Chapter 66 Since you felt something was wrong at the time, why didn’t you report it…

More than ten minutes later than expected, Hu Jun went out after receiving a phone call and came back with not one child, but three. Two of them looked extremely similar and were exactly the same height. They were actually twins.

However, one of the two girls was very thin and pale, and looked unwell, while the other one looked full of energy and very healthy.

In front of the two girls, a tall, thin boy with a very tanned complexion stood half a step behind Hu Jun. Facing a room full of police officers, he wasn't nervous at all and greeted them with a familiar, "Good afternoon, police officers and sisters."

This address made everyone present burst into laughter. Hu Jun patted the boy on the shoulder with a knowing touch. "Hey kid, why are you calling us uncles and them sisters? I'd let it go, but they're only a few years apart in age. You're confusing the generations."

"Because they are good-looking and look particularly young." The boy answered confidently. Although it sounded a bit glib, he was young and therefore not offensive.

After a few jokes, the two girls following the boy were no longer so reserved. The three of them sat down together and started eating.

It was Guan Xia's first time to dine in a private room with so many people. She felt a little uncomfortable at first, but fortunately Pang Le was sitting on her right and Xu Nian was sitting on her left. They were all familiar faces on both sides, so the uncomfortable feeling came and went quickly.

Pang Le kept an eye on Guan Xia the whole time, and from time to time he would put some dishes that he thought tasted good into her bowl. Guan Xia initially observed the three children out of the corner of her eye, but soon lost interest and concentrated on dealing with the plates that were piled higher and higher by Pang Le.

The meal ended in half an hour. The boy took out two tissues and handed them to the two sisters beside him. He looked at Xu Nian curiously and asked, "What do you want to ask us? I don't think I've heard of any cases in our area recently."

The boy frowned as he spoke, then turned to the thin girl and asked, "Is that right, Ningning?"

The girl named Ningning had no recollection. She put down the tissue she was using to wipe her mouth, raised her pale face to look at the boy, and said with certainty, "If you mean cases serious enough to require police intervention, then there really aren't any. However, there are still just as many quarrels and fights every day."

Obviously, quarreling and fighting were nothing to these three children. After hearing this, the boy said confidently, "Since Ningning said no, then she definitely didn't. She has always had a sharp memory. As long as a child tells her something, she will never forget it."

It seems that among these three children, the one who is really special is not the boy, but the girl. Guan Xia looked at her in surprise and exchanged glances with Pang Le.

Pang Le was obviously surprised as well. He was originally looking at the boy with interest, but now he was staring at the girl.

Xu Nian also looked at the girl a few more times, then took out a photo from his pocket, pushed it over and asked, "Look at this figure. Did you see it two years ago in the early morning of June 11, 2022?"

"2022?" the boy muttered. Perhaps the time was too long ago and beyond his expectation, so his whole face wrinkled in embarrassment.

The two girls next to him didn't react much, but just leaned their heads over, and the three of them stared at the photo together.

The photo was not a daily photo of Yuan Yue, but a screenshot from a surveillance video showing a figure with her entire body covered tightly, with only a pair of eyes showing.

The three of them looked at it carefully for several minutes before the boy shook his head and said, "I don't have any impression."

After he finished speaking, the boy subconsciously asked the girl next to him, "What about you? Ningning, do you have any impression?"

The girl named Ningning frowned and thought for a while, then said, "Wait, let me look through it."

Guan Xia was a little curious about what she was going to look through, and then he saw Ning Ning take out a small, but very thick and somewhat worn notebook from the schoolbag on the stool behind her. It looked like it had been used for a long time, with the cover missing and the edges curled.

After Ningning took out the notebook, another girl who had been very quiet pushed the bowls and plates in front of her aside with extremely nimble hands and feet, and took a few tissues to wipe the table clean before Ningning put down the notebook.

It only took Ningning a short time to find what she was looking for after sitting back in her seat. She raised her head and looked at the boy again and said, "Around 3 o'clock that evening, a stranger did come in from the path next to the fitness square. Brother Yu saw him and thought he was a thief, so he followed him for a while."

No one expected that there would be such an unexpected gain. Their expressions didn't change much, but their eyes seemed a little excited.

"Did you see which building she entered last?" Xu Nian asked.

