Chapter 81 Chapter 81 I seem to have made a mistake.
The last trace of the sirens faded away, and there was indeed no movement outside. In the empty basement, the only sound was the squeaking of rats.
The young woman lowered her head unwillingly, looking at the person in high-heeled leather shoes in front of her with pleading eyes through the cage.
Because she hadn't eaten or drunk anything for a long time, her lips were already dry and cracked, and the last bit of strength in her body disappeared as the police car drove away.
"...Please." She looked up, "What do you want? Money or a person? I can give you both..."
“Hahahaha——” A silver bell-like laughter floated from the basement.
The man squatted down with a smile and pinched her face. "What a pity! I don't want either of the two conditions you proposed."
"Then why are you doing this to me?" The woman raised her face in disbelief, sweat dripping down her forehead. "I haven't done anything to offend you... I don't even know you!"
The look in the other person's eyes suddenly became fierce. He let go of my hand, stood up, and walked to the table at a leisurely pace.
A mouse suddenly ran past the corner of the table, and its tail was immediately stepped on by a leather shoe.
The other foot aimed at the mouse's twisting and struggling body and stepped down hard.
"squeak!"
The mouse let out a shrill scream, and then with a plop, it turned into a bloody mouse cake.
The young woman shrank into a ball with fear, not daring to speak.
The leather shoes moved away from the still bleeding corpse of the mouse and slowly walked towards her.
A white steamed bun was thrown onto the cement floor in front of the cage, rolled around a few times, and was covered in a layer of smoke.
But the woman was extremely hungry. She hesitated for only two seconds before she reached her hand through the gap between the steel bars, picked up the dirty steamed bun, blew off the dust, and stuffed it into her mouth.
"Water..." She raised her head pleadingly, "Can you give me some water?"
A military water bottle slowly fell from mid-air and swayed in front of her eyes.
Just when she was about to grab it, someone grabbed her belt and whipped her back.
The woman couldn't bear it any longer. She knelt on the ground, kowtowed, and cried loudly, "Please, what do you want? As long as you let me out, I will do anything... Or you can just kill me!"
The other person just chuckled. "The last person lived in this basement for over two years. You've only been here for a few days, and you're already dying?"
"Two years..." The woman looked up in disbelief, "So she's still alive now—"
The other person knocked over the remaining half of the steamed bun in her hand with a cold face, threw the kettle in front of her with a "bang", and turned away without mercy.
The woman was stunned for a long time, and before the mouse got close, she picked up the steamed bun and stuffed it into her mouth.
*
"...I don't know how Wu Sijia escaped from your home and ended up living on the streets of Jingzhou. For some reason, she didn't try to call the police or go home. Instead, she became the adopted daughter of Wu Tianfeng and his wife. Later, she was admitted to the Flight Attendant Academy and became a flight attendant for Handong Airlines."
As the night deepened, the desk lamp in the interrogation room of the provincial department was lit. Ji Yinhe calmly told the stunned Che Xiaozhen about Wu Sijia's subsequent fate.
"She's actually living so well..."
"That's not good. A while ago, Wu Sijia disappeared again. The security guard who last saw her said she was picked up by a luxury car." Ji Yinhe took out a photo of Dong Sihai's Mercedes-Benz. "This car is parked across from your house now. So... do you know Dong Sihai?"
Che Xiaozhen was bewildered. "I know Dong Sihai, but I haven't seen him in a long time! I have no idea when this car arrived! ...Officer, the dock is so deserted now, everyone has left! If I weren't nostalgic, I wouldn't even stay there!"
Ji Yinhe smoothed the hair on his temples, and intuitively felt that the other party was not lying.
"How did you and Dong Sihai know each other?"
Che Xiaozhen said "Oh," "Isn't Dong Sihai's wife the owner of the Baihualou Hotel? They sometimes need to import some fresh seafood. The fees at the major ports in Jingzhou are high now, so he wants to ship the goods from us and rent my yard as a warehouse. He wants me to help look after it and earn some living expenses... But after we signed the contract, I haven't seen anyone from Baihualou come to pick up the goods..."
Ji Yinhe tapped the notebook with his pen, thinking that although Dong Sihai was clearly engaged in education, it seemed that he had done a lot of bad things outside under the guise of his wife.
However, Shi Youhua might not know that he rented Xiaozhen's yard.
"Dong Sihai has been to your house before, right?" Lu Zheng said solemnly, "What happened then?"
Che Xiaozhen thought for two seconds, "Driving, it's this Mercedes-Benz, and he came with a woman...the two of them look very close."
Ji Yinhe took out Shi Youhua's photo with a snap, "Is it her or Wu Sijia?"
"I only saw that girl twice back then, and I don't remember what she looked like now. Besides, I never stared at her face." Che Xiaozhen was furious when she recalled the anger she had felt back then. After a long pause, she said, "She was quite young, though..."
"All right……"
Ji Yinhe asked a few more questions, but seeing Che Xiaozhen's condition, he really couldn't ask anything else.
