Chapter 24 Bird of Paradise 09
After reading this shocking accusation, Luo Siwei remained silent for a while.
Guo Zhengyao sighed: "Is this He Jin really the biological daughter of the family? The daughter and her parents don't seem like relatives, but more like enemies."
"Maybe he was adopted?" Ni Xiang guessed, "We took a DNA test before, but the results are not out yet."
Listening to their discussion, Huo Cunsheng couldn't help but say, "It doesn't matter. So what if they kissed or hugged her? We'll know once the test results come out. The key issue right now is family discord. He Jin even threatened her parents before, and we have the victim's direct identification. Also, all those online posts cast doubt on her, and that reflects public sentiment."
At this point, he looked at Luo Siwei, as if waiting for her decision. Luo Siwei didn't say anything, so Huo Cunsheng continued, "Captain Luo, you asked us for evidence. There's no more solid evidence than this, right?! Release this video. Even if we go to court, you can't say we arrested the wrong person."
Guo Zhengyao also rolled up his sleeves and volunteered, "I'll go and interrogate her again. She's just a little girl, and I don't believe she won't tell the truth."
Luo Siwei sorted out the case in his mind, and now all the clues do point to He Jin.
She had been more cautious before and had not asked Guo Zhengyao to arrest her, but now with Liu Wangnan's testimony, if He Jin confessed to the crime in person, they would be able to identify the suspect.
Luo Siwei finally made a decision: "Let's try it again."
This time, the police were more thoroughly prepared, compiling testimony from neighbors, Liu Wangnan's identification video, and various archival documents. They also retrieved some of He Jin's previous online comments.
Guo Zhengyao and Huo Cunsheng conducted the interrogation together, while Luo Siwei and Ni Xiang observed in the observation room.
The observation room at the Municipal Bureau was much more upscale than the Third Branch. It was a large room, with only a wall on the entrance side, and the other three sides were rationally divided. There were four large single-sided glass windows, allowing one to see the different situations in the interrogation rooms.
Luo Siwei could see the backs of the two police officers from where she was sitting, and she was facing He Jin.
Guo Zhengyao and Huo Cunsheng are old partners and are skilled in cooperating in interrogations.
Huo Cunsheng, smiling broadly and approachably in front of the suspect, comforted him at the right moment, playing the villain. Guo Zhengyao, on the other hand, rolled up his sleeves, revealing his muscular arms, with a tense expression and sharp questions, playing the villain.
This was the fourth police interrogation and the most formal one.
In response to He Jin's lies, Guo Zhengyao kept interrupting her and exposing her lies.
"You have a bad relationship with your family."
"You and your parents always quarrel!"
"You were at the scene of yesterday's fire!"
He Jin was still hesitant at first, but Guo Zhengyao's questions became more and more detailed, and his tone became more and more fierce. Even through the glass of the observation room, Ni Xiang could feel a strong sense of oppression.
She felt that if the suspect was interrogated in this way, he would definitely reveal his flaws if he showed any guilt.
Half an hour later, He Jin seemed to be about to give up, she began to cry, then she raised her head and said: "I want to see my mother, can I see her? When I see her, I will tell you everything."
Huo Cunsheng shook his head and sighed: "You can't see your mother now... She is still receiving treatment in the hospital."
If He Jin was the real murderer, she might have wanted to test Liu Wangnan's attitude, or even maliciously speculate on He Jin's psychology. She might have wanted to take the opportunity to kill her mother to silence her.
Furthermore, He Jin wanted to see Liu Wangnan, but Liu Wangnan did not want to see her. Judging from the posture in the video, Liu Wangnan had already determined that she was the murderer and wanted to strangle her to death with his own hands.
Guo Zhengyao pressed further: "You once threatened to kill them!"
He took out a piece of printed paper, which contained some of He Jinfa's comments in her space. Some of them were only visible to her. Although those words were written with the naivety of a teenager, they looked full of hostility.
"If only I didn't have brothers and sisters! I hate them!"
"I had another argument with my mother yesterday."
"One day, sooner or later, I will perish together with them!"
"I...I did write it before, but it was just something I said in anger!" He Jin said crying.
Guo Zhengyao took out a tablet and, instead of showing her the images, played the audio clip of the identification in the ward. When Liu Wangnan said the word "He Jin," He Jin's expression changed, her eyes widening in disbelief.
"My daughter He Jin! It was her. She said she wanted to kill us."
"It must be her! She hates me!"
The woman's hysterical and hoarse screams filled the entire interrogation room.
Guo Zhengyao paused the video before playing it in full. "This is your mother's accusation against you. Are you still trying to argue? You should confess your crime as soon as possible."
Luo Siwei frowned slightly and looked at He Jin in the interrogation room, wanting to hear her answer.
He Jin lowered her head and was silent for a moment. Her tears stopped. The girl sat there for a moment, then asked in a trembling voice, "My mother...Liu Wangnan...did she really say that?"
Guo Zhengyao said righteously, "Why would we lie to you? I played the audio for you. You can't fail to recognize your mother's voice, right? She said she saw you in the neighborhood last night before the incident."
