Chapter 384 Memory Pollution Xia Zhining shifted her gaze from Su Jianxue and discussed with the police officers, "Su Jianxue's entire confession started from her firm belief that Zhong Manqing framed her for plagiarism."

"The key figure who made the judgment on this matter and directly disqualified Su Jianxue was Professor Zhou Chongshan."

"Whether plagiarism is established is the logical starting point of all this tragedy. This starting point itself must be re-examined."

She looked at Ji Shuyun: "Brother, we need to go see Zhou Chongshan immediately and, as a person involved in this case, ask him to explain all the evidence he used to determine that it was plagiarism."

Upon hearing this, the experienced veteran detectives present exchanged glances and nodded slightly.

This approach is indeed precise, directly addressing the core contradiction.

Ji Shuyun nodded in agreement, but his sharp gaze never left the evidence bag on the table.

He pointed to the evidence bag, then turned to Su Jianxue and questioned her in detail:

"Ms. Su, are you sure this pen is yours?"

"be mine."

Su Jianxue's voice was a little hoarse, "It might... have slipped out of my pocket when I fell."

Ji Shuyun pressed on, "It slid out, rolled down with the gravel and dirt, and then—just by chance, it not only landed next to the deceased, but also happened to fall into her coat pocket?"

Xia Zhining, standing to the side, added the last question in a more direct way, recalling the descriptions of the gray cubs and the monkey troop in her mind.

"According to the eyewitness (Monkey) who found the pen, it was found in Zhong Manqing's pocket."

"Did your pen grow legs and jump precisely into her pocket?"

Su Jianxue was rendered speechless by the barrage of logical questions. She painfully dug her hands into her hair, her fingertips turning white from the force: "I don't know... I really can't remember!"

"Four years have passed, and apart from the moment she fell, all other details are blurry and confusing..."

Seeing her on the verge of collapse, Xia Zhining and Ji Shuyun tacitly stopped asking her questions.

Some loopholes are beyond the capacity of the parties involved to fill and must be clarified by external evidence.

Two policewomen stepped forward, handcuffed the dazed Su Jianxue, and led her out of the interrogation room.

Su Jianxue, who has now surrendered, is only under temporary detention. The police need to use irrefutable physical evidence and a rigorous chain of logic to verify her "confession" into an "ironclad case" until the evidence is sufficient, an arrest warrant is requested, and the case is ultimately transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.

Xia Zhining's intuition was constantly sending out warning signals.

She stood in front of the whiteboard, her gaze fixed on the photo of the pencil: "There's one thing in Su Jianxue's confession that I just can't figure out, and it's still this sketching pencil."

“I feel the same way.” Ji Shuyun walked to her side and circled the evidence photo with the red dot of the laser pointer. “The DNA of Su Jianxue and Zhong Manqing was detected on the pen at the same time.”

Su Jianxue's account is that the pen fell out of her own pocket and rolled down with the dirt and stones to Zhong Manqing's side.

"However, the pen was found by the monkey in the deceased's pocket, which is contradictory."

Xia Zhining picked up on his train of thought, a chill creeping up her spine: "More likely, the pen was already in Zhong Manqing's possession before she fell off the cliff."

"Either she took Su Jianxue's pen herself, or... someone else put it there."

The two exchanged a glance and both saw the seriousness in each other's eyes.

If the pen was put in the pocket beforehand, then the so-called "accidental rollout" is not valid.

The entire narrative of "manslaughter" will begin to crumble from its very foundation; this case is not so simple, and there are more to it than meets the eye.