.

“At the time, An Tian Qing had apparently tutored many students after school. That student in her class was also being tutored, in addition to having a tobacco addiction. Two days before the teacher’s death, he had been called over to review homework, so there’s nothing odd about a few dropped cigarette butts.” Jiu Shen had watched the building’s security footage and had seen the student appear there.

“The surveillance footage wasn’t fabricated, we’ve already checked that.” Ah Liu added in clarification, “But many of the building’s cameras were broken, so the only ones that could be watched were the ones at the front door and the street leading to the door.”

Yu Xia continued going through the files and found that Jian Shi Wei’s data were all the earliest versions. Aside from the samples, the initial testimonies were included, which did have many discrepancies with what they had received.

It had not been long before this case had run into a bottleneck across multiple aspects due to certain reasons. Eventually, many of the officers had been transferred to other positions, gradually leaving the matter unsettled and turning this into an unresolved case.

“Boss, do you believe in people’s memories or photos?”

Yu Xia looked up to meet Jiu Shen’s earnest and serious gaze. “Do you believe images created from memory?”

“I believe the truth.” Yu Xia finished going through all the files, then reviewed the photos of the crime scene included, as well as a folded piece of paper.

He unfolded it to find that it was a copy of a sketch on A3-sized paper. It was a practically true-to-life replica of the crime scene, including An Tian Qing’s corpse — her face hanging upside down, still frozen from the extreme horror in her last moments. It was no different from the photos aside from a sense of indescribable genuineness the paper conveyed through the victim’s helplessness and fear before death.

The bottom right corner of the sketch had a small section that was blurred. It seemed like a few drops of water had fallen onto the paper, destroying some of the lines but leaving the image identifiable nonetheless.

“This was what Dong Feng had provided to the police that year. However, there are some differences with the photos from the scene.”

Jiu Shen took the sketch and photos to lay them out side-by-side on the worktable. “Look at this mirror.”

Yu Xia followed Jiu Shen’s finger to see a full-length mirror hanging on the wall of the living room, in front of the corpse. In the sketch, the mirror reflected a small box on the floor near the opposite corner of the wall. However, this was not in the photos. Regardless of whether it was in the photos of the mirror or the surroundings of the room, there was nothing even resembling the small box.

In addition, one of the mugs on the table had the handle on the left in the sketch, but on the right in the photos.

Aside from this, the sketch and photos were identical.

“Prosecutor Li did not have this sketch, original or copy.” Jiu Shen had gone through every file and related item, but had not found this drawing. The only copy was among Jian Shi Wei’s personal records.

Even without the sketch, Jiu Shen had discovered more and more things that were off about this case as he investigated it. This included the large number of samples that had either been contaminated and discarded for no reason, or lost inexplicably. The records of these samples existed, but they were not physically present. When questioning the personnel in charge of the samples, they could not explain either.

“Now, do you believe in memories or photos?”

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