Huo Cunsheng also advised at the right time: "Miss, you should tell the truth. Did you set the fire yesterday? If you did, confessing as soon as possible will be beneficial to your subsequent sentencing."
Under the light of the interrogation room, He Jin's face was pale, and the pupils of her eyes were particularly dark. She stopped crying and reached out to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand.
Then she smiled instead.
Luo Siwei sat in the observation room and watched carefully. The smile on He Jin's mouth looked like a sneer, but also like a smile of relief.
Faced with the police's interrogation, the girl finally gave up resistance and admitted: "I did it."
Luo Siwei's eyes were fixed on the changes in the interrogation room. She could feel that Guo Zhengyao and Huo Cunsheng breathed a sigh of relief when they heard these words, but she felt a chill running up her tailbone and onto her back.
A young girl set her family on fire and killed them. How much hatred does this have? What happened in this family?
Luo Siwei said to the two people inside through the headset: "Ask her about the process of committing the crime and her motive for the crime."
Guo Zhengyao asked her: "How did you commit the crime?"
He Jin began to confess the crime. She lowered her head and spoke in a steady voice: "I hate my parents and my brothers and sisters."
She no longer cried, hesitated, or lied. The girl sat calmly in the interrogation room, recounting the process of the crime.
"Last night, I had an argument with my family and ran out. I went to the bar and drank a lot of alcohol. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and I wanted to get revenge on them. Then I went back downstairs, thinking about what to do. My house keys were taken away, but our building is not difficult to climb. I climbed up once without my keys. I just went out the third-floor corridor window, stepped on the air conditioner and windowsill next to it, and then I could get in through the balcony window. My mother always forgets to close that window, and it has happened many times."
"I walked in and around the house, and I thought about how soundly they slept, how happy they were. No one cared about me at all. They were a loving family, and I was the extra one."
"Under the influence of alcohol, I became increasingly angry, so I grabbed a knife and walked inside. I was in the study, looking down at my brother. He woke up and ran out, so I killed him."
"I want to kill my sister again, but I'm afraid my parents will wake up and I won't be able to defeat them."
"So I took out my lighter and lit the fire."
"The fire started and I ran downstairs and I watched it grow bigger and bigger, it started with one window, then half the house, then the whole house."
"More and more people were in the yard, so I hid behind them and watched everything."
"I was afraid the situation would get too serious, so I called the police. Later, I saw the police and ambulance arriving. I was afraid others would notice, so I ran to a small park near my home and lay on a chair for a while. Then I pretended to have just realized something and ran back home."
In the quiet interrogation room, the girl's voice was steady and clear, as if she was narrating a trivial matter, but what she said shocked everyone.
When confessing his crime, He Jin's pupils did not move at all, and even his blinking speed slowed down. Luo Siwei felt that she had seen this kind of eyes before. Then she recalled that it was the eyes of a dead person.
Some people have just died, their irises have not changed color yet, and their eyes are half open, with this motionless and stiff look.
The girl confessed her crime of killing her father and brother.
Luo Siwei felt like she was looking at a painting, a silent painting, but the brushwork alone was enough to make people feel thrilling.
Combined with He Jin's brutal testimony, this scene was incredibly bizarre. However, He Jin's description of the crime process was completely consistent with the police's investigation results.
Guo Zhengyao asked her: "Why did you kill them?"
"Yesterday I had an argument with my mom and mentioned school. In a rage, she cancelled all my accounts and threw my phone, breaking the screen."
Huo Cunsheng pressed on: "Did you kill them just because of those accounts?"
From an outsider's perspective, he found this kind of thing difficult to understand.
"You don't understand," He Jin explained. "That's the community I posted to a lot and played games on for years. My phone is a world where I can escape reality. On many nights, it wasn't my family who comforted me, but strangers. There are also many friends I knew on the platform, but my mother has blocked and deleted them one by one. I can no longer contact them."
"Just thinking about it makes me feel suffocated." She lowered her head to explain her behavior, "I was furious."
When he said this, He Jin's eyes dropped and his voice trembled.
"Of course, it's not all because of these things. My mother has also torn up my books and secretly read my diary. We have been holding a grudge for a long time. My mother loves my younger brother the most. In the past, when she criticized me, my younger brother would always gloat over my misfortune and laugh beside her. I wanted to kill him."
"My sister has never helped me either, including yesterday. She gave me a cold look, closed the door and left."
"My dad was trying to take sides, telling me to be more tolerant and not to talk to my mom like that, which made me even angrier."
"Then I drank and did this impulsively."
"I regretted it very much afterwards. I was wrong... I shouldn't have hurt my family like that."
The interrogation room was not cold, but the girl hugged her arms as if trying to warm herself.
She lowered her head and remained silent for a moment, then clasped her hands together and raised them above her head. Like a drowning person, her fingers trembled slightly, and just this one movement seemed to have exhausted all her strength.
Luo Siwei didn't understand what she was doing at first, then she suddenly realized that He Jin was waiting for the criminal police opposite to handcuff her.
She said, "I've finished speaking, please arrest me."