Fortunately, it was confirmed that she had trafficked the girl and was taken to the detention center to await prosecution by the procuratorate. If she and Lu Zheng found anything, they could bring someone back for interrogation at any time.
Ji Yinhe picked up the confession and ink pad and walked to the interrogation chair, motioning Che Xiaozhen to press her fingerprints.
Che Xiaozhen poked her thumb on the ink pad, then suddenly raised her arm and stopped in mid-air.
"Officer, I now feel that the fire back then wasn't necessarily an accident." She looked at Ji Yinhe excitedly, "This little girl is very scheming and her methods are sinister. She must have set the basement on fire in order to escape! - She killed my husband and son!"
Ji Yinhe looked down at her condescendingly and said, "Speak with evidence."
"Evidence..." Che Xiaozhen narrowed her eyes and smiled, "Yes, there is."
Ji Yinhe and Lu Zheng both looked gloomy.
"There are lots of rats in places like basements." A cold light flashed in Che Xiaozhen's eyes. "We did this for her own good. The day after we locked that little girl up, we caught a stray cat from the roadside and sent it down. But within a few days, she stepped on the kitten to death!"
...Cat abuse?!
Ji Yinhe looked dazed, and suddenly remembered the figure he saw in Ahua's DV camera.
Since the incident, this is the second person to accuse Wu Sijia of abusing cats.
But this is impossible. They once took care of Little Sun together.
It was as if an electric current suddenly struck her heart. She took a deep breath and her hands holding the confession book began to tremble.
What if the one who hurt Little Sun back then wasn't someone else, but...
"Lu Zheng." She turned around, looked intently at the man with a concerned expression, and said softly, "I seem to have made a mistake."
*
After the police took Che Xiaozhen away, Ji Yinhe and Lu Zheng returned to the office with serious expressions.
Lu Zheng brought out the large blackboard and handed her a glass of water before softly asking, "What's wrong?"
Ji Yinhe took a deep breath and expressed his speculation that Xiao Taiyang’s death might be related to Wu Sijia.
Lu Zheng tapped his slender fingers on his arm. "You mean, the suspect in this case could be——"
"Who else could it be!" Zhao Zhuoqun, who had overheard something, leaned over and said, "Is it still necessary to investigate this case? The murderer is definitely not Dong Sihai, but Shi Youhua! Rich people like them, to have gotten to this point, their methods must be very sophisticated! Especially Boss Shi, the one who has his hands full with both black and white—" He pointed towards the leadership office upstairs, "He also likes to go to Baihualou for a bite to eat. I think it's going to be difficult for you to catch the murderer this time!"
Lu Zheng said calmly, "The food at Baihualou is indeed delicious, just a little worse than Lianjie Snack Shop in Jiangtan. The leaders can afford it. If Shi Youhua is the real murderer, the ancestral hall will definitely not show mercy."
Zhao Zhuoqun shrugged. "I'm just kindly reminding you. I hope you don't waste your time."
"Thank you for your kindness, Master, but that won't happen." Ji Yinhe said, "Shi Youhua and Dong Sihai, although they are complicated and cunning, I don't think they are the murderer."
Zhao Zhuoqun and Lu Zheng asked at the same time: "What do you mean?"
Ji Yinhe recalled the past few days and rubbed his chin slowly.
"Shi Youhua is a very calm person. Although her feelings for her husband aren't as calm as they appear, she's become the boss of a hotel chain, and she's long put her own interests above all else... And if she wanted to take action against Dong Sihai's lover, why would she go to Jiangtan to warn him?"
The two men opposite didn't say anything, but nodded at the same time.
"As for Dong Sihai, although I haven't met him in person yet, he doesn't look like a very courageous person." Ji Yinhe turned and stared at the photo on the blackboard. "How could a man hiding behind a successful woman, a man who is keen on cheating, commit such a heinous murder?"
"No." Lu Zheng lowered his head and gave the answer softly.
"Okay, that makes some sense." Zhao Zhuoqun nodded in agreement.
The three people continued to sort out clues. At this time, the door was pushed open and Officer Yan from the Physical Evidence Department ran in panting.
He saluted Zhao Zhuoqun and Ji Yinhe first, then looked at Lu Zheng, "Teacher Lu, you asked me to lead the team to search Che Xiaozhen's house, and I have completed the task."
Lu Zheng nodded, "Did you find anything?"
"We found the contract she signed with Dong Sihai." Officer Yan handed over a piece of paper and said, "We also collected some hair, fingerprints, and footprints, and are testing them."
"Thank you for your hard work." Lu Zheng said, then paused. "I was assigned only two people for the physical evidence disposal. How could you move so quickly?"
Officer Yan smiled innocently, "We didn't have enough manpower. We borrowed police officers from the police station to finish the job so quickly, hehehe!"
"..." Ji Yinhe's heartstrings moved, and he frowned, "Have you searched that burnt house?"
"We searched it," Officer Yan said. "It was just a run-down house, no one lived in it. The police officers looked around but didn't find anything, so they left."
"...Okay." Ji Yinhe let out a breath, looked back at Wu Sijia's name on the blackboard, and an unbearable uneasiness surged in his heart.
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