The urban village is called a village, but in fact it is composed of self-built houses of four or five stories high. The buildings are very close to each other and crowded together, forming alleys that are only three or four meters wide. In the case of extremely low coverage of surveillance cameras, if there are no clear eyewitnesses, in order to find Yuan Yue's final hiding place, in addition to relying on Sha Junhao's friends, we can only increase a large number of manpower to conduct a thorough investigation.

Ning Ning flipped through the notebook again and said, "I ended up going into the building where Wu Junzhe and his family lived, and I left at noon, around 12 o'clock."

There was actually an exact time of departure. Guan Xia was so surprised that she couldn't help but exchange glances with Pang Le. At the same time, she became more and more interested in this girl named Ningning, and the notebook. She really wanted to see what was recorded on it.

"Wu Junzhe is a classmate of mine," the boy explained. "His building is at the very back. Because it's quite far to walk, the occupancy rate has always been low, so they don't have any surveillance."

It was already a pleasant surprise to know which building they were staying in, and no one was disappointed about the last sentence that there was no surveillance.

Pang Le couldn't help but ask Ning Ning curiously, "How do you know she left at noon? You guys were watching her the whole time?"

Ningning put the notebook away and calmly placed it back in her bag. She replied, "Because we suspected that person was a thief, we notified Wu Junzhe and asked him to be extra careful and make sure nothing was stolen. This way, we can keep track of his movements without having to keep a close eye on him."

"I see." Pang Le looked at Ning Ning with appreciation, then couldn't help turning to look at Guan Xia, making faces with a very rich expression. It was obvious that she had a lot to say, but it was not appropriate to say it in this situation.

Finally, after sending the three children back to the school across the street, Pang Le couldn't wait to pull Guan Xialuo to the back of the crowd and whispered, "I'm dying of suffocation. I can finally speak freely. You've noticed, too, that although the boy appears to be the one making the decisions among the three, he actually has to verify everything with the girl named Ningning. I'm a little suspicious that when the boy contacted the people who ran the underground mahjong parlor a few years ago, it wasn't necessarily his own idea. Maybe it was Ningning's idea, and the boy was just responsible for the implementation."

Guan Xia also had such doubts. After all, based on her observation, the boy seemed relatively mature, but in fact, his maturity was only brought about by special experiences. Although the girl named Ningning didn't talk much and was very quiet in comparison, not a single word she said was nonsense. Everything she said was meaningful. And judging from the notebook, she was also very meticulous in doing things and had her own thoughts.

If it was an adult, they wouldn't be so surprised. The key point is that the girl is still in high school. Going back in time, three or four years ago, the girl might have been only eleven or twelve years old. At such a young age, she already has such thoughts and behavioral logic. Guan Xia couldn't help but wonder if she would also be the heroine.

"I'm not sure about anything else," Guan Xia said, "but I'm sure this girl must have a very high IQ."

"She was only eleven or twelve three or four years ago," Pang Le sighed. "What was I doing when I was eleven or twelve? I was still angry at my grandfather for arranging my life and not letting me wear skirts. It's true that people can't be compared, especially when it comes to IQ."

Recalling the actions of the girl named Ningning in the box, Guan Xia nodded in agreement, "I'm really curious about what her future life will be like. I feel like she can succeed in anything she does."

"I'm curious too," Pang Le said, "I might pay attention to it later."

After obtaining Yuan Yue's exact whereabouts on the day of the incident, the group left the school and followed Hu Jun and another young police officer to the home of Wu Junzhe, whom Ningning mentioned.

On the way, Hu Jun introduced, "Wu Junzhe's family consists of three people: a couple with a child. They have a simple family and they also run a mahjong parlor. They're not short of money, so they don't really care about renting out their house. They usually stay at the mahjong parlor and collect rent through WeChat. However, about five years ago, their house was burglarized, so they've been extra concerned about their safety ever since."

While Hu Jun was introducing Wu Junzhe's home, Guan Xia also paid attention to observe the surroundings. As they walked further in, the fewer people they met walking outside, but on the contrary, there were more mahjong parlors, almost one every ten meters. From the open door, they could see that the places were full of people, all smoking, and a few dirty words were heard from time to time, making the place seem a bit smoky and foul.

After walking for another ten minutes, Hu Jun led them to a five-story self-built building. A short, plump, middle-aged woman was already waiting in front of the building, looking somewhat impatient. But when she saw the crowd, her expression suddenly changed, and she forced a smile and said, "Officer Hu, so many of you are looking for me. Could it be that something big has happened in my building?"

As the woman spoke, she seemed startled by her own guess. Her expression became a little terrified, and she subconsciously turned around to look upstairs.

Compared to Xu Nian and the others' seriousness, Hu Jun was much more easygoing. He smiled and said, "It's nothing serious. I just want to ask you a question. On the night of June 10th and the early morning of the 11th in the 22nd year, a stranger came into your building. Miss Gu Ning told your family that Wu Junzhe suspected it was a thief. Do you have any impression of it?"

Hearing that it was just a question, the middle-aged woman immediately breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought it was a big deal, but it turns out it's just a question. 22 years..."

The woman reminisced for a long time before saying, "It seems like there was such a thing, but it was so long ago that I can't remember it clearly. I only vaguely remember that my son mentioned it to me while I was cooking. He said that there was a strange person living in the building last night, maybe a thief, but it seems that no one has stolen anything from the building since then."

Xu Nian asked, "Did anyone ask you to rent a place short-term that month?"

The woman said, "That's impossible. I never rent this house out short-term, only long-term. Otherwise, it would be too much trouble to take him back and forth to look at houses. I'd rather spend more time at the store than on that."

In other words, Yuan Yue's place of residence was not rented, but borrowed.

Xu Nian took out a photo and asked, "Have you seen this person?"

Guan Xia was standing next to Xu Nian. When he handed the photo over, he took a look and saw that it was not Yuan Yue's, but Sha Junhao's.

This time, the woman took the photo and recognized him after just two glances. "It's him. I've seen him before. He used to come here often to look for a tenant, but he hasn't been here in recent years. Anyway, I haven't seen him again."

Everyone was perked up, and Xu Nian asked, "Do you remember who the tenant he found was?"

"Of course I remember. There's a woman in 402," the middle-aged woman said with a pout. "She goes out every night and comes back at dawn. I don't know what she does. You've come just in time. She's usually still awake at this time. I brought the key and will go up and open the door for you."

The middle-aged woman was about to enter the building when Hu Jun quickly stopped her and said, "Since you are here, there is no need for you to open the door."

The middle-aged woman was a little disappointed when she heard this. Although she put the key away, she did not leave and followed him upstairs at the end.

Everything went more smoothly than Guan Xia had imagined. Xu Nian knocked a few times before a young woman opened the door. She looked obviously still half asleep, with a thin cardigan draped over her nightgown. She was yawning impatiently, but when she saw so many police officers, her expression suddenly froze.

Even a rookie like Guan Xia could see a hint of panic in the young woman's expression; it was obvious that she knew something.

Sure enough, just as Xu Nian had just asked two basic questions, the young woman suddenly took a deep breath, closed her cardigan, crossed her arms around her shoulders, and spoke in a defensive posture, "I know what you want to ask. I did lend my house to someone temporarily on the night of June 10th, 22nd year, but I never met him or spoke on the phone. Sha Junhao only told me that a friend of his was coming here to do something and had lost his ID card and couldn't register at a hotel, so he was staying with me for the night. He's a very kind person and had helped me before, so I thought it wasn't a big deal, so I agreed. A few days later, I heard his father had died, and it was murdered."

The young woman lowered her head awkwardly as she spoke. "I was suspicious at the time, but then I thought I was overthinking it. After all, Sha Junhao had wanted to kill his father for a long time, and if he really wanted to kill someone, he would do it himself. It wasn't until Sha Junhao was taken to the police station and then released that I started to feel something was amiss."

The young woman rummaged through a box in the corner as she spoke, and after a moment she took out a small sealed plastic bag containing a few strands of hair.

The young woman hesitated for a moment, but still handed the plastic bag over. She took a deep breath and said, "Just in case, I turned the house upside down when I got home that night, and then I found these hairs in the crack of the bed. I also had long hair at the time, but I had just permed it, so these hairs were obviously not mine."

Xu Nian took it, and Hu Jun asked with a complicated expression, "Since you felt something was wrong at the time, why didn't you call the police?"

The young woman pulled the corners of her mouth, revealing a somewhat sarcastic smile, and whispered, "Although it's a bit inappropriate for me to say this after he's dead, I've always felt that Sha Junhao's father wasn't even a human being and should have died long ago."