After working overtime in the evening, the case had a preliminary result.
In the past, Luo Siwei always felt relieved when the real murderer was brought to justice, but today, she did not feel that way. Luo Siwei decided to use the weekend to review the entire case again, to ensure that there were no omissions and to find solid evidence before closing the case.
Luo Siwei returned to her rental house. She took a shower, dried her hair, and lay on the bed. Her body touched the soft sheets and she gradually relaxed.
Perhaps because they had just moved in, or perhaps because they were not used to the mattress in the rental house, Luo Siwei tossed and turned for a long time before falling asleep.
Today's dream was a little unusual. She wasn't being chased by the murderers anymore. Instead, Luo Siwei seemed to be back in her high school. The dream was filled with fragments of memories, incoherent. She struggled repeatedly in bed, but couldn't wake up.
Some people surrounded her. She couldn't see their faces clearly, but she could feel their unfriendly gazes. Everyone seemed to be wearing a strange mask on their face.
The masks include foxes, rabbits, sheep, and monkeys.
Luo Siwei heard them whispering.
"That's her. She is Teacher Tao's daughter."
"If her mother is capable of cheating on an exam, how can her daughter be any good?"
"Some people say her mother jumped off the building to express her determination, but I think it was just a guilty conscience."
"No wonder her grades are so good. She seems to be the top student in her class, right? It turns out her mom gave her the answers."
"It's all her mother's fault. The school's enrollment this year is particularly bad. I heard that even the teachers' bonuses were docked. No wonder they are so hostile to students."
"Teacher Lu made her stand in the corner yesterday. I was surprised she didn't do anything wrong. It seems she deserved it."
Malice, full of malice.
Luo Siwei listened silently. She remembered that these people said that to her because of that incident.
Her parents divorced when she was very young, and her father no longer had contact with them, so she had no impression of him.
Her mother is a teacher at an art school, which is the best art high school in the area. It has both general classes and some specialized art classes. Her mother is responsible for the teaching and management of art classes.
Her mother is excellent and beautiful. She raised her alone. Later, Luo Siwei was admitted to her mother's school with the first place in the high school entrance examination.
When she was in her second year of high school, an art exam cheating scandal broke out in the school. Several students with average professional grades suddenly passed the extremely difficult art exam. One of the students even boasted to his classmates that he knew the exam questions in advance.
The incident became a big deal, accountability began to be pursued, and her mother became the target of public criticism.
Although the mother repeatedly denied it, she was the teacher in charge of the class after all, and she became a suspect in the minds of many people. The mother was suspended from her management position with pay, and finally the principal made an exception and allowed her to work in the laboratory as a leisurely position managing equipment.
My mother lost her beloved job, her salary plummeted, and she had to face people's gossip. Her hair turned visibly white.
Because of this incident, Luo Siwei was also in the center of the storm. Many people would say bad things to her face. Facing those remarks, Luo Siwei wanted to speak up and defend her mother.
No, her mother taught her since she was young to be a kind person, to study hard, and to compete fairly.
Her mother raised her and lived a poor life. How could such a mother help those people cheat?
But her mouth seemed to be glued shut and no sound came out.
Then she remembered that she might have refuted it at first, but no one listened to her seriously. Instead, more and more people blamed her and her mother. When people determined something, they were the target of criticism and had no way to defend themselves.
In the end, she could only straighten her back and ignore the rumors.
No teacher liked her. At that time, except for her deskmate Mu Yuexin and Su Ye Nan, almost no one else dared to talk to her.
She walked on campus, and going to school every day was like facing torture.
Luo Siwei firmly believes that her mother is innocent, but what's the use of believing so firmly?
Those suspicions, investigations and rumors finally overwhelmed my mother. Finally one day, she jumped from the top floor of the laboratory building and died on the spot.
She was in class at the time, in a classroom on the west side of the laboratory building. She felt a shadow cast over the window for a moment, then heard a "thump." Someone outside shouted, "Someone's jumped from the building!"
"Call an ambulance!"
"Call the police!"
The students sitting by the window stood up and looked down. They were so frightened that they couldn't speak. Teacher Lu also walked to the window and asked the students to close the windows and sit in their seats. This class was changed to self-study.
Luo Siwei obeyed obediently. She still remembered reciting a poem at the time: "The mountains and rivers are broken, the wind blows catkins, my life is up and down, the rain beats duckweed... Since ancient times, everyone has to die, but I will leave behind my loyalty to shine in history."
Later, Teacher Lu walked over to her desk and gently tapped the corner of her desk: "Luo Siwei, come out for a moment." Then she turned around and reminded her, "Keep your voice down and don't disturb others from studying."
She had a bad feeling in her heart and followed Teacher Lu all the way to the teacher's meeting room. Everyone who passed by looked at her with pity. Only then did she guess that it was her mother who jumped.
The author has something to say:
"The mountains and rivers are shattered like catkins blown by the wind, my life is up and down like duckweed in the rain." "Since ancient times, everyone has to die, but I will leave behind my loyalty to shine in history." - Wen Tianxiang, "Crossing the Lingdingyang